In Eckhart Tolle's Lecture: Living a Life of Inner Peace (available on Audible.com), he points out that the opposite to LIFE isn't death ... that DEATH's opposite is BIRTH, not LIFE. Because in LIFE, birth & death happen, as do other opposites like peace & war, joy and&sorrow, feast & famine.
Tolle sites the teachings of many historical spiritual teachers including Buddha and Jesus. At first when I heard him site Jesus, I wanted to turn him off because I've been unable to stomach the ways in which modern Christianity has been held hostage by humans who practice an exclusionary, judgemental and insultingly shallow interpretation of Jesus' teachings.
It is for this reason that I've for more than 30 years kept the cross necklace given to me by my father deep down in my jewelry box, with a vow to never wear it again, lest I mistakenly be associated with modern day Pharisees who practice a distorted derivation of Christ's spiritual teachings.
In Pete Buttigieg's book SHORTEST WAY HOME, he sites the teachings of Jesus in ways that make me revel in their truth of inclusion and acceptance of the NOW. And that if I am to follow suit, I ought not cower away and yield these beautiful teachings to humans who elect to interpret Jesus through a prism of ego-driven superiority.
This morning, I saw on Twitter, @MerriamWebster share the definition of RESURRECTION: an act or instance of returning to life.
LIFE ... not the opposite of death but an all-encompassing alert presence. I have pulled out the necklace from my father and am wearing it again ... and allowing it reflect a divinity that in the face of death on the ultimate torture instrument, could transform that instrument as a symbol for full acceptance of the now. A return to life. The shortest way home. Resurrection.