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Overwhelmed with Thoughts of Jesus

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I’m overwhelmed with thoughts of Jesus.

Jesus and God and Christianity and the Lord’s Prayer and compassion and forgiveness and hope and judgement and freedom from judgement and all of the things which made (and make) me feel connected to the Sacred.

I don’t know what to do with all of this.

andormix _ Jesus

It started when I saw a woman sitting on the sidewalk next to her shopping cart. She was filthy and small, and she looked deeply tired. Bringing her food I asked,

“How are you?”

She looked up at me, a bit surprised at having been spoken to or asked after. She thought for a moment.

“I’m recovering,” she said somberly.

My heart broke a little. It wasn’t the response I expected. It was so vulnerable, and honest. Her statement felt unfathomably large, as though she was recovering from all of the things that had ever been done to her.

She seemed grateful for the attention, and for the food.

“God bless you,” she said, sincerely.

My heart broke some more.

I headed off, feeling heavier in my boots.

Further down the path, I heard the call of a crow. I looked up and saw it sitting on top of a telephone pole. I thought of the Morrigan.

“Remember me.“

I felt a bit jarred. The crow seemed to take notice, and then began to fly.

I walked in the direction of the crow, uncertain. Walking in the other direction on the opposite side of the street was a man holding a book under his arm. There was a yarmulka on his head. He looked at me, probing. Are you a part of my tribe? I looked similar to many of the Orthodox men walking through the neighborhood, but not an exact match. Close, but not close enough.

The words sink a little deeper.

Am I a part of his tribe?

There is this dialogue running in me that keeps returning to the religion of my youth and young adulthood; to the man who was the subject of so many of my conversations. There is also my Paganism, built and cultivated over the past four or five years. It is young and lacking the same kind of deep root system I developed in my Christianity, but it is still a part of me now.

My Druidic studies are calling me to look at the world as an enchanted, alive, vibrant and magical place. There’s a shortage of that perspective these days. Meditating on these ideas brings me peace. But then I see someone who is broken, or damaged, or simply doing their best to not fall apart, and I think back to the lessons of compassion and kindness I learned in the Church. I feel compelled to love other people without reservation. I feel compelled to offer them respite. I feel compelled to feed them, to care for them, to treat them with dignity and respect.

These are the desires that rise up out of my memories of the Lord’s Prayer, or the stories of Jesus. These are the principles that I valued about my Christianity.

And I don’t know what to do with all of this reflection, or how to talk about it. I don’t think I’m becoming a hard-core or born again Christian, or even a Christo-Pagan. But there is a softening inside of me that feels directly connected to Jesus and to the language of mystical and contemplative Christianity.

Just the other day, after a similar encounter with an old woman on the street in Portland, I had the thought —

“I’m going to go ahead and believe in God.”

The thought came into my head before I could censor it.

A few days later I polished a Celtic cross that I’d picked up a few years back. It’s a replica of one I saw on pilgrimage in Ireland, the place where I first found Brighid. I hung the cross around my neck beside my Awen and acorn pendants. It’s still hanging there at this moment.

So there’s this softening to Jesus, and a confusion about what that means, and — in no small way — a concern about how this occurrence will be perceived by others.

Will Pagans see this as proof that I was never really one of them? Will Christians see this as proof that God is calling me back to the Church?

 

Photo by  Isaac Torrontera

Humbled by the Darkness of Winter

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I started out this December with a nose dive into Christmas cheer. Then, I spent some time exploring what parts of the Christian holiday were still resonant with me, and what I’d happily left behind. Now, the introspection of the Dark Days has set in.

It hit me unexpectedly. One moment I was working my craft, focussing on the task at hand, and the next I was on the verge of tears. Something someone said or some passing action spurred a memory of a younger me, and in that moment I was given insight into just how much time has passed. I didn’t feel old, but I was aware that I was no longer young in the same way that I used to be.

And this didn’t just happen once. It’s as though the entire climate and ecosystem of my personal and professional life has been infused with greater meaning, deeper symbolism, and a heavier tone. There’s been no escaping it. Nothing stills my mind but the repetitious act of knitting, and even in that there are moments where great pause and reflection interrupt the rhythm of the stitches.

What I’m feeling has nothing to with Jesus being or not being the “Reason for the Season” — all of that talk seems like trivial bickering right now. Nor does this state seem to stem from anything related to a recently assumed Pagan tradition that I’ve picked up over the past few years. This feeling doesn’t seem to originate from within me at all. It’s like the entire world is working a stillness into me, and I have little control in the matter.

Perhaps the reason that some of us bicker with each other around this time of year, be that over family dramas or to debate the legitimacy or illegitimacy of one another’s traditions, is that in doing so we experience a kind of spark; an artificial fire that allows us to deny the darkness that is actually setting in all around us, and inside of us. We remain in our heads, formulated better arguments, forging more effective defenses, and all the while the darkness grows deeper. The darkness grows in spite of our best efforts to hold on to the light.

We don’t need to pay attention in order for winter to happen. We don’t create the darkness. The darkness of winter simply arrives, and it transforms us, and we are left to decide whether we will surrender to it, or resist. In the darkness of winter, we are given the opportunity to see our lives from a still position, reflecting on who we’ve become and from where we’ve traveled. We can take that opportunity, or we can argue with one another. To choose the latter is to miss what the Holy Cycle of the World is offering to us.

It may seem that I have no choice in the matter; my emotions are a full cup, with the water just about to crest. But there must be some choice to be made, and I think I made it long ago when I committed myself to a deeper level of engagement with my life, with my beliefs and with the world around me. That’s what Druidry is for me; that is my Paganism. This commitment to my life has led me to — among other things — to a more acute sensitivity to the changes of the earth.

With just a few days left before Yule, before the calling back of the light, I experience a still darkness inside my soul, and through this darkness passes the images of a younger me, a me who was filled with many hopes and aspirations, naive to the challenges I would inevitably face, and unaware of little else besides my own desires and dreams. The darkness shows me who I was, and then without judgement, shows me who I am now.