When I look back in history, I read about the many people who strove to create change, to evolve, to go beyond what others believed as impossible, who stood up to whole organizations or even governments. They had the courage to act upon what they believed.

As I have been getting ready for a month at our Center where we’ve decided to frame our talks and events around the idea of courage, I cannot think of a more appropriate time in history for this topic. Worlds, ideologies, old ways and the longing for the new, respect for each other and our planet vs. complacency and inaction, etc. are bringing us to a state of huge crisis.

As I read and as I even look back at my own life and the times I’ve made the biggest changes, I see one thing that is common throughout it all. It is the courage to do something different in spite of everything that I was told, believed was true, or seemed evident in the world of experience. Something within my soul said, this is not right and I had to act upon it or die spiritually, emotionally and perhaps physically. I had to make a change even though I couldn’t see the end result clearly. Call it intuition, call it stubbornness, I had to have a new idea and do something differently, if I was to move forward.

In order to make the changes, sometimes I had to walk from relationships that weren’t serving my highest good. Sometimes, I had to walk from towns and people, from religions, from jobs. However, it wasn’t as much that I was walking from something; it was more important to know where I was going. What did I want? Yes, I was dissatisfied, but what was it that was calling me?

So many times, we move from experiences and we flounder because all we’ve done is make the decision to leave something, but we do not know where we are going. I knew where I was going and so even though I didn’t know the outcome, I was able to put my feet on the path and walk toward the commitment I had made.

If you want to look for examples of this, look at those who made the changes in our world, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandala, Rosa Parks, Gandhi, Jesus, poets, kings, queens, Galileo, Socrates, etc. Just use that wonderful thing called the Internet and put in the word, courageous people and you will find more than you can read.

Having courage doesn’t mean that we do not have struggles or have pain or even that we are successful in the world of form. It means that we know that deep within us something greater than our finite existence is calling us to do something more than what’s been done up to that point, to think differently, to try something totally absurd because we know it is right and true. It’s called spiritual evolution and it is not happenstance. It is moved by intelligence, the Intelligence that moves each of us.

What’s calling you? What is rising within you? What have you supressed long enough that is aching to come forth into creation? I invite us all to have the courage to walk in that dream and to embrace the truth that all is possible right now.

We are at a pivotal point and it is what we individually and collectively choose that will make or break us. All is not lost; it is changing. We might feel like we are stumbling, but now we have the opportunity to rise or to fall. It takes courage and I know we all have that courage because of the Truth of who we are. Within us lies the seed of a new life with all of the ingredients to make it so.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita