Episcopal priest and educator Alice Updike Scannell (1938–2019) considered spirituality to be an essential element of radical resilience.  

Attending to our spirituality is an essential skill for radical resilience. The kinds of challenges and adversities in life that demand radical resilience usually cause pain and suffering. We cannot handle pain and suffering without spiritual support. Much of that spiritual support will come from people—some from those we know and some from strangers who offer a kind word or come forward to help when we need it. We might also find spiritual support through our religious tradition, twelve-step program, or a meditative practice such as tai chi, mindfulness meditation, or yoga.  

However, not all religions or spiritual belief systems are helpful for radical resilience. Any religion or spiritual belief system that is judgmental, punitive, rigid, or exclusive is a potential obstacle to resilience. The kind of spirituality that serves as a radical resilience skill respects the dignity of every human being; understands that all beings, the environment, and the universe are interconnected; views the Higher Power as loving; and holds honesty, self-awareness, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, openness, acceptance, and healing as core values.  

Whenever we seek to understand how we can best live our lives with meaning and purpose, through prayer, meditation, or another practice of spiritual discernment, and we pay attention with an open mind to what comes to us in response to that practice, we’re engaging with our spirituality as a radical resilience skill. Over time, engagement with spirituality in this way is transformative. It changes the way we understand ourselves. It opens our hearts to an awareness of gratitude and leads us into greater compassion and a sense of connection with others.  

Scannell names that our spirituality and faith have to mature in order to be supportive in difficult times: 

If we haven’t paid much attention to deepening our spiritual life as we’ve become adults, we’re likely to lack the spiritual resources we’ll need to be radically resilient. Our childhood understanding of spirituality is usually not adequate when we experience the kind of adversity that changes our life forever. When we search for the meaning in what has happened to us, and we search for an understanding of who we are when we can’t do what we used to do, or be who we used to be, then we need spiritual resources that go deeper….  

Yet even when we have a strong sense of spirituality and relationship with the sacred, we can experience anguish, doubt, despair, misery, and darkness. James Hollis calls these experiences “swampland visitations” and describes how they enrich our lives and help us to grow into a mature spirituality. [1] Encounters with these [painful] experiences in the spiritual framework of resilience ultimately lead to enlargement, not diminishment. “If truth be told, we wish we didn’t have to grow,” writes Hollis, “but life is asking more of us than that.” [2]  

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

This is the day that I have made. Rejoice and be glad in it. Begin the day with open hands of faith, ready to receive all that I am pouring into this brief portion of your life. Be careful not to complain about anything, even the weather, since I am the Author of your circumstances. The way to handle unwanted situations is to thank Me for them. This act of faith frees you from resentment and frees Me to work My ways into the situation, so that good emerges from it.
     To find Joy in this day, you must live within its boundaries. I knew what I was doing when I divided time into twenty-four-hour segments. I understand human frailty, and I know that you can bear the weight of only one day at a time. Do not worry about tomorrow or get stuck in the past. There is abundant Life in My Presence today.

Psalm 118:24 NLT
24 This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Philippians 3:13-14 NLT
  13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,
  14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

For many practicing Jews and Christians, Sabbath rest is an essential practice to “tend the fire within.” Biblical scholar Renita J. Weems recalls the Sabbath of her childhood: 

Once upon a time Sunday was a special day, a holy day, a day different from the other six days of the week…. This was a time when [Black] people like those I grew up with still believed that it was enough to spend six days a week trying to eke out a living, … fretting over the future, despairing over whether life would ever get better for [us]. Six days of worrying were enough. The Sabbath was the Lord’s Day, a momentary cease-fire in our ongoing struggle to survive and an opportunity to surrender ourselves to the rest only God offered. Come Sunday, we set aside our worries about the mundane and renewed our love affair with eternity….  

Our working-class hearts were ultimately fixed on one thing alone. Sunday held out to us the promise that we might enter our tiny rough-hewn sanctuary and find sanctity and blessing from a week of loss and indignities. Remembering the Sabbath where I grew up involved delighting oneself for a full twenty-four hours, ultimately in good company, with fine clothes and choice meals. The Sabbath allowed us to mend our tattered lives and restore dignity to our souls. We rested by removing ourselves from the mundane sphere of secular toil and giving ourselves over fully to the divine dimension, where in God’s presence one found “rest” (paradoxically) not in stillness and in repose but in more labor—a different kind of labor, however. We sang, waved, cried, shouted, and when we felt led to do so, danced as a way of restoring dignity to our bodies as well. We used our bodies to help celebrate God’s gift of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath meant more than withdrawal from labor and activity. It meant to consciously enter into a realm of tranquility and praise.  

After a week of the body toiling away in inane work and the spirit being assaulted with insult and loss, Sunday was set aside to recultivate the soul’s appreciation for beauty, truth, love, and eternity. 

Weems acknowledges that Sabbath is difficult to maintain, but can be a healing balm if practiced: 

The Lord’s Day allows us to bring our souls, our emotions, our senses, our vision, and even our bodies back to God so that God might remember our tattered, broken selves and put our priorities back in order. The Sabbath makes sure we have the time to do what’s really important and be with those we really care about.  

I miss the Sabbath of my childhood. I miss believing in the holiness of time. I miss believing there was a day when time stood still. There’s virtually little in this culture, and hardly anything in my adult comings and goings, to serve as a timely reminder of how precious time really is, to remind me of sacred moments. 

