God – The Source:
From my earliest days in this life, I experienced a profoundly loving presence. It permeated and intertwined with all my being. This presence I have called God as have others before me. I sensed God had no beginning. God always existed. God knew me before I ever knew myself. God has been the loving parent who never abandoned me, the parent I counted on when unable to count on my own. God, my eternal parent, celebrates my greatest joys, comforts my distress, heals my broken heart, calls and sends me to where I am needed most. As life transitioned from childhood to youth and now older adulthood, I have realized that God resides throughout our Universe, is our Universe, and that God offers you and me a passionately loving, accepting, personal, unconditional, non-judging relationship.
The Anointed – Prophets, Apostles, Teachers, Spiritual Companions, Believers:
Those who fully welcome God into their lives are persons who bless Humanity with their love for its diversity. As such, I call them “The Anointed” for they have shared throughout the ages their encounters with our radically loving and accepting God. In turn, those experiences have provided counsel, guidance, insight, and wisdom for millennia. “The Anointed” have helped us comprehend Humanity’s core self and what it means to be the children of a God for whom all are family and not just some. The names of “The Anointed” are countless. We easily recognize those who have been in our collective consciousness for thousands of years. They are Solomon, Ruth, Deborah, Esther, Rebekah, the Prophets Daniel and Isaiah and Jeremiah. They are Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr, Jane Goodall, and many more. They are you and they are me.
Compassion - The Charitable Heart:
In belonging to God and the Family of God, our hearts are open, sensitive, and responsive to others. Their sufferings are our sufferings. Their hardships are our hardships, their joys our joys, their worth our worth. Courageously and selflessly, we respond to their needs, wipe away their tears, treat their wounds both seen and unseen. We welcome them to our tables. We help them find hope, meaning, and purpose.
Creation – Our Holy Mother:
The Earth is our mother. She gives us life. She sustains our life. Without her, we cannot survive. She is a living breathing being. She carries us through the cycles of life -- a time to be born and a time to die. Her seasons remind us of the need for rest and the need for growth. In us, she creates awe at her overwhelming beauty. As she cares for us, we see our need to care for her so we may care for one another and the future generations of all creatures and life she will birth. In poor health, she is unable to provide for us or for all other life that depends on her. She has been the witness of our very beginnings. She has nurtured us to our present moment. She will be our loving caring Mother throughout time and throughout space conveying us to whatever future awaits us. May we turn toward her and ensure her well-being in each moment of our lives. In her beauty, we see our own.
Thin Places in the Veil – Our Spiritual Encounters:
“The Anointed”, which includes you and me, have ecstatic encounters with God. Down through the ages, Humanity has shared countless stories of such occasions. Some encounters and their accompanying revelations have been straightforward and readily comprehensible. With compassion and curiosity, we have embraced the guidance of such experiences and endeavored to be better people. Other encounters leave us curious and in discernment for years, decades, sometimes even centuries and millennia. Much of Humankind seeks to understand the mind of God so that we may faithfully and lovingly move toward the just and peaceable future God wants for all God’s children and Creation. There will always be those who state they comprehend the incomprehensible and call themselves “The Chosen” of God. We shall know such persons by their works. Their judgmentalism, lies, greed, delusions, intolerance, and proclivities for violence in all its forms will be unmistakable as will be their need to control others’ minds, perceptions, hearts, souls, and spirits. The propagation of their disordered creeds, doctrines, and forcing their whims on others, will clearly reveal the demons that possess them and the necessity that we contain their evil when it arises in our midst.
Freed, Affirmed, Called and Sent:
Bondage of Humankind, in one form of another, is the goal of the powerful and autocratic in nearly every age. Maintaining that bondage from generation to generation with ever expanding subtlety and sophistication is how such entities keep God’s just and peaceable reign outside Humankind’s reach. At such times, God calls into our midst the Liberators, the Revolutionaries, the Prophets, “The Anointed” ones. We know their names. We know their sacrifices and works. They are Jesus, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr. They are you and they are me. Each has spoken courageously to the soul of Humankind. Each one sacrificed for the hope of a coming age wherein justice, compassion, and peace are fully realized for all. When institutions, governments, brutality, slavery, false prophets, and other disordered entities tried to dampen “The Anointed” and dampen their calling and zeal -- it was the faith of “The Anointed” and their hope and sacrifices which soared beyond this life leaving behind “a forever witness” of pathways forward to a better time. As witnesses who have also been called, freed, affirmed and sent, God calls you and God calls me to carry our world forward to a just and peaceable future. The reality of your anointing and calling, even if currently unknown, awaits your discovery and expression to the world of our present time. Others, including myself, will gladly support and encourage your journey toward your awakening, including the meaning, purpose, and calling God has for your life.
Ethical Living - Doing Right by Others:
The time has arrived for organized religion, government, corporations, law enforcement, businesses, healthcare, social and educational institutions to fully comprehend and honor the wide-ranging diversity of Humankind. All too often these entities have lacked curiosity. On far too many occasions their judgmentalism has entailed serving and satisfying the control needs of disordered personalities and institutions originally tasked to see to Humanity’s well-being. The resulting traumatizing events have caused fewer and fewer people to trust the institutions empowered to protect and safeguard Humankind as a whole. Major divisive issues have centered particularly around the diversity of human sexuality. Said frankly, it is time for faith communities, faith traditions, governments, businesses and corporations, law enforcement, and other social institutions to get themselves out of the bedroom. What informed, loving and respecting, consenting adults chose to mutually enjoy sexually within the privacy of their own lives is their business. It is not the church’s business. It is not the government’s business. It is not an employer’s business. The toxic shaming controlling behavior of these institutions over human sexuality and sexual orientation must end. Furthermore, judgementalism must be replaced with fully inclusive education that affirms diversity and compassionate loving acceptance of differences. Such must be the new normal of life going forward.
World Peace, Community, Unity, God’s Just and Peaceable Reign:
On March 31, 2005, Theologian Hans Kung spoke at the opening of “Exhibit of the World’s Religions” at Santa Clara University (Santa Clara, California). In that speech, Kung advocated a fundamental attitude of “treat each human humanely”. He additionally said, “… there can be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions.” He added that there will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions, and there will be no serious dialogue among the religions without four essential principles. These principles are: (1) the commitment to a culture of non-violence and respect for life, (2) the commitment to a culture of solidarity and a just economic order, (3) the commitment to a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness, and (4) the commitment to a culture of equal rights and partnership between men and women. For the latter principle, I would modify to read, “…the commitment to a culture of equal rights and partnership amongst and between all human beings regardless of gender, non-gender, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and spiritual or religious preference.
Closing Thoughts:
In the summer of my nineteen year, I awoke one morning as the light of early dawn shown through my bedroom window. The cool air through the window led me to wrap up tightly in my comforter. Drifting back to sleep, a vision opened in my dreams and I found myself sitting in a beautiful summer meadow full of colorful wildflowers and green grass. I then noticed the grass to be the most perfect shade of green I had ever seen. I looked up at the trees bordering the meadow, swaying gently in the wind, their leaves were similarly the most perfect hue of green. A summer breeze brushed lightly against my skin bathing me with the sun’s gentle warmth. Looking to the sky I saw the most perfect blue sky ever. I sensed being completely at peace as was everything around me. Puzzled at what I was experiencing, a joyful realization came to me, “God is among us!”
Decades later in 2011 during a memorial service in Longview, Washington, a ministerial colleague would share a scripture that captured what I saw in my vision so long ago. It is from Revelations 21:1-6. I share it with you from the Inclusive Language New Testament Version:
“Then I saw new heavens and a new earth. The former heavens and the former earth had passed away, and the sea existed no longer. I also saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride and groom on their wedding day. And I heard a loud voice calling from the throne, “Look! God’s Tabernacle is among humanity! God will live with them; they will be God’s people, and God will be fully present among them. The Most High will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death, mourning, crying, and pain will be no more, for the old order has fallen.”
The One who sat on the throne said, “Look! I’m making everything new!” and added, “Write this, for what I am saying is trustworthy and true.” And the One continued, “It is finished. I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. To those who are thirsty I will give drink freely from the spring of the water of life. This is the rightful inheritance of the overcomers. I will be their God and they will be my daughters and sons.”
Let us join together as overcomers of the present moment. Let us usher in our rightful inheritance as overcomers -- a time when mourning and crying, trauma and pain will be no more. For the promise is given, “I will make everything new, needs will be fully met, completely, humanely and nonjudgmentally – and its hallmark will be the fallen old order.”
May God’s Peace Be with You!
Brad Shumate
Free of Encumbrance
8th June 2021
No comments:
Post a Comment