I have been reflecting on my Ash Wednesday words to you since I wrote them. That post is filled with ecclesiastical jargon that is, in my humble opinion, on the verge of becoming meaningless in the world you are in the process of making your own. For instance, I'm guessing that few of the "Christians" "observing" "Lent" right now know that Sundays are excluded from the forty day count that is intended to symbolize both the number of years that Moses' followers wandered in the desert and, accordingly, the number of days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. Easter signifies Jesus' resurrection (according to tradition) on the prophesied third day after his crucifixion, which is Sunday. Therefore, the primitive tradition developed that every Sunday should be observed as Easter.
I fall in the camp of those who think that Jesus never intended to start a new church, or a new religion. He was a Jew with a vision for reforming his own faith into one of fidelity to God rather than Humanity. Therefore, he in all likelihood observed Sabbath on the biblical seventh day of creation, Saturday. His life and teachings centered on the imminent reality of God's reign on Earth, but the "Church" eventually tailored that message to its own advantage. This ultimately led to a contradiction between faith and religion which I personally experienced in my fiftieth year. My observance of Sunday these days is far different from what I practiced for the first half-century of my life, and I find myself curiously more empathetic with the process of trying to figure out what this thing we call "life" is all about. This presumes an answer to the question, which does not necessarily mean there is one. I am reasonably confident, however, that through the man known as Jesus the Christ there is revealed an enlightened path of questioning that promises the way to Wholeness.
