My Easter Reflections
As a child growing up, I always struggled at Easter time. The only thing I liked about Easter was the treasure hunt my mom would create for us, following clues throughout the house to find our treats. I did not like the Easter story I heard at church. It always felt very dark and “off” to me. I remember wanting to ask the grown-ups at church, “Are you sure you got the story right?” but I was far too shy for that. It deeply troubled me that I was to love a god that believed the only way to fix humans was to send his son to the world with a plan for him to be killed for our sins. Really? And God was supposed to be a loving god?
What Is The True Meaning of The Easter Story?
Fast forward to my adulthood, and I still did not like the traditional Christian interpretation of Easter. As I packed my young children up to take them to church, I struggled to know how I would explain Easter to them without troubling them as much as I was troubled.
I remember by the time I hit my 30’s I finally got brave enough to start asking Christian leaders why God chose that plan. Are there not other ways he could have “wiped our slates clean” so to speak? Why did Jesus need to be killed so our spirits could live on in heaven? Up until his death did the spirit die with the body? At the time we had a son and I remember thinking how troubling it would be if my husband decided that the only way the people in the world could have everlasting life is if we made a plan for our son to be killed. Not the picture of an ideal father. After asking several leaders, not one could offer me an answer about the Easter story that put my mind and heart at ease. In fact, I remember some looking at me with discomfort and one minister in particular with surprise that I would even question God’s plan.
Yup, I was still not enjoying the Easter story.
Easter Sunday
On April 5, 2004, the Monday before Easter, our third child, Olivia was born. It was not long after her birth that she went into respiratory distress and had to be airlifted by helicopter to London hospital, the closest hospital that had an available opening in their neonatal ICU. She was hooked up to numerous machines, including a respirator to help her infected lungs function.
My husband and I spent several days uncertain of Olivia’s future as Olivia lived in an incubator, in isolation, where glass walls barricaded us from holding her.
While Olivia was in London hospital, Scott and I lived at Ronald McDonald House. I remember being so grateful for the home-like space it offered us while away from and our 2 and 4 year old back home. It even had a “mother’s room” where I could go to sit quietly and comfortably to use the breast pump. I found that room very peaceful. In fact it was in that room where I experienced something that would change my perception of the Easter story forever.
Want to know what happened? Check out more of the details in this interview by Julia Flaquinti where she asks me how my conscious spiritual journey began:
Interview: How It All Began
So How Do I Interpret The Easter Story Now?
Since 2004, I have noticed that around Easter, there is often some sort of event in my life that offers me an opportunity to pull myself out of my painful thinking, my “crucifying thoughts” and open me up to “resurrecting my mind” to a new way of perceiving a challenging event in a way that brings me great peace.
What Is The Theological Definition of Sin?
During my journey of seeking understanding and peace, I met a spiritual leader who offered me a new interpretation of the word “sin” so often used in the Bible. We know the bible was not originally written in English. He explained that in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke to his disciples, the word sin referred to an archery term that meant “to miss the mark.” In other words, when we “sin”, we are not bad, we are simply believing thoughts that are “off the mark.” resulting in behaviours that are “off the mark” as well. Jesus came to teach us how to correct our aim, our thinking, so we can hit a “bulls-eye” and experience the thrill, the satisfaction, the peace that comes when we know we got it!
Another Easter Moment
In March 2014, we experienced a very traumatic dog biting incident involving our family dog, Max, and a young boy.
It happened just before Easter.
After Max’s mandatory quarantine was over, we had to decide if we would have him put down or not.
He was normally a loving, nonaggressive dog. After the incident, I realized that it was my error leaving a small child unsupervised with my dog. I had great empathy and pain for the young boy’s parents. I was certain I would have reacted much the same if it had been my son. It seemed to me that the parents, as well as many others, believed justice could only be served if Max was put down. “An eye for an eye” as the old saying goes. That old paradigm that Jesus came to invite us to release in our minds and replace it with The Golden Rule.
As Max laid on the veterinarian's table, I gently pet him, and with tears streaming down my face, I apologized over and over to him for my mistake. As I saw his eyes go from lovingly warm to cold stones, I had another “Easter moment.”
Mind Training
In Occult studies (ancient teachings) dogs symbolize our minds, our thinking. How well do you have your “dog” trained? In other words, how well do you have your mind trained? I found it so profound that my dog was the “instrument of sacrifice” in which to help me to stop mentally crucifying myself and to be open to resurrecting my mind to a new way of thinking. Rather than continually beating myself up with painful thoughts, I was given a vision, in that moment with Max, that I could train my mind, just the way we can train our dog. I could stay in my painful, “sinful” thinking, or I could receive a way of perceiving that would resurrect me to a place of everlasting peace.
I wish I could report that my mind has stayed in a place of peace ever since my final moments with Max. For anyone who knows me, clearly it has not. However what I can report, is that in each and every moment, I have learned that I can crucify myself, my family, my friends, my fellow human beings with my thoughts, or I can be open to receiving a perception that washes away my “off the mark” thinking. I can learn how to hit a bullseye and feel the undeniable “yes!” when I do. Like dog training, it is an ongoing process, which, fortunately, for me, requires less time and energy than it did when my mind was a “pup.”
Want to hear more on this story? You can watch the interview I had on my TV show Awakening Within (CHCH, Hamilton) with Animal Communicator and Medium, Claudia Hehr, where she offered me messages from my deceased dog, Max.
Hearing Messages From Your Pets Who Have Passed On with Animal Medium, Claudia Hehr
The Coronavirus: The Invitation
Now here we are in 2020. As the Coronavirus spreads throughout the globe, most of the world is in “quarantine”, most of the world living in their homes, like an incubator, living in “isolation”, moving about behind surgical masks and glass barricades. Without the hustle and bustle of our previously busy lives, we don’t have the endless distractions we once had. We now have countless hours to spend with our minds. For most, this is a painful jail sentence.
How quickly we can find ourselves in painful thinking with no peace in sight.
How quickly our minds can feel like an untrained puppy, being destructive and making mess after mess. The endless mental and physical mess surrounding many of us, seems impossible to manage.
How easy it is to feel like an innocent pet owner with an out of control puppy, that may require some sort of medication in order to calm down enough for us to experience any sort of peace.
How often do we find ourselves “crucifying” others for our pain and suffering, just the way many in the past crucified Spiritual Adepts who came to the planet to offer us messages of peace and love? Spiritual Leaders who came to teach us how we can live in harmony with ourselves, with others, with the fellow creatures that walk this planet with us, and with nature.
In this time of isolation, will you continue to look outwards for people to blame for your suffering? Will you mentally and verbally continually crucify the “sins” of others?
During this Easter, will you stay trapped in your mental incubator? Or will you crack out of your “egg shell” to birth a new way of living? Will you allow the sweet “bunny” within to offer you all the comfort and abundance it has to offer?
Will you use this time of pause, to train your brain, to free yourself of sinful thinking and actions towards yourself and your fellow human beings? Will you open your heart during this Eastertide, no matter what your spiritual path, to the resurrecting of your mind in order to receive everlasting, eternal peace? Will you release your fearful mind and angered heart and from here on, take action with a peaceful mind and a heart filled with love?
The choice is ours.
In the name of all the Spiritual Adepts, both past and present, I pray… Amen.
Wishing you many Happy Easter moments!