The Sixth Waypoint: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

We walk up a trail and pause at a gully bringing to mind water which molds contours in the Earth’s surface, water which sustains life, quenching our thirst and making the plants grow.  Water takes many forms, waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans, snow and ice.  We pause in gratitude for the waters of the world.  Then we proceed up the rise and notice a chestnut oak tree, bark torn and damaged by disease.  The tree brings to mind those who cling to life on the margins, pushed to the edges by globalization and the doctrine of progress.  We are reminded of those absent from this space: Gray Wolf, Mountain Lion, Beaver, Passenger Pigeon, the Indigenous of this land.

AT GOLGOTHA

Jesus was nailed to the cross.  Above his head was placed the charge against him.  It read: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

Two criminals were also crucified, one to his right and one to his left.  The criminals and many passers-by jeered at Jesus, mocking him.

We bring into our hearts those crucified because of a categorization, charged with their ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation.  Blind to our essential humanity, we are sentenced to die alone, fragmented into identities with which we criminalize and dismiss one another. We remember the immense suffering that has been inflicted on human minorities as a result.  We remember the more than human ones, species of plants and animals lost because they have been judged disposable.

This waypoint compels us to question how we see others.  Do we crash through conversations and arguments, blind to our biases?  Do we speak acceptance yet act out of prejudice hidden even from ourselves?  What would it take to approach one another and all animal and plant beings with broken-hearted humility, acknowledging our numbness and the scars of many generations before our own; wounds that will only heal when exposed to the excruciating light?  Dare we go there, for the sake of the healing and joy that will come from at last finding our true home in the family of all beings?

Continue to the Seventh (final) Waypoint (Click Here)

Filming and editing by Katie Jones Pomeroy // Online design and social media coordination by Joy Houck Bauer