{"id":1802,"date":"2013-03-28T10:43:40","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T14:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayspirituality\/?p=1802"},"modified":"2016-10-19T08:45:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T12:45:28","slug":"the-best-easter-gift-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html","title":{"rendered":"The Best Easter Gift So Far"},"content":{"rendered":"

Easter is an interesting time of the year. Of course, friends and neighbors have been involved in Lent for a few weeks now. I\u2019ve covered a story on Ukrainian Egg decorating\u2014a rather impressive and fancy process. My husband came home from church with a palm branch (the cats play with it). But, I have to admit, the most impressive 2013 Easter happening, for me so far, is reading a book by Marcus Borg<\/a>. Not really thinking about Easter, I checked out the book, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time<\/em><\/a> (published in 2001) and began reading with the hopes it would keep my attention. It did.<\/p>\n

Although I\u2019ve never heard of the man before, Marcus Borg apparently is well known in both academic and church circles as a Bible and Jesus scholar. Moreover, his vocabulary is bigger than mine, but I hung in there and kept reading his book. I\u2019m sure I didn\u2019t catch the full meaning of his \u201cmetaphorical historical approach to interpretation,\u201d but I did catch enough. Borg points out the difference between a metaphorical and a literal interpretation, and his reasoning is sound.<\/p>\n

A literal interpretation would render the resurrection as an event that occurred only once. Whereas, a metaphorical interpretation can admit an ongoing resurrection. It reminds me of the definition for resurrection as found in a revision of Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health<\/a>, <\/em>“Resurrection: Spiritualization of thought; a new and higher idea of immortality or spiritual existence; material belief yielding to spiritual understanding.” This can happen right now.<\/p>\n

Literal interpretations lead to exclusivity and contradiction. Literalists serve a convention or culture, whereas, Borg points out, we can rather be liberated to be God\u2019s image. Our salvation doesn\u2019t come through rituals, syllables, or words, but by letting go of an old way of being, and embracing a new way of being.<\/p>\n

The old way of being is to insist human words are infallible or inerrant. The fact is: reading is an interpretation. Borg says, \u201cThere is no such thing as non-interpretive reading.\u201d Readers are using their own discerning judgment when reading. But the meaning of anything sacred can \u201cgo beyond particular meanings of the texts in their ancient contexts.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have revisions of the Bible to show its surplus of meaning, and allow it full voice. The Bible is a lens through which we see God, but we need to remember, not to believe in the lens, but to believe in God<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Believing in God is not hard for me. Reading Marcus Borg\u2019s book reaffirmed that I don\u2019t need to believe in the Bible, or some other religious book, but can focus on believing God. This affirmation, I\u2019d have to say, was a great Easter gift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Easter is an interesting time of the year. Of course, friends and neighbors have been involved in Lent for a few weeks now. I\u2019ve covered a story on Ukrainian Egg decorating\u2014a rather impressive and fancy process. My husband came home from church with a palm branch (the cats play with it). But, I have to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[892,893,361,24,894,848],"class_list":["post-1802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-leaders","tag-author-marcus-borg","tag-beliefs-of-christian-science","tag-bible-quotes","tag-christian-science-2","tag-learning-about-the-bible","tag-official"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Best Easter Gift So Far - Everyday Spirituality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Best Easter Gift So Far - Everyday Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Easter is an interesting time of the year. Of course, friends and neighbors have been involved in Lent for a few weeks now. I\u2019ve covered a story on Ukrainian Egg decorating\u2014a rather impressive and fancy process. My husband came home from church with a palm branch (the cats play with it). But, I have to…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Spirituality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-28T14:43:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-10-19T12:45:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cheryl Petersen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cherylpetersen\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Best Easter Gift So Far - Everyday Spirituality","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Best Easter Gift So Far - Everyday Spirituality","og_description":"Easter is an interesting time of the year. Of course, friends and neighbors have been involved in Lent for a few weeks now. I\u2019ve covered a story on Ukrainian Egg decorating\u2014a rather impressive and fancy process. My husband came home from church with a palm branch (the cats play with it). But, I have to…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html","og_site_name":"Everyday Spirituality","article_published_time":"2013-03-28T14:43:40+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-10-19T12:45:28+00:00","author":"Cheryl Petersen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@cherylpetersen","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html","name":"The Best Easter Gift So Far - Everyday Spirituality","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-03-28T14:43:40+00:00","dateModified":"2016-10-19T12:45:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/#\/schema\/person\/5f61c15bc03b38172723cefb1475d1bb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/2013\/03\/the-best-easter-gift-so-far.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Best Easter Gift So Far"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/","name":"Everyday Spirituality","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Cheryl Petersen","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/#\/schema\/person\/5f61c15bc03b38172723cefb1475d1bb","name":"Cheryl Petersen","description":"Cheryl Petersen engages and advances divine Science, interpreting harmony to the universe. Cheryl's book is, \"21st Century Science and Health.\"","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.HealingScienceToday.com","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/healingsciencetoday\/","https:\/\/x.com\/cherylpetersen"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/author\/cherylpetersen"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1802"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3542,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1802\/revisions\/3542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayspirituality\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}