I know these are more than difficult times. I am challenged as I never have been in my life. I know people are suffering. I just watched a video by a father who lost his twelve-year old son by suicide. I know about it all: the political upheaval, the racial injustice, the violence, the pandemic…ALL OF IT. I do not live in a bubble and I do not think that we can spiritually bypass all this by saying “it’s all good.”

However, what I REALLY KNOW is the only way out of this pandemic of lost consciousness is THROUGH IT, and the only way through it is to meet every experience from our highest, best, loving courageous self. It is not easy to be courageous at times like these. It is not easy to speak and act from our Truth. It might not easy to be kind. When someone “falls from grace” in our eyes, it might not be easy to say I still love you even though I do not agree with you. What about ourselves? When we fall from grace, do we forgive ourselves, and love ourselves more?

What I know is there is a bigger SELF waiting within each of us, a sleeping GIANT that has everything to bring forth a BELOVED COMMUNITY. But, this Giant, must wake itself up, take up its sword of love and move out into the world.

It takes practice to live truly from this highest Spiritual place. No one can take you there. They can point a figure and say look, but we have to take the necessary steps to make the move. It takes going deep. It takes meeting our own dragons and slaying them. It takes forgiveness and forgiveness again. It takes rising above jealousy, insecurities, prejudices, judgment and the only way to do this is to truly look within, admit to ourselves where we are truly living and then be willing to forgive, let go, move forward and never turn back. Self-Love is the great healer.

There is a sleeping giant within each of us. It is really waking up now. That sleeping Giant is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, beginning with ourselves. Do you know what that is? It is the kind of love that doesn’t expect anything in return. It is sufficient within itself. I look to those who have that kind of love: Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa. In my own life, I have had role models: my aunt, my grandma, my own mother. They pointed the way by their example. They made a difference in the world everywhere they walked. They didn’t start a movement, but they created an atmosphere of love wherever they walked. It made a difference to me. It encouraged me to be greater, to be my true self. We all have this capability. Our highest sleeping GIANT is our capability for unconditional love.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita