NEVERTHELESS; GOOD FRIDAY

GRACE FROM A PAGAN

I am not a believer. I do not follow any organized religion. My main spiritual practice is Buddhism because it’s scientific and makes so much sense to me. And I am referring to the philosophical Buddhism, not the religious kind that worships the Buddha. That said, I must admit that something is comforting and inspiring about the story of a resurrection.

But something is beguiling about the resurrection story that stirs something deep within our hearts and souls, even if we are not believers.

Fundamentally, at least to me, the story of Jesus’ resurrection is a parable about rising from a metaphorical death, or any other catastrophic event in one’s life. It is about rising again and never giving up. It’s about surviving the slings and arrows of our outrageous fortune, and deciding to be instead of not to be. It’s about surviving tyranny and the evil men do to other human beings, and rising again with the self intact.

Here in the USA, we have gone through a lot in recent years, reeling from presidential abuse to abuse, watching our cherished institution literally destroyed and torn down, a president’s name vomited and splattered over every inert and stationary thing. He is engaged in a permanent 24/7 reality-distortion-field effort. The sad thing is that millions of Americans have fallen prey to this nefarious project that seeks to lift the president into a defied air where he is impervious to the laws and natural rules that govern all of us.

But in the midst of all this darkness, we must embrace the light. As Anne Lamott, who, unlike me, is a believer, wrote: “Let there be light, and let it begin with me. I am going to notice the lights of the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars, the lights of our candles, the lights with which spring teases us, and the light that is already present. If the present is really all we have, then the present lasts forever. That will be the benediction.”

So today, in this season of light, on the Christians’ Good Friday, let’s jettison the talk of miracles and magic, and instead embrace our ability to rise from the wreckage of what evil men have done to our country and attempted to do to us, our spirits, our minds, and our beliefs in the resurrection.

MUSICAL CODA: