Author: rkcdlitt

When I think of spiritual progress, I leave behind the taunts of the material world. My progress is sustainable and encompasses compassion and gentleness. It is only in this way I can achieve spiritual progress and closeness to God. For God is always present as is the Holy Spirit, Wisdom; I merely have to recognize their presence. I have to look at my progress in spiritual terms, because if I just concentrate on the material terms, my progress is at a cost to the planet we all inhabit; this incudes destruction of natural resources, destruction caused by war, and most of all, destruction caused by greed. None of these represent spiritual progress.

As God’s chosen, humanity should dress itself in compassion and humility. Then we can recognize that God is with us, all around us, protecting us from harm and temptation. God asks that we devote ourselves to prayer, remaining watchful and protecting ourselves from the myths of modernism, which are deteriorating all over the earth. When we pray, sometimes a simple thank you is all that is needed; God will recognize our meekness; God will support our spiritual progress. When we focus on the good is us, we get closer to Mother Wisdom and see more of the works of God all over our planet. Mother Wisdom is always present – we just need to open our eyes to Her presence. After I pray, after I listen to God, after I learn from Mother Wisdom, I then experience a deepening closeness to the spiritual side of mankind.

Solomon, in Proverbs, writes that when I listen to God, I experience gladness of happiness throughout my life, and discover God within. I believe that true spiritual evolution brings hope, patience, love, and a sense of deepening prayer within. So, I offer just a simple thank you to God and live my life in His embrace.

© Russell Kendall Carter

Watching, waiting! We have just celebrated the birth of Jesus; our waiting is not stilled. We await His presence within; yet it is always there; we do not recognize it. When Jesus is asking us to seek, and knock, it is for a deeper connection with God. It is our connection with God that truly changes us; this is the message Jesus brought. 

Before Jesus rose to be with God, He promised the presence of the Holy Spirit; God’s Holy Spirit (Wisdom) would be with us, Wisdom, the feminine presence of God. We always need help; and what better way than to have Mother God, Wisdom, be present in our lives. It is in our most challenging times of our lives that the Holy Spirit wraps God’s loving arms around us. God’s spirit is in us, a promised comfort for us.

The Holy Spirit helps us to overcome our weakness. We rarely know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit herself intercedes for us through our wordless moaning. We are wise to listen when Wisdom we are wise when we listen for Her words; we are foolish when we ignore them; only the foolish, the proud, ignores Her. The Holy Spirit, Wisdom, leads to our eternal comfort and happiness.

As we celebrate the rebirth of Jesus, let us open our hearts to the eternal presence of God, the Trinity.

© Russell Kendall Carter

On this Christ Day, let us remind ourselves of the star shining bright in the sky, bringing great joy to all. Visualize the young child with Mary at His side. Let us waken to the true meaning; ask what is it for; ask why He was born and what it means for us today; ask God where it is heading, what is the future.

As we sing: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Remember that God came to us, showing us the sins of society, the sins that still persist today. We are God’s creation and there is no separation between us and God for separation is the great sadness. To quote Oscar Romero, “Let our hearts be open like a cradle so that Christ can be born in each soul tonight and from there flood every heart with light.” In the birth of Jesus, there is light; there is hope; there is love.

On this day of glory and celebration, gift giving and revelation, we remember that God provides more than we can ever know. Whatever our shortcomings, God forgives; whatever our failures, God forgives; let us open our hearts allowing God to enter.

Heavenly Father, as we open our hearts to you, allow us to recognize the love and value of all people in our world. As we celebrate the birth of Your son, allow us to follow in His footsteps, giving love and value to all of Your Creation.

© Russell Kendall Carter

God speaks in and through the flesh. As my priest meditated in our Celtic service, when Mary and Elizabeth met, the baby John leapt inside her womb. This is God speaking to us.

Sometimes we ignore this; we teach our children to be self-centered, to be self-assured, to be special. We build their egos to allow them to compete in a modern world of want and greed. We want them to be recognized for their material achievements; we want them to begin this even as toddlers navigating perilously across the living room floor.

But God calls us to prepare the way in the wilderness of this mortal life of ours to serve others in His name. most of the New Testament accedes to this invitation to peace among men. Instead of building ego strength in our youth (and others we meet), perhaps life would be better if we build community strength instead. This is what Jesus implores when he tells us to treat others as we want to be treated. What a unique way to call for love!

Love is a quality we sometimes forget to teach; we cuddle our newborns with love and neglect to continue this through their early development. We need them to recognize this universal truth, this universal love. Love can only be found by including this od-given gift in the household and neighboring society. If we want our children to be truly happy, to reach the mountain top of spiritual and emotionally holy fulfillment; we must teach love. Our goal is not just to seek the spiritual person, the person who represents the highest level of success, our goal is to seek the minorities, the disabled: the valleys of the lowly, the weak and poor.

When we teach Love our children, and when we do this ourselves, we recognize that God’s Love is everywhere; God’s Love is for all. God speaks to all.

© Russell Kendall Carter

One of my spiritual Rabbis is Cynthis Bourgeault, the master guru of meditation and thought. She writes: “No serious spiritual work is done in one’s comfort zone” and “The opposite of comfort is not discomfort; it is freedom.” When I leave my comfort zone, I am embraced by Love; this is Jesus’s love and is so massive and relentless that people need unique help from God to begin to understand how far this takes us. When we accept our brother, greeting him as family, we talk, we communicate. This s the will of God, for communication is necessary to realize that prayer is communication, and prayer unties us.

We remember Jesus’s teaching, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” I see the wandering stranger, alone, cold in the winter, begging for love, begging for a relationship. . . with a brother As people of God, we invite him to see the light and come in to feel the warmth of God’s love. When we welcome this lost brother, both have found God, both find the love of Jesus, be He in the cradle or on the cross.

As Jesus is born, the Bible tells us that God gives a sign; and a virgin conceives, bearing a son, and calling his name Immanuel. Immanuel, God is with us. God is with us. Not just now, this last day of Advent, but always. . . now and forever. Let us greet the Lord with gladness, hope, charity, and the love of each other.

© Russell Kendall Carter

Jesus says, “Feed my Sheep;” I take this to be both spiritually and physically. He also says that the preeminent standard of genuine love is how well you treat the person who is your enemy. And then there is the one we learn as children, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” I’m sure you can find many more references in the New Testament calls upon us to love our neighbor.

We are one flock; we are all born as children of God. We are all born to mothers whose bodies have nurtured us through nine months of pre-birth, Just as Mary did when pregnant with Jesus. Regardless of the circumstances, from the time the seed begins to grow, God loves us. And when it is time for our mortal bodies to be shed, God welcomes us home. I include in this miscarriage, abortion, fatal childhood diseases, war, auto accidents, or just simple old age. God loves his flock.

And we are one member of this eternal flock. And when we take in the meaning of Jesus on the cross, we recognize that all groups, living mortally or just spiritually are reconciled as one loving flock.

To be honest, there are times when I do not feel part of the loving flock. Then I tread passages in the Bible and realize that I am. I look at the lust of David whom God loved. If God can love someone who had a man killed in combat so that he could marry his widow, God can love me with my minor sins. When I read the Psalms, I understand that they are written praises to God, written by this murderer. We revere him as a great moral and spiritual leader.

I also understand the terror that Mary must have felt. She is maybe fifteen years of age when the angel told her of God’s plans for her. As an unmarried pregnant teen, she could have been an outcast and possibly stoned to death for her misdeeds. I say misdeeds because mankind has no sympathy for the mistakes we make. And, I am not saying Mary made a mistal, but others may accuse her of such. Mankind is so intolerant.

When I feel distraught, I think of David and Mary. Both children of God; both loved by God. Both members of God’s beloved flock.

So, brothers and sisters, I pray for your health; I pray for your love. Let us all be loving and tolerant members of God’s beloved flock.

© Russell Kendall Carter

From the Psalms: “O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.” It is not as simple as that in our exciting news-filled, noise-filled world. We try to make everything easy to do because we are so busy trying to make everything easy to do. Since it is the time of Advent, let us use Christmas as an example. As John Gering writes, “It’s tempting to turn Christmas into a safe holiday that asks little of us. But that would ignore the prophetic, subversive life of Jesus.” We exchange our gifts, eat our Christmas feasts with maybe a prayer first, drink our wine, and then move on preparing for the new year celebration.

I think back to my study of the Desert Christians of the first through fourth centuries. First were the desert monastics who escaped to the desert persecuted by Rome before and after Christianity became the state religion of Rome. When Rome adopt Christianity as a state religion, all Roman citizens were declared Christians. I sometimes think that we still serve this Christianity. Then there were those who migrated back to the deserts for a life of meditation, a life of prayer. These Christians emulating the teachings of Jesus had no church built for them; they lived a true prayerful and meditative life.

This is the Christianity we need to magnify; this is the type of Christian I yearn to be. Jesus spent forty days in the desert just prior to his three-year ministry which we love and cherish. We also retreat to the desert to learn, to meditate, to study, to pray. This desert is the darkness within us. It is the spiritual darkness where we meet God, where we meet the light that Jesus brought. This is the desert where we try to better ourselves, living and walking the path to God. This is the desert that as we emerge from it, we gain the spiritual gift of life, eternal life that we live with God. We magnify this life, not be closed to others, but to open ourselves, greeting all as equal brothers and sisters searching. . . searching. This is the life that when found magnifies the living God within us. This is the life of the children of God in all its magnificence.

