She Was Enchanted

I have been trying to finish the 2009 Disney Scrapbook album for many years.

Yes, eight years to be exact.  We are leaving in a few short days to visit Disney World again.  Something spurred me on to make it a mission to finish this album.

In 2013, I made an earnest effort to finish and by that I mean, I pulled out all the materials and posted about it on Facebook.  My daughter came across this pic on FB two days ago and made fun of me.

That was four years ago.

But that attempt did get me as far as being completely organized and knowing exactly what pages were left.

I swore off ever doing another scrapbook years before that, but I had to finish this one.  I now make Shutterfly albums using digital photos and I have several of those under my belt and already on the shelf.

But the 2009 Disney Scrapbook remains.

This was a trip we took with my mother in law.  She is no longer with us.  When you first look at pictures of people who have departed, it's like a sucker punch.  Now, it's just a soft push.

GaGa loved "It's A Small World." She was enchanted by it.  When we went in 2012 a few months after she died,  I felt her on that ride and I teared up.  I was enchanted and enjoyed it and was grateful.

I was in the moment in that ride.

Do I not want to finish this album because it permanently finishes the trip?  Who knows?! I only had a few pages left.  Last night, I finished those pages. So it's done.  But yet, I keep tweaking and printing captions.  I need to put all of the remaining materials away and yet I procrastinate.

 I can feel some emotion stirring as I type this so I may be on to something.  I just know it's time to finish.  There will always be residual sadness.  GaGa died five years ago last month.  She loved my girls up close and personally.  She was at our house all the time.  She was with us.   

Letting go of a person who loved my children and I, whole-heartedly, well, it's hard to lose a person like that in your life.  

Sigh.

But it's time to finish.  She is still with me.  Her sense of fun.  She had much gratitude about simple things.  That stood out to me.  I carry that with me. 

She and Charlie (her husband) would always remark after we went somewhere for a meal or an event how nice it was.  Those remarks always stood out to me.  Now I can see it as a gratitude and living in the moment.  Gratitude is good.

I'm looking forward to Disney World.  There will be good moments and bad moments.  But I'm thrilled that the girls are looking forward to it. We have a countdown dry erase board for it. We are so excited to see our family spirit animal, Eeyore in person! An aside is that Riley is starting high school in a few months. How long will family vacations go on? Time is passing.  How DID that happen? 

I still see them this way.

 

Namaste. 

Questioning the Meaning of Easter

I am going to talk about something that's new to me in the last few years and as it's Easter, the topic is drawing me in. I heard a lot of Jesus, sin, salvation and blood talk growing up in different settings and especially in regards to Easter.  This type of language is not in my current church, but I am excavating my personal theological history and it's deep.  The topic is atonement or substitution theory relating to Jesus' death on the cross. 

I grew up with images of Christ on the cross and hymns entitled: Nothing But the Blood of Jesus 
Here's a stanza: 
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus

When I write about a fundamentalist topic, I tend to go off on the deep end because I am in still in process of healing myself. So I'm reining myself in. 

Right now.  

Well, I try. 

This is the crux for me,  what I heard growing up is that on one hand, Jesus died for my sins, because I am a SINNER and NEED to be forgiven but on the other hand, God really loves me, very deeply.  So follow this: what I need is someone to bear a punishment that I deserve for just being born. Can I say that this mixed bag of messaging did nothing for me and most importantly didn't draw me nearer to God.  
  
I am simplifying this because I want to keep it as short as I can.  After many years of trying to come to grips with funky theology, I had to question everything I knew.  
Literal bible translation...gone.  
Is God in Control of everything: No, shit happens.
Looking at all religions to see what is similar..yes.  
Core message of all major religions: LOVE...check.  
Embracing people different than myself which was uncomfortable but necessary... yes.  
Reducing fear and embracing love...uh huh.  

That last one is the answer to what Jesus was all about. 

He answered, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

This Easter, I feel comfortable enough with a loving higher power to dig deeper.  The penal or substitutionary atonement theologies very basically mean Jesus died for us, to fulfill the old covenant sacrificial system, reconcile us to God, and change our lives forever.

But what if , what if Jesus was teaching us a new way to be. Be still and know that I am.  Jesus could have stopped his own death, right?  He didn't have to die. What if he was teaching us "the dark night of the soul?"  What if this was really about a mystical union with God and not a penal system.   What if God was teaching us that with darkness there is always light, and how to be with our suffering. 

There are two ways in which humans connect to the divine: through awe or through suffering.

I can hear in my mind, people saying, but Jesus died for our sins - that is awe inspiring, right?    But what I'm questioning, well not really questioning anymore, I know what I believe in my heart, it's just my mind catching up from so many years of washing things white as snow, do humans get that?  Is that really what was going on.  

Father Richard Rohr sums it up so very nicely in his latest book, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (with Mike Morrell)  Please read the photo.

I come from a more behavioral view of the Bible.  What was Jesus' main teaching? I would put it in one word. LOVE.  Has the church missed the mark by instilling fear or retribution instead of love?  The heart of the above passages is what I underlined in my book: Humans change in the process of love-mirroring, and not by paying any price or debt.  

That pretty much sums it all up.  

We get stuck in right and wrong, black and white.  It's not about retribution but about restoration.  God is with us in our suffering.   I think the story got hijacked.  It's easier to keep people in the pews by making them fear, instead of teaching them practices that bring them closer to God.  

I stepped away from the Bible years ago to heal.  I use to recoil when I heard Jesus' name.  It wasn't awe inspiring.  But now after much introspective work, I feel a divine flow of love when I am awake and in the present moment. And that was a lot of behavioral work, not blood, not retribution.  Learning about unconditional love and it's source.  Learning about the dark and the light.  It must reside together.

Namaste.