Easter can be be either a hard time for Christians or a joyous time. Hardline Christians - Jesus had to die for your sins, you horrible waste of a person. Easy-going Christians - understandably, can have a bit of a harder time with the blood parts of Easter than with the happy birth of Christmas. I'm a very, very, very liberal Christian. Do you believe in a higher power? And do you try to follow their teachings? Then I believe you are going to heaven, no matter what you call that higher power (Buddha, Allah, Yaweh, Science).
I had a old friend from college commit suicide this past week. I don't know why, or even how. We hadn't been in touch, other than the occasionally Facebook hello, for years. But I cried for probably 15 minutes straight when I heard about it. And it wasn't because I thought his suicide was going to doom him to hell, or even purgatory (not a Baptist concept). I cried because it made me sad that he wasn't on this Earth anymore. I'm sure he's in heaven, because he was one of the nicest, sweetest, most caring boys I ever knew. And I'm sad that he reached a point that he didn't see any other alternative than suicide. I've cried several times this week.
I had been putting off reading anything specifically religious this week, but I went on and bought this translation of Julian of Norwich's The Revelation of Divine Love (my review of the book in general). She wrote back in the 14th century, but I find her work to be the truest expression of my view of God the mother/father that I can find. And reading it soothes me. Because Julian believed in a God of love, who loved us all like a mother/father, and who lets us make mistakes so that we can learn from them. And that's what I believe too.
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| Me with my niece |
"But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." - Julian of Norwich
