Author: rkcdlitt

 
  
 
 There are many names and ideas of the sacred feminine; I, however, prefer the image of Sophia, the giver of wisdom. This is the epitome of the divine feminine. Our first experience with woman is our mother, before our birth. She is the giver of life; all that we have is from her. She nurtures us, teachers us; from her we gain intuition and empathy, two vital aspects of our ability to live in society. She is the ancient voice of creation, bringing us the wisdom of centuries of knowledge, intuitively.
 The Sacred Feminine provides a natural access to all of our spiritual qualities. She is the lifeforce of humanity, rooted in earthiness, but elevated in spirituality. As a white male, I cannot perceive the greatness of the sacred feminine; I can only bask in the warmth that I feel when bringer her into my thoughts.
 I think of the woman at Jacob’s well. Why is she portrayed as a sinner when she has been subjugated to nothingness by those around her. Jesus saw her as strength; can we do any less? Jesus forgave her and told her to go and sin no more. She leaves our sight after she calls her neighbors to come see the Lord. But I sometimes wonder what happened to her. I can only dream that she remained in her outer stage of subjugation, but inside her, the strength of God brought her to eternal life. Her innate natural qualities of patience, receptivity, and care blessed all who came into her life after her time at the well.
 By our experiences of the two women who found the empty tomb of Jesus, we awaken to from the repressions of a patriarchal society to the interconnectedness of all life, male and female, human and animal. This only comes through the love of Mary and Mary, one a mother, one a devoted disciple of Jesus. We feel their energy and they report of their experience to others. These two symbols of the Sacred Feminine bring us the spiritual force of eternal family connectivity. All are disciple of Christ, as we live our lives, sharing the wisdom of the two Marys and spread the word of God’s love to all.
  
  
 © Russell Kendall Carter 

  We are mortal human beings; we are not perfect, even though we are made in God’s image. If I think if a mirror image, the flaw is that both left and right are reversed. What is reversed in our composure that is flawed? 
  
 We anger at things large and small, but in reality, all are small when we are in God’s image. God asks us to master our anger so that we will not allow it to commandeer our good intentions. When I recall stories from the Bible, I am reminded of the treachery involved between the brothers Jacob and Esau. Even though it took many years, when the bothers met again, there was love, not anger exchanged.
  
 If Esau does not hold anger toward Jacob, how can we hold anger against our neighbor? We cannot say we love if we hold anger toward another. By shedding anger and raising love, we add to the greater good of society and God blesses the world and humanity. Jesus told us to let our light shine on our good works, glorifying God. God watches us from inside us, in our heart, in our soul. 
  
 Let us love indeed for love revives a hurting world.
  
  
 © Russell Kendall Carter 

 
  
 Being Blind 
  
 We turn our heads to not see;
 we are blind to those in need;
 we are blind to compassion;
 we leave them in the dark.
 We must recognize the pain,
 as Jesus did among us; 
 He was moved by compassion;
 Compassion that we lack;
 He witnessed the hurt, 
 the deprivation,
 and wept.
  
 Jesus came to world, 
 to be the source of light,
 the source of compassion and goodness.
 Jesus entered to light a darkened world,
  
 Something happened to society!
 We looked within and found ego; 
 It is time to reach those in need,
 the poor, the migrant,
 the homeless, the addict
 The widow, the orphan.
 We must serve the disempowered, 
 open our eyes, cure our blindness, 
 as did Jesus.
  
  
  
  
 © Russell Kendall Carter 

 God as Verb not an Object
  
 In our prayers, we pray through Christ; we do not pray to Christ. Jesus did not want it this way. He spoke many times about not getting to the father except through Him. This gives us clear indications that Jesus did not want praise; He invited us to use Him to pray to God, the living God.
 Like Jesus, we ourselves are mere conduits to God. through our prayers and meditations for others, we are bringing ever-loving God into the lives of those in need of spiritual blessings. God enables us to bring His love to all we meet; this is an eternal love that Jesus promises will never end.
 As with all conduits, I pray that I will have the strength to understand and bring the depth and dimensions of God’s eternal Love to  all whom I meet on my daily journey through life. 

