Resurrection

At dinner last week, F. and I talked about death and how nobody really knows for sure what happens when we die. There’s no proof of an afterlife. There’s no proof of there not being one. God? That’s another debate. God created in man’s image is a truth, but the God outside of our own egoistic trappings is one that humanity has tried to understand for ages through art, science, philosophy and theology. We can prognosticate and hypothesize; we can extol different faiths that tell us of heaven and hell, of reincarnation, or that when we die we’re simply snuffed out like a candle and our consciousness dies with us. Who knows? It’s merely nescience that defies illumination. Only ones that have died before us know the truth and it’s in my dreams of my dead mother that I’ve been offered a glimpse of rebirth and resurrection of the spirit. These are dreams, though, but at least it’s something.

I’m scared of dying. I’m scared of not-being. I can say that energy is neither created nor destroyed; it’s a scientific fact. Nobody can create energy from nothing, well, maybe one – the Source, but that’s for another essay. If I’m made of energy, then my body’s lifeforce will transform and continue to exist in the universe because from the Big Bang, when the Universe decided to exist, we all come from that Source. We are stardust.

Ever since coming out of the proverbial closet, I’ve tried to be honest with myself. That was the last great lie I lived and I was finished with lies after that transformation of my consciousness. So if I’m to remain honest and true, then I must say that I fear death. I think by saying that I’m scared, by admitting that I don’t know what’s going to happen, I can live more freely; I can live fully. I feel a release right now as I write this and meditate on that fear. I’ve never truly expressed this. I’ve felt it lately, for some reason, and maybe the reason I’ve felt it is because I’m treading the waters of some cathartic moment when I can yell and scream, “I’m scared and it’s okay!”

Because it is okay to be scared and not fall into the sequacious ranks of those who pretend they’re not. I’m scared of the dark sometimes, too, and death to me is a dark mystery, but one that can be embraced with light, love, and joy. We want so much to say that we have faith and that this doesn’t make us scared anymore, but I think we have to admit our fear, feel it, be depressed, lethargic, consumed with it, and then find that release when we realize that it’s healthy to be scared of dying. Through this self-actualization we can actually come to the point when we can return or rediscover a new faith that we believe in. By facing a fear, the emotion of it can diminish and hopefully, eventually, dissipate to a point that it doesn’t consume us.

I believe that everything we consider bad in the world, every emotion that we express to disparage others, every moment that we don’t live in compassion comes from our fear of death. There’s a great scene in “Moonstruck” – one of my favorite New York movies – in which Rose, played by Olympia Dukakis, sits down with Johnny (Danny Aiello) in her living room. Her husband’s been cheating on her and the scene plays out like this:

Rose: [frustrated] But why would a man need more than one woman?
Johnny: I don't know. Maybe because he fears death.
[Rose looks up, eyes wide, suspicions confirmed]
Rose: That's it! That's the reason!

And that is it. That’s it in a nutshell. Everything we do that hurts ourselves and others, whether singularly or on a global level, comes from our fear of the unknown that awaits us all. When the Nazis massacred gypsies, homosexual men, Polish Catholics, the disabled, Jews, and political and religious opponents, I believe they did it because subconsciously they were afraid of their own deaths, and by killing others they hoped to attain a sense of supremacy that they could overcome their own inevitable demises. The Turkish genocide of Armenians, the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb, the Crusades against Muslims, were all acts committed by an egoic need to trump death and prove that only the victors had a handle on truth. But it never works that way, and when someone tells me they know the truth to the many spiritual questions I have, I run away as quickly as I can because I know there won’t be any room for discourse.

For me, my current faith is that there is a Source of my Being, a universal creative intelligence that we are a part of through our collective conscious, and this Source connects every particle in the universe with each other, big or small, visible or invisible. I am a vital expression and incarnation of the moment when the Universe came into being and spread, and grew. It keeps growing, too. After billions of years of growth, expansion, and evolution, here I am, sitting at my desk in a house on top of Marble Hill with the birds twittering outside and the tulips wanting so badly to bud that I can feel their excitement for the moment when they’ll burst out in color and form.

Now that I’ve admitted my deathly fear of death, I return to the core of my being, the foundation from where I can start again to build my faith. My fear of death and the annihilation of consciousness is sublimated by my belief in my Source, in God if you want. I’m going to rebuild now because I don’t want to live with a nihilistic view of the universe, one of chaos and an ending to my story. It’s not that I want to dupe myself with a fantasy of an afterlife, but rather that I find comfort in questioning my existence in relation to my Source, and quite frankly, I’d rather live with doubt and questioning than deciding that there’s no point to question anymore. I’m a seeker with a hope for the continuation of my consciousness and spirit. If I’m wrong, then I won’t know it when I die. If I’m right I will. If I’m neither right or wrong, then sobeit. I can start to live with that now.

Filippo Brunelleschi, the harbinger of the Renaissance who built the Duomo in Florence, Italy, is an inspiration for me. He was a creative problem solver who constantly built upon his life experiences as goldsmith, sculptor, and draftsman. He was an incessant questioner who acquired knowledge from others while taking his own vision to ever-higher levels. This idea of self-discovery and building upon experience and knowledge is why I’m going to seminary this fall. I feel driven to go beyond myself and to continue my learning so that I can embrace this great mystery of death with knowledge through experience, through questioning rather than just accepting. When I stop learning, I stop living.

The death of Christ, whether you believe it was a real event or allegory, is a reminder to me of the triumph over death that we all can adopt when our time comes to make the great leap from this present consciousness. Easter is a holiday that reminds me of spring, the new flowers blooming, the possibilities of the approaching summer, and the time of rebirth and resurrection. Perhaps Christ conquered death so that we could understand his insight: that it’s an illusion of reality, and that there is much more beyond what we can see with our eyes.

The tulip bulb in my backyard sits quietly all summer, fall, and winter in the ground, waiting for the right soil temperature, the moment in Spring when the sun shines longer during the day and its petals can open to receive the light. Christ’s death and resurrection, like that of the tulip, tells me that life comes and goes likes the tides and it’s my time now, here on earth, to accept my life and push myself forward. I don’t know what’s coming tomorrow. I know what happened yesterday. But all I have is now.

Death is the greatest mystery, even greater than the question of creation, space, and time that geniuses like Einstein grappled with every day. I have lots of questions that truly don’t have any answers on this plane, but I’m okay with that. When I cry out in joy, fear, or anguish, there’s something inside of me that says: “Death is not the end of your questions.” I have much to learn and I’m given many opportunities to continue my learning. I don’t have many answers, but I’ve got a lot of questions, and somehow, in the midst of my daily life, my striving and yearning, my questioning and learning, I believe I’ll become truer to the image of my Source that’s within us all.

Madeleine L’Engle writes: “Whatever death involves, it will be different, a venture into the unknown, and we are all afraid of the dark. At least I am – a fear made bearable by faith and joy.”

Happy Easter. Happy Resurrection.