freedom

Survival of the Friendliest: The Next Step in Human Evolution?

/ Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given at the Winter Solstice Worship Service on December 22, 2024.

Thousands of years ago when life on Earth was just getting started, there were many types of human beings. Human animals did not come in just one flavor. There were a number of species of primates with what we think of as human features. The first stages of human evolution produced not only Homo Sapiens, but four or five other hominids such as Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Neanderthals. It has always been a mystery about why all these different variations of humans disappeared in time, leaving only our present lineage. Why Homo Sapiens?

We now may have some answers to this mystery. Or at least we have finally developed a plausible theory, one that is gaining traction. Surprisingly, it came to us not from archaeology or anthropology. It came from researchers studying cancer.

As part of looking for cures for cancer, science has been looking closely at genetic programming, and the way evolution has of changing our genetic code over time.

In the past when we were searching to clues about cancer, researchers used to inject rats with cancer cells and look for ways to treat their resulting diseases. Thank God–literally–that there has been a shift in human consciousness, a recent step in our own evolutionary perspective such that science has been realizing that we do not need to create cancer in animals. Rather, we can use “naturally-occurring” cancers in (arguably) our closest animal companions, Species Canidae.

Dogs accompany humans in all our pursuits in life. They share many of the same genes, live the same lifestyles, are exposed to the same environments, and develop the same types of cancers. Right now all around the world many dogs who have developed cancers are a part of clinical trials to develop treatments for themselves, and for their human counterparts.

With this paradigm shift in cancer research methodology, there has come some unexpected new insights. One such has to do with this question of why Homo Sapiens? Why did this variation of primates become THE exclusive form of human animals? What did Homo Sapiens do or have that their counterparts did not. Naturally, researchers have been asking a similar question about their research partners, i.e. dogs when it came to the ancestors of this animal, the wolf. Why did certain wolves evolve into friendly, loyal domesticated dogs that reside in our households; while other wolves remain ruthless predators, wild animals who roam the plains and forests and who maintain an adversarial relationship with humans?

There have been a lot of new fMRIs and other brain imaging scans of dogs, leading to a new, extensive genetic mapping of the dog genome. There has also been a closer look at the environmental factors that may play out as a result of underlying genetic predispositions. All the while the question that comes to mind in looking at these lovable and loyal dogs who share our homes, this species known as “man’s best friend,” is how did these animals get there? How are these animals we now see everywhere in our society different from their ferocious ancestors and contemporary cousins that remain undomesticated?

Science has now largely completed the sequencing of dog and of wolf DNA and compared the two. What they have discovered is that the wolves that became dogs have a very specific genetic anomaly on their sixth chromosome. This rather minor genetic difference makes all the vast difference in the world.

This small variation in genetic programming causes the brains of dogs to produce oxytocin, a certain chemical known as the “love” hormone, when they look, smell or interact with humans. They crave this pleasant feeling of connection to people. Not coincidentally people in turn also produce the same hormone when interacting with their canine companions. It is the chemical produced in the human brain that is largely responsible on a genetic level for the initial bonding between parents and child that results in parents’ feeling the need to nurture and protect their child. When a mother and child gaze into each other’s eyes, they are genetically predisposed to experience pleasure, and a desire to come together in the pursuit of life. The story of human survival is very much based on this physically-reenforced sense of connection.

Oxytocin greatly reenforces social bonding. In short, when a human being and their dog make eye contact under normal circumstances (in the absence of abuse), they grow closer and closer over time.

San baina uu is the Mongolian word for “hello.” Genetic testing suggests that the first “hello” between dogs and human animals occurred among those living in Nepal, Tibet and Mongolia.

So here we have the abundant creativity of the universe at play. 20,000 years ago even before we began to build civilizations, while we humans were still eking out our basic needs by hunting animals and gathering and storing edible plant forms, a handful of wolves looked at what we were doing and liked what they saw. Presumably, they witnessed these strange primates walking around on two legs who appeared to be living in warm places and eating food on a fairly regular basis; and they wanted in on the action. Possibly just by staying close by and observing humans over time, engaging with them in little ways when they could do so safely, these individual wolves diverged from their counterparts, therein making a tiny adjustment in their genetic code.

Image used in conjunction of Fair Use Principals.

There are now billions of dogs in the world, over 80 million in the US alone, more dogs than children. . .but only a few wolves. Some researchers have labeled this phenomenon, this thing of a few members of a species adapting in a spectacularly successful new way–“survival of the friendliest. “It looks like Homo Sapiens may have been the most cooperative tribal grouping, the friendliest of our human ancestors.

You know, evolution itself is an interesting and at times confusing concept. When human consciousness had finally evolved to the point that it could tolerate a young scientist named Charles Darwin talking about the fact that human beings have gone through various stages over the centuries, it sparked quite a tumultuous revolution. How we thought about our world changed.

Evolution is like that. It comes about when enough people are able mentally and emotionally to live on the precipice of thinking new thoughts and feeling new sensations. The first few people to think and feel in new ways are usually ignored, misunderstood and/or persecuted as was Darwin who was rather viciously vilified and rejected. Eventually, however, if the changes in perspective are grounded in a God-sanctioned evolutionary leap, they persevere and grow in strength.

Image used in conjunction of Fair Use Principals.

To this day people with minds that are more closed and hearts that are more limited, continue to reject the concept of evolution. Most of us, however, have recognized that human beings and the civilizations we create do indeed grow over time, sometimes in baby steps, sometimes in leaps and bounds.

One of the major ways we are changing currently is in the rebalancing of male and female energies. So, I think you will understand me when I say that a core concept that society has derived from Darwinian evolutionary theory, the concept of “survival of the fittest,” the idea that every species moves forward in a linear fashion to maximize its chances for survival is outdated. It needs an evolutionary upgrade. (BTW, Darwin himself did not promote survival of the fittest per se. This is simply how his work was interpreted by the culture around him.)

In his typical playful manner, Argentinian artist Gabriel Sacho introduces us visually to a different viewpoint about evolutionary progress. Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

“Survival of the fittest” may have been the norm for the first few decades of looking at ideas about human evolution. It could be said that the Planet has needed a dominant male perspective to this point. We have needed to explore and map and develop and otherwise carve out a place for ourselves here on Earth. We may have–actually most certainly have–gone about this exploration/discovery/development phase in a maladaptive fashion to an alarming degree, but there is no mistaking the fact that “action” was needed for human animals to make a home on Mother Earth.

Now something entirely different is required. Now the connectivity, inclusivity, and nurturing aspect of life is what will bring us forward. More periods of recharge, reflection, and rest, along with time devoted to creative pursuits. cooperative projects and fun events with others is needed. Time for the female aspect in each of us to come forth, lead the way and flourish.

The universe has already shown us that how you win at the game of life is to make a few minor adjustments in DNA coding that predisposes one to new types of relationship such as ones that are more circular in nature. Welcome to “survival of the friendliest.”

Mother Earth and all her life forms shift, change, and evolve continually, at an ever increasing pace. Right now there are significant evolutionary shifts happening everywhere, even below our feet in the microscopic and fungal world, within our human bodies via new genetic coding trying to emerge, and in the very air around us and cosmos above us. Many of these changing conditions are invisible to the vast majority of people. Cartoon by Dave Coverly used in conjunction of Fair Use Principals.

I truly believe that the people that are going to be getting through this next period of human history, those that are going to not only survive but thrive, will be those that exhibit a quality we might label “friendliness.” I also believe that those who cannot adopt such a pro-social attitude will continue to leave the Planet in great quantities, as well as those for whom it is just “time to go.” Social media seems to be reflecting these evolutionary changes we are making. It is awash with memes and stories and images reminding people that we are all vulnerable, encouraging people to be kind, to realize that even the smallest of our words and actions can have huge impacts, to attend to our own self care while giving back to the community where we can, extending to others a hand up, etc.

Let me share some initial thoughts, however about what kind of pro-social behavior–friendliness or kindness or empathy or compassion or whatever else you call it–is needed.

The possibilities for social bonding are endless. This is a reflection of the fact that the universe is moving us into the Age of Abundance. Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

“Survival of the friendliness” isn’t about how you present yourself to the world. It is not surface stuff. People who present as introverted can be every bit as friendly as those that are extroverted. They are just quieter about it. People that are giving to others in a very prominent public ways are not necessarily motivated by pro-social aspirations. They might just be noisy and seeking praise and attention.

“Survival of the friendliness” isn’t about being polite to people. Good manners can often be useful, but they can also be limiting and deceitful. Sometimes the kindness thing you can do is directly and unabashedly speak truth to power, walk away from a bully, loudly refuse to engage in injustice. The friendly part is what is going on in your mind and heart.

“Survival of the friendliness” IS about being appreciative of, grateful for, and infinitely curious about every single person that shows up in your life, no matter whether they are a saint or an asswipe. The inclusion piece comes from knowing that spiritually, you and the other person have come together for a learning opportunity that you need to welcome, even if what you are healing in yourself by the interaction is uncomfortable.

Yes, we are all just walking each other home. An important aspect of getting along with others however, is recognizing and truly living with respect for the fact all of life has its own intrinsic timing. Many people have the “space” thing of the time-and-space continuum down but not so much the time thing. In this classic song by Cyndi Lauper and Rob Hyman we are reminded that the pace of others is theirs to determine. We stand by only to catch them when they need that type help.

“Survival of the friendliness” is about bearing witness rather than necessarily taking action even in the most egregious circumstances. You honor the other person by being along for the ride, bringing with you your neutrality, no matter how much their suffering may tug at your sense of responsibility. In your own heart resides the compassion that they may or may not seek; may or may not recognize. They can bask in this friendly fire and let it warm their soul, whether or not anything further happens on the outside.

Any action is supplemental. Being is the thing.

So, my friends, be the bright lights that you are. Participate in life from wherever you are at and know that our God-given spiritual and physical evolution will take care of the rest.

Copyright by the Rev. Dr. Resa Eileen Raven, 2024

Praying for Peace; A Contradiction in Terms?

/ Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given at the Summer Solstice Worship Service on June 23, 2024.

Whenever times are hard, the amount of dialogue about prayer typically goes up. During these periods folks who would consider themselves not religious or maybe even atheistic, are prone to offering “prayers” to others who are going through a rough patch.

In the larger social context, saying you are praying for another person can be just a way of signaling that you wish for them the best possible life experience. I admit that I have on occasion told someone I was praying for them when I did not intend to offer prayers per se, only because the other person was in such pain. There was nothing else I could say or do for them to alleviate their suffering other than to acknowledge my wish that they receive help from somewhere in the universe, spiritual help of some kind that they believed would lessen their pain.

