Praying for Peace; A Contradiction in Terms?

August 18, 2024 / 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.

Whispers From Mother Earth: Live and Let Live; Live and Let Die

October 14, 2023October 27, 2023 / Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given at the Autumn Equinox Worship Service on September 24, 2023.

This morning we are going to be working with the energy of communication. We are going to look at this concept from the largest vantagepoint, that of spirit.

As I like to remind folks in this spiritual community, communication is central to the mission of the Church of the Harvest. According to our founding documents filed with the Secretary of the State of Washington we exist to “encourage spiritual growth in church members, the community, and the world-at-large by teaching and employing skills that enhance connection and communication with the Creative Source of the Universe.”

Communication as we are going to explore it today. . .has little to do with spoken words. Words can be completely valid in the context of examining physical events. But we are all MUCH BIGGER than that. . .and words often do not do justice to spiritual communication.

Words can often be very reassuring and helpful to our brain and the rest of our physical body. They can illuminate and guide the process of trying to make sense of what we are seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching. For spirit though, communication happens through images, not words. Words can slow us down and detour us from where we are trying to go.

Language can illuminate important points and guide us to inner wisdom. “Weave a Million Words,” words by Broms the Poet and art by Amie Crux used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

Spirit is always communicating. It is our natural state, a state that can be associated with joy and enthusiasm. There is SO MUCH communication floating around the airwaves that our bodies can easily become overwhelmed. On any given day, our bodies are the recipient and processor of billions of data interacting with and adding to our already voluminous storehouse of feelings, thoughts, and experiences. And that is just what is going on with our physical sensory systems. I don’t actually know a word for the quantity of data with which we are capable of interacting on a spiritual level. Even the descriptor “infinite” is not really enough.

Handling this amount of information with grace and ease has always been a challenge for human beings. Individuals and cultures have attempted to engage in all this communication in a variety of mostly ineffective ways. Most of us have repeatedly tried to isolate ourselves. Some have created entire lifetimes based on isolation, whether it’s choosing a career like a trapper or explorer in the wilderness, choosing to be born into an area bound by external isolative geographic factors like Mongolia, Tibet or the Artic; or becoming a part of cultures and communities committed to being cut off from the rest of the world like certain religious groups or entire countries such as North Korea.

Some of us try to remain around a multiplicity of others but find individualistic means to isolate, for example by becoming obsessed with the world of video games or social media; living with a disability to cut down the chatter; or getting lost in an addiction. On a society-wide basis various policy makers think erroneously that they can force others to isolate by banning books and access to the internet, shutting down schools financially or physically, or mandating distorted, reductionistic versions of history and culture in the schools and venues that are allowed to operate.

These are short term “fixes” for a bigger problem. You have only to examine the “lone wolves” of our societies who are increasingly turning to violence; or witness the suffering of a person struggling with mental illness because they are tortured by more data than they have the ability to process, to realize these “fixes” are illusionary. They are fragile and temporary and can easily make things worse in the end.

Folks, it’s the information age on Mother Earth. It’s the data revolution, the apocalypse when all that is hidden is revealed. It’s the time of AI where machines can work with more of the tangible than humans can; of 4G and stronger communication pathways being hijacked by commercial forces jamming up the collective airwaves in their battle over who is going to control space itself. It’s the time of weird new microorganisms in the very soil beneath our feet, popping into our awareness along with variations of more familiar old ones, sometimes viruses trying to restructure DNA in help us keep up.

We are shifting from the linearity of being obsessed with things; to the circularity of relationship to all of life, requiring a new focus on the basic organicity of nature.

To handle this shift and the increased volume of information that we must negotiate in order to make it, we are going to be required to learn to TRULY communicate. This means that we not only we need to learn to use words constructively with people; but also that we need to learn ALL the ways spirit engages with itself. We need to greatly level up our spiritual communication skills with ourselves, with each other, with all life forms animate and inanimate, with the Creator-of-Us-All and all created order.

That is where meditation comes to play. Those of us in this community and those elsewhere who practice some form of meditation have an edge, a head start, so to speak.

The great thing about sitting down and closing your eyes and turning within, no matter what type of meditation you are using, is that you are placing your physical systems in the back seat as you learn to communicate. Sure, it can be confusing for a while, maybe even a long time, maybe even painful at some points, as one begins to recognize how out-of-touch we have become in our collective groups that do not validate spiritual communication. If you keep going with the practice of turning within though, eventually that ability to communicate naturally begins to develop. You sort out which internal voices are your own, which belong to other beings, both those with physical bodies like family and friends, and those existing purely as spirit. . .and you figure out what you truly have to say.

These days a lot of people are using the phrase “speaking my truth” as a means of inserting their perspective into the conversation. Be very careful. Although this is a grand ideal, it remains out of reach for many or most. It often takes years of healing before one can truly distinguish truth from societal and familial programming. Speaking One’s Truth by Myron Dyal, used by permission of the artist.

I’d like to tell you a story now from a time when I learned a lot about the nature of spiritual communication. Twenty years ago, I was sitting at my desk in our meditation center in Lacey trying to work on some important paperwork. I was having trouble concentrating, something that was atypical for me. I tried to focus on the project but an internal dialogue was going on and building and telling me in no uncertain terms that what I really needed to do was stop working and start meditating. The various voices in my head were fighting with each other with escalating tension. I finally realized my responsibility pictures were losing the war. Not only couldn’t I complete the paperwork, I had become SO frustrated that I found myself wanting to throw something against the walls of the room. Instead, I yelled out loud to some unseen aspect of universe “I give up!” I began to meditate to see what was going on within me, what the message was that was trying to reach me.

Fifteen minutes later, after I had cleared a bunch of energy from my space and was considerably calmer, I called another church member and asked her: “What the hell is global warming? Does it have something to do with the depletion of the ozone layer?” This individual was a biologist who at the time was in charge of a large section of the Olympic National Forest. She responded that she did not know but that she had been seeing that term come through her emails recently, and she would look at the situation and get back to me.

Thus began my journey into understanding what Mother Earth had been trying to tell us/me all along. Please notice though, how spiritual communication works. When the divine needs to speak to us, first it whispers. If we do not pay attention, it sends hints. If we still do not let ourselves receive the message, it speaks more loudly and directly. Eventually if the stakes are big enough, it begins to shout.

Bhatapur, Nepal after their 2015 earthquake. Photo used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

When the social conversation is full of other shouting voices, the message from the one that really matters is not received. The Creator-of-Us-All then often has to pull the plug or take some other drastic measure to get us to pay attention. I have witnessed this dozens of times with my students who sometimes create what I call “crash and burn” scenarios where they have to endure a major health crisis, a car accident, a financial or relationship meltdown, or some such so they notice they have temporarily lost their way.

We’ve all done it. Multiple times. Don’t waste any time on guilt. We have all had those moments where we KNEW better because some little voice was trying tell us that the decision we were about to make, the person with whom we were about to engage, the experience we had just created, was NOT the right decision, person or experience. Nonetheless, we let that voice be drowned out by a cacophony of shoulds, perfect pictures, and various opinions and emotions from others.

Back to my story, after my own crash-and-burn moment about global warming I spent the next several months and even years trying to understand my role in the collective crisis before us. I reached out to key “ahead-of-their-times” individuals who were discussing global warming. I read everything I could get my hands on in the scientific and popular press. I had returned to graduate school in psychology. That gave me the opportunity to process my increasing panic as I came to terms with the fact that global warming was going to end life as we knew. I turned every paper or project we were required to do into one about “global heating,” (a term that was subsequently abandoned because it was not “friendly” enough for the public to stomach.) I created power points and other presentations for everyone who would listen.

