Wishing You a Happy Death, I Mean Easter

It’s called the Passion of the Christ – this whole week before Easter. It starts with the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, and then quickly moves into all the imagery, and lessons, and mysteries about death. So, it is no coincidence that this week would focus my awareness upon the individual deaths that must occur within us all – so we may each rise again – reborn.

This week – I have undertaken a personal shift that involved releasing my hold on some of the things in my awareness which I value and desire the most. I will confess that the hardest piece of this journey has been releasing my hold on another person who appeared in my awareness – a significant other – upon whom I have become quite dependent for support, love, and direction.

She is perfect – but, if she would just make this tiniest adjustment – it would make all the difference in our relationship. She is wonderful, but, if she just did this instead of that, we would both be immeasurably happier. Do you see the trap? And can you believe that after all this lifetime of learning – I would still bring in the “monkey-mind” to muck this up. Today, I have to bless it all – even the contracted little self who imagines he can improve on perfection.

This process of self-inquiry and releasing has generated a startling emotionality in me this week. Many of you know that while I have been the “sensitive-new-age-guy” for years, I have not been particularly emotional about it. I can generally sit through a tear-jerker movie and analyze the specific techniques the director and the editor are using to elicit an emotive response – all very tidy and clinical.

So, now cut to the teary guy who gets emotional listening to the heartfelt stories of other folks, and who tears up in his big-ass pickup truck just thinking about a poem or a made-up character in a book. I need to be careful about giving this new entity too much space in my awareness. He is not me, either. But I must need him at this time, to get through this stretch of the journey. When I come out the other side – and I will and soon – I will let teary guy melt away.

My teacher, Rev Mark, reminds me that the one watching all this drama unfold is the one true Self, which is uninjured and unaltered by it all.  He nudges me toward bringing Consciousness into my awareness.  There is an indescribable peace here, and I am grateful for remembering.

So, what does all this have to do with death and Easter week? It is an old idea that is little understood. We must die to our old selves to become our True Selves. This is the basis of being “born again” or re-born; twice born. On a practical level I must release the things I most want to keep – whether that is a relationship or my identification with being one type of person or another.

The story that comes to my mind is of Abraham going up the mountain to sacrifice, read: to kill, his son. It was his giving up the thing he most wanted to keep, in order to be in correct alignment with his higher self – his God. Of course, I want Abraham’s experience, where once his faithfulness is adequately tested – he is rewarded with getting to keep the object of his affection. That story foreshadows the Jesus story, where he must give up the thing he most loves, his life, in order to move into his glory. What are you or I willing to give up, to become our best expression of the Christ?

I have experienced deep loss over the last several years – and I had come to believe all that sacrifice would be rewarded with no longer needing to die. Surprise! It is a continual and constant process. The reward is entering into the grace of discovering and living in your own strength – your own truth. This reward I speak of is of our own resurrection on Easter Sunday.

So my wish for you this Easter and all the Sundays to come – is to be resurrected early and often.