Elections, Reactions, Oneness and What Brings Me Joy?

This past Friday was Veterans’ Day, the capstone of a most remarkable week. Veterans’ Day is a day when we focus on expressing gratitude to all those who serve in the military – those who are giving and have given so much so that we have the freedom to contentiously battle our way through the campaigning and election process.  Our gratitude for such service needs to be daily rather than a particular day.

On the election front, in many circumstances, the process seems to have brought forth aspects of our populations’ personalities that aren’t a demonstration of our best behaviors.  The media frenzy before the election was so intense that many of us were feeling battered and abused.  Many commented on how good it was going to be for the whole process to be complete.   Based on all the statistics produced by the pollsters, many people thought that the outcome would be decisive … decisively electing the first woman president of the United States.  By Wednesday the shock and disbelief of Democrats and Republicans, too, was that the woman candidate had won the popular vote by a slim margin, but not the electoral vote.  No one seemed prepared for that outcome.  We all assumed the pollsters had been sharing accurate information.  As someone said in a meeting today, “We all drank the cool-aid” and as commentator Chris Matthews has said repeatedly, “How could the pollsters have been so wrong!?!?”  Since the election, I have spent a lot of reflective time, being with myself, watching my reactions when conversations venture into the how could that happen, what does it mean … and then the awfulizing about what the future holds.  The process has stirred a whole gamut of emotions ranging from those who have been personally traumatized, those who are frightened, those who are totally jazzed, those who finally feel heard, those who (like the some Brits with “Brexit”) thought they were expressing their dissatisfaction with status quo and did not anticipate this outcome,  and the list goes on.  There are those, who like me, invite change knowing that growth does not come from stagnation, but instead from challenge.  Chaos evolves into new possibilities … for it is the nature of chaos to evolve not devolve.

And I remember … I remember Oneness.  I am one with those who share my perspective and I am one with those whose views could not be farther from mine.  We are all one – one with our creator and therefore, one with one another.  And, since we are all in this together, we need to come together in conversations and open to how, as activities of that One Creator, we can be the facilitators of positive change.

The theme of “What brings you JOY?” was selected many weeks ago long before and without paying attention to when this would be posted – election week.  When I first realized the timing, there was this pang of “Oh my, I probably ought to change the theme.”  Then I started thinking that it is perfect.  It creates the dialogue vessel in which we can peel away stories and their resulting emotions to reveal what brings us joy and to remember that “joy” is an inside job … we bring it to what we are doing rather than getting it from the outside.

The journey to joyful living is a spiritual exploration (an inward journey) … a spiritual treasure hunt  in which you are assured of discovering the treasure!  We get to fling open the conversations, airing some of the confusion, releasing blaming and confronting the stories we’ve been hearing and those we’ve been creating.  We get to probe around among our beliefs, our fears, maybe our anger, to reveal joy.  We get to remember that change always comes bearing gifts.

Our human journey is fraught with contradictions, contrasts, polar opposites pulling us apart from within.  Constantly, we are challenged to decide which direction to go.

A sense of hopelessness can seem to invade our innermost  beingness.   We must be rigorous reminding ourselves that NOTHING on the outside can violate the Divine Within … nothing can disrupt our inner Self without our permission/invitation.  When we dive into the swirl of others’ emotions, we are inviting “circumstance” to rattle our cage and, perhaps, trigger feelings we may have thought were laid to rest years ago.  Facts, on their own, do not stir our emotions.  It is what we have told ourselves in the past about those facts that can open the flood gates of emotions from the highest highs to our deepest darkest emotions.

Whether we say it eloquently, such as, “Principle is not limited by precedent,” or very ordinarily as, “Spirit is not limited by the past,” it comes down to: Spirit is not limited by anything past or present!  Since we are the expression of Spirit, we are not limited by our past, except to the extent that we engage with it and bring it into the present.

Ernest Holmes: “All of the power of the universe is with you. Feel it, know it, and then act as though it were true.”  We are imbued with the power of discernment.  We have the ability to learn from the past without re-empowering it in the present.  We get to decide how we relate to all circumstance.  We control that relationship; circumstances only have the power we give them.  Ask yourself, “What are my choices in this moment setting in motion?”

Wednesday morning, I awakened and confirmed … the pollster had been wrong! All of those educated prognosticators had hoodwinked a nation into believing their statistics.  They made a mistake and so there was a sense of shock and disbelief.  I am very pleased that I didn’t go into fear or anger like so many people I know.  Spirit within shouted within me: “How am I to be?”  It demanded: “What is mine to do?”  I felt a call to action – to meditate to get clarity, do my spiritual practices and act upon what was revealed to me.  I knew I had to listen and discern next steps and to be orderly about it and not run off in all directions.  I had to be a mindful observer of self and others, and remember to decline what isn’t mine.”  The deepest call was to expand my own consciousness so that I can be a clearer vessel and better serve.

My spiritual practices led me to these words of Ernest Holmes: “The highest attitude of mind, from which all else springs, is one of perfect calm and absolute trust in the Spirit. The one who can with perfect confidence look into the future and with perfect ease of mind rest in the present, and who never looks backward, but who has learned to be still in his own soul and wait upon the Spirit, he is the one who will the most completely demonstrate the supremacy of spiritual thought over all so-called material resistance. ‘Be still and know that I Am God.” 

Then, I remembered, “the source of JOY is within” … it’s already implanted in us by Spirit.  What we experience as joy is the other-than-conscious recognition of something in our environment that aligns with the Truth we already know.  It’s a demonstration of Divine Alignment.  What could bring a deeper sense of joy than to step up to serving to be a catalyst for positive social change.  The world we knew is experiencing change.  It was launched suddenly and abruptly altered what we were used to; we have been jarred out of complacency which is a good (although not a very pleasant) thing.  It’s time to greet the process and consciously choose how to be and consciously act on what is revealed to us in prayer and meditation.  All I can say is, “Wow! I can’t imagine anything that has the potential to bring greater joy!”

This entry was posted in Latest News, Ministers Musings on November 17, 2016 by CSL Metro.