If we truly want to know what is behind everything that is happening in this world right now from COVID 19 to the outbreak from the bowels of our humanity of racism and hatred, it all comes from the deep spiritual need to self-heal.

At one time and long time ago, one of our Master Teachers stated, a great commandment: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” This, as my husband would say, is our problem, we our loving our neighbors as ourselves. The result is what you see, as everything is causing the outcome in every moment.

For the past few days as the outside world outraged, I had the opportunity to be part of a ministerial panel. What this is, is the opportunity to witness, in this case, 18 souls reveal unfoldment of ministry as their life. Because, as I know, minister is a verb, not a noun, then they are each deciding how they will show up to care and shepherd the world.

As one of these ministers pointed out, we are all ministers. We are all ministers and we are all ministering to something, someone everyday, as we open our mouths, as we do what we do, as we look out from ourselves into the world. If we do not like what we see, what we are experiencing, we must admit who is doing the ministering. We must go back to the self and clear whatever needs to be cleared, for as we are, so we are in the world.

What the world needs now is more self-love. As we love ourselves, so will we love everyone. It’s time to speak our truth to ourselves, and then out into the world. It’s time to march as beings who pour out that love from within into the scene of violence, ill health and injustice. Are we being just to ourselves today?

In Hawaii there is a self-healing process called “Ho’oponopono.” In this process, we repeat the words, “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” These words are not spoken to some outside being, they are spoken inside ours souls to those wounded parts of ourselves that are reflected in the world. It is a form of self-healing, and we heal, the world heals.

Yesterday, during these ministerial panels, something happened that allowed me to know that there was a part of myself that had not healed. You see whatever is in your experience is a part of you showing up. We are only ever exposing the parts of ourselves that want to know the truth, to love, to be forgiven and to forgive. As we go deeper and deeper, more is revealed. Old beliefs come forward that might have slipped by us, and cry out to finally be overturned. That’s what happened to me yesterday and this morning I woke up with the answer.

In the end, it is a decision to heal. It is a decision to love. It is a decision to forgive. It is a decision. In that decision, the great mystic, Raymond Charles Barker said, “is the fulfillment of that decision.” It’s like a seed with everything in it to produce the plant. The one acorn that produces a whole forest. The Universe always answers yes.

What will we decide today? Will we forgive every part of our past? Will we let ourselves be born free today? Will we unleash our self-love on the world and heal it? It will only take one of us, so don’t wait for everyone else. I’m deciding today. Yes, I am ready. I am the Martin Luther King, the Buddha, the Jesus, and so are you. Every thought that has ever been thought, every great person that has ever lived, every bit of love and hate is right where we are. We get to choose what we will live, what we will embrace, if we will minister. We get to choose the self-healing.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita