Red Eggs & the Light of Christ
In which I reveal my heretic beliefs without equivocation.
It’s holy week in the Greek church. I dyed the eggs red last night, in the Greek tradition. Thursday is the day that Jesus dies on the cross, and his body is removed and placed on the funeral bier for mourning. The eggs are dyed to symbolize his blood, spilled in his crucifixion.
Photo of a dozen eggs, dyed red, and drying on a metal cooling rack, with a green towel beneath it. Taken by me.
There is a Greek Orthodox church in the next town over, where I attended Good Friday services alone last year. It is a small town, with an even smaller Greek community, especially when I consider the experience of living in Queens for 18+ years (Queens has the largest concentrations of Greeks outside of Greece). What I liked best about this little church last year however, was a condition of its small size: because it is small, there was no psalti (chanter) so the parishioners did many of the readings themselves, and that meant a lot of women had a voice throughout the service. I had never heard these words in a womans’ voice, and that was nice.
I am not a believer in any traditional sense. I do not, for example, believe in the traditional story of the resurrection, nor do I believe that the communion bread is literally the body of the Christ. But I do believe in the concept of the Christ, of the anointed one, of being anointed in the golden light of the Divine. In recent years I have come to consider myself an initiate of Christ, and I believe that I received the light of Christ during my quest of the last 15 years. When I put it into words I don’t know, really DO NOT know what it means to say that, but I know it feels accurate. I believe that I carry an anointed light within me, and that it shines, for the most part, on those around me. Whoa! That is a big claim, isn’t it!
In the Orthodox tradition, chrismation is an important aspect in the rituals of baptism and the making of new priests. It is literally an anointing with holy oil that seals the person’s role in the church. I’ve always been pleased by the shared etymology of the words Christ, chrismation, and the Greek word for gold, chrysm. Jesus then is the Golden one, or the Anointed one. And my mother was named Christine, but her Greek name was Chrysoula, which means something like “little gold” (and maybe, I never thought of this til just now, but maybe that is why she had so much trouble with money!), and her name came from her maternal grandmother, who was Chrysanthe, or Golden Flower, like the famous mum.
Of course this word play is pleasing to me!
As is somewhat common among secular spiritual folks like me, or I at least hear echoes of this idea not infrequently, Jesus himself, was okay. His message was a good message.... So people say.
But when you look, his message, that the kingdom of God was here, among us is not so clear. It is subject to so much interpretation. Add the fact that the Bible itself has been so highly curated by the power brokers that I do not trust it as source, and yet it is the only source. It bothers me that there is only one piece of evidence, The Bible, to validate a theory presented in, The Bible. Isn’t this a conflict of interest?
Despite all my questions, I always find myself wanting Jesus on my side, and this confuses me. A former teacher described Jesus as a queer witch, which I like, if only for its iconoclasm. And due to the lack of evidence, it is easy to imagine things. Anything you want really. All the secular people I know seem to believe in Jesus marrying Mary the Magdalene, and possibly going with her to India, possibly having children with her, possibly that she was his first disciple, and possibly being somehow connected to Alexander who also went to India.
We also talk about the possibility that he was just mad. Insane or somehow otherwise imbalanced. And I won’t lie, sometimes, when I read some of his words, it is hard not to hear echoes of movie scenes of schizophrenics who claim to be Jesus. There is also talk of a metaphorical understanding of what is said in the Bible. And again, it is difficult to either refute or endorse any of it, because it simply takes up too much space in every room I have ever been in.
When I first joined the Orthodox church, it was as an adult, receiving my baptism and chrismation (the equvalent to confirmation) at age 30, I was amused by the other converts, for that is what I was considered. Most were not ethnically or culturally Greek, and I could sometimes detect a hint of jealousy that I did have that connection. I also noticed they were zealous, which makes sense if they were actually accepting principles of faith as truth. But I have always been hung up on the literalism of it all. Of the idea that he died and was resurrected. That he returns in the wafer and the bread and the wine. I find that part silly. My big brain can’t handle the fairytale of it.
Because, for what?
It is hard, as a secular, leftist, and educated woman, not to look around and see primarily destruction at the hands of the Church. All the churches. The colonization of the globe, the creation of the trans-atlantic slave trade, the enforced poverty that the peoples of Africa, India, South America, and South East Asia are kept in, in the name of the supremacy of someone who supposedly represents Jesus. At the local level there are countless abuses by clergy, of the flock they are charged with protecting. There is the legacy of burning and excommunication that led to countless women, gays, Moors, and Jews being killed. If I allow it, every fiber of my being becomes enraged at this, the abuse of trust from the misuse of a theology that is supposed to represent “good news.”
For whom? I ask.
Then there is the issue that because Jesus wants to spread the good news, we are all potential subjects, which means those of us that don’t believe, even if we have very good reasons, are considered less than. WHether I like it or not, I took that in over the course of my raising up, even though not a single parent or grandparent of mine ever indicated I needed a religious tradition. Where did that self-jusgement come from then, if not society at large, and the church that added poison to it. I don’t want anyone’s prayers for my salvation if it’s on their terms. That is not a prayer for me. It is for them, and their world view. It does not make me feel better.
There are certain texts from this religion that I know almost by heart, due to the dominance of the religion and its repetition in popular, mainstream media. The traditional wedding vows are one, and the lord’s prayer is another. What I mean to say is that this thing is inescapable. So of course I want Jesus to love me, to accept me, to like me. It’s his followers I am way less sure I trust, and with good reason.
Jesus seems to me like a blank slate, one we can project onto with nearly any belief or set of values we want him to represent. How can he be a stand for both love and tyranny? How can he be both ubiquitous and have such a paper-thin in identity? I resent the lock that the church fathers have on his name and his words, and that history has stripped so much away from him. It is tempting to decide he is just a work of fiction, a collective projection, and ignore him.
And yet, I feel the call of the light of Christ, the light of anointing. I know that I too am just another participant in the projection. I know that I am using him, as others do, to suit my needs. And I wonder if this paradox is not the Kingdom of God itself.