Last Sunday, Spiritmuv had a special guest.  She was three years old and about two and a half feet tall.  She arrived on time, took off her coat, hugged those who came, and asked if she could pray at the beginning of the service.  To our surprise, at the end of the service, she also took the initiative to step into the middle of the Spiritmuv prayer circle.  We thought that we going to bless her, but the truth is that she blessed us.  There was something about her purity of spirit that pulled us away from our “adult” cares and concerns to the sweetness and simplicity of Truth.  God is good, and that’s all that matters. 

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”  (Matthew 19:14 NIV)  The only way you can really see the goodness of Spirit is to look through the eyes of someone as genuine as a child.  This means knowing that our Mother-Father-Everything-Almighty God can protect us from whatever the boogey-man brings us.    This means seeing past appearances of disaster and despair to the inexhaustible supply of God.  

 One of many things that bothers us about Haiti is to see the images of children suffering.  But we have to remember the words of Jesus when asked about a man born blind.  “Rabbi, who sinned,” the disciples asked, “this man or his  parents, that he was born blind?”  And Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned . . . but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”  (John 9:2-3)  This happened so that the works of God might be made manifest.

 That’s why we were given the gifts of faith, strength, wisdom, regenerating love, power, imagination, understanding, will, order, zeal, renunciation, and generative life.  (See Charles Fillmore, The Twelve Powers of Man (Unity Books: Unity Village, 1999))  We have the power to fix the broken, to cure the sick, to feed the hungry, to house the homeless, to uplift the downtrodden, to be the healing balm, to plant new lives and to restore old ones.  As Jesus said, God is working through us to display something wonderful.  That’s why children have huge imaginations, divine ideas that haven’t been diminished by “growing up.”  

 When we “grow up,” we often lose the sheer joy of being because we start judging by appearances instead of  by “righteous judgment.”  We allow everybody’s else’s stiff-necked foolishness to usurp our energy and our focus, instead of  just knowing that we are the manifestation of God’s good.  We don’t want to see with an  eye single toward the continuous stream of God’s good — when there is so much else to distract us.   We are distracted by the unknown, limited by what we do know, and crazed by what we think we know.

 We say that we want to help Haiti, and giving money is a great start.  But we might also want to help the Haiti in us — the turmoil, the discord, the danger, and the destruction — by loving those who are right in our midst.  Have you told your parents how much you love them?   Have you kissed your spouse and showed her or him just how much you appreciate them?  Have you really been a friend to your so-called “friend”?  Have you reached out to give to those who have given so much to you?  Have you even been to church, or done anything to help in your community?  Imagine how different the people of Haiti would respond to the call to love those thousands of beings who were lost in the earthquake.

 Are you willing to hang up your phone, or put down your glass of wine, or cut off your television long enough to join a circle of prayer?  God has embraced each and every one of us with a heart of love that is ever-lasting — but we refuse to give that love back.  We ignore our communities of faith and prefer to worship at the altar of despair.  We throw in the towel at the slightest interruption to serve God.  We stop going to church because we want to believe that community doesn’t matter.  But Haiti reminds us that it does.

 God told the grumbling Israelites as they made their way to the Promised Land — not you, but “your children who do not yet know good from bad-they will enter the land.  I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.”  ( Deuteronomy 1:39)  We cannot manifest our good until we stop grumbling and start allowing ourselves to be the vehicle through which God constantly recreates. 

 We have to start believing that we can say to a mountain “move” — and it will move.  We can say to the tiniest grain of mustard seed “grow” and it will grow.  We can run the race and not get weary.  We can walk and not grow faint.  No matter what the world looks like, we can call it all good because we are here so that the works of God may be made manifest.  And maybe, just maybe — through all of the chaos, we will actually see one or two or even hundreds of the miracles that God always expresses through us. 

   Namaste, 

 

Reverend Cecilia Loving                                 

Pastor, SPIRITMUV www.spiritmuv.com www.godisabrowngirltoo.com  (All of the materials in SPIRITMUV email messages are copyrighted by and may not be used without the written permission of Cecilia Loving.  Please click on the link below or go to  www.spiritmuv.wordpress.com for the Spiritmuv Bible in a Year Schedule.)  

SPIRITMUV meets every Sunday, at 2:30 PM , at the Unity Center of NYC, 213 West 58th Street.