New Beginnings

Every spiritual tradition that I have studied has in its creation stories a piece that goes something like this:

Before the beginning

There was timeless space

Infinite unity

Of All That Would Be.  

Out of the singularity

That was Eternal Becoming

Came a Word.

With the Word

Light separated from Darkness

And Time began.

The Word became incarnate

Dividing consciousness

Into material and immaterial.

At the beginning of time

The Word was one with All That Would Be.

The Word was All That Would Be.

Out of the Word was everything created.

All that was created

Came from the Word.

The Word is eternal and infinite

Always becoming

Always creating.

Echoes of the eternal Word

Rise up from the very ground of your being

Fall from your lips with every breath.

In communion with

What Is Always Becoming

Let us chant. 

Aum. 

Living in the And

Lent has traditionally been understood as a preparatory time before Easter to participate in the sacrifices of Christ by making some difficult sacrifices of your own--usually involving some kind of fasting (no meat, no fats/oils, no sweets, hence the over the top revels of Fat Tuesday to mark the end of Mardi Gras--literally Fat Tuesday--with the sweet and fatty foods) as well as something unique to the penitent that is given up. By entering into the sacrificial postures, it is supposed to make you more aware of how much more Christ gave up to descend to humanity and be killed on your behalf.

I am not a substitutionary atonement adherent and don't observe Lent with those purposes. I see the death and resurrection of Christ as just another variation of the many springtime renewal stories. Every tradition has something that honors the Life Cycle springing forth at this time of year. Whether it is a Pagan celebration of Earth Day, Chinese New Year, Passover/Easter, everyone has some ritual of honoring that which died in order to generate the new life that sustains us through the coming year.

For me, personally, I am looking at the death of who I was (more accurately, who I thought I was) and the rebirth of myself into who I am becoming. It is a time every year when I consciously try to let go of habits of thought and pre-conceived ideas about who I am, of what I think the world is, of How Things Are. The Lenten period marks a space between the worlds, a gestation as it were between What Was and What Is. Yogis talk often about the Space Between the Breaths. a little death in the middle of the breathing that sustains us. Enlightenment, they say, is to be found in the Space Between, in the And of in-and-out. 

For me, Lent is a conscious Space Between last year and next year. It is living in the And. Recognizing a space between Ending what came before and Beginning the rest of my life.Therefore I take up practices for the Lenten season that will provoke my thinking into that death-and-resurrection, rest-and-renewal, sort of focus. Usually some form of meditation, some form of giving-up, some form of service, or all three.This year I'm attempting all three: a fairly rigorous dietary restriction for the purpose of clearing my mind and entering the hidden depths of repressed memories and emotions, a meditation on my old journals and (unexpectedly) the New Testament book of James, and a creative service by participating in the Religion-Free Bible Project and (hopefully) getting my Heretic blogging back up and running.

It is a hefty undertaking. More than I have attempted before. Given my health ups-and-downs (mostly downs) I don't know how much of my To-Do list will get done. But the honor is in the attempt, in the being willing to place myself in the space, to submit to the process, rather than the perfect execution of the tasks.

Inhale Exhale - By Grace

http://youtu.be/HB59EdpX3iE

My eyes roll back into my head.

I'm trying to keep my head on straight to understand.

Remember what he said, "Yes, I do believe".

A smile reached the surface.

Free me. You have freed me,

I will not suffer anymore,

Suffer anymore. I'm alive.

I'm scared stiff, I'm shakin' in my boots.

When you come face to face with the reason you exist.

I'm holdin' on to truth, and livin' like a king.

Free me. You have freed me,

I will not suffer anymore,

Suffer anymore. I'm alive.

I'm tired now; somehow I will survive.

I can't remember how it feels to be alright.

I'm tired now; somehow I will survive.

I can't remember how it feels to be alright.

By grace, you have freed me.

I will not suffer anymore.

I will not suffer anymore.

Suffer anymore.

I'm alive.

By Grace Inhale Exhale

When I first tripped over this song on the internet, I was repulsed—no, not because of the screamo metal sound (although I am more of a jazz aficionado than a fan of thrashed out vocals)—because I was sure that the lyrics were yet another pie-in-the-sky, fairy-tale take on Christianity.  “Just find Jesus and all your pain will go away.”  The Disney-esque Jesus who makes dreams come true. I was irritated at one more example of the ridiculous promises to which Christians cling in the all-too-human experience of suffering.  In my very literal childhood (all children are very literal and, as fundy Christians, we were taught to remain very literal long past the time to grow up), I heard version after version of the Cinderella-style “come to Jesus” fairy tale.  And I was disgusted that such a very modern band was singing such a old and worn-out story.

But I couldn’t get myself to write the contemptuous, dismissive post on this song that I wanted to write.  Believe me, I tried.  I wanted to pour all the bitter cynicism bred in Sunday School lesson after sermon after Christian storybook into one long diatribe against the absurdity of this young current group promoting the same tired lies.  Jesus doesn’t save you from suffering.  In actual fact of Scripture, he promises his followers the same and more! No one in the Bible EVER promises that we can escape the pain of living a human life.

Despite many attempts, the post never went very far and each time I found myself reading the lyrics over and over (admittedly, more than I listened to the song itself, but I did that too).  The more I cast out Fear, the more I wrote about Grace, the more I listened to the heart behind the music, the more I realized I was wrong about this song and, perhaps, this group.

It finally occurred to me that this song wasn’t a false promise of Easy Street but a triumph of having found jubilant meaning in human existence through which a transcendence of suffering is possible.  Not that life won’t hurt after finding Jesus but that living with the awareness of grace means the soul is no longer trapped in the pain and fear of pain.  Noticing grace means that suffering is not what defines life; compassion defines the gracious life.

The experience of suffering is universal.  Understanding, not denying, deeply experiencing our own suffering is the key to loving our neighbors, our enemies: we all have deep hurts in our lives.  In our pain, we can act with compassion—literally to “feel the pain with” others as the same as our own pain.  Suffering is what makes us each and every one equally human.  Grace is what allows us to see past our finite painful humanity into the eyes of the Divine, or, perhaps, with the eyes of the Divine.