When I was an altar girl in my teens, my primary job was to ring the bell for Jesus. During the Eucharistic prayer, the vicar says set words:
Jesus took the cup saying:
Drink this, all of you;
this is my blood of the new covenant,
which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this, as often as you drink it,
in remembrance of me.
DING! This was my cue to ding the bell, reverberating out across the congregation…..
I waited an hour to ring my little bell as loudly and clearly as possible at precisely the correct time. Not wanting to let anyone down with a half hearted wooden thud, I practised and perfected the clearest DING I could muster.
Remember – remember! It was my favourite job. Ringing the bell of remembrance for Jesus.
DING – Wake up everyone! It’s time to remember.
I used to puzzle my head about this. How could we remember if we weren’t there? (at the Last Supper). No one explained anything. It was like we were all doped. Ritualled into brain oblivion. Maybe we were remembering how the vicar said the same thing last week.
Many years later when I began to unravel it all on a deeper felt, lived level, I realised that the deeper answers to the great mysteries I sought were to be found through ourselves – through the lived experience and what we made of life.
I realised I was still ringing the bell of remembrance for Jesus (hence my name change).
Moreover, I think it’s what we’re all doing on the awakened path. Coming into self remembrance. Choosing to occupy our own divine light. Choosing our own rebirth. BEING the embodiment of Christ consciousness.
I found that it’s our own resurrection that matters – our own faith and belief – in love, in forgiveness, in oneness, in truth and freedom.
To bring the joy state of our eternal being into the physical lived experience. Despite life being an ongoing journey with many trials and suffering all around. To stay open hearted and loving despite what we witness and suffer.
This is how we become closer to being the embodied Christ – our own living transmission of truth and love and light.
We return to our own inner light, the one that has never left us. We choose to banish fear – not through ignorance but through deep awareness and deep love for all humanity, just as Jesus did.
We try our best as often as we can to live with a deeper, fuller knowing of our own eternal, immortal soul.
We choose to know ourselves in our highest light and to shine like a beacon, unapologetically, across the world.
I believe that the true light of the resurrection is all around us: in you, in me, every time we choose to stand in our true light. Every time we choose to forgive the impossible. Every time we choose truth. Every time we speak up and dare to walk the path less trodden. Every time we rise, not in competition, but in love.
I am wishing you a blessed Easter. And even if it doesn’t make sense to you to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus 2000 years ago, remember you can always effect your own.
With so much love
Rachel xx