A few individuals who liked to follow my story listened politely. Most did not.

This sculpture entitled “Follow the Leaders” by Spanish visual artist Issac Cordal was created nearly 15 years ago and installed in Berlin in 2011. Cordal has been frequently commenting on climate change and often depicts images of ineffectual politicians. He reminds us that we cannot wait for others in so-called positions of power to change our relationship to Mother Earth. It is up to all of us! Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

Which brings to my second point about how real spiritual communication works, as opposed to just words expressed in the physical world. Spirit is interactional. It is not linear. Both individuals and collections of individuals have free will in regards to what experiences they want to have, including what they want to hear, pay attention to, understand, and work with. If you try to force communication onto others, at best all you get is the deer-in-the-headlights response. At worst you risk invading others energetically and having to deal with physical life consequences and/or karmic ones.

This is a humorous look at the mental trajectory many have been on. Humor can bring emotional relief to very difficult subjects, and thereby open up an avenue for action. Now is the time for action. Image is used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

After I got beat up quite a bit energetically and otherwise by my need to “rescue” the world from global warming, I eventually heard another message from Mother Earth. If I were to put it in words it would be something along the lines of: “This is not your work. This is my place. Your path is elsewhere. Leave it to me to speak with human beings about what must change for them to live in my paradise.”

Holy man attempting to honor the Hindu god Ganesh through the polluted waters of the river Yamuna in New Delhi, India where inhabitants do their laundry. In the Indian pantheon, Ganesh is known to be the “remover of all obstacles.” Photo used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

Which brings us to the present time frame. Mother Earth is busy whispering to some, speaking loudly to others, and shouting to many. What I have found fascinating to witness is not so much the collective crash-and-burn scenarios themselves, but the uniqueness of how they are actually received and experienced. Have you noticed that in addition to all the horrific mass casualty events lately that go as expected, there are also plenty of extreme weather events that somehow end up differently than they should “logically?” For example, we have huge destructive tornados that touch down destroying hundreds of homes but leaving a couple of houses or a church nestled in the midst, untouched in a way that cannot be explained by different building materials or landscaping. There are epic hurricanes that total all existing physical structures but against all odds do not harm a single human, even when large numbers of people are silly enough to stay behind.

Without the expanded perspective made possible by a full range of communication, people typically see themselves as separate from Mother Earth. Not so. This image of a mountain range that overlooks Cooper Lake in Woodstock, New York by Mighty Xee is used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

I am in awe of the ability of the universe to craft individual stories within powerful, huge collective events.

As I watch all this, our human destiny has been a major subject in my ongoing conversations with the Mother Earth aspect of the divine. I know many of you are angry at what humans have chosen to do in our time on the planet; and many of you are pessimistic or even fatalistic about our survival as a species. I have heard the telepathic skepticism when I have failed to endorse the idea that it’s game over on Planet Earth for human beings.

On the other hand, I also know that many of you remain willfully ignorant at what humans have chosen to do in our time on the planet. Some of you who are rigidly optimistic or somehow convinced that our survival as a species is a given, have not appreciated my messages that humans may not survive climate change.

For myself, I have been waiting to hear what Mother Earth herself has to say on the matter. I come to you this morning with the whispering that I have begun to hear from her very recently. Of course, I can’t articulate much of this message, both because it transcends words and because each of you need to and will hear a different version of the message according to the dictates of your heart.

But here is my best attempt:

It’s not too late. It is very late. Humans still stand a chance to remain in the paradise I have created for you, but you must embrace my mystery. I want you to live and let others live. I want you to die and let die. If enough of you can do that, my grace will surround you in ways you cannot yet even imagine.

What does that mean? Again, the meaning here is different for each of us. But here are a few thoughts I have on the subject, take them as you will:

Life is not just a question of breathing in and out. Spirit is fully capable of creating the experience of have a body which is then more-or-less abandoned. Spirit is also fully capable of using the body for what it was designed–as a vehicle for great creativity as can be seen in some artists. Image used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals.

The life referenced here is not life as we know it currently. It is what some meditators label “lived experience,” which speaks to when spirit is fully or nearly fully embodied in physical form, therefore living out a life rich with creativity, joy, truth, freedom, peace, and social justice/service to others, amidst the full range of human thought and emotion.

Those who have experienced a religious background might use the terminology “born again,” if you can get beyond religious dogma into the essence of what it means to genuinely be reborn into a spiritual perspective.

For this kind of life, one must extend one’s aliveness to every other aspect of the whole. The life talked there is about making every mundane choice an act of sacred worship.

The practice of meditation increases one’s ability to communicate with all life, as this Buddhist practitioner and teacher demonstrated. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

Live and let live requires full engagement with all aspects of what God has created. It involves waking up the morning and being grateful for each breath, appreciative of the body giving form to and making possible one’s ability to experience the natural world, despite aches and pains, warts and physical imperfections.

It involves taking good care of the physical form—humans and nonhumans alike–while transcending the limits of said physicality with consistent ongoing awareness of and communication with spiritual reality.

The death referenced here is not death as we fear it. It is the other part of eternal life, the shedding of old forms in order to make way for rebirth. There will continue to be many other human beings that choose to leave the Planet at this time; and start again afresh another time if they can. It is celebrating their departure, albeit awash with the grief and tragedy of it, and wishing them well in their next steps.

Most of this community know at least theoretically that death of the body is a temporary shift of state. Can you really embrace that truth?

The Old World is Dying but it still can offer solace to those who are attempting spiritual rebirth. Art by Alexandria Dvornikova used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

Die and Let Die has also to do with shedding the old collective forms we have developed over the centuries, those that are in conflict with Mother Earth which is almost everything. That is what is new about this time frame. Most everything has to go, or at least be destroyed and reinvented: political and economic systems, health care, housing, transportation and city infrastructure, food generation and delivery, everything.

When our current world order is dead, then we stand a chance. Then Mother Earth can return us to the living Paradise that awaits us. Why? Because creation and destruction are intimately connected.

Human beings can be at their best during moments of great destruction. This 2015 photo by Vladsylav Musiienko entitled “The Human Spirit,” used in conjunction with Fair Use Principals, was taken in Ukraine.

The Planet itself, of course, will continue in any case. The living heart that is the Earth itself will be here for the created order. It is just a question of whether human animals, the species that was given the learning opportunity of leading the world forward in conjunction with the divine can keep pace in this time of re-ordering.

It’s our move.

Raise your glass and give a toast to more communication as we sort out what is possible and what we will ultimately choose. Let’s talk.

Transcending the Blame Game: Responsibility in a Dying World

July 9, 2023 / Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given at the Summer Solstice Worship Service on June 25, 2023

Today we are going to be talking about responsibility, a concept that is and always has been confusing for human beings and human civilizations. The very word itself has so much energy attached to it that there is very little consensus on what it actually means. If I tell someone that they are or should be responsible for a particular situation, depending on the person and the situation, some will puff up their chest with pride, some will roll up their shelves and go to work, some will freeze in abject terror, and others will flee in the opposite direction as quickly as they can.

I often play with the definition of responsibility by breaking it down. In other words, one way of looking at the concept of responsibility is that it means that someone has the ability to respond. It can be useful to think in this fashion. If you cannot do anything about a bad situation, then it is not really your responsibility to fix it. If you can, then go for it. If you can solve a problem and do not, then you are not acting responsibly. Etc. But the trouble with this perspective is that it says nothing about spiritual reality.

From a spiritual perspective, responsibility comes within the context of the Creator-of-Us-All granting us the ability to choose everything about our Earthly experience, with one exception. As you all have heard me say time and time again, there really is only one rule on Planet Earth, one aspect that is universally and absolutely a given: Free Will. When as a spirit we sign up to be embodied in a physical form on Mother Earth, we agree to following the rule of Free Will to the best of our ability. Everything else is up for grabs.

Practically speaking what that means is that we are responsible only for our individual self. We each have our own individual space, a space that consists of our physical body and the energetic space immediately around it. We can create whatever we want to experience within this space. The rest is not up to us, not our responsibility, at least not exclusively.

Then it gets a little tricky. Because beyond our individual reality, we share and cocreate a collective space in which certain usually small aspects are up to us, and almost all other aspects are not.

I know that those of you who have been hanging around me for a while are pretty confused about this shared space thing. Along with the rest of humanity many of you are fairly clueless but highly motivated to figure out how to address a world that needs immediate and tremendous change to even continue to be livable. You may think I don’t notice your attempts to change the world outside of yourself by applying the energy skills you’ve been learning for application in your own space to others. . .but I do.

I understand the desire. I’ve been there, done that, continue to do that at my most muddled times. And occasionally, my attempts to heal a damaged world are appropriate as well as successful. However, the problem is that when one takes responsibility for the outer world, no matter how beautiful it is and deserving of help, without first clearing the vast majority of your filters, you risk violating free will, even when that is not your intention. Because invading free will is not your intention, you will likely ultimately be forgiven. However, by trying to heal the collective space before you are in fact, ready to do so, you are only postponing the inevitable. Others will still have to deal with their problems at another time; and you will have more problems to work through in the future because of the karma you just created for yourself.

I thought long and hard about the best way to help folks hearing my message get to the next level of genuine spiritually-driven responsibility. I decided one way might be to provide a concrete and nuanced real-life example. So, this morning I am going to present you with a case study as it were, a true story from the early days of my lived experience as a mental health professional.

In the late 1980s I was hired on as a forensic therapist for the Mentally Ill Offenders Program at the primary hospital in Washington State for the treatment of the criminally insane. The universe sent me unexpectantly into that environment to shake up my reality and the complacency of those already there.

Most all societies create a place to house those who cannot successfully live in the predominant social world. Sometimes these are a place of refuge. Usually they are not. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

Pretty much from day one I was in trouble. Some of the inevitable conflict was for obvious reasons. Initially I did not actually realize that I was the first female professional staff who had been hired. It took a “joke” about affirmative action candidates, what we these days would call a “microaggression,” on my first elevator ride to my new work space for me to start to notice that my new colleagues were white guys, mostly crusty older ones at that.

A much more profound source of conflict was not obvious on the surface, but reared its ugly head rather quickly. At the time of my hiring, I had already been working on myself in a variety of ways for many years. I knew a thing or two about the real nature of healing. The other forensic therapists largely consisted either of staff who had transferred over from the state correctional system and were focused on management, not healing; or individuals whose work training and experience was built upon the sterile foundation of academia such as the psychiatrists, nursing staff, recreational and occupational therapists. None of these groups had been required to do any of the deep intrapsychic work we needed our patients to do. Or at least, I needed our patients to do.

Too often the programs developed to care for those that are seen as mentally ill come from a place not only of ignorance but of abuse. Autistic children strapped to a radiator in a mental hospital in Lebanon,1982. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

In actuality, the hospital who was charged with the treatment of some of the most dangerous individuals in the state was rightly described as one big “revolving door.” Patients were committed for an undetermined amount of time. They were given three meals a day, lots of opportunities to interact with others under safe conditions and a general reprieve from the stress of living in the community. Their behavior was stabilized with the chemical restraints of psychotropic medications; and they were expected to perform simply tasks like making their beds, working with staff to clean up after themselves, and otherwise follow basic social norms without loss of behavioral control. If they could do this for a period of time, they were considered ready to reengage with the outside world again.

Psychotropic medications are one of the great success stories of modern science. They make possible a rich, rewarding life experience for those whose brain is wired towards a spiritual reality that others do not share. That said, these medications are not a cure and not a panacea. They can be a first step, allowing the patient the breathing room to meet the challenges of physical embodiment. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

I stuck out like a sore thumb. Within a few months I had told my bosses that while I was happy to support the hospital in any other way I could, I would not be participating in a limited view of what constituted real change before the courts. I was not capable of being sworn in under oath as a representative of the hospital to say that a patient was now unlikely to reoffend and therefore should be released back into the community, just because they had learned good social manners under relatively safe conditions.

Luckily by then, the patients under my care were beginning to show such unusual psychological changes that were intriguing the higher-ups that I was not fired. Instead, we were able to work out a compromise. Patient loads were shuffled and essentially, I was assigned the treatment of folks who had committed crimes like murder and arson so egregious and/or politically problematic that my superiors were OK if conditional release was a far distant or even an absent goal.

For many years I worked very hard to help my patients move from their tortured internal world into a shared reality that was less dangerous for them and others. Many of them were used to and complacent about the mental illness with which they struggled, but a few were eager to explore new territory. In every group of humans there are lots who could care less about healing themselves, but there are also usually a few who crave the lived experience of accessing the incredible healing abilities that are the natural birthright of human animals.

“Mental illness” is perhaps more accurately viewed as a spiritual disease. It involves the individual for a myriad of possible reasons accessing parts of their energy system not usually validated by society. This can be a excruciatingly painful and sometimes dangerous process for the individual as well as the people around them if the individual does not have the skills necessary to negotiate that alternative viewpoint safely. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

One such individual with whom I had the privilege of working was a young man named Troy. Troy was smart, quiet, well-mannered and could be kind to others. Like many who suffer from a major mental illness, he had learned to do so in secrecy, preferring isolation to the humiliation of judgement by others. One day that was not all that different from any other day for him, he went out and bought a 357 Magnum. A week later he shot and killed his older brother.

After I got to know Troy a bit, I began to sense that underneath it all, he was one of the ones that genuinely craved a new perspective on life. It was not like he expressed any remorse or anything. It was more fundamental than that. It was more like he exuded a hunger for healing. I told him that he did not have to discuss the painful memories about his family with me unless he wanted to. However, I also made clear to him that if he ever expected me to testify in a court of law that he was ready to rejoin humanity, he was going to have to talk to me about SOME real things going on inside of him, not just mouth the usual pleasing-others bullshit. He would have to give voice to genuine thoughts and feelings. He was going to have to share his internal world, whatever it might be, however crazy it might seem, with another human being.

In some important regards working with the mentally ill is essentially no different than working with any human being that needs help. It is all about communication. . .and it is at its most healing when the helper learns to appreciate the alternative language being employed by the person being assisted. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

Fast forward close to six years later. In search of ways to help my patients, I had gone back to school weekends and evenings, completing a master’s degree in counseling. It was interesting but not all that useful. I had also begun to learn about working with energy, eventually enrolling in a seminary program—again on evenings and weekends. This was a lot more rigorous and helpful than a counseling program but it was hard to figure out how to apply it to a hospital setting.

Eventually I realized that I had learned all I could learn from my hospital experience, that I had given all that I had to give, and it was time to move on with my healing journey. I let the hospital staff know I would be quitting as soon as two or three of my patients had successfully gone through the conditional release process. By the time I left, Troy was living comfortably on the unlocked transition ward, working parttime at a pizza joint, taking a few classes at a local community college. . .and much to my delight, had even had a couple of dates for the first time in his life with a woman he met in one of his classes.

Several months later, maybe a couple of years, one dark wintery evening there was a knock on my door at home. When I opened it, I found myself staring at a County Sheriff’s Deputy who was there to do a welfare check on me. He told me that Troy had ceased taking his psychotropic medications, had absconded supervision, and the fear was that Troy was coming after me. I had two immediate reactions. First of all, I felt grateful and humbled that the Deputy had taken time from his many important duties to make sure I was OK. Second of all, I was distressed and more than a little irritated that the hospital staff had initiated said check. What that said to me in no uncertain terms is that they were never able to build a solid relationship with Troy, because if they had, they would have known that there was NO WAY he would come to harm me.

Several more months passed. Troy’s body was found in a remote, heavily-wooded area of a national park in Idaho. He had died of exposure, trying to hide from a world with which he was no longer comfortable. I was invited to his memorial which I attended to support his family. As you might imagine, they were in great anguish, entirely devastated. As I listened to his mother talk at great length about her anger towards the shop owner who had sold Troy the gun he had used to murder his brother, I was struck by how her narrative had not changed one word from what she had expressed to me so many times so many years ago. I found myself saddened as I wondered how many hundreds of times Troy had been the recipient of other one-sided conversations without any room whatsoever for him to join in the dialogue. I, of course did not tell her that Troy had spoken to me several times since his death; that he has happy he had moved on and was going to get another chance at embodied life, a fresh, clean new start. He seemed particularly ecstatic that he had figured out how to move on from his physical body without accruing any more karma by hurting anyone else in the process of leaving.

Like mental illness, death itself is a spiritual phenomenon that defies understanding by most. It is best to approach it with humility and grace. “The Story of Death” by Brian Anderson used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

So here we are at the end of my story, and the beginning of my question to you.

WHO WAS RESPONSIBILE for this young man’s “untimely” death? Who should be blamed that for this man with such promise, his life was full of suffering and pain, unbearable isolation and lost connections?

Was it indeed the shop keeper who supplied the weapon that destroyed his family? Was it that his family did not seem to have a place for him in their midst, and did not even notice his absence, much less events like his brother’s bullying? Is it society’s fault that these “lone wolfs”—as they are increasingly labeled by the media and law enforcement such the FBI–don’t show up on our collective radar until it is too late? Or is it our collective fault that civilizations have been around for thousands of years and still we don’t have even the basics figured out about illnesses like schizophrenia? Was it my fault as Troy’s treating therapist? Could I have prepared him a different way, or prepared the situation? I was fairly doubtful that the community supervision staff had the interest or skills that I possessed in building a bridge to this troubled young soul, but I didn’t see that I could do anything about that. Or was it simply all Troy’s fault? After all, he did and does possess free will to create whatever he as spirit wants to experience.

My answer? All of the above.

And. . . None of the above.

Yes, primarily, Troy’s life was and is his responsibility. He created the family into which he was born. He chose the time frame, this period where we are still collectively so lost as to the true nature of mental illness. He and I created the contract to come together to do healing work with each other, long before either of us were actually in a body this time around. He contracted with his Creator for the timing and nature of his demise. Etc. I like to think he did enough healing work with himself to “change his destiny” in the sense of leaving his body without harming others. It is possible to change details of the contract after spirit enters into the physical world. Rare, hard, but possible. I could be wrong.

Beyond Troy’s mockups though, there is the collective space in which all of us participate. We either make choices there consciously; or more commonly give up our individual energy to let them be made for us by other energies. So yes, we all have a bit of responsibility for Troy’s story, somewhere between a very tiny almost microscopic part. . .to a much more prominent role like I or the other hospital staff played. So yes—each one of us has some response-ability to shape a different reality than the one that ensued.

And the none-of-the-above part? Why do I say that? Well, because it really doesn’t matter who is found to be responsible in any situation, if the seeking of that answer comes from a place of judgment.

If you are approaching the question of responsibility in order to figure out who to blame, you are already lost. The blame-game is very big on the Planet right now, and only likely to get bigger. As the natural world rapidly deteriorates, revealing its vulnerability and damage to all, people in the social world are constantly talking about investigations, who should be held accountable, who is responsible. They think they are talking about responsibility but they aren’t even close to understanding that concept. What they are really doing is looking for scapegoats. That is not going to work. It solves no problems. It just creates others.

The blame-game is just another way of avoiding a resolution. Until you get beyond this stuck perspective, you cannot solve the problem at hand. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principals.

So, my friends, kept working to clear those wounded healer pictures from your fourth chakra. Step back every now and then to examine what is really motivating you as you attempt to heal others. Keep looking inside yourself for your answers to life’s troubling challenges. Above all, find that center-of-your-head space where you can observe without judgement.

And know that you are not alone. You are never alone.

Consider this a call from your Creator. 😉

Harmony in Times of Chaos

June 30, 2021July 1, 2021 / Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given Summer Solstice Worship Service on June 20, 2021

Today we celebrate the beginning of summer, strawberry season, the time when Mother Earth begins to bring forth the fruits of her bounty; and we human animals who are her caretakers see what we have created in the spiritual realm the previous winter; what we have dreamed of, agreed to, and begun to manifest into the physical world in regards to some of the first major waves of new blessings. Fruits and vegetables are ripening, but in a deeper sense so too are our fears about the Great Balancing, as I like to refer to the current time in history.

In the last three or four years I have been struck by how many people were using the word “chaos” to describe their worldview. More recently many people have now decided that we are settling back down, we are no longer living in a pandemic, and that we can now return to “normal.” That clearly is not the case and is not going to happen.

There is still a tremendous amount of chaos in our collective lives but I think some of us have gotten a little more acculturated to it. It’s gone underground a bit, become less apparent for some. A few of us have worked through enough resistance to the changes within us and around us to have a temporary respite. As you know, resistance always makes changing more difficult. Global changes however, are ongoing and profound, with many more to come.

The drive to return to normal is an indication that many people still suffer from resistance to change. Get real, folks. Life on Planet Earth has irrevocably altered, thanks be to God. Image from Green Peace New Zealand used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

This morning I want to remind you that chaos has its place in the universe, some might even say a beloved place of honor. I want to impart some hints about how to not only “weather” it–(pun intended)–but maybe even begin to learn to enjoy it. Chaos is what happens when you need to make huge shifts, when you need to destroy things but have little or no permission to destroy.

Seattle-based mythologist Michael Meade embraces the deep spiritual truth that threads through the stories of all cultures. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Chaos is a precursor to great creativity. Out of chaos arise enormous possibilities. The birth process can be smooth, joyful and full of wonder; or it can be painful and disheartening; or anything in between. Humans still have lots of decisions to make, but the threshold upon which we are currently teetering is nothing less than miraculous.

At one point billions of years ago our planet was poised on another foundational threshold. Our universe was a swirling mass of gases and Mother Earth was simply water. Then the Creator brought to this chaos its abundant endless creativity, and thereby fashioned a framework that spurred a paradise of life forms.

In our ignorance and ego-driven desire, humans have largely decimated that paradise, causing a kind of retreat to a state of primordial chaos, at least emotionally-speaking.

So here we are. We get to begin anew, each one of us individually with our own free will, and decide whether we are willing to learn to co create with the divine as his/her children, to begin to access our corner of that abundant endless creativity, or continue to fight a losing battle against the inevitability of needed changes for the good of the whole.

I want to talk a little bit now about individual creativity. What does it mean to be a chip off the cosmic block? For those of us who are working with our own individual energy systems and trying our best to do so in junction with rather than opposition to God’s will, how do we actually go about harnessing our creativity in the service of the divine?

And what do we need to create?

Here’s a thought. How about a whole new relationship with ourselves, each other, and Mother Earth?

Let me start by reminding you that everything outside of you is a reflection of what is inside of you. It’s not the other way around. If you look at the political and economic structures around us you will see a tidal wave of people that want to convince themselves and each other that other people are the problem. The blame-game is HUGE at this time.

Unfortunately this perspective is not only incorrect, it is dangerous. A lot of the souls that are choosing to leave their physical body right now, are doing so because they cannot see a pathway to healing themselves which will allow them to remain on the Planet.

Great spiritual leaders around the world have attempted to teach us that our true life resides within, and therefore changing anything disharmonious has to addressed from within. We engage in group creativity by interacting with others and the entire world around us but it is up to us ultimately how we experience that interaction. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

We’ve all been so tremendously programmed to believe our answers are outside of ourselves, and therefore our problems have to be solved by others. Then there is a whole cadre of folks that understand theoretically that creating a full and rewarding life for themselves is possible and up to them. . . but they don’t know how to make the changes they seek happen.

In this community I would say that most of us have a lot of the basics down about our individual creativity, but are maybe missing a few important pieces of the puzzle to take things into the collective world.

Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

So let me talk about putting those puzzle pieces together by talking about your individual chakra system.

You all know that there are seven major chakras in the human body, kind of like little powerful spinning hard drives that contain a humongous amount of information, all the information you need and then some.

Many people sort of have their favorites, areas upon which they tend to focus because that is where they feel the need to do the most healing. Other people are under the impression that certain chakras are intrinsically more important than other chakras. For example, it’s common for people to assume that the upper chakras, the fifth, sixth and seventh, are more important than the lower chakras, the first, second and third. That is often because they have gotten lost to the dichotomy that “up” is more important than “down.” Lots of folks have been programmed to believe the “higher” chakras are associated with “Heaven” and therefore of greater value than the “lower” chakras associated with the Earthly realm.

Actually, what is ultimately important is that your chakras work in harmony. They are a system, one designed where every cog of the machine is important for the smooth functioning of the entire machine. When you have even one chakra that is really screwed up, really dysfunctional in terms of what you need to use in your life, the information that is supposed to be in that center will go elsewhere. It can be absorbed by other people, gumming up their energy system. It can bleed into other of your own chakras and screw those up. It can end up enervating and throwing off balance any of your body’s organs, muscles, nerves and other physical structures and systems. Like a river in a flood, information–a form of energy–simply overflows onto other pathways when dammed up at its natural flow site.

In a society where we are not taught how to work with our own energy system, and accordingly have done a rather substantial amount of damage to ourselves for many centuries, our energy system is typically hugely fragmented to the point that it is essentially at war with itself. For example, one part of us wants things to go a certain way while other parts want to take us in a completely alternative direction. We sense or feel we should stay away from a person or a substance like alcohol or the situation that we know to be toxic; we may have second or even third thoughts as to where we are going but we still find ourselves drifting into a maladaptive universe anyway. Part of us wants to rest more, eat healthy or exercise regularly but somehow “something” gets in the way of our following our intention. Much of the time we are even unconscious or unaware of what is driving our life choices.

This is the internalized chaos to which we are all prone. We all do this until we have cleared enough from our energy space for the different pieces of our information to be compatible rather than contradictory with each other, for our chakras to work together in the service of our higher good.

Then of course, this chaos gets projected outwards. Don’t get me started on the wars, violence, social injustice, environmental disasters and so on that are made possible as our individual internal warfare combines with other individuals at war with themselves, increasing the conflict exponentially in the collective space.

Collective chaos can lead to places of great suffering. Art used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

So you all are on the journey towards wholeness. You have committed yourselves to cleaning up the mess inside you from years in this body and centuries of neglect in others. You have been kicking out the energies that don’t belong to you or no longer serve your purpose to live in wholeness. Congratulations! Mazel tov! Keep up the good work!

But how do we get the individual pieces of our life into a even more complete (although by definition, changing) picture? You all know what my answer to that is: one step at a time. Meditate daily. Run your energy frequently. Cultivate humility and patience. Ask for help from the divine and its helpers whenever you need it or just want it. Commit yourself to God’s service including devoting yourself whenever you can to the wellbeing of others, not at your own expense but rather because all cogs of the machine are ultimately important for our world to work. . .and because what blessings you impart will return to you in kind.

And here’s a little tip. . .or preview of what is to come for the members of this community, including those who participate energetically but not with their physical presence. Every chakra is important. But if your goal is living in harmony, pay attention to your fourth. There is a reason why medieval paintings were so obsessed with portraying the burning heart of Jesus.

The Christ understood that the heart chakra was the bridge between the lower chakras that regulate more of the energy system’s responses to the Earth; and the upper chakras that regulate more of the energy system’s responses to the Heavens. He modeled for us someone who crafted complete unity in his own space irrespective of the enormous personal cost to him, and by doing so, embodied unconditional love with all of God’s created order.

If you want to experience Heaven-on-Earth. even if for brief periods of time . .if you want to be a soul that helps bring paradise back to Mother Earth, pay attention to this important piece of your individual puzzle board.

The fourth chakra is all about setting one’s identity in relationship to everything there is, everyone and every aspect. It is about the peace that occurs when the free will of the individual soul chooses to dwell in unity with everything inside its body and energy system and thereby extends that unity outside.

A well-defined fourth chakra in harmony with all within and outside of an individual soul is a thing of great beauty. Image by Alpha Channel used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

In other words, learn to love all the parts inside of you, even as you change those that are no longer useful. Don’t go down the rabbit hole of thinking that your yucky parts are the responsibility of others. Others can help you but they cannot do your work for you. Don’t compound your problems by giving away your power to change. Whatever part others played in the creation of these bits of discordant energy is no longer relevant.

Also avoid the major detour of thinking you can achieve wholeness by adopting the false illusion of perfection. Stare your faults, your dark places, your sins, your shadow, your wounds/thorns, whatever you want to call it/them straight in the face. And wink back as you say goodbye.

Justice, Mercy, Kindness and Karma, Part I

July 18, 2020 / Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given Summer Solstice Worship Service on June 22, 2020

Hello. I’m glad to see you all at the 2020 Summer Solstice Service of the Church of the Harvest. My job as Presiding Minister of this spiritual community is to tune into the energy of the group, and do whatever I can to bring it to the next higher level. I offer my personal perspective as a way of doing that, hoping to awaken the truth that is contained within your heart and your mind. Today my topic is broad-ranging. Please know that each of you absolutely has my blessing to use any of these words that resonate with you, and discard the rest. Above all in this Church we believe in free will. By that I don’t mean freedom to act however you want to act towards others around you. What I specifically mean is freedom to feel whatever you want to feel, believe whatever you want to believe; and act in accordance with other people in a manner that also honors their essential freedom.

It is always a challenge for me to write and deliver these sermons. Spiritual reality is never fully explored through the medium of words, but under the best of circumstances we can dance with words in a way that allows dancers to sense the melodies within their eardrums and feel the rhythms in their bones. So please forgive me if I dance around our topic. . . because it is too big and too rich to be fully captured by words. You are invited in as I try to encapsulate what I believe is true about the spiritual journey upon which we are engaged in the present moment.

Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Let me start by talking about why I am framing this sermon as occurring in the “days of reckoning.” Most of you present today know that I have speaking for many months, several years even, about the end times, and as well as the apocalyptic times. If you heard me, you will also likely remember that I do not believe the end times necessarily mean the end of the physical world, only that the world as human beings have known it is ending. The word apocalypse comes from the Greek. It translates simply as the unfolding of things not previously known.

For most people, there is a lot of scary energy on the phrase “the end times” as well as on the word “apocalypse.” Likewise, there is a great deal of fear for many people when they hear the phrase “the days of reckoning.” That is because for most people these three concepts are all firmly associated with religious dogma, mostly in regards to the abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. As such, these phrases are fraught with the assumption that we are sinful, about to be judged and most of us found horribly wanting, soon to be condemned to deep, endless amounts of suffering.

In my meditations I have spent considerable time stripping away religious programming from my energy system. For me, these ideas are no longer a source of anxiety. I am happy that the Creator-of-Us-All is dissolving our illusions through the apocalypse. I was never very good at living the lies with which most people seem to be content. The end times for me personally seem to be bringing an end to my suffering, the completion of a journey of many lifetimes of brokenness in which my sense of living in the hell-of-my-own-choosing far outpaced those few moments of heaven-on-earth that I could manage to create for myself.

In the world of energy there is no time. We are all going to the same place but our individual journey towards that place depends on the choices we make along the way, including our sequencing and timetable. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles

As to the days of reckoning, let me just say that it is very clear to me that our God is a loving God that does need to judge. We humans do a more than adequate job of that all on our own.

What happens when you put all these ideas together? What are the days of reckoning. . .if they are not the time after death as Muslims and Christians are told in which one has to account for one’s actions before God in order to determine whether you go to heaven or hell? Stripped of religious programming, a reckoning is simply a time when people are forced to deal with unpleasant situations which they have avoided until that day. A reckoning is a settling of accounts.

When are the days of reckoning? Typically they occur when an entire people are forced to deal with that which previously they as a group have avoided confronting. You know. . .like what is currently happening with a lot of white people who were previously not really required to notice that they had certain resources and opportunities largely unavailable to people of color. Or what is happening for the more economically privileged around the globe who previously could pretend that destruction and exploitation of the environment was a problem for other people until the entire climate of the planet began to crash and effect them as well. This is the apocalypse at work, the dying of illusions. These are the true end times, the end of centuries-long chapters of human evolution.

I want to jump now to another concept, one that is currently consuming the national conversation and saturating the energetic airwaves. Let’s talk about justice. If you watch any news broadcast, participate in any social media, interact with the public in almost any context, you are going to be having conversations about justice. Suddenly everything seems to be about social justice.

One of the things that interests me about these conversations that people are having on the streets and in the media is how closely the concept of justice is being paired with the idea of people speaking up. Over and over you will hear people say how vital it is, how important for people to speak up. Many times folks don’t really even know what they want to say. . .as they busily extoll each other to speak their minds. We are searching for our collective voice, even when we don’t know what we want to do with it.

The emphasis here is on the collective part. Previously some individuals have been vocal. Whether or not they were truly heard is another matter but they had the opportunity and/or the desire to express themselves. But as a collective body human beings have usually only come together as a group to express themselves in opposition to another tribe. The human brain has always overwhelmingly done an us-versus-them kind of thing when expressing group norms.

This is what we are changing. What is new here and now is our coming together to express unity rather than division. We may not know what true unity really looks like as of yet, and we’re not very good at it so far, but we’re doing our damndest to try to figure it out. The implications for this shift are enormous. The result of this task will be to create a new world order.

Justice, aka a place in society for all. is always inclusionary. One can see from the heated debate going on in the United States right now that what is or is not every person’s right is a topic upon which we still significantly lack agreement. Our collective political, religious and other systems need to “catch up” with the “golden rule” aspect that is fundamental in all world religions. Image by Mary Engelbreit used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

Those present today will understand some of the ramifications of what I mean when I say that human beings all around the globe as a group, are attempting to bring into their physical bodies the highest vibration of energy which is founded on all of us being connected. Last year the consensus reality, that is to say all of us on a spiritual level, made the decision to rewire the world into one based on love. Right now we are taking the first real step in bringing that commitment into the physical world, right down through our emboded individual energy systems as we talk to ourselves and each other about what that real unity will take, what that will look like.

In recent history we had the first major wave of this new commitment to collective expression when gay men and lesbians were given the political green light to come out of the closet, the oppressive cloak of invisibility they had endured for centuries. More recently the #MeTooMovement encouraged women to explore their truth and men were told to take a back seat, listen and learn. Those conversations involved communication. . . but they weren’t yet contextualized in the intention of unity. The latest cultural shift, this spotlighting the stories of black people and other people of color is a double whammy. It is shifting both the message and the medium.

Huge assemblies of people are marching together through our urban centers, often without clarity about why they are marching. They walk under the banner of “Black Lives Matter” and articulate that they want justice in the form of an end to racism, but it is clear that there is so much more to their message.

There is accompanying conversation about the police which is framed using a variety of filters such as police tactics, accountability, reform, brutality, etc. The police are the boots-on-the-ground highly visible reminder of the justice system. Law enforcement serve as the tangible symbol of law and order, an order that is seen by most as overdue for an update. The interactions between police and protestors vary widely as a result not only of the personal experience of the individuals and communities involved but also the meaning those individuals and communities read into the symbol.

Which brings us to the other aspect that fascinates me about the vibrant national dialogue we are having in the United States these days centering around justice. Journalists and other witnesses have commented upon, but I have not seen them really able to interpret the significance of the fact that the public protests are largely leaderless. These events typically have initial organizers of sorts and periodic visible key players pop up and often disappear again but the groups are essentially coming together and going about their business with a degree of spontaneity and fluidity between huge, divergent elements not usually seen in protest movements.

Mass movement without direction from a handful of individuals is consistent with the top-down shift of energy I’ve been talking about for awhile. I’ve been watching the energy move downward, closer to Earth, not only in the protestors but now in the police. Even a year ago it would have been unthinkable for police officers to publicly disagree with each other. The code of silence subscribed to by those in that line of work was rock solid as a result of the perception that such group solidarity was necessary for the welfare of all, to protect members of the profession from a challenging and dangerous job. Suddenly all over the country, individual and small local groups of police are “breaking ranks” to take differing and sometimes contradictory positions in the discussion about justice.

The energetic shift from power being welded from the top levels to the lower levels, specifically from national and international forces to state and local forces, is the tidal wave of the future. It is consistent with and necessary for the huge shift of consciousness going on currently for human animals. The universe is moving us from being dominated by tribal thinking to each of us finding our own individual truth as individuals within collective society.

Many people are emotionally and cognitively devastated by this change. The anxiety and outright paranoia is enormous as people discover they can no longer rely on the religious, political and social figures and organizations they have always used to tell them what’s up. We have to break down our reliance on others to tell us what to think and feel and do. . .so we can develop the skills and abilities to manifest our own individual creativity. . .and join it with the creativity of others for common goals required to meet our present world-wide challenges. It has been and will continue to be a really rough ride for those individuals to make sense of the changing world who do not have the experience and lack basic skills on finding their own truth.

But if you think confronting and ending systemic racism is an overwhelming task, wait until you see in the days ahead what we have to do in order to end systemic economic injustice; and what is going to be required to keep the planet from continuing to slide into a terminal tailspin.

In human society justice is truly a concept whose time has come due. People around the world are calling for it in increasingly passionate voice. This image of Justice used in accordance with Fair Use Principles is from Palestinian artist Malak Mattar who is currently a refugee. She first started painting at age 13, during the 51-day Israeli military assault on on her homeland in Gaza in 2014.

The protests around the country are often described as “passionate” and I hear a lot of participants talking in rather vague but deeply-held language about desiring change. As a people we are trying out new abilities to speak in one voice from different life experiences. The universe is speaking within us and through us even as few understand as of yet what is being channeled. What is uniting those on the streets and those participating by their witnessing right now is not message or even motive as much as something much more profound and fundamental.

To focus on what I believe is the energetic core to these demonstrations; I’d like to return to invocation used at the start of this service. Let me repeat it. This is the statement from the Christ speaking about the end times in which we are living. This is from Verse 10 of the Gospel of Thomas:

“I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I’m guarding it until it blazes.”

Elsewhere in both Luke and Matthew of the Christian Bible, Jesus talks about a time of turbulence that would bring division to households, between father and son, mother and daughter, etc. Jesus was all about applying the love of his father to everyone, no exceptions. He understood that this would take a burning away of social norms. He was always the social revolutionary when it came to modeling for others and urging them to follow him as he challenged tribal thinking that held tightly to the domination of the many by the few. As he blazed a trail for us, he made clear that it would be a fiery one. So here we are, folks. Welcome to the reckoning.

I like the Thomas citation because to me, it also speaks to the emotional passion of the protests. Our world is on fire right now, both literally with periodic wildfires breaking out all around the natural world. . .and metaphorically. Individuals and our society as a whole are experiencing the bonfire of the vanities, a holy fire, if you will.

Image by Elise Huther used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

We are burning away the essential impurities that must be released it we are to survive. The passion of these crowds that are protesting around the globe in the name of justice is a kind of collective rage built upon a foundation masking deep, deep sorrow. We have a lot of thoughts and feelings to process, an ocean of rage against the world we have created as a species. This is the same righteous anger that had the Christ overturning the tables of the moneylenders in the temple. We tend to think it’s about others but at its core, this anger is the natural consequence of having defiled the sacred with our profane need to exploit each other.

For some of the protestors and many of the politicians and others commenting on them, this fire quickly loses its essential heat and illumination, and devolves into the petty squabbles of the blame-game. Lots of folks are getting stuck on an old testament vib of guilt and shame and punishment. At its spiritual essence though, this righteous anger is paving the way for everyone to have a seat at the table, not just the powerful, the elite, the privileged.

Benjamin Franklin, that iconoclastic rascal of an American founding father talked about the importance of passion igniting true change Let the outrage play out its part.

Welcome these fires of transformation, and let them burn through your life.

The world is in a 5^th chakra growth period. It does not matter that most do not really understand the nitty-gritty of what they are protesting.

Spirit communicates through images. Learning to add words to the mix is an acquired taste that takes skill development. This is true both for individuals and groups of individuals. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles

The first stages to owning the upper three chakras in our collective energy system has to be with opening them, and letting whatever they contain spill out. It doesn’t matter that we don’t yet know what we want to change into. We can figure that out as we go. It’s enough for now that we are open-hearted as the universe moves us, like crucial chess pieces, into the right positions to be available for its mercy.

I want to remind the people here today as well as those tuning in at a later time, that we each have a part to play here. There are no coincidences. The protests are showing up in your life because you also have fifth chakra movement to make. Take inventory of your communication ability and find out where you need to grow. If you are one who has spent time in the language of emotion, help others learn to regulate theirs. Model for others as you identify your own emotions, separate what is yours from what belongs to others, express your genuine emotions without using them to attack, and maybe even help people learn that the emotional system is simply a means of communication between the individual soul and its physical body. On an spiritual level it is not really about other people.

Speaking One’s Truth by Myron Dyal, used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

If you are one who is cautious with your words, typically expressing your true thoughts and feelings only to a few or only to those who will agree with you, take a few calculated risks and expand your repertoire of experience.

One of the most powerful means for healing yourself and others requires no words. The witness is an underappreciated, often incredibly profound agent of change. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

If you have no trouble speaking up, maybe you need to learn to listen more or more effectively with people from a different cultural experiences than your own.

And pretty much all of us need to learn to be more gentle, more kind. . .even as we hold feet to the fire for ourselves and any of our brethren who are resisting a more just society.

Used in accordance with Fair Use Principles

In 1968 Martin Luther King spoke to an elite section of Detroit about nearby riots going on in the city. He was nearly drowned out by the heckling when he dared to put into words the fact that the economic and social plight of African Americans had worsened in the previous years and promises of justice from a white culture were not being met. He told the crowd that “a riot is the language of the unheard.” He was assassinated three weeks later. We are listening now, Martin.

As spirit we move through the natural world that includes time and space. Our bodies, which are a physical manifestation of the natural world require time and space. The universe has grown weary of our tendency to kill each other when we disagree with one another even if the battle being fought needs to happen. We are being called right now to both address injustices and to do so in a way that honors life.

For many thousands of years, human animals have equated survival with domination over other groups of humans. It is time to update our thinking. Cartoon by Man Martin used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

That is the essence of leaving behind tribal thinking in which one group tries to overpower another group. Getting to a higher plane is going to take many new experiences starting with new levels of interactive communication.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all saying that we stop at the communications level. Just speaking up about racism and other forms of social injustice is a good start but is entirely insufficient by itself. It is no more appropriate to just mouth apologies and epiphanies about systemic racism then it is to offer thoughts as prayers as a solution to gun violence. Having the necessary discussions is just the first part. Translating thoughts and feelings into action is the end game and it can’t come soon enough.

The world is in a great deal of turmoil in part because human animals keep trying to use our limited brain capacity to negotiate an increasingly complicated path. To survive we area going to need to learn new ways of processing issues, develop new epistemological strategies and cultivate humility. Image used in accordance with Fair Use Principles.

We need to fix the obvious and immediate problems as quickly as we can; but not rush to judgment about complex actions and policies that require careful dissection and extensive public discussion. Knee-jerk reactions are not helpful.

Now is the time for a new kind of diversity, not just one of basic role equality and opportunity but diversity of thoughts and feelings. But be careful . . .because true change does not arise from a place of judgment. The medium has to match the message. Otherwise you are just swapping one illusion for another. If you are demanding justice, it is likely not justice you are seeking. It is revenge.

In this assembly we will talk at a later date about developing our other collective upper chakras including folding in mercy and kindness and stepping off the carousel of karma. But for now, let us join people all around the world in the direction gracefully captured by these words from the great poet Maya Angelou:

If you’re not angry, you’re either a stone or you’re too sick to be angry. You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.”

Following Your Heart; Choosing Integrity in an Increasingly Fractured World

December 1, 2018December 2, 2018 / Church of the Harvest

From a Sermon given Autumn Equinox Worship Service September 23, 2018

Today I want to talk to you about following your heart. It is actually much more complicated of a topic than it would seem on the surface. We extol each other constantly to follow our hearts. This is the go-to advice for the vast majority of human problems. Whenever somebody is having difficulty making a decision between different life choices, they are inevitably told that the solution to their dilemma is to “follow their heart.”

We’re very good at generating perfect pictures aren’t we? We’re not so good about actually defining what we mean when we tell ourselves to follow our heart. In other words, when it comes to the concept of following your heart, we often don’t get the conversation translated from the spiritual realm into everyday life on Planet Earth. My goal this morning is to provide a certain level of what I think of as “technical information.” In doing so, I seek to bring Heaven closer to Earth.

When you think about it, it is not so surprising that we usually don’t REALLY know to what we are referring when we tell each other to follow our heart. After all, in our country and in our world, we pay very little attention to what is going on within each individual. We are too busy trying to handle the trillions of bits of data coming at us from all around us at every second. What we process and understand of our world comes primarily from our physical senses. It’s what we see and hear that gets prioritized by our minds, as well as what we smell and taste. Even when it comes to what we often label as “feelings,” it’s those galvanic responses, those sensations that are generated by our nervous system associated with our outer skin, states like cold or hot, the comfort of a lover’s caress, the prickliness of an allergic response, the anxiety, surprise and pain if we step on a nail, that gets the most attention.

For every human being there are a whole slew of other possible internal states of being, states of consciousness if you will. And this is where the internal landscape sometimes can get very foreign for folks. Often people will refer to any sensation, anything going on within them as a “feeling.” If asked to describe the sensation further, maybe they can say more about what the feeling is and maybe they have no words for it. Maybe they can tell where it seems to be located, and maybe not. We are simply not taught to attend to what the Christ would call the “Kingdom of God.”

At best we may have learned from a particularly mature adult role model or in a school or counseling setting how to label and appropriately express basic emotions. We are rarely taught the finer viewpoints such as how to distinguish between emotions that are our own and those we have absorbed from others, much less what to do about the latter problem.

When we are not using our emotions for what they were designed–a communication system between the individual soul and it’s physical body, all kinds of distortions and conflicts become possible.

And emotional states themselves are really only the beginning. They are a statement of what our body is going through. They can have little or nothing to do with who we really are, that is to say, who we are as spirit.

Some lucky few are taught to listen beyond a “feelings” level to their own internal voice. Usually, however, they do so by revealing what is inside for the benefit of others. A great poet or painter or musician might express their true nature as a spiritual being through their art. But rarely do we validate the poet or painter who is dedicating unwritten poems to the universe within. I know I am not the only one who as a child constantly sang songs to myself with no real need or desire to share them with any other person. Eventually the chaos of the external world drowned out my musical encounters that were a reflection of lived experience of the divine within.

How many of us are taught to converse with the indwelling divine, something available to any and every soul on Earth? Anyone?

So in a world made blind to the internal, let’s define some terms, shall we? What do we mean by following your heart? The heart here is clearly a symbol.

Photograph of the heart muscle and the veins that support it. Posted in accordance with fair use principles

When we tell each other to follow our hearts, we are trying to tell ourselves to follow the lead of our fourth chakra. This key energy center, also known as the “heart chakra” is in the middle of your chest occupying the same space as your aorta, the main artery of your physical heart. I don’t imagine any of you really believe that you should be following the lead of your physical muscle, the organ that pumps blood. Certainly that part of your anatomy is an important player in allowing you to be alive, but so are many other components of the miraculous machine we know as the human body.

Just like there is an area in our head which we call the center of our head, that contains both the physical structure of certain parts of our brain as well as the energetic structure of our sixth chakra, we each also have an area in our chest that contains both the physical structure of a large part of your heart organ as well as the energetic structure of our fourth chakra.

The fourth chakra is usually one of the last to fully open because as the chakra that regulates attraction, it can become a major center for stored pain. Many of us are attracted to pain. We seek it out. It is what we have always known and we tend to recreate over and over different versions of the same pain. It takes a lot of experience in the world and spiritual majority to understand we can use the energy of our fourth chakra for an entirely different purpose.

Just as the center of your head was designed to be the main resting area, the seat if you will, of your consciousness, the area in the center of your chest was designed to be the main resting area or the seat of your connection with the All-That-Is, that aspect of the divine that is everywhere and is everything, that is all of life. Other names for this area include the “God(dess) of your Heart,” and the “indwelling-God or Goddess.” You can experience the Creator in a thousand different ways but it is in this sacred place of connection within your own space that should you choose this with “all of your heart” the felt presence of your Creator can be at its most pure.

So let me tell you a little about the fourth chakra, this “heart” that our instincts are telling us to follow. In classes I don’t speak about it very much because quite frankly, it is one of the last parts of an energy system about which most of us are capable of learning.

For those of you who are meditating on a regular basis, there is a natural progression that happens in your growing mastery of internal processes and your development on a spiritual basis. Development is unique to each soul but it follows certain common pathways. Just like the infant needs to learn to sit before it can walk, and walk before it can run, spiritual development often comes in stages. One sort-of-gross generalization that can be made is that individuals typically learn to clear out, balance and more effectively use their lower three chakras, the ones that contain information primarily related to manifesting on Earth through matter; as well as the upper three chakras, the ones that contain information primarily related to manifesting spiritually using the resources of the Heavens. . .before they put it all together.

The fourth chakra has many important roles to play in our spiritual life including helping us transcend our fear of mortality. It connects our physical body to other energetic bodies including our own. This piece is “Let Your Heart Shine Even in Death” by Myron Dyal, used by permission of the artist.

It is in these latter stages that one typically begins to concentrate on the clearing and developing of the fourth chakra. The fourth is the energy center that requires the most balancing of both physical and spiritual, the most about creating Heaven on Earth. You might work on an important fourth chakra picture here and there that is keeping you from otherwise progressing in other areas; but you are not likely to be very focused on your fourth chakra until you are fairly far along with your spiritual development. It is one of the last pieces of the puzzle.

I think it is fair to say that most of the people in this room (including myself, I hasten to add) are currently facing the challenge of learning to own their fourth chakra and employ it for that which it was designed. In fact I would venture to say that it is really the challenge facing most of humanity in present time. Think of it as we human animals trying to overcome a lack of integrity. Used here, I’m not talking about lack of “integrity” as some kind of character flaw. I’m simply talking about “integrity” as all parts working harmoniously together.

We are each of us an intricate work of art learning to create as spirit in the physical world. Sculpture is by Susan Beatrice of All Natural Arts and is posted in accordance with fair use principles.

To make something work well first one has to assemble all the parts, throw out the ones that do not function any more, sometimes manufacture new ones, get all the pieces that are going to be rubbing up against other cleaned up, greased or oiled, and assembly it all into working order.

Right now we have a civilization based on a bunch of parts, most of which are obsolete or rusted, crucial pieces missing altogether and everything slapped together with a bunch of duct tape, pretending to ourselves that it will now run. More to the point we have a bunch of individuals often with great intentions who are at war with the out-of-present-time parts of themselves who actually think that the war they are fighting originates from other people. It does not.

The fully activated fourth chakra understands that all is connected. Our physical bodies are not separate from the body of the Earth.

Since everything outside of you is in one-to-one correspondence with what is inside of you, all the conflict in your world can be resolved by working from your own energy system. (It’s not that the strife in the physical world no longer exists when you are fully integrated. It just does not exist in YOUR reality. You can be content, even as the world goes to Hell in the proverbial hand basket). From this vantage point there is only peace. The conflict of the outer world will wash over you but not be experienced by those with a different purpose in their heart.

Jesus of Nazareth knew all about the kind of profound peace that comes from within, the peace that comes only from true connection with God; and he knew it was not the kind of peace that many would even recognize.

The peace of the Christ arises from freely surrendering all of one’s being to Love, aka the All-That-Is. In that space there is no need for or even possibility of power games, only the realization that all of life arises from, reflects, and results in the Created Order.

In his words from John Chapter 14, Verses 27:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither and do not be afraid.”

If you want to be at peace even as the world around us continues to deteriorate into chaos and disharmony, keep up the good work of grounding and meditating and working to clear what presents itself as obstacles to your greater growth. Release those aspects of your past that are in your way of adapting integrity as your chosen state of being. Jesus is one of our greatest teachers here. Follow his lead and make your heart chakra a sanctuary place for your connection with the divine.

Resting on the Heart of Jesus

There is a reason why medieval pictures of The Christ frequently show him displaying a flaming heart. His integrity was complete, and so this Son of Man as he initially liked to refer to himself, became the Son of God, and showed us how each of us could achieve knowledge of the Kingdom of God within thorough the lived experience of the All-That-Is.

In my opinion you do not need to subscribe to what I like to call “the directional deficits” of traditional Christianity to follow the Christ. You don’t need to invite Jesus into your heart. The Christ is already there. You just need to turn within, pay attention and desire with all of your being the communication with and conjunction with the God of your own heart who awaits your presence.