Click on the link - it's the music and lyrics but no vocals - YOU do the singing, my friend. And while you're singing, listen with your heart and wrap your mind around the concept of the words.
Last night at this time I was just doing what I do.
Then things changed.
Suddenly it felt as though hatred and anger were everywhere, inescapable. Thankfully I was at work and so HAD to do what I had to do.
A part of me wanted to do nothing more than to shout in the loudest Voice I could manage to find:
"HEY! All you haters out there, you who can't think of a single solitary thing to love or even like or even acknowledge as good about our nation, YOUR nation - yeah YOU!!! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? Are you pleased with what your hatred and angst have wrought? Are you feeling smug and self-satisfied that your rhetoric has taken root? IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT FOR YOUR NATION? Is it? Well whoopee for you, congratulations and all that."
Followed by a big long string of cuss words that I generally don't use.
When word came that islamic state was claiming 'credit' I shook my head.
No, I'm afraid this one was 'made in America' - not the America I and most of the rest of us know and love but an America of a newer vintage, an America whose darkness is the antithesis of the America whose light has been a beacon of Hope for all this time.
The night wore on.
The numbers climbed.
Video footage emerged.
Grief vied with outrage.
For a time, grief won.
Then outrage kicked in.
Something drove that man.
Something did harm to him.
And he did harm to others.
I can't, and wouldn't if I could, tell anyone else to shut up and sit down no matter how much I sometimes want to. I don't get to choose for anybody else what to think, or to feel, or to believe, or to say, or to do (so long as nobody is harmed, and even then it's not up to me to judge although I'm certainly entitled to my opinion). And I thank God that I live where none of us have the right to choose for anybody else.
Did I pray last night?
Yes.
Did it do any good?
Yes.
Were all of my prayers 'traditional'?
No.
A goodly portion of those prayers weren't anything my preacher-dad would have recognized. They might have made my Quaker ancestors blink, but they'd not have been appalled.
A heads up for you.
From here on in this post I'll be in preacher mode, or lecture mode ... whatever you want to call it.
...
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
People assume, for whatever reason, that 'the Word' means the Bible. The book is filled with words, this is true, but THE WORD is the Holy Trinity, Indivisible and Immutable.
Now, I'm just a little old lady and not an expert on anything, so nobody listens to me and I'm okay with that. There's a much greater Voice that makes up for my lack of one ;) so I've nothing to fret about.
The thing is that science does acknowledge that our world with all its ever-changing forms is solidly based on a premise of three. Triangles comprise the Spiral, phi, 1.618..., the Golden Mean, Perfect Balance, which governs the (can't create it, can't destroy it) energy that comprises everything in our world. Most of the time science goes with body and mind, but cannot and will not deny the third part which is Spirit. Even though it is not understood, the significance of that third part is as much a part of the equation as body and mind. What, for example, enables that 'spooky action at a distance' that Einstein wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole? Now we call it 'entanglement'. It's the effect of acknowledgement and engagement; I think of it as 'the power of prayer'.
That having been said, I think it is a gift to humankind to be able to 'personify' concepts so as to wrap our heads around them in a way that's meaningful to us. Does that in any way change the science of anything? No. Does it in any way change the nature of God? No. Our search for understanding is requisite only to us. That it IS requisite to us is pretty much a given as it's been a part of humankind from the get-go if our most ancient artifacts are any indication.
There's a Mystery both out there and in here, in our own selves, that we may never truly comprehend - we can also never deny it. That is the Mystery of the Spirit as a part of the Holy Trinity. The gift given us is the ability to recognize and acknowledge that third part of the equation. It's intuitive, a part of our human makeup.
Is our world itself a sentient being? I have no idea and neither do you. But that there is something, beyond what we can now comprehend, is that 'given' I was just talking about. Our search is insatiable, has been all along. That alone is a pretty fair indicator that the 'something' we seek to understand is quite very real and quite very much an active participant in our world. Even when we can't 'pin it down' we intuitively sense that it is there.
Whether you 'see' or 'interpret' that force as Energy (governed by phi) or as God is essentially irrelevant. It's the search itself, the acknowledgement that the search is on-going, that provides validity.
The Spirit aspect of the Trinity has as many functions as the other two aspects. One of those functions is to Guide. So when we search for Truth, it behooves us to be in a frame of mind to follow that guidance, no matter what.
If you know me at all you know full well that I don't happen to think that the propensity for humankind to 'personify' in terms of what we're familiar with (family, biological elements, etc.) can possibly be 'right' if we're going with the Father and the Son but not including the Mother as an equal in that triangle. I do understand that the society of the time the current 'interpretation' came to strength was patriarchal. I'm not concerned that the Mother has been in any way changed. We can't do that any more than we can change the Spiral that defines and maintains the balance of our world. It's just a personal irritation for me is all, that our personification process seems to have gotten stuck in the rut of 'male'.
Even so, the personified Son gives us knowledge, and warning:
Mark 3:28-30: "Truly I tell you, all sins and blasphemes will be forgiven for the sons of men. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin."
Even the patriarchs who put the pages of words together did not leave out that telling bit. Of course they weren't necessarily intending for the Spirit to be presented as female, but the fact remains: they left it in.
Because the Trinity cannot really be separated, it's maybe a little hard to get a visual. However, the three parts are distinct from one another even though they are one and the same. Yeah, hard to wrap our heads around because it's kind of hard for us to envision discrete and separate entities and one entity that cannot be divided at the same time. We'll 'separate them' here for a moment, for clarity.
It's like there's the Father and the Son taking all the hits we can throw at them, all the insults, all the hatred, all the denial, all the physical and intellectual attacks, and they just stand there and take it, and forgive. And there's the Mother too. A part of the Trinity, and apart from it, same as the Father and the Son. And she's the one you really don't want to mess with. It's not that she is any more unforgiving than the Father and the Son, but (and this might come across as patronizing but it isn't) it's like if you mess with the Mother the wrath of all three of them will descend on you.
Over a century ago a guy by the name of Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem, a line of which is appropriate for our current purposes:
'The female of the species is more deadly than the male.'
We still refer to Mother Nature.
And we all know better than to antagonize Mama Bear by messing with her young.
Instinctively perhaps, we do acknowledge the Mother, even when our 'organized religions' aren't totally on board with it.
And what, of course you're asking, does any of this have to do with God Bless America?
I'll try to explain what I'm getting at here.
Lots of people mock prayer, and that's okay. They just pray in a different way, and that's okay too. Whether you're invoking a deity or activating entanglement, it's all the same thing. You're using your own energy on behalf of another and that's what counts. God Bless America is a prayer. Thinking good thoughts for another is a prayer. Hoping for a positive outcome is a prayer. Cheering your team to victory is a prayer. Or whatever you want to call it. Refer to it however you want, all of us are praying all the time.
Now, among the words of the book that was assembled from many others, are some that include reference to 'armor'. Interestingly, while the 'armor' pieces are indeed all there, a weapon is also included -
That Sword of Justice and that Dove of Peace are one and the same thing, with Mercy (not pictured) in between them. They are aspects of the Mother as they are aspects of the Trinity. The Son has been identified as the Word - but do not forget that the Trinity is inviolable. What is applied to one applies to all. I find it interesting that the part of the Trinity presented as being armed is the Spirit - the Mother. Everything else is protective, defensive 'equipment'. That sword of the Spirit, however, is a weapon. Intended to be used for defensive purposes, it is nevertheless the only part of this particular equation that's likely to be lethal. And the Mother wields it.
"the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God"
*laughing*
I often think that the complex simplicity of quantum physics is a lot easier to 'get' than the complex simplicity of God. Trying to explain is complex. Knowing is simple, once you get the gist of it.
What happened in Vegas last night at about this time did not just happen out of nowhere. The energy that man loosed on tens of thousands of our folk, and on all of the rest of us by association, did not just suddenly spring into being (can't create energy; can't destroy it; it just changes forms). I do not know the story of that man, but I surely felt and recognized that form of energy.
We call it hate and it seeks to divide and conquer.
It is the flip side of the coin that makes up our nation and our world, the opposing darkness constantly battling the light as balance on all levels must be kept. The thing about that darkness is that the stronger it becomes the stronger becomes the reaction to it. Whatever drove that one man to use that energy in such a way ran smack up against the equally (perhaps more) powerful energy of those who stepped up to combat what it wrought. Instinct and/or training kicked in (I have a strong hunch that it's both - I don't think a person trains to protect unless that instinct is already strong in them, and even without training the instinct will take over when need be) and ... people did what needed doing when it needed doing. Last night's attack and the response to it doesn't stand alone. There are countless incidents, large and small, past and present (and doubtless future), that illustrate challenges to and the defense of the balance required and enforced by the concept of phi (for lack of a better term).
Mine own response lies in the opening of this post. Go back up there and read it again if you want to. In between the traditional prayers was a concentrated, specifically directed prayer of a different kind. Whether or not either had any effect I haven't a clue. It was just what I did. The non-traditional prayers were for that loosed energy to 'flip' from bad to good, from hate to love, from dark to light. Energy can and does change forms, and directions for that matter (look up entanglement and particle-wave things). Even putting mine own energy into 'flipping' took some doing - because that wrath was very much a factor.
Yes I know this is getting long.
I don't care.
See, energy itself is just 'there' everywhere. It's inherently both positive and negative and as such is balanced. How we choose to use it at any given time, for good or ill, is variable and that we do indeed have a degree of 'control' over, certainly on a personal level and perhaps on an entanglement (prayer) level as well. I chose, and still do choose, to weigh in on the side of the possibility that entanglement (prayer) is a more powerful force than we give it credit for. Doesn't hurt anything or anyone, and might help.
So yeah.
I pray.
God Bless America Land That I Love
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