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A significant number of our cultural and social challenges arise from a simple fact—diversity. The United States is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse societies the world has ever seen, and despite the warped history believed by some Americans, the country’s pluralism is what its founders intended. George Washington said, “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and Respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions, whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges” (emphasis added).In many ways, America’s diversity is a great strength, but it’s not without some significant difficulties. After all, with diversity comes disagreement. Over the last 50 years, the number of Americans who attend church has declined dramatically, and only a minority of Americans remain committed to orthodox Christian doctrines about sex and marriage. Often overlooked, but perhaps more bewildering, is the plummeting biblical literacy among self-identified, churchgoing Christians, and the corresponding rise in the number of Christians who dismiss basic public virtues like honesty, humility, and mercy.Some Christians look at these changes and long for the past. They romanticize an earlier era they never experienced assuming it was more hospitable to their faith and values. Unfortunately, this sentimentality for the past can easily become antipathy toward their non-Christian neighbors. Today, we are witnessing the rise of powerful religious and political movements predicated on blaming immigrants, non-Christians, and ethnic or sexual minorities for all the country’s problems. For the Christians swept up in these movements, America’s heritage of welcoming and embracing diversity is a curse rather than a blessing. For them, tolerance is seen as the enemy of truth.The challenges of faithfully following Christ in a religiously and morally diverse society help explain the rise of two trends. First, Christian voices are calling for cultural separation. Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option is a vivid example. He calls for a “strategic withdrawal” of Christians from America’s public life and institutions to protect themselves, their children, and their churches from the corrupting influence of secularism. Second, other Christians are calling for cultural domination. Stephen Wolfe’s book, The Case for Christian Nationalism, articulates this view. He advocates for the takeover of America’s public life and institutions by Christian leaders and the imposition of Christian values upon non-believing citizens.Domination and separation represent the “fight or flight” instincts of a threatened animal. They are both born from fear and ignore our higher calling in Christ to seek a wisdom from above. As Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom isn’t the sort that comes from here” (N.T. Wright’s translation of John 18:36). Unlike the kingdoms of the world that are rooted in fear and must use violence, coercion, or segregation to maintain their power, Christ’s kingdom is built on no such insecurity. Therefore, it is sustained by neither fear nor force. It is a kingdom that can thrive even where it is opposed.We see a glimpse of this reality in Naaman’s story. Facing the challenge of maintaining his allegiance to God upon returning to his homeland, Elisha does not tell Naaman to flee Syria to live among God’s people. Nor is he commanded to impose his religious convictions upon his pagan neighbors. Instead, Naaman is told to simply “Go in peace.” Elisha’s words reveal that Israel’s God is not threatened by the pagan deities of Syria, and therefore Naaman does not have to fight nor flee those who oppose his faith. He may, with God’s blessing, live among them. DAILY SCRIPTURE JOHN 18:33-37  2 KINGS 5:1-27 WEEKLY PRAYERfrom Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1275) Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no selfish desires may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no troubles can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy ambitions may tempt aside. Give us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, perseverance to seek you, wisdom to find you, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In this video, CAC teacher James Finley reflects upon the theme of “tending the fire within” as a way to build capacity for radical resilience.  

I’m using the word “fire” as a metaphor for certain moments in our life where we’re graced with a heightened sense of communal presence. They have about them the feeling of that-which-never-ends.  

In our day-by-day life, most of the things we’re aware of, we’re aware of them while we’re passing by on our way to something else. But every so often, something catches our eye and gives us reason to pause. For example, we pause to see a tree. We’ve seen many trees before, we’re going to see many more, and it’s just a tree. But there’s a certain moment where we’re called to pause and ponder and be present to the tree. In that pausing, we experience ourselves undergoing a kind of a descent. It’s very subtle—a deeper, more interior dimension of the mystery of our own presence….  

We have the sense that in this deepening communal oneness with the tree, we’re dropping down together into an abyss-like depth that’s welling up and giving itself to us unexplainably as this moment of oneness with the tree. This depth of presence has no name, but we give it a name. In our tradition, it’s God. We experience the generosity of God, welling up and giving the infinity of God away as the mystery of this moment. We are being awakened to the divinity of the tree and ourselves and our communal, shared nothingness without God. There’s a sense of sacredness about this. This is the fire we want to attend to.  

We could make the same observation about every foundational dimension of our life: intimacy with another person, being in the presence of a child, a path of long-suffering patience, a moment of prayer, the quiet hour at day’s end, lying awake at night in the dark. From time to time the divine grants itself with this kind of fire, a quiet luminosity that has great depth and intimacy to it. 

These moments are quite intense sometimes, in the aftermath of which something is never quite the same. But usually it’s not that way at all. Such moments are so subtle that if we aren’t careful, we would miss them. They also tend to be very fleeting. We return to day-by-day life, go off to our next meeting, turn the TV up a little louder, or whatever it is we’re doing. 

But if we’re committed to a contemplative stance, little by little we start to see our day-by-day life from the standpoint of these moments of awakening. We notice that they have about them the feeling of effulgence or fullness or homecoming. In the light of those moments, we get this sense that in the momentum of the day’s demands, we’re skimming over the depths of our own life. We’re suffering from depth deprivation. What’s regrettable is that God’s unexplainable oneness with us is hidden in the depths over which we’re skimming. 

Choosing a Contemplative Path

James Finley continues to reflect on how, once we notice the “fire within,” we can commit to the life-changing practice of attending to it. 

Once we acknowledge this “depth deprivation,” we get an insight into life. The essential, that which is given to us in the metaphorical fire of this quiet oneness, never imposes itself on us, while the unessential is constantly imposing itself on us. We begin to wonder, “How can I learn not to get so caught up in the complexities of the day-to-day that I keep losing my sense of connectedness with this depth, this fire, which alone is ultimately real?” Thomas Merton says it beats in our very blood whether we want it to or not.  

It doesn’t lie in our power to make these insights happen, but here’s the key. We can freely choose to assume the stance that offers the least resistance to being overtaken by the fire that we cannot make happen. This is our daily rendezvous, and the key is that it’s personal. We have to find those acts, those persons, those modes of service, those moments of creative unfolding, those moments where we feel something is being asked of us….  

When I was in the monastery, the whole monastic life was carefully designed to protect us from distractions and enable us to experience what I’m talking about. But the world we live in isn’t like that, so we have to create a contemplative culture in our heart. We must vow to ourselves: I will not play the cynic. I will not break faith with my awakened heart. I know that in my most childlike hour, the cutting edge of the pain, the sweetness of the glance, the smell of the flower, I was graced by what transcends and permeates every moment of my life.  

Therefore, we want to set aside a quiet time of availability to this. We have to stay with it. We have to be patient and be calm. We have to be receptively open to this way of being. And at the end of each rendezvous with the deeper place, we ask for the grace not to break the thread of that sensitivity as we go through the rest of our day. Although the thread breaks many times from our end, it never breaks from God’s end….  

We don’t live in a monastery but out here in the world, and I think that’s what contemplative programs like the Living School are about. I think it’s what the Daily Meditations are about. It’s what centering prayer is about. We have to look for the thread of sensitivity to such insights and decide that we’re going to live this way. It’s a kind of obediential fidelity that nobody can see but it matters more than everything. We try to live out of it with integrity with people because it changes the way we see everybody. Everyone’s an infinitely loved, broken person in a fleeting, often not-so-fair, gorgeous, lovely, unexplainable world.  

The Lord had given the Israelites extensive instructions about the proper way to honor, worship, and obey him. In fact, the entire structure of Israelite culture and law was shaped by their covenant with YHWH, and foreigners from pagan lands were invited to join them in this way of life. But after giving his allegiance to YHWH alone, Naaman was not able to say in Israel. He was returning to Syria where he would be immersed in a pagan society where no one shared his devotion to Israel’s God.This is a dilemma worth exploring because it’s not unlike our situation as followers of Jesus in an increasingly post-Christian, post-religious culture. How do we navigate giving our total allegiance to Jesus Christ while living among, working with, and serving neighbors who do not share our faith, and very often celebrate values and behaviors directly opposed by Christian doctrine?First, we must recognize that Naaman’s devotion to Israel’s God was real. He even asked to take dirt from Israel back to Syria in order to build a proper altar to YHWH. But the Lord had given no instructions about how to properly worship and honor him in any context outside of Israel, and certainly not in a foreign land devoted to idols and pagan gods. Naaman feared the sincerity of his vow would be questioned, and his worship of the Lord rejected, because of his obligations to his non-Israelite neighbors and king. Therefore, Naaman explained his dilemma to Elisha and asked for understanding.Naaman said, “When my master [Syria’s king] enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.”Biblical scholars don’t all agree on the exact meaning of the phrase “leaning on my arm.” Some argue the king of Syria was old and weak, and he would literally lean on Naaman’s arm in order to bow in worship. In this interpretation, Naaman would have no active role in the worship of a pagan god. He was just physically helping an old man kneel. Others say “leaning on my arm” is an idiom meaning Naaman was the king’s right-hand man. In this case, as a top-ranking government official, Naaman would have a role in official state functions—including the honoring of Syria’s gods alongside the king.In either case, Naaman was telling Elisha that when he returned to Syria his presence in the temple of a pagan god would be required, and in some way—either passively or actively—he would be assisting others in their worship of a god other than YHWH. Despite how this may appear, he wanted to assure Elisha that his actions should not be misunderstood as his own act of worship, because Naaman’s loyalty belonged to Israel’s God. In response, Elisha gave a simple, stunning reply: “Go in peace.”It’s difficult to imagine Elisha giving such a pardon to an Israelite, or even to a convert like Naaman who remained in Israel. God’s law was abundantly clear—idolatry and the worship of other gods was absolutely forbidden. According to God’s covenant, there was no reason for a pagan temple to ever exist anywhere in Israel, let alone for an Israelite to enter it and assist others in their worship. Therefore, for someone to request a pardon like Naaman does would have been absurd. And yet Elisha grants it anyway.Naaman represented an unprecedented case; a situation that the Torah never addressed or imagined—a foreigner, living in an unholy land, devoted to the worship of Israel’s God. Elisha’s blessing of Naaman’s request is a reminder that the Old Testament law, although God-given, good, and full of wisdom, is not comprehensive and does not anticipate every possible scenario. It speaks about how to organize an ancient, theocratic community where everyone is devoted to the Lord, and not to a modern, pluralistic community where very few are committed to God’s ways.In the coming days, we’ll look more closely at Naaman’s request, and what wisdom it may offer for how we may both give our full allegiance to Jesus Christ while loving and serving our neighbors who do not. DAILY SCRIPTURE JOHN 17:13-19  2 KINGS 5:1-27 WEEKLY PRAYER from Thomas Aquinas (1225 -1275) Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no selfish desires may drag downwards; give us an unconquered heart, which no troubles can wear out; give us an upright heart, which no unworthy ambitions may tempt aside. Give us also, O Lord our God, understanding to know you, perseverance to seek you, wisdom to find you, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Father Richard describes how it’s possible to experience resurrection before we die: 

We don’t need to wait for death to experience resurrection. We can begin resurrection today by living connected to God. Resurrection happens every time we love someone even though they were not very loving to us. At that moment we have been brought to new life. Every time we decide to trust and begin again, even after repeated failures, at that moment we’ve been resurrected. Every time we refuse to become negative, cynical, hopeless, we have experienced the Risen Christ. We don’t have to wait for it later. Resurrection is always possible now.  

The resurrection is not Jesus’ private miracle; it’s the new shape of reality. It’s the new shape of the world. It’s filled with grace. It’s filled with possibility. It’s filled with newness.  

The resurrection is not a miracle story to prove the divinity of Christ, something that makes him the winner. It’s a storyline that allows us all to be winners. ALL! No exceptions! There’s no eternal death for anybody: ALL are invited to draw upon this infinite Source, this infinite Mystery, this infinite Love, this infinite Possibility. Spiritually speaking, we live in a world of abundance, of infinity. But most of us walk around as if it were not true, operating in a world of scarcity where there’s never enough. There’s not enough for me, there’s not enough for you, there’s not enough for everybody.  

And so we hoard it—Spirit, Love, Life—to ourselves. We hoard grace, we hoard mercy. We don’t allow ourselves to be conduits through which it pours into the world. Truly, the only way we can hold onto grace, mercy, love, joy—any spiritual gift—is to give them away consciously and intentionally. Once we stop acting as a conduit, we lose them ourselves. That’s why there are so many sad, bitter, and angry people. Disconnected from God, we choose death. We ourselves contribute to negativity, cynicism, anger, and even to the oppression of other races and religions. In that state, it’s always other people who are wrong.  

In a homily from the second century of the church offered on Holy Saturday, this is what we hear Jesus say: 

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell [usually a hell of our own making —RR]. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. [1] 

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Jesus Calling: April 5th
    Let Me fill you with My Love, Joy, and Peace. There are Glory-gifts, flowing from my living Presence. Though you are an earthen vessel, I designed you to be filled with heavenly contents. Your weakness is not a deterrent to being filled with My Spirit; on the contrary, it provides an opportunity for My Power to shine forth more brightly.
    As you go through this day, trust Me to provide the strength that you need moment by moment. Don’t waste energy wondering whether you are adequate for today’s journey. My Spirit within you is more than sufficient to handle whatever this day may bring. That is the basis for your confidence! In quietness (spending time alone with Me) and confident trust (relying on My sufficiency) is your strength.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

2nd Corinthians 4:7 (NIV)
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

Isaiah 30:15 (NIV)
15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
    in quietness and trust is your strength,
    but you would have none of it.
Additional insight regarding Isaiah 30:15: God warned Judah that turning to Egypt and other nations for military might could not save them. Only God could do that. They must wait for him “in quietness and confidence.” No amount of fast-talking or hasty activity could speed up God’s grand design. We have nothing to say to God but thank you. Salvation comes from God alone. Because he has saved us, we can trust him and be peacefully confident that he will give us the strength to face our difficulties. We should lay aside our well-laid plans and allow him to act.



Today’s Prayer:

Dear Lord, fill me with Your love, joy, and peace today and all days. Though I am but a vessel of clay, let Your glory shine through me. Strengthen me with Your Spirit moment by moment, day by day, for in my weakness, Your power is made perfect. Help me trust in Your sufficiency, finding strength in quiet communion with You. In your Son’s perfect name, Amen.

Wake up from your sleep,  
rise from the dead,  
and Christ will shine on you.  
—Ephesians 5:14, Jerusalem Bible  

Father Richard reflects on the presence of light at the resurrection: 

At the resurrection, Jesus was revealed as the eternal and deathless Christ in embodied form. Basically, one circumscribed body of Jesus morphed into ubiquitous Light. Light is perhaps the best metaphor for Christ or God.  Anything exposed by the light will be illuminated and anything illuminated turns into light (Ephesians 5:13–14). 

During the first six centuries of Christianity, the moment of Jesus’ resurrection was mostly deemed unpaintable or uncarvable. [1] The event is not even directly described in the New Testament. All we’re given are the aftermath stories—stunned guards, seated angels, visiting women, and other resurrections: “The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of those who had fallen asleep were raised up” (see Matthew 27:51–53). Note how resurrection was already corporately understood in this telling verse. 

Most of us, if we are paying attention, also have such resurrection moments in the middle of our lives, when “the veil parts” now and then. Jesus says, “Believe in the light so that you also may become children of the light” (John 12:36), letting us know that we participate in the same mystery, and he is here to aid the process. [2] 

Episcopal priest Becca Stevens writes of the hopeful message of the dawn’s light: 

The orange globe peeks above the horizon in bursts of resurrection each morning…. We can walk with the sunrise preaching, “Walk with hope in faith because love lives.” It’s not that we are more faithful than we are in the dark of night; it’s just that our pace is lighter. This translucent moment of clarity and hope is possible each day we do our work under that rising yellow force, or walk down a path at dawn humming a love song whose words are rising from our hearts…. When we walk with this pace, we have the shadow of the sun before us like a benediction with an aftertaste of joy that is true gratitude for every day we have been given….   

Sunrise calls women with grieving hearts to sing; it enables priests to be present for decades at the same altar, and paints each morning in colors so tender they turn stone hearts to flesh. Light means that we can live in hope, dedicated to justice and truth, knowing the light will never leave us. The light is ours for the beholding and allows us to make our song even at our own Easter morning, “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.”…   Sunrise in the story of Easter is not just a time of day; it is a state of the heart. Sunrise is the space where nighttime fears move aside for hope, where we feel peace about our mortality in the scope of the universal truth that love abides and where we feel light crest the dark horizons of hearts we have kept barricaded. [3]  

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

I meet you in the stillness of your soul. It is there that I seek to commune with you. A person who is open to My Presence is exceedingly precious to Me. My eyes search to and fro throughout the earth, looking for one whose heart is seeking Me. I see you trying to find Me; our mutual search results in joyful fulfillment.
    Stillness of soul is increasingly rare in this world addicted to speed and noise. I am pleased with your desire to create space where you and I can meet. Don’t be discouraged by the difficulty of achieving this goal. I monitor all your efforts and am blessed by each of your attempts to seek My Face.

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 
Zechariah 2:13 (NIV)
13 Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.”

2nd Chronicles 16:9 (NIV)
9 For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war.”
Psalm 23:2-3 (NIV)
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.

Today’s Prayer:

Lord Jesus, in the quiet depths of my soul, I seek Your presence. Amidst life’s noise and haste, help me carve out moments of stillness to commune with You and You alone. Strengthen my heart as I strive to seek Your face. Guide me to green pastures and quiet waters, refreshing my soul and leading me in Your ways. Amen.

Father Richard writes of resurrection as an inherent aspect of incarnation:  

We all want resurrection in some form. Jesus’ resurrection is a potent, focused, and compelling statement about what God is still and forever doing with the universe and with humanity. Science strongly confirms this statement using its own terms: metamorphosis, condensation, evaporation, seasonal changes, and the life cycles of everything from butterflies to stars. The natural world is constantly dying and being reborn in different forms. God appears to be resurrecting everything all the time and everywhere. It is not something to “believe in” as much as it is something to observe and be taught by.  

I choose to believe in Jesus’ bodily resurrection because it localizes the whole Mystery in this material and earthly world and in our own bodies too—the only world we know and the world that God created and loves and in which God chose to incarnate. (Read all of 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul keeps saying this in many ways.) [1] 

Theologian Elizabeth Johnson considers the embodied nature of Jesus’ resurrection:  

Given the dualism [regarding body and spirit] that remains in Christian thinking, it is important to emphasize that [the resurrection] is not simply a case of the immortality of the soul. Jesus does not shuck off his bodiliness like a suit of clothes and rise heavenward, so to speak, as a purely spiritual being. Resurrection affirms new life of the whole enfleshed person Jesus, transfigured beyond death. In a deeply material way, the Easter appearances disclose the divine depth-dimension undergirding all flesh, which opens novel possibilities for the body itself….  

The resurrection starts on earth with Jesus dead and buried, and ends up in God with Jesus the Living One transformed by the power of the Spirit. Alive in God, his presence is no longer bound by earth’s limits but partakes of the omnipresence of God’s own love. Christ is now present in word and sacrament and wherever two or three gather in his name. True to the pattern of his ministry, he also approaches, mysteriously revealed and concealed, in the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the homeless, those in prison, the very least of those in need. Ultimately, through the power of the Spirit, Jesus is with the whole community of disciples, indeed with the whole community of creation, through every hour, until the end of time. Is this true? All explanations aside, it has to be a lived truth, seen in the lives of those who are participants in Christ’s ongoing work in the world. [2] 

Richard concludes: 

If the original divine incarnation was and is true, then resurrection is both inevitable and irreversible. If the Big Bang was the external starting point of the eternal Christ Mystery, then we know this eternal logos is leading creation somewhere good, and the universe is not chaotic or meaningless. Alpha and Omega are in fact one and the same. [3] ====================

Naaman asked to carry dirt from Israel back to his home in Syria because, like most ancient people, he believed that gods could only be properly worshipped in their own land. Therefore, to fulfill his vow to only worship the God of Israel, Naaman assumed he needed to take a small bit of Israel with him.In his book about pagan beliefs, Strange Religion, New Testament scholar Nijay Gupta elaborated on this territorial assumption. “Sure, you could pray anywhere and everywhere, but you couldn’t really be sure that your message was going to get through. It was best to find a spiritual hot spot, as it were.” These “hot spots” included temples, altars, and other sacred sites. In Naaman’s case, he thought having dirt from Israel would increase the likelihood that Israel’s God would accept his worship.This emphasis on sacred “hot spots” remained a common belief in the ancient world through the time of the Roman Empire and until the emergence of Christianity. The followers of Jesus were odd for many reasons, but chief among them was the mobility of their worship. Unlike every other religious sect, the Christians had no temples, no altars, no monuments, or idols. Instead, they worshiped and prayed in homes, along rivers, or anyplace where two or three could gather. As Gupta says: “The Christians had this crazy idea: you could connect [with God] anywhere at any time. No one place was geographically required or inherently better. It was as if they had moved from a landline to a mobile phone.”Gupta’s metaphor is helpful. Some of us are old enough to remember phone booths and wired telephones. In college, for example, I would pull the phone cord from my dorm room into the hallway and shut the door so I could talk to my girlfriend without my roommate listening. In a sense, that’s what Naaman was doing by taking soil from Israel to Syria. The dirt was his landline to communicate to Israel’s God—literally. Most religious traditions—both ancient and modern—still employ this approach to spirituality by insisting certain places and times are more sacred. And it is the duty of the devout to rearrange their circumstances in order to connect with God in one of these locations.New Testament spirituality is different. The presence of the Holy Spirit within each person redeemed by Jesus essentially “cuts the cord.” Instead, Christian spirituality functions more like a mobile phone rather than a landline because communion with God may occur anytime, anywhere. This unlimited, unmediated, and unstationary form of religion was seen as dangerous to the established norms of ancient Roman society, and it remains threatening to religious leaders today. After all, a faith that does not need pagan temples, priests, or offerings does not require Christian temples, priests, or offerings either. DAILY SCRIPTURE JOHN 4:19-24  2 KINGS 5:1-27 WEEKLY PRAYERHippolytus of Rome (190 – 236)Christ is risen: The world below lies desolate. Christ is risen: The spirits of evil are fallen. Christ is risen: The angels of God are rejoicing. Christ is risen: The tombs of the dead are empty. Christ is risen indeed from the dead, the first of the sleepers. Glory and power are his forever and ever. Amen.

Author Debie Thomas describes why our belief in Jesus’ resurrection matters:   

I believe that the historic creed I profess with countless other Christians on Sunday mornings tells me something essential and true: we believe in “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” If we abandon this belief, we’ll do so to our impoverishment and our peril.  

Why do I feel this way?… We live in a world marred by too many mass shootings to count, daily headlines of war, a rapidly worsening climate, increasing economic inequality, ongoing racist violence, and a second global pandemic of mental illness and anguish.  

In the face of all this, I need to know that a better world is not just possible but assured. I need to trust that God’s salvation encompasses not only those of us who enjoy fairly comfortable lives here on earth but also those who will not experience the salvific love, vindication, healing, and justice of God in this life.  

In other words, I believe in heaven because I believe in God’s salvation for the children who have died and will die in elementary school classrooms because the United States worships guns. For the millions around the world who died of the coronavirus before vaccines were developed. For Black, brown, Indigenous, gay, and transgender Americans who live in perpetual fear of violence and recrimination on our streets. For the young people who live under the shadow of mental illnesses that modern medicine can’t yet alleviate. For casualties of war around the world. For people in chronic pain….  

For all these people … I need to know that, while we have every obligation to alleviate suffering in this world, the salvation of God’s precious children does not, finally, depend upon our clumsy efforts.…  

I worry [that] … if Christians lose our belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, we will also lose the ferocity of our hope, the holy restlessness that leads us to action, the commitment to justice that fuels our prophetic lament, solidarity, resilience, and courage. After all, how will we pray for God’s kingdom to come, and how will we credibly usher in that kingdom in whatever small ways we can here and now, if we don’t believe in its ultimate fulfillment? [1]  

Thomas names the paradox of Jesus’ resurrection and continued woundedness:  

If the resurrection really is the best good news that has ever hit the planet, then its goodness doesn’t depend on us.… The tomb is empty. Death is vanquished. Jesus lives. Period. We are not in charge of Easter; God is.  

In fact, Jesus’s own resurrected body speaks to the importance of lament in the midst of joy. Even in the most triumphant story ever told in Scripture or history, scars remain (John 20:27)…. Resurrection is a way forward from the grave that honors the scars we carry, helping us to bear them with resilience and hope. [2]  ===================

The Bible contains many unexpected conversion stories. There’s Saul’s famous encounter with the risen Jesus while on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians. The first pagan convert was an unlikely Roman soldier named Cornelius who received the Holy Spirit along with his entire household. And many find hope in the story about the thief crucified next to Jesus who was welcomed into paradise. These stories, and many more, all have one thing in common. They are all found in the New Testament. Conversion stories are exceptionally rare in the Old Testament, although there are a few examples of outsiders committing themselves to Israel’s God—Rahab, Ruth, and Naaman are the most cited stories. But even in this very small group, Naaman’s conversion is especially odd.Like Naaman, Rahab and Ruth were non-Israelites who gave their allegiance to YHWH. But unlike Naaman, these two women lived within Israel and among God’s people. In a way, their religious conversions were a byproduct of their cultural assimilation. Rahab and Ruth were absorbed into Israel’s covenant community, so it made sense for them to worship Israel’s God. But that was not true for Naaman. He was not incorporated into God’s covenant community, and he would not live among God’s people. He had to return to Syria where no one worshipped Israel’s God and no one obeyed the commands of Israel’s law. Despite all of this, Naaman still gave his allegiance to YHWH and vowed to never worship any other deity. For this reason, Naaman’s conversion may be the most remarkable in the entire Bible. Unlike any other Old Testament character, Naaman was willing to defy the norms of his homeland and the values of his community by giving his complete allegiance to a foreign God. This was, quite simply, unheard of.The sincerity of Naaman’s commitment is revealed by his request for dirt in verse 17. It was commonly believed in the ancient Near East that gods were territorial. Deities were linked to specific lands, and they were served by the people in those lands. Therefore, to properly worship a god required offering sacrifices on the land belonging to that god. Because Naaman could not remain in the land to worship Israel’s God, he asked to take a bit of the land with him presumably to build an altar upon it. In an unholy land devoted to false gods, Naaman would establish a tiny oasis of holy ground for the true God. DAILY SCRIPTURE RUTH 1:16-18  2 KINGS 5:1-27 WEEKLY PRAYER. Hippolytus of Rome (190 – 236)Christ is risen: The world below lies desolate. Christ is risen: The spirits of evil are fallen. Christ is risen: The angels of God are rejoicing. Christ is risen: The tombs of the dead are empty. Christ is risen indeed from the dead, the first of the sleepers. Glory and power are his forever and ever. Amen.

Richard Rohr identifies death and resurrection as the universal pattern of Reality: 

Christianity—as well as Buddhism, other religions, and nature-based systems—suggests that the pattern of transformation, the pattern that connects, the life that Reality offers us is not death avoided, but always death transformed. In other words, the only trustworthy pattern of spiritual transformation is death and resurrection. Christians learn to submit to trials because Jesus told us that we must “carry the cross” with him (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 14:27). Buddhists do it because the Buddha very directly said that “life is suffering.” Buddhism teaches us how to skillfully discern the source of suffering, detach from our expectations and resentments, and let go of illusion. 

Death and life are two sides of the same coin; we cannot have one without the other. Each time we choose to surrender, each time we trust the dying, our faith is led to a deeper level, and we discover a Larger Self underneath. We decide not to push to the front of the line, and something much better happens in the back of the line. We let go of narcissistic anger, and we find that we start feeling much happier. We surrender our need to control our partner, and finally the relationship blossoms. Yet each time it is a choice—and each time it is a kind of dying. It seems we only know what life is when we know what death is. 

The mystics and great saints were those who had learned to trust and allow this pattern, and often said in effect, “What did I ever lose by dying?” Or try Paul’s famous one-liner: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Now even scientific studies reveal the same universal pattern. Things change and grow by dying to their present state, but each time it is a risk. We always wonder, “Will it work this time?” So many academic disciplines are coming together, each in its own way, to say there’s a constant movement of loss and renewal at work in this world at every level. It seems to be the pattern of all growth and evolution. To be alive means to surrender to this inevitable flow. It’s the same pattern in every atom, every human relationship, and in every galaxy. Indigenous peoples, Hindu gurus, Buddha, Moses, Muhammad, and Jesus all saw it clearly in human history and named it as a kind of “necessary dying.” 

If this pattern is true, it has been true all the time and everywhere. Such seeing did not just start two thousand years ago. All of us have to learn to let go of something smaller so something bigger can happen. But that’s not a religion—it’s highly visible truth. It is the Way Reality Works. 

Resurrection Is Assured

Richard Rohr explains how the resurrection offers us hope, especially in challenging times: 

I often wonder why so much of human life seems so futile, so tragic, so short, and so sad. If Christ is risen, why do people die before they begin to truly live? Why has there been nonstop war? Why are so many people imprisoned unjustly? Why are the poor oppressed? Why do we destroy so many of our relationships? If Christ is risen, why is there so much suffering? What is God up to? It really doesn’t make any logical sense. Is the resurrection something that just happened once, in his body, but not in ours? 

I believe the resurrection of Christ is saying that the final judgment has already happened. It’s nothing we need to fear. It’s nothing we need to avoid or deny. God’s final judgment is that God will have the last word! Easter reveals that there are no dead ends; ultimately, nothing is going to end in tragedy and crucifixion. Of course we look around us, at history and at life in its daily moments and it seems, “No, no, that isn’t true.” And yet, ever and again, here and there, more than we suspect, new life breaks through for those who are willing to see and to cooperate with this universal mystery of resurrection. 

We’re so lucky in my part of the world that Easter coincides with springtime. If this applies to you, I hope you’re going out and seeing the leaves and the flowers being reborn after months of winter. I went out early this morning to see the Easter sunrise. Sure enough, the sun rose as it always does and peeked over the horizon, just between two mountains. It appeared not so much like a sunrise but as a groundswell. The light was coming from the earth. It was coming from the world we live in. It was coming not from the top, but from the bottom. It seemed to say that even all of this which looks muddy and material, even all of this which looks so ordinary and dying, will be reborn. 

Easter is the feast of hope. This is the feast that says God will have the last word and that God’s final judgment is resurrection. God will turn all that we maim and destroy and hurt and punish into life and beauty. 

What the resurrection reveals more than anything else is that love is stronger than death. Jesus walks the way of death with love, and what it becomes is not death but life. Surprise of surprises! It doesn’t fit any logical explanation. Yet this is the mystery: that nothing dies forever, and that all that has died will be reborn in love.  

So to be a Christian is to be inevitably and forever a person of hope. God in Christ is saying this is what will last: my life and my love will always and forever have the final word.

