Here a Christ, There a Christ, Everywhere a Christ, Christ

"Everyone in the world is Christ and they are all crucified."

-- Sherwood Anderson

When my friend Sara really likes something, say a CD by a band she's just discovered or a new flavor of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, she'll say, "Yeah, I like it, but I wouldn't hang on the cross for it." Sort of puts her liking in perspective.

And yet, as Sherwood Anderson points out, we are all, in our own way, crucified. Each of us experiences betrayal and persecution and events in life that slay us, figuratively, if not literally. The Buddha pointed it out, as well - no one goes through life without experiencing suffering. And just because our crucifixion didn't make the front page of the Galilee Gazette, just because no one founded a religion based on our resurrection, doesn't make our suffering less painful, or less instructive.

Yes, we are all crucified by life, but you see the other half of the equation is that we are also all Christ. The Divine spark is harbored within each of us. God did not have but one son -- we are all God's sons, we are all God's daughters. Indeed, that is the only way in which we can bear the crucifixion, the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," the deaths and rebirths of everyday life. We are all direct descendants of the Divine. God has not grandchildren.

We are all Christ, we are all crucified, and time after time after time, we are all resurrected. The ego dies on the cross of life, the Spirit is resurrected. Each day, every day, sometimes hour by hour, sometimes moment by moment. Death and rebirth --an endless spiral -- reaching ever upward, diving ever inward, ever and always homeward bound.