But now I've been retired for exactly 3 months and I can honestly say I've not been bored once. I have not volunteered even one minute at the public library or really anywhere else, and I've already cancelled two trips I had planned.
Here's what's happened so far in my retirement, though -- my husband's pituitary brain tumor that we thought was in remission started acting up again and I've been caring for him (He's improving greatly and is basically back to normal after a terrible scare). As a result of his illness, we couldn't leave town. In the midst of facing some life-and-death issues and worrying continuously about him, I have found my way back to some old interests and questions from my past and have started attending the local Quaker meeting and have returned to some old research interests in early Christian History. It seems that so far my retirement has been more of a spiritual journey than I'd been aware that I'd been on for years.
Now, I'm a lacemaker and have been for years, and I find the repetitive process of crocheting, bobbin lacing, and needle-made lacing to be something of a meditative practice. I have thought that making lace has been my spirituality. I've continued my lacemaking throughout these three months of my retirement, and it is because of the continuity of that practice for me, and the fact that I love a title with layered meanings, that I've titled this blog "Lacings."
I want to start with a reflection I wrote two days ago in response to a question a family member had asked me, "Where do you think Christianity went wrong?" since I don't consider myself a Christian anymore. My answer to the question is that I'm thinking that Christianity took a wrong turn very early when it based its understanding of Jesus and of the faith on a narrow list of authoritative texts when it selected from all the writings available to it what it wanted to include in the canon of the New Testament.
But first a picture of some Romanian Point Lace I've recently completed.
And here's my reflections:
My recent research into the Early Christian Church history, beliefs, and decisions about how to move forward with the faith has led me to some really fascinating finds, the most recent of which is the GOSPEL OF JUDAS, a copy of a Gnostic gospel recently authenticated to about 250 AD.
Here's a URL to it:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/_pdf/GospelofJudas.pdf
The Gospel of Judas was found in a cave decades ago by a bedouin who tried to sell it, but no one would pay his price. So, over the years, it wandered from place to place in an attempt to find a buyer, was eventually stolen, again unable to be sold, until finally the gospel was locked away in a safe deposit box where it began to deteriorate to dust for years. Finally, the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY collaborated with a museum to purchase it -- they authenticated, dated, restored, and translated it , and, in fact, made a film about the process and their findings, which film is now available for streaming on Netflix.
But several things are really interesting to me about it -- first, of course, is what a hot potato it was until a secular organization finally got interested and took on the project. So far, evidently we've found 31 so-called "lost" gospels and other early Christian writings, all the rest of which have found ready buyers and investigators, but the Gospel of JUDAS was just too hot. In fact, I rented a DVD on it and some of the other so-call "lost" gospels from Netflix -- this DVD was of a Catholic Priest just livid in his railing about how FALSE they all are. Just livid, I say.
Anyway, what's primarily interesting about this gospel is what it says -- AS PROBLEMATIC as the text is, what with the breaks in the text where sections have been lost and what with its prejudices, it paints Judas in a positive light as having a highly advanced understanding of Jesus' mission and as working WITH Jesus as a catalyst to Jesus' crucifixion. All the Gnostic writings I've read so far have an alternative take on the Jesus tradition -- and discuss so-called "secret" sayings and teachings of Jesus, most of which are pretty esoteric and actually seem very influenced by Buddhist thinking. In fact, tradition has it that THOMAS actually went to India to preach and there would have become familiar with Buddhist teaching. His Gospel is just a list of 70 "Secret Teachings" of Jesus and actually reads like a list of Buddhist Koans. The Gospel of Mary relates how Mary Magdalene taught and preached and forcefully declared her authority to do so based on the secret teachings she had received from Jesus during his life and the visions she had received since his death.
Anyway, the other interesting thing about the Gospel of JUDAS is that it brings to light how even in the 4 Gospels that have been incorporated into the New Testament, Judas wasn't always seen as evil -- he is a very neutral figure in the Gospel of Mark, for example, and it is not until the much later, especially in the Gospel of John that he is presented as a pariah. John is late enough that by the time he wrote, the Christians had begun to seriously separate themselves from Judaism, and JUdas was apparently a convenient target to explain the growing animus. Much of the very anti-Jewish sentiment of the New Testament is found in the Gospel of John in the crucifixion narrative and elsewhere.
Well, we all know the continuing history of anti-semitic feelings and actions among Christians, culminating in the Holocaust. The Gospel of Judas at minimum gives us pause to rethink that history in terms of what might have been had these so-called Gnostic writings been more freely included either within the New Testament canon or at least among accepted reading and teaching within the church. But by the second century that option was being snapped shut by the consolidating catholic (or universal) Church. In fact, the influential bishop Iranaeus -- (died in 202 AD) of Lyon in what is now France -- wrote vehemently for their exclusion and mentions the Gospel of Judas by name.
But now we have these writings -- and it seems to me that we can benefit greatly from reading them all, at minimum to flesh out a picture of Christ and of the Church that for a few centuries was part of what was generally considered CHRISTIAN. The Gnostics did not call themselves "gnostics" (which in fact, just means "intuitive knowledge" in Greek but over time has gotten such a bad rap in Christian circles) -- they called themselves "Christians."
WOW -- I'm willing to call them that as well! And finally, what's interesting to me about the Judas story developments is that the Catholic church in GERMANY, in light of their rethinking of the anti-semitism in their own history, has petitioned for the larger church to declare Judas a saint. I think it would be a good step -- but other good steps would be for us all to open our thinking to consider the alternative possibilities for faith.
