I have to admit, I have felt a bit suppressed lately. I am struggling with a conflict of interest. For over 23 years I have studied and practiced a Science that teaches that God is Good and that I live in an Infinite Mind which I can use for my good and the good of others. I have lived by this philosophy and proved it in my own life. I have demonstrated this Truth over and over and it is ingrained in me.

I know that all dis-ease begins in mind and that the Infinite Law when directed will bring healing to all who will receive. I believe and know that I am life and that, as Ernest Holmes wrote, “Spirit thinks or knows within Itself, and, as a result of this inner action, Creation manifests. Creation is the play of Life upon Itself, through Divine Self-Imagination. Spirit must create in order to be expressed. …Spirit makes things out of Itself by becoming the thing It makes.”

As I said, I live by this. It is my Truth. So now, since the exposure of COVID 19 and all that has come after in the way of alterations to my ability to live and express myself, I stand in a quandary of which I know I have to apply Principle to in order to continue my work. “When things look the worst is the time to do my best work.” I am doing my best work. If Principle is true at all, it is true all the time.  I have been praying hard to carve out my path in all of this.

So, I am at a crossroads and I must either follow to the things I hold true or be a hypocrite. It is with this introduction that I tell you that something has to give. Something has to give in order for me to express God in the highest way. If Creation is Life’s play upon Itself, through Divine Self-Imagination and if I am Life and if I am self-imagining, then I need to do some serious re-imagining in order to get myself out of this quandary.

I understand that COVID 19 is being experienced. I understand that people are dying. Death is being experienced for other reasons. I just lost a friend yesterday from cancer.  I understand that COVID is contagious to a weakened immune system. I also know that I am strong, that I believe I am well and even if I were, through a weakened immune system, experience COVID 19, I would walk through it to the other side. I am not afraid of it. I am not afraid to die, but I am afraid of not living.

I am concerned with the attitude of many and the easiness with which we acquiesce to this new normal. This is what I am contemplating right now and coming to my own decisions about. Because “One alone in consciousness with the Infinite constitutes a complete majority,” I know how important my one is.

I know how important it is for me to think correctly, not just about myself, but about everyone and everything. I know how important it is to project love, kindness, and thoughts and statements of healing and perfect health in every instant. I know how important it is because I know that what goes on in my head goes into the one Field of Intelligence, which we all share. I don’t have to prove this is true. It’s already been known and taught by the mystics and Science has given it proof. Knowing this, how could I think anything that would in some way inflict harm on another. I have to keep my thoughts stayed on Truth, on God and on Love and on freedom for all.

Nothing is permanent and things are not getting worse. From the -re-rearing of the ugly head of racism to the pandemic, I have to know that something is being birthed and it has to be good. This is not the first time that we have experienced any of this. Why does history continue to repeat itself? Because we are not permanently willing to BE THE CHANGE.

I believe that is happening now. I have to stay clear and free in my thought and therefore create a world that is expressing freedom. I have to stop myself from going down the doom and gloom tube with others and find those who honestly want to rise now into the greater Truth, which is love, health, freedom and peace. I have to fill my mind with Truth from the moment I wake up in the morning until the moment I put my head down at night.

I am free because I am an individualized expression of an Infinite Intelligence, who has birthed me as mind with all its attributes, the greatest one being the freedom to choose and to experience the effects of my choice. I, Spirit, cannot be constrained. I am free Spirit.

This is true for our Forefathers and Foremothers of New Thought. It wasn’t convenient to think and act differently. It wasn’t easy for Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson to claim that they were their own Divine Authority, that they were nonconformists, that they knew that the human mind, the ability to choose, was worth more than the scorn of those who did not believe the same.

All the great souls that have walked this earth have practiced both compassion for others while standing in their truth. They did not fight fire with fire. They didn’t fight at all. They simply lived as their Divine Selves and allowed the Creativeness of their Spirit to flow through them into action. It wasn’t easy and some died, were jailed or simply ostracized for their truth. However, we remember them and they touch our souls still, calling out to finally finish what they started.

Ernest Holmes wrote, We know, by intuition, that there is something beyond what we have so far consciously experienced in this world. Poets have sung of it and there are moments, in the lives of all, when the veil seems thin between and we almost enter into the heavenly estate. This is the meaning of coming to one’s self.”

I have come to myself for sure. I do not know how else to live. I’ve been through too much to not know the Truth now. As we know, “A mind once expanded cannot return to its original size.”

Truth known demonstrates. I am not afraid of what is next and I stand in liminal space, the unknown with a firm intention to continue in my creativeness as a Spiritual Being. I open up to that next. I know it is not combative. Truth is Peace expressed.

I remember a story told by Gregg Braden, relayed to him by a scholar of ancient civilizations as recorded on the walls of caves and old parchment. He told the story of a civilization who survived a great upheaval. Some of the people had no heads. They were falling into the abyss. The others, with heads on, marched into the new world. The man said that those with no heads had forgotten who they were. The others were the ones who remembered who they were – Divine, God, Powerful. We are being called to take our Power back. Not the Power that wields itself over others, but the quiet knowing that moves us into loving action and living.

Ernest Holmes wrote, “We are still in the awakening state, and we have not yet consciously entered the state of perfect wholeness. We know that such a state is a reality, and that we shall yet attain this reality. Nothing can dislodge this inner and intuitive perception from our mentality; we know it as certainly as we know that we live. This is God in us knowing itself. We are awakening to the realization that the Universe is perfect and complete. It gives. It is love. It is good and wills only good to all alike.”

Creation is Life’s play upon itself. We cannot live an unexpressed life as Spiritual beings. I hold true to the knowing that we’ve got it this time and that is what I am imagining. A world that works for everyone in health, peace and love. A world of self-expression with the intention to be the best we can be and bring out the best in others. I stick to this and I know that as one person puts that kind of vibration into the field it is felt and it does move mountains.

As the master teacher and mystic and healer Jesus said, “If you have the faith of the grain of a mustard seed and say to that mountain move ye hence, it will be moved.” It is already moving. I feel it. I join with like mines to transmute the boulder of hate into love. I stand for freedom.

Where do you stand? What do you see for the coming world? Are you free to express yourself? Do you care one way or the other? Do you love life? Are you creating the experiences that you want to see reflected back to you? What do you believe and can you live from that belief? Do you know who you are?

In Love and Truth,

Rev. Rita