Because We Are Spiritualists...
I am still recovering from Pastor Robin’s Sunday sermon. There were many moments in which I just held my babbling son and tears fell out of my eyes, whispering shh, and listening, transfixed. Why? Because I know that I for one am not perfect. Because even though I am a closet, wanna be perfectionist craving an idealistic Utopia in which my children, all children, could safely grow their free spirits while playing wherever and whenever they want to play, there are so many things about myself, my family, and this world that makes living with a sense of freedom feel to dangerous.
Spiritualists stand up and say what is right because without that, nothing will get better. If we just close our eyes and visualize Utopia, it will not manifest before us. If we just close our eyes and pray for the good things, the things we wish for, the things we need to have happen for the greater good of the planet, our cultures, and yes, even our own personal best interests, it won't happen. Law of Attraction will fly out the window if all we do is pray. I cannot stress enough that the only way things are going to change in this world is by talking about it. And yet we face the end of Net Neutrality.
It is challenging to take the big mistakes that I have made and accept them. It is challenging to take the small mistakes that I have made and accept them. It is challenging (for me) to keep my mouth shut when I see other people making mistakes. So, I have learned that I must be totally willing to accept criticism. It is about dropping the EGO. It is about knowing in my heart that everyone makes mistakes, and the only way to correct a mistake is to accept it. To live with it. To know in my heart that I have learned a lesson and will not make it again. To know that there were reasons why a mistake happened, but the most important thing is to be sure it doesn't happen again. To take one mistake at a time and work to correct it. To remember to be gentle with others in correcting their mistakes. To always correct the biggest mistake first. To be proud of wounds healed and progress.
We are of service to our children. When we die, they are stuck with this mess of a planet that our ancestors have made. They are sorry, and they want to help us fix it. The ancestors want to teach us how to reverse the spiral of death and destruction and environmental degradation that has gone far enough. It isn't that we are going to kill the world and ourselves. The real problem is that we aren't actually going to die. We have to live in the mess. It is beyond gross. We all know – time to wake up. The alarm clock has been going off. We have been hitting snooze. We can't do that anymore. We must wake up and go to work. We have to talk about about it. Find small AND BIG ways to exist in balance with the other plants and animals in our ecosystem. Find small AND BIG ways to co-exist with the other people around us. Adopt attitudes of compassion toward others. Let go of harming others and chemicals as viable solutions to problems. Open our hearts to ourselves in accepting our mistakes, offering and acting upon loving attitudes toward those around us, and exhibit a genuine care for the lessons of ecology. Fix the big problems first.
I don't know how to look at world leaders and the wealthiest people in the world and say these things. They would laugh at me. I don't know how to convince my husband to accept himself after he worked hard to be the first person in his family to earn a Master's degree and then did not get a professional job to accept himself and stop drinking every night. He put a lot into his life, and he thought he would be rewarded. Now he talks about how I should not be surprised when he kills himself. I don't know how to help him when he has already made the decision that he does not want to help himself. He cannot face the pain of more hard work. It is hard for me to face his pain. The feeling of his pain fills my home when he's gone and get amplified by the music and movies he feeds his mind with when I hide away.
I do know that I myself am part of the problem in this world, too. I want to pretend that I don't know how to stop using plastic bags, styrofoam, and non-organic food. My apartment complex sprays chemicals on the lawns to kill outdoor insects all the time. I don't want to let my kids play in the grass. The neighbors, my friends complain about rodents. Someone poisoned a chipmunk and it died right in front of the window to my dining room. What am I supposed to do? This is the world in which I live. I am a Spiritualist, and I will use my voice to speak up. That is the only way things can start to get better.
