Rebirth

By denouncing most everything Catholic, I wake up Easter Sunday morning and question how to even celebrate this holiday with authenticity.  It is the holiest of days (at least that is what I remember from a bazillion years of Catholic School) and this might be why I’m feeling so (Catholic) guilty and hypocritical.   Admittedly even worse, I feel like I’m missing out on something. Unlike Christmas, which is so commercialized (and we go HARD at Christmas),  I feel almost unworthy of celebrating this holiday. To compound the Catholic guilt, I’m feeling as though I’m not respecting Jesus and His Holiness!  UGH! How can this former cafeteria Catholic revel in the sanctity of this most holy of days and justify any type of celebration?

When I went grocery shopping last week, noticing all of the Easter treats, I realized I was supposed to come up with a special meal.  Remember, Julie, it’s a holy day.  Bake a ham, make mashed potatoes, remember how special Mom used to make it.   Let’s be real here, though.  My mother was way more superstitious than religious.  Easter was a beautiful excuse to bring us together and earn some heaven brownie points.  As we grew up, had families of our own and created our own traditions,  Easter morphed from most-holy to most-fun holiday. The Easter Bunny sucked at hiding eggs until my former marine showed up, making our egg hunts last hours including trips into culverts, fishing in our fish tank or litter box and rethinking the suspiciously placed half-eaten yogurt on the counter.  Brock was born on Good Friday and we presented him to the kids in a basket Easter morning when we came home. Our grown children still talk about these memories and do their best to recreate them for their friends on Easter. Special for sure but not for the reasons it should be.  So yes, Easter has been fun, but holy?  Not so much.  So why celebrate it now?  Easter really hasn’t meant much to me in the past few years.  Yes, I said it.  I know, I probably shouldn’t have.  

Enter a friend from my past.  She was my yoga teacher and had emailed me recently about her diet lifestyle. I’ve deeply missed her.  She was the one who taught me the principle of “a practice” in yoga.  I thought when a yogi said “their practice” it was some spiritual thing they had going on with their space and their mat.  I didn’t feel worthy of calling my yoga time my practice.  She taught me it simply meant to practice and know the time spent on your mat is your time to strengthen your poses to the best of your ability, no one else’s.  I use this principle on a weekly basis in my coaching practice (hee-hee).  When we implement new practices in our lives, it builds character and your character builds your destiny.   Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice simply makes better-than-you-were and aren’t we striving for that most days?

So when, toward the end of her last email, she simply asked, “Are you ok?” she made me think. This felt very different than “How are you?”  It hit me deeper because I really had to answer the question.  

Am I ok?  Yes, I am ok.

Am I ok?  No, I am not ok. 

So which is it, ok or not ok?  

It depends. I told her I have grieved the loss of my mother so I know how this is supposed to go.  You wake up.  You take a ‘feeling’ inventory and can pretty much predict how your day could go if you don’t reel it in. If I’m trying to be better than I was, what will that look like today?  This time, I have to say, is much more challenging.  I feel broken open. I feel like I can't get my feet underneath me. I feel like I'm fully and completely at the mercy of what is or what will be.  I am out of control but not in a losing my mind kind of way, more like a feeling of free falling, relinquishing any control I thought I once had.  To put it in Elizabeth Lesser’s phrasing from Broken Open, I’m feeling as though I’m approaching Twice-Born: “whether through choice or calamity, this person goes into the woods, loses the straight way, makes mistakes, suffers loss and confronts that which needs to change within himself in order to live a more genuine radiant life.”   Yes, I’m feeling the inklings of Twice-Born and the changes that are coming are going to require some practice.  

So without the Catholic parameters, I have found new meaning on Easter Sunday.  My own resurrection will not happen today and certainly not over a weekend, but it’s the first day I’m feeling the possibility of it.  While I have never been more spiritually challenged, I have also never felt more spiritually open.  I know this will lead to an incredible amount of growth and knowing this on Easter Sunday seems serendipitously fateful. I am breathing new life into a holiday I felt less than worthy of celebrating as I embrace everything God. Whether you believe in Jesus’ resurrection or not, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is you believe, you believe you have the power within to be Twice-Born and overcome the challenges life presents.  Spiritual rebirth is coming for me and it is coming for you. I’m hopeful it is coming for most.  It will take a new kind of practice and we can figure this out together.  Practice will make us better than we were. Thank whomever you want.