by Rev. Jan Mahannah
Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity : “Grace is the pure unconditional love of God perpetually operative and expressing towards all humankind.” “ The grace of God is God’s love in action.”
You’ve heard the old expression “There but for the Grace of God go I”… that saying is in essence a recognition that Grace IS the regenerative power of love that literally saves us from the full measure of our own mistakes. How many of us in our ignorance or impatience or daring-do have done things for which – thankfully – we never received the full measure of that mistake?
Consider the possibility that our physical bodies as well our choices in doing things, never receive the full measure of our mistakes made in caring for our bodies through the years.
“The Isaiah Effect” by Gregg Braden, “To many researchers, recent extremes documented in our solar system, weather patterns, geophysical shifts, and social patterns have no frame of reference in Western models of understanding. However – Ancient and indigenous traditions such as those of the native North and South Americans, the Tibetans, and the Qumran communities of the Dead Sea offer a framework that allows us to make sense of the apparent chaos in our world. These teachings provide a unified view of creation, reminding us that our bodies are made of the same materials as our earth – nothing more and nothing less.
“Fourth-century documents preserved in the private Vatican libraries offer details of this relationship reminding us that “the spirit of the Son Of Man was created from the spirit of the Heavenly Father, and his body from the body of the Earthly Mother; Man is the Son of the Earthly Mother, and from her did the Son of Man receive his whole body. You are one with the earthly mother; she is in you and you in her…” (“Son of man” literally meant humankind.)
The ancient Essenes of the documented in now translated remnants from the “Dead Sea Scrolls” remind us of a relationship that modern sciences have now confirmed. The air in our lungs is the same air that glides over the greatest oceans and rushes through the highest mountain passes. The water that makes up 98 percent of the blood in our veins is the same water that was once the great oceans and the mountain streams.
Through the writings of another time, the Essenes invite us to view ourselves as one with the earth, rather than separate from it. From such an ancient worldview, we are offered two key precepts to guide us through the greatest challenges of our modern time.
- We are reminded that imbalances imposed upon the earth are mirrored as conditions within our bodies. Such traditions view the breakdown of our immune systems and cancerous growths in our bodies, for example, as the inner expression of a collective breakdown that prevents our outer world from giving us life.
- This line of thinking invites us to consider earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and weather patterns as mirrors of great change occurring within human consciousness. The events of our world are living barometers showing us our progress on a journey that began long ago. As we look to our relationships within the patterns of societies and nature, we are actually witnessing changes within ourselves
World changes offer a rare opportunity to gauge the consequences of our choices, beliefs, and values in a dramatic fashion, as a feedback mechanism of sorts. Once the mechanism is recognized, we awaken to new possibilities of even greater choices in our lives.
Such possibilities of healing have been silently held in tribal traditions and pre-Christian prophecy for hundreds of generations. The time of the great change is now. The key to addressing such events is in the timing; the sooner we recognize our relationship with the world around us, the sooner we will recognize our inner choices of peace; mirrored as gently weather patterns, the healing of our societies, peace between nations and peace within all the operating aspects of breath, heart- beat, organs, blood, bones, digestion of our physical bodies.
The ancient Essenes separated themselves from the urban areas of their time, forming their own communities in the desert: “Always have the children of light lived where rejoice the angels of the earthly mother: near rivers, near trees, near flowers, near the music of the birds, where sun and rain may embrace the body which is the temple of the spirit.” Nature and natural laws were keys to the Essene way of life.
The Qumran texts remind us that we are the product of a very special union, a sacred marriage between the soul of the heavens and the tissue of our world. The principle states, without exception, that we are part of, and intimately enmeshed within all that we see as our world. Through unseen threads and immeasurable cords, we are a part of each expression of life.
All rock, each tree and mountain, every river and ocean is a part of each of us. Perhaps most important, you and I are reminded that we are part of one another.
Essene traditions refer to this union as that of “our Mother Earth and our Father in Heaven; for the spirit of the Son of Man was created from the spirit of the Heavenly Father, and his body from the body of the Earthly Mother. Your Mother is in you and you in her. She bore you; she gives you life. It was she who gave to you your body…even as the body of the newborn babe is born of the womb of his mother.” We are the union of these forces, the masculine of “our Father in Heaven” merged with the feminine of “our Mother Earth.”
This unified view invites us to consider that through the common thread that binds our bodies to the earth, the experiences of one are mirrored in the other. As long as the marriage is honored, the union between the earth and the spirit continues and the soft temples of our physical bodies live. When the agreement is dishonored, the union ends, our body temple dies, and the forces of earth and spirit return to their respective places of origin.
Grace is the name given to the aspect of divine law which does NOT deal in even exchange but deals in the increase of unearned good through greater giving. *Grace is the regenerative power of love that literally saves us from the full measure of our mistakes.
***When realized and accepted the healing Essence of God’s Grace is a living, energy flow of God’s good moving through our body temples, as well as through our interactions and responses with our world. “To walk in Grace” is to experience the unconditional love of Creator.
In regarding our physical/mental/emotional health, when we accept God’s Grace as a living, energy flow of Good – of God’s unconditonal love for us – restoring inner peace, balance and well-being – the regenerative power of love can indeed “restore the years the locusts have eaten”. This means restoring the good in our lives, whether with more vibrant health physically, greater clarity and understanding mentally and emotionally , increased experiences of prosperity or restoration of spiritual understanding … restoration from the debilitating throes of discordant thoughts, pain, beliefs, so-called bad choices and life experiences.
When I regard Grace in relationship to my physical body, (God’s Grace as a living, energy flow of Good restoring inner peace, balance and well-being)
I consider all the none-life-enhancing food, drink, lack of physical exercise or over strenuous push of the physical body choices I have made… and yet generally speaking I have not suffered the full effect of those choices. The Grace of God’s good has superseded my own self-destructive or ignorant choices for maintaining and strengthening my body vessel – the Temple of the Holy Spirit embodied as me.
Yet there are times, when the body – not through choices consciously made – has experienced such horrific injuries from accidents or disease that the Grace of God enables one’s spirit to exit with some measure of peace, enveloped in the incomparable Love of the Divine for us. I believe the Grace of God is even at work in a “good death” (as Native Americans would describe it). I have been honored to have witnessed some of those.
We also believe – or are learning of – the uplifting or damming effect of our thoughts and feelings to our physical bodies when coping with life and life’s experiences of stress, fear, grief, unforgiveness or negative self-regard repeated over periods of time. The refrain “There but for the Grace of God go I” comes to mind once again. We see some of us being devastated for years by a personal crisis, injury, disappointment, betrayal, or failure while others of us seem to come to terms with a similar crisis at some level and enable ourselves to move forward and live more richly rewarding and purposeful lives.
What if we affirmed “Here BY the Grace of God am I! thereby confirming that “I accept God’s Grace as an unearned living, energy flow of Good restoring inner peace, balance and well-being to every aspect of my life– the regenerative power of love indeed “restoring the years the locusts have eaten”. What I’m suggesting is that we accept the Grace of God embodied in us! As us!… Grace moving through our living experiences in mystical, magical, creative, bold, empowering ways, the love of the Creator has for us. Here by God’s grace – God’s unearned love for me – am I now!
Do you remember that the third law of physics states “to every action there is an equal and corresponding re-action”. In the material world that is so. And it is reflected in the Law of Moses as equal exchange ie: an eye for an eye, etc. Moving from the material world to the spiritual laws underlying all physicality we may state is as “Thoughts Held In Mind/feeling produce after their kind. This is a fact of life in creating, however I believe the law of Grace can supersede this and this law is written in our DNA as living Love or God’s Grace. For me, the Old Testament God who deals only in even exchange is overcome by the concept of God in the New Testament – a God of Love.… A God of love and Grace – brought into the collective consciousness of humankind through Master Teacher Jesus Christ.
Definition: “Grace is the pure unconditional love of God perpetually operative and expressing towards all humankind.” “The grace of God is God’s love – unearned – in action in my life.”
Affirmation: “Grace is an upward pull of the universe, lifting me to the heights of my divine nature.”
Meditation: May the Grace of God – the unearned love of God that lives in me as Grace-move through my physical body… mind, memories, emotions, … relationships,… and spiritual understanding now…, moving within me and moving before me for blessed living in all my life experiences. May I live, move and create from a state of Grace – God’s incredible love realized and expressed … yet still a mystery as I learn to accept it as fact. Amen.
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