Holy Week

Christian churches this week are concentrating on the death and resurrection of a man who lived 2000 years ago, and many ignore the ongoing deaths and resurrections in the entire universe and in each individual.

I stopped going to Good Friday services because they elicit sorrow and guilt over one certain individual’s suffering—a narrow, literal understanding of the doctrine “Christ died for our sins.”
Understanding this doctrine symbolically opens and enlarges it to connect us with suffering individuals the world over, for instance, human rights workers imprisoned and tortured. They also are suffering for us, their acts benefit us all, and we bear some responsibility for their suffering.

But mostly we are responsible for yielding to the Self Within symbolized by the God-image Jesus Christ. We all resist it but we need to die a little every day, because “death is required for new life,” as Joseph Campbell said. This daily dying includes the pain of moving out of familiar and comfortable closets of thought. It’s no fun to let go of cherished beliefs, of illusions, of specific results we had in mind for the future. But this is the work of letting ourselves be transformed. And yielding to it IS work, inner work.

We say, “Let this cup pass.” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And after years of resistance, “Not my will but Thine be done.”

“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” We don’t have to know what the fruit is or will be. But, damn, I want to know, I want to see results from my efforts. I don’t wanna just keep on keeping on, but I gotta.

My task: to be where I am, here in this small place, with these people, right here, right now.
Accept, surrender, and trust. Accept what is. Surrender to this reality without questioning or reasoning. And trust in the resurrection. See that it has already happened multiple times in my life. See, this and this and this turned out, and they looked impossible.

The outcomes don’t meet my expectations; no, eventually they’re better than I could have imagined. I don’t know what’s best for me; the inner Process does.

Enter the dark depth to let myself be changed. This is the Paschal Mystery, not only for believers in a particular resurrection in Palestine, but for everyone who’s alive.