easter suffering

A good friend watched an 11 year-old pass away after a simple surgery on Easter morning. She arrived at church and said that it was the worst night of her life. And everyone kept saying "Happy Easter" to her. 

Another friend got a phone call Sunday morning from a brother-in-law recently diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. He's 30. The man was having seizures after his first round of chemo. My friend spent an hour after the Easter service in his car crying. 

There are all kinds of Easter stories out there and most of them are pretty static, dull, boring, or just plain depressing (including the one that says God needed blood to love us). 

But, here's the thing: if our resurrection story doesn't address the pain in the world, then it's a worthless resurrection story. (By address I don't mean answer. I mean involve.) 

I think, somehow, evolution is key to these stories. To evolve and grow, we need pain. Species don't evolve without realizing they need to - and that's painful. We need pain. I think there was pain in that garden so that we could grow then and I think there will be pain in Heaven so we can continue to grow.

Of course, our perspective on pain matters quite a bit... can it eventually make pain, not pain?. Typing that makes me sound like some kind of out of touch guru and I don't really like it. Pain sucks. It hurts and I hate it. But, it seems like there is still some important perspective that we can have of pain... and I think the resurrection story helps us get there. 

trouble

It seems like all the great heroes get in lots of trouble. They let it catch them and smile at it when it does. 

As kids, we're taught to "stay away from trouble". 

Is there a way to reconcile those? 

Maybe heroes are actually really good at discerning what is actual trouble and what is just the fear of something new and different, that those in charge label trouble to protect themselves. 

whether vs how

Whether or not it happened is very different than how it happened. 
Whether or not it's true is very different than how it's true. 
Whether or not you're right is very different than how you're right. 
Whether or not you are loved is very different than how you are loved. 
Whether or not you show love is very different than how you show love. 

It seems like we sometimes spend lots of time on whether or not something happened rather than how it happened, or is happening... If we have an explanation for how, that whole whether thing kinda takes care of itself. 

respect

Respect is one of those words thrown around quite a bit these days. It's kinda cool now to ask for more respect and claim we are giving it. 

If we claim to respect someone, than we must listen to that someone, serve that someone, and stop keeping scores with that someone. 

If someone doesn't feel respected, I think they don't feel listened to, served, and they feel usually at the wrong of end of scorecards. 

It's really easy to say I respect people... a little harder to carry out in reality. 

tribal language

Try to imagine a story about Zeus, the Greek god. I try to imagine a story of him coming to Earth with his thunder and lighting. He's bad ass, of course. And of course, all of Zeus' followers believe he is going to kill everyone - at least his enemies because he's a bad ass.  Instead, in my story, Zeus ends up loving everyone and then actually dying at the hands of his fellow humans because of their own violence and demands for power. Zeus then rises from the dead and claims some kind of weird new "life" .

No one would hear that story from a history professor and then ask, "Did that really happen?" I mean I suppose someone could, but if they did, I wouldn't want to go have a beer with them after class. 

I try to imagine another story - a story of a man - super enlightened and living with an awareness of the divine in him that he's had from a young age. He perfectly teaches love, lives love to its fullness and then dies. Would the creative and loving force of the universe bring him back from the dead just to make a point about what it wants more of in this world? I'd like to think it might, if the creative and loving force of the universe could do things like that.

Our own tribal religious language seems to make our stories a little harder to swallow. 

trying to be creative

The other night I couldn't sleep. And it reminded me of that feeling when I can't be creative. 

You know those nights when you get to bed later than you wanted and you know it's an early morning so you really need your sleep. They are often the ones that are the most difficult to let sleep show up. It's like the urgency sends sleep running. The more tired you get, the harder you try and it all only gets worse. 

Kind of how it feels when you are sitting at your computer, desperate for an idea for the presentation tomorrow. 

But you know those nights when nothing feels better than bed?  There's a relaxed, peaceful, grateful-fo- a-mattress-and-pillow-energy and, usually, an exhaustion and satisfaction from the effort of the day. Sleep is there before you know it. Naturally. Like a gift.

Of course, we can't be creative without some kind of attempt but how we approach the attempt seems to matter quite a bit. 

the archives

For a huge variety of quotes and some thoughts from 2013-2014, check out my now, very out-dated, tumblr.