in the midst of pain is birth

"Now at that feast he released unto them one prisoner, whomsoever they desired. And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection. And the multitude crying aloud began to desire him to do as he had ever done unto them. But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews? For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy. But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them. And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews? And they cried out again, Crucify him. Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him." -- Mark 15: 6-14

This is the time of year when we recognize that we have a habit of killing the best in ourselves and setting free the criminal we are.

Every morning upon awakening and every moment of the day each of us decides what aspect of ourselves we shall release into the world at large.

And sometimes we release a monster.

We may paint the monster with a pretty face, but we know and all around us know what lurks beneath.

We refuse to crucify the monster. Nor can we. S/he won't go up on that cross. But the best of us is crucified all the time. What sense does this make? Are we so perverted?

Nope. The monster runs loose because it has not learned lovingkindness. Lovingkindness is a sacrifice, an outbreathing, a giving of all one is and has. "No attachment," say the Zen dudes and dudesses. "Detachment," say the Christian mystic monks.

The monster in us is attached to everything, Velcroed and SuperGlued to our pet grievances, our old wounds, our accustomed ways of self-serving being in the world. We can't peel that sucker off long enough to nail him.

The best in us dies every day for the monster's sake. Look carefully at that sentence. It is a two-edged sword.

The best in us is the best in us because it gives freely of itself. Only when the seed falls into the ground and dies does it bear fruit.

"Be dead. Be thoroughly dead." says the Zen monk Bunan. "Die before you die," say the Sufi. John of the Cross calls it the dark night of the soul.

This is a hard teaching. If you do not understand it, let it go. But rest assured, the path of one who follows spirit, the life force, is to die many times and to be resurrected each and every time.

And there is a good old Baptist song to sing with all of this. Turn in your hymnal to page 292 and let's stand and sing: Revive Us Again!