Author: rkcdlitt

Reading Isaiah, I love the verse saying God called me from the womb; He pronounced my name. He spoke to me in my spiritual awareness, blessing me with eternal life. He loosened my tongue and opened my ears and my heart to listen to His voice and the suffering of humanity. As a mere carnal man, I am honored, and I honor God for the wealth of wisdom He has granted me throughout my life.

Jesus opens my heart through His parables, giving me the wisdom that only He can preach. I listen for His words; words that enlighten my every breath of life. He is the one source of Life and Peace that I can always turn to, because His Wisdom comforts me.

Although at times I am a mere unspiritual, mortal man, I know that the person God created, the spiritual me, rejoices in His presence in my life, my body, my soul. At times, I struggle to hear His voice, but when I let the good rise within me, His words shout comfort, Love, and duty to love all as brothers and sisters.

Dear God, you comfort me in ways that only my spiritual being can understand; but through this understanding, you bless my mortal body with Life and Love.

 I am surrounded by ministering spirits sent by God; these are the angels that visit me while I live in my material world. They keep me in the mindset that Jesus is the perfect example for me as a human to follow. Yet, no matter how I try to walk in His footsteps, I am poor in spirit sometimes, because I have so many physical problems that I sometimes doubt God’s presence in my life. It is at times such as these that I find it difficult to talk with God. I pray, but I neglect to open myself the way I have learned, when bringing my mindful consciousness into God’s presence.

Yet, I do not want to be one of those mentioned in Proverbs that I refuse to grasp God’s hand when He stretches it out to me. I thank God each morning for giving me life, because I know that when I follow the lighted path of Jesus, there is no night; the darkness not a mystery. With God, there is no dark, because He protects me from all evil. As Paul says in Romans, when God is for us, who can be against us. There is nobody who can harm me. Yet, often, I feel so alone, so abandoned. But I also know that is the pain talking.

I know that God builds my complete world and gives me the wisdom to act in it. However, because I am human and only created in His image, I am not materially perfect. I am, however, perfect in my spiritual self because that is what belongs to God; that is my soul, my heart. My mortal shell is just helping me to perfect my very being.

Life tests me; God is present in my life to help me pass the tests. Even when I doubt; even when feel alone, it is a comfort knowing that God will catch me as I fall.

Presence

Verse 11 in Psalms 91 is a promise that we seldom, if ever, remember; it goes like this: “He has given His angels orders concerning you; to guard you in all your ways.”

For whatever reason, most of us reject this idea that there is something greater than us that is looking out for our well-being. The fact is, God smooths our way. Doors open for us, giving us opportunities to grow, both materially and spiritually; it is unfortunate that we often reject the spiritual side. Man, as a normal function, does not recognize we God is present; we are just like the Pharisees who refused to recognize Jesus as the true Son of God.

We must look in the shadows of our heart to see God; see God with singular eye that only recognizes His Kingdom within us. I read our present era prophets, Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. to catch a glimpse of what and where God is in our lives. He comes to us as Jesus bringing light into our world. We are surrounded by His aura as He invites us to come and see, come, and see. He helps us to learn, to grow, if we consciously allow it. Jesus walks among the poor as He did so many years ago; this is where we find Him. He is not with the rich and powerful, just as he was not with them before. He is with the ordinary! Ordinary people who suffer at the hands of those with closed hearts are his company.

There is great power hiding I the darkness; we just have to allow His light to lead us into the inner calm that only God can give. But we are a people who do not understand; we are like Peter who wept after denying Jesus three times. It is within our power to allow His light to enter us. It is within our power to show the world that the light is already within; we merely have to let it out. We need to let it out by doing God’s will, recognizing that all men and women are children of God and therefore our brothers and sisters.

When I was a young boy in Sunday School, my teacher asked each of us to select one verse from the Bible to memorize and try to live by that verse throughout our lives. I chose Matthew 5, verse 16 “ Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” And recently I wrote a poem that reads:

God within us,

God eternally near.

We are in everlasting awe

of Your surrounding world.

We celebrate all that You do.

Gathering in Your Name,

reveling in Your presence,

doing the works that are beacons,

for all to see,

uncovering the greatness

and glory of Your creation.

Peace my brothers and sister.

Russ

We doubt God’s presence

in ourselves, in our souls.

We lack the harmony

of God’s work.

We enter our dark places

looking, not finding;

we search for prophets

and are lost in our travels.

We study our Bibles,

the Gospels,

looking for a guide.

Without warning,

Jesus’s truth appears,

enlightening,

showing a long-forgotten path.

We feel His comfort within,

born anew as each sun rises.

We rise to this new light of God,

finding harmony in our lives, our souls

and spread God’s harmony

through the words of Jesus,

His words, his healing touch.

We live in harmony in our world,

for we are in harmony with Jesus,

Our Lord, our God, our universal lover

Let our light shine before all humanity and

glorify God in heaven.

Wandering in the Desert

We wander through our lives, looking, looking, waiting, waiting. For What? Humanity shares a closely-hidden, protected secret; we pretend, we put on a minstrel’s face, hiding the fact that in our society, humanity suffers with the sickness of the human spirit. We care little for those on the bottom rungs of society, as long as we are safe. We ignore the language of the poor which is entreaty. We hide behind our castles, protected by our artificial strongholds against anything that may challenge us, or harm us.

