I'm beginning a study on "Lessons From Jesus" by the Unity Church.
Day One:
It was my job to get it right the first time so that my
little brother and sister did so as well.
If I messed up, they got punished even if they hadn’t done anything
wrong. I grew up thinking this just wasn’t
fair. Of course, I was five years old
and my parents weren’t punishing my siblings because of any wrong I had
made. This was just how I thought things
were or something I had perceived without understanding all the facts.
In
truth, my parents were at times unstable and made harsh decisions about me and
my brother and sister, but not one of us made it happen to the other. And how “good” or “bad” I was at any given
moment, did not determine how the others were treated.
My parents took us to church and Sunday school
sometimes. Always on Easter Sunday and
Christmas Eve, but in between was sporadic at best. By the time I was ten we were members of a
new church and both parents became involved.
My dad served on the vestry and my mother taught Sunday school. My teacher was the tallest man I ever met and
my dad’s best friend. He had a very soft
gentle voice, a delightful sense of humor, and a stern sense of right and wrong
which I grew up respecting. As my Sunday school teacher I listened carefully
and paid a great deal of attention to detail, hanging on every word from his
mouth.
When he talked about Jesus, I was amazed
and enthralled and confused. The Jesus
of my youth was the shepherd and kind storyteller that my grandmother spoke
of. She had taught us “Jesus Loves Me” and
I knew it was true because my grandmother was the smartest person in the
world. But in my middle school years, I
saw Jesus through the eyes of my teacher.
I saw him as my savior and the son of God. I realize now that is when I began my life of
thinking that not only was Jesus something apart from me but also was God. After all, I was just a sinner and not worth
dying for, but now I had to live my life the “right” way to pay Jesus back and
if I was lucky when I died, I might get to see God.
For many years after that, I lived
the life that my parents hoped I would live, raising my own children in a
Christian home with the same values I grew up with. It wasn’t until after they were in their
teens and college ages that I came to realize that I might just have
misinterpreted some of the things I had been taught and then passed on to the
classes I taught and my children.
I came to realize there is a
difference between the truth and the Truth.
And it all depends on your perspective; looking from a literal sense or figuratively. But always Jesus was the focus and part of my
being. Rev. Paula Mekdeci writes, “We
each create a composite view of Jesus that is personal to us and evolutionary.
It shifts and changes as we learn and grow. We may come to see Jesus as our Way
Shower, Master Teacher, Savior, Elder Brother, beloved friend, rabbi, faith
healer, zealot, Holy Comforter, or some combination thereof. We each choose the
concept of Jesus that inspires and resonates with us—the one that serves us
best where we are on our spiritual path.”
Today, I agree with Rev. Mekdeci’s
words, “My Jesus is not the same as your Jesus, nor does it need to be. In the
context of Christianity, the important thing is: Do you have a concept of Jesus
that serves your spiritual growth—one that helps you become more loving, more
aware, more open-minded? Does it inspire you to serve others and the world?
Does it help you to know God? The answer for me is a definitive “yes.”
I give thanks for my grandmother’s
gentle love, my parents’ desire to lead me to God through Jesus and the church,
to my dad’s dear friend who loved teaching us and introducing us to the Christ,
and finally to all the times I found myself seeking and then finding the
answers I already knew, that Jesus found his way to God and only wanted me to
do so as well and once I did, I found the Christ consciousness inside me that
guides me and “Loves me, this I know.”
