New
Beginnings -
Looking
at life in a Different Way
Mark
13:1-8
There was a story that I read about a few years ago about a man who woke up about five o'clock in the morning realizing that he was experiencing the onslaught of a heart attack. His wife battled the winter roads and snow to get him to the hospital. As she drew up outside to the emergency entrance, his heart stopped. He was fortunate to be there; fortunate in that the hospital personnel were trained in what to do; fortunate that there was a doctor there who had a great deal of experience in treating people in this kind of situation. Afterward, the man described what he saw - someone virtually sitting on his chest and pounding it. After a few minutes, he came back to life again and he described some of his thoughts and visions at the time.
He said: "Now I am recovering on my farm. Most certainly, I was born again. The morning sun looks brighter. The spring season is thrilling and people who had been uninteresting to me now have new value, and I have been born again into a new awareness of life.
It is a true gift of God that is given to us all, that is the gift of a new beginning, a new beginning in which we have a new awareness of life in which we are see even familiar things around us as if for the first time and we are able to live each moment with appreciation and excitement. We are able to choose life in the present rather than waiting for life to happen in the future or living in the past, through a rear view mirror.
*
When Jesus talks about the end times like he does in this chapter of Mark's Gospel, we tend to think that he is talking about the end of the world coming as an historical event. Some of these words about the end times and apocalyptic material in Bible seems to have spawned a lot of literature and movies these days about the end of the world with graphic images that give people a sense of panic and fear. Described as a historical event, it becomes for many an hysterical event. However, I believe that these words of Jesus as well as apocalyptic material in general are really talking about new life and new beginnings.
There is a tendency in this age to see much of the metaphorical images in sacred literature as if they refer to actual events. We look at references to the end of the world as if it were referring to something that is going to happen in history as a future event. In reality, this kind of material is talking about a spiritual experience and something that happens within us as we experience the New Age happening here and there and now and then in the world right now. that is, if we have the grace to see it.
Joseph Campbell had some interesting things to say about Christian passages that refer to the end of the world:
The Kingdom is here, right before our eyes-that is the message of Jesus in the Gospels. In Mark, the End of the World sounds like something that is still to come, a future event. Jesus is supposed to have said, "This generation will not pass away before these things will come to pass." And that was thought to predict the imminent End of the World.
People found, of course, that the world did not end and it came to be regarded, as they say, as "the great nonevent." But institutional churches still say that it is going to happen. You cannot, however, read this notion the End of the World historically as something fundamentally in the calendar of time. If you see that the Kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth while others do not see it, the End of the World has come for you. For the world as it was for you has indeed ended.
You
see the world's radiant joy and you say "Yes" to it all
and you do not say "No" to it at all.------ Therein one
identifies or recognizes the dynamism of life in all things. We are
not to become attached to the mere phenomenal aspect of the world but
to see directly to its core.
(Joseph
Campbell, Thou Art That, New World Library, Novato,
California, 2001, p.83)
*
You
don't have to be in the first stages of a heart attack to experience
a new beginning, the end of the old and the beginning of the new
life. As Elie Wiesel points out in some of his writings that it
is a gift given to us all to begin again - and we do every time we
chose to defy death and side with the living.
(Messengers
of God (New York, Random House, 1976, p. 32)
This kind of rebirth can happen when we confront our lives and take stock of where we have been and where we are going. We look at our lives and see that some of our dreams have come true, some have been partially fulfilled, others have turned into nightmares, and still others have died. It is a time to find and honor the kernel of our own being and what is really important in our lives. Rebirth is time of letting go yesterday's fears and embracing today's hopes, and to grasp a new appreciation of the present moment.
Yes! Indeed, we may find that the morning sun is brighter, all the seasons of the year are thrilling, people we thought were uninteresting we begin to see as 'out of the ordinary' and we have a new awareness of life as it unfolds before our eyes.
Passages like the passage that we have today in Mark 13 call us to take stock of our present lives. For me, it is reaching into our inner selves and discovering the Spirit of God within. It brings a whole new sense of life and we realize that we can experience renewal or resurrection at every stage of our lives and throughout our lives. As St. Paul puts it in light of his own new beginning:
"If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead , dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies aslso through the Spirit that dwells in you." (Romans 8:11)
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THE
GODDESS WITHIN
MUSIC PROJECT
Each year, thousands of women and children become homeless as a result of domestic violence. "The Goddess Within" music project is designed to empower those whose lives have been affected by domestic abuse and to raise awareness of this issue.
"The Goddess Within" compilation album will showcase artists and their songs, written for or relating to those escaping the cycle of violence. The C.D. will be distributed throughout North America and proceeds from the sale of the C.D. will be donated to women's shelters.
More information on the CD is available at ARTISTS FOR CHANGE
My daughter Carly
is featured on the album with her
song The Mask.
The art for cover for the CD
album is the creation of another
daughter,
Mary Anne Molcan.
Another site to access is Ending Domestic Abuse
*
Mary Anne is a very talented artist. She has a new web site called Faerie Artist where she displays her Art. You can access her site at:
