Easter is About Constant Renewal

Luane and I had the great fortune to attend Easter service at Rev. Deborah Johnson's church. Rev. D. is featured in our movie and was our special guest last Thursday for this month's God, Gays & You Live Interview Series. If you couldn't make the call, we have a streamed recording of it at www.godandgaysthemovie.com/archive. Next month our guests are ex-Exodus leader and author Darlene Bogle and social justice activist Dottie Berry.

Rev. D., who heads an omnifaith church, came from all kinds of angles when describing the history of Easter: why it jumps around in the calendar year, the roots of the name Easter (fertility: use of the bunny and egg as symbols), how the Catholic church created the holiday...it was fascinating. She broke out a concordance and talked about how Jesus wasn't a Christian, the roots of Easter based in the Hebrew word Shalom. She also mentioned Shalom is the root word to the Arabic term Muslim. Her messages are recorded on CD every week, you can order a copy of the message from Inner Light Ministries, they have a mail out program so it doesn't matter where you live. We encourage you to check out her Easter message. You'll hear Valerie Joi Fiddmont who is her partner and in our movie, sing and lead her choir as the musical inspiration.

Rev. D. is all about peace. Peace between us, between countries, and within ourselves. She looks at all the different approaches to God, expressions of worship and doesn't get caught up in the differences and judge which is "better" or "more right" than others. She looks at the intentions behind them. What is the universal spiritual principle behind Easter? Constant Renewal.

Last week I wrote about how quick we are to get ticked off in traffic if someone cuts us off, going from good to bad, and yet we consider ourselves incapable of changing something bad to good for ourselves quickly. We have trouble working out, eating well, getting sleep, alleviating stress healthily, erasing smoking and other coping mechanisms from our routine...and then we just deal with the egregious consequences when they do eminently show up.

What I got from Rev. D.'s message was this idea of constant renewal. That it's never too late. Jesus was killed. He resurrected. Many Christians stop at Good Friday and forget there was a Sunday. He was renewed. Our cells in our body renew all the time, we don't have the same body we had a month ago. Our thoughts are renewed by our choosing. They don't happen TO us, we choose them and can renew our mind anytime, at any point and the only time that exists is NOW. It's always now.

I look at my surroundings, my little pouch on my stomach that I can't seem to get rid of, the leaves that stubbornly won't rake themselves on our deck and I now recognize them as past decisions, past choices. And I can renew my thoughts NOW and change the circumstance now.

Well, there's a part 2 to this stream of consciousness that I'll continue later. For now, and I mean now, ride the wave of constant renewal. Feel it. Think about it. We're constantly coming to forks in the road, so renew in the moment and see how just changing a variable here and there will already send you off to a different and more beneficial result.