Enjoy & Uplift Life

Sep 15

Today's message can be found below.

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Paradise Coldplay

Opening READINGS

From Biblical & Hebrew Scripture

John 16:20-25

Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy. Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.

These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father.

From Swedenborg's Theological Writings
Click here for free ebooks of Emanuel Swedenborg's Theological Writings

Enjoy & Uplift Life

By Rev. Cory Bradford-Watts

When the sun shines through a cloudy day, doesn’t that just cheer you up a bit? It does me. Although I typically enjoy rainy, cool, cloudy days, in the moments that the sun peaks out I’m often blown away if I take the time to notice and appreciate it. In those moments I’m drawn away from my anxiety, distraction and fear, and I relax, reminded of the greater aspects of life and the bigger picture of the universe. I may even start to find joy, especially if I look for it.

Lately, there have been other ways that I’ve been more able to come into the present and enjoy life a little bit more. Meditative breathing exercises help a lot: just remembering my breath and perhaps adding a mantra like, “In, out,” or, “I’m love.” When I practice this regularly and use it in my most distracted or anxious moments, I can really perceive how it calms me and allows for more acceptance, as well as more joy and gratitude of the present moment. Appreciating and entering the present moment is ultimately the core idea that has helped me connect more with life and joy. This encourages my heart and mind to engage more with my life and the life around me, whatever the method I take to get there.

In a way I relate this practice to noticing the sun: no matter how cloudy or abstract my current inner-setting, if I enter the present moment more I can start to perceive a “spiritual sun” shining through, reminding me of the bigger picture and the beauty of life while warming my heart with gratitude and joy. Funny, because our interfaith-Swedenborgian denomination’s unintentional namesake, the scientist-turned-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, points out how often Hebrew, Christian, and the world’s other scriptures and religions relate to God as a sun!

These religions and their sages tell us that God(dess) illuminates our minds and warms our hearts as she invigorates all life and all substance with energy. In fact, in Swedenborg’s visions of the spiritual realm (recorded in books like Heaven and Hell - pdf) God not only appears in various “human” forms throughout the diverse communities of heaven (changing his appearance depending on the community), she also appears above all of heaven as the Spiritual Sun. This is because the spiritual world looks much like the earthly plane, but every apparent detail relates to spiritual states and truths. And since the source of all life, joy, truth (light), and love (heat) is the One Divine Universal Being, she appears as the immense Spiritual Sun in the sky even as she also is deep within us.

Further, he says that our relative place in the spiritual world also has to do with our spiritual state. This means that when we are having a hard time connecting with our healthy inner truths and loves, we are having a spiritually cloudy (or worse) day and also having a hard time perceiving the Spiritual Sun in our lives even though it continues to invigorate us and all things. The Divine purpose then of scripture, religions, and spirituality is to help us become better connected and present with that Spiritual Sun. Swedenborg in fact believed that the purpose of creation was so that Divinity could share her life (light and heat) with all beings, as well as the joy, peace, and love that she has within her: the more that we receive of her life, the more joyful and connected we are! This is why scripture says that God and the heavens rejoice when we lament our destructive ways – sharing joy and health uplifts the joy and health of all of the diverse heavenly community, which is the point of creation.

The more we strive to uplift life within and around us the more connected we are to the Divine purpose, heaven, and Divinity.

Our scripture reading today from the Hebrew book of John says that although we mourn and are in grief today, one day we’ll see Christ again and our hearts will rejoice. I take this as both literal and metaphorical, as it says in the Christian gospels - Christ always spoke in parable or “figurative language.” When we see God our hearts rejoice.

When we start to see the living, resurrected and resurrecting God(dess) in our lives we rejoice! I believe this deeply. In a way, all of scripture tries to remind us of that, reminding us of God for our own joy and peace. This is also reminding us of our greater reality, of the gift of life and of the present moment. As scripture tells us, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, because today’s evil is enough for today” (Matthew 6:34). As we learn to come into the moment, accepting and starting to relinquish distractions, lusts, and hurtful impulses, we find the Living One present there, the great I Am, offering joy, peace, and greater life.

I think there’s a reason Jehovah, Krishna, Sophia Christ (whatever you call him) is also called the great I Am. (S)he is Being Itself. (S)he is Life, Consciousness, Love, and the Energy that Infuses All Things. Swedenborg believed that all of creation was crafted out of God’s Divine Wisdom, and that all the good things and habits in the universe are God in limited manifestations. The aspects that make humanity human, humane, multi-gendered, diverse, sexual, beautiful, and caring, come directly from Divinity.

However, as we see in the world around us, we don’t always connect with reality in a way that appreciates the Life there. We get caught up in inverting the goodness of God into destruction, which all of creation can do due to our spiritual freedom to turn away. Even as we’re engaging with the good things of life, we can center ourselves on selfishness, and also develop bad habits of apathy and disengagