It Will Be Alright

It is probably scandalous to admit, especially on Easter, that  I have always struggled with the likelihood of resurrection.  I have never been able to "just believe" it.  While I was in seminary, I had a professor who insisted that Jesus' resurrection was not a historic event.  Dr.Joseph Weber would point to the four Gospel accounts to back up his assertion that no one is reported seeing or in any way experiencing the actual resurrection.   If there are no personal accounts of what happened when the dead body of Jesus became alive, then it is not a part of recorded history.

As I continue in my Lent discipline of following Kathy Staudt's challenge What if it's All True, I again face my doubts.  I must insist that I see doubt as the refiners fire for faith, and I am in no way disparaging doubt.  But what if it is true, which is not about if the events are factual, but as Kathy notes, "(w)hat if the whole thing is a whole lot bigger than we thought?"

Mark Harris, an Episcopal priest in Lewes, Delaware and blogger at Preludium, describes a recent dream in his post: A dream: It will all be alright.  In his dream, he found himself in a room with anxious people, and realized he was in a gathering of people perplexed by the death of Jesus.

The feeling is that of a funeral parlor where a person had died unexpectedly or out of order. There is the anxious and questioning presence of a doubt – the doubt that there was meaning in this life and if in this life, in ours as well.  Very quickly, and without much contact with others in the room, I took on their anxious questioning.

And then someone entered the room who seemed to absorb all that anxiety, and without addressing the group as a whole,  and without even being a person of note ( I don’t have any sense of what he or she looked like, although I knew the presence of the person, as did everyone else), the person spoke and said,

“It will all be alright. Just as I said. It will be alright and what I promised will be true.”

I was positive it was Jesus, and that I was one of his friends and a follower and that I was meant to be there.

(I recommend reading the whole article and look at the block print that he created after the dream.)

Rev. Harris' description of a presence, a person, who absorbed the anxiety, spoke of reassurance and pointed them to the future seems very right to me.  As he notes, "At the same time I didn't see Jesus, or at least not to recognize him. But I knew he was there." 

That kind of knowing something is true, that kind of shift in perspective to seeing something or someone not previously seen or understood makes more sense to me than magical appearances and disappearances.  I have experienced times when a Presence has calmed my fears and released me from doubt. But those kinds of experiences are also impossible to describe or explain to someone else. 

So maybe in telling that story of people's experience of the resurrected Christ, as we all do when telling a story, the actual facts were rearranged, some dropped and a few bits added to make it better?  So, the story we have may not describe exactly the events, but does carry the essential truth of the experience?  That sounds like truth to me. 

As we sing together "Christ the Lord is risen to today!" this Sunday morning, I will be able to accept my doubt while also knowing that it is true:

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!

Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia!

 Bruce Calvin

 

What if it's All True?

Kathleen Staudt, in a recent essay at the Daily Episcopalian, invites us all to consider an alternative discipline during Lent.  She certainly gets my attention by challenging the skeptic in me, the part that doubts some, if not all, of those mysterious and miraculous things told in the Bible really happened. For example, did Jesus feed the thousands with just a few loaves of bread and fish?  Could he really cure the man blind from birth or the woman who simply touched his robe?  I have always struggled with believing those events occurred as they were recorded.

In What if it's all true, Kathy urges the skeptics like me to take a "time out from doubt."  She notes

Lent is a time to stretch our faith -- to live with these familiar stories, which we’ve called Good News. Take a break from questions about what may be “factual” or accurate and ask “What if it’s all true?”

She continues by exploring how that "what if" perspective might change what we hear from those stories, and new meanings that can be opened up. If I, or maybe you, can let go of the barriers created by skepticism, and accept the mysterious ways in which God seems to work, something may change within.

I am going to try doing this for the rest of the season of Lent. Anyone else feel called to try out "What if it's all true?"

Bruce Calvin

Trauma and Grace

I too am alternately mesmerized and repelled by the tragic news from Japan, which for me is intensely personal. In the past I have always associated Japan with experiences of grace, not tragedy. As a college student, I lived there for a year which profoundly shaped my life. Since then I have been blessed by over 50 years of close friendship with three generations of the Japanese family with whom I lived near Tokyo, visiting them in Japan several times (most recently last Easter with my daughter, for my Japanese goddaughter’s wedding celebration), and welcoming them when they visit us here. All the family is now well and safe following the earthquake and tsunami, thank God. But the continuing nuclear crisis causes ongoing anxiety and uncertainty.

Each day as I read the papers, listen to the news, and pray for Japan, I’ve been trying to imagine what it must be like for the thousands of people who in a single moment lost their homes and most or all of their possessions, and are now cold and hungry in shelters, fearing that nuclear fallout will be the next Plague to befall them. And I’ve wondered how they can not only survive physically but transcend these traumas emotionally and be able to move on with their lives.

So last week when a friend sent me a book called Trauma and Grace, it immediately became my Lenten reading. It was written by Dr. Serene Jones, President and Professor of Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. It is a series of essays written over about ten years in which she uses the lenses of trauma theory and theology to help her understand the impact of various kinds of severe trauma experienced by friends and students, and how individuals and communities can best support people who have experienced such trauma. I find the book compelling as I ponder the impact of multiple traumas on so many Japanese and look for glimpses of hope. What sort of resurrection might possibly emerge from such suffering? How might it come about? Jones helps me put my concerns and questions into a Biblical and theological context in ways I find illuminating. If you’re interested, the book is available on Amazon and other online bookstores.

Nancy Warren