Dear Drummers,

Though I no longer connect to my childhood's magic of Easter, I adore (and try to live by) the imagery embedded in the story: the power of all creation knows each of us, and loves us. It wants us to blossom in wisdom, peace, and love. It suffers with us as we fail again and again, as selfishness, envy and fear overcome our emerging wisdom. That power of creation is beyond our ability to comprehend, but we somehow understand that, to it, all things are possible. Death, which so terrifies us, loses its meaning when we are able to "open our eyes and ears" wider and feel this Presence of creation. When we become open, we can be transformed, utterly: reborn. We become able to "Fear not." Each time we make decisions out of fear and envy we perpetrate an inner crucifixion, and each time we make decisions from love and awe we roll back the stone for an inner resurrection. And whatever we accomplish on the inside radiates out from us in our actions, small to large, in the world.


The frightening, gloomy melody of good Friday and the shimmering tune of Easter morning that were so important to my childhood have been replaced by a steady, rhythmic Wonder at the unfathomable powers present in nature as wide and deep as I am able to understand it - from the quark to the ten dimensions of modern physics. And in between, miniscule me: my small human mind sparking faintly inside its clay cup, my tiny human heart playing its simple beat amidst the uncountable other instruments in the cosmic orchestra, trying my best to push envy and fear out of the way for a few moments longer today than I was able to yesterday, and let awe and love make more decisions for me.


I have not rejected the Easter story; I have drawn it inside and made it both more subtle and more personally meaningful. I have transformed it. Dare I say it has died and been resurrected in me in a new spiritual form, something Jesus promised would happen to all who followed him to the truth. In an article posted today, Dr. Jean Houston tells of the series of visions of Christ that came to the 5th century Augustine. As the visions began to wane, "...filled with anguish at the loss of the Beloved, the saint cried out to Christ to return. Out of darkness he heard the words, "I have disappeared right before your eyes in order for you to return into your heart to find me."

I have not given up on the magic in the Easter story. Actually, I find myself these days seeing more and more magic at work, experiencing it more viscerally and obviously. My eyes are opening to the evidence that we are surrounded by, penetrated, permeated and infused by miracle and what rightly can be called magic. I like to call it the "powers" or the "spirits" or the "energies" or a hundred other names to keep it from sounding anything like what the religious bureaucrats and scripture zealots call it, and I describe it as coming from inside the same place as the green leaves emerging from the reborn trees and the periwinkle Siberian Squill resurrecting all around my neighborhood.


On this beautiful early spring day before Easter, I wish for you what I see as the core of Christ's message: "Epatha!" (Greek for "Be opened!")

Jaime

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