EASTER: Q&A

Dear All of Us,

It's amazing how hot wired 
we all are for Q and A.
We seek respondents and answers
to endless sorts of questions: 
   religious, political, 
  social justice and environmental,
  financial, governmental, 
  athletic, artistic and literary...

A lot of the Q and A, though, 
is all about ourselves:
  Should we have baked chicken 
  or fried rice and beans for supper?
  Do I have enough money 
  under the mattress?
  How popular am I?
  Would a new car be smart...
It gets really ramped up from there on,
such as:
  Will this friendship/marriage/
  career/democracy
  hold up, and if so, like what? 

The Granddaddy of them all, 
the one front and center for sure
these frightening days is,
 
       Am I going to live or die?

        The "A" to that "Q" is

          You sure are!"

The experience of the answer
is often in reverse order to the question.
We do all kinds of dying to live.
The baby dies to the womb 
to live in the world.
The couple marrying 
and having children
die to bushel baskets 
of singular space and ways
to live together 
and give life as family.
We die to sin to live in grace.
We die to one level of consciousness 
to come alive in a fuller one. 
Daily we die to self absorption 
to come alive generous and social.
Across the spectrum of experience 
we die to what is for what can be.

Death clears space new life.

Good Friday and Easter Sunday 
talk that to our souls.
Good Friday and Easter Sunday
tell of Jesus and of us in Jesus,
going through death to life.

      "Do you not know that all of us
       who have been baptized 
       into Christ Jesus 
       were baptized into his death?
       Therefore we have been buried 
       with him by baptism into death,
       so that, just as Christ 
       was raised from the dead 
       by the glory of the Father, 
       so too we might walk 
       in newness of life."
                               Romans 6: 3-4
           
          NEWNESS OF LIFE
          
          How great is that!

     

This Easter freshness means that 

       "So if anyone is in Christ, 
        there is a new creation; 
        everything old has passed away; 
        see, everything has become new."                
                                II Corinthians 5: 17

             A NEW CREATION

              How great is that!

                     
                 
                    Q and A:
        
        - Q: "Am I going to live or die?"
       
        - A:  "You sure are!!"



In Christ Jesus we daily die 
to the limit of sin and "as is"
so as to come alive 
in newness and fullness of life 
as it can be, a

            New Creation.

      "Resurrexit sicut dixit"

        In him we do as well.

     
           Easter Hope!

            John Frank

      
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