 ===== =========

At the beginning of the chapter, Naaman is introduced as “a great man.” He was at the pinnacle of social and political power in Syria, honored even by the king. Naaman displayed his status throughout the first half of the story. He traveled with a caravan of servants—the ancient world’s version of a celebrity entourage—and he made arrogant demands of Elisha. He behaved like a powerful, entitled, and important man.But after encountering the God of Israel everything changed. In verses 17-18, Naaman refers to himself four times as Elisha’s “servant.” The great man had been brought low. Naaman’s new, humble status is symbolized by his request to take two mules worth of dirt back to Syria. Unlike the precious gold and silver carried by Naaman’s caravan, dirt was the most ordinary and abundant commodity imaginable. Why did he need to ask Elisha’s permission to take some?Again, this detail is a dramatic reversal from what we learned about Naaman at the beginning of the story. As the leader of Syria’s army, Naaman would frequently lead raids into Israel and plunder whatever he desired, including Israel’s people. (Remember, the servant girl who told Naaman about the existence of a prophet who could heal him had been captured from Israel during one of these raids.) In the ancient Near East, the domination of Syria and the subjugation of Israel was understood to be more than a sign of military strength. It was also an indication that Syria’s gods were mightier than Israel’s. It was a kind of Darwinian spirituality where stronger deities rightfully ruled over the weaker, and therefore the nations with stronger gods had every right to plunder the nations with weaker gods. In Naaman’s mind, he and his army took from Israel whatever they wanted because it was their pagan god-given right.But then he encountered Israel’s God and all of Naaman’s assumptions were shattered. He discovered that Israel’s God was not weak. In fact, he was far more powerful, more uncontrollable, more dangerous, and yet more gracious than any god he’d ever known. In the presence of Israel’s God, the great man from Syria was brought low. So low, in fact, that he humbly asks permission to remove the mere dirt from the land that belongs to Israel’s God. At that moment, I wonder if Naaman thought about all he had carried away from Israel without asking. Did his mind begin to inventory the herds of animals, grain, pottery, and weapons? The fine garments, wares, artwork, and scrolls? The gold, silver, and the real wealth of Israel, its people—the children he had enslaved and those his armies had killed? Did Naaman, for the first time, understand the depth of his offenses against Israel’s God? And yet, Naaman must have marveled, that Israel’s God had chosen to cleanse him anyway.But it wasn’t merely Naaman’s skin that God had healed. It was his pride. The great man from Syria, arrogant and boastful, entitled and presumptuous, was now a mere servant of Israel’s God who alone is great. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 23:2–12  2 KINGS 5:1-27 WEEKLY PRAYER. Hippolytus of Rome (190 – 236) Christ is risen: The world below lies desolate. Christ is risen: The spirits of evil are fallen. Christ is risen: The angels of God are rejoicing. Christ is risen: The tombs of the dead are empty. Christ is risen indeed from the dead, the first of the sleepers. Glory and power are his forever and ever. Amen.

Brian McLaren invites us to an imaginative experience of the painful reality of scapegoating that occurred on Good Friday: 

Let’s imagine ourselves with the disciples just before three o’clock on this Friday afternoon. A few of us have come together to talk about what has happened over the last twenty-four hours….  

Why was there no other way? Why did this good man—the best we have ever known, the best we have ever imagined—have to face torture and execution as if he were some evil monster?  

As the hours drag on from noon to nearly three o’clock, we imagine many reasons…. 

Jesus has told us again and again that God is different from our assumptions. We’ve assumed that God was righteous and pure in a way that makes God hate the unrighteous and impure. But Jesus has told us that God is pure love, so overflowing in goodness that God pours out compassion on the pure and impure alike. He not only has told us of God’s unbounded compassion—he has embodied it every day as we have walked this road with him. In the way he has sat at table with everyone, in the way he has never been afraid to be called a “friend of sinners,” in the way he has touched untouchables and refused to condemn even the most notorious of sinners, he has embodied for us a very different vision of what God is like….  

If Jesus is showing us something so radical about God, what is he telling us about ourselves—about human beings and our social and religious institutions? What does it mean when our political leaders and our religious leaders come together to mock and torture and kill God’s messenger?… Is this the only way religions and governments maintain order—by threatening us with pain, shame, and death if we don’t comply? And is this how they unify us—by turning us into a mob that comes together in its shared hatred of the latest failure, loser, rebel, criminal, outcast … or prophet?… What kind of world have we made? What kind of people have we become?… 

In the middle of the afternoon … even from this distance, we can hear Jesus, “Father, forgive them!” he shouts. “For they don’t know what they are doing.” 

Forgive them? Forgive us?   

Our thoughts bring us again to the garden last night, when Jesus asked if there could be any other way. And now it seems clear. There could be no other way to show us what God is truly like. God is not revealed in killing and conquest … in violence and hate. God is revealed in this crucified man—giving of himself to the very last breath, giving and forgiving.  

And there could be no other way to show us what we are truly like. We do not know what we are doing, indeed.  

If God is like this, and if we are like this … everything must change.  

____________________________________________________

Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Stop trying to work things out before their times have come. Accept the limitations of living one day at a time. When something comes to your attention, ask Me whether or not it is part of today’s agenda. If it isn’t, release it into My care and go on about today’s duties. When you follow this practice, there will be a beautiful simplicity about your life: a time for everything, and everything in its time.
    A life lived close to Me is not complicated or cluttered. When your focus is on My Presence, many things that once troubled you lose their power over you. Though the world around you is messy and confusing, remember that I have overcome the world and in Me you may have Peace.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NLT)
A Time for Everything
3 For everything there is a season,
    a time for every activity under heaven.

John 16:33 (NLT)
33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Today’s Prayer:

Dear Jesus,

Help us to trust in Your timing and embrace the simplicity of living one day at a time. Grant us the wisdom to discern what truly matters today and release the rest of our worries and concerns into Your care.

As we draw near to You, may our lives find clarity and peace amidst the world’s chaos. Let us focus on Your presence, knowing that You have overcome the world and given us peace that surpasses all human understanding.

Guide us, Lord, to align our hearts with Your perfect timing and to find contentment in Your plan for each moment. Your way is better than any way we could imagine for ourselves. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.