{"id":2878,"date":"2015-04-05T19:14:13","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T02:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegatheringcincinnati.org\/?p=2878"},"modified":"2015-04-05T19:14:13","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T02:14:13","slug":"sunday-april-5-2014-embracing-lifes-resurrection-moments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/2015\/04\/05\/sunday-april-5-2014-embracing-lifes-resurrection-moments\/","title":{"rendered":"April 5, 2015, Easter Sunday, "Embracing Life's Resurrection Moments""},"content":{"rendered":"

(c) Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering, All Rights Reserved\"IMG_2271\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To download and listen to the message, please click here. \u00a0To read the message, please see below.<\/p>\n

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As many of you know, I spent most of the past three weeks taking care of my 81 year old mom.\u00a0 She is in the middle stages of Alzheimer\u2019s, a cruel disease that inexorably strips vital and intelligent adults of their personality, dignity and memory.\u00a0 I had not seen my mom in about six months and she has declined during that time.\u00a0 When I first arrived in California to pick her up, she did not know me.\u00a0 She gets terribly confused and often does not know where she is or who is with her.\u00a0 She\u2019s lost weight, she is hunched over, she\u2019s frail, she shuffles when she walks.\u00a0 In caring for her, I daily picked out her clothes, brushed her hair, made her meals, guided her in what she can and cannot not do, and led her by the hand to cross streets and walk the beach – which we did each day for about fifty yards – until she got tired!<\/p>\n

It was difficult for me to see her like this.\u00a0 She was once an interesting woman with intelligence and ideas to share.\u00a0 She was not a flashy person but she was always perfectly put together – her hair done just right, her clothing neat, pressed and well matched.\u00a0 The two of us would often talk for hours on all sorts of subjects.\u00a0 We were always close.\u00a0 When I came out as a gay man twelve years ago, she quickly accepted me and told me she had often wondered if I might be so.\u00a0 I was a sensitive, studious and soft spoken boy, after all.\u00a0 It\u2019s said that moms and their gay sons are often close and that has been true for us.<\/p>\n

But as sad as it is to see my mom now, I also see in her not just a shadow of her old self, but also a person struggling to still find meaning, purpose and excitement in life.\u00a0 Mom is now like an innocent and inquisitive child who delights in and wants to talk about all the things she sees.\u00a0 I took her to the beach where there was a colony of seals with their new pups.\u00a0 Mom pushed her way to the front of the crowd, to stand with all of the children, where she and they excitedly pointed and laughed with delight.<\/p>\n

As something of a child again, mom has a sweet and caring nature.\u00a0 In an air conditioned restaurant last summer, my sister complained that she was cold.\u00a0 Mom, who was wearing a pullover shirt, promptly pulled it off and gave it to my sister.\u00a0 \u201cHere, dear.\u00a0 This will keep you warm!\u201d, she said as she sat there in the middle of a busy restaurant – naked above the waist.\u00a0 My sister and I burst out laughing as we rushed to get her dressed.\u00a0 Such is mom now – thinking like an innocent child – one without the filters of an adult and one who willingly gives the shirt off her back to help another.<\/p>\n

As I said goodnight one evening last week and essentially tucked her into bed, she looked up at me and asked if I would leave a nightlight on for her.\u00a0 \u201cI get scared in the dark\u201d, she said.\u00a0 I assured her a light would be left on and that I was just down the hallway if she needed me.\u00a0 How funny that episode is to me – a deja vu experience – one that happened fifty years ago, only then it was me, a young boy, asking his mom to help him feel safe in the dark.<\/p>\n

I hope my personal story was not too long or too boring for you.\u00a0 We all have stories and I truly welcome hearing any of your own.\u00a0 As I have reflected about mom, though, I find her life now is a simple and common story of someone dealing with challenge and finding ways to overcome.\u00a0 Few of us will escape life without confronting difficult challenges that cause change.\u00a0 How we deal with the inevitable struggles of life will say a lot about who we are as individuals and the kind of legacy we leave behind.<\/p>\n

In many ways, stories of people facing and overcoming life difficulties are much like the Easter story.\u00a0 In that story, Jesus had to face his own life defining challenge, his Good Friday trial and crucifixion, in order to experience a bright and hopeful Easter morning.<\/p>\n

