Christ is risen!
He is indeed risen!
--Greek Orthodox Easter greeting and response
Happy Easter to anyone chancing upon this blog. Happy Easter whether you are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, Animist, Agnostic, or Atheist.
"Happy Easter" to you all, just because you and I, and all of us everywhere, share a common humanity. And as fellow humans, not all may believe that God entered into his own creation as a human being 2000 years ago, but we do all share a common faith. An unconscious faith, perhaps, and maybe a faith that some of us try to deny with our "rational" minds. But it is a faith that gets us out of bed every morning and takes us through each day, a faith that makes life's greatest joys possible and its deepest sorrows meaningful.
I speak of the faith that each of our human lives has infinite meaning, a meaning far beyond that of an ant struggling for survival in an anthill.
Our faith cannot be argued or proved. From a purely logical perspective, we can theorize that we might be totally mechanical robots just like viruses, engaged in meaningless replication and perpetuation of our species, our consciousness of self and the world about us an accidental neurological illusion of no significance. None of us believes this to be true, do we? It's almost a cliche to point out that even those philosophers who argue professionally that life is meaningless and that our every act and thought is determined by the interaction of our genes with our environment don't really believe it. Otherwise, why would they bother writing down their thoughts for their fellow ants to read?
The greatest miracle of all existence, I suspect, is existence itself, the fact that there is any reality at all -- matter, energy, space, time, light, dark, distance, change, stability. Once I accept this miracle, once I take on faith that the perceptions of my senses reflect an exterior reality and that life is not just a weird dream, I have no diffficulty in believing further that our lives are imbued with meaning. The details of that meaning may be interpreted differently in subtle ways by different religious traditions. But our ultimate faith is the same: I am here for a purpose, and have been given an intelligence and a will with which I can contemplate and fulfill that purpose.
So Happy Easter, you world of wonders -- you six billion truly significant, awesome, diverse but yet similar, and infinitely precious individuals! I could have easily said Joyous Passover, or Blessed Mohammed's Birthday, or have given similar recognition to all the other religions and philosophies that are united in helping us discern, celebrate and fulfill the meaning of our lives, and ultimately, I suppose, of our Universe.
But I speak from my own tradition.
Happy Easter. He is indeed risen!
1 comment:
He is indeed risen!
Actually, I don't believe in that. Regardless, I agree that we all share a common faith. I think it's a self-evident truth, and even if it wasn't, there's plenty of proof. Hell, if humans believed from the beginning that their lives had no meaning but to be part of the grand melodrama called Evolution, we'd still be painting on cave walls. We haven't advanced in a Darwinian attempt to more successfully multiply. We've advanced because of both a desire to better our lives, and a mystical curiosity we all share.
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