Surrendering our Egos.
Oswald Chambers writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). These words mean the breaking of my own independence with my own hand and surrendering to the supremacy of the Lord. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. We live in a moment of grace. Through the hedges of our divisions we can glimpse again the beauty of life’s oneness. We can hear the essential harmony that lies at the heart of our universe. We are beginning to understand, amidst the suffering of our divisions, that we will can move back into relationship with one another, as individuals, families, nations, and species. We rejoice that we are God’s children, comforted and sheltered in His loving embrace, close to His breast, His heart, His love. By surrendering our ego, we are strengthened that we will be on the correct path in our relations with others.
I have written much about how we relate to our family, friends, neighbors, and those we do not know, but hopefully care for. We are constantly walking through a forest filled with horrors that Grimm brothers could never dream of. The leaders of the world hold the future in the world at their fingertips.
I matured during the birth and initial spread of the atomic and then the nuclear bombs in the early 1905s. I jokingly remember practicing what to do in the case of a nuclear missile hitting Newark, New Jersey. We all filed into the hallway, away from the large classroom windows, squatted against the wall in the corridor, and placed our radiation protection, our 3-ring binders, over our heads, in the hope that if we were attacked, the radiation would not affect us negatively. Oh, how naïve we were back then.
But, you know what, our leaders, both democratic, with a small d, and communistic, with a small c, were smart enough to realize that a nuclear confrontation would destroy life on Earth, as we know it. Calmer heads resisted the temptations, no matter how angry they were at each other. I believe that God softened the hearts of our presidents and the Soviet leaders, bringing peace, if not harmony, between us. Although I was not as strong a Christian as I am now, I did pray that, somehow, we would resist nuclear destruction.
I still pray that cooler heads will prevail, with the nudging by God, to continue the tenuous peace we have in the world. We have our differences; we constantly fight over who is more correct; but so far, we have again resisted total destruction of the human race. I know there are leaders out there that use the Bible, or Koran, or whatever religious doctrine they practice that may justify eliminating mankind and the inherent sin that lives within us all.
I remain assured that God will soften the hearts of our angry leaders to preserve mankind on this, the third planet from the Sun. I do not believe that we are the only intelligent creatures in the entire universe; I do believe that in our tiny, minute, part of this vast universe, no matter how unreasonable and questionable we act, we are intelligent enough to resist destroying what we have.
With the help of God’s grace, we will survive.
Meditating to Heal 