Meditating to Heal

My mother, my father, my grandmother, my aunts and uncles, my teachers, my Sunday school teachers all said the same thing. Work hard, get a good job that pays lots of money. Then they said different things to do with it, but the message was always the same; make a lot of money.

They inculcated my brain with the desire to gain stature in a material world that was build on money.  Money would give me power. So, my desire had to be to amass a lot of money. For what? Desire? As I think about it, desire is the most powerful force in the world; nothing is more powerful in the human mind when it comes to longing. Because longing is our innate desire for want. It is our need to satisfy our urge for whatever feeds our ego. And nothing, absolutely nothing, is more powerful than our ego. And our ego needs to be constantly fed.

One thing that bothers me as I think about these times is that as I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, and then in college, all of this was teaching me to turn away from God. My Bible reading teaches me to remain receptive to the word of God; it always has. The word of God tells me that I cannot live racing to amass as many material possessions as I can. How many times do I read the instructions to sell all we have and follow God?

Our world is bifurcated!

Our world is a great river forever flowing; divided by a massive mountain, one branch flows downhill leading to great wealth, greed, and lonely castles. It’s a struggle every step of the way. One small misstep and you fall all the way up to the top of the mountain again.

The other branch flows uphill; at first glance it seems to be impossible, but with a very little practice (meditation, prayer) it becomes easier as we go along. It leads straight to brotherhood. it leads straight to community. It leads straight to Love. It leads straight to God. This is my desire.

© Russell Kendall Carter, B.A., M.A.T., D.Lit.

Change is a very easy word, but it is a very difficult concept to wrap our simple brains around. We have to accept that change is the absolute norm for our lives. Every morning that we awaken, we begin a new and exciting adventure in our lives. Many think that our new day is just another humdrum day, plodding along doing our job, going to school, or cleaning the house. What a dull life we live!!! Ho-hum! I am going to warn you: change is love.

At my age and physical condition, there is not much that I can do. But when I arise, I say to my wife that this is a great day; let’s get busy creating something new. Yesterday is forgotten; there is no going back to what has already happened. Smile, there is no remorse. If something is over, don’t be sad; be glad you had the opportunity to share whatever it was. Be courageous. Let’s take that step to the new adventure together. All three of us. You, me, and God. God gives us the courage and the desire to move forward, gives us the ability and the desire to be an element of change.

God knows, and God teaches us that anything of value is worthy of change. Looking forward is change; looking forward is our courage in action; it is us growing, loving, converting our inner selves to the futures of tomorrow. When we grow, we strengthen ourselves for any future struggles that others may cause us to face. We face them with flashes of lights and trumpets roaring in our minds as we gather our strength and the understanding that our new day is filled with God’s Love and guidance.

God asks us to change every day of our lives. We see un-godly images as we drive and walk our city streets; the poor and disabled crowd our successes with pleadings to change. Do we have the courage to walk up to that man, woman, or child and say, “I recognize that God inhabits your soul as He inhabits mine. I wake up every morning in a world of change; you do not. But this morning your world will change because God asks me to help change your life. I want to change your life.”

Can we really change? I pray so.

© Russell Kendall Carter, B.A., M.A.T., D.Lit.

Our cry goes out, “Where are you, God?” We ask this many times in our lives. We ask this many times in our days when we see tragedies, or the poor struggling to eat or live. We blame God, yet we know who  is at fault. We ask God for things, yet we know where to procure them ourselves. We imagine God as a benevolent sovereign sitting on a royal throne handing out treasures and goodies to all who have pleased him. We ask Him to cure us, to make us rich by winning the lottery, and to give us true love. All material things that matter to us, but not necessarily to God.

We ask, “Where are You, God?” We cry, we wait, oh God, how we wait. We refuse to accept that God does not and will not hand out gifts in our time frame; as a matter of fact, God will not just hand out gifts, willy-nilly. Yet, we pray, we pray. And, we are right to pray; but we must pray with an open mind and an open ear. In our prayers, we must listen for the small whisper that we sometimes hear. I have heard it; I think, no, I know, it is always there, but I do not always hear it, for I am sometimes consumed by my own thoughts.

