Meditating to Heal

When I meditate on my spiritual life, I realize the perfection of what God created. This is my true existence; the existence God gives me; it is a joyful comfort coming from God’s Love. As with all men and women, I am the offspring of the Holy Spirit who guides me every step of my journey in this mortal life I live. The presence of this Spirit within me always, lifts both my spiritual and human consciousness to the realm of the eternal Truth, which is God.

I love that with the presence of the Holy Spirit, I am spirit; I am the likeness of my Maker, Love we call God. I know this is Truth because Jesus brought to us the power of the Spirit. He showed us how to attain the power, the progress of God’s presence and Love on Earth. God’s Love is a fire, a fire that cannot be extinguished, a fire that does not destroy but builds inside of us burning to be shared.

I became Love. My horizons broadened to recognize that all people and all living things are brothers and sisters to me. God creates all of His creation for our benefit. God creates a path for us to follow that glorifies all of His creation. This path is shown by the footprints of those who preceded us. They also walked the path in troubling times, but their actions show us the way from any awaiting apocalypse. In God’s world of Love, there is no apocalypse.

God’s world is perfect; man’s world is flawed. It is our duty to ourselves and others to recognize that any awaiting apocalyptic actions can be circumvented and eliminated by bringing our world into God’s realm of eternal Love. Our mistakes are thinking that God has created our difficulties, which is wrong. Recognizing the perfection in God’s Holy Creation can only be realized by living a loving, spiritual life.  This brings Love into our very existence and brings the desire and the need to share this Love. And only then can we direct our material life to accept God’s perfection of Love.

©Russell Kendall Carter

 

 

Love is just that: Love. I take time to listen for God’s words; see the work He does in my heart. . . listen, listen. A light comes out of the darkness of the wilderness that enfolds me, making me shine as a loving example of how God is ministering, not only to me, but to the entire world and universe. Love flows from me because I trust that God fills me with goodness and grace. I have hope that Love will prevail. I sing!

John reminds us of Jesus’s promise: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life (8:12).” This light is God’s Love and is a prayer to participate in God’s true universe, the universe where all are love and acceptance is universal. Loving one another is not a task or an inconvenience; it is the holy, realistic presence of God within us and within the community. When Jesus promised the He would be with us when two or more join in His name, ask Him to join when meeting the stranger. See the face of Jesus in all whom we meet.

Each of us is loved; each of us is defined by the inner beauty of the natural gifts that God gives us. All we must do is recognize these gifts and we will indeed see the face of Jesus in everyone we meet. I know that when I accept the stranger as an equal member of God’s family, when I give him or her the love that God so freely gives, this love comes back to me a hundred times greater, a thousand times greater. Such is winning the lottery!

When I love, I earn companionship. When I love, I earn comfort and grace. When I love, I feel God within me. Such is Love!

©Russell Kendall Carter

Mysticism is Alive and Well and Dwells within Me.

We search for true spiritual action in our everyday lives but are unable to find it. I have always written that we can only find this in our relationship with God. I look to mysticism to discover my relationship with our Holy Father.

The dictionary defines mysticism as “a doctrine of an immediate spiritual intuition of truths believed to transcend ordinary understanding, or of a direct, intimate union of the soul with God through contemplation.” What does this mean?

Simple! We meditate. We meditate on the only perfect human to walk the earth, Jesus who was all that we can never be. But we can emulate. To attain true spirituality, we must, I repeat, we must undergo a radical transformation to leave behind any idea of physical perfection and physical superiority. There are no such things. If I really meditate on true spiritual awakening, I know that I experience a very radical transformation to reflect God’s Love and Truth.

Every molecule of my spiritual structure contains all the good that mankind has accomplished to bring God into our midst. This is a true gift that only all those who preceded us bring into our bearing. I am truly touched and supported by the angels God sends to me guiding me to Truth through my mystical being. The eternal me is not flesh and blood. I am spirit; I am love; I am truth. I am the spiritual creation of God, perfect and eternal.

©Russell Kendall Carter

 

By the time we become adults, we have sworn allegiance to many things, and then immediately broke them. We are always too proud of ourselves and too anxious to succeed to care about keeping those small promises and oaths we adopted when young.

This, unfortunately, includes those we make in church. We bow down to God, confess our sins, and in community pray to an invisible God who seems to ignore what we want (not need). We are dissatisfied always. We own a false humility and are proud of it, particularly when before others. We are proud of our material wealth and standing in society. We shun the command to have no other gods to worship. We ignore the blessings of the commandments and the beatitudes. Pride is our God.

But there is hope for us; all is not lost; all is not bad. There are times when we are truly on our knees, praying to God who is always faithful to us. We hear the name YHWH, which can mean that God will be who He will be. And that my brother is loving and caring father. In our persecutions, both personal and public, we are guaranteed the kingdom of heaven. This is God’s promise to us. This is a key part of the covenant that God made with the Israelites thousands of years ago. We clearly seed the seed of love and grace growing within us. We return to His child. We forgives us and loves us.

Let us love one another as God loves us.

©Russell Kendall Carter

 

Our imaginations are mired deep within community. This may be a wonderful time filled with a diversity of voices promising spiritual gifts. This gives us the false promise of comfort, ease, and security that eases our minds. Our society has taught and trained us to be very selfish and protective of our privacy, forgetting about the stranger at our door. Early Christians, what I call original Christians opened their doors to all as taught by Jesus.

But somewhere along the way, our Christian faith changed; now we shun these people and leave the hospitality to the church or the government, and both of these do a less than terrible job of welcoming the stranger in need. This means that we are vulnerable to misguided solutions and promises; it is at this time that we must open our hearts to the word of God, allowing the brilliance of His lighted path for us to follow.

This path is a promise from God who loves us as His children, and the selfish covetous world cannot deprive us of it. As we walk this lighted path, the gift of life given by God is eternal, for us and our children. Remember, Jesus did not hobnob with the wealthy and privileged; he lived and worked with the poor and forgotten, the sinner and the outsider. And for this and His teachings, they killed Him.

If we want to be as faithful as God, accepting God’s grace and forgiveness, we have to resist the temptation to keep God and His promises at a distance and allow God to truly be a part of our lives. It is time for us to leave our comfort zones and do the difficult things that God asks. This begins with loving our neighbor as ourselves. We are the stranger.

Each morning, I ask myself if I walk the lighted path of grace that God provides for me. I ask if I have helped enough; I ask if I have loved enough. Have I taken God’s values as my own; have I adopted His Spirit in my life; is my attitude toward others anyway similar to what Jesus modelled. And I have failed; but I have tried.

©Russell Kendall Carter

When Fear Tries to Take Hold

We all have moments of fear that sometimes terrify us. I had such an incident last night that shook me out of my comfort zone casing me to rise at about four AM. I actually feared getting back in bed and stayed up for the day to begin.

Fortunately, dreams do not govern my world. I live a comfortable life with my wife of 55 years, separated from our children but in contact with them that we are never lonely. But we are never lonely for God is within our home every day of our lives. There is no place in my home that is not filled with the Love of God.

As mortal men we are tormented and divided from God’s Truth. This causes loneliness of a kind that nobody can fill for us. Only God can remove this loneliness. When Saint Paul writes that we are to pray constantly, we are close to God all day. I try to live a life of prayer, so I am constantly hearing from God in many, many ways.

While I was in conflict over the dream I had, I was sitting alone and one of my cats jumped into my lap. God answered my prayer with comfort; I knew I was safe. The change I make in my life to allow God in denies fear the opportunity to take hold of my life. Join me praying constantly, or as I say, live a life of prayer and allow God into your existence.

©Russell Kendall Carter

My Garden of Eden

 

I gaze at the evening sky,

all white tinted by cerulean blue,

goldenrod at its base,

Comfortable fall evening in a garden paradise.

A fountain overflows with life-giving water,

Chocolate Labs loving attention, nestling noses for a stolen kiss.

