Author: rkcdlitt

Believe it or not, we are born into the field of the Spirit. Our lives are filled with the glory of the Alaskan wilds, with the promise of God’s creation to both live in and absorb internally throughout our lives. As humans we can grow to the majestic heights of the Scots Pine or lose our way and only survive as an arctic lichen. It is our choice.

To live in the field of the Spirit, we must allow that Spirit to grow within our soul, the eternal Soul, which is God. There is no other way to flourish in eternal Life. However, we must also face the reality that our lives as humans are not always sweetened with the flavor of bittersweet dark chocolate. The reality is that we create our own hardships.

As mortals, we create an unproductive need of suffering. We race through our lives without down-to-earth acts of love and compassion. We avoid these gifts from God. We confuse our monetary worth with  eternal life’s blessing, becoming nothing more than a spreadsheet on a ream of paper. We get wrapped up in the unrealistic social stratification of false security and importance.

Our need for self-gratification is both unchristian and inhumane. If you live in the field of Spirit, you live a life of deep authentic Love, noy selfishness, not greed, not ego. You no long worry about what others think of you for your actions are based on the sharing of God’s Spirit dwelling within you. You are free share a unique freedom and joy with all people. Others may not even know your name, but they will know God’s Spirit.  

What does Job ask? “Where shall Wisdom be found?” I believe it is in the place of understanding, God’s Field of the Spirit.

©Russell Kendall Carter

Have you ever really wondered why? I have, almost everyday of my life.

Prayer is not just a conversation with God. It is also not a time to beg for something we really do not need. Prayer is Life; Payer is our time to hear God. Our day begins with prayer, ends with prayer, and lies hidden beneath the happenings of our day. We just need to recognize this and allow it to happen. Prayer is listening to God!

Prayer is what brings peace within me. I have a prayer list that is three pages long, two columns per page. I have no idea how many friends are on this list; I have no idea how many have died. Once on, all remain on my list. Each day I slowly read down one column of names. I think of these people and offer their names to God. I end with praying that all those on my list be comforted. I love them all,

This is the community I live with. I am active in my local communities and all whom I meet I silently pray for. All of the communities I have are precious and deserve my love. All are constructed on the love I share – God’s eternal Love. The Love of God is permanent; we just refuse to believe it sometimes. We tend to look for God in glorious objects and deeds. We may see Him there, but He is covered by glitter.

When I go to where my community lives, without the frill, without the glitter, I see God everywhere I turn. I see God in the war-torn villages of Ukraine; I see Him in every hospital room when I visit a friend. But – – I see Him most often and clearest standing at an intersection with a sign in His arms that reads homeless.

God is with us all; God loves us all; but I always feel the strongest presence of Him when I am with those who are left behind by society; this is where Jesus lived; these are the people He cherished and healed. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt 5:5).

God asks so little of us. All we need to do is be together; be supportive of each other; hear and listen to each other. We are all broken persons, many in hidden ways. We refuse to admit this because we are ashamed. We cover our brokenness with our pride.

God asks us to come together in one community, love each other, pray together; pray alone; pray for each other, because prayer is life.

©Russell Kendall Carter

. . . if you plant in the field of the Spirit, from the Spirit you will gather the harvest of eternal life” Galatians 6:8.

Gracious Father, You lead us to the True path of eternal Life. You teach us patience and humility because you are patient to us and in Your presence on Earth, You lived humility. You Word is Holy. Your Word is Truth. Your Word is Life.

The words of the prophets are Your words; Isaiah teaches us: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness” (41:10). Jacob wrestled with God all night and in the morning became a new man, Israel, the father of the Jews.

Sometimes, I feel that I have wrestled with You, God, all my life. I was forever stubborn; I was forever proud. For the vast part of my life, I did not listen to You. I fought with You at every turn of my life. Yet You were patient with me. . . the patience of a loving parent with a young child.

Each morning I arise, I am a new man living a new life that You create for me. You remind me that You are God; Your Word is my life. You touch me and allow me to grow as I spread Your Word to those entrusted in my care. The Spirit You have placed within me I share to my best ability.

You have planted me in Your Garden of Life. May I continue to be a trusting flower sharing the beauty of Your Word.

©Russell Kendall Carter

“The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’” (Psalm 2:7)

I emulate the ancient prophets of God; I emulate the early disciples of Jesus. I carry God’s word to those I meet, yet my learning is not complete. As with most mortals, I stumble in darkness pretending to see God’s True Light in the world. Instead, I am saturated by my membership in society, facing the mortal reality of greed and power. . . and desire. I want!!!

Yes, I want; but it is not material wealth I desire, it is the desire to carry God’s Love to the poor, the needy, the sick and the dying. As I approach the end of my 80^th year on Earth, I want to walk the earth as the biblical prophets and God’s disciples did. But I cannot; I am lame! So, I write; I pray; I bring God’s Love the only way I can. I befriend everyone I meet; I befriend in God’s name.

I have learned that the mission of the prophets and disciples is God’s prophecy of the manifestation of Love. I demonstrate to others how I love in God’s name; I offer His proof. My meeting soon-to-be friends are times of allowing God’s Will to carry us both to the lighted path of Eternal Life and Love. I refuse the view that neediness as a sign of incompetence and any kindness toward those poor, those in poor health, those lacking mankind’s education is a waste of time. God’s poor are those Jesus lived with; God’s poor are the brothers and sisters I love.

When I pray, “Let Your Will be done,” I mean in all things. When I ask not to be led into temptation, I ask for help overcoming any mortal prejudice hidden deep within my earthly lessons I have so eagerly learned. I pray for God to lead me into where my life should be lived, with God’s Spirit gently moving me closer to eternal Love and Life. I want to be one of God’s begotten children.

©Russell Kendall Carter

“And in His law, he meditates day and night.” (Psalm 1:2)

I gaze from my window, confined to my throne, a cane-seated kitchen chair covered in cat hair. My cats and I are thrilled by the flock of birds ardently attacking the feeders my wife fills several times each day. We watch finches and sparrows, mourning doves and pigeons, and of course the occasional flock of jet-black crows visit us. I gaze in wonder, listening to my black cat chatter away, carrying on a one-sided  conversation with his winged brothers and sisters.

He is in his own world, communing with the nature he is in awe of yet fully understands. I envy him. I meditate daily, but never really get the intense experience of true life. To experience true life is to be with Jesus, be with the  people who are poor, poor in mortal wealth, but strong and rich in understanding true life; to know Jesus is to be one of the people rich in Truth. Jesus speaks Truth; Love speaks Truth.

To commune with God is to believe that we speak to and with God. Three times in my eighty years I have been on the precipice of entering eternal life with God. And all three times, God has told me that my journey on earth is not finished. My life is a part of the Heart of God. Heart is synonymous with Love, and as we know, God is Love and Love is God. I meditate on Love, but as a mere mortal, I can only experience a thimble full of True Love, God’s full Love, Truth!

As I sit with my cat, writing this missive, I understand what Jesus meant when He said that we must be as a little child to enter the kingdom of heaven. My cat is in total wonderment watching, chattering. As I was standing at the precipice of God’s Eternity, I was bewildered by the surrounding calm; I feared the peace. I watched! I chattered!

Am I ready to face our Father/Mother God in Eternity? Have I blessed others with God’s Love and Grace? Have I forgiven? Has God’s Love and Goodness flowed through me to be shared with all whom I meet? Have I sought God in my heart every day, as Jesus did? Have I walked in the steps of Jesus, as He walks in mine? Am I Just? Am I worthy? Am I worthy??

©Russell Kendall Carter

One cannot think of the word revelation without considering John’s treatise of that name ending the New Testament of the Christian Bible. This is a great read – open to many, many interpretations. I don’t want to get involved in the myriad views and interpretations of what John penned. But I do want to reflect on what this deep reflection by John means to me.

I am not a biblical scholar, nor am I an expert on the historical life when John wrote this. But when I plow through all that he wrote, I arrive at the twenty-first chapter, second line, and read: “Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” And as I reflect on this vision and this prophecy, I think of a different kind of time in a different time of place open to all of God’s children. I think of what life could be!

From Genesis 1 to Revelation 21, I experience a journey of mortal man in a special covenant with God. We have kept this covenant, and we have broken it. We have loved it, and we have hated it. We have lived in alternate cities. One is a green pasture of plenty and love, prosperity and grace; the other is a product of a selfish body of mortal men, lives of violence and hate, poverty and need. The first is filled with God’s Love; the second rejects all of God’s outstretched hands.

John shows me a way to live, as did Jesus. It is the same lighted path of plenty, not material plenty, but spiritual plenty filled with the salvation offered by God. Jesus shows us how we can trust God, how we can Love each other in His name. God is with us; God is within us; God is a permanent part of us. God creates us anew every morning we arise to His Love and Grace. “A God who spends everything to find and recover us. A God who empties himself to fill us so that we might never be lost or alone again.”

When I am on the road paved by Jesus, I experience revelation supreme. I arise from the darkness created by out mortal society to the light of God’s Truth, the light of God’s Love, and the light of eternal Life. John’s Revelation allows me to look back on what could have been with me and allows me to be grateful that God is within me, guiding me to eternal life.

©Russell Kendall Carter

Let’s face it; I want to belong. I want to belong to a church. I want the fellowship of a loving community. A church community is where we learn the basics of value, not money value, but self-value and self-worth. It is where we learn to work in communion with others to help others. It is where we learn to be generous with what we are blessed

But churches are also selfish and  non-accepting, even if they profess that all are welcome. In one church if you do not accept the concept of original sin, you cannot be a member. In other churches there are confessions and statements of faith that you must recite each week. You are taught these at a very young age and recite them rote! I do not believe a person with a degree in theology is perfect enough to tell me I am a sinner or that I am a flawed person and need the church to be acceptable to God.

If I believe that God is Love, I love all beings; man, animal, the planet, etcetera. I deeply care for people, which is why I am a prayer minister; I deeply care for dogs, and cats, and field mice, and wild turkeys. I care for the earth that gives us the food we eat.

I cannot understand how people cannot care for these gifts of God’s creation. However, I will work with them to bring food to those who need it; I will work with them to build a ramp for a person in wheelchair, making their lives better. People who I cannot abide by are those who think that the world is here for their pleasure only. I cannot understand how these hoarders can turn a church into a Godless presence in the lives of others.

Jesus was a Jew; he was not a Christian. He was a homeless, poor, wandering Jew who did nothing but good for the poor, the sick, the disabled, and the outcasts. He brought Love and understanding into everyone’s lives. He blessed the earth, animals, and the people. He denied no-one God’s Love and healing.

Somewhere along the line, sometime in history, we lost the moral compass of the message Jesus brought. He did not support the government; He did not support big business; He did not support anything that harmed God’s children. He loved! He loves.

How can the church (am I am not singling out any church) claim that the support of big businesses that underpay its labor force is Jesus’s message? How can a church deny a person a position at God’s vast table of love and caring. How can a church deny a person because of color, or language, or financial wealth? Jesus never did. Jesus never did. So do not ever say He did.

Yes, I want to belong; but I cannot belong IN church. I can only belong in God’s true world – outside of the corruptness of the Western Church. I am a Christian; but I belong to the Christianity that Jesus taught, not to that which is taught by modern man. I pray it were different!

©Russell Kendall Carter

Sometimes I get incredibly angry when things do not go the way I want or expect them to. I know this is an internal mental release, but it does not help me get the outcome I want. Anger is a negation, there is no love or truth with anger. It is the absence of something. It is unreal because it is the absence of God in our lives.

When we are angry, we feel betrayed by our materialistic society. But we are not abandoned; God is always with and within us. We may have lost something we thought was important, but whatever it may be is surely superficial and has nothing to do with our health or wellbeing. We need to remember that we have more than we ever could lose.

I awakened this morning after a long night of fidgeting. Usually, I am angry all day long when this happens. Then I realized that I was alive by the grace of God. I remembered that my future cannot be ruled by what I no longer have. I remembered something that was told to me, “Don’t be angry because something has ended, smile because it happened.”

So, this is my new life; I will no longer live by the rules I meritocracy, a no-win lifestyle. For years, my life has been one of forgiveness and love, and I should always remember that God has given me great gifts to share; and anger is not one of them. What I viewed as betrayal and abandonment is my human acceptance of societal rules. I work daily to remember to accept God’s Grace, not on my time, but His. He superhighway of meritocracy is not God’ way.

As a former educator, I am not rich, but I am economically comfortable. Those I love and am comfortable being with are now my teachers. I am always amazed at how they are and how grateful they share any windfall of food or blessing they receive. Then I remember that these are the people Jesus loved; these are the people Jesus lived with; these are God’s children.

I long to be as faithful and happy as they are. I cannot due this when filled with anger. I can only be blessed and happy with a life that continues each day when I arise.

©Russell Kendall Carter  

Life is dynamic!! Every morning  when we arise, we face a new, magnificent challenge to live life’s fullest value and opportunity. What keeps me alive and spry at age 80 is Hope with a capital H. a capital H because it stands for the Hope I receive in my mind each morning when I arise thanking God for being with me today. With God in my life, I live an energetic, vibrant, and dynamic life.

I think of all that the prophets have taught me and continue to teach me each morning. Yes, I have my days of physical, psychologic, and emotional misery. What human has not had those days? As I remember that God is always within me, protecting me, lifting me, I remember that I am truly a member of His Holy creation. I am a child of God who tries to be as humble as Jesus in my care for my fellow man. Isn’t this the true life and peace of God’s Grace?

I do this by seeing the not-so-white face of Jesus in all whom I meet. I recognize the life-burdened body walking from place to place, humble in his reaction to others, spreading God’s Love and Truth to mankind. I give a little money and a lot of love to the brother or sister begging for assistance at the intersections of our roads. I can only give them these because I cannot heal them of their maladies as Jesus did.

But. . .  I know that with the love and kindness I can give them, I am healing them spiritually, for the sharing of God’s Love bring healing in the form of a small amount of peace and brotherly friendship and caring.

This is Life’s Magnificence!

©Russell Kendall Carter

Brothers and sisters, consider this: Faith is more important than religion. I attend an Episcopal church, but I belong to God. At church, I experience a great and holy communion of fellowship with my dear brothers and sisters. I cherish these moments. I have often experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit when I am present in the sanctuary, surrounded by God’s people.

I am, however, not a religious person. I cannot attend to the written liturgy of a religion because it is written by mankind’s thoughts of our relationship with God. I cannot abide by tenants written hundreds of years ago, when life was so different that what I experience. What I can do is take what I learn in church, learn by reading the Bible, the Qur’an, and other holy literature to understand more fully what my relationship with God is – and  what God’s relationship with me is.

I have studied my faith in God for the better part of 80 years. I have learned from many people including all of the clergy that have been in my life forever. I find that walking in the light of faith, the path that Jesus shows us, my faith has left any and all church liturgy as beautiful as it is; my faith has grown. In the light of faith, I have grown to something much greater, trust. The trust I have in God and my devotion to God, comforts me and allows me to know that all is well, and all will always be well.

©Russell Kendall Carter