The Cross

I wear a cross on a silver chain around my neck. It’s only less than 1x1 inches. It’s silver. It doesn’t say “Save and Preserve” on the back, as Orthodox crosses often do. The one I had before said that. It was pewter, and being that, it wore almost completely away. It says on the front the abbreviation for “The King of Glory,”  and the one for “Jesus Christ conquers.” That last word, NIKA, (“conquers” in Greek) is not an abbreviation though. 

There are several reasons a cross can be worn. I think I’ve seen most of them:

1. IDENTITY. Nothing says “I am a Christian” better than wearing a Cross. I’ll admit it is one of the reasons I wear it.  Though I now practice Buddhism, it is a reminder of my origins.

2. ACSCESIS: this is especially true of those who wear a big one. Many of my former seminarian brothers wear it this way. It is SUPPOSED to hurt. It digs into your chest the way the big iron ones with chains used to.

3. THE SYMBOLISM:  This is the main reason I wear it (I think). It represents to me the extremest form of compassion. It is an ancient execution device, after all. Really, one could as well wear a little noose or electric chair around one’s neck. That it has lost that connotation is just incidental really.

There was this guy, Jesus, who woke up, I believe, to the fact that there was no separation between him and what was called “God,” in the Jewish tradition he grew up in. He never intended to be the central figure of what was to become the main religion of Europe and the Americas, but he had no real choice in the matter. What he DID have control over were his actions in his life around two thousand years ago. So, first of all, he had to teach, even though few of his listeners “got” it, as could be expected. And then he had to sacrifice himself for his fellow humans. That was, in fact, his main teaching. In the Roman world he came out of people were already finding ways to blame the unfortunate for their own misfortune, and to laugh at them. Jesus, or “God” as he came to be known, took the power exchange that the world runs on (It still does! The American Republican Party now demonstrates  that very well). Jesus turned the whole power-play thing on which the world runs on its head, unexpectedly. It turns out that when you learn the truth of the nonduality that surrounds us, there is really no “other,” and sacrificing yourself for someone in need of that becomes the most natural and obvious thing in the world.  It may seem heroic to those who’ve not yet gotten nonduality, but it’s not. Sacrificing yourself for the other is the most natural thing you can do.  It’s even sometimes funny! As are the thousand or so smaller acts you can do that go against the grain like that.

So that symbolic meaning is the main reason I wear a cross. Along with the identity thing. It was, after all, Christianity that led me to Buddhism (I never rejected it) and the fact that Christians remain some the most kind and honest people I’ve ever met.