Easter 2011

By James Donahue

There was a time during my deep Christian involvement, when Easter Sunday was a very special day. I understand the Christian heart on this day. I remember attending those sunrise services, thinking of the image of the Savior Jesus rising from his tomb and giving his followers hope of a glorious afterlife in a beautiful world far better than the one we now share.

It was an almost magical feeling that we shared during those Christian gatherings. Everybody packed in the church, dressed in their finest spring clothes. Some of the people attended the Easter service if it was the only time of the year they came to church.

As most readers of this web page must know, I have since wandered away from the Christian theology and now rest in an inner knowledge that all humans share the same light, or soul, and consequently we are not bound to call upon a god-spirit to enter our bodies and take over our thoughts before we can be assured of an afterlife.

Indeed, most of us have been on this planet for a very long time. We have lived many lives. If we can pull ourselves together and save the Mother Earth from going into self destruction, we may have many more lives yet ahead of us.

While I can no longer accept the Jesus resurrection story, or the promise that Jesus will soon return in the clouds to take only the true believers away in a “rapture” with him to that place called Heaven, I do not condemn the millions of people who continue to put their faith in this contemporary myth. It gives them comfort during increasingly troublesome times. Having faith in anything these days is probably better than living in total dissolution.

What I condemn is the fact that so many people have been caught up in the various forms of religiosity that currently dominate the minds of a majority of the humans on this planet, and worse, the belief systems place these groups . . . often entire nations . . . at odds with one another. Differences in religious conviction and even the theology within each of the religious systems, create wars and unrest. Christians and Moslems fight among themselves. They do war against one another. They follow a God of the Old Testament that advocated blood sacrifice, murder and warfare.

The enigma here is that the prophets Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, Krishna, Mithra and perhaps other who came before, all taught love and compassion for our fellow man. None of them advocated intolerance for those who do not share our faith . . . intolerance to a point of murder and warfare.

If we must follow and deify these great teachers, why must we also turn away from their doctrines and take up arms against one another? What is there to be gained by the destruction of the people that do not bow down to the same deity we have created for our own comfort?

Is it not time this Easter Sunday, 2011, to agree to lay down those armaments and chose, instead, to reach out to our neighbors in love? The Abba Father teaches us to look mentally within ourselves and turn on the light that exists within each cell. After a while, all of the cells within our bodies light up. Once our lights are on, we feel a tingling at the tips of our fingers. This is the power within.

Christian children sing “This Little Light of Mine.” Why would they be taught to sing about a light within if it did not exist? Even church leaders know at least subconsciously that the Abba Father’s story of the light within is correct.

Once we have our lights on, it is time to mentally reach out with that light, spreading light and love to everyone around us.

I have experimented with this little exercise while seated in a crowded store. It is amazing what happens once I began sending this energy outward to the people around me. Suddenly I noticed people began smiling and expressing personal joy in everything they did. It hit the children first, but soon the adults were feeling it.

Imagine what we could do if everyone in the world turned on their light at the same time.