Yesterday, I visited a church on my own accord to honor my deceased mother. I sat there and listened with an open mind. I was told I was a sinner. I was told that I needed a redeemer and still I might never be saved unless I rid myself of all the evil things that were standing in the way of me and God’s forgiveness. That’s what I heard, and I remembered that this is the way I was brought up. However, something within me never believed it.

I might say that it affected my life, but if I believed it, why did I go on to do just as I pleased and thought was right for me throughout my life?

As I sat there yesterday, I felt sad. I felt like this sanctuary that I was in was caught in time, in an era that no longer existed, and yet many people were there experiencing it. They seemed happy, but I don’t really know how they felt. I am not privy to know another person’s thoughts.

Ernest Holmes once wrote to never take someone’s God away unless you can give them a better one. In reality, you can never give someone a better God because God is to each of us as we conceive it to be and nothing else. The God we have is the best God we can have at the time we are experiencing it, because it is within our understanding.

I never try to take anyone’s conception of God away; however, many try to tell me that my conception of God is wrong. I am wrong to think that I am perfect and that you are perfect and that we are magnificent. I don’t understand this, but what I do understand is that the God that I know is Love. The God I know receives everyone into Its Kingdom. We are all in the Kingdom of God.

I do not want to take anyone’s God away, but I do want you to know that whatever you think about yourself because of something you’ve done or because of some situation you are in, that God is right there . Whatever you conceive God to be, God never leaves you. In the center of your heart, there is a place that knows this. You could never do anything that could remove God from you.

Whenever I feel that I might not be connected to God, I remember these words, “Be still and know that I am God.” These words heal everything, remove duality from my mind and bring wholeness forth. I remember my truth.

Whether God is a man with a beard on a cloud or deep within your heart doesn’t matter. God is what you conceive It/Him/Her to be. Whatever that conception is becomes your life. The highest and best conception of God is something that we can grow deeply into everyday. It is true we cannot become God, because God is who we are. God is who we are because we experience life as we experience God. I choose to experience God as Good, as Love.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita