The Still Point of the Post-Pandemic World
Hillside will hold a Zoom Service, Sunday, January 21, 2024
with Dr. Susan Nettleton
Topic: If Only..
Date: January 21, 2024
Time: 11:00 AM Mountain Time, 10:00 AM Pacific Time
If you are not on our email list for Zoom service and would like to attend, please email us at Hillsideew@aol.com or through the contact page on our website: Hillsidesource.com or message us on Facebook with your email address.
Today I want to share with you a very short affirmation that I learned from a prayer by Rev. Dr. Johnny Coleman (1920-2014). She was a powerful New Thought Minister who founded a mega church in Chicago, Christ Universal Temple, as well as the Universal Foundation for Better Living. I heard her speak several times, including her personal story of healing from an incurable illness that spiraled into a crisis of faith, led her to the teachings of Unity, and her own calling to ministry. She spoke boldly of the racism that she encountered in her early studies of New Thought, but that pushed her to find her truth and gave her the freedom to create a phenomenal environment of faith and confidence, granting her not only healing, but the title of "the First Lady of New Thought". The affirmation? "I am sheltered from that which is false."
Over the last few years, there has been amble social research on escalating confusion in America about what is true and what is false, and what is simply unknown. This confusion, sometimes referred to as 'erosion of truth', began prior to the Pandemic, but obviously escalated in a time of uncertainty and isolation. Yet disinformation and outright lies continue to promote division, feed hate, and obscure reason. With this in the background, our focus today is our individual spiritual practice, our personal path and understanding which defines our relationship to God, as we navigate January, 2024. I add to that my belief that God includes all creation (including all people). Affirming, praying for shelter from the false, is one way to find peace without feeding further conflict and ill-will.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day. Within the national recognition of his struggles, his achievements and sacrifice--his truth--is another powerful opportunity to deepen your spirituality in 2024. Over the last few years, as I contemplated the divisions and struggles, the world's current military wars and our violent cultural wars, I have thought, "Where is our Gandhi, where is our Martin Luther King?" These were human beings who had their own personal struggles, but over time they grew to manifest deep spiritual understanding. They accepted their role, leading a painful, resolute--yet loving--path to social change, with two over-seeing commitments: non-violence and love. If you have yet to read Martin Luther King, Jr., his life story and writings are another powerful way to begin 2024. (Susan Nettleton)
"Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
And from his speech, "Where Do We Go From Here?" (1967)
"And so I say to you today that I still stand by nonviolence...Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that...I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems...He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality."
For poetry: https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../LightofYour/index.html
https://sufism.org/origins/rumi/jewels/rumi-a-prayer-2 https://www.saltproject.org/.../martin-luther-king-jr-by...
Announcement to all!
Hillside will hold a Zoom Service, Sunday, January 21, 2024 with Dr. Susan Nettleton
Topic: "If Only..."
Date: January 21, 2024
Time: 11:00 AM Mountain Time, 10:00 AM Pacific Time
If you are not on our email list for Zoom service and would like to attend, please email us at Hillsideew@aol.com or through the contact page on our website: Hillsidesource.com or message us on Facebook with your email address.
"The world is a spinning die, and everything turns and changes: man is turned into angel and angel into man, and the head into the foot and the foot into the head. Thus all things turn and spin and change, this into that,, and that into this, the topmost to the undermost, and the undermost to the topmost. For at the root all is one, and salvation inheres in the change and return of things."...Martin Buber.*
Today, one week into 2024, rather than considering specific goals and New Year resolutions, I am reflecting on a more general sense of direction in the New Year. With the stunning quote above, Martin Buber integrates insight from his study of ancient Taoism with his reflections on the mystic teachings of Hasidic Judaism (18th century to present): The world is a dynamo sustained by alteration.
Buber extends this idea to a spiritual process, quoting the Bible (Genesis 12-1): "Now God said to Abraham, 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee.'" Buber interprets God's command "get you out of your country" as metaphor, actually meaning the "dimness you have inflicted on yourself" and similarly, the layers of birthplace, home and kin refer to the "dimness inflicted" on us by family, by mother and father--those who shaped us from birth. He concludes the spiritual message is, "Only then (when we have left that dimness behind) will you be able to go to the land that I will show you."
Metaphysically, this is a reference to spiritual consciousness; we grow out of our "dimness" with the light of new understanding, through a willingness to move beyond what we have known and experienced, to a deeper understanding. Here leaving home, moving, changing, is not about a 'Promised Land', or a physical place. It is a movement in consciousness. It is both individual and collective. Each generation moves our world through change led by collective consciousness. We as individuals, move through our lives in stages of change that reflect both our natural physical processes over time, and our shifts in consciousness. Those shifts in consciousness may be collective (arising from and sustained by our generation) and/or they may be singular, arising from our individual nature, yet contributing to the whole blossoming of life.
In any given time period, change is inevitable. But, change includes modulating forces, moving in a variety of directions, along with the "drag" forces that pull backward, not forward (forces of return) or seemingly frozen. Yet, there is a wholeness, as the world continues to unfold. One glimpse of our personal spiritual participation in this dynamo, can nourish and direct us throughout this year. Sometimes we see it clearly, directly; sometimes subtly, and at other times, it is imperceptible. In what direction is the movement of life pulling you? What alterations call? Are you summoned to the front lines of change, or are you a hidden gem that heals and supports? The possibilities are endless; even now, your way is moving. (Susan Nettleton)
*quotes are from Buber's book Ten Rungs: Hasidic Sayings, "The Rung of the Way", pg. 69-70.
For poetry: https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../ANewWorld/index.html
The Hillside Source is an online resource project of Hillside Community Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
