“If you send out goodness from yourself, or if you share that which is happy or good within you, it will all come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.”

John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book Of Celtic Wisdom

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I feel as if I am reborn, every day of my life. I think of this on Easter.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, bless his brilliant soul, wrote that we are not born once when our mother gives birth to us, but life asks us to give birth to ourselves again and again and again. The most wonderful quote, and so true. I appreciate Easter, I an neither a Catholic nor a Christian, but I am a great admirer of Jesus Christ and am always puzzled to see people who are Christians evoke his name but seem to know nothing about him or his values.

He cautioned us to care for the poor and be merciful and compassionate to one another, and I wonder how people who care nothing for the poor and are not tolerant, and are neither merciful or compassionate can consider themselves Christians in his spirit. His writings and teachings have always uplifted and inspired me, he seemed both honest and good.

Marquez is right, life is about birth and rebirth, that is certainly the story of my life, and of Maria’s life, and of almost every person that I love. Themes of rebirth and resurrection resonate powerfully with me. Bringing a child into the world is a rebirth. So was coming upstate. And getting divorced. So is every book I write. So was my meeting Maria and finding love. So is our struggle with the first Bedlam Farm. And my heart surgery, and the death of Simon, Lenore and Frieda this winter. And the carriage horses, and the new animals making their way here, and the new friends I am making.

Life is a series of births and resurrections, good things and bad things, challenging me to understand who I am, learn how to be honest, learn how to be strong and loving and compassionate. It is never too late for rebirth, and we all have the capacity for resurrection. That is surely the message I take from the life of Christ, and on this day.

I have experienced the great wonder of being reborn

I commit myself to rebirth. To loving my wife completely and openly. To allowing friends and people into my life. To giving the poor reason for hope. To keeping animals in our world, and hearing the cries of a wounded earth, our Mother. I commit myself to my writing and my photography, and a lifelong search for a spiritual life.

I do not care to be an angry person, living in a world of argument and conflict. In itself, a rebirth. I do not care to live a life in fear, bounded by security and money. There is no security on this earth, not for the son of George Katz, or the son of God. Our only security comes from within, from our commitment to growing and learning and loving and connection, to being independent and standing in our truth. I came to worship the Creative Spark, a rebirth all of it’s own, that is my temple and my faith, my house of worship.

I wish you a good day, whatever your faith.  I wish you many rebirths and resurrections. Rebirth and resurrection are open to all of us, it is our gift, we are the only things on the earth that can conceive it and experience it, part of the miracle of being a human being. I stand with the poet John O’Donohue. The more love you give away, the more love you have. This is perhaps the greatest rebirth of all.

“Each night, when I go to sleep,” said Gandhi, “I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”