Meditating to Heal

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love cast out fear: because fear has

torment. He who fears is not made perfect in love.”1 John 4:18

We are mortal; therefore, we fear! This is such an unfortunate truth and leads to a future of doubt, sorrow, and disappointment. God created us; God loves us; we will come to no harm! Everywhere we turn there are factors that hang on us making us fear. My wife and several of my friends fear going anywhere because of the gun violence we are experiencing. I understand; this is troubling.

When I was in my twenties, serving in the military, I feared going to war; not because I may be killed, but because I might come home physically debilitated and forced to live a life of abandonment. So, I understand fear. I try to comfort my brothers and sisters who fear. This is the mission God has given me in this chapter of my long life. I love serving God.

As I review my life, I see pleasures and disappointments, successes and failures, happy times, and sad times. One thing I noticed is that the better times alway followed and always erased those less than satisfying times. And I wondered why! When I reached my 50^th birthday, my heart was opened to a newness of life that I had never before experienced. I found purpose for my life!

I found what God wanted me to do all along. Not that the last thirty years had been a smooth ride, but when I opened my senses, my very being to the truth of God’s presence, I see reasons to rejoice. God blesses me with a life of fulfillment and loving service. I am much busier now as a retired person than I ever was when teaching. I am what God wants!

When you open your eyes, your minds, your hearts, you also will receive what is already there. I know people who struggle through life, and I know people who are highly successful financially. Those who understand God’s presence in their lives are comfortable with their position and their mission. Remember, Jesus had no money. He walked the earth walked living on God’s plenty. See what He did!  He loved! He changed the world.

Fear not for God is with you and loves you!

 Russell Kendall Carter     

Serenity, the calmness of quiet streams
Chaos interrupting my dreams
Society filled with turmoil
Or so it often seems

My heart awakes for my forgotten brother
Begging for pennies as they suffer
Without decent work or a cozy home
Lost with neither sister nor brother

Then God enters my very soul, my spirit
Promising a future which we must share it
For all who embrace His eternal Love
Which none of us truly merit

For God brings us a life that will not cease
In His creation, His masterpiece
Eternal life with neither sickness nor trial
Bring us all the greatest inner peace

©Russell Kendall Carter

I love my brother Marines; I love my sister Marines. I do not fear saying this. This love is friendship, or as the Greeks called it Sorge. Love among my brothers is affection, a spiritual blessing bonding us in community. We experience God in this affection because living relationships bring Christ into our midst.

With this affection, both, or all, long for perfection, the need for the gift of being better. This is spiritual; this is the blessing we receive because we see God in each other’s image. . . we are both made in His image. As we walk through life together, we receive blessed communication with God; we are His children and receive blessed Grace from His Wisdom. We consecrate our relationship. Strengthening the goodness for all mankind.

Our mutual love, affection, triumphs over all. We are together, devoid of self-congratulation, humble in each other’s and God’s presence. There is no place in the affection we share and the Grace of God for jealous, greed, anger, or hatred. God is Love; therefore, we are Love.

Russell Kendall Carter 

Dear Lord, why do we crave praise and attention from others, when only Your presence truly matters in our lives?

Yes, we covet mortal companionship, but we do not need to be uplifted by shallow, temporary embellishments regardless of the care and comfort given.

Your words and your eternal Love are truly all we search for as we travel the roads, we call life. You have often shown us the lighted path even though we wander far afield.

Father, we pray for and lift those in need both – spiritual and material need. For your Word is truly what all of us desire.

O Perfect God, thank You for allowing me to walk on the enlightened path You have shown me so that I may continue bringing Your Love to all.

Russell Kendall Carter      

I am troubled by what is happening in the world, our country, the state I live in, and my immediate community. Piece by piece mankind is trying to kill itself off either by damages to the Earth or by violence to each other – wars and senseless killings. All religions have a creed of peace, love, and a fealty to a supreme power, and yet all religions support war and for the most part avoid speaking against the senseless killing.

We are led by God’s Wisdom; we are delivered by His Grace. I know better than a lot of people how difficult it is to obey God’s Word. Then I look at the world around me and see God’s beauty laid out before me in unimaginable splendor. This is when I open myself completely to feel the presence of God in my heart. The ancient philosophers taught that God desires us to live in our hearts, where He is. How easy to accept!

Our relationship with God is indestructible, renewing in us the infinite promise of the return of the Christ. God is everywhere for us if we are open and aware. He guards us in our times of trial, His voice comforts.

Russell Kendall Carter      

 Not an easy task, obeying God’s Word. We read our Bibles and other holy books and see such requests as “sell all your possessions to follow me.” This is a hard task to follow, considering that we toil hard to live in our nice homes and drive our nice cars. This is why we spent all that money to attend college. Why would God ask us to do this to follow Him?

Well, He doesn’t! God asks us to do two things: Love Him and love each other as we love ourselves. Period. Exclamation point! Period. God gave us this law and asks us to follow it. And, He knows the content of our hearts. We cannot separate ourselves from God, nor can we ignore His call for action.

The other day, God turned me around and I notice a lump across the parking lot. I entered the café behind me with my wife for breakfast. Something was eating at me while I joked with the server and spoke with those around us. My wife said that the lump was a homeless person. We then discussed how wrong our country is with its many multibillionaires, trillion-dollar corporations, billions spent on the military, and thousands upon thousands of poor and homeless who cannot afford life in these Untied States.

When we left the cafe, God invited me to cross the parking lot to a man dressed in all his clothing, sweating in this heat, an old worn beach towel draped over his head. I asked his forgiveness as I handed him enough to have breakfast at the café we just left. We spoke for a minute; he blessed me for what I gave him; I discovered that he is a veteran with PTSD and is unemployable.

Our society has left behind (and written off as useless) him and all his brothers and sisters who are either homeless or in deep poverty. It is up to us to do what our society will not do. I gave this poor man enough for a breakfast; I feel guilty because I cannot do much more. Is this obeying God’s Word? Am I loving my neighbor as myself? Am I loving God?!!!!

©Russell Kendall Carter   

“I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts,

and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Jer 31:33

The only perfect entity is God; we are merely mirror images of His holy creation. When we accept this Truth, we realize and accept a freedom unimagined in our mortal lives. Our connection with He who created us is eternal and loving. And loving is the key to life; Love and Life are inseparable. When either one is fulfilled, the other returns in kind.

Jesus reminds us that there is only one true commandment and that is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Simple! Direct! Attainable if we let go of our ego. I would also say that this is the one true law we must follow!

I read that those who understand more than I do comment that this commandment is a glowing lamp, shining bright for us, and this commandment, the law of God, is the light we follow on our journey through mortal life. Let us accept and practice the one true principle that Life is Love and Love is Life, and both are God.

 Russell Kendall Carter

Testimony means many things to many people. Speaking in a non-legal way, my testimony is a faith statement of understanding my true relationship with God. This relationship is indestructible; it is inseparable; and it is absolutely inalienable. There is not an entity in God’s Creation that can take this relationship from me. My trust in God is a perfect experience of spiritual calmness, gratitude, and an ability to be altruistic in my sharing with others. 

Mankind is indivisible with God, regardless of what the naysayers protest. God is good; therefore, we are good. . . at least our spiritual beings are good. Mortal man has many flaws; we prove that every day in our treatment of others. However, our spiritual man is a perfect reflection of God’s Love. And when we accept this indivisible relationship with eternity, we can realize and be the perfect man that God creates. 

I say this not with pride but with the understanding that the true me, the one God created, is Love. There is no absence of my relationship with God in eternity for it is there that I have lived, presently live, and will live forever. . . now and especially when God rids me of this mortal body with its many defects. I trust Immanual, God within, without which I am nothing. 

 My voice and my very being, spiritual and mortal, accepts and recognizes the Voice of God leading me in my life. This is my testimony! 

Russell Kendall Carter© 

We all live a life wavering spiritually between times of pleasure and times of remorse, wondering why the kayak we occupy is always scaling the rapids. Happy or sad, we spend our time criticizing other travelers for their heritage or beliefs. We are not happy with ourselves, and therefore are critical of others. We cause others to suffer needlessly; we are drowning in denunciations of others.

We distrust and dislike others because our faith lacks personal commitment. Faith is not a noun! Faith is an active verb not a passive one. We must be faith in God, in ourselves, and in others, practicing goodness and love as God’s invitation asks. True Love is eternal and is pure affection for all when shared.

When one member of our human family suffers, we all suffer. . . together on a violent river of greed, envy, and hatred. We cannot afford to practice any of these negativities. Our experiences are both mutual, that is communal, and provisional, relying on brotherly love and faith. Our actions are experiential, relying on mutual love and respect. Spiritually we do not and cannot choose hate over love, greed over sharing, or envy over goodness. Our spiritual existences are directly tied to God’s Truths; we cannot live outside of this Truth.

What we can do is study and live God’s Love and Truth, bringing these into our daily mortal lives, relieving suffering for others and for self. This is the example that Jesus lived and taught. This is God’s promise of Life without suffering. God’s Life is real. . . forever; suffering is a mortal construct that may seem real but is invalid in God’s Life and Love.

 ©Russell Kendall Carter

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God (Isaiah 40:1).

The most important aspect of life is our relationship with God. We cannot attain true comfort without the understanding that we are not just men and women of flesh and blood; we are more than that. We are spiritual beings, created by God, living by the will and Grace of God, even as we suffer in our humanity-made society of greed and lust. Foremost is our acceptance of the heart and soul of God’s Love and how we are an eternal part of this.

The divine principle of Life is man’s likeness with God and His Truth, Life and Love. God made us in His image; pure, perfect, and eternal, not materially promised to die. To paraphrase Proverbs, to be with and love God is the beginning of Wisdom and understanding (9:10). All goodness is perfection, and all perfection is goodness; this is the creation in which we live.

Life, Truth, and Love, the Word of God is eternal. Jesus proved this in reconciling our world with God’s True World. It is only through God that we have true reconciliation. Prayer cannot bring this to bear, only demonstration of God’s Love for one another can accomplish this. Opening our hearts in prayer can, however, lead to acceptance and understanding of God’s Truth. . . Truth for us, Truth for all eternity.

To live in true comfort, we recognize the revelation of God’s True Creation, one of beauty and splendor. When we live in God’s Love, together as God wills us to, then and only then can we enjoy the comfort of the Life and Love of God.

 ©Russell Kendall Carter