Month: March 2016

The Whole Death and Resurrection Thing in 360 Words

Rachel Henry1 Comment

Spending time away from California reminds me that things die on a regular basis.

A couple of weeks ago in Washington, D.C., I walked past a house with a bunch of pots in the front yard. Inside each pot was a dead plant, and I thought, “Why doesn’t this person remove some of these dead plants?” Then I looked around and remembered that this is what all plants look like in much of the world at the end of winter.

One of my least favorite parts of the Lenten and Easter season is this whole death and resurrection business. I’m OK with resurrection, but death—not so appealing. Do they have to go together? Couldn’t we all just agree that resurrection is far more pleasant and skip straight to that part?

Pretty much all of creation appears to answer no to that question. Nothing lasts, from flowers to humans to solar systems.

But this existence of ours also answers that death is not possible without resurrection. From stardust becoming humans to compost becoming next year’s garden, there are no permanent ends, only transformation.

I’m not trying to reduce Easter to the turn of the seasons. I am suggesting that separating death and resurrection is pulling apart two steps in a single process. Death is not a thing in and of itself. Death is step one of resurrection.

I suspect this is not going to make the small deaths that we endure as we grow in this life more fun. We won’t all be clamoring to go on the death ride at Disneyland (well, unless it’s really good). The peeling away of layers of our ego, the very real loss of health or dreams—we may or may not be able to weather these more gracefully knowing that they are not permanent. After all, as Jim Finley says about the Crucifixion, Jesus did not handle it well: he sweat blood, he felt abandoned.

So why does it matter that our endings and letting gos, our transformed re-emergence and everything in between are part of a whole? Because that means we are always, regardless of our present circumstances, heading toward Easter morning.

Like It or Not

Rachel Henry3 Comments

Coming into being is apparently not easy. From galaxies to stars to humans to any being that has to break its way out of an egg or a seed, taking form in this existence involves a good deal of struggle.

It’s so tempting to ask why, but that’s like asking why the lupine dotting the hillsides these days are purple. You can explain it in terms of the wavelengths of light, but that really only answers how they are purple, not the more fundamental why not red? In this case, why is not a useful question, as it says in one of Anne Lamott’s essays.

We are always coming into existence, but we—or at least certainly I—am not always happy about the struggle. There are things that we accept are going to be hard—giving birth, climbing Mount Everest, losing a loved one—and there are things that we can see will be hard for others—adolescence, for example. Yet we don’t tell anyone, you know, why don’t you just skip this whole adolescence thing, it’s not much fun. Whether a society has healthy or unhealthy ways of helping its members through this stage, they all still have to go through it.

And we don’t emerge fully formed at 20. As long as we’re alive, we’ll continue to be drawn forth. We’ll be invited to deeper and deeper communion with life, we’ll continue to be created, and that means we’ll continue to struggle.

In all likelihood, we’ll continue not to like that struggle, but maybe there’s something beyond our liking or not liking it. Maybe there’s a way to say, oh, this is happening, not in a passive but in a participatory way. And maybe that’s when it gets easy, not the kind of easy I generally picture where everything matches the version of life in my head but some other kind of easy that we can’t understand until we experience it.

This is one of those things I didn’t make up. The great religious traditions all include this idea. Now if only I would listen.

A Dose of Delight

Rachel Henry1 Comment

If riding giant, floating, multicolored, illuminated fish sounds like your idea of a good time—and even if it doesn’t—hop on the Sea Glass Carousel in Battery Park, New York City. My sister and I went last week, and we both left with huge grins on our faces.

IMG_0484
Some of the fish on the Sea Glass Carousel in Battery Park, New York City.

In our quest for happiness, especially as adults, we often forget to do those things that simply make us smile. Everyone on our round of the carousel was an adult, and everyone was smiling. Here’s how the Sea Glass Carousel works its magic:

 

It’s beautiful. From the colors to the lights to the shapes of the fish, you feel as if you’re floating in some underwater opalescent pool. Human beings are hard-wired for beauty. We may have different ideas of what that is, but it speaks to our hearts.

It’s whimsical. We need things that appear to be non-essential, that fulfill no practical purpose like food or lodging or contributing to our 401k. We need things that are designed to delight—they awaken our souls.

My sister riding the Sea Glass Carousel
Some of the fish on the Sea Glass Carousel in Battery Park, New York City.

It moves. And not just up and down but in all sorts of circular patterns. You glide up to and away from all the other fish in the sea, and you can’t predict where you’re heading next (Ok, some of your engineers probably can). We are mobile beings, and movement brings us physically into the present moment.

 

Someone posted a picture of a dancing goat on Facebook the other day. The caption read, “When in doubt, frolic.” My go-to position when in doubt tends to be “worry and attempt to figure things out.” But if instead I jumped on the Sea Glass Carousel or its local equivalent instead of worrying, I bet my figurings would be more creative and my solutions more fun.