Yesterday, we celebrated Nora James Rose-Hines. We will never forget her because she is here in a new way and will continue to be our teacher. I believe this and her celebration of life yesterday was a testament of that.

And, today is a new day. I have the opportunity to be reborn just like she is. “A new light is coming into the world. We are on the borderland of a new experience. The veil between spirit and matter is very thin…” Ernest Holmes wrote this in the 1920’s.

I believe this. I also understand from reading and studying that we are on the brink of what could well be our sixth mass extinction. We can easily see that we are struggling like we never have before in three areas at the same time: economically, through violence against each other,  and through the very threat of the physical breakdown of our planet. Things can seem very bleak and we can easily get swept away into the darkness. Or, we could not judge by appearances, but by right judgment.

There is a beautiful minister/musician that I have had the opportunity to meet named Rev. Donna Michael. She spoke these words and I’ve always carried them with me. They went something like this…”that when one is in the midst of making a change in their lives, the old ways will hold on with everything they’ve got. Things get even darker.” She called it the “last gasp of a dying fear.”

I think we are in the midst of that gasp right now. I think the old ways aren’t working anymore, but we are still trying to hold onto them. I think we’ve tried and tried to solve our problems through fear leading to a struggle for power. We’ve hated the things and people we do not understand and we’ve stayed locked in the idea that there is never enough leading to  hoarding things and money and blocking the flow of giving and receiving. There is more and we are seeing it exploding all around us. But, I believe it is the last gasp of a dying fear and that we have the opportunity to breathe and love right through it now.

We have had many tragedies of late. In my own life I’ve witnessed the loss of loved ones, friends, storms, and crisis of all types. Now this is where I experience something that I believe could heal us, if we could grasp it on an everyday basis. It is called Kindness.

Let’s use Nora as an example. Since, Nora’s passing, a few short weeks ago, hundreds and thousands of people have come together to mourn, to love each other more deeply, to care for the family and each other. Recently, and over and over, we have experienced tragedy.  Again, we come together to love and help and heal. Then we go back to business as usual.

But here is my question: Why only in tragedy do we decide to be kind to one another? Why only in tragedy to we decide to hug more and be a little more gentle to each other? Why only in tragedy does community come forth and hold each other up? It seems there has to be a struggle in order to grow in love.

Ernest Holmes once wrote, “We give the Intelligence outlet in two ways: by pure inspiration or intuition, or the more common way of bitter experience and with most of us it is through the latter.”

We are that Intelligence. We are always that Intelligence and I believe we choose to give it outlet through bitter experience most of the time. It is what we know. It is what is familiar to us. It is how we are hardwired.

However, I believe that when Ernest said, the veil between life and death is thin and that a new light was coming, that he meant it. We can mean it and live it now.

How? It is one word and Kevin Bailey spoke it yesterday at his daughter Nora’s celebration of life. “We can be kind.” In Hawaii we have a term we use sometimes too lightly, “Aloha!” It is a Spirit of Love, and when we use it in its true meaning we are saying, “I recognize you. I share your breath “ha,” Your breath is my breath and we are one.

We can begin to rebuild and rebirth ourselves now. I know that we can choose to look at everything as light. Where there is darkness, we can shine the light of our intuition. It’s here right where we are and it has all the answers for us if we allow ourselves to open up to its flow.

Let’s start right now. It is the Holidays. The Season of Light. In our philosophy, the Science of Mind and Spirit, we believe that we all have the capacity and potential to live the Christ consciousness. This is not religious. It merely means that we understand that the Power and Presence of the Divine, life itself is our Power. We are Divine.  Our humanity must give itself over to the Divine, if we are to not just survive these times, but actually rebirth into something new. Call it the fifth dimension. Call it Heaven or just call it our next step of Spiritual evolution. We can surrender and give way to it.

I do not believe that we have to wait until we die to understand this. It could happen in increments or it could just burst forth within us in a moment of illumination. We do have the opportunity to let go of fear and replace it with faith. We can let go of judgement and replace it with forgiveness. We can let go of all our blocks to being and living our true selves and replace it with the infinite possibilities to live as Love now.

We are at choice. What will we choose: more bitter experience or a new school of passionately living our dreams and doing finally what we came here to do? Will we still have trials? Yes, because we will always be growing and expanding. However, each trial won’t be a trial in the sense of morbidity and hopelessness. It will instead become an opportunity to greater understanding, an opportunity to love more deeply, and to rebirth again.

“A new light is coming into the world. We are on the borderland of a new experience. The veil between spirit and matter is very thin.” What will we choose to do and know?

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita