In the Christian story this is the day God dies.
It’s worth pushing the point a bit, I believe, as I think about that dying thing in the sense of that call from one of the Sufi sages that we must die before we die.
And the mystery some call killing death.
It is an invitation…
A few years ago my UU minister colleague Ken Sawyer wrote a sermon on the subject he called “Going Apohatic: The Spirituality of Emptying.”
Near the end Ken cites an old Zen story:
“The nun Chiyono studied for years but was unable to find enlightenment. One moonlight night she was carrying an old pail, filled with water. She was watching the full moon reflected in this water, when the bamboo strip that held the pailstaves broke. The pail fell all apart; the water rushed out; the moon’s reflection disappeared. And Chiyono found enlightenment. She wrote this verse:
This way and that way
I tried to keep the pail together
Hoping the weak bamboo
Would never break.
Suddenly the bottom fell out:
No more water:
No more moon in the water:
Emptiness in my hand!”
I wish for us all that bucket where the bottom falls out.
And hopefully before our hearts stop beating…
Because…
It is what we’re called to find from before the birthing of the stars and planets…
It’s about real freedom.
Real freedom.
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