Moments of loneliness each day

threaten our thoughts of safety,

extending times of spiritual drought;

believe in Him who has no bodily image.

He gives us our breath;

He gives us our talents.

He gives us Love, so that we may love.

Difficult times may smother us with doubt;

yet we stand on His truth for strength. 

Though we have not seen Him,

we love Him; we believe Him.

Our faith carries us to comfort.

Receive His gifts and share your gifts!

Receive Love; and share Love!

God is with you today,

as He was yesterday.

See Him with your open heart.

© Russell Kendall Carter

Walk, drive to an open field;

turn to face all points of the compass;

feel the freedom in the air,

the desire to spread your wings.

What direction to take?

Discard all that hinders;

close your eyes;

Look upward; pray for guidance.

Remember your responses,

to pain, to failures, to struggles,

to loneliness.

Be patient, stand firm;

feel the presence of God within;

feel the eternal love, the faithfulness,

that only God knows to give.

We are made in His image;

He is the preface and the epilog,

the author of our lives.

We trust in God’s goodness,

even when life tries to defeat.

Think of the times we felt alone,

in our self-made desert.

Did we feel His presence?

As we stand in this field,

can we feel His presence;

seek God in this open space;

it is not around you;

it is within you . . . waiting,

waiting to notice this gift of presence.

Seek God within; do not weary on this path;

be grateful for this beauty.

It surrounds, it is within!

Engulf this freedom felt in the field;

return home with the openness,

felt in the field of God’s creation.

Trust in God’s presence.

Feel the freedom only He can give.

© Russell Kendall Carter

I don’t know if religious people practice their religion in real tents anymore, but I do know that modern day tents are called churches. For some reason, maybe just for the comfort of humanity, we built these wood and stone edifices to our God. I don’t believe that putting God in a building is what He wants of us. If we take the Love and Grace of God into the world, we are serving our fellow man as God wishes.

I don’t want to enclose God in a building. I want to feel God in the freedom of fresh air, the rising of the sun, and the chill of a rainy morning in a forest. I find God awaiting me there. It is in the open that I hear God’s message. It is here that I see that God gave us this planet Earth for the benefit of all humanity. God’s gift is to be shared by all of His creation.

When I look at the people who live in the southern half of this planet, I see unimaginable poverty, people living not just day by day, but minute by minute. Two thirds of these people are below poverty standards, even in these poorer countries. The people live in conditions that would shock people in the northern hemisphere. We cannot look at the condition of these people and say we follow the light of Jesus.

We cannot abandon these people; nor can we leave the lives of these people to suffer under governments that are not wealthy enough to lift these people from their physical and psychological destinies. This must be a joint effort of the wealthier northern-hemisphere countries;  one country cannot do this alone.

We are free, brothers and sisters to go our own way, or to look and see those suffering in poverty and help lift them. Everything God gives us is to be shared; only greed and ego get in the way. Our gifts are meant to be shared; by sharing, we empty ourselves of the past and are ready to fill our hearts with the newness of tomorrow. This is the liberating effect of God’s presence.

Without God we do not have anything to offer to ourselves or to others. What we do have is the goodness of our hearts and the graciousness of our gifts to be shared. That is our gift; that is our inner peace. That is what we learn in our tent meetings.

© Russell Kendall Carter

Leadership

God speaks, we listen.

Go and spread Love;

lead the way to forgiveness;

show others the greatness

that surrounds them daily.

There is a yearning in your heart

that brings God’s light into darkness;

fill others with your yearning.

His light will enrich a world,

yearning for Your peace

We are born of creation;

lead others to His Truth.

Together we overcome all evil;

bring others to God’s light.

Be a leader for God.

© Russell Kendall Carter

It is said, “let godly principles guide.” Not so easy to do all the time, as I long ago discovered. We try to live according to God’s principles, but life gets in the way. In my life, my path of light to walk upon has been disturbed by my time in the military during the 1960s, my children crying in the night, and physical problems that have interrupted my path. Our mortal existence does not make walking on the lighted way shown by Jesus easy to navigate.

Thusly, I try a new way; I seek what God is asking of me today; how He is speaking to me about my wholeness with all of humanity, all of His sacred creation. In my morning meditation, I pray, I pledge my life to God’s will, I renew my faith in His loving comfort. But when I lack in conviction perhaps if I abandon the word faith and substitute the word certainty, I am better prepared to let godly principles guide. This substitutes a doubt with a conviction. Realizing this, I no longer walk in a desert of my life; although I plan my day and my life, I know that it is God who guides my steps, because I trust.

I accept God’s challenge to see others as He sees them, welcoming them into my life as a long-lost brother or sister. I accept Jesus’s invitation to share and allow God’s compassion to be realized by all. I pray for all to know that God’s will is not suffering, but goodness and life. We live by God’s power and with His power, we serve others, bringing them to love and goodness. Let our lives life through our hearts, keeping God’s peace and love. Our relationship with others as we walk Jesus’s lighted path is our only hope. We need our inter-relationships. Only together can we benefit from God.

© Russell Kendall Carter

Many times, I ask the question if there is a difference between a story and a myth. Modern language classifies a myth as something imagined, not real, a story of lore that people created to answer a question. In olden times, a myth represented a truth, something that occurred in the past to explain why or how something occurred and what the meaning was.

A story, on the other hand, creates a remembrance of an historical past, sometimes fancified to make a point, sometimes sanctified to create an ism. A story can be true or fiction, can instruct or amuse, but will always make a point. I see the similarity.

When I read the Bible, the first story we read, hear, and are taught, is the story of Adam and Eve. Is this a true story, a mythical story, or just something someone created to explain the relationship between God and man? There were no cameras in the garden, nor were there scribes writing everything down. Is the story of the Garden of Eden true or myth? That, my friends, is up to you and how you believe.

I can tell you a story of my life; I lived it, experiencing every event as I remember it. How much is true and how much is imagined we may never be known. Even the memory of these events changes over time in my mind. I ask if a certain element is true or has my current situation altered my definition of what occurred. Is my life a story or a myth?

Is God a myth? Well, if I think of it as the ancients did, I say no, God is not a myth. The story of God and His relationship with humanity is especially important to me. However, I do not take all of the stories literally; the scribes who wrote the words in our Bible were describing things as they learned them, stories handed down through the centuries; all stories are important to me. Are they true? To me some are absolutely true, but some are what I would call modern day myths that are related to bring my thinking into what I refer to as spiritual enlightenment. All stories in the Bible have a meaning to me, whether myth or fact. The messages contained in them are as true today as several thousand years ago.

And to be perfectly honest, spiritual enlightenment itself may be a myth in my own mind. When I read the story of Jesus in the Garden before His arrest, however, I cry. I can feel and hear the anguish in His voice as He asks Abba if this cup can be taken from Him. This is not a myth; this is a human begging his father for relief from what is to come. It is something I have asked God many times; but as with Jesus, God lifts me from my anguish and heals me, bringing me into a new life.

My Bible contains 84 books, including the Apocrypha; each is a unique story, and within each are many stories; myths? Maybe, but stories that I revisit daily because there is truth in their telling.

The period of Lent is fast upon us. We revisit our own journey in the desert during this time; our forty days are for us for self-examination, repentance, and returning to the heart of God. We relate to the temptations and loneliness that Jesus experienced. We are all Jesus in the wilderness.

We emulate Jesus in this time to attain our destinies, or at least as far as our earthly existence permits. We are as broken as Jesus was in these days; our healing by God confirms that we are at one with Him and all of His creation. – if we are to become truly whole, unbroken units – we must feel and know ourselves to be one, not only with God and humanity, but also with nature. Our hearts open to love all of humanity, all of God’s creation.

Just as Jesus was named as God’s son after baptism by John, we are named as God’s children when Jesus rises from His tomb to live within us.