However, when I open my mind to receive thoughts in answer to what I have prayed, I have heard this voice, sometimes weak, sometimes a shout, but always a mystery that I have to decode, just as we have to decode the parables of Jesus. When I hear this, then meditate on it, think about it logically, then think about it backwards and forwards, then left to right and up and down, I sometimes understand what this voice has said to me. And a feeling comes over me that is more glorious than I could ever explain.

I feel that I  have been given a message as Moses received so long ago. It is so clear, it is so brilliant, I want to shout it to all whom I meet, but I cannot. I know that I can only share  it through my action with others as I meet them, because that is how God has encouraged me on my mission through life. That little voice that is inside of me amazes me, for when I go outside at night and look up in  the sky and see all those stars, I know that little voice is also way out there.

©Russell Kendall Carter; BA, MAT, DLitt.

“Meeting again after moments or lifetimes, are inevitable for friends.” I recently read this in Illusions written by Richard Bach. On the surface, this is the story of two men who are pilots flying old pre-WW1 bi-wing planes giving joy rides to people in the jet plane age. It is a small book, less than 150 pages, but it has taken me over a month to read because of all of the issues it has made and offered to  be meditation topics. The above is just one.

What does it mean to be inevitable? If I look in Websters, one definition is inescapable. I made two very close friends when growing up in East Orange, New Jersey; I also made another close male friend and an even closer female friend. The world was good. I had two friends that I ran the streets with and got into all sorts of mischief with and had two friends that I went to the movies, the library, and other semi-intellectual activities with. I say semi because we were just approaching our teenage years.

Then tragedy struck; on my thirteenth birthday, my father moved us to a ne town in New Jersey. It was only twelve miles away by train, but an infinite number of miles if you consider culture. I was immediately out of my league and had to catch up as if I were in a race for my life. It’s not that I forgot about my four good friends from East Orange, it’s just that I had so much more to learn, such as shining shoes (ouch) and wearing a jacket and tying a tie. I had trouble tying a tie every day of my life until I retired at the age of 75. Psychologically, I am still that pre-teen street boy from New Jersey.

Will I ever meet them again as Richard Bach says? Now I know what some of you will say. Yes, I will meet them in heaven; when we die we will meet all of our family and friends in heaven. We will rejoin those we love in God’s realm, because that is the promise of Jesus. Well friends, I don’t believe that. Heaven to me is a state of being. God is within us; therefor, heaven is also with in us. When we die, our soul becomes a part of God, as it was before we were born.

So, yes, Richard Bach, I have met my friends. Several times. Every time I think of them, at the age of 80, I meet them. I meet them not as they look at ages 12 and 13; I meet them as they look at ages 79, or 80, or 81; because they are my friends, and they have aged as I have, not so gracefully, except for Barbara; she was a beauty back then, maybe a little chubby, but still a beauty. but George, and Ronnie, Artie, and Russ, we are all just old guys leaning against on a fender of a 2023 Chrysler, remembering what it was like to play stickball on 19^th street. We were friends then and we are still friends now. It is inevitable that we meet again and again. And we are still friends.

©Russell Kendall Carter; BA, MAT, DLitt.                        

The world as we know is ending; there is no choice; we have no choice. There is nothing we can do to stop it. It is a mortal fact. We are born from our mothers’ womb, and within one hundred years, our personal world dies. We build a life for naught. We educate ourselves, we marry, we have children, we educate them, we work, we retire, then we take the time to look at nature. What we build may last, only if we have done something that benefits mankind, and if it does, perhaps it will last, but to eternity? Who knows!

Right now, I am looking at a gold finch sitting on a lilac branch just outside my window. She is beautiful with  a bright yellow body and a black mask hiding intelligent eyes. Why didn’t I notice her when I was younger? Was I too busy? Did I not care? Was I not smart enough to see beyond my own nose?

I do know that I am smart enough to know that God forgives me for anything that I may have done. God has allowed me to open my heart to love all whom I meet.  In my later years, I have learned to love all whom I meet. This has made me a happier person. Other people are fun; they are interesting; they are lovely. They are God’s children. They are my siblings. I enjoy meeting and talking with them; they become my friends, part of my family.

I have asked God’s forgiveness for my past mistakes of not loving those I have met. Acceptance of others and all their faults, coupled with the recognition that they see my faults, allows me to love, just as Jesus asks. Repentance is at hand, and is easy to accept, and to go through when I realize that my life has been one of one human mistake after another. My life now is one of atonement. I try!

Do we have the strength to be community? Do we have enough love to be community? If we have the joy to join together in love to form the community of God where we love together, eat together, work together, share together, care together, and pray together, can we live and enjoy the love of God in our midst. Can we call this the promise of Eternity? We’ve done it before, but always after periods of destructive war. Then, after a period of peace that never truly lasts, we again grow apart and close ourselves off in our own cellars of protection.

But we are only protecting ourselves from ourselves.

Our true legacies; the ones that are the promise of eternity are family. The seeds we plant in the minds of our family that are passed on from generation to generation are our true promise of eternity. I say this because mt children and grandchildren will remember me; my great-grandchildren will never know me, but what I have passed on and they pass on are my contributions that God gave me, and God gives them to pass on through eternity. This is my promise of eternity. I pray it is good; I pray it is worthy of eternity.

©Russell Kendall Carter; BA, MAT,   DLitt.      

After Jesus was brutally hung on a cross, we joyously celebrated his resurrection and vowed to follow His words of wisdom, love God above all, and love others as we love ourselves. These seem to be remarkably simple things to ask of us. However, right off, we, as humans, began to betray these simple commandments. Rome became the leader of Christianity and began dictating what was right and what was wrong.

Immediately, there was a group of people who objected to this and migrated to various deserts in Egypt and the Middle East. These few people offered a rich alternative to Rome; their communities were built on Love, the Love that Jesus taught. The people prayed; they worked for the benefit of the community; they shared. They supported each other; they loved, as Jesus asked. They read the Bible together, they discussed, argued, and learned of God.

How I wish we could roam in the woods, think about God’s creation, hear the streams flowing and understand that what we are is not what we are taught by others; it is what God has made us. If we listen, every bird, every tree, every rocky hill we climb speaks mountains to us about who we are and how we relate to each other. When the ancient Hebrews ran from Pharoah, they bickered all through the deserts, but they were faithful to each other, they cared for each other, they embrace each other when sick. This is the culture that Jesus grew in; this is the culture that He taught. Why can’t we have more respect for what He taught, what the desert Christians prayed and lived? Is it too far out of our reach today?

© Russell Kendall Carter, B.A., M.A.T., D.Lit.

This is philia; this is friendship; the ancient friendship honored by the Greeks, celebrated by Jews of the Bible, revered by Jesus in His works during His time on Earth. This is what God is doing in the world. This is our faith expressed in love, God’s Love. I know thee by name; I know thee by thy name; you are my beloved friend, forever; you are my brother, my sister, my beloved. Thank God.

God love us; all He asks is that we share our stories, share our journeys, our successes, our failures, be charitable when we hear each other’s failures. Our stories are all about families because we are all about families. God knows in His all hearing and all-knowing mind that when we share, when we find the capacity in our hearts to be kind to others, we experience a gratitude in our hearts that is like none other.

God’s Love is absolute. When we talk to people by their name, we share God’s Love, we share philia. Let us do what Jesus asks, love others as ourselves.

© Russell Kendall Carter, B.A., M.A.T., D.Lit.

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“All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again (Eccl. 1: 7).”

Do we ever think how the rivers keep flowing with water? We learned in our school science that clouds form over the oceans collecting tons of moisture and then deposit that water over the earth where the birth places of the rivers then flow back down to the oceans; it is an eternal cycle God created to replenish His Earth. Even though the water in the oceans is very salty, the clouds (somehow) remove the salt so when it rains on the land it is pure and refreshes the soil for our life-fiving plants. This is an example of God’s forever rebirth!

