Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God... II Corinthians 5:17.
In search of age-old secrets, Dan Buettner, writer and adventurer, has been traveling to places where people live the longest - Coasta Rica; Sardinia; Loma Linda, California; and Okinawa. He has discovered that nearly all of the centenarians living in these places have labored physically every day and that they eat far more fruit and vegetables than meat. None are fat.
In Okinawa, Japan, he has made another discovery.
IKIGAI!
Upon awakening each morning, Okinawans, who have no word for retirement, chant a mantra: “Ikigai!” It translates: “What makes my life worth living today?” They then arise and go about their business of making their living worthwhile that day, whether it be removing rocks from the field or building a wall or feeding a family.
On this Easter, the most holy of all Christian holidays, perhaps it is a mantra that we should adopt and make our own. We are not talking about warding off death, but rather embracing life. Isn’t that the message of Jesus on this, the day he arose from the grave? Yes, He lives.
Yet you ask, how can Christians possibly find anything worth our time and effort in an ancient pagan saying?
However, for centuries, we Christians have been doing just that, taking things that are pagan and making them our own. Look at Christmas. Pagans were the first to drag living trees inside their houses to decorate them. Do we not do the same thing? Don’t we even hang Crismons, religious symbols, on trees in some churches?
Likewise, take the bells; they are the oldest known instrument found in every ancient civilization. Yet today, whenever we hear the ring of a bell, we automatically look skyward to a church steeple.
Even Valentine’s Day underwent religious transformation. Named for a priest, who was executed February 14, 270 A. D., but who, prior to his death, had miraculously healed his jailer’s daughter of blindness, the date coincided with the raucous pagan feast of Lupercalia when young Roman males drew the names of their companion for the celebration from a box.
For years, the Christian church tried to stop the practice. It finally managed to convert the crude orgy into a holiday where lovers exchanged notes and tokens of affection. However, we Americans also have a knack for turning things religious materialistic.
And Easter eggs. How many have we dyed and hidden for the children over the years? The egg has long been a symbol of life for many people, many cultures. For Christians, the egg symbolizes the Easter message itself. That which appears dead on the outside lives within. The inert shell nurtures the innate chick until it can stand on its own two feet.
Zora Neale Hurston in Moses, Man of the Mountain, sees the metaphor in an egg. “The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.”
It is the age-old story of the Christian church. We take things and people pagan and God makes them holy.
So why not embrace such a meaningful passage: What makes my life worth living today? God gives each of us purpose to arise every day and He expects us to be about His work daily.
And what is our daily purpose? In general, we all have the same charge in the Great Commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy mind...and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Matthew 22:37, 39.
Specifically, our individual purpose lies in how we work with God to love Him and His children.
In The Virtues of Aging, President Jimmy Carter challenges us to rise up to the charge: “You are old when regrets take the place of dreams.”
Easter beckons us to dream big and to fulfill our purpose by following the Risen Lord.
2003
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