United States President Dwight Eisenhower is often credited with the idea that at times of extreme distress, even nonbelievers look to a higher power. He is quoted as saying that there are no atheists in foxholes. The aphorism of foxholes however, started at an earlier point in the historical cycle, the point at which humans began to engage in global warfare. It refers to the trench wars of World War I, and as such offers insight for our contemporary world affairs. As many of you know, we are currently coming to the end of the lengthy cycle in which our human experience has been preoccupied with dominating each other in every possible sense, including going to war when we are blocked from easier means of forcing our will onto others. In the (largely) absence of atheism currently, I think it a good time to revisit the idea of communicating with a higher power using the vehicle that is known as prayer. What can prayer do or not do when it comes to our pervasive and escalating global warfare? 

At its essence, prayer is simply an exchange of energy, an exchange that typically uses thoughts and often words to accomplish its purpose. As with any exchange of energy, it is intrinsically neither good nor bad. It is a choice, a way of proceeding in the moment with life.

There are many people who believe that prayer is the answer to all of life’s challenges. These people often spend a great deal of time, money and other resources engaged in this activity that they assume will solve all dilemmas. There are other people who believe that prayers are an empty or even an intrusive activity praying— (sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun)—on weak-minded or at best, naïve individuals.

As you all know, the dichotomies that human brains create can be deceptive and even addictive. Like all dichotomies, the trick here from a spiritual perspective is to find that place of peace in the middle. So, let us start there. Let us acknowledge that prayer as a human activity is neither good nor bad by itself. Whether it becomes a force for what some might label good or evil, depends upon a variety of factors, often laid bare primarily by context.

Who knows! You may need to let the stars crawl through your lap. Poem by Chelan Harkin used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

In the context of 21rst century United States, prayer as a simple act of communication, a means of creating energetically through matter, is very convoluted. There are multiple ongoing lawsuits with people fighting each other, trying to translate their particular set of beliefs into rules others must follow in regards to in what fashion, when and where others can pray. Essentially, prayer has become a primary form of warfare in this country, another way for folks to force their will onto others. The Supreme Court of the United States has weighed in on this debate repeatedly, imposing their own perspective on the rules for prayer in public venues such as in athletic events and graduations in schools; and governmental meetings such as town council deliberations, etc.

This increasing intensity of interpersonal warfare, this escalation of rules about praying seeping into the very fabric of the collective space is both a symptom of our national loss of a genuine spiritual perspective; and an opportunity that invites growth into a new level of spiritual development, individually, nationally and internationally.

Praying over or even for other people can be just a “sneaky” version of imposing your religious viewpoint on those who are better served by finding their own path. Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

Right now, all over the world prayer has been coupled with big business, with all the compounding problems that generates. Thousands, even millions of dollars are being spent to reward and enrich businesses and groups who pray for other individuals and collections of folks, with or without their consent.

I saw an interesting news story recently about a woman who was horrified to learn that the hospital that had provided essential medical services to her had subcontracted with a “nonprofit” to pray for her. Like many, she did not realize that patients who receive Medicare benefits can now channel these governmental funds in a manner to enrich those who use prayer as a form of health care treatment. Not only was she opposed to being prayed over, to add insult to injury she had had to figure out by decoding her complicated and some might say duplicitous hospital bill that she had been charged a copay for this “service” to which she had never agreed.

Part of me loves the fact that as a society we have progressed to a place where we can scientifically validate that the energy exchange that occurs during a prayer can indeed, bring real and vital healing. I welcome the addition of “alternative” forms of recovery to our outdated menu of medical services. But the part of me that understands how energy exchanges work, joins this patient in her dismay that she was not given a voice in her own healing. . .and indeed, was expected to pay money for this abusive act of disrespect and exploitation at the hands of others imposing their private values.

Apparently, the fact that the only time Jesus of Nazareth is known to have expressed anger was when he overturned the tables on moneychangers attempting to profit in a synagogue is still a lesson lost on many. The dangers of coupling spiritual explorations with business dealings are real and can be soul-crushing. Enough said.

The bottom line here, folks, is that prayer is best confined to the individual level, at least for almost everybody, for now. There is a way to use the energy exchange that occurs during prayer in a truly harmonious fashion in the collective space. . .but this is beyond the capability of almost all. Until you can work with your own energy system enough to pray from a place of peace, you will inadvertently be promoting war.         

Most of us have so much healing to do after lifetimes of traumatic events and unresolved karma, that we do not even recognize when certain aspects of our energy system is still trying to control others. Calvin and Hobbes cartoon by Bill Watterson used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

What, in fact, is prayer? Some people like to talk about prayer as sending a message to God, and meditation as receiving a message from God. That can be a useful distinction for some starting their spiritual journey. This perspective however, suffers from what I sometimes label as “directional distortions.” In actuality, since the Creator-of-Us-All is everything and everywhere, seeing ourselves as engaged in a back-and-forth ping pong type communication is a fairly limited way of looking at things.

In this community of late we have talked a lot about the essential nature of spiritual communication. It is paramount, profound, and multifaceted. It is also largely nonverbal. What can present more challenges than praying as a means to communicate with the All-That-Is? Prayer is complicated, much, much more than just rote recitation.

When I think of prayer, I am always reminded about one of the greatest attempts to elucidate the true nature of prayer, the one reflected in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. To me, perhaps one of the most profound aspects of the record we have of the Christ talking about prayer, is the timing of his main teaching about the subject, when he introduced to his disciples what is known as “the Lord’s Prayer.”

It is said that he was asked by his followers to teach them how to pray at a point rather late in his ministry. He had already gathered a dozen passionate, committed adherents around him, as well as increasing crowds of others attracted to his light. His disciples were spiritual leaders in their own right, each chosen for their leadership potential, deep faith and hunger for the ultimate Truth to which Yeshua was guiding them. One has to believe that these individuals to the person, had been exposed to and participated in thousands of prayers on a daily basis prior to this time of teaching. And yet, it was only during the last part of their journey together apparently, that the disciples thought to ask Yeshua to impart to them the ability to pray; or that he brought to them his divinely-inspired and deeply-held wisdom about that subject. It was one of his last gifts.

To me, this speaks to the complexity of prayer. It is not something for the faint of heart. At its essence, genuine prayer requires great preparation and insight, sometimes a lifetime or many lifetimes of such.

I am not saying that prayer should be left to the end stages of spiritual development. All important learning is done in steps, building great pyramids upon humble foundations. Whatever step you are on, is valid. What I am saying though, is that the goal of prayer is to adhere as close as possible to that flawless communication with Our Source that that is our destiny, that Yeshua stressed with the very first sentence of the “Lord’s Prayer.” Authentic prayer arises only from a context of deep internal spiritual connection, repeated sessions of private conversation in a myriad of ways with your Creator. It is NOT about shaping the behavior of others through public displays of belief systems.

Mother Teresa was actually somewhat of a controversial figure, historically speaking. She made “mistakes,” changed and learned a lot in her life before she became a saint in the eyes of many. Over time, she learned to subjugate her will to her Creator. Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

The true nature of prayer as a spiritual process requires seeing it as a means to dedicate one’s life to the Creator. All other uses of prayer are disharmonious at best. The intention of the person praying is paramount, along with their embodied awareness. In the earlier stages of learning to pray, many fall prey to versions and practices that are disingenuous or even potentially destructive because they have little or nothing to do with a soulful relationship with and thereby honoring of the divine. If you are praying for your own spiritual salvation, great. If you are praying for other people, be wary of your conscious or unconscious motivations. You could easily be doing more harm than good.

To this community, despite as experienced and advanced many of you are in regards to working with energy, I heartedly recommend that you confine the focus of your praying to your own life for now. Keep in mind that creating in someone else’s space is a form of space invasion. Praying for another can be dangerous to them and to you, unless you really know what you are doing. Believe me, that is rare. Do not trust your brain/intellect and/or your ego to make that determination. Even when others essentially ask you to invade their space by praying for them, actually doing so will only likely help the other person in the short-term and may very well create for both of you a karmic debt.   

Second of all, even when you are praying for yourself, be mindful of the direction the energy is flowing as you do so. Pray inward, not outward. Communicate with the God(dess) within, what is sometimes called the God(dess) of your own Heart by directing your awareness primarily towards your fourth chakra. Many people have been taught to offer prayers upward towards the heavens. What you are often doing in that case, is asking other spiritual forces to answer your prayers, rather than requesting the increasing presence of the divine.

When you direct your prayers upward, the Creator-of-Us-All will surely hear you, but who actually shows up to address your concerns may be—depending on what you got going in your space—some energy or entity sent by the Creator, your mother or father or another relative, a guide, an unembodied being who may or may not have your best interests in mind, your pet animal who passed away years ago, your pastor/preacher from another lifetime, a neighbor or friend who is not done with a conversation with which you are having, a being from another dimension just looking for a joyride, etc. You get the drift.

Even if you come from a culture that validates unembodied spiritual forces, rather than seeing them as intrinsically dangerous or evil; or you as crazy for acknowledging them, you are likely to be aware of only a tiny fraction of the foreign energies that live above and around you. “Helped by Spirits” by Intuit artist Jessie Oonark, Qamani’tuaq, 1970 used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals. Be mindful about your ignorance and do not leave yourself open to harm.

And last of all for these cliff notes, please be careful what you pray for. Potentially, prayer really is a fabulously powerful and life-affirming process of energy made ready for be born into your life.

Authentic prayer is the stuff of mystery and magic. Image used in Conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

Make sure you are ready for it. For maximum benefit, prayer should not be utilized lightly by engaging with it in from a place of desire or attachment. If you are praying that an object comes into your life, or an event unfolds the way you think it should happen, you have likely already lost many other possibilities, as well as your general life pathway to some degree. If you pray for specifics at all, one is best advised to doublecheck that these objects or events are a part of what the universe has in store for you.

One of the many reasons to “go light” on asking for specifics in prayer is that the human brain can never “hold” the entire picture. Only the divine sees what is best for us. Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

Rather, pray for the only outcome that truly matters:  greater understanding of and commitment to what God has in mind for you. Pray for God to be made manifest in you.

What is the bottom line for all of us here today that wish the world would come to reside in peace? Let me read you the invocation with which we started this service. Let yourself hear these words from Isaiah 2 from the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament.

God will judge between the nations, and settle disputes of mighty nations. Then they will beat their swords into iron plows and their spears into pruning tools. Nation will not take up sword against nation; they will no longer learn how to make war.

Understand that it is not your job to end war in the world. It is your job to end war in your own space, should you take on this challenge.

For those of you at war with yourself and others–whether or not you recognize it–and struggling with life in the trenches who want to employ the energy exchange known are prayer, let me summarize my message to you:  Pray passionately, fiercely, as frequently as you desire, but direct those prayers inward. Pray for yourself, not others for a long, long time.

Your goal should be to find the peace within you in your meditations, using prayer as one important and vital pathway if you so choose. . .and then let that peace on its own volition radiate from there. You do not even need to use words, or even thoughts.

Sitting in silence with your intention and awareness of the divine is all that is required. Find a tree to lean against, or a cozy chair in an indoor space and just be. It is enough, more than enough, that you focus your attention inward while you in some form or fashion ask the Creator-of-Us-All to reside as deeply within you as you can tolerate at the present moment.

Peace of mind and heart comes to those who learn to live within their own God-given space; and let go of any need to force others to a path created by your desires for them. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

 The rest will follow naturally.

Copyright by the Rev. Dr. Resa Eileen Raven, 2024.

Love in the Time of Wars and Rumors of Wars

/ Church of the Harvest / 2 Comments

From a Sermon given at the Winter Solstice Worship Service on December 14, 2023.

This video may strike some as an odd choice for today’s topic. Keep in mind that all love songs are really an attempt on our part to understand our relationship to ourselves and the God(dess) within us. As you listen to Cher, perhaps think of her as singing from one part of herself to another.

I confess that when it was first suggested that we devote this worship service to the idea of Love, I found myself in quite a bit of resistance. It was not that the topic itself is a problem. It is a wonderful concept to explore. It’s just hard to have a conversation about something that is so profoundly important; and at the same time something that so thoroughly evades understanding by the human brain. There may not be as important of a word in human languages than “Love.”

Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

The temptation here when the energy of a meta concept, a gargantuan idea that cannot be reduced to a word presents itself, is to try to contain it by talking about what it is not. You all recognize some of this backward approach to the idea of Love. . .but to start us off, I offer a few reminders.

Love is not seasonal. Hallmark movies to the contrary, love is not something that occurs more at Christmas time, although the number of words that cross our lips supposedly about love during the end-of-the-year celebrations typically do increase dramatically.

Love is also not what you crave. The programming that is coming through the media and other cultural sources right now attempts to convince us that we must “prove” our love for children and others through gifts and monetary contributions. This is pervasive and destructive, and completely untrue. These messages of rampant consumerism are the result of an economic imperialism of sorts. They have nothing to do with real Love. 

Love is not connected to desire in any form. Quite the opposite. If you desire something or someone, if you are therefore attached to an outcome or a particular form of a relationship, as opposed to operating from the neutrality that exists in the center of your head, you have already lost (or rather, temporarily misplaced) your connection to Love. Love can only be present when one lets go of the need for the outside world to be or behave in a certain way. True Love only exists within the context of Freedom. When you cannot walk away from whomever or whatever you think you love, what you are experiencing is attachment, otherwise known as dependency and/or desire, not Love.

In fact, Love has nothing to do with feelings whatsoever. It does not originate in our emotional space. Love is perhaps best described as a state of being. If you are still talking about feeling love for some other person, please consider clearing your space of enough programming that you at least update your use of language. That will go a way towards helping set your intention to experiencing the real thing.  

You might be feeling a great deal of connection with another person or animal. That can be a wonderful interim experience, but it is not, in Truth, what Love is about.  

Love is also not really an idea. I started this sermon speaking of the inherent difficulty in discussing the idea of Love. But that is just the dilemma with which we naturally are confronted when our human brains try to process something that cannot be fully understood solely using the physical systems.

Love is a spiritual concept and therefore the most truthful experience of it necessarily involves both the physical and the spiritual aspects of being an embodied human.   

I’d like to switch gears now a bit. . .and talk about the “wars and rumors of wars” part of our time together. I was asked to address the topic of Love within the content of today’s reality where what one sees overwhelmingly in the world around us is hatred.

Useful words to keep in mind from Canadian philosopher and author Matshona Dhilwayo, used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

How do we dwell in Love when the collective energy does not?  Everywhere one looks there appears to be an endless ocean of hatred and strife. We have so many wars going on right now that it’s hard to keep track of them all. There are, of course, the major military and political struggles that are steadily growing in size, sucking in almost the entire global population. There is the intensifying war between human beings and Mother Nature herself that is affecting every living organism on the Planet. There is even the intense for now-somewhat invisible battle going on above our heads in regards to which group of humans will be in control of the space above us. And on the ground there are the life-sucking ever-present culture wars, over the hearts and minds of the people themselves. How does one love in a world full of such participants?

Laughing at our situation can almost always “lighten the load,” i.e. raise the vibration level. Still, the fact that human beings continue to project hatred onto each other is very sad, indeed. Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

As I was contemplating this question, I found myself drawn to certain words attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. He talked a bit about Love, including what it is not. He reminded us constantly that Love is not a product of the physical world, but rather that it originates from our relationship to the divine.

There is a very wise aspect to the phrase many people use of “falling in love.” Ultimately, true Love involves a kind of surrendering to the will of the universe. It is not at all dependent on where our brain thinks we are going. Just make sure you have done the prerequisite healing such that you “fall into” the “right” vibration, and not something you were programmed to accept as love. Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

The Christ who referred to himself both as the Son of God and the Son of Man, thereby validating both physical and spiritual aspects of being human, talked about Love carefully and sparingly. In lieu of trying to reduce our understanding of Love to words he told his disciples to follow his example. He admonished his disciples to “Love one another, just as I have loved you.” So major hint there: Love requires expressed action (or inaction as a form of movement.) And he also talked about the end times, the times we are experiencing in 2023.

You all know that in the Church of the Harvest we honor all paths to God, all spiritual seekers after the Truth, all religious organizations and cultural traditions, including those who shun references to the divine in any form. I typically use words from various spiritual traditions in these sermons, so please do not be put off if you are one of the many who squirm a little when someone references the Christian Bible out loud. If you so desire, you can read for yourself the words spoken by Jesus and quoted in Matthew of that book about the current time of famines, plagues, and earthquakes. Those words echo in the nightly news. His teaching about the many who will hate, and the many whose love will grow cold during these times, resonated deeply within in as I went through the process of creating this sermon today.   

What I primarily want to draw your attention to this morning though, is the use of the phrasing “wars and rumors of wars.” Why are rumors being mentioned here? Initially this looks to be a redundancy, two words or phrases expressing the same thing. They are not. Perhaps some of you will know what I mean when I tell you this phrasing is more an illumination of a key dichotomy.

I remind you all that Jesus was a master of energy, and fully capable of infusing into any of his words a meaning that can only be understood by those who bring more to bear to the passage than just a flat analysis. “Rumors of wars” is not just a watered-down version of the concept of wars. It is at the heart of what creates the violence of wars.

Human beings “go to war,” that is to say, we act out in a violent way towards each other and other forms of life, when we are in fear. When we have no fear, we have no motivation to behave horribly. If you are a science fiction fan what I would say to you is “fear is the mind-killer.” Except that unfortunately, fear kills more than just the mind. For those of you more comfortable with dialogue about spirituality, what I would remind you is that Hatred is not the opposite of Love. Hatred is only a byproduct of the lack of it. The true opposite of Love is Fear.

When Jesus puts “wars” and “rumors of wars” on equal status, what he is teaching us is that our path to salvation is to address our fears, individually and collectively. I think of this every day as I watch the nightly news media personalities, bless their hearts, struggle with their own fears and their convoluted versions of bringing to their viewers a mixed bag of facts, interpretations and illusions, as they try to report what they understand to be the truth of our physical world. Too often their version is distorted by their own individual fear(s) and the fear(s) that their listeners want to hear. 

 When we truly embrace our Creator in all its manifestations, there is no fear. There is only the complete understanding of the soul that it is loved and is Love. However, this often requires more “surrendering” than many are wont to do. It takes a lot of pure intention and a great deal of healing/release of the pockets of pain and fear we each have stored within before most individuals are willing and able to experience the completeness of what some might call God the father. 

Living in the vibration of love rather than fear takes extensive healing, persistence in one’s intent; as well as constant renewal. “Real Hero,” story by Brian Andreas with art by Matthew Andreas posted in accordance with Fair Use principals.

To have the lived experience of Love, the active version that The Christ modeled for us all, you have to face your fears. Only then does one reflect the state of being that is talked about when, as the Persian mystic Khalil Gibran puts it: “When you love you should not say ‘God is in my heart,’ but rather ‘I am in the heart of God.’”

Breaking through to the heart of Love requires great courage. It results from awakening to your own divinity as well as that of others, no matter what human flaws present themselves for healing journey, something that can be terrifying. Image of “Our Lady of Fierce Compassion” by Sue Boardman used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

I want to end by reading the truest words about Love in the face of Hatred, aka Fear that I have run across. These words, a selection from the poem entitled “On Love” by Gibran, speak eloquently about the fact that if you want to reside in the vibration of Love, you must find the courage to let yourself fall into the hands of the Divine. (p.s. Feel free to change the gender of these pronouns if it will help you hear the message).

When Love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you, believe in him, though his ways are hard and steep.

For even as Love crowns you, so shall he crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Like sheaves of corn, he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,

that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

But if in your fear you would seek only Love’s peace and love’s pleasure

Then it is better for you to cover your nakedness and pass out of Love’s threshing-floor into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but all of your laughter; and weep, but not all of your tears.

And think not you can direct the course of Love, for Love if it finds you worthy, directs your course.



Allahu Akbar. Copyright by the Rev. Dr. Resa Eileen Raven, 2023.

Freedom: The Language of Soul

/ Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given Summer Solstice Worship Service on June 26, 2022.

I have been interested in exploring the issue of freedom with this community for some time now.  Freedom was always a big topic of the conversation in my family when I was growing up. Even when we talked about little else, in my particular family there was always permission to talk about cats. And as a military family in the cultural landscape around us there was always permission to talk about the freedoms that we were told were guaranteed by membership in the United States of America which were our duty to support. We would come together for huge fourth of July celebrations complete with fireworks, marching bands and parades of uniformed soldiers strutting their stuff in formation around fields. 

Talking about freedom is as American as apple pie, as deeply symbolic as the selection of the fierce and high-soaring American Eagle as our national bird. We did not the choose the turkey as our national emblem such as it was rumored was suggested by Benjamin Franklin. (This is actually a myth, but a good story). We chose the Eagle. Every country has an energetic core, an agreement about the essence of what those who are a part of that land have come to explore. In the United States of America our collective agreement involves exploring freedom and social justice.  And so it is fitting that our greatest challenges have been and continue to be learning what it really means to be free; what justice actually looks like.

Every country has its own energy. This depiction from Christian Chinese American artist He Qi depicts the essential essence of the United States. Picture used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

In recent days all around the globe there has been a rude awakening for many who have viewed the United States as a perfect union, as the ultimate land of opportunity. You all know that energetically speaking, perfect pictures led to a great deal of disappointment, despair and other forms of suffering when the world does not live up to our flawed expectations. The American ideal still rings true for millions of people who live under greatly diminished social freedoms and horrible injustices in their own community, whether in the US or other areas. Intensifying environmental disasters mean that US borders are increasingly overrun by thousands of would-be immigrants fleeing from harsh economic and social injustice, violence, brutal repression and other terrible events in their home countries. Recently however, many who have always dreamed of partaking in the American dream are also changing their minds as the universe wakes us up to a greater version of its Truth, and it becomes more clear what is really going on in North America.

In the United States we have a citizenry whose social norms are rapidly breaking down, who are acknowledging more and more the gut-wrenching injustices of our past and present with no real understanding as to how to correct them. In their panic Americans are clinging tightly to false illusions about freedom. After all, the one thing upon which we all can agree is that freedom is a good thing theoretically. That’s part of our national identity, enshrined in our collective psyche.

But what is freedom? Really. What is it? What does it look like? What does it actually feel like? How does it work in a collective space when one person who thinks of freedom in a certain way clashes with another person who thinks their version of freedom is not only the correct version but the only one that counts?

If we require people who don’t want to wear a facemask or get a vaccine to do so are we taking away their freedom? If the government does not let people own assault weapons or do drugs, is it acting unjustly in defiance to the rights of its citizens? If the highest court in the country decides women can be subjected to involuntary pregnancies based on what state they live in, is it supporting state rights or is it attacking the rights of women? Unless a group can actually agree on a concept, it is hard to meet any challenges that arise with any integrity.    

I’ve noticed that even people in this community, or in groups of otherwise-enlightened well-intentioned individuals working on healing themselves, are often still massively confused about what freedom really is. I watch said people just substitute the word “free will” with the word “freedom” like they are interchangeable. The energy behind using these words as a synonym is usually based on dysfunctional religious programming, by the way. Which, by the way, is the opposite of freedom. Pushing “free will” or accusing another person of violating it, is a sure indication that you have more to learn about what freedom actually is. Approaching freedom as if it is a static, binary thing, in which only the vaccinators or the antivaxxers or the people supporting or opposing guns have the truth, means you surely have not found your own freedom.

So, what is freedom? For most of us, the full answer to that question can only come about when we learn to love the question over time; and have the patience to know that our personal answer to that question will arrive when we are ready for it.

“Freedom” is one of those metaconcepts like the word “love” that is so huge, so packed with possibilities that is almost not worth trying to have a conversation with it. “Freedom” is big enough that it typically eludes words altogether. No real communication occurs when individuals with wildly different takes on the word, aka definitions, throw it at each other.

Words are symbols containing anywhere from a little bit of energy to almost an endless quantity. Words describing tangible objects can be simple. Words trying to encapsulate metaconcepts are profound, and often not worth using if your intention is real communication rather than argument. The current cultural warfare puts “freedom” in the latter category for now. Cartoon by William Boyd Watterson used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Meanwhile, there are a few people who have spent their lives in pursuit of freedom that can give us some clues on our own individual journeys towards freedom, often more through their personal stories than precise verbiage. I think the people that have the most to teach us about what freedom really looks like are often those that have survived its lack in the outer world enough to realize that freedom, ultimately, isn’t about the outside, or at least not solely.

As an example, the Austrian psychiatrist and philosopher Viktor Frankl has much wisdom to share. He discovered his freedom under the most horrific conditions possible, in a Nazi concentration camp. He led many people to a deeper understanding of how one can become free despite overwhelming political reality to the contrary.

In the United States, which is a country built upon the backs of indigenous peoples, immigrants, and African American slaves, there are many voices speaking with knowledge and grace about freedom. The thread that rings true through these sometimes widely diverse experiences is that freedom is something beyond just our bodies being constrained. True freedom needs to occur in a socially just physical world, but it does not end there. One can be free in terms of capability to make a great number of physical, economic, and social choices according to one’s own desires, and still be incredibly enslaved. One can be subjected to abject constraints in the material world and still be free in important, vital ways.

Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican-born leader of the Pan-Africanism movement had this to say to his fellow black Americans shortly before his death in 1940: “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, for though others may free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind.” 

The United States of America is moving towards freedom and justice. . .just maybe with baby steps when leaps are required. Lady Liberty 225th Anniversary US Mint coin

What is freedom? Freedom is communication. It is communication with the Divine within each of us. Within this communication there is only wholeness. There are no sides, no divisions that allow one person to be free at another person’s expense.

Freedom is something that we desire to the very depth of our soul, just as we all crave connection with our Creator whether we know it or not. Never let anyone stop you from seeking your personal freedom because that would be like intentionally dimming your light. Just like your true destiny is to love and be loved, to know peace and joy, you as a soul will never be fully satisfied until you are free. Especially if you live in the United States of America, because this is your collective journey as well as your individual one.

In order to fully understand freedom, you must first find your own place where there are no borders between self and other life. Art by Elsie Huther used in accordance with Fair Use Principles

That said, reveal in your desire for freedom but bring some humility to the table as you seek to understand both what it actually looks like in your life, and even more so, what it “should” look like for others. Let go of your need to find political solutions in the name of freedom as much as you can. . .less you get stuck in the endless loop of a false dichotomy.

Rather, free yourself, first and foremost. Free yourself from judgment by and of others, unaware social programming, out-of-date thinking, whatever binds you to a truncated worldview. Know that your best bet for advancing freedom in the collective space is to free yourself from that which limits your soul, which keeps you from truly knowing that your own freedom and the freedom of others as the same journey. Only then can you be present to the freedom of others.

As to the rest, trust the universe to rectify any injustices as surely it is doing increasingly these days, very rapidly.

Discerning what constitutes freedom for someone else is nearly impossible. It requires a 360 degree spiritual perspective through time and space. You will have your hands full enough just trying to figure out what makes you free! Cartoon by Man Martin used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Other people have very little to do with our own freedom, except as they reflect what is ours to correct.

Find what brings you alive.This is where your freedom dwells. Words by Simon Gawley, posted in accordance with Fair Use Principles

Ultimately, like everything else in the created order, freedom is from God and is meant to be in service of God. Or as it says in Peter, Chapter 2, Verse 16:

Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil.

Live as God’s slaves.  

Happy Fourth of July to the United States of America and to every individual in the entire world.

Copyright by Rev. Dr. Resa Eileen Raven, 2022

It’s all about letting go of the fear. . .allowing oneself to fall into the loving arms of the Creator.

Power: Pure and Simple

/ Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given Winter Solstice Worship Service on December 26, 2021.

I’ve talked a lot about power over the years but not very directly.  With folks that are sincerely trying to understand this concept, until recently I have primarily provided some hints. This is because the very word itself is so triggering for many listeners that the conversation does not typically unfold well or easily. Particularly in bringing up the subject of power with those in a female body, the nonverbal anxiety, confusion, shame, and defensiveness can be overwhelming for a speaker like myself who is sensitive to energy. The psychic cringing when I have used the word in the past has been almost palpable.

That said, it appears that the cultural times are shifting. As a society we are more in a position to look at power directly and still maintain a spiritual perspective. Some of the human-generated power imbalances that have been in place for hundreds or thousands of years, are becoming illuminated under the merciless light of the apocalypse, our time of great revelations. The apocalypse has been bringing environmental, social and economic injustice to the surface, much to the chagrin of many.  So let us have that conversation today to whatever degree we can, shall we?

Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Power is just another word for energy. All power comes from the Creator-Us-All and is intended to be used in service to the Created Order. Its essential nature is both pure and simple. Every gift of life from our Creator is pure. Everything in touch with its essential nature as spirit is by nature simple. Irrespective of what experiences you personally have undergone in your time here on Mother Earth, try to keep in mind that power in itself is never wrong or for that matter right. It just is. The wrong or right stuff comes into play only as a result of the choices humans make in how we use power.  

“Wonder” by visionary artist Alex Grey, used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Because human animals have free will we are given the choice to create whatever the Hell we want within our own body and energy system. We can and do routinely subvert power and quite literally create Hell-on-Earth for ourselves and others. We have all done this, and continue to do this. If you have been around the block more than a few times, no doubt you have started to understand that this is not a particularly useful, fun, or interesting way to conduct life. But if you are still here in a body, it means that you have more learning to do about power. Give up your perfect pictures and get on with the lessons, so you can grow that much closer to Heaven-on-Earth, that place in which power is used efficiently, effortlessly, joyfully, generating great wonder.

On an individual level, power has a lot to do with the goings on of your third chakra. That magical energy center is often called the “power center” for good reason.  It contains the bulk of the information you need to operate in and through your physical body. In recent years I have been amused about all the fascination people have developed with the “gut microbiome.” Scientists have begun to validate how vital our stomach area and digestive system is to overall physical health; how much communication happens between our gut and our brain and other areas of the body. 

Society has yet to make the discovery that these tissues and organs are reflecting a deeper spiritual truth. To frame this in scientific terminology, a good gut microbiome and good physical health are correlational, not causational. The underlying piece that determines both is a functional third chakra that is balanced and free of foreign energy.

When you have a third chakra that works in concert with the other parts of your energy system, body and spirit can have a lot of communication with each other and a respectful partnership in regards to movement.  You know where to move energy around in your body and the space around it to maximum benefit; and your body knows how to move through physical space and time to accomplish that of which it is capable.

When students are first becoming aware of their energy system and learning how to regulate it, I tease people whenever and however I can to get them to kick out the energy that does not belong there and open up their third chakra.  You have all heard me make lots of jokes about the burping that often starts to happen as people start releasing the energy from others. This clearing is an important beginning. 

However, in order to address what you need to work through this lifetime, healing your third chakra enough to power your body as it moves around the physical environment is just the foundation. That is the initial step. Like a child that has to first learn to roll over, then to sit up, then to stand, we eventually are at a place to learn how to walk. Once we know how to walk, only then can we start taking concrete steps in the direction we want to go. Moreover we get to decide whether we want to saunter or hike, foxtrot, waltz or freestyle. . .or maybe simply stand still, smell the roses and admire the view.

Like everything else in your reality, how you move in the world is all up to you. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

For the folks in this community who have kicked out much of the foreign energy from your third chakra, and deenergized many of your most important pictures about working through a body, the next step looks a bit different.  As long-term meditators, if you are in a female body you are probably less terrified of the very prospect of power in your own space than you used to be. If you are in a male body, you are likely more aware than you were previously that you don’t need to fight everyone else’s battles for them.

For you, the challenge about power now is more about taking the whole concept to the higher level. Unless you are a professional athlete or dancer or some such, all the power you need to operate your body is probably already accessible to you. 

By now you probably have had enough experience with working with energy consciously to have a sense that certain choices regarding power can be counterproductive, can definitely set you back on your journey, or at least make it an uncomfortable ride.  You will have made enough decisions using your power that have arisen from a foundation of fear rather than self-love and learned that power over the outside world does not result in a sense of security. No doubt you have indulged in the need to accumulate material goods, only to discover they did not bring lasting comfort or peace. What now?

At this stage of spiritual development the question becomes: how much power do you need to harness in what ways in order to fulfill your purpose?  What do you need to power up your dreams, and which dreams reflect your truest spiritual goals? This is a qualitatively different question that extends way beyond your third chakra into the very ground beneath your feet and very heavens above your head. It is a question the successful answer of which requires a unity of purpose involving every one of your chakras, including the ones outside of your physical body. It is a question that necessitates taking into consideration your individual space as well as the collective space around you, weighing what is within you as well as outside of you. It moves the subject from what you need to survive, into the territory of what you need to thrive.

And it is a question that can be a quite tricky because the universe is infinitely abundant. Therefore the amount and kind of power that you can potential wield is similarly endless. With great power comes great response-ability. The challenges in terms of “getting it right” as well as “getting it wrong”–(not that either, in Truth, is even a possibility)–are much more profound.

You know I can’t tell you the answer(s) to these questions for you. That would be an abuse of my power. But I would like to offer this community some gentle reminders to keep in mind as you explore the question of how much power you as an individual need to wield in what manner.     

First of all, remember that what you put out in the universe, comes back to you . . .often greatly magnified. This is the essence of the “Golden Rule,” a version of which underlies every major religious tradition. “Doing onto others as you would have them do unto you” is not about judgment and retribution. It is very practical advice that validates energetic reality.

If you use your power unwisely, it will come back and bite you in the ass. Maybe not right away. Maybe not in the exact same manner.  Remember that for spirit there is no time and space.  But ultimately there is no escaping the Supreme Justice of the universe. 

Every day I watch folks get lost in their programming about this principle. In the current time frame when society is trying to root out the social injustices in which we have all participated, many well-intentioned people are massively confused about how justice really works. They frequently look at our cumbersome, flawed justice system, see the less-than-ideal sometimes horrible outcomes, and condemn everyone and everything associated with these cases. Often I feel tremendous sadness for these critics. I can validate their heartfelt desire to find justice but I also know almost exactly for what they are signing up with their judgment.  The I-want-the-things-that-I-want-instantly and the I-deserve-it programming to which many in the United States have been highly indoctrinated is not helpful on a soul level.   

One trouble with instant gratification from a spiritual perspective is that it is usually a form of magical thinking. That does not mean it is impossible to achieve or necessarily undesirable. It does mean that as a form of creativity goes, it minimally involves the body as a vehicle for that creativity. One might say that it can be ultimately unsustainable. Cartoon by Steve Moore used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Get real, folks. Only God is perfect. The rest of us flawed individuals are just trying to figure out how to live in the highest vibration of Truth, embodying the greatest quantity of Justice that we can muster at any one point. It takes time to correct power imbalances in our individual reality, and it requires us to give each other lots of space in our collective lives. Choose just words and actions in your own life. Speak up with fiery but neutral and loving language when you encounter injustices in the world-at-large. Take whatever respectful actions you can. And then step back. Leave it at that for now. You can’t force others or even yourself onto the “right” path.

Second of all, remember that you create everything that is going on in your life.  This is the other concept about which even the smartest, most insightful folks are often incredibly confused, even those who prioritize spiritual development.

There are no villains, only people who are making bad choices who are giving you the opportunity to heal and grow. In the situations that the Supreme Justice of the Universe aka God presents to you that seem hurtful, unjust or just plain horrible, you still get to choose your reaction, including whether or not you want to energetically clear the pictures and end the cycles in order to move on in this lifetime or another.

It you want to take this concept into the time-space framework, keep in mind that you cannot change the past and sometimes certain aspects of the present; but you can change other aspects of the present, and thereby your future.  In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, this theme appears many places but these words are from First Peter, Chapter 3, Verses 8-9.

Do not repay evil with evil, or insult with insult, but rather, repay them with a blessing, because to this you were called, so that you too may inherit a blessing. 

Another World is indeed possible but you will have to give up your need to “fix” others to find it. Picture by social activist and artist RIcardo Levins Morales based upon the 19th Flammarion engraving, used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Third of all, you can safely access and use all the energy you need to fulfill your spiritual mission, your purpose for being. You can work with a TREMENDOUS amount of power, a quantity and quality beyond your wildest dreams and not get in any trouble with the universe under one condition. You must work with that energy from within your own space. Have you noticed how obsessed the world is with images of superpowers and superheroes recently? That is us, trying to remind ourselves that we each individually have what it takes to work with a huge amount of power. The solutions are endless.

Remember that power is not good or bad. It just is. The universe has an infinite quantity of it set aside for your personal benefit. As long as you are trying your best to abide by the one law the Creator gave us, the law of free will, ultimately you do not have to be concerned about anything coming back to “haunt” you. 

Quick reminder: What is free will? Again, this is a concept most people have trouble identifying accurately through all their programming. Technically speaking though, it is actually simple. You have to create from within your own energy system. If you do not like what is happening outside of yourself, you need to change something within yourself. That is the trajectory. That is the only one the really works. The tricky part for most people is that to follow that trajectory, you have to have gotten enough in touch with yourself to sense where you end and where others begin. So back to the kicking-out-foreign-energy thing.

If you try to create your life in someone else’s space, this misuse of power at the very least will set you back, as well as the other person; and keep you spinning on the carousal of karma.    

Fourth, respecting free will means you operate from the viewpoint that you are totally and 100% responsible for you; and 100% not responsible or at least not solely responsible for anyone else. (It gets a little tricky with children). Everything that happens in the collective space between individuals requires the agreement of all involved for it to be a pure unadulterated form of power, rather than the misuse of it. You can help friends and family all you want. . .as long as they agree they want your help. However, you need to give up the habit of trying to require others to change. Sometimes even if someone else wants your help that does not mean that you should provide it, if doing so is not a good choice for you. 

People are at various stages of awareness about various aspects of the world, according to the timing of their own spiritual journey. One cannot force another to see what is true. But you can open your own eyes and thereby shine more light onto others. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Respecting the energy space of others means YOU and all those in your sphere of influence, that is to say all embodied as well as unbodied spirit you are channeling through or through whom you are channeling, need to honor agreements. And yes, you are doing some form of channeling if you are human. This includes whatever saints, spirit guides or other heavenly buddies with whom you are working, whether or not you work with them consciously or unconsciously. The universe will eventually call you out if you are pretending to yourself that your hands are clean while an unconscious part of you is asking others to do the dirty work of forcing others to your will. You are 100% responsible for you, even in those dark places where you have given away your power. 

Many or most people are so unaware of what is going on within themselves that they are under the illusion that everything internal is themselves. In truth, we all channel the energy belonging to others, particularly family members and people with whom we otherwise share a closeness. Your body was made just for you! Reclaim it, step and step. The initial lessons for people often involve learning to be amused by how much we give away our power. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Again, a quick reminder: You can freely ask for help for others from the divine as well as some select beings such as the ones we often label angels who are doing the bidding of the divine. These forces do not invade free will. Be prepared, however, if the Creator-of-Us-All or its helpers declines to provide the type of assistance you deem necessary.     

Finally and Fifth of all, Keep in mind that each individual soul has a different mission for their life.  Consequently, the amount of power each of us must learn to safely operate can vary hugely. . .and this has nothing whatso ever to do with worthiness. We are all equal in the eyes of God, even as we all have a unique and vital role to play, however it might appear on the surface. Some roles do not require a lot of power.

Clear your competition pictures if you find yourself envying the power of another, whether it comes in the form of wealth, social status, opportunities, amount of information, skills or talents, whatever. These pictures are not only setting you up for ongoing suffering, they are also a sure indication that you are on a detour whereby you are essentially procrastinating about finding your own path, your own joy, your own peace. 

Peace of mind and heart comes to those who learn to live within their own God-given space; and let go of any need to force others to a path created by their wishes or desires. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

As the Christ has told us in John, Chapter 14, Verse 27:

Peace I leave to you, My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Copyright 2021 by Rev. Dr. Resa Eileen Raven

This song is perhaps a little “darker” than necessary for many–full of Old Testament vibes. But perhaps consider it’s essential truth. Used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

The Shadows that Betray: Choosing Love in Times of Evil

/ Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given Summer Equinox Worship Service  on March 21, 2021

It is springtime, the point in the natural cycle of Mother Earth of regeneration and renewal.  Further it is spring of 2021, a time when many people are breathing a sigh of relief as things, at least in the United States, have an air of emergence from the dark days of winter and the darkness of the past year. Most of us in this community seem to understand that we have been given temporary reprieve from the challenges set before us; and that there are more to come. For now, however, we can rejoice in our successful perseverance, give thanks for the bountiful assistance we have received along the way, and recommit to the Creator-of-Us-All in weathering the days ahead.

This morning I want to talk a lot about dichotomies, and working with them successfully.  I was asked to speak about evil which certainly is a relevant topic given how it seems to be lurking at every turn in the road these days.  In these apocalyptic times the heat has been turned up and the creepy crawlies have come scurrying out of their corners, and creepy they are indeed! 

Many segments of the world may have come together rather quickly to take on the COVID-19 virus, but we are only beginning to even look at, much less address the energies that made its entrance into our collective lives necessary. Essentially we have ripped off the bandage that was covering the wounding of our shared world. There is going to be a period of bleeding, hopefully followed by some genuine healing of the underlying disturbances that caused the injuries in the first place. The lack of balance, the inability to negotiate dichotomies can be seen as the source of the injuries. So let’s talk about evil and its place in that imbalance.

The evil in the world has been so plentiful and profound, that many have chosen to shut down their own world in a vain attempt to avoid the pain it causes them to view it. Limiting one’s perspective in order to avoid working through what is triggered by viewing the truth may work in the short term. . .but it typically causes even more damage in the long term. This image of suitcases taken from Nazi concentration camp victims in Poland is used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

What is evil? I could easily offer an entire sermon just trying to define this term.  Given that it is a hotbed of thoughts and feelings comprised of a seemingly endless myriad of social programming there are probably as many meanings to this word as there are people on Earth. All words are symbols to some degree or another, and words that have been used to contain the cognition, affect and behavior of those that use them over centuries, words that are used to convey religious concepts, words that reflect deep fears and other debilitating sensations are particularly chock full of energetic bits that snag and ensnare the matching pictures with which humans communicate.

On these fronts, the word “evil” checks all the boxes. Just about anything a human being says, does or is can be and has been labeled by another human being as “evil”. 

Perhaps a commonly-held meaning upon which many could agree is what it is not.  Evil. . .is not good.  The concept of “evil” is often captured by its juxtaposition on the opposite end of the dichotomy of good and evil. 

For some people, the word “evil” is reserved for something they see as profoundly not good, i.e. people and events that live out their experience on the extreme edge of the good-evil continuum.  You will hear me on occasion talk about evil as someone who is so disconnected from themselves, so ungrounded as to cause greater suffering; or someone who is so lost that they attempt to force others to their will by violence or other horrific means.  I try to bring as much neutrality and compassion as I can muster to the discussion of even these extreme attempted transgressions against God’s created order, but my analyzer sometimes has me tripping awkwardly when I am trying to talk about those playing out the extreme end of the evil side of good and evil.  At those times I try to step back a bit, or maybe I should say, step up in my viewpoint.

 So what exactly is “evil” from a spiritual perspective?

In the Bible, which is the foundational document for the Abrahamic religions followed by approximately four billion people on this planet there is the tale of the creation of the natural world. The Book of Genesis says our ancestors were told by the Creator that they could eat any of the abundant fruits of paradise with the exception of that which grew on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  They were informed that if they ate from that particular tree, they would experience Death. And of course, you know what happened then.

Pay attention to the message there. Like any sacred text, the Bible is symbolic yet purposeful.  We are being taught about one of the most, if not the most primary dichotomies with which we struggle on Planet Earth.  Good and evil have been right there with us from day one. What is more, human animals were given the choice from the very start about whether or not we wanted to play out this dichotomy.  Apparently we decided to go for it. We could have made a different choice. We did not. We choose to experience dichotomies.

Also take note the use of the word “knowledge” of Good and Evil.  God was not advising us that there would be no good and evil if we did not partake of feasting from the Tree bearing its name. He was telling us that the choice was between “knowing” about good and evil and presumably not knowing about it.  What I hear from this is that the choice was about what we were going to undergo in our lived experience, in other words in our embodied form. Because we choose the option that included experiencing good and evil with our physical bodies, subsequently we signed up to experience death. 

Most organized religions and spiritual traditions recognize death as an illusion, an artifact of the physical body which has little to do with real life, aka as eternal life. This image of Life and Death by Liliflor Arte is used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

So here we are in the springtime of 2021 having just experienced a global pandemic that killed thousands. with many more to come. We are living currently in a world dying of “natural causes” so to speak, as the environment around us crashes and burns.  Death is everywhere, as is life. The stories of individuals and groups of individuals rapidly coming together against all apparent odds to support each other during these times of crises are as plentiful as the stories of disaster, betrayal, and loss. Full-blown evil is clearly staring us in the face, but I would argue so is full-blown good.

We are playing out the dichotomy of good and evil accompanied by death, as we have chosen to do.

What is in store for us now? Are we stuck on a dying planet? It might feel like that at times, but that can’t be the outcome for the planet as a whole.  God created the world as a whole and only God can destroy it as a whole.  We can destroy pieces of it, including our own individual and collective lives, our happiness, etc. but the world in its entirety doesn’t belong to us. So what now?  To answer this question I refer you back to the invocation used to start this service, a famous but pretty much universally misunderstood passage from John, Chapter 14, Verse 27.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.    

I believe the Christ here is talking about a kind of peacefulness that has heretofore been absent on the planet in the lived experience of human animals.  He is NOT talking about the absence of conflict, which is how most people think of peace. He IS talking about having transcended dichotomies.

He surrendered his entire being to the All-That-Is, the Father, the Mother, Allah, God/Goddess, the source, the divine, however you want to call it.  As an individual soul, he made the individual choice of his own free will that allowed him to transcend the need for dividing the world into body and spirit, good and evil, or any other seeming opposites.  There is a different kind of peace that awaits those who transcend dichotomies.  He experienced this different kind of peace. The rest of us have yet to explore that territory.

Rumi is talking here about a very subtle but profound shift of consciousness. When spirit in body lives this Truth in every fiber of its being, there is no longer any separation from anything on Planet Earth. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles

As we work through the pictures that divide us from our true nature as spirit, as we work to deenergetize the projections onto others of these pictures, we find ourselves drawn closely and closer to the sweet spot in the center of the dichotomy.  As we do so, the extreme edges, those that reflect the transgressions almost all of us would be tempted to label as evil, fall away of their own accord. But also as we do so, we have to confront the shadows.  We shine our light as brightly as we know how to do at any particular point in time and space, and because we are not yet a part of the All-That-Is, our light creates a shadow of sorts.  The irony is, the larger our light, the larger the shadow. 

Remember though, that darkness and light is itself is an illusion, a dichotomy which our brains use to maintain domination. We are still floundering in a landscape that we cannot yet see. So we continue to project what we cannot see in ourselves onto others as a means to heal as we stand in our own way.  The healing often become easier on our bodies as we retreat from the extreme edges, but our myopic vision remains until we no longer choose it.

Light and darkness is just another dichotomy, a trick of our human animal brains to try to make sense of our world by prioritizing the physical body’s viewpoint. Spirit knows no such bounds. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Is there a reason for hope? Absolutely! The Christ and others have shown the way.  As one continues to work through the pictures that divide us from our true nature as spirit, the sweet spot increases and eventually the “sides” between good and evil shrink until eventually they disappear entirely. Then there is only wholeness. This is the transcendence of dichotomies.  It is herein lies our peace. Therein lies our salvation. It is here that Heaven-on-Earth awaits us.

I’d like to start wrapping up my sermon this morning by talking about the message about good and evil embedded in the Lord’s Prayer.

I want to read you from the version of the Lord’s Prayer translated by scholar and Sufi mystic Neil Douglas-Klotz from the original Aramaic text.  This is the line that in the King James Version of the Bible is read as “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”  I’m going to focus here on the “deliver us from evil” part, which in the Aramaic is “Ela patzan min bisha.”

Don’t let surface things delude us; but free us from what holds us back (from our true purpose).

Don’t let us enter forgetfulness, the temptation of false appearances.

Rather, break the hold of unripeness that prevents good fruit.

From the evil of injustice—the green fruit and the rotten—grant us liberty.

Deceived neither by the outer nor the inner—free us to walk your path with joy.

Keep us from hoarding false wealth, and from the inner shame of help not given in time.

What I hear here is something completely missing in the KJV of these important words.  I hear Jesus talking about time. According to most abrahamic versions of Genesis, when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they committed an evil act and are “sinners,” perhaps particularly so on Eve’s part.  This false belief system has resulted in untold pain and suffering not only for human animals but for nonhuman animals. In this translation I hear rather that the introduction of good and evil into our physical world has resulted in humans forgetting where and who we are. 

From a spiritual, perspective, time is an illusion. From a body perspective it is a potent reality. Simultaneously holding both of these perspectives as truth is the work of God. . .often requiring tuning into energetic sources of information through meditation or symbolic representations. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

The solution?  Heartfelt desire to get beyond the delusions . . .and time.     

Remember if you would, that spirit exists outside of time and space but our bodies understand only the present moment. By talking about the importance of acting neither too soon nor too late, Jesus is talking about the embodied spirit on Mother Earth. The Christ is telling us that we are prone to deluding ourselves; and teaching us that the trick to finding wholeness again is in the knowing that we are going to be groping around in the dark for awhile, but also having the faith that we will get there entirely when we are ready to be there.

Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

In other words, this time around, we have to take our bodies with us into salvation.  We have to make all the parts of us conscious, even the ugly ones, until they are no longer needed. We have to learn to love our own shadow, as well as those who bless us by reflecting back to us the pictures about which we have remained unconscious, no matter where they are on the “bad” part of the spectrum.  That’s what we signed up for when we ate that damn apple!     

Do you want to know how to overcome evil?  One growth period at a time.

Copyright 2021 by Rev. Dr. Resa Eileen Raven

Justice, Mercy, Kindness and Karma in the Days of Reckoning, Part II

/ Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given Autumn Equinox Worship Service  on September 27, 2020

Last time we met as a community for our quarterly worship service to honor the Creator-of-Us-All I was drawn to talking about Justice, a topic that has exploded onto our cultural scene.  Of course the subject of Justice is not a new one for folks. It’s pretty much been a central topic of discussion in human society from day one on Planet Earth.  The new element is the Universe has chimed in on the debate, telling we humans as the dominant species on Earth that if we don’t get on the right page now, another set of caretakers will be found.  In my last sermon I talked about it now being the days of reckoning, the days when people are often required to deal with very unpleasant situations that they have heretofore avoided, in order to settle old accounts.

Now, as Mother Nature moves from the season of harvesting what we have sown in the past. . .into the wintertime of rest and recreation, I want to do more of a deep dive into the topic of Justice.  I want us to rise above the petty squabbles of individuals and groups fighting with each other over dominance; attempting to force their energy on others.  I want us to take the next steps towards looking at life from a spiritual perspective, one that acknowledges thoughts and feelings; but does not stop there.

To do that, to find that place that brings all individuals and groups together in the incredibly beautiful, intricate field of unity that is our God-given heritage, what is required is for us to try to free our imaginations from the bounds of time and space. 

The people in this church know a lot about space. We’ve all been meditating, grounding, centering, learning what is us and what belongs to others, employing the basic techniques that help us operate from our own energy field rather than trying to control others, in many cases for several years. In this discussion today let’s focus more on transcending time.

As you know, spirit is eternal and operates outside of the time-space continuum.  Our physical bodies on the other hand, very much live in the world of time and space.  That is all they understand. 

As people develop spiritually, we learn the very tricky skill of walking the tightrope between knowing that on a soul level everything in the universe is happening simultaneously. . .but that our physical form requires us to divide our experience into segments that allows the ability to heal within the framework of matter. Tricky indeed. . .and if you do not yet “get this,” give yourself time! Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

This basic dichotomy, this difference in perspective between who you really are, and what your body wants and needs, is a source of tremendous tension for most people.  When an individual is not working from within their own unique physical space, they often will not take into consideration and indeed, may not even notice their body’s needs.  On a soul level, they will remain unfulfilled in a certain kind of way. This conflict, this disconnect, this lack of balancing between spirit and matter can lead to a great deal of suffering, disease, and outright warfare–an imbalance that then gets projected onto everything and everyone around us.

We all do this at least occasionally. To various degrees, at various junctures, we all get thrown off balance. We all are seeking to come into harmony with ourselves, to find and live in that sweet spot, that internal state of harmony between body and spirit, whether or not we are aware of it. We’re all here on Planet Earth to learn to create as spirit through physical matter and our physical body is where the action gets played out. 

Some of us are a little farther along in the learning process than others of us. That’s not a statement of inequality.  It’s only recognition of the fact that what you pay attention to becomes more of an issue in the unfolding of your life.  So if you have been paying more attention to working from within your own space, and taking the body’s orientation towards present time more under advisement, you will be doing more of that harmony thing, that living-from-a-place-of-balance thing.    

When we talk about reckoning of accounts, the old ledgers that require a balancing act right now are the things to which you have not been paying attention, if only because you have been paying attention to other areas.  Maybe some of those other areas are worthy pursuits. Maybe some have been distractions, detours, and a waste of precious time.  It does not matter to the universe. Contrary to our personal beliefs based on that incredibly HUGE amount of programming we have absorbed from our friends and relatives, schools and churches, neighborhoods and communities and countries, you are not being judged by the universe. What DOES matter at this juncture in our collective story, is that you pay your dues.  Some people have a LONG way to go before they will achieve an ongoing sense of internal balance.  Others have been working on themselves for longer, so the reckoning process for them right now is less treacherous.     

This is the time of the Great Balancing. Image from Dr. Seuss is used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

So let’s talk about karma. 

Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Funny thing is that when I realized that Justice was the topic on our minds and that to pursue this topic, we would need to talk about karma, I was not a happy camper. Personally, I don’t like to talk about karma.  For one thing, an authentic discussion about karma requires people to accept the reality of reincarnation.  I know what I had to go through to release programming that had me rejecting the concept of reincarnation.  I’ve never particularly wanted to ask anyone else to make that difficult journey.  I’ve always opted to follow the lead of one of my early spiritual teachers. That individual found himself being cross-examined in a court of law regarding his belief in reincarnation, as a means of trying to discredit another part of his testimony.  With a great deal of patience, amusement and neutrality he said to the people in the courtroom something to the effect of “It doesn’t matter what you currently believe about reincarnation. You’ll find out about it when you pass.” 

The proof is in the pudding, so to speak.  And I’m usually interested in leaving it at that.

Young ones are often aware that this is not their first time on the Planet, but are typically subjected to considerable pressure to see things in a more socially acceptable light. Cartoon by Dave Coverly used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

The other part of the problem with talking about karma is that the word itself has gotten corrupted by the need of human beings to judge themselves and each other.  Even in parts of the world like India where karma is a widely accepted idea, the meaning behind it has gotten distorted.

So let me say this really loudly for those in the back.  KARMA IS NOT ABOUT THE UNIVERSE GETTING BACK AT US for our transgressions, for our stupidities, if you will. Karma IS about a simple cause and effect movement to energy.  Like a boomerang, what you put out in the world inevitably comes back to you.    

Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles

Nearly all spiritual traditions acknowledge this circular movement. In Western culture karma is often labeled the “Golden Rule.”  The title is no coincidence, given that gold is the color associated clairvoyantly with the divine.

In the Christian tradition Jesus of Nazareth talked about the path cause and effect energy takes with his usual simple, profound language.  Many have not been able to hear his real message through their own judgment of self/others.  They assume Jesus was talking about God giving us a commandment, then condemning us if we do not follow it.  What they do not understand is that he was talking about the essence of Justice and Wisdom; and simply advising us that if we do not choose to act wisely in accordance with the natural flow of energy, we will be worse for the wear, all Hell could break out, so to speak.

Matthew, Chapter 7, Verse 12 of the Christian Bible:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Straightforward, that. What you get is what you sow.  Period.  End of story.  It’s not more complicated than that.

The only “complication” per se, is that from a spiritual perspective there is no set time frame to factor in.  I remind you that spirit is not defined by time. You can choose to act in a certain way, and the effect of that action can practically be simultaneous.  For example if a person in a heated encounter shoots a gun towards someone else who is also holding a weapon pointed at them, there is an obvious possible immediate cause-effect sequence. 

Then again, you can shoot a weapon and kill someone that no one witnesses and no one finds out about in this lifetime, other than the deceased person.  That encounter is magnetized and sent into the ethereal plane; and that person or someone who is similar in some key way to them, someone who is in possession what we call around here “matching pictures,” can kill you or harm you or impact you in some other related manner a hundred years or a century later. 

It’s not a matter of judgment.  It’s not a matter of who is right or wrong. . .or somebody being a bad person and other individual being a good person. It’s also not about being in the wrong place at a particular time, and it certainly is not an accident.  It’s not even about victimizer and victim despite the fact that in any isolated event, there is typically one or more of each. It just is.  What you put out into the universe with your God-given free will comes back to you. 

So. . .when you read in social media that some pastor who has rallied his parishioners against wearing face masks is now in the hospital deathly ill from Covid; or a senator in Oregon who left the state in order to block passage of a bill on climate change just had his home burned down by wildfires, you can label this karma if you want. You can even be thankful that those individuals are likely distracted enough by their personal suffering to not inflict further damage and suffering on their communities. But please refrain from the I-told-you-sos, or the snarky glee at someone else’s misery, regardless of how much misery others may have generated in your world to date. And for heaven’s sake, don’t choose to respond in a revengeful manner from a place of hatred.

Another way of looking at karma without using that “loaded” phrase is through the lens provided by Swiss depth psychologist Carl Jung. He discussed the unsuccessful balance of dichotomies within individuals that occurs when the individual rejects the parts of themselves of which they are not aware. Quoted in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

For your own well being, choose your reaction wisely. Acknowledge and be careful about how you are processing any emotional reactions. Live your life from the center of your head where you can be in neutral about all that you see within and around you, and thereby not project into the airwaves that which you do not yourself want to experience. Because you will. What I am giving you here is practical advice, not a moral reckoning.  

The funny thing about karma is it is correlated with intention.  You can feel whatever you feel including hatred and anger and other maladaptive emotions. Left unchecked they will certainly be corrosive to your body but they will not necessarily generate “bad karma” for you. You can hold whatever opinions you want, including prejudices and delusions. Again, these can be very harmful to your well being, your relationships and your inner and outer life, but they may not kick you in the teeth in a future incarnation. However the minute you combine negative emotion and maladaptive thinking into a desire for others to be hurt strong enough to become concrete, whether or not the other person seems to “deserve it,” eventually that harm will find its way to your doorstep. What counts here are words and actions based on your intent.

All human animals feel so-called “negative emotions” at times, although many have learned to heavily repress what they are experiencing. What matters is not what you feel. . .but what you choose to do with the feeling. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

I guarantee you that all of us have done far more selfish and stupid things in our learning process here on Planet Earth.You will not find it comfortable to have the universe have to strike you down with a deadly disease, take away your residence, or destroy some other aspect of your creativity in order to try to remind you of that fact.  

Right now, in the twenty-first century, we are balancing the books. We are reconciling all those unresolved karmic balance sheets, the ones with debits as well as the ones with assets.  Why? Because we need a clean sheet for a new world.  As a whole, human beings have made enough self-serving bad choices that Mother Earth itself is endangered.  That is not acceptable to the universe and it will not be allowed to continue.  Our brightest path forward involves the cultivation of mercy.

Angel of Mercy, Photo by Robin Hill. Used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Mercy is created when someone chooses compassion and/or forgiveness towards someone else who has wronged them, even when the person wronged has the power to do harm.  This breaks the cycle of karma. It is one of the highest uses of the gift of free will from our creator.

Mercy is a statement of profound strength.  Our society often tries to convince us it is a weakness but it is far from that.  Do you think that when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified he died because he was weak?  As the anointed one, the son of God, he could have leveled all around him, indeed all of Israel, with a single breath.  Rather he chose to not fight with the ugliness around him and in doing so, quite literally embodied mercy towards all of humanity. 

The crucification of The Christ may be one of the biggest mysteries and least understood events in human history. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Without mercy there is no freedom for human animals from continuing to experience ages old karmic cycles that lead nowhere useful.  Before The Christ, in the collective consciousness people only understood the Old Testament tribal thinking of an-eye-for-an-eye.  After Jesus, a new foundational energy as reflected in the gospels was given form for human animals: love for all, irrespective of our sins.  The Christ did not dismiss sin as nonconsequential. From a place of non judgment he eschewed it. Neither did he allow his crucifixion in order to do our work for us by having our transgressions go away magically based on belief in ideology.  He simply showed us under the most horrific possible circumstances that we can transcend the cycle of retribution by living fully in the energy of mercy.   

Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

More than ever right now we need to choose the path laid before us by Jesus of Nazareth and other saints and spiritual leaders. We need to actively and consciously cultivate mercy.  Jesus showed us the way forward, but only we can take it. Without mercy there can be no real justice.  Any choices that answer wrongful actions with further wrongful actions are simply retribution. Revenge/retribution keeps us stuck on the unending carousel of karma which as I have mentioned is really not an option much longer. 

Many people are leaving the Planet right now because they don’t know how to bring mercy to the table they have set before themselves. Many, many more will be doing so before we get through our transition period.  In your world, allow the compassion of The Christ to infuse your life and your choices as fully as you can. 

Have compassion for African-Americans and other individuals from ethnic minority communities, indigenous cultures, etc that have suffered horrible systemic racism, including some of whom are temporarily lost to their wounding by going after those they consider to have harmed them. Do this even as you take all the tangible actions to end racism that you can imagine. Follow the lead of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA’s all time leading scorer and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom who recently remarked:  “What I want to see is not a rush to judgment but a rush to justice.”

Shine mercy upon both those that support and those who oppose the tyrants, dictators, lobbyists, corrupt politicians and other political figures around the world who are actively destroying the natural world in pursuit of money and power, even as you report, speak out, vote, organize counter measures and take any definitive steps to honor Mother Earth that you can. 

“The Throne Within,” poster by Ricardo Levins Morales with quote from Khalil Gibran used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Forgive the trespasses of individuals involved with civil unrest in our cities, whether they are protestors, agitators, vandals, law enforcement, or whomever else you see as contributing to the mess, at the same time you do whatever it is you can personally think to do to stop the violence and bring forth peaceful resolutions. 

Correct the horrible injustice of our economic system when it shows up in your environment and choose the righteous path of nonjudgmental action towards those at the top who would steal what belongs to those below them. For example, bear strong witness against the three multi-billionaires who for no particularly valid reason own more resources than one half of all other Americans but pray for their salvation. Educate others about inhumane financial injustices like the fact that in the last forty years, compensation for the heads of corporations in the United States has increased in many cases one thousand percent in comparison to the other people who are a part of those companies. Advocate and provide for those without adequate shelter or food and confront those who would exploit or abuse workers. Do what you morally can to confront this egregious inequality without adding further to the evil forces in play here.

Above all, be kind to yourself.  I’m not talking about self-indulgence. I’m certainly not talking about that weird set of rules that pass as making one a member of “polite society.”  I’m talking about real kindness.  Mercy towards yourself, so to speak.  To whatever extent you can, acknowledge your flaws, your ignorance, all those multiple times in this lifetime and others where you have actively hurt others as well as those times you have chosen unawareness because it was more comfortable or convenient than the truth. 

This statue of the Buddha contemplating a lotus blossom–the universal symbol of spirit in the Eastern part of the world–appears to reflect the peacefulness that can be achieved when one brings balance to life. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

See yourself as you really are, and choose to love yourself anyway.  Forgive yourself even if you are impatient and judgmental towards yourself and not yet good at forgiveness.  Maybe you don’t even yet know what I’m talking about when I talk of mercy towards yourself.  You don’t have to understand me with your mind, only with your heart. Embrace mercy towards yourself and others because that will pay some karmic debts and open the right doors for your salvation.

Julian of Norwich was an English mystic born in 1342 CE who understood that Justice is another name for God. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

As we are reminded in Isaiah, Verse 30, Chapter 18:    

The Lord longs to be gracious to you, and exalts himself to show mercy to you.  For the Lord is a God of Justice.

Blessed are those who wait for him.

Copyright 2020 by Rev. Dr. Resa Eileen Raven

Transcending Time and Space; An Exploration of Our Possible Future(s)

/ Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given Summer Solstice Worship Service  June 23, 2019

Lately when the Church of the Harvest has gotten together as a community for our quarterly services designed to honor the divine and to help us move ever closer in the direction most pleasing to it, many of the services have been about time. Last year’s Summer Solstice Service was about the “Code-switching of Time; Flowing Gracefully Between Past, Present and Future.” The Winter Solstice Service was called “Dreaming of Things to Come.”

This was not intentional but neither was it coincidental.  We are all here to learn how to create as spirit within the time-space continuum of this glorious Mother Earth of ours. Typically individuals who are developing themselves spiritually are first drawn to the lessons involving space.  If we are successful enough with these challenges, we then move on to focusing on lessons involving time.

To understand the true nature of space, essentially we have to clear our individual energy systems from enough of our past experiences on the Planet and enough of the programming and other forms of energy belonging to other people–to our friends and family and community and society–to understand who we really are.

Mother and Child Twins by Gustav Klimt, Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Young ones fresh from the All-That-Is and basking in the spiritual glory of all being connected, come into this world through a physical body belonging to another human being, a mother. Even when we pass through the birth canal, even as we are born into a completely separate physical framework, and even when we take our first independent breath, we are almost completely dependent on many other human beings to maintain that breath, to prolong that life, for many, many years.

Humans are late bloomers. We take nearly twice as long as other primates to grow to physical maturity. As the species endowed by our Creator with the responsibility for life on Planet Earth, it takes a tremendous amount of experience to grow our brains such that they can encapsulate the consciousness required to make it all work. Scientists believe somewhere between 44 and 87% of the energy of our body (as measured by glucose levels) is consumed during infancy and childhood by our brain to bring us to adulthood.

Family by Diana Ong, Picture used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Until we become grown-ups we have to lean on others for our basic survival needs. In our contemporary societies that means we take on energy designed for other people and unfortunately as of yet, are not taught how to clear it when its usefulness is over.

As we grow we have less and less of a need to depend on information and other forms of energy from others, but unfortunately old habits are hard to break, particularly when you are not aware of them. Lots of people never get out of their pattern of depending on others, as opposed to interacting with others from a position of equality.  It may be years, often decades, sometimes many lifetimes before we do.

In these faster-paced days though it is not uncommon for people to figure out that life on Earth only really works if one learns to create one’s life from one’s own space.  When you try to force others onto the path you think they should go, when you attempt to force your will on the choices others make, then life always kicks you in the teeth, if not immediately, then eventually.  It can look like a “good marriage” or a “loving family” or a “prosperous“ country for many years. Having your partner seek dissolution of your bonds, your children move out of reach, or your community no longer function can happen dramatically all at once or quietly over time but it will happen one way or the other.  The song of our soul is one of freedom, and to have authentic relationships with other life we have to give others freedom, and we have to claim it for ourselves.

We have to put the pieces of the puzzle together to form a picture of what some people call our truest self, to understand the deepest desires of our heart. We have to let go of the dreams other people had for us, and even the dreams we had for ourselves that we have outgrown; and we have to acquire the skills to protect the remaining dreams, to nurture them, and begin to bring them to fruition.

Our work can then begin. Those “lucky” few, if you want to see them as such, those privileged few or those sufficiently “blessed,” however you want to frame it, those who have acquired a sense of their spiritual purpose are then free to move into the second part of the challenge of living in time and space, making the time part congruent with your purpose.  For many, learning about time is perhaps even a trickier lesson than learning about space.  It is not uncommon for some to figure out that life on Earth only really works if one learns to create one’s life from one’s own space. It is less common for people to figure out that life on Earth only really works if one understands the real nature of time.

Why? Time takes focus.

You have to find your own energy aka power, and then you have to learn to focus it.  Scattering your energy every which way ultimately just wastes it. I usually refer to this process of focusing as learning to “manipulate time,” but I don’t mean this is in the pejorative sense that one might assume.  In this context “manipulation” just means consciously changing the vibration in situations that are yours to control. When you learn enough from a spiritual perspective about what and how you want to change the vibration of your own energy system/field, then you can concentrate on changing how your system/field interacts with the world around you. You can flow with time.

Time is not the stagnant, never-changing force that our brains as they currently function like to imagine.

Time is not static.

Everything in the universe is in motion, and so also is time.  Time is a subjective illusive quality of experience as lived in a physical human body.

 

 

In Western civilization, Albert Einstein started us thinking in a new way about time fairly recently.  It has only been in the last hundred years or so that the consciousness of most human animals has evolved to the point that it can even tolerate this more advanced understanding of God’s creative order.

Albert Einstein was not afraid to “think outside the box” in many regards. This rare photo from about 1950 shows him in his favorite fuzzy slippers.

In his explanation of relativity theory Einstein told people: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.”  (I also have talked about my personal experience of having time “freeze” before my very eyes in order to avoid fatal injury in a major car accident.)

So why is the world needing to learn about time right now. . .and what has this got to do with transcendence?

Throughout history people have been fascinated by time, and specifically by those individuals among us who seem to be capable of seeing through the illusion that it is.  We have called them seers like Nostradamus or the Oracle of Delphi who was celebrated throughout Hellenic civilization, prophets like Moses and  John the Baptist of the Judeo-Christian Bible, saints like Hildegard of Birgen,

Many artists who turn to the collective consciousness for their inspiration are able to see the future, whether or not that is their goal. Morgan Freeman’s book Futility was published 1898 describing an “unsinkable” boat called the Titanic with 24 lifeboats for 3,000 passengers that hits an iceberg on its initial voyage. In 1912, 14 years later on its maiden voyage the Titanic sank with 20 lifeboats for 2,207 passengers.

visionary artists like Leonardo da Vinci or Aldous Huxley, mediums or psychics like Jeanne Dixon or Edgar Cayce,

These individuals excite our imagination and give us hope that the world is bigger than what we can see with our eyes. They also sometimes engender fear or false hopes that the world is predictable or controllable by other people.  The Truth is that each of us create our own individual reality including how it plays out temporally. Together we create a consensus reality that shares a common time framework. It is the latter of which I primarily speak this morning.

Right now the world is perched on a precipice, a cliff of sorts, and the only way forward for human animals remaining on Earth as its God-given caretakers involves a great leap of faith,  Changes to every aspect of our existence are required  including the time-space continuum within which we function.  As the very cosmos above us changes frequency, Mother Earth itself runs more kundalini energy throughout the surface of the Earth and the magnetic field within the Planet itself shifts directionally, so too is the basic fabric of the time-space continuum changing.  As co-creators with the divine, our job is to roll with the punches as much as possible even while we infuse those shifts as much as we can with good intentions for all and Love.

I am not going to make the mistake here of holding myself out to be the prophet of where these changes will take us in the upcoming days. What I am here to tell you is that we are all prophets, each in our own right, each over our own individual space.  Piercing the veil of illusion is a spiritual ability to which all human beings have access. It might be one of the latter stages for those who are exploring our spiritual nature, one of the more advanced steps on the path back to our Creator, but it is open to all.  Now is the time for you to explore your own abilities to “bend” time.

Yes, we are living in the apocalypse, the period that has long been predicted when all will be revealed.  One of the aspects that will be revealed to those who can receive it is the greater ability to manipulate time.  Yes, we are living in the “end times.” However in my opinion this certainly does not mean the end to all life on Earth; and it likely does not mean the end to human beings as a species of animal. Think rather of this as the end to a very long cycle of how we relate to the space-time continuum.

Some of you may remember 1999 when many people were convinced that our increasingly technological world was going to crash around us because computers could not change their Y2K code to recognize the upcoming new century? Many of you will remember when so many people were freaked out in 2012 about the Mayan calendar coming to an end because they saw this as the fulfillment of a prophecy about the physical world being destroyed? Some of you are aware of the approximately third of Americans who interpret many contemporary events as indication that we are about to experience the Rapture and/or the return of Jesus of Nazareth in his physical form? In each of these cases, there was/is a “kernel of truth” to what people were/are experiencing– hidden behind an ocean of fear. The colander of prophecy can sort the wheat from the chaff, but until people have found their own energy and are largely free from the troubling distortion of fear, partial truths can just contribute to the problem at hand.

As you explore your own version of space and time in your meditations and otherwise, I have three pieces of advice for you.

First of all as always, ground yourself as spirit to this physical planet so that whatever you create you can do so with the maximum amount of self control and safety.  Be sure the light that is you has this built-in lightening rod protection to help you weather whatever changes come your way. And a means to let go of the fear and energy that doesn’t belong to you or is obsolete, so you can be who you really are.

Second of all, continue to work to uncover your truest self.  Do the meditation and whatever other forms of healing you need to grow ever closer to the God(dess) of your own heart. This will strengthen you and help you discern your Truth and step-by-step transform you into a prophet in your own world.  It will also protect you from false prophets, those who claim to speak for God. The only God(dess) you need to listen to is the one that speaks within you.

Third of all, cultivate humility.  I’m not talking here about lack of confidence. I am talking about being slow to draw conclusions and open to the idea that by virtue of living through a body, even the best and brightest of us bring to this world a lot of distortion.

Every human being has the ability to be clairvoyant. It is part and parcel of our spiritual playbook, available to all. Clairvoyance is just a French word meaning “clear seeing.” However, if you have not already developed the skill set to separate your vision from the myriad of other sensations, biases, ego, projections, wishful thinking etc. it is best to be cautious about its usage. . .and be open to others who have enough love to challenge you. Cartoon used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Or as it says in Second Peter, Chapter 20 and 21.

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Stay open to feedback from others even as, or especially as, you grow closer to your own Truth. Even as you learn over time to create a fresher more constructive version of reality for yourself, let the Holy Spirit take you to places you currently do not even know exist. In this way you will become a prophet in your own life.

Copyright 2019 by Rev. Dr. Resa Eileen Raven