The night before his crucifixion, after he had celebrated Passover Seder with his followers, Jesus walked to an olive grove overlooking Jerusalem.\u00a0 It was there that he found the quiet needed to settle his mind and reflect.\u00a0 The story has him famously sweating in fear and begging God to spare him the expected trial and execution.\u00a0 Like any human, Jesus did not want to experience heartache, abandonment and pain.\u00a0 In this way, the Easter story is one we can all relate to – I can see in it elements similar to my mom\u2019s story.\u00a0 Throughout her life she implored me to help her commit suicide if she should ever be mentally or physically incapacitated – like Jesus, she wanted to spare herself pain.\u00a0 But now, at a point which I know she would not have wanted to experience, I find resilience, beauty and gentleness in her that adds a new dimension to her life and to those who interact with her.\u00a0 Alzheimer\u2019s may be a nasty disease, but it has its own form of dignity.<\/p>\n

I cannot now speak to and relate to mom as I used to, but I can relate to her in a far more empathetic way – to hug her, hold her hand, soothe her, seek to understand her, learn from her, ease the darkness that can overwhelm her mind – and then be a figurative nightlight to take away her fears.\u00a0 In some strange way, her disease is a gift to me and to her – an opportunity for growth and expansion of her spirit – and mine as well.\u00a0 She\u2019s having her own Resurrection moment, a time in life that has renewed her as a different person\u00a0 – one that might outwardly seem sad but which is, in truth, pure and beautiful.<\/p>\n

For many of us, though, the Easter story found in the Bible is a difficult one to accept and celebrate since it defies rational explanation and offers no verifiable proof of its truth.\u00a0 Without a literal resurrection of Jesus\u2019 body, most forms of Christianity are meaningless.\u00a0 Paul even wrote in one of his letters that if the resurrection is not true, his preaching and the beliefs Christians have in eternal life are all in vain.\u00a0 But that notion is Paul\u2019s interpretation of Jesus and the resurrection.\u00a0 It ignores an opposing view held by many of his contemporaries at the time – people who were also early Christians.<\/p>\n

Easter and the Resurrection, therefore, need not be interpreted as literal history.\u00a0 Many early Christians, who were called Gnostics, did not believe Jesus’ bodily resurrection was historical fact.\u00a0 Numerous second and third century documents discovered at Nag Hamadi, Egypt in the 1940\u2019s point to a widespread early belief that Jesus\u2019 body was not restored to life but remained dead and buried.\u00a0 Gnostics believed it was Jesus\u2019 spirit that was resurrected – a spirit that embodied his teachings, thinking and approach to life.\u00a0 Their understanding of the Resurrection was a spiritual one – a type of resurrection that I see my mom undergoing, one that any of us can experience as we go through our own life trials.\u00a0 Humans fear physical death while often ignoring the potential death of their spirits – that will happen if one fails to leave behind a legacy of goodness.<\/p>\n

Our lives must mean more than an accumulation of years.\u00a0 They must mean more than briefly adding to our comfort and pleasure.\u00a0 A life legacy, a resurrection of the spirit, is found in how we deal with the challenges we face and how we assist others in dealing with their suffering.\u00a0 What example do we leave behind in how we deal with challenge?\u00a0 Do we persevere until we overcome, in some way, our struggles?\u00a0 Do we instead give up and retreat into fear, anger, arrogance or self-pity?\u00a0 What ripples across the pond of time do we send out into the future to touch other lives and distant shores of creation?\u00a0 What is the condition of our humility, our gentleness, our kind speech, our efforts to affect, for the better, other lives?\u00a0 Human bodies are corruptible and finite, but human spirits, defined by our minds, by our compassion, by our courage to endure, these are what live onward past the point of physical death.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the Gnostics were quickly labeled as heretics by Paul and others.\u00a0 Their understanding of Jesus and his spiritual resurrection lost out in the battle of interpretations.\u00a0 It was Paul\u2019s theology of a risen Jesus that eventually won and was codified in the New Testament. \u00a0 Pauline theology is what most Christians believe today.\u00a0 They are entitled to that belief, but my own thoughts and my own studies of what took place two thousand years ago lead me to conclude that Easter morning was not a literal event in history.\u00a0 It is a valid and inspiring holiday only if we approach it in an honest and rational way.\u00a0 Easter invites us to find resurrection moments in life that renew our spirits and grant them, not<\/i><\/b> our bodies, life beyond death.<\/p>\n

