Claim Your Divinity

Get ready for some extra woo this week.

At the time of writing this post, it’s Holy Week for those of the Greek Orthodox faith, which means Easter is this coming Sunday. Easter is my favorite holiday. It’s filled with family tradition, community, and arguably the best Greek food on the planet.

But due to the COVID-19 crisis, this week the Greek Orthodox Church announced that no church would be permitted to pass on the Light of God during the traditional Saturday evening mass for the holiday.

Without getting into all of the rituals of Easter, what you need to know about the Light of God is that it represents the rising of Christ. At midnight, the priest lights a single candle and that light is passed on to every member of the church. In some churches, you will suddenly be surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of little lights that all came from the same source. It is truly mesmerizing.

So when this announcement was made, many of the Greek communities that I am a part of were horrified, outraged, and hurt. In my opinion, while this is the most logical and responsible decision to make during these times, it’s also a sad one. I am grieving, because this holiday means so much to me.

But beyond the sadness, I see an incredibly powerful invitation.

I love Easter on a spiritual level, because at the root of it I see the story representing a human being that chose to claim their divinity. And what I truly believe about all of us is that we are divine beings living a mortal experience.

So when I heard that as a congregation will not be able to receive the Light of God, I also heard the invitation to become the Light ourselves.

I get goosebumps when I think of that.

I get goosebumps because to me, this is a reminder that in this time we are facing as a planet, we cannot wait for the light to be given to us, or relate to ourselves as powerless without it. It is up to us to recognize that the light has been inside of us all along, and that it is something that we can choose and claim and hold and deliver to others.

While I don’t mean to deliver a sermon through my blog, I think that this conversation matters right now, and always matters. Too often we give away our power to others and feel helpless.

Our spirit, our divinity, and our power do not exist outside of us. They are inherently within us, waiting to be claimed and shone onto the world.