“On the day you were born, you were given the power to create yourself.” Bangamakiki Habyarimana

Rev. Dr. Peggy Price shared this quote with us yesterday at CSL Kaua`i in honor of our Sunday’s message: “It’s Your Birthday!”

I love this quote because it is succinct and speaks to me clearly in the the middle of this Pandemic we are all experiencing. On the day we were born, yes, we were given the power to create ourselves. What greater gift could we have?

We are definitely using this gift in every moment whether we are conscious of it or not. We do not have to be conscious of it to use it. It is a gift and reveals itself to us through the life we experience. When we consciously use it, we are so much more powerful in creating the lives we wish to experience. How many of us live by happenstance? Founder of Religious Science, Ernest Holmes once wrote, “Trained thought is more powerful than untrained thought.” It might be time to train ourselves to think from a higher place.

Over the last few years, I have been become more and more interested in the experiments and findings of Quantum Science and Quantum Mechanics. Take this for example: “The observer effect in quantum mechanics indicates that the quantum wavefunction collapses when an observation is made by an observer.” My husband and I sat and stared at a vase of flowers on our table and took in the idea that it was just waves of energy, collapsing into form as we observed it. I took a deep breath and thought about how significant this was.

This is significant to me in regards to our reaction as a global community to the COVID19 virus. We are all experiencing it in different ways. Some of us more impactfully than others. However, one thing is true for all of us and that is if we’ve been given the gift with the power to create ourselves, then it wouldn’t all of a sudden not be true in regards to this moment in our evolution. If we’ve been given the power to create ourselves, we have the opportunity to experience COVID19 anyway we choose to do so. We might not be able to change the physical facts for the world, but we can change our response to what is and, therefore collapse those waves into new possibilities.

Are we afraid? Are we looking at it through the eyes of fear? Is it stopping us from expressing our lives fully? Or are we resilient and are we reinventing ourselves in spite of it all? Can we imagine that it might not be here as soon as next week, or are we thinking things are getting worse and new strains are coming? Are we a slave to COVID19 or are we moving forward with our lives into greater and greater expressions of ourselves. Many of us are, as I see new waves of creativity sweeping the globe.

Let’s go back to the lyrics of an old song from the sixties sung by Janic Joplin “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…” Are we free or are in a state of the consciousness of fear of losing something. Whether we fear losing this earthly life, or our businesses, or our families and friends, or anything in this earthly form, we are not free. And, please don’t translate what I’m saying to we do not care what happens to us or our loved ones. Of course, we care and have feelings about everything. Of course, we are compassionate and what to assist where we can whenever someone is suffering.

However, true freedom is complete and total surrender to the truths of eternity. Freedom is knowing that our journey doesn’t end here; that we travel on an eternal road of expansion. Freedom is living each day as if it were our last and living it fully no matter what is going on in the world of conditions. Freedom is a commitment to responsibly using the gift of creating ourselves. For me, this responsibility would be to lovingly observe the waves of possibility that are presenting themselves and envisioning something new, expansive and meaningful for ourselves and our world. If we’ve been given this gift of creation, and I believe we have, then it is our responsibility to use it with honor, love and respect and an imagination filled with possibilities of good for all.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita