Uncertain Times

In times of uncertainty, of sudden disruptions and upheaval we look for indications, for signs that can help us to process all that is upending our lives. And it is natural to search frantically for any sign that promises safety, security and a return to normalcy. And when the kind of life raft needed to get us there is still unknown, fear takes over.

 

But what if the fear driven, frantically thrashing about should actually be the most exhausting part in trying to stand up to the gigantic wave of massive disruption of life as we have come to know it and expect it?

 

Maybe the very remedy, the most effective way to deal with the wave of disruption and of uncertainty is to dive down under in a kind of active, attentively perceiving surrender, and a soft but steady will to breathe while doing so? Not with frantic, pressing questions that exhaust us but with a gentle, heart motivated curiosity as to what it might all mean. With a desire to plumb and to fathom what might be found in the dark, in the deep of the unknown and to find a place of stillness in its center.

 

The wise have always known: to see the light we have to first go dark.

 

No answer is found without entering the unknown future, however frightening a prospect that may be. Or as the provocative philosopher Nietzsche put it: ‘Without the grave there is no resurrection’. Joseph Beuys, the revolutionary and far sighted artist of the 20th century, said: ‘Every creation begins with a cross’.

 

It is the sign. It is the way that will take us into a new reality, into a life as we have never known before.

From Rev. Gisela Wielki’s Facebook page, March 15, 2020

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Pandemic

Pandemic

 

What if you thought of it

as the Jews consider the Sabbath—

the most sacred of times?

 

Cease from travel.

Cease from buying and selling.

Give up, just for now,

on trying to make the world

different than it is.

 

Sing. Pray. Touch only those

to whom you commit your life.

Center down. And when your body has become still,

reach out with your heart.

 

Know that we are connected

in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

(You could hardly deny it now.)

 

Know that our lives

are in one another’s hands.

(Surely, that has come clear.)

 

Do not reach out your hands.

Reach out your heart.

Reach out your words.

Reach out all the tendrils

of compassion that move, invisibly,

where we cannot touch. Promise this world your love–

 

for better or for worse,

in sickness and in health,

so long as we all shall live.

 

–Lynn Ungar, 11 March 2020

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I am the door….

John 10: “I am the door.”

 

“While our speed may keep us safe, it also keeps us malnourished. It prevents us from tasting those things which would truly make us safe: Prayer, touch, kindness, fragrance–all those things live in rest and not in speed. Only when we take refuge in rest can we feel the company of the angels who would minister to us, regardless of what we were given. In the stillness there are forces and voices and hands and nourishment that arise, that take our breath away, but we can never know this, know this, until we rest.”

~ “Fear of Rest” in Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest, by Wayne Muller

Each one of us can only say the words, “I am” for ourselves. The deed of Christ has brought about a turning point, so that we can have access to and be guided by our higher selves, our “I am.” Our higher selves accompany us through our lifetimes, and keep a perspective we do not yet have. How can we align ourselves with that?

Christ Jesus gave seven different pictures for us to understand and come closer to the “I am.” One is the door. A doorway allows us to pass through from one reality to another and back again. A threshold can be a mighty experience, if what is on the other side will be life-changing. The door that allows us to go from here to the spiritual world and back can be found through meditation, which aligns us with our higher self. That is what meditation is.

Meditation requires that we bring ourselves to rest. We may even spend the first ten minutes or so, just living with the word “rest.” When we rest we acknowledge that there is something deserving our attention which is not of this material world and which may bring no result.

In our current world situation there are many extremes: There are those who have been granted a “time out” in which rest, self reflection, slowing down have been made possible. And there are those who have an increased work load, with children at home and can seem to find no rest at all. All prayers, blessings and strength to them!

Nevertheless, there is Divine Wisdom working through all of this. This world pandemic has woken us up from our complacency. It has laid open our weaknesses, both as individuals and as a society. It is shaking the foundations of what we knew. For those who can respond in love, compassion, in faith in God and concern for other human beings, it has been a certain grace. We are learning to practice equanimity and balance in the face of fear and great injustice.

We are being shown “The Way,” another path of the “I am.” We have to learn to bring spiritual insights into our everyday earthly existence. The virus behaves exactly like evil itself: it is invisible, destructive, everywhere, contagious, relentless and feeds off the living although it is dead.

But when evil is met with love, it “back-fires” and becomes a transforming agent! This is what is happening with so many people through this terrible epidemic. We can transform it toward the good if we stay the course, help people as much as possible, strengthen our prayer life, take up the resurrection into our souls and raise ourselves to the highest place we can. Let us walk in grace and with Christ’s healing power.

–Rev. Carol Kelly

Congregation of the Greater Washington DC-Baltimore: https://www.ccgwb.org/

The Reflecting Pool Blogsite: https://religiousrenewalindc.wordpress.com/

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How Painful?

Incarnazione–Ninette Sombart

“In the same way, I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born,” says the Lord.
–Isaiah 66:9

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

–C. S. Lewis

 

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Evening

Larisa Khimich

 

Evening
–Adam Bittleston

I go into the realm of the invisible.
The weight of my earthly body
The surging forces of my earthly life
Release their hold.
In the world into which I now enter
The watchful care of the Angels
The loving guidance of the Archangels
The creative power of the Spirits of the Ages
Work upon the souls of men.
My heart bears in it many thoughts of conflict,
But also the thought of Christ.
May this grow in the world of sleep
Into full being–
That I receive through powers of Light
His strength and peace.

 

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One World

Easter Morning – Ninette Sombert

Poem of the One World
mary oliver

This morning

the beautiful white heron

was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this

the one world

we all belong to

where everything

sooner or later

is part of everything else

which thought made me feel

for a little while

quite beautiful myself.

 

Dear Community of Christians,

The Christ continues to walk. We hear this very specific, very human activity being done by the Christ in the Act of Consecration. We hear in the epistle for Easter that the Comforter walks in the spirit before us. The one that comforts us on earth.  We are guided by the one that walks before us. Christ knows what it means to be a human being. The Christ Jesus knows what it is to doubt, to wonder, to fear and to bear the unknown. As we all try to sort through what is happening in our daily lives we can look up from time to time and feel in our hearts that we are not alone. May this recognizing the Christ walking before us strengthen our trust in ourselves to follow the path of life we are on.

 

–Rev. Ann Burfeind
http://thechristiancommunityinvancouver.blogspot.com/

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Creator Said…

The universe only pretends to be made of matter. Secretly it is made of love.

Creator said, “I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality.”

The eagle said, “Give it to me. I will take it to the moon.” Creator said, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”

The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.” Creator said, No, they will go there, too.”

The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.” Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the earth and find it even there.”

Grandmother who lives in the breast of Mother Earth and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, “Put it inside of them.” And Creator said, “It is done.”

 

– Creation story from the Hopi Nation, Arizona

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Easter Prayer

Grunewald

Easter   II
Adam Bittleston

By His strong thought forgetfulness of God,
By His strong love the hatred of good,
By His pure life the bitterness of death,
Are overcome in depths of earth.
Time is no longer empty, through His deed;
In our heart’s beat His living grace awakes;
Into our house the Easter air is breathed
With joy that heals our blood.
Thou makest new our being that from God
Has made the long descent into the dark;
And as immortal brother Thou hast joined
The sojourners of earth.

Adam Bittleston’s Meditative Prayers for Today is available at Steinerbooks.org
http://shop.steinerbooks.org/Title/9781782504672

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News from the Seminary Directors

Dear Friends,
We have some exciting news to announce from our Seminary Directors, Jonah and Patrick! Given the extraordinary situation our congregations are experiencing world-wide, Patrick and Jonah are offering a daily podcast called ‘The Road to Emmaus’ during this Eastertide season. For the next 40 days (with the exception of Saturdays), they will be posting a new audio recording on the platform Patreon under the creator name ‘The Light in Every Thing.’

Patreon is an international platform created in 2013 specifically to connect artists/creators with those individuals who find value in their work and are willing to provide an income stream so they can continue creating. There are currently over 100,000 creators receiving financial support from over 3 million patrons each month. Our Seminary monthly subscription ranges from $3 to $40.

The Road to Emmaus – Episode 1 is open to the general public and available now by clicking this link. Going forward, future podcasts will be available to patrons who are willing to make a minimum monthly contribution of $3. The first podcast will remain unlocked, so feel free to share it with others who you think may be interested.

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No One Dies Alone

The Deathbed – Ninetta Sombart

No One Dies Alone

–Cindy Hindes

In the current situation, we may bemoan that many are dying alone. No one dies alone. One’s guardian angel is always there. And predeceased loved ones also gather to guide the who is one dying across the threshold. From a forthcoming book by Iris Paxino, Bridges Between Life and Death:

…I remember a sixty-seven-year-old patient in the hospital who had had an extremely challenging illness… One day I entered her room, and the first thing she said was: ‘I am expected, you know? I am expected,’ and a smile brightened her grey face. The illness had marked her body; her breathing was labored, and from day to day, the pain became more unbearable. ‘Yes, I am expected,’ she repeated. Her eyes were shining, and a joyful glow emanated from her being.   ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’ I asked.

‘It’s my angel. I know it is him. He is so loving; he waits patiently. He stands mostly at the head end, do you see? Here…” she said, pointing to the wall behind her bed. ‘He is so loving … And sometimes I see him in the right corner of the room, there by the window, next to the curtain, you see?… Some days other figures appear in the room. My mother is there below. Oh, it was so long ago that she died …” And you know, she is so young now, much younger than she was then, and so beautiful, so radiant! It is time for me to go. I am expected there. I am no longer afraid; it is only a transition. I know that now.”

…The moment of death is, therefore, never a moment of loneliness. The [angelic] hierarchies receive the deceased person in a sublime ceremony, as that which goes dark in the world of the bereaved shines forth on the other side in a luminous spiritual celebration. For the one crossing the threshold, it is as though they ‘breathe’ themselves out of the physical world. It is a moment of liberation, and they experience an incredible expansion of their being. They look down at their body and realize it is merely a shell they have discarded. Their consciousness in the spiritual world is clear and wide awake; they recognize the beings that now receive them. For the deceased, it is a sacred moment in which their individuality, embedded in the light of an elevated spiritual reality, unfolds within them more intensely than before.

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