He is Risen!

This has been an interesting weekend.

Good Friday has got to be one of the more perfect days experienced for quite a while: Time spent with the kids, walking along the beach, playing with the babes... The weather was amazing, so clear, so still. I stood on Bulli Beach, and looking north I could see the coastline stretching to the Royal National Park. I felt calm, truly blessed.

Last night I went to church - the first time I've been in weeks. It's always easy to be too tired, too sick, too busy to get to church. I've been struggling with it for a couple of months now. I don't want to be around people, don't want to be accountable, don't want to be judged. I know I won't be - I know it's all in my head and that I am loved, not scorned - but still. Church is a difficult place to be when you're trying to hide from God! Anyway we all went to church - lots of hugs and kisses and concerned looks - "Christ is Risen" "He is Risen indeed!" Christians on Easter Sunday are the most joyous of people! Well we should be - our saviour lives! I didn't feel particularly joyous - and I shared something with a friend of mine (while hiding in the creche) - something which should have prompted care and understanding but instead brought forth a diatribe of pure and unadulterated dogma. Is it any wonder I'm feeling conflicted at the moment?

And in that frame of mind I read this article 'The Christian Paradox' by Bill McKibben. I had never come across his work before, but this article blew me away. The discomfort one can feel professing Christ in this world of Christian Right Neo-Cons is both validated and diminished. The Christ the Left blames for the woes of the world is not the Christ of the Bible: not the Risen Saviour. "Since the days of Constantine, emperors and rich men have sought to co-opt the teachings of Jesus. As in so many areas of our increasingly market-tested lives, the TV men, politicians and the Christian interest groups have found a way to make each of us complicit in that travesty, too... When (we) hunger for selfless love and are fed only love of self, they will remain hungry..." The central tenet of Christianity is Love: love of God and love of each other. I'm not going to get into an argument here about imaginary friends: I have my reasons for my faith, and as the daughter of scientists, you can believe that my reasons are pretty sound. I may share my testimony at some other point, but now all that is necessary is to understand the my faith is real and my Saviour lives. My struggle now is to try and apply His words to my life. Again. Because they've been sadly overlooked recently.