Meditating to Heal

We have not been randomly chosen to be who we are. Although we have shared values and shared qualities of life, there are distinctions that God has given us that are unique to our personalities. It is the distinctive eternal light that shines on us and that we surrender to each day and each night; it is God’s Love. It is this love that we learn to share and to nurture all through our lives; it is our eternal guiding light of Love and Peace and Joy. It is what God is doing in this world . . . through us, with us, around us.

There are those who say that we are empty souls that will be filled by life’s experiences that will teach us and nurture us for the time we are on this planet. This is wrong! From the time we are conceived God has already a part of our souls filling us with Love and Grace and the Goodness that will carry us through our life and through eternity. We are filled with this Love at our physical birth, and we immediately share this with our mothers first.

This Love that God gives us grows within us, nurtures us through our lives, nurtures others as our Love is shown on the outside through our expressions of true friendship towards those we meet for we are destined to live together, for God has chosen us to live together, love together, cry together, and grow together. For as Paul writes to the Philippians: “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do and the God of peace shall be with you. (4:9).”

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

When we look in the mirror in the morning, what do we see? I’ll bet that most of us see acedia. Now let’s rush to our online dictionaries to find out what acedia means; oh, no time? Well, it means apathy, in simpler terms. . . boredom. We are bored people.  We go to jobs that may or may not give us a reason to look forward. We force excitement into our lives.

We do not look inward where our true happiness is, where love and hope is, wrapped tightly in the faith we are all born with, but neglect as we are educated by others who think they know better than us. Think they know better than God. It is in our heart, where God dwells, that our demons are defeated, our healing takes place, and our love is born.

Not superficial love, but the Love that is eternal, the Love that is shared with your eternal partner, your children, your family, the Love that comes from God, that dwells in your heart, the Love that should also be reflected on the outside. As the prophets, say, “What we wear on our hearts should be just as obvious to the world as what we wear on our bodies.” If we truly love, let it show. Our lives and the lives of all we meet will be better for it.

We can stop being the pre-pandemic dehydrated people of the ever-growing competitive world of higher finance and immerse ourselves in the presence of current truthful reality, the reality of human suffering all around, created by that ever-growing world of dehydration.

I do not criticize those in the competitive world;  some work hard in their jobs and take time to both donate and help rebuild lives for those no longer able to do for themselves. I love them for their efforts to help those no longer able to help themselves. These people are perfect examples of those whose hearts are shown on the outside as well as the inside, such as the Tunnels to Towers Foundation.

Let us all be as true to humanity and we are to God.

©Russell Kendall Carter; BA, MAT, DLitt.

 

 

philosophers are always aware

of good for our lives

their voices forever desirous to share

with views so worthy of loudest fanfare

often come and often scare

and we become active, productive beehives

*

we begin our lives with a sudden cry

then hastily join that lifelong queue

toiling, toiling, wondering why

finally pausing for a well-earned sigh

to soar above the mountains high

and find what we were born to do

*

it’s not that we must begin our lives anew

we merely must our lives unfurled

to finally accept for a grand debut

and find what we were born to do

and begin to do what we love to do

to help improve the rest of the world

*

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

There are times that I strongly believe that storytelling, particularly when we are relating the episodes of our lives, are really testimonies to God avowing our faith in a way that is so much stronger than any prayer we repeat in the sanctuary. All of the recited prayers in the sanctuary, including the beloved prayer Jesus taught us, are all words taught to us when we were young, and we were instructed to repeat at certain times when our minister or priest was leading us in our religious services. And there is very little in this world that is more thrilling to us spiritually than our community in prayer.

However, and you know with me there is always an however, the sanctity and spirituality of sharing a life story, regardless of how forgetful we may be in telling it, is such a spiritual experience that those sharing and those listening get to experience a slice of a life forgotten and a life remembered regardless of how many holes there are in it, or how many exaggerated boasts accompany the telling. The person sharing the story is reliving an experience that only he or she can tell; she (he) is telling it in her words, with her exaggerations and omissions, but, and this is most important, with her sincerity and emotions.

The tears in the eyes and voice mean that the story being told is part of the history of the family. It may be written down; it should be because it is family. It is the person’s God-given testimony of life. It is a part of life that perhaps a hundred years from now a great niece or nephew will read, shed a tear, and say to himself, “I want to do exactly what my great aunt did in her life.” This is what God wants me to do with my life. My great aunt tells me this.

And so, family life grows from generation through generation. And the storytelling of one generation becomes the testimony for the next. Funny how the word of God spreads.

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

 

My short book of meditations and prayers is available Xlibris.com and Amazon.com.

I came into this world screaming my head off, just as most of us did. I have loudly proclaimed my existence throughout my life in classrooms both as a student and as an instructor always questioning, always digging for more, never satisfied with the status quo. I have always been one to question everything that has been put in front of me as fact. Simply because for me there is no fact. Everything needs to be questioned. As a student I questioned my mentors; as a professor I questioned my students; always pressing, always looking for reason, always looking for possible answers, never satisfied.

This particularly becomes more important when the topics are religion and faith. I question both, constantly. I present to you my position that all religions, regardless of how big or small, old or new, they are, are man-made; all are flawed, because they are made by man and controlled by man. Faith, however, is inspired by God, regardless of what name we call our God. All around our wondrous Earth, people of all cultures pray to God calling God a different name, but there is only one God, a God of Love; a God of Truth; a God of Understanding.

And this is where this wondrous adverb enters into my life. For whenever I pray to God, whenever I meditate in God’s presence, whenever I go into my secret place, I enter silently. I do this because when God speaks to me, it is always in the most silent whisper. And sometimes it’s not even a whisper; it is a soft feeling that comes over me that lets me know what or how I must go forward.

When I truly understand what silently means, it is amazing how my prayer life changes. I have learned how to closed my mind to all noises around me and devoted my mind to total prayer just as if I were in my quiet place. My mind is truly silently attuned to God’s presence.

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

 

My book is available at xlibris.com and amazon.com

I love how these modern-day profits of religious and spiritual wisdom tell us that it is important for us to go on our own personal pilgrimages. There is nothing more enlightening than spending weeks in Jerusalem or Scotland in what they call “thin places” to get closer to God. they don’t seem to understand that most of us cannot afford to take the time or spend the money to undertake such adventures. So, I have a suggestion; follow me into my imagination.

I live in an over-55 community, a one-story house with a loft. In that loft is bedroom and a sitting area that I have turned into a small library. Many times, I will go up there just to use this as my quiet area. I think that this is my thin place.

I have followed Jesus into the rugged mountains of western Syria and meditated and prayed while He struggled to realize who He truly was and what His mission on earth meant for humanity.

I have also helped raised the sail of the little  leather boat that Brendan built on his journey from Scotland to Newfoundland. We suffered on this trip, but we never feared because we had prayed for many days prior, and God assured us we would be safe.

I have also prayed on my knees in the small cell with Teresa in Avila; we walked the dirt streets, up the gentle hills through the flocks of sheep and the pine forests to look down on the ancient city walls and look up and pray  to the God that loves us all.

Yes, this mountain top I call my Iona of Scotland, my thin place of prayer, is my personal place of pilgrimage. I say this because a pilgrimage is truly nothing more (or I should say greatly more) than a spiritual examination of my personal life and my life-long relationship with God.

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

My book is available at xlibris.com and amazon.com

We may never know what gifts we have. We can only look within and meditate on what we think we know as an act on the gift of love that flows from our heart. What flows from our heart, may very well be the gift that God wants us to develop into our lifelong passion to hone into whatever spiritual perfection we can nourish with our simple human brains. Who knows, greatness may come. But even if it remains mundane, I know it is my mundane and I am proud that it came from me.

One thing I know is that God gave me one gift that outshines every other gift that I think I have. That gift is the gift of words. I can talk forever, and sometimes I can make sense of what I say. I love to write, and sometimes I make sense with what I write. Those times I make sense are the times that I know that God is looking over my shoulder. Those are the times I know that beauty is something that will last. It reminds me of the old Irish (or is it Celtic) proverb, “The world will pass away, but love and music will last forever.”

If God’s mission for me is to write something worthwhile, I will write until He lets me know it is good enough for me to send to a publisher (or at least Amazon) to put it into book form and let others read what God has chosen for me to say. I won’t care if it is good, great, or whatever. I sent it out because God told me to.

Perhaps whatever I write will lift someone out of their blue funk and allow them to make something of themselves. Perhaps something I write will allow someone to rise from their sickbed to earn enough to feed their family. Or, perhaps what my writing will do is encourage a little girl to pick up a pencil and scribble some words on a scrap of paper and become another Maya Angelou or Amanda Gorman. Perhaps, perhaps.

Only God knows what gifts can do.

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

Buy my book:

Available at Xlibris.com and Amazon.Com

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.