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Celebrating Life: Mardi Gras As we approach the season preceding the holy day of , I got to pondering, as I sometimes do, why the Christian church focused so much on , penance and suffering around this holiday. The miracle of Jesus was not that he died but that he lived. His teachings were not to prepare us to die but to empower us to live into our full power and glory each day. So much of what we associate with the term “Christianity” today is about the efforts of the early church to establish itself and has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus. The motivation for many rituals and dogma is at the core of the Fillmore’s reluctance to incorporate ritual into the Unity tradition— because most rituals are fraught with the meaning organized religion has given it and many people feel wounded and hurt by those traditions. The early church had sort of two challenges. First, monotheism, or worshiping only one God, was not all that popular. It was much more popular to create a god or goddess for each aspect of life that worried them and to seek to appease these gods and goddesses depending on the human need arising at the time. The pagan celebrations of appeasing these gods and goddesses tended to get a little raucous at times, generally involving portions of wine and sometimes the shedding of clothes and the indulgence of human sense desires. Which brings us to the second challenge of the early church—crowd control. Anyone try to make sense or organize a group of naked and drunk adults? Not so easy. Ask any Florida patrol during Break. The early church wanted to wean people away from the worshipping of multiple gods and goddesses and move them towards the One God worship with restrictive covenants and a level of fear that kept them a little off balance and unsure about the future—so that they needed and depended on the church. So the church’s focus during this spring season was to move people away from the celebrations of Eostre and get them focused on a time of reverence. I found an interesting series of contrasts on a website decidedly pro-pagan but it brought up some of my own reflections:

The pagan Easter celebrates happiness and life. The Christian Easter consecrates suffering and death. The pagan Easter celebrates a birthday (renewal). The Christian Easter solemnizes an execution (death). Pagans give. Christians take. Pagans prepare for life. Christians prepare for an alleged afterlife. Yet this comparison only reflects the celebration of Easter season as crafted by the organized church structures that are not, in my humble opinion, aligned with the actual teachings of Jesus. 1

So what did Jesus teach and how did I get to Mardi Gras? Did I just want an excuse for beads and a ? OK, I wouldn’t put that past Guida, but I actually had a little more in mind.

In John 10:10 Jesus is quoted as saying, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The Thief is typically the opposer or the devil or that which is not in alignment with our true nature. So what does it mean to have life and have it abundantly? In the Revealing Word, Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore says that abundance is “invisible substance, with infinite capacity of expansion when held in mind, affirmed and praised.” Fillmore goes on to say this about Life: “Life is divine, spiritual and its source is God, Spirit. The river of life is within man in his spiritual consciousness. [One] comes into consciousness of the river of life through the quickening of Spirit. [One] can be truly quickened with new life and vitalized in mind and body only by consciously contacting Spirit.”

So perhaps in John, Jesus is saying that he came to teach us the power of this river of life constantly flowing through us as Spirit. He is encouraging us right now to connect with this Source which has the capacity of infinite expansion when we grasp this idea in our minds, hold firm to it in our thoughts and words and praise it with our gratitude. This mysterious Source and idea, we in Unity name as the great I AM, the Christ of our consciousness, the divine imprint and spark within each one of us. It is our birthright. It is the essence of our creation. It is not earned but universally given.

For a practical application of this, we have the parable of the prodigal son. The story appears in the 15th chapter of Luke, where we also find two other stories of one being lost and then found. The story we are looking at involves a father with two sons. One son asks for his inheritance share and takes it away and squanders it in sensuous living. The other son stays at home. Yet when the wandering son returns home the father rejoices and calls for a ring and a robe for the returned son and commands the servants to bring a fatted calf for a feast. The son who stayed at home is angry but the father responds: “But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” The father in the story represents the divine creator, always ready to celebrate our return to living in the Spirit, returning to our true nature. And it is the “fatted calf” of that celebration that actually brings me to Mardi Gras. In its origins in medieval Rome and Venice on its way to the French House of Bourbon, it was Boeuf Gras, or Fatted Calf. Coming home to our life in Spirit is a celebration.

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The new life, as Jesus taught, is not so much a process of constant penance to earn some future reward as it is an awakening into the abundance that is already ours.

Much of Europe and other countries celebrate the Tuesday before Lent begins as “”. Shrove comes from the English word “shrive” which means to absolve. The earliest mention of “Shrive” in connection with Lent appears in a document dating to 1000 AD. Shrove Tuesday is a tradition in Lutheran, Methodist and Catholic practices. The began showing up around the 16th century. Pancakes and various other pastries, including Fasnaughts, were a way to use up foods like eggs and sugar that might be given up in the season of fasting during Lent. In this tradition, the elements of pancakes represent spiritual aspects. Eggs represent creation; flour the mainstay of mortal diets; salt represents wholesomeness and milk purity. In the , Ireland and Canada they have races carrying pancakes. Ringing the church bells in the morning begins the making. Quite a bit tamer than the Mardi Gras celebrations. And tied to the preparation for fasting and absolving ourselves from our sins. Not exactly the party I had in mind.

