April 16, 2006
Easter Bunny
"Easter is the day that Catholics celebrate Jesus' return from the dead as a rabbit who hides colored eggs." - a stand up comic who I cannot credit due to slippery short term memory.
Ah, the resurrection. In light of the publication of the gospel of Judas, it must be reconsidered. Karen L. King, Harvard theologian and author of "What is Gnosticism", says the the newly recovered gospel directly challenges Atonement Christology or the notion that Jesus' death was a sacrifice for the sins of humanity.
According to this gospel, Judas, Jesus' closest follower, is instructed by Jesus,himself, to betray him. It was a plan -- and Jesus was the planner. Judas did the guy a favor. (Although I never understood why, even IFJudas were a bad guy, he wasn't part of God's Plan too, since, in some circles, God plans everything )
Well that's about as far as I go in the understanding department. I am still struggling with the real meaning of the crucifiction and resurrection, but my attention span is weak, and my time limited. I do know that it has something to do with the dissolution of the ego so that the spirit can awaken within us while were still here, operating in the material world.
If you want to listen to a real Easter sermon, from a man whose spirit has been awakened, push that clickie. William Sloane Coffin is an exemplar. I have heard some portion of this broadcast four times over the last twenty four hours, and tried to take notes (each time more frantically) in order to give you a flavor of his thinking:
. Evil is the lack of imaginative sympathy for others
. Nothing is more dangerous than the misunderstanding of evil as something outside yourself.
. Self righteousness destroys our ability for self criticism.
. We need to recognize our complicity in the things we abhor.
. We get so caught up in defense that we lose the things that are worth defending
. The United States is not a melting pot, it's a pressure cooker
. Bush is popular because people prefer certainty to truth
. People want the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought
. Some people need enemies to tell them who they are
. Biblical mandate is to pursue justice and search for peace
. When religion and politics are mixed the questions is, "Who is the god that tells them who they are?".
. People are drawn to decisiveness, but it's more important to have the right decision
. Faith is not believing without truth
. Faith is defined by rigid doctrine which is often erroneous and can divide, love can only unite
. Hell is truth seen too late
Coffin quotes Desmond Tutu : "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."
Willliam Sloane Coffin died last week at the age of 81. Kind of a Radio Resurrection, huh? I urge you to listen.
Photo note: This human stuffed Easter Bunny was ensconced near the frozen foods at the market yesterday. It was not until I was leaving the place in a cloud of dust, with many guests coming for dinner, that I saw a sign that photos were $5, and proceeds would go to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. I didn't stop to pay, although I now think that there was an official photographer standing right next to me when I took this picture. Maybe you had to have a kid sit on the bunny's lap to be charged. My thought is to go back and give them the $5, but, pseudogenerous person that I am, I probably won't. And the rest? I've been bunny stalking for a couple of weeks, and as rabbits will, they multiplied.
Dako, funny but I was writing more or less the same thing in my good (?) Friday post, and I was also leafing through the Judas Gospel book in a bookshop today. So we great minds often think alike. It's a deep subject, requiring more space and time and cogitation than I have available at this moment.
But on your post lower down the page, about the madness of King George and his court, what I don't understand is: why aren't all Good Americans out on the streets across the land, expressing their opposition to the madness of their leaders? Of course I know that not all of them *are* opposed, but still, a hell of a lot more now than say 3 or 4 years ago. And all these thousands of US bloggers wringing their hands about the folly of
the Bush plan to burn down the planet in the interests of....erm..."democracy", why aren't they out on the streets?
Hi Nattie --
I have been mulling over your question for the last couple of days, not the resurrection/Judas thing, (wasn't THAT serendipitous?), but the lack of public protests over here about the demise of democracy.
I actually think there have been many more demonstrations than have been reported, due to the fact that most of the mainstream media is controlled by neoconservatives, in spite of their continual whining about a liberal bias in the press.
When a million protesters showed up in New York City before the invasion of Iraq, their numbers were underreported by the hundreds of thousands, and they were rerouted and "handled" by the police to dilute their efforts. Protesters at the conventions in 2004 were relegated to a cage in the burbs, if you will remember.
Perhaps twenty first century protests happen in cyberspace. Hopefully, we are not just wringing our hands, rather we are helping to raise the public awareness about the terrible things that are happening to our country, and everyone else's.
I for one, am currently out of marching order due to plantar flexed forefoot. I shall have to hold court from here, for the time being.
I am now going over to Blaugustine to consider your commentary on the meaning of the gospel of Judas.
Posted by: Dakota at April 18, 2006 07:47 PM