Meditating to Heal

Have we forgotten our roots in Christianity? Let’s be more basic, have forgotten the true teachings of Jesus? Jesus walked the earth preaching goodness, love, and simplicity. His only worldly possessions were the clothes on His back. Yet, He lacked for nothing. His relationships lack material possessiveness; and He invited us into the abundance of God’s presence. His only sermon was to those who struggled because of the cruelties of society.

In his letter to the Colossians, Paul writes, “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” But we are unable to do this. We are hypocrites throughout. We pay more to Amazon than we do to God. Our quest for riches has turned us into the proverbial brood of vipers. We care more for material goods than for the man begging on the corners of our intersections.

We consume our own flesh. Our government gives enormous riches to the already super rich, and in doing so, robs what little the poor have, taking away housing, well-paying jobs, and basic human rights, such as quality education and quality health care. Just now, the mayor and council in our nation’s capital voted to spend hundreds of millions on professional sports and have cut spending on healthcare and raises for the working poor, with the promise that in the future things will improve. We’ve heard this promise before.

If I were an Old Testament prophet, I might write that God will strike down our kingdom and spread us far and wide for not following His way. He has sent a plague upon the land, taking our loved ones from us, separating us from family and friends. And nevermore shall our land rule the earth. Seven times seven plagues will spread over our lands.

But I am not an Old Testament prophet; I am a retired mentor of youth, genuinely concerned about the world they are inheriting. Are there leaders among our youth who will bring us back to a more reasonable path that we can follow, which will emphasize abundant simplicity and not overpowerful material wealth? I can only pray that there are. I see students demonstrating on college campuses against war; let us hope they pressure the government more for equality.

I do not know what the answer is; I am merely an observer, and a commentator. We must raise our voices and speak up telling our religious and political leaders that it is people that matter, not companies, machines, and corporate profits which go to private jets and other accoutrements. I remind us of what Jesus preached in his only sermon, only whose who live God, love God. Do we?

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.

Watching . . . an unknown family –

A fishing line . . . drifting in the surf –

A little boy . . . body surfing –

A little girl . . . dreaming –

Mother absorbed in a romance novel –

Father watching the swirling kite –

                  shading his eyes from a bright sun,

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Me, sipping wine on my 8^th floor balcony –

watching. . .         remembering. . .

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

a little boy holding a dead soft-shell crab –

                           far from his body. . . grimacing –

a little girl digging for sand-crabs –

                           her yellow shovel and red pail by her side.

All of us walking to the general store,

                  climbing a windmill, playing miniature golf,

after a bucket of crab legs and a bluefish caught. . .

                                                 by the little boy. . . not Dad.

Dad’s bluefish swimming off with his brand-new fishing pole!

               We know that family on that beach

              It was ours many, many years ago

             We know them well. . .so,

             We gift them all God’s happiness

             As they gather. . .

             their memories.

            May they too be blessed.

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.

 

 

 

I often dream of my youth, lying on the roof

of the apartment house in which we dwelled.

Oliver’s woodlands surrounding my reveries;

the false aromas of nature filling my imagination;

the iridescent beauty of the pansies,

and the fields of bluebells surrounding

remembered Quonset sub-divide at Shanks Village

bringing thoughts of happiness to this boy

lost in the world macadam streets. . .

and concrete sidewalks.

The breath of God seeping through

the dirt and the crime of the city,

bringing true Joy to a young heart.

 

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.

 

 

searching. . .  searching,

                               find spaciousness,

for open space unclothes.

 

letting thoughts flow,

                               forget perfection’s call,

curb the individual voice.

 

listening in prayer,

                               float on waves of love,

open the self to discovery.

 

welcoming the reality of God,

                               feel the freshness,

of the breeze within.

 

accepting truth and mercy,

                               gain lasting Truth,

. . . God heals.

 

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.

 

I arise to the glory of the Lord’s Day;

the cacophony of the silence interrupted

by the rustling of the floral fronds in the gardens

surrounding our rustic patio;

my morning reverie is paused by the

chuttering of a nearby squirrel

demanding I return to the darkened cavern of my home,

allowing him to return to his burglary of the finch’s feeds.

I hear the finches whispering their demands for me to leave,

allowing them to return to the feeders,

surrounding what I foolishly thought was my personal paradise.

I arise to the cacophony of silence graciously given to me. . .

each morning to the glory of the Lord’s Day.

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.

 

 

 

Do you believe that there is an exploding bomb in such a small word as believe. It is powerful, I have used it twice in the first sentence. I want to think of believing in a spiritual sense, and not merely a religious sense. I don’t want to question anyone’s firmness of belief, only to ask one to look at the spiritual truth of your relationship with and to God.

We talk of truth; is it God’s truth or is I man’s truth? If we are talking about God’s Truth, the Truth that Jesus brings with his messages, it is not a faltering truth. This is the Truth that God gives us freely, with the joy and Grace that blesses the world with peace and harmony. It is a Truth that cannot be questioned. It is a truth that when all else is stripped away, there is nothing left, nothing except God.

Jesus walks this Earth asking us to believe in the firmness of God’s Truth. This is not blind faith; this is evident in everyday life. I have seen people trip and fall; others, perfect strangers rush to their sides to help them to their feet, hoping that there are no injuries. This is people living in God’s harmony with one another; this is God’s Truth in action. This is the firmness and constancy of Tru faith, the spiritual truth that comes only from God.

it rises from the depths of our very souls, where God lives within us. This is the place where we fear to go. This is the place within us that Joh calls the Dark Night of the Soul. It is where we ‘think’ rest all our fears and doubts; it is the place that we think conceals our worst nightmares. It is where we truly fear to tread. I have been there! I have weakly, like the coward I am, dug deeply into this cavern of fear and found a mirror image of myself, a gentle man, shining in brightness, asking to be freed, taking my hand and leading me up to the light of life, the light of God’s prayer, asking for my blessing in God’s name.

I firmly believe that this is my inner self, the one whom Jesus promised would be within me always in God’s name. So, I walk through life in prayer, knowing that God’s light shines within us and on us; we only have to let it shine, recognize its existence, and share its love with all we meet. I pray that God’s light will shine on us day and night.

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.

 

When I was a child in Sunday School, one of the first lessons I learned was that the name of God was Love. and that God was Love and that Love was all around. And every Sunday throughout my eighty years of life, in some way or other, I have heard messages of love come from various pulpits regardless of what faiths or what religions are represented.

In my lifetime, I have been a member of the Christian Science Church, The United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Episcopalian Church; I have attended services in at the Hebrew temples, the Muslim mosques, and the Hindu Ashrams, and the Catholic Churches. I will be the first to admit that I do not understand all that goes on and all that is said from the various pulpits. The various traditions that I am not familiar with and those that I am familiar with can be and many times are very strange to this aging mind.

What I do understand is that all of the religions that are shared in common with their beginnings in the deserts of the mid-eastern world are four wonderful qualities: benevolence, blessing, charity, and generosity. All of these when put together reveal the Grace that God instills in us that is expressed in our eyes when we meet others who are in need of God’s loving care.

I cannot stress the memories of the lessons and joy of learning and the practices in my life of sharing God’s mercy with others. When I say mercy, I really mean compassion and kindness. Mercy seems to be such a distant, religious word that seems to be beyond our everyday touch and understanding. But compassion and kindness are qualities that I practice on a daily basis, even to the extent that my wife tells me to move along, others are waiting.

I believe we all have an inner strength, a power that is capable of helping all. We may not be able to heal as Jesus did, but with a little understanding, we can realize we do have the power to help others. Personally, I do it with the spoken word which drives my wife crazy. I have a kind and wonderful word with and for all whom I meet. Every person I meet is a special person, he or she is a child of God and can be healed by God’s Love and special word.

Jesus spoke in parables, which when translated and understood created understanding and healing. I cannot do that, so I speak in plain language of Love, the Love that God give me. He gave me inner strength that I can use that I can pass through words that I share with others that strengthen my love toward others regardless of who they are. I don’t ever walk with the Pharisees. Being a sinner, I am so much more comfortable dining with them.

I flow with God; I have been healed by God; therefore, I try my best to do God’s work. I am not a minister. Far from it. I merely love to share the life of others. Love, All is love.

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.

 

I look Above and there’s an angel on the wall, a simple Christmas tree ornament I hung there in defiance of letting the spirit of Christmas die after January first. It hangs right beneath the picture of my father who inspires me to be who I am today. My father, who I swear was the angel who pulled me back from the edge of death twice and now encourages me to write.