I think of God’s other creation: Mankind. We have been helpful; we have been destructive. Personally, I have grown to the top of my academic field; some would say I have attained wisdom; some would say I am smart. I am not so sure. What  I do know is that I did not become anywhere near either of those until I began sharing what little knowledge I attained with others.  I learned from them as they learned from me. This also is an example of God’s forever rebirth.

God brings us into this wonderful world as a pure infant knowing absolutely nothing; or knowing absolutely everything; it is then we just have to decide what is important. We have to learn what God’s mission on earth is for us. . . and then follow it as best we can. Unfortunately, we may never truly discover what that mission is; we can only hope we are on the right path. We only discover this mission when we die. It is then we know the mission is complete. We leave our loved ones in emotional  pain. But we know that we have completed the mission God has given us. We are a successful part of God’s Forever Rebirth.

©Russell Kendall Carter; BA, MAT, DLitt.

Brotherhood, such a simple idea. And yet, we have not been able to keep this simple idea since Genesis 4:8 when Cain slew his brother Abel.

If we just follow what the Bible preaches, we killed and killed for many generations. Jesus then simplified the Commandments, because ten were too difficult for Mankind to follow. First, love God, then love others. I’ll check with the families living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I do believe we failed at these two simple commandments also.

Let’s face it, brothers, we have failed at loving one and others. But, our God is strong; our god is supreme, our god rules all, our god is all-powerful. Our god is all-possessive! My god possesses me, and it is all mine; not yours. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours, I want. That’s the way it is brother.

OMG!!! Has it really come this far? I fear it has. Truthfully, I do not live this way; I share as I can. I give freely to three different churches. My wife and I support several organizations that help those in need. I am the chaplain for my local Marine Corps League, and I pray for all in my community who need God’s Love and Care. And, I write this column of Love and Care for all.

I believe in brotherhood; I believe in sisterhood. I believe we are all one family of God, regardless of the color of are skin, or the language we speak, or the name we call our Savior. We are all one family. And, I love you brothers and sisters.

So, when you part from each other today, don’t shake hands, that’s too corporate; hug, and if that’s too personal, a fist bump will do. I love you brothers and sisters.

Let us celebrate brotherhood (and sisterhood) everyday of our lives.

©Russe1ll Kendall Carter; BA, MAT, DLitt.                                           

I don’t attend church too often, at least physically, but I do online. My home church is downtown with limited parking and when I do get there early enough I find it difficult because it is five steps up or I have to navigate a steep hill to get to a doorway to go to an elevator. So, I get my spiritual uplift from modern internet.

After watching my home church on YouTube, I got bored due to the lack of close brotherhood I felt in the congregation and the neutrality of the lectionary-based discussion of the weekly homily. So, I tuned into the former church I attended before I moved. Instead of a conservative Episcopal church, this is a liberal UCC church whose minister is a vibrant leader in the equal rights from community activity in children’s education to voting rights to anything and everything allowing people of all colors and all genders to be live the life that Jesus taught.

Both are wonderful, compassionate men. Don’t get me wrong, the Rector of my current church is also a very liberal civil rights leader, but he rarely preaches about it from the lectern, staying mainly with the required lectionary. Thus, his Sunday messages can be a little stale.

Now that I have blathered on about the state of nothing. Let’s get down to the eternal question. I sent an email to the minister of my former church today praising him on the strength of his sermon. Then a few minutes later I sent him another that I expected no answer to, but I probably  get. I told him that if Jesus were alive today and walked up the aisle of that church today, he too would be walking in flip-flops (just as this minister was).

That got me thinking about Jesus in the marketplace upturning the tables in the den of thieves; and I wondered what and how long it would take Jesus to upturn the sacred raised mahogany benches our royal Supreme Court Justices hide behind.

Those in the marketplace made sure the leaders killed Jesus. What do you think our Supreme Court Justices would do, besides tell us that there is nothing that we could do to stop them, as they are now doing.

Jesus wants us to find God’s Truth, God’s Love  – – – always – – – that at least is the eternal answer.

Amen.

©Russell Kendall Carter; BA, MAT, DLitt.