“An ending is not the end…” (K. Tolnoe)
“Death is something empires worry about, not something gardeners worry about. It’s certainly not something resurrection people worry about.” (Rachel Held Evans)
The readings today are precursors to what is coming up for us in this Lenten journey. Essentially that the end is not the end.
Ezekiel 37 tells us “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them…I will put my spirit in you that you may live…” In the gospel, Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead and the crowd who have gathered is absolutely amazed.
In life, something is always ending. Relationships. Jobs or tasks. Good times. Each day. This moment.
Some endings we know are coming, and we can prepare for them. Others sneak up on us and catch us unaware. And with some, we probably don’t even mind if they end.
Endings become hard, however, when we want to hold on to a relationship, and experience or a state of being. We might come to fear an ending of some kind because we can’t imagine a life without that person or situation in our life. And so we try to hold on for dear life.
In the Buddhist world, one of the core teachings is the teaching of impermanence. It essentially says that nothing is going to last, so don’t try to hold on to it. I think Jesus was saying something similar when he said, “if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can’t be my disciple (Lk 14:33, The Message).”
Of course, Jesus doesn’t mean that we’re not supposed to love people or experiences, own possessions, look forward to things, make plans, etc. It’s just that if we are not prepared to release them, we will have a hard time staying available to God and the world in an emergent way.
Since we’re specifically talking about endings today, I often turn to the work of Joanna Macy to help me re-place myself with respect to endings. Joanna has written and spoken extensively about endings as she works to help people prepare for “THE end” or the collapse of human communities as we know them due to climate change.
Macy understands that we get afraid and try to cling on to the now. Or we may go numb and check out of the situation. But she says that (at least when we KNOW an ending is coming) “what it comes down to is that we are here now. So the choice [knowing an ending is coming] is how to live now…I think of a Korean monk who said “Sunsets are beautiful too, not just sunrises.” We can do it beautifully. If we are going to [let go], then we can do it with some nobility, generosity and beauty, so we do not fall into shock and fear.”
Sunsets are beautiful. Letting go can be beautiful. Endings can too.
Macy goes on to say that what humans need to do more of is “positive disintegrating.” What she means by this is that we (and our collective) “Must die to [ourselves]” – meaning we must be willing to let go of all of our priorities, wants, hopes and plans. She says that her Christian upbringing has influenced her a lot here. Specifically she cites Good Friday and Easter as offering us a central teaching on death and rebirth. Something must end, and yet it is not an ending. It is only an ending of what we have known.
Maybe you are facing an ending these days that is hard to accept let alone release. Maybe you have faced an ending and are awaiting the rebirth. Maybe you’re in the middle of both!
Our faith invites us to lean into this reality of “catch and release” – being in the present moment with all of its joy and pain – and then letting this moment go so that we might be present in the next. Rachel Held Evans whom I quoted at the beginning of this reflection says that everyday life is “ just death and resurrection, over and over again, day after day” as our God takes what is ending and transforms it into something else.
May we be given the grace to catch and release life today – embracing the endings and rebirths – as they come our way.