Dear Church Family,
Last week I wrote about taking the week off from ministry and my personal
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journey with the heaviness of the times. Thank you for your affirmations of love and support that came from sharing my thoughts and feelings. Last week two of our staff members, Linda Burdett and Beci Rohkohl experienced the transition of a parent. Linda's mom, DeLois Gum and Beci's father, Jack Hoskins, left this mortal plane one day apart. Linda and Beci are close friends, sisters of spirit and this shared experience of loss is especially poignant as they both navigate grief amid a very full life of commitments to family, ministry, ministerial school, and jobs. I know you join me in holding them in loving prayer, seeing them comforted by God's light and affirming their strength, faith, and power manifesting into wholeness as they heal.
Covid19 and the awareness of racial injustice sparks strong emotions in many of us. To me it brings back memories of the early days of AIDS. There was a lot of fear, emerging information, lack of support, denial, blame, and suffering that came about both from the lack of government leadership and from society who had to face its homophobia. Both government leadership and society has come a long way in understanding HIV and supporting the LGBT community.
Overcoming societal challenges takes time and it is often done one person at a time. Change happens because a person wills it so. This is the process of awareness. A person is open to be aware of something they had not been open to before. But to be aware they must be open to the possibility to the Absolute or Relative Truth behind the thought. In our modern history we have become open to many societal changes; women's sovereignty, children's right to education and care, equal rights to LGBT people, addressing mental health needs, health care for all, healing negative and discriminatory biases based on race, religion, and gender.
As we bring these actions into our awareness our consciousness expands to see this as God the Good working in our world. When we accept that all souls deserve to be affirmed because we are made in the same Good that is God. Part of our human experience is to lift each other up. Our humanness gets in the way sometimes, we think that others are not trying to lift themselves up. We grow weary (frustrated, resentful) of attempting to lift someone up who is not trying to help themselves. I get it. I have those moments, too. But then I remember Jesus reaching out to the multitudes as they came forward for healing. Jesus proclaimed, "Your sins are forgiven," and the people were healed. Jesus affirmed God's Good in their life. He did not say, "You're not trying hard enough - be like me." He reminded them of God's Good in their life through affirmation. Basically, he showed them love. Not indifference or uncaring, not blame. Love.
In this moment in time we are called to do the same - Love. I do not have prescriptive formula on how this manifests but encourage each of us to move away from experiencing hurt, shame, blame, fear, anger, and separateness - move toward love. This is a conscious and deliberate act. We move towards love through our thoughts, feelings, and actions. And the simple question to ask ourselves - "is this loving?" "Are my words, feelings and actions loving?" "Am I affirming God's love?"
As we move toward love we will experience a growing awareness, deeper consciousness, and affirmative change in our world.
Many blessings,
Pastor Robert