Angels are an important part of my life as I age; they comfort me in my times of struggle. It’s not that I don’t believe in God; it’s just that I believe that God is this massive spiritual entity that has commissioned angels, just as Jesus commissioned his disciples, to go out and comfort those in need. God cares. . .  and angels are here to extend that care and comfort to all who take the time to stop and feel the comfort that is present inside of the existence we are born with; the existence that is given to us at birth. This is the eternal Love of God.

So, I say “Look above!” That is only instinctual. What I truly mean is look within. Find the truth and love of God that the angel that dwells within is there for the finding, there for the loving, there for the caring, and there for the guidance that brings happiness, community, and tenderness to our lives.

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.

 

One of the first things I do each morning when I awaken is to tell my wife that I love her. I do this because I have had many friends die suddenly and I never want my wife to think that I do not love her. I also thank God for one more day on this planet called Earth. I do both of these things because for some reason, and I don’t know why, I have been allowed to walk on this world for 80 years.

And during these 80 years I have been crushed by any number of seemingly unsolvable problems. The first major problem was a car accident that I should not have survived; I was 40 years old. It took me over a year to recover and then another  five years to realize that the business I was running before the accident could not be refurbished. When I turned around, I realized that I was not meant to be in business at all, while I was recovering I was volunteering at my children’s high school.

I was hired first as a swim team coach and then with a little coaxing and two years back at college getting a master’s in history, I was hired as a history teacher. I never realized that inside a near-fatal auto accident was life-giving gift. Life giving not for me, but for all of the students that I had for the thirteen years that I taught at that local school. I still stay connected with many of them as they now have families of their own.

Ten years after the auto accident and six months before I began teaching, I  ended up in the hospital again after lying in bed for almost a week with what I thought was a stomachache but instead was a burst lower intestine. I almost died again. I was at that gate viewing the glorious land beyond when a voice pulled me back and told me not yet.

But that was not the wonderful part. Three angels visited me and stayed with me while I was in the hospital and kept whispering to me. Of course, I could not hear them, or maybe I just wasn’t listening. But in my seventh year of teaching, I was sitting at my desk grading papers, when my father sat down next to me.

I was not shocked to see him, even though he had died almost thirty years prior. He said to me, “You know when your sister prevented you from crossing over, the three of us, including your mother, kept guarding you and telling you to go back to college to study the great writers in history. But of course, you never listen to us” And he disappeared.

I thought about this, talked it over with my wife, and went back to college, got a doctorate in literature and ended my career teaching literature and writing in a community college. I finally, fully retired at the age of 75.

Two near dear experiences; two traumatic problems, two blessings that changed my life. Two gifts to hundreds of students’ lives that I touched for twenty-four years and lives that they in turn touched as they live their lives. There is no such thing as a problem that comes to you that is without a blessing that follows. Trust me. A problem is like a leaf falling from a tree. When you turn it over – there is a golden gift hidden beneath it.

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. Dlitt.

 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

This one is almost impossible to interpret in today’s image, especially the word righteousness, for there is no real interpretation of this word that we can understand in the way that Jesus presents it.

Martin Luther King gave a wonderful talk where he proclaimed, “ I have a dream.” That dream has yet to be fulfilled. That dream is so very tied to the righteousness that Jesus refers to that the similarities are chilling to the bone. Martin’s world, and Jesus’ world, is the dream, their image is the dream, and the dream is beautiful, where the material world, is pure evil.

Mankind cares little for those who hunger for righteousness; mankind cares only for the other god, money.

Follow me for a moment; by using illusion, I have turned my body into a tree, and we all know that most of a tree’s life is underground.

In this way, I have been able to get by the wall that society has placed in front of me, that material restriction called money, and allowed me to rise from the depths of the darkness of discouragement to see the blue skies of God’s reality.

The clouds of ugliness that society’s greed has placed upon us are only temporal; God does not place them there. We also we soar high, following the flight of birds, off the branches of God’s trees, to be fulfilled in the richness of God’s everlasting of Love, achieving the righteousness promised by Jesus.

Let’s meditate on the. . . and Happy New Year!

©Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. DLitt