Sunday Brunch

No Eggss - No Resurrection

In fact I skipped breakfast and brunch altogether today. I have not eaten at all. I don’t know if it is just the weather at play, going from sunny and dry to this dreary damp nonsense, but my body is not ok. I am now bloated and swollen to the point I can’t really sit up straight, without feeling I am going to throw up. Physically and in all other ways I feel I am about the burst out of my skin (after typing this I will go back to being horizontal for the rest of today).

The goose egg I have been scared to crack - God knows why….

NO CELEBRATION

“Happy Easter, how did you celebrate?” A friend asks via Whatsapp message. Well I made an eggnog cheesecake but that is about it. I watched Netflix, ate a Turkish pizza and took the dogs out for an extra walk. “I have been feeling low lately,” I reply, “so not much”. She tells me that with the war in Gaza she does not feel ok celebrating anything.

I get it. It seems inappropriate to get festive when so much of the world is in pain. The same way it is hard to enjoy pampering when you think about other’s suffering, or indulge in a copious meal, knowing world hunger will likely never end.

I could dedicate multiple posts to picking that apart philosophically, but I won’t. At least not now. Because I may not have “celebrated” Easter abundantly, it did get me thinking.

PASSION

Every year for Easter, the Dutch evangelical TV-channel EO puts on a spectacle, a musical version of the Passion of the Christ. For me the performances are way too over the top, but the story itself, in its essence holds great meaning to me.

As the only non-religious agnostic member of a Christian faith based aid organisation, I have spent many years discussing faith, religion, and the Bible in depth. It is an experience I had never expected, or knowingly craved, yet I will always be grateful for it. I learned so much. One take away is that something opened up in me that made it possible to read the Bible and have a metaphorical and transcendental experience. Especially when it comes to the last days of Jesus.

Most of us are familiar with the word passion, the context in which we use it and we may even associate it with a visceral response. But it doesn’t mean what you think it means. My ramble below is probably a bit unexpected, as I rarely talk about my take on God in a Christian or Biblical context, but this resonates so strongly.

I am thinking of Easter and Jesus and the cross. The passion of the Christ. The original meaning of passion is not something to take lightly… desire, service, martyrdom, calling, and enlightenment.

The word “passion” in its original context doesn’t mean “a strong desire,” but rather “suffering”. It originates from the Latin word “passio”, meaning "to suffer or endure." The Passion of the Christ is literally the suffering of Jesus, particularly in the final hours leading up to his crucifixion.

We often speak of passion as a fire in the soul, as a strong desire, ambition, drive. But the original meaning of passion was that of suffering. The Passion of the Christ was not about his personal desire fulfilled, but his unconditional love poured out. Agony. Sacrifice. An embrace of and surrender to a fate most of us would run away from.

What if "finding your passion” isn't just about what you want, but what you're willing to suffer for? What is worth suffering for? What breaks your heart and won’t let you go? Jesus’ cross is the strange invitation to go beyond personal fulfilment, and venture into sacred offering. Passion, not as pleasure, but as purpose.

All my team mates at Laleau, the Romanian kindergarten and central hub of our work there, expressed at one time or another that coming to Romania was in answer to a calling. I had ended up there following a series of strange synchronicities, but I did feel it was where I was meant to be. I just couldn’t relate to what a calling felt like.

One of the co-founders of the organisation, Jasper, explained what a calling is to him. I need to dig a bit in my brain but I think he said: a calling is an injustice you cannot accept so you choose to be part of the change. It is a cause you are willing to suffer and sacrifice for.

Calling, then, may not feel like joy at first. It may even feel like a burden. A service. A slow dying to self. Martyrdom not as a tragedy, but as a radical "yes" to something larger than desire, a kind of enlightenment that only suffering can reveal. Something in the world that feels wrong, and you can’t help but move toward it, even if it costs you something. Maybe especially if it costs you something. That’s where the deepest kind of passion begins. Not in craving something, but in commitment to something bigger than you.

The Jesus’ passion as the archetype of that, makes “passion” not about achieving a personal goal, but stepping into the suffering of others and bearing it. Jesus’ crucifixion wasn’t merely an act of martyrdom. It was a conscious stepping into the heart of human suffering and injustice. He saw a broken world, systems of oppression, religious hypocrisy, deep loneliness, alienation from God and from each other. Instead of turning away, he walked straight into it. The cross wasn't just punishment, it was protest. It was solidarity. It was love refusing to run away, turn a blind eye or stay at a distance.

From that angle, the Passion isn’t about seeking suffering for its own sake. It’s about refusing to be indifferent. It's what happens when love meets injustice and says: not on my watch (or not in my name) even if the cost is everything.

So in that sense, Jasper’s words are aligned with the essence of the crucifixion: a calling is when injustice strikes so deep that you choose to suffer with and for others not because you want to, but because you must. Because it is the only way to get there: to care, connection, to oneness and wholeness. It is transcendental.

Hristos a inviat!!! (Christ is risen)

Another friend sends me from Romania.

So, contemplation not celebration this Easter. Because I do think the world could do with a little more real passion.

A WISE MAN ONCE SAID

I have always considered Wayne Dyer a wise man. Many around me are less enamoured with the “spiritual light” movement represented by the Hay house clan, or the likes of Deepak Chopra. But it works for me, mostly. A lot is down to the vibration of their voices. I could listen to Dyer and Deepak until the cows come home (same with Gabor Mate, by the way). There is something so soothing and reassuring about them, that their audiobooks and guided meditations do a better job at talking me from the ledge than most of my friends and family do.

There is substance too, not just the reverberation of sound. There is a mantra I used a lot after 2011, that is loosely based on things Dyer said in the course of his career.

“There are no coincidences. Everything is in perfect order. There are no accidents. No one is to blame. I live a fulfilled life with an open mind. Connected to everything. Attached to nothing.”

I write it mostly as a reminder to self. This morning’s walk in the foggy suburbs for a moment brought out the absolute worst in me. My body feels so bogged down by the extra weight of the water my lymphs struggle to get rid off. It feels sluggish, painful. The area around the remaining lymph nodes feel like bruises, and there is a sharp shooting pain in my arm pits. It does not make it fun to hold two leashes with two excited puppies pulling in all directions.

I hate the suburbs. I always have. I would choose anything over suburbs. Even the stinky city centre of let’s say London. The suburbs are where you settle, when you can’t make up your mind or you have given up (I look forward to reading someone’s “ode to the suburbs” in response). Malvina Reynolds sang it best in Little Boxes (soundtrack of Juno and later as the theme song of the series Weeds). This alienating mould of repetitive housing row after row, street after street, of Volvo’s and perfectly dressed children who are a little too screechy, I will never fit into…

Back home, unleashing the dogs and giving them their treat I thought about Wayne Dyer and his wise words. Because he also said: You are always exactly where you need to be…. UUGHH

HOMEWARD BOUND

Settling does not protect us from pain and suffering.

A little gem from another wise dull movie. In the life list a young woman is sent out on a quest for a more fulfilling life, pushed by her deceased mother’s last will and testimony. The dead mother (the mother dies from a cancer recurrence, so in that sense maybe not the best movie pick for an already burdened Easter) presents the flailing daughter with her childhood life list of goals. A reminder of who she once was and aimed to be.

I have very little on my list. I am who I was and want to be. I will live true to myself to the last day, which means that whatever the outcome of the next MRI scan is, I will leave NL again to experience that vast sense of space, to just be and breathe.

I am grateful for the safety of the suburbs, especially in the bigger scheme of things on a global level. I am grateful for my parents (and all the good food we cook). It may be it is exactly where I need to be now, but it won’t be forever.

I will have that place, that gives me both space and is safe. The place I have been looking for since childhood.

XXL