We are worthy....
The resurrection is really about restoring the years the locusts have eaten.  Forgiveness is knowing that in any given circumstance knowing that we do not know what our choice would have been.  Knowing that grave has not placed us in circumstance to have to choose light over darkness, but knowing that we have faltered before and our lack of consciousness, fear, disconnection from God had caused us to choose darkness.  But by the grace of God, there go I.  We have chosen darkness before.... Abandoned ourselves in the face if something.  Knowing that none of us has the right to condemn another and knowing that the moment we do, we have set into motion an event or series of events that will show us. Show us not to punish us or break us down, no, but to have us experience our faliability, to open us to our humanity, our compassion, our hearts; to open us up to God.

So what can we learn from the resurrection?
I have learned that I am enough.  The symbolic meaning of a man dying for me that didn't even know me, brings to mind that I am enough just because I exist.  My heart opens with joy knowing that soldiers who have never and will never know me fight for my freedom.  People in the civil rights movement sacrificed there lives so I would have the right to have my voice heard, acknowledged and respected on celluloid and social media.  That women have been slaughtered to say I have a right to be here, that I a woman am worthy.  Christ's example is materialized each and every day in our taken for granted, inalienable rights.

I also have learned that forgiveness is the treatment .  Father forgive them for they know not what they do.  In our unconsciousness we destroy, betray, lie, hate and steal.  And in our unconsciousness we feel righteous in condemning the molester, the Judas's of our time, the sinner .

The resurrection is also about lifting us up to the high road of abundant prosperity, guilt free.  Knowing that it not only is our right but our destiny, not only our destiny but our responsibility to shine.  To live life and live it abundantly.  To shine is to share God's love.  To shine is to restore past hurts and offenses.  To shine is our job, one of the very reasons that we exist.   So what we need to forget is who we are not and what we need to remember is who we are.

My heart is hurting for my brother.  My heart aches for the times I have betrayed not only my brother, friends and family, strangers, colleagues, friends, teachers, institutions,  but also the millions of times I have berated and betrayed myself, times I have forgotten who I am.   By saying too much, overcompensating because i was operating out of the misguided cloud that i was not enough.  By not saying anything or not saying enough because i was too scared to disappoint, disrupt or fall out of favor with those with whom i had become emotionally enmeshed with, even though my heart was screaming a truth I was so afraid to utter.   The resurrection teaches me that it is a narcissistic disease for me to tarry to long burdened by guilt, shame and remorse.  I was blind but now I see, ergo when you know better, you do better.  Forgive them for they know not what they do.  The most  profound and fundamentally transformational form if forgiveness is self forgiveness.   The resurrection is about remembering that our unconsciousness is forgiven.  No matter what we have done if we are alive we have an opportunity to transform, we have an opportunity to renew, we have an opportunity to shine.  So my heart aches for no reason.  I am forgiven the offense of my forgotten brilliance, waiting in the balance, for me to just be.  Be and know that I am held in the bosom of Abraham.  All the needless sins and burdens we carry because we don't give it up, let it go to God in prayer.

Our pain in life is from our unconsciousness and lack of trust.  Fear, pain, bad choices, mean spiritedness, bullying, revenge, petty grievances, condemnation, and betrayal  comes from a lack of trust.  Fear that we are not held, that our needs won't be met.  Bitterness not expressed, words spoken and not spoken build into a toxic expression of madness that shows up on the doorsteps, in many of our lives.

So the encouragement is to move about the world with authenticity knowing that no matter what that all is unfolding as it should.

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, happy Resurrection Sunday , happy today is the first day of the rest of your life.

- written by Mattilyn Rochester