Easter love

"For, lo, the winter is past. the rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come."

Song of Solomon 2:11

The last few days in Portland have been nothing less than a miracle.  The sun is brilliant, warm, inviting, gorgeous, drying up winter's puddles and wetlands and forcing the cherry blossoms into bloom. The birds waken the sleepy morning, arousing the interest of various neighborhood cats, including our two.

The long dark winter is indeed past, as is Lent's lingering fast and darker tempest.  Almost on cue, all of nature is reflecting the new life, promised and exemplified by our Lord's own rising from his earthly life into his eternal life.  His death would offer tangible proof of his teaching.  He overcame death, which clearly breaks the hold the powers of control have over us.  The single one tool of control used to oppress us is that death could somehow be final, lights out, fini.  But death is only a threshold from this limited existence, darkened consciousness, fear-based and oppressive place, into a place of infinity, of light and beauty, love and joy. 

At Jesus' cross examination by Pilate, he is asked, rhetorically most likely, "what is truth?"  Pilate, as too many other power brokers in our world, searched for truth somewhere in the limited realm of the intellect, where it cannot be found.  Truth is love and only found in love, especially by lovers - those who love all of life.  Real life is love.  God's power is love, a love which we do not really know, but which is hinted at by the love of a man and woman. 

As in Solomon and Sheba's awesome love, larger than life itself really, is a kind of heiros gamos of the gods.  God is both male and female, bride and bridgroom.  The ancient symbols of God, stemming from time before time of the Star of David, indicate the ancient Jews knew this.  The symbol is a merged, overlapping, male and female tetrahedron.  Love is freed, loosened and abounding now on the earth. 

The bridegroom has returned to heaven.  His job is done.  Now, fear cannot imprison our sweet, precious hearts and minds and souls.  Death is no more.  This reminds me of the comforting and powerful final message, words of great hope and promise, from the Book of Revelation:

"Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Rev. 21: 1-4

There never was death, we only thought there was.  There is only life and love and in that awesome awareness is a power beyond anything we've known yet, but which we are finally grasping. 

The world isn't out of trouble yet, but maybe today - on this gorgeous, sunny Easter - we can entertain, meditate on and hold onto a vision of God's love embodied in Jesus' resurrection which we honor and celebrate today, and ideally, everyday.