It was a contemporary of Jesus, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who uttered the famous axiom that the only constant in life is change.\u00a0 The sad fact is that while many of us acknowledge this truth, we have a hard time accepting it.\u00a0 Even change which we know will be good for us – we avoid.\u00a0 It\u2019s too difficult to start over.\u00a0 Staying the same or avoiding challenges are easy for us.\u00a0 Change makes us feel out of control and we are, too often, creatures who like to be in control.<\/p>\n

But reality offers a different truth.\u00a0 It is when we embrace change and seek ways to overcome its negative impact that we ironically have MORE <\/i><\/b>control over our lives.\u00a0 The actress Angelina Jolie recently revealed that in addition to voluntarily undergoing double mastectomies because she has a cancer causing gene mutation, she also just underwent a total hysterectomy to prevent uterine and ovarian cancer.\u00a0 She had watched as her mother slowly suffered and died from cancer.\u00a0 In her grief and fear over her own fate, Angelina found the empowerment to take control of her destiny and to offer, as a result, a legacy of courage and a model for other women.\u00a0 As she has written in a recently published diary about her experiences, \u201cI don\u2019t want to tell you how often, every hour, I think about leaving my children without me.\u00a0 I know now, however, my children will never have to say, ‘Mom died of ovarian cancer.’\u00a0 It is possible to take control and tackle head-on any health issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please forgive me if it seems I trivialize profound challenges and make them seem easy to overcome.\u00a0 That is not my intent.\u00a0 I understand the gut wrenching fear and distress that life challenges bring any person – including myself.<\/p>\n

What I want to offer today, however, is more than a reinterpretation of the Easter story.\u00a0 The reality of the resurrection is that change is inevitable but it is often not what we think it will be.\u00a0 The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne once said, \u201cMy life has been filled with terrible misfortune, most of which never happened.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

He spoke to a common human psychology called \u201caffective forecasting.\u201d\u00a0 We typically believe that good things in life will make us happier over the long term and negative events will make us unhappy.\u00a0 But our forecasting of the future is so often totally wrong.\u00a0 Things rarely turn out as bad as we think they will.\u00a0 Often, change results in something different for us but also something new, fresh, and wonderful.\u00a0 We find, from of the ashes of despair, a genuine resurrection!\u00a0 Our willingness to courageously persist in overcoming a challenge is inspirational to others and offers us a form of life after death.<\/p>\n

The legacy of Jesus\u2019 life is not as Savior or Son of God – a figure to be displayed on the cross for pity and worship.\u00a0 His enduring legacy is in his courage to confront elitist religious hypocrisy, to purposefully humble himself by reaching out to scoundrels, thieves, lepers, and prostitutes, to teach a way of life that promotes charity, social justice and empathy.<\/p>\n

I hurt for my mom.\u00a0 I hurt for the challenges I know some of you are experiencing.\u00a0 We all hurt for the pain we see throughout the world.\u00a0 But I also know my mom, with all of her confusion and loss of memory, is still a person of grace, compassion and dignity – a person still fighting the good fight to overcome challenges.\u00a0 Her body and mind are failing, but her spirit is alive and well.\u00a0 I hope the same will one day be said of me and of you.<\/p>\n

We can each embrace difficult change in our lives.\u00a0 As congregations, we too can reject irrational fear and accept the challenge we face – to insure the longevity and well-being of our two churches.\u00a0 Life may often seem like a series of Good Fridays, days when we are tired and beaten down.\u00a0 But today of all days tells us we have the ability to spiritually live on, to impact the world for good, to awaken in ourselves and in others a strength to persevere and a desire for goodness.\u00a0 We are all Easter people.\u00a0 We are all endowed with triumphal spirits that yearn to love, give and serve.\u00a0 Challenges will yet afflict us.\u00a0 But we can embrace struggle and, in the process, find our true resurrection.<\/p>\n

I wish you all much peace and joy.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(c) Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering, All Rights Reserved To download and listen to the message, please click here. \u00a0To read the message, please see below.   As many of you know, I spent most of the past three weeks taking care of my 81 year old mom.\u00a0 She is in the middle stages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gnhuu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}