rebirth

If being born again is good, why would we limit ourselves to a once-and-for-all experience of it? Why can't we be reborn every day even? Every new day requires a renewal of outlook so that we don't limit ourselves to old beliefs about ourselves and about what we are capable of. Being open to new possibilities requires that we make active choices to be welcoming when opportunities present themselves. Allowing inertia to make choices for us is to be asleep and barely alive. We need to bestir ourselves. We need to disrupt the status quo. We need to question what we've been told. We need to question inadequately examined beliefs we have adopted. 

If being born again is to have any meaning at all, shouldn't it introduce something new instead of merely leading to compliant acceptance of an outdated belief system? We celebrate the new life that children bring into our midst, so why is it often so hard for us to embrace that gift of new life and see it for what it is? If being born again would actually resemble literal birth, shouldn't it be bursting with new possibilities instead of merely being about becoming obedient to authority?

There is an unfortunate attitude toward children that often accompanies traditional religious beliefs. That attitude takes many forms, but at its essence it is about caring more about getting them to fit in than about truly appreciating who they are and the freshness their lively presence introduces. Some Christians talk about the necessity of breaking the will of their children. That approach to parenting is consistent with the doctrine of original sin, which teaches that human beings are born sinful and that our only chance for being saved from our sinfulness and its consequences is through the grace God.

I have all kinds of problems with the idea of original sin, but the point I want to make here is that we should be less concerned with taming children and more with fostering their giftedness. We have more to learn from them than they have to learn from us. We can teach them how to do some things that are generally helpful, but they keep us on our toes and remind us of what is most important.

Left to our own devises, most of us as adults naturally choose what we are used to over disruptive change. We equate wisdom with prudence. We get more conservative as we grow older. I find that rather sad. It feels like acquiescing to a so-called life that is dead to itself. How wise is that? How smart is it to deprive ourselves of the best of what life has to offer? What do we gain by avoiding risks at all costs if the main result is dying a thousand figurative deaths before arriving at the literal death that we fear so much.

However, rejecting the life that comes with each present moment in order to protect a life that we will never really live is less about conscious choice than it is about seemingly innocuous (and perhaps even ostensibly sensible) failures to show up. Which brings me back to the theme of being born again. Most of us would benefit from being born again if that is understood as a return to a childlike relationship with life in all its fullness.