The Redemption of A Planet
It is often in the midst of change that we find the greatest expression of our true capabilities. While things remain static or smooth, we are not compelled to find what we are truly made of or to see beyond the immediate needs of the moment. However, when change is required of us or when we experience a need to leap into a new way of being based on our heart’s longing and without our mind’s having established a basis for knowing why, then we are forced to find within ourselves the courage, clarity, purposefulness, faith, trust, love, and hope that will meet this inner longing and allow us to take the next step.
We cannot know what changes will be required of us in life, or even realize, in many cases, those we may have missed as the opportunity for them passed us by. We can only know how to be in the present, with present opportunities for growth and change.
We cannot know what changes will be required of us in life, or even realize, in many cases, those we may have missed as the opportunity for them passed us by. We can only know how to be in the present, with present opportunities for growth and change. Sometimes, these opportunities will come to us on a strictly personal level, relating only to our own life, place of work, living circumstances, or decisions about the immediate future. But sometimes we are caught up in a vast sweep of history which comes to the world as a whole, and in this upheaval we have the choice to either seize the opportunity for growth that comes with this sweeping tide of change, or to fear it and to try to stay exactly in the same place that we were. When sweeping change or upheaval that affects many people occurs, it is not likely that we can actually remain in the same place — the place that we have been or the way of life that we have held. It is more likely that we will struggle to hold onto an illusion that this is possible, even while knowing in the background of our awareness that it is not. It is much better to nourish ourselves with truth rather than with illusions and to see what good can come from the changes that we are asked to make unbidden, unexpected, unanticipated, and often unhoped for. For their virtue does not lie in our initially hoping for them or in welcoming them, but in our subsequently holding faith that they will, in some unknown way, become beneficial.
This tide of change is rising today. It is a shift in consciousness that is being made manifest. It may be invisible because we are, for the most part, still able to lead our individual and personal lives in the ways that we have set out to do. There may be setbacks, but there are not major interruptions. The upheavals are still ‘out there’, rather than affecting us in the heart of where we live. And yet the tide of change has no boundaries, no ‘out there’ and ‘in here’, for it is less a matter of affecting what we do, and more a matter of recognizing the alterations that are taking place within us, ones that we are inextricably connected to whether we call it a shift in consciousness or not.
What is this consciousness shift? On one level it is about choices. First, about the choice for hope versus the loss of hope. One direction of this choice takes us toward holding fast to God’s plan for the earth and to an understanding of what the conditions of purification are which cause darkness to manifest before being replaced by light. Another direction takes us toward fear or despair, a view in which many situations seem to be spiraling out of control without any end in sight.
Second, about the choice to trust our own sense of what is true and real as distinct from what we are told is true and real by governments, public officials, media, etc. The polarization of falsehood and truth requires of us a deepening awareness of how to discern light and darkness and how to expand the degree of confidence with which we make this determination.
Third, we are asked to view life either in terms of God’s presence within it, or God’s absence from it. This is especially true as we view the rising tide of violence in the Middle East and as we view the progressive revelations of misconduct, misdeeds, and willingness to abuse power in those who govern here at home in the U.S. and within the military abroad — both in subservience to a false ideal that claims to be true.
These choices come to us as part of the configuration of light and darkness on the earth at this time. The light is moving us in one direction — the direction of God and truth, hope and love, the darkness in another. The reason that these choices are so present for us today is because the light that is activating the global process of purification has gotten stronger. In its strengthening, it has called forth the counterforces of darkness that seek to stop its expansion and at the same time has required of us that we choose which way of viewing the world and life we are ready to hold. From deep within us, the answer comes to align ourselves with an awareness of God’s presence on the earth, even while what is manifesting in outer reality is often the darkness that is seeking to cover the light. In the face of this, we may well ask how we know that light is present, if all that we see is darkness and often the abuse of what we hold most dear.
The answer lies in our own hearts as we move through our days, in our sense of caring for others, and in our greater opening to love. The answer also lies in our caring for the earth, in our intimate concern for what is happening to her physically, energetically, emotionally. In the midst of darkness, many of us are identifying more with planetary consciousness. We are caring more about what is happening to others. We are feeling more of our common concern about the source of lies, falsifications, and distortions. We are wanting more peace and light. We are searching for God’s presence with a fuller heart. These are the changes that are taking place within many, today, and they are changes produced by the greater inflow of light. They are movements toward love and toward identification with a greater whole. They are taking place in the presence of greater darkness and yet they are movements of the heart that cannot be erased by that darkness.
The presence of light awakens the human heart. It awakens its willingness to trust that there is an alternative to fear or despair. It infuses our sense that all human affairs are part of a larger plan and this plan is not one for the destruction of the world or for the punishment of sinners in a Day of Judgment of the kind that is so often spoken of. No, this plan is about kindness and about redemption — not redemption that takes place in the fires of hell but redemption that takes place in a human heart that turns away from its destructive purposes toward the purposes of love. This is true redemption. It is the complete and total change of orientation with respect to the heart that allows it to let go of what it once thought was all important in order to experience something that now seems more real — namely, love.
Redemption brings to souls who have forgotten its value, the experience of love. It brings to souls who have given up hope, the understanding that there is a different way of being in the world. Redemption reinstitutes love as the basic premise of life. It is the single most important factor that will eliminate the tide of darkness that is presently affecting the world.
Such redemption is being set in motion now as the currents of light and love upon the earth get stronger. And yet the process is not simply dependent upon our human effort in order to manifest this awaited change. We are the ground level of a much vaster plan for the greater infusion of light into the earth’s atmosphere and energy body. This infusion has been ordained by God since the beginning of time. It is part of the earth’s evolutionary cycle. And while it is supported by the ground level efforts that all who hold the light can make, it is, neverthless, fundamentally an act of initiation and of grace that comes to the earth because it is time. Herein lies another choice — whether to hold faith with this event that is awaited, or whether to feel that all that is, is up to human decision-making. The choice is ours.
In the midst of violence, duplicity, torture, misrepresentation of facts by those in high places, the abridgment of civil rights, lack of concern for the value of individual lives — in the presence of all of this, those who still hold fast to God’s plan for the world, who pursue love, and who still identify with the heart of God that loves the world, carry the light that shines in the darkness. They become part of the first wave of the transition into a new way of being.
It may not be many who feel this way at first, but it is enough for the world to begin to care about what is happening to itself. It is enough for us each to care about what is happening to the others who are across an ocean and who are dispossessed of dignity, authority over their own lives, and even of the right to live. To the extent that we care and that we continue to love as an expression of our desire that all be fed, that all have a safe place to sleep, that all have a way of sustaining themselves in life, we are manifesting the consciousness shift that is part of what increased light will bring to this planet, namely, a global consciousness of oneness built out of love and the perception of a common Source.
May all beings understand the importance of love and of their unique and individual contribution to its manifestation on the planet. May all recognize love as a force which can affect the entire consciousness of mankind, moving us toward a new era of peace.