So let’s go back to Mardi Gras. Beouf Gras began in medieval and France and became Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday because of it’s location on Tuesday preceding . It was carried to the territories by French settlers. The first Mardi Gras in the was in 1703 in Mobile , begun by the Frenchman Nicholas Langlois. Mardi Gras was celebrated openly in by the 1730’s. In 1872 the celebration in New Orleans included a newly created position of King Rex. Rex is actually Latin for King so it is sort of redundant. The first King Rex of Mardi Gras was a visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff.

That year the colors of purple, green and gold were also adopted as the official colors of Mardi Gras. Purple represents justice, green represents faith and gold represents power. Unity has other associations for those colors but it is interesting to note these values as a spiritual under-pinning for the celebrations of Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras challenges us to examine how we understand justice, faith and power.

Early on there were elaborate balls given by each Krewe. A Krewe is a social group, sometimes secret, that coordinates and creates the Mardi Gras celebration. They are benevolent and service oriented groups that function in the community year round. In some cities, larger Krewes will put on separate .

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The Krewes choose what gifts or trinkets they will throw, the themes for their work and for their floats. New Orleans has a schedule of Krewe parades that begins January 6th, with most parades occurring in February this year and the height of parades culminating on Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. You wonder why would they begin on January 6th ?

January 6th is or Kings Day. It is the 12th day following and celebrates the gifts of the Wisemen or 3 Kings brought to the baby Jesus. It begins the season for King Cakes, which ends on Mardi Gras. This season ties Christmas and Easter together as a celebration of the life of Jesus. The has a tiny baby inserted after baking. These days they are plastic but in the past they might have been porcelain or even gold. Whoever gets the baby has the honor of bringing the King Cake for the next year’s celebration. And yes, we have fasnaughts and King Cake downstairs AFTER the Annual Meeting.

What about the for Mardi Gras? What do they mean? Are they just to allow anonymous debauchery? Well, actually no. If masks were helpful in protecting those engaged in drunken merriment then everyone in Puxatanie PA would be wearing one on Ground Hog’s Day. Although the colorful and creative masks associated with Mardi Gras add to the mystic of the celebrations, they originally served another function. The masks allowed participants to celebrate life free from the constraints of social hierarchy and economic barriers. A day to just be, no matter your social standing, education or accumulated wealth! What a concept! Everyone equal and worthy of the celebration of life.

So here is what I think about Mardi Gras. It is about time celebrating life became a focus of our faith. We give 40 days to fasting and contemplation. We need to bring some attention to days of celebration. Making connection with Spirit and maintaining awareness of where our thoughts are should not be relegated to 40 days prior to Easter. The prayer and contemplation of Lent should be integrated into everyday of our lives. It is how we stay in the flow of the abundant life stream.

Mardi Gras actually has some interesting invitations for us. Are we awakened to the precious gift life is and ready to celebrate the Spiritual gifts we bring into the world? The invitation to make that connection lies within each day.

Do we joyfully accept the gifts Spirit rains down upon us, reveling in the rich colors of the world around us? Like the beads and coins thrown from the floats and distributed at the balls, these gifts are ours to claim. In the

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Prodigal story, the father told the angry son all that the father had was his all along. There is no merit system that entitles some to more and some to none. We don’t need to wear masks to claim our equality and worth. We just have to claim our good and stop waiting on the sidelines for a special invitation. Step out and celebrate the gifts already yours.

Mardi Gras asks if we can celebrate this life of Spirit manifest in humanity without falling into the pig pen of sense desire that was the downfall of the prodigal son? This seems to be a perpetual challenge for celebrating through our humanity. Jesus did not separate himself except for the periodic rest and renewal. He attended weddings and feasts and celebrations. He did not go about torturing himself or denying himself basic comforts. He simply practiced self-discipline and did not make any comfort the focus of his life or work. Beyond the rigid rules of the Old Testament, the New Testament and the New Life in Christ invites us to be responsible for our choices, our words and actions. No matter what we do, we are assured that Spirit celebrates each time we wake up from the slumber of forgetting who we are and what we are here to do.

Mardi Gras invites us to choose our Krewe or find our way to be in service in the world. How will we support the celebration of life? What are our gifts to share? What is our theme in life? There was an interesting comment on the New Orleans Mardi Gras page about Krewes. It said one Krewe was not better or more special than the others. I thought that was a simple and powerful statement about our diversity and equality.

When I thought about the idea of the celebration of awakening to a life in Spirit BEFORE the Lenten season of prayer and contemplation, it occurred to me this is EXACTLY what Unity teaches. Be grateful in advance, claiming the good that is already yours. Exactly what Jesus taught. “Look the fields are already white for harvest.”

As I wrote this sermon it was a beautiful, sunny and warm day. I wrote and worked; I got up and played with the dogs; I went out to lunch; I read reminders in my journal and on Facebook of where I was a year ago. All of this reminded me of the life that is mine to celebrate. The life I live in service is rich and colorful and amazing. None of it is guaranteed but all of it is given through grace and simply because I am Spirit in expression. And for me, that is worth celebrating. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

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