Thoughts On Resurrection

We are such a literal culture. A few hundred years into the enlightenment and literalism permeates how we see the world, how we think, how we value...we attempt to see in black and white; in order to understand we demand facts, answers, absolute proofs; and we value by strict measurement--usually in dollars.

Spiritually this has drained off so much of the mystical, the ambiguous, the holy. We seem to be faced with the daunting choice of disbelief (religion is the opiate of the masses, it's nothing more than mass delusion), fanatical belief (every word in the Bible is the literal truth of God to the denial of scientific knowledge) or crossed fingers belief (I believe in God, but...).

Have you seen the movie Big Fish by Timothy Burton? Essentially it is the story of a young man who's relationship with his father is strained because he cannot accept the stories his father tells him about his life. They are too fantastic to be true and so he rejects them outright and rejects his father. The movie is a wonderful display of these stories as relayed to the audience from this young man's frustrated viewpoint.

It's been awhile so my memory of the specifics of the plot is a bit shaky, but by movie's end he has reconciled with his father because he begins to understand Truth in his father's stories. The movie ends with a gathering of individuals that represent the various tales at his father's funeral.

I believe the point is not in determining whether or not the stories told by the father were factually true or not. It's about learning to hear the stories from a different frame of reference. One that sets aside the enlightenment paradigm of establishing fact from fiction first and moving forward from there.

Here's another cinematic example - Fargo. If you remember, at the very beginning the Coen brothers included the tag that the movie was based on actual events, which was patently false. There were folks who were angry to learn that this was an artistic twist - to play with that frame of reference - that knee jerk need to initially determine authenticity from story before proceeding. I think it was brilliant.

I think the whole point of religion (not the politics and organization structure) is dependent on shifting away from that paradigm. I don't want to get caught up in an argument between Richard Dawkins and Pope Benedict - two extremes. I don't even want to put myself on that continuum.

My faith, my belief, my love, my God is not part of that discussion. Once again I will use my Monet example. Monet's series of painting of haystacks were not about the haystacks - they were about the light, the changing light. The haystacks were mere objects to reflect the light.

Jesus of Nazareth preached a new way of living, he shook up the ordered structure, he smashed the old paradigm, he challenged the authority, he insisted on seeing in a new light...and he was executed for it. The miracle of the resurrection is that today this new life, this light continues to resonate. Amen.