Our lives are like the desert; we wander aimlessly looking for something to soothe our tender frailties. We pretend we know; we pretend we are saved because we are upright members of our local churches. But the strongholds we build are only facades in our minds. We are not protected by these artificial castles. We will never find water in these arid deserts we roam.

We neglect the second greatest commandment given to us by Jesus; “Love thy neighbor as we love ourselves.” Every day I stop my car and give a few dollars to the poor man pleading for help; I wish I could give more; sometimes I do not see them and wonder where they have gone. This is the man, this is the family, that our humanity must open its ears to, hearing the pleading for assistance.

Governments are too greedy to lift these people from poverty. Big business is too interested in giving massive bonuses to the already superrich. And the churches can only give minor assistance; they too have to count pennies to remain alive. Humanity must clothe the poor, feed them, house them, to relieve their suffering. I can afford to give a few dollars each day to the poor man pleading for assistance. Imagine what it would be like if all of us stopped to give these poor people a few dollars from our material wealth. Three hundred and fifty million people giving a few dollars a day to help those in need. That is almost two and a half billion dollars . . . a day.

Imagine what good that could be doing. Imagine what our society would look like if we respected the poor, treating them with dignity, not demonizing them.

Let us stop wandering in our personal deserts.

Abundant Simplicity

We have forgotten our roots in Christianity; 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.

In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he writes, Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. But we have not done this. We are hypocrites throughout. We pay more to Amazon than we do to God. our quest for riches has turned us into a brood of vipers.

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.

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.

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 abundant material wealth? I can only pray that there are.

In, not On

When we say the prayer that Jesus taught, there is a difference in an exceedingly small word that makes a noticeably big difference. I am referring to Matthew 6:10. The King James Version is this: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

Newer translations read: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

I have no objection to substituting Your for Thy; this is just old English vs. new English. Notice the small difference in the prepositions. Newer translations, even the New King James Version substitutes the word on for the word in. tis makes a tremendous difference in interpretation. The question arises whether God’s kingdom is on or in earth. God’s kingdom is within us, not on us. It stands to reason that God’s kingdom is in earth not on earth.

God put us on earth to be stewards of His creation. He did not put us in the earth; that is His realm. By our changing the wording, we are placing God next to us on earth, almost as a co-equal entity, which we are not. I fear that humankind’s super-inflated ego is raising the importance of man to a level we do not belong.

I know this seems trivial, but if you think about this for a while, it may bring all things into clarity, as it has for me. If we are equal to God, then it is God’s wish that we destroy His creation, an di do not think this could possibly be true. Man, with his inflated ego believes that whatever is good for man is allowable, as long as we are comfortable and makes lots of money from it. Jesus said that we cannot love two masters; I think we may have chosen the wrong master.

Living in God’s Lighted Path

Etty Hillesum, a tragic victim of Nazi Germany in the Westerbork transit camp wrote the following: “There is a really deep well inside of me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes, I am there, too . . . And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard the little piece of you, God, in ourselves.”  

If anything, this reminds me, or better yet, teaches me, that God alone rests my soul as I live through this pandemic and political upheaval we are experiencing. I am like a small puff of wind in eternity. This reminds me that I live in God’s grace and my entire life is filled with the breath of God. I am not delusional enough to think that I am an important person to others. But I do know that I am an important person to God. After all, He created me in my mother’s womb. I could not be created without the love of my mother, my father, and God. I live at His pleasure, and I will no longer be on this earth when He calls me; but I will continue to live and to love. This is the message of Jesus and the will of God.

According to John the Elder as he writes in Revelation: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more…And he who sat upon the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” I believe that in my faith, I am a part of this new heaven and earth. My faith in God is strong. My belief in God is so strong because I follow the teachings of Jesus. I live in service of others, allowing them to also share in God’s love and grace.

The Kingdom of God

Jesus invites us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child. Does He mean innocence or the wonder and awe that children have of the beautiful? Jesus also invites us to realize and recognize that the Kingdom of God is within us. This creates and enigma for the intelligent mind. If we are to have the innocence and wonder of a child, are we able to recognize God’s Kingdom dwelling within us?

I do not know the answers, but I do meditate on thoughts such as these. My meditations are meant to discover who I really am in God’s domain. I try to understand what God means to me and what I mean to God.

I am honored to have one of the highest academic degrees that colleges have to offer, but I am in awe of God’s Kingdom every moment of every day. Through my meditations, I have welcomed the invitation to recognize that the Kingdom of God is part of me, but I am also part of the Kingdom of God. We cannot be separated . . . ever.

If I am so blessed to understand this, I also am blessed to understand that all of God’s creatures, all of humanity, all of the animal, aquatic, and insect kingdoms, and all of the matter that comprises our planet Earth also enjoys that His Kingdom is within, and also a part of His Kingdom. This extends out to all of the universe and whatever life forms are hiding within distant galaxies.

We are all part of God’s creation, and all of God’s creation dwells within us. I think that this is what Jesus says to us daily, as we read our Bibles and meditate on His words. “And God saw everything He had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” Genesis 1:31

it is like none other

never to be repeated

it is unique

never to come again

what to do today

work dawn to dusk

complain about nothing

a wasted day forever

stop and smell the roses

see the birds flitting

branch to branch

a honeybee on the flower

see the butt floating

down the gutter water

the torn canape

blowing in the breeze

can you its beauty

or does it pass you by

make today special

it will never come again