Easter Sunday

Pioneer Cemetery, tucked into a corner of our property,
is one of my favorite places. It's peaceful and restful up
there and one can give thought to powerful, amazing ideas
in such a place.

My regular readers will know that Sundays are special days for me. I like the quiet, lazy ways they begin and the freedom they seem to give me to meditate and relax. I especially like Easter Sunday for reasons I don’t totally understand.
by Charlie Leck

The resurrection story is a powerful, powerful account that Christians hold at the very center of their hope and faith. I personally believe that it is even more powerful when it is not held to as a literal account. Like all great mythology, the story points to powerful truths – more true, even, than the story would be if it were seen as a factual account.

The Easter story, for me, has always been a message that death has no power over me (or thee, for that matter). If death has no power – if we are free from fearing it – it also loses its control over the lives we live. Therefore, I may move on, free and joyous, in living whatever days life gives me; and at the end of this journey I shall still be free and at rest in eternal peacefulness – in the embrace of love.

Deeply convicted Christians, for hundreds and hundreds of years, have traditionally encountered each other on Easter Sunday morning with the powerful pronouncement: “The Lord is risen!”

And the traditional response to the comment is: “He has risen indeed!”

I stand before the tomb in which they had laid his body. I stare in wonder at the huge stone they had rolled before the tomb’s opening and have no doubt about the manner in which the stone was rolled away. This is the work of the most powerful force in the universe. For, you see, one can kill and conquer the mortal body; but love is never defeated and never contained.

“How was the stone rolled away, Grandpa?” My grandchildren listen in rapt awe – awe that only a child can feel. “Who rolled it away?”

“The man they killed and laid to rest there,” I try to explain, “came to show us how to love everyone and how to show compassion to all people of every kind and type. I don’t know why that is such a frightening message, but it was and always has been. They thought he was odd and they lynched him. Those who loved him and believed in him laid him reverently in that tomb and sealed it with a huge stone that only many men could move.”

“Such love,” my wee ones, “can never been contained or imprisoned. Love is more powerful than armies of hatred. Love flung the stone aside and took him from his resting place that day, to hold him forever in its embrace. We, too, shall be gathered to that loving bosom one day and we shall also rest in it throughout eternity.”

Ah, Sunday morning. It’s so peaceful and lovely here. Easter! I sit, imagining my grandchildren encircle me. We're listening to Chris Cunningham. His mellow voice sings out: “The morning comes when it’s ready; just brace yourself for a tidal wave!... The same message! ...The same words on a different shore! ...New music!  The same news in a different song!”

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Life’s Other Half

In a 1923 letter to the Countess Margot-Sizzo-Noris-Crouy, Rainer Maria Rilke, the famous German poet, wrote about the naturalness of death. He called death just a part of life. However, e.e. cummings thinks somewhat differently!
by Charlie Leck

“I am not saying that we should love death, but rather that we should love life so generously, without picking and choosing, that we automatically include it (life’s other half) in our love. This is what actually happens in the great expansiveness of love, which cannot be stopped or constricted. It is only because we exclude it that death becomes more and more foreign to us and, ultimately, our enemy.

“It is conceivable that death is infinitely closer to us than life itself… What do we know of it?”
                                                                                           [Rainer Maria Rilke, 1923]

It is quite different than the take of e.e. cummings, the American poet, on death…

“dying is fine)but Death ?o baby I wouldn’t like Death if Death were good:for when (instead of stopping to think)you begin to feel of it, dying’s miraculous why?be cause dying is perfectly natural;perfectly puttingit mildly lively(but Death is strictly scientific & artificial & evil & legal) we thank thee god almighty for dying (forgive us, o life!the sin of Death”
                                                                                           [ee cummings]*

*I don’t think there is any book that I have taken down from the shelves of my library more than Poems (1923-1954) by e. e. cummings [Harcourt Brace, NY, 1968]

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Flailing Away at Death

I read something on an infrequent blog* yesterday and it stirred me somewhat and put me to thinking.

Charlie Leck

Plumb Bob wrote on his blog:

Death, you always call too soon, we are not ready, we have plans unfulfilled, the leaves of my life like a limb are stilling growing, the blossoms of my garden have not faded, the wild bees still fly here.

My fruit is not all fully yielded, but you come early, wait, another day, another hour, but your call is clear: “Come away with me my love, the world has had you too long, I want you with me.”

I like it, somehow! It is an easy read and it is intriguing. I left a comment for Plumb Bob:

As for me, I shall not be ready! Like a school assignment I cannot seem to find the time to do. I cannot prepare! I cannot find time for thee, o death… so you need to steal me away and I will go kicking, biting and fighting to the end.

I also reminded Plumb Bob of e.e. cummings' fine poem: “oh death, I wouldn’t like death if death were good.”

Dying is fine) but Death

?o
baby
i

wouldn’t like

Death if Death
were
good: for

when (instead of stopping to think) you

begin to feel of it, dying
’s miraculous
why? be

cause dying is

perfectly natural; perfectly
putting
it mildly lively (but)

Death

is strictly
scientific
& artificial &

evil & legal)

we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us, o life!the sin of Death

I think the poet’s comparison of dying, which we’re all doing now, to death is remarkable. If you missed that, go back and read it again.

Plumb Bob doesn’t post very often (every month or two, I suppose), but if you want to look in on his blog click here.

*A blog to which posts are made quite infrequently and irregularly.

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.