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Trinity 14, Renewal of Heart
Our intent for the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
is Renewal of Heart, and if ever we have needed, and received, renewal
of heart, it was this past week.
Although the terroristic attacks were unspeakable,
people have come together all over the country in ways that have
not been done in many of our lifetimes. On Tuesday, just a few hours
after the attacks, several hundred of us at the University of Minnesota,
where I work, gathered at noon for an interfaith prayer service.
This was repeated, here and everywhere, all across the country,
all the rest of the week.
Friday night I went door to door on our long block
and asked people to join at 9 p.m. in coming outside and lighting
a candle. An e-mail chain letter had been circulating this request
across the nation. It was heartwarming to look up and down the block
in the dark and see the glow of many, many candles, the glow of
hope.
The hope that springs in my heart is that people
will stop being selfish and self-centered and share their gifts
around the world. Our Mother Earth has given us all we need, but
we must never take more than we need, never give in to greed, which
means that others will not have what they need as a consequence.
There have been prayers this week, in abundance,
but there have also been justified words of recrimination from those
who have suffered from the greed of others. At first I was surprised
to see those angry words, but I quickly realized that they were
coming from people who have long been oppressed by the greedy and
who do have legitimate, long-standing concerns that did not go away
just because everyone was focused on this terrible tragedy. And
so I do not dismiss their words.
It was a week of cowardice and a week of heroism;
it still is. One of the readings I came across this week, by Jamie
Sams in "Earth Medicine," was very appropriate.
She says this, in an essay for the Ninth Moon entitled "Subjugating
Another's Will"-
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Using tone of voice, personal intent, physical
attitude, emotional threat, or intimidation to subjugate another's
will is an act of cowardice. The self-serving coward may feel
that the battle is won, but, in truth, no one wins!
Any time a human being resorts to trying
to win through intimidation, we can be assured that the person
is a coward who is using emotional blackmail to exert control
over others. Trying to subjugate the will of another person
is a tactic used by insecure tyrants. The Divine Trickster
has a few lessons for this pathetic individual.
We may be assured that a bigger, meaner
bully will come along to give smaller bullies a lesson in
their own bad Medicine, but this is not the way of the Trickster.
The Trickster insists that the lessons learned are usually
from the consequences of one's own actions. By trying to force
another's will into submission, the abuser gives authority
to their own shadow side, eventually becoming the victim.
The Trickster gets the last laugh when the controller becomes
the one who is controlled.
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Last Sunday I had phoned Wally and asked him if
he would be willing to switch sermons with me, for next week is
our daughter's wedding and I didn't see how I'd be able to write
one in time for that day. After the events on Tuesday, I wondered
if I would be able to write for this week at all. Truthfully, I
didn't know if I had the strength to do it. Yet, here I am-I sat
down yesterday and listened to what my heart dictated. I do not
know if I am able to give words of comfort, or words of explanation.
But on Tuesday evening as the Saint Paul Theosophical Society had
a meditation at our home, a few words from Our Lady's Rosary
of the Seven Rays came to me: "Help us to bear the pain
of evolution."
This is evolution on a worldwide scale. None of us, all over the
world, is the same person we were last Sunday. Most of us are angered
and saddened by the loss of life, loss of innocence, even. Most
of us are praying for a peaceful solution, a solution without any
more horror attached to it. The prayer gatherings, peace rallies,
candlelight vigils show that. We all pray this will not lead to
war and more destruction. My inclination is to continue to pray,
to continue to talk-to our friends, neighbors, and yes, even strangers
we encounter.
When I went around to my neighbors on Friday evening, I found it
a hard and scary thing to do-I know most of my immediate neighbors,
but we have a double-length block, and I do not know many of the
people at the other end. And I confess it was not easy for me to
go to houses I had only driven or walked by before, ring their bells,
and hand out my little flyer and ask them to come out at 9. Yet,
I strengthened my resolve and persevered.
When I returned home, I realized that no one had assailed me; everyone
had thanked me. I had even learned more about the Jewish faith.
When I approached the Rabbi at the far end of the block on the corner
as he was returning home from Temple, I apologized for interrupting
his Sabbath and explained what I was doing. He kindly responded
to me that the Sabbath had already started, and they had already
lit candles.
We are all in this together. We all progress on our evolutionary
path when good prevails over evil, and we all lose a little of that
progress when evil manifests. Yet we must, we must, continue
to do what is right, because that is our duty, our dharma-to
do right for its own sake.
Please pray for all who died-this past week and in the past as well.
We, as a country, are not innocent of all wrong-doing-no one is.
But we can and must resolve to do better, to go on from here. The
past is gone; we mourn the dead, we pray for the wounded. But we
are here, and it is now. Everything to come hangs on this moment-our
future is determined by our actions, feelings, and thoughts at this
moment. Let us go forward positively; let us go forward in love.
I would like to close with something I have shared with you before.
I keep this short prayer at my desk at work and at home. I recited
it repeatedly this past week. May it give you, as it does me, strength
and resolve. From The Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood edited
by Mary Strong-
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I am on duty; Thy hand I feel upon my shoulder.
Let Thy peace flow through my heart to all about me. I know
Thou livest and though I cannot see the working of the divine
plan I know that my being on duty is part of the resurrection
and the awakening that is to come.
I therefore dedicate myself, in this hour of seeming despair,
to faith, to joy, and to the knowledge that I am alive in
Thee. I will resolve not to quail, nor to dwell in idle foreboding.
I dedicate every living hour to this resolve, to holding the
portals of my heart wide open that I may be a channel for
Thy spirit. I dedicate myself to Thy service. I trust in Thee;
I am on duty.
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And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Ghost, three Persons in one God, be ascribed all honor,
might, majesty, power, and dominion, now and forevermore. Amen.
Judie A. C. Cilcain
Deaconess
September 16, 2001
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