Raven all but sat on my head, looked me in the eye and said, let it die. Ravens signify death and rebirth. They remind me that in choosing life, I also choose death.
I remember my vivid relationship with Mystery as a child and adolescent. Hearing about the Holy Spirit encouraged my relationship with God who was bigger than BIG and Jesus who was my savior and also my brother and friend.
I read Jesus’ words about leaving this earth and sending the Comforter, who would be with me always. I knew Spirit as a very part of me. Nothing could separate me from Love. Sunday School teachers encouraged the “priesthood of the believer”. It was all very personal, woven throughout my being.
In early adulthood, things began changing in the denomination of my Christian tradition with more definitive answers and less discernment. Increasingly, there was more worship of Jesus as Lord, less talk about the Holy Spirit and lots of outward doing.
But I was continually drawn to the humanness of Jesus. The one who taught the masses and then slipped off into nature to commune with His Father. I loved his hunger for God. And when I followed Jesus, rather than separating myself (as human) from Him (as God), I sensed oneness.
Jesus knew who He was and lived out his vocation accordingly. Although He was grounded in religious teachings, He often criticized them and taught the broader truths.
I studied the gospels and noticed how Jesus said, “Follow Me”, pointing all worship to His Father. As far as I could tell, He never said, “Worship Me”!
I imagined a personal God saying, “You people are not getting it through creation’s message or even in the written word. I will come as one of you and show you how to love, for I AM LOVE.”
At a point, I realized the ease of worshipping Jesus in contrast to following Him. To follow Jesus meant taking responsibility. It meant choosing the cross, dying many small deaths, all in the name of Love.
I cogitated on how to reconcile the changes, heal the wounds and encourage an inner experience. After all, my work was in the church. And then one day, Raven all but sat on my head and said, let it die. Trust the universal cycle of life, death and rebirth. Trust Love!