Last night we were told the poignant and gruesome tale a person suffering horrendous pain in the last moments of life on this earth plane.  When the hospice practitioner at her side did not know what else to do, she heard a voice that spoke gently, God is in the middle. This was the knowing that brought peace and mental healing.

What does it mean to find God in the center or middle of everything. This is not a religious concept, but it is a spiritual one. I believe that God is a Principle of Love and Peace. God is the Principle behind and in all life. It is never separate from anything, including each blade of grass, animal, person and star. God is the Creative Force that is impelled by Its Love for Itself. It doesn’t judge or discern what is right or wrong. It simply is. God, therefore, in every experience because we are in the experience.

We all express God. Whether we express it in suffering or joy or even anger, it is still God at the level of our understanding of life. God is life.  We wonder why there are atrocities in the world that never seem to go away. My only answer is that we truly do not know that everything we think and act upon, every choice we make is our creation by using the Principle of God, a Principle that is freedom of choice and volition.

We will end suffering in relation to how much we can find God in the middle of everything, acknowledge It, and allow It to pour through us. We feel it after a disaster when we reach out to help each other. We feel it when we are driven to ease someone’s pain. We feel it when we are in the ecstasy of creating something amazing that we are passionate about. We might not call it God, but this is God is in the middle.

Our Founder, Ernest Holmes, once said, “Do not take someone’s God away from him if you cannot give him a better one.” This is the wisest statement I have ever heard. We can never take a person’s God away because, God is to us as we are to it, whether we call it God or not.

I refuse to say that God is here, but not there. I believe true compassion and healing lies in recognizing and surrendering to the knowing that God is in everything. The way to change the world is to change ourselves. Recognizing that our brothers and sisters, animals and planet are all connected in an energy field called God, called Life, called Principle; and then acting from that place is the first step in healing.

In his book, More Together Than Alone, Mark Nepo quotes Malcom X talking about progress in regards to those perpetuating racism. “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. If you pull it all the way out that’s not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made.”

The more we can come together and recognize that the wounds we witness all need to be healed from within our own consciousness, the more we will end suffering. No one can forgive us really, but ourselves. No one can forgive others, but ourselves. When we say Love will win, we truly mean it. Just because it seems that the majority are not willing to acknowledge it and begin to use Love, doesn’t make it not true. Just because suffering and injustice still exists doesn’t mean that Love and Peace are not still here beneath it all.  I know that the time has come for me to recognize God in the middle, starting in my own world and moving out into the world.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita