Thoughts on the Crucifixion, Illness, and the Resurrection

For those of you who are Christian, welcome to Bright Monday! For those of you who aren't well... hopefully this'll be interesting to you. Think of it as broadening your horizons.

For the last six years of my life, I've had Lyme's disease. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a disease that can be contracted from a tick bite. Most of you probably know that. What you probably don't know, however, are what happens if you don't catch it within the first six months and blast the hell out of it with antibiotics. It gets stuck in your system and is, for all intents and purposes, incurable. Now, granted, there are people who claim they can cure it, but those results are still inconclusive enough for me to trust in them, not to mention unbelievably expensive. Lyme's attacks your body from within, causing depression, aches and pains, sluggishness, and sensory deprivation. It triggers under stress and lack of sleep. So if you're not careful, Lyme's will flair up at the most inopportune moments.

Like at 2:45 in the afternoon on Great and Holy Friday (the Eastern name for Good Friday). I completely lost all energy and crashed in the back of my family's van as the service started. Now March was a very difficult month for me. I had flashbacks to my abuse "incident" almost every single day for the entire month. It was perfectly hellish. So when I collapsed from just sheer... loss of energy... it was the last straw for me. I lay down in the back of my car, called Carpe and bitched at him for a little while, and then slept. It wasn't so much of a lack of faith on my part as it was a simple question: How am I supposed to live my life like this?

And for whatever reason, my answer came to me this Sunday morning, as I started to hear the words "Christ is Risen!" it sorta occurred to me. I need to get right back up and try again, because He got back up as well. Call it corny, call it trite, but it's true. The Resurrection is the central truth of humanity. There is nothing more true than humanity's triumph over adversity, a fact that was completely unknown before Christianity. Don't believe me?

Who remembers the fable of the tortoise and the hare? Y'know, where the tortoise wins because he's steady and never gives up? That's the Christian bastardization of the myth. In the original the tortoise not only loses, but is mocked by the hare for ever thinking he could change his fate.Most of the pagan myths showcase the helplessness of humanity against fate. Dunno about you, but I prefer what the Christians did with it. It's nicer to have Gurrenn Lagann than Death Note, if you ask me. A bit more accurate to, if any of those inspirational sports films are to be even halfway believed. Tales about people succumbing to their fate aren't very hopeful, or quite as realistic as we'd like to believe.

Although an anime about Black Star dying due to his stupidity would count as hopeful...

The point is this: I don't want to succumb to the downward spiral this world has us in from the instant we're conceived. I know no one else wants to either. And the Resurrection is my answer to that. It always has been, and it always will be.

Anyway, I know it's a day late, but CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!