Meditating to Heal

God knows our human thoughts; we cannot be ignorant of this truth. When we enter our quiet place to pray, the Holy Spirit wits with us and reveals God’s role for us in life. When you pray, take a moment to thank God for all the saints who paved our way. God loves you; and His word will never fail you.

In your quiet space, listen with your heart; listen with your soul. The word of God spreads through you and flourishes all with whom you come in contact. God gifts us with the freedom to choose; He wants us to choose goodness and love, for when we do, we have a strong shield protecting us from harm. Our relationship with God is a pure gift, and we feel this gift come alive in our quiet space. Every gift from God is flawless.

A simple prayer: gracious God, allow me to extend what I feel in my quietude; allow me to share Your Grace with all. Allow me to extend the love You so freely give with every stranger I meet today.

© Russell Kendall Carter

The Psalmist writes that the needy will not be forgotten, and the hope of the poor will not perish forever. Dear God, our society has completely eliminated the concept of “for the common good.” As a society we have forgotten the obligation of justice for those in need. Reading your words in the Christian Bible, we learn that Jesus preaches social order which incudes charity for those society has forgotten. For the sake of the common good is no longer a consideration of our society; for this we ask your forgiveness.

Jesus taught the greatest commandment is to love God with all our hearts and with all our souls, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves. By letting our neighbor live in poverty and without nourishment is not love. We treat former enemies better than we treat our poor neighbors.

Virtually all our major religions teach us to aid those in need, yet we do not do this. Too many people are begging for money at intersections. Too many people are living under the bridges of our cities. For a self-identified Christian country, we are definitely not.

We must turn round and consider the hope of the poor. We must open our hearts to hear your word and prayer that we will love one another. In Galatians Paul says, “They only asked us to remember the poor—the very thing I also was eager to do.”

Sometimes, I think that we remember the poor, but that is all. Dear God, help us consider the hope of the poor.

© Russell Kendall Carter

Timothy writes: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instructions for right living, so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed (2 Timothy 3:16-17).” This means that for us to truly follow God’s lighted path, we must study the Bible, and according to Timothy, the Scriptures.

Lectio is the study of the Scriptures; I expand that to all of the Bible, since the first practitioners were the early Hebrews; the concepts are very old in origin. It is reading, meditation, and prayer. Contemplatio is to observe, note, or notice. I practice these concepts because it treats the Bible, particularly the New Testament, as the living word of God, and it emphasizes my communion with God. It brings God to the center of my very core.

One of my recent emails contained this New Testament verse as a thought for the day: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith (Romans 1:17).” One of the suggested paths for studying lectio is to select a word or short phrase; in this case, I choose revealed. I read those passages right before and right after this verse, situating myself in the midst of the writer’s mind. I meditate on how Paul uses the word and prayer for guidance in my understanding of my relationship with God.

I contemplate, I re-read, I meditate more. Within moments a feeling of understanding enters my being and it is revealed to me that God invites me to live by faith. Using the concepts of lectio and contemplatio, I am enlightened and gladdened by the eternal presence of God within me.

© Russell Kendall Carter

Joy, at times, can be fleeting; it comes in and goes out of our life, sometimes like a winter storm. We are coming out of a long-isolated living due to this pandemic. Last evening, I went to the Celtic service at church. The joy of communal prayer enter my being and I was reminded that we were not alone this past year and a half. We know that through all of the storms of our lives, all the distress we face, we walk with Jesus by our side, many times being carried by His love. We do not navigate our way with God, we walk on the path of eternal love.

We gather in church in the presence of God asking that His light shine within us to support our love for all mankind, as Jesus invites us to do with the greatest commandments. God sets us free with His joy in our hearts. We share this boundless joy through His love. God’s Joy rescues us from all our trials and tribulations. I pray with thanksgiving for His great gift that with sharing His Joy, we are all one body of Christ.

© Russell Kendall Carter

The Psalmist writes, “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress. . .” We are so grateful to God that we may come to Him to allow our spirits to rise. We reach to God for help and comfort. As I age, I turn to God every day because aging brings a more difficult path to walk. We need the lighted path that Jesus shows us. With the presence of God within us our trials are eased.

I am blessed with a wonderful wife of 54 years, two children, and three grandchildren. God is good to me. However, I grew up with a mother, father, and sister, all helped form who I am today. All have since passed. I wept and mourned at each of their deaths. Each time I turned to John’s writing, “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy (16:22).”

It is important for us to grieve; it cleanses our life of all the unpleasant events surrounding us. Our grief folds us into a temporary cocoon of self-centeredness; thus, removing those negative forces. As the Holy Spirit brings us from this web of sorrow, our spirit and souls are renewed to this the understanding that those departures are not permanent. As I write this, my mother, father, and sister are around me, looking over my shoulder, making sure I treat them fairly (I may snot have in my youth).

As humans, we are not perfect; our grief brings God into our lives, renewing our spirituality. We become stringer as we recover from our grief. We are thankful that God is a wonderful provider of Grace, Love, and Comfort.

© Russell Kendall Carter

I meditate; I pray. These two begin my spiritual day. I never take leave of these. My prayers expand my ability to believe and trust in God. In my spiritual journey, I am blessed with the companionship of the Holy Spirit in my life.

My wonder is how God loves us so much; we are always harming each other and His creation. But in our daily lives we try to express the love that we are taught in the Bible. We love because He loves.

Regardless of our faults, we receive His generosity; we receive His love: we receive His healings. We are His beloved children – all of us. The love we share is defined by our relationships with God and each other. This is both difficult and easy to accept. Prayer helps.

We know that all our blessings are received from God. Because we are His beloved children, we also receive the inner peace that He brings.

© Russell Kendall Carter

A promise is something to keep; it is that simple! I trust in God; therefore, I promise to love and obey His every word. When I fear something, the trust I have in God comes from the promises He made to me. God’s promise to me that whether I have joy or sorrow, I am protected by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Like Job, I struggle with questions, am hesitant about reality, and lack confidence in my future; but God’s eternal promise gives me the comfort of Hope. My soul rests with God, so I am in comfort. The power in my life belongs to God and therefore, I can love all of his creation. I believe in His promise, so I share my heart with all and forgive them of all things. With God, my promise is also eternal.

© Russell Kendall Carter

In our human experience, we learn to appreciate and love each other. Even when we face adversities and failures, we turn to God, for He alone is all love and all power. As Matthew writes, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (6: 33).” In this way, we always recognize the presence of God in our midst. We also recognize that we are all made in His image.

Our daily lives are meant to reflect that image in all our actions. We are reminded that before anything else, we are good which is how God wants us to live. Peter writes, “. . . get rid of all ill will and all deceit, pretense, envy, and slander. Instead, like a newborn baby, desire the pure milk of the word. Nourished by it, you will grow into salvation, since you have tasted that the Lord is good (1 Peter 2: 1-3)”. With this reflection and this action in our lives, righteousness and grace rule our society.

Regardless of how we look at the world and all of its faults, created by humanity, God is still with us, nurturing and healing, but above all loving. We are God’s people receiving His Mercy and Grace. As righteous people of God, we live in our faithfulness to God.

© Russell Kendall Carter

Ownership is an interesting concept. There was no true ownership concept until the Norman’s conquered England in 1066. A law was then written that created the rite of land ownership. This myth of ownership adds to our mistaken ideas of independence and strength. This is mine; look how important I am.

In reality, we rent, we borrow, but only for a fleeting time. This false security that ownership brings money and power quickly fails when our human bodies die. It is then that we realize the myth of ownership is false, useless. Owning, being rich, is not something that Jesus was concerned with. He ministered to the weak and the poor and told a rich landowner to sell all his property and follow Him. The landowner couldn’t; he believed that his wealth was more important.

We are not perfect! We are flawed in our belief that the richer we are, the more we own, is important, and God recognizes that our lofty position puts us at the head of the line. But this is not true, when our bodies die, we are just as naked as the poor infant who has died from malnourishment. We both stand before God baring our souls. The poor being homeless admits to stealing for survival. The rich merchant admits to hording and owning, keeping others from what he has (or rents).

We as humans have created the myth that through ownership, we are the center of the universe. We control the future of mankind and the Earth. Noting can be further from the truth. God is the center of His creation; God runs the show. We answer to God for our misbehaving and egotism. He is great; we are small. We should trust God for our needs, not our false sense of ownership.

© Russell Kendall Carter

We are all familiar with 1st Corinthians 13:13: “. . . these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” The first thing I was taught in Sunday school was God is Love. The way of God’s Love is the way of life. We really do not have an alternative, for love is patient and kind. It is not self-centered and is shared freely. Thomas Merton writes in No Man is and Island: ““The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.”

In paraphrasing a recent Pickles cartoon, the grandson tells his grandfather that dogs die young because they already know how to love; man lives longer to learn how to love. This is an unnecessary truism. Love requires us to respect deeply. It calls on our ability to endure hurt and persevere, defeating any hurdles that are placed in our way. Egotism is one of these hurdles, our own and others. I once had a superior who was the picture-perfect icon for egotism and was hard to love. We argued often; one day I asked him why we hated each other so much. The question came out of nowhere and stopped us cold. We looked at each other, apologized for our animosities, and had a good relationship from then on. Love given a chance!

God loves us; to think otherwise is impossible. We, therefore, should also love us, all of us. God gives us the opportunity and the model in Jesus. We live a righteous life by loving all of God’s creation; and, by loving, God gives us a righteous life – a two-way street. When we love in the spirit of the Holy Spirit, we are preparing ourselves for Jesus’s return. When we love, God changes the way we look at the world, at humanity, and at all of His creation. Our path is lighted by His aura.

The Love of God and the Love we share in His name endures forever. And the greatest of these is love.

© Russell Kendall Carter