Birds with claws grasping fluttering branches.

Neighborhood Squirrels hiding in the armpits of trees.

All is quiet on this loving autumn eve.

 

A Prayer of Family

On this day of splendor,

we are blessed for

we rejoice in family.

Our love subdues life’s

insignificant trials.

Dear God, we thank you for family.

 

©Russell Kendall Carter

 

When we open our eyes to view things with our hearts, we are intellectually and spiritually reborn into an existence very few of us want to, or, better yet, have time to examine thoroughly. What I know that I have to do is recognize that I do not have to reinvent anything. It is there before my heart and is easily readable.

I am a grandfather of three boys. I pray that I can be the wise influence in their lives that I missed growing as a child and early adult. Both of my grandfathers and one of my grandmothers had died before I was born, and my remaining grandmother, as much as I loved her, was a fading princess who needed to be the coddled center of attention all the time I knew her.

So, I missed the sage grandfatherly advice, or, sage knowledge, Wisdom. I eventually turned to God and found my way. I learned what our ancestors preached, taught, and lived. I found the faith that led me to peace and Love. The earliest Christians understood that Jesus was the perfect man representing the Christ of God’s Love and care. He was and is the example of perfect to follow.

I am a prayer minister and a lay chaplain for the Marine Corps League; I bring God’s Love and Peace to those in need. I pray that through the words God gives me, I help replace the basic human foundation of fear with the eternal Love given to us by God. I offer that God’s true Love starts with love of self, not selfish love, but love of self as a child of God. When we accept this, we demonstrate the Love that Jesus shared freely and openly.

When we love ourselves as children of God, we can only recognize others as children of God also; then hate, jealousy, and fear are no longer. This is the main message that Jesus brought. When we bring conscious love into our lives, we are walking on the cherished path of light that only God gives.

 ©Russell Kendall Carter

In discussions with Job, Elihu advises, “Let us judge for ourselves what is right; let us decide together what is good. (34:4)” I understand that Job is going through a very tough time and his friends are in discussion with him. But this is wrong advice, particularly when he goes on the talk about not trusting God.

Man cannot distinguish between right and wrong; this has been proven too many times through history. If we say that we ourselves are to choose what is right, we are usurping God’s Goodness. This means we are acting a God, denigrating His importance in our lives.

I have had troubles in my life; not as many as Job, but many times I have felt that God had abandoned me. How wrong I was!!! Eventually, God opened my eyes to Truth and Wisdom, allowing me to live in total appreciation of God’s existence within me.

By allowing God to lead me, I now live in comfort and am able to spread God’s love to all I meet. I recognize God’s humility and try to adopt His humility as my life code.

©Russell Kendall Carter

Good morning, all. Whether we are enjoying the sand between our toes or the aura of old-world Europe or surviving Virginia humidity, we are all warmed by the same Sun – enjoy, it is a gift!

Why do we worry so much about what our future will be? I know that we are always under pressure to succeed, to earn more money than we really need. We never seem to be happy with what we have and what we are given. By the time we are in secondary school, we are brain-washed to succeed at all costs. This creates a world of fear within that erupts outside when things go wrong. But, who’s wrong? It we live only in the world created by selfish societies; we are miserable and feel at fault when things do not seem to go according to o plans.

It is our duty to replace this inner fear with a world of peace. Only we can do this. When I became a teacher at age 51, I found that I loved what I was doing. I was happier than I ever had been. Although I was primarily an AP teacher, occasionally I was given a less than college bound class of students to teach. I loving called them my sweat hogs from the old television show Welcome Back Kotter. They were wonderful students. I loved those classes and have many of those students as personal friends 20+ years later.

I was comfortable teaching these students because I absolutely loved what I was doing. I am far from perfect, but my teaching career was perfect. Paul writes to the Philippian’s, “. . . whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” I will add, act on these things. For if you live your life and job in love with what you do, you will eternally be warmed by the Sun.

 ©Russell Kendall Carter