When I was a little girl I experienced the great blackout on the East Coast. If you are not familiar with it, it occurred in 1965 on a cold November night.  “The Great Northeast Blackout began at the height of rush hour, delaying millions of commuters, trapping 800,000 people in New York’s subways, and stranding thousands more in office buildings, elevators, and trains.”

A movie and song later came out: “Where Were You When the Lights When Out?”  Everyone compared notes when the event was over. Fascinating stories ensued.

So, today, I can ask a question of all of us here in Hawaii – “Where were you when the Text Alert ‘Ballistic Missile Threat Inbound to Hawaii. Seek Shelter. This is Not a Drill’ came across your phone or blasted through loud speakers at the hotel you were staying at.

I was at our Center getting ready to greet our Sacred Journey (annual retreat) participants. What transpired after that – getting what we needed (including my Science of Mind text), notifying others and heading for our only enclosed area – is not as important as where I was mentally, emotionally and spiritually speaking. When someone asks me where I was when the alert text came across my phone, the far more interesting conversation is “where was I in mind?”

I am grateful for that experience (false alarm) because of what I realized in that moment. It was an opportunity to experience where I am in Consciousness. We do not get a drastic deep check-in as this very often. I am grateful because I learned first-hand that I am solid in what I know to be my Truth. Ernest Holmes, the founder of Religious Science, once stated that unless we can prove a Principle that we cannot say we know it. He also stated that when things look the worst is the time to do our best work. Yesterday, was that time. I proved what I know and I was able to do my best work.

Here is the deep knowing that came to me: I am eternal. I do not die. Life continues. I trust Life moving through me to always put me in the exact right place at the right time. There is nothing about this that I have to prove to anyone else. It is what I know.

I believe that yesterday was a wake-up call. It gave each of us the same opportunity that I had – to check in with ourselves and see what it is that is important to us in life. It gave us each the opportunity to wake up to what is working in our lives and what isn’t. It gave us the opportunity to find out REALLY and TRULY what we believe or do not believe. It gave us a Consciousness Check-In. To me, this was a great gift, no matter what our reaction was.

The good thing is that like Scrooge in Dickens A Christmas Carol, we are given a new chance right now to shift what needs to be shifted. Even if we do not like the way we reacted or still feel scared, we get the opportunity to renew our minds and be transformed. We get the opportunity, if we accept it, to look deeply into our own consciousness and see what is revealed as our next step here on earth – what is ours to do and be.

And if we don’t live on the Hawaiian Islands, there are a million opportunities everyday to ask the same question. Think of all that the outside world presents us with. How are we processing that? Are we prayed up? Can we look through it and see a greater truth? Are we entertaining the mystical concept that “we might be in this world, but we are not of this world?” Can we react from a higher perspective?

Many people tell me that they seek to find the right place where they will be safe from imminent disasters like the one that might have occurred yesterday. However, what I know is that there is only one safe place, and that is the place we can come to in consciousness where we are always safe, because we know. We just KNOW! I am grateful that I got to KNOW that yesterday.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita