Resurrection

365 days of awe and being awake to awe - Awewakening!

May 1st, 2016, today the Eastern Church celebrates Easter, the magnificent proclamation of Life and Light, Resurrection of God/man.  My Facebook feed is a repetition of the same message: "Christ is Risen, He is Risen Indeed"!

My first Easter, 1990, the fall of Communism. I remember! The euphoria, awe and quickening of joy entering the temple, holding the thin candles that dripped hot wax on our fingers. The pressed bodies of others, lack of oxygen and smell of incense, the chant of the priest. I walked home with hundreds of others, protecting the little light of my candle, the new hope that had sprung in my heart with a force I didn't know at the time, that never left - THERE IS GOD!

St. Troitsa Orthodox Church Bansko, Bulgaria

This blog is about a journey I have been on for quite some time. There will be images, parts of interviews with people, research I am currently doing, quotes, poetic summaries of a vast field of knowledge - positive emotion, joy, awe, human thriving, spirituality. I am working on a dissertation on cultural nuance and story, how do we imagine, notice and keep the moment we are most allive to the world and ourselves? Can this transform who we are, change our daily lives, open us to the magic of Life?

Why now? This is my journey of transforming pain. When disaster strikes, Bulgarians spare words and say little, sometimes the greatest of tragedies are completely silenced and become big secrets held in families or few individuals. It is as if pain and trauma are shameful. I wonder where we got that, where we learned to boast and overdo our joys and hide our sorrows. (not unlike Facebook postings). Yet hidden they are not, Bulgarians are some of the most unhappy people in the world according to statistics... 

My take on this traditional and current approach is that evil should be given less space, or it will grow deep roots like a weed that takes over a flower garden, chocking the beauty and fragrance of life. All I will share for now is that I received a diagnosis a month ago that Shall-Not-be-Named. Not because I am afraid of names, but because in a world-long tradition of giving a name and finding our own names, names have power.  Today we remember Resurrection. Life is stronger than Death, God is stronger than evil. This blog is an answer to God's question for me on Good Friday:

Will you let Me use this evil for good?

Jesus said:

"The Thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have live, and may have it abundantly"