Excerpt from Exhilarated Life: Discovering Inner Happiness
Not seeing the forest for the trees.
For instance, what If the resurrection never happened?
Yes, what if? I mean, what if there was no Judas, no pieces of silver, no
Pilate—no Crucifixion? What if Jesus worked it all out with hugs and left
everyone in his wake feeling warm and bubbly, as he flashed the peace sign
and repeated, “Love is all there is?”
My question is how can we despise Judas when he fulfilled the prophecy
of a new age dawning and served the peaceful warrior up on silver? He
had to betray Jesus in order for us to pay attention. It’s not human
nature to go looking to change the status quo. So we paid attention,
but in the convoluted journey from then to now, we have betrayed that
gentle message of love and compassion and awakening, over and over
and over again.
In this story, doctrine has chosen to see the Crucifixion as the seed
of suffering. To denigrate the betrayer and be satisfied by his remorse
and suicide; to despise the governing official who turned away from
the light and washed his hands; to distrust an entire race who turned
against one of their own that dared individualism.
We have chosen to turn away from a message, which illustrates that only
Unconditional Love can lift us over the horrors that man perpetrates
on his fellow man. Just another atrocity. How did we miss that?
By objectifying the man, the lesson, the point. Jesus’s whole ministry—the
few pages upon which we have built a world religion—is based on
stories, parables, and allegories. He said it was like this: The lily, the
mustard seed. He didn’t say it was this.
Thinking to allow an external Christ to suffer our sins for us and obviate
all personal accountability to our own Christed or fully actualized-Self
is as absurd as standing in the field with the lilies, and expecting to be
magically and beautifully clothed! It isn’t happening! If you don’t want
to be cold and naked, you have to clothe yourself, and make choices
of what seeds you plant for the harvest you desire. And for the really
big questions—the ones where you “surrender” to the highest power
of creation—well, you may have to look into eyes you know well and
see the betrayal.
Sometimes the eyes that betray us first are those looking back at us in
the mirror. They are the ones that do not see our pure potential, our
own beauty, and contribution to a loving world. Or maybe we see it
and look away. To embrace it would be to change the status quo, to
dare to be different. What is betrayed by ourselves, or others we trust,
is our own divine nature. We splash cold water onto a face that fails to
match the magazine covers, look around a bathroom that is in need of
remodeling, check our emails, grab our cell and dash out the door for
another onslaught of making sense of it all.
We spend little or no time at all on what makes our heart beat. Just
as we look for our salvation outside of ourselves, we also look outside
for love, excitement, and meaning. And we look outside ourselves for
sadness, destruction, and brutality. The terrible things that happen
to us—lost job, poor health, loss of a loved one, a car accident or
betrayal—are perceived to have been inflicted on us by others. Do
we rail against the “injustice” or do we peer into the light of a larger
meaning? When “bad” things happen to us we are usually drop kicked
out of our status quo. The routine of the expectation of others goes
kablooey! While the fragments of a predicted life are suspended, we can
pause and look between them to see how our life might be rearranged
into a more sublime existence. As we gaze at chaos we get to see what
shines through—what really matters.
A Life Changing Event (LCE) is an opportunity for transformation. It
is clearly for the person in the epicenter, but to paraphrase Shakespeare,
we are all merely players on the stage of life. If you find yourself in the
midst of an LCE then it is as much about you as it is for the perceived
central figure. Then again, you are always the central figure in your
own life.
Before I go on, let me state something unequivocally: The whole point
of life on Earth as conscious sentient beings is the destination to a state
of Pure Love. Period. Love is all there is. The boat we float to get there
is our own life and how we live it. We can hoist the sails of authenticity
and ride the sparkling waters in bliss, barely mindful of what lurks
beneath. Or we can bump and grind along on a raft of cardboard,
always sensing danger and reaching out for saving. The choice is ours
alone.
God, if I may use the term, in His/Her infinite Love spills a cornucopia
of experiences for us to choose from. I like to personify God, but
most often I refer to the power and energy of Love as big ‘L’ Life or
big ‘C’ Creation. Can’t argue with the Life Force really, can you? It’s
all divine and infinitely beautiful. Yes, there are spiders and six-inch
millipedes, but living with the creative force offers up some very weird
and wonderful expressions—all valid—because they exist.
Back to the boat. I find I’m sailing a little faster now. Beside me is
another charming little craft with bright sail unfurled. Athan and I call
to one another and laugh a lot. We know our destination but we have
no idea where it is or how we will get there. We only know that, for
now, we travel together, side by side, and we are willing to let events
unfold. We have one hand on the rudder and one on the mainsail sheet
so we can take advantage of the winds and avoid the rocks.
Life is not something to offer up to Heaven to fix or take over. Your
life is full engagement with all the creative force and trust you can
muster. Living an authentic life is not for sissies. Jesus seriously did not
want to go on that cross. Imagine being willing to offer yourself as a
bleeding spectacle of surrender to a Higher Love and then witnessing
the misunderstanding and watching it stain the promise of Pure Love
like black ink in clear water! Forgive them. Forgive me. Forgive you.
Living your own authentic life takes guts and will. Knowing and
accepting that life is fraught with challenges that make us stronger,
lighter, wiser is the prerequisite for finding the peace and love we all
seek. If you examine your own life from the perspective of a crisis—
LCE—you will see that it was not random. Much preceded it and
much more proceeded from it. Love is all that matters.
Can we see beyond the fear of life-changing events? Can we see the
glimmer of love shining through difficult times like stars in a night
sky? When the dove of pure Love enters and rests in our hearts, we
will surely be invited to the final initiation of surrender. What do we
surrender? All the things that don’t really matter; including Life and
Death as we know it. Life is eternal. Love is all there is.
I wish you love and peace, grace and a gentle awakening on this
beautiful, symbolic morning—whatever your faith.
~mh
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