Although I consider myself a freethinker, I find that religious terms are often useful metaphors to apply to broader concepts. Grace is an obvious one, and it likely will be the subject of a future post. Now, however, I want to focus on the term resurrection—to consider its meaning beyond the usual Christian context of coming back to life spiritually or even bodily after death.
In another post, I quoted the wise and eloquent writer and poet Wendell Berry who ends one of his poems with the words, “Practice resurrection.” I like the idea that resurrection is something we can experience now, that is has a meaning broader than simply transcending physical death.
Preachers, priests, and their ilk talk of resurrection as the gateway to a celestial paradise, something we strive to reach at death after living a life in accordance with the rules of their particular religious sect, usually Christian. I have some problems with that.
First, I prefer to bushwhack through life by dead reckoning rather than follow the well-worn ruts of any sectarian path.
Second, I don’t believe that any sort of otherworldly utopia exists, and, even if it did, I would not want to spend any time there, much less eternity, with sectarian True Believers. I like Mark Twain’s comment on the subject in which he said that he would prefer to go to heaven for the climate and to hell for the company. As in Cavafy’s famous poem, “Ithaka,” it is the journey through life that is important to me rather than some hypothetical destination at the end.
Third, I am impatient and would rather experience the benefits of resurrection now rather than having to wait until death.
That’s just it: we don’t need to wait until death to realize resurrection. It comes to us each day. Every morning we are resurrected both physically and spiritually, reborn into a new day that offers possibility that transcends the events and facts of yesterday. The new day is a blank slate upon which we can write the next chapter of our life, one in which each of us, as the main protagonist, carries the story forward and decides its plot and the details of our role.
I am not Dr. Pangloss, however, nor do I want to come across as some sort of New Age bliss ninny. Although I suggest that each new day offers opportunities that transcend the past, I also realize that it just as likely might bring troubles and disappointments—some that are not of our doing and some that are, and some that carry over from the past. Nevertheless, my point is that through the resurrection that comes with each new day, we are reborn into possibility. The resurrection of which I speak is not about life after death; it is about living fully until death.