© Russell Kendall Carter

Generations. . . how do we define a generation? According to our society, a generation is about twenty to thirty years. In that time children are born, mature, marry, and have children of their own. But when we think about generations in a spiritual sense, generations takes on a whole different configuration.

I must return to Genesis for my initial meditation! After God finished his holy creation in seven days, Genesis 2:4 tells us, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.” This is the King James Version; some newer translations replace the word generations with aeons and aeons. This gives a whole new consideration to how long a generation is. Later in Genesis, God makes a promise to Noah, “And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations” (9:12).

This is the generations that I meditate on every day. Our Supreme Being, whom we call God, and the Israelites called YHWH, created us, love us, and cares for us. Regardless of what generation we are in (I was born in the middle of World War 2), we are God’s people; we are His chosen; we are His cherished beings. WE ARE LOVED!

Mosaic law gives us ten commandments; these are detailed in both Genesis and Exodus. Jesus’s law, which is what we as Christians follow, gives us two commandments: love God and love each other. These are the commandments we have followed for generations. At least we pretend to!

But generations in the time of Advent means so much more. As we anticipate the celebration of the birth of Jesus, we fall on our knees in prayer; we sing hallelujah to the newborn king; we wash each other’s feet and then receive the Eucharist, rejoicing in the blessings we receive from God.

My life, my generation is nearing its end. I have maybe one, maybe twenty more years walking on Earth, enjoying the blessings and grace of Jesus’s true lighted path. God has given me more than I ever asked. God loves me as I love Him. My mortal existence may end, but my soul, my spiritual existence has lived for generations and will continue living for generations. This is the gift of God; this is the gift of the One who loves and cares. This is the God that made the covenant with Moses many generations ago.

This is my generation!

© Russell Kendall Carter

For several years, my wife and I always discussed who was tending better to the flock of Jesus’s sheep. At our church she and two other sixty-plus women began what was ultimately called The Table. This brought not only non-perishable food to those in need, but it also supplied them with fresh vegetables and fruit. And when the pandemic hit, they took The Table our into the world and delivered food to both food deserts and senior communities. Our community was truly blessed by their feeding the sheep.

In doing this, they definitely emulated Jesus feeding the five thousand. With the help of great monetary contributions, The Table was and still is, although under new management, a vital new management, a vital new management, a vital new management, a vital new management, a vital ministry serving the community. The heart The Table and the heart of our church is the heart of Jesus, sharing His passionate, loving care for the security and safety of mankind. At one time, Saint Francis proclaimed that on Christmas as day, even the walls should eat meat. This is truly the call to feed all people substantial food. Nobody should be hungry.

Our discussion begins with this ministry! The other side of the coin is my contribution. This is the spiritual side and the prayer for, by, and of all mankind. I am a prayer minister at our church, and I also write prayers and meditations that I share. People also are hungry for spiritual ministries of prayer; they long to be closer to God and to walk with Jesus on His lighted path. All people need prayer ministers that will listen to their needs and not offer advice. Prayer ministers pray to God, not asking for God to perform miracles, but to bring comfort and quiet to our own lives, enabling us to bring these same blessings and graces from God to all.

Through prayer and meditation, I open my mind to the unity of God and man in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. His teachings are vital to our lives today. Being able to bring spiritual food to the masses is one of the great deeds of Jesus. I to emulate Him to bring this same comfort to people of my generation. With God’s blessings of course.

© Russell Kendall Carter

From Matthew and Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Jesus is the perfect example of being meek; however, meekness does not mean weakness. Jesus had a power unequaled before or since. Meekness does not mean weakness. Jesus loved us and taught us that God loves us; therefore, we should love one another. What greater blessing can we have?

From Luke we learn “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Speaking of Mary, the message is not only for her. It is for all women who lovingly bring a child of God to birth. We all are children of God, which is our blessing through our mother’s womb from God. We love our mothers, and we love God; this is the step that begins our journey of loving all beings that are created by God, which means we love all of God’s blessed creation. I live in God’s creation; I know; I live; I am blessed.

I love the Greek word agape; the Greeks blessed us with this all-encompassing word, this all-encompassing love of the world and its people. This is the love that does not just happen; it is the choice we make, fulfilling Jesus’s second great commandment, acting in the fashion that brings well-being and God’s blessing to others.

We remember that Jesus begins all of his endearments in the Beatitudes with the words “blessed are the. . .). As we re-read and restudy these blessings, we are deep in the hands of God’s blessings for all of His creation. I am blessed, you are blessed, we all are blessed by God’s loving presence in our lives, in our communities, and in our world.

May God’s blessings shine within your hearts and soul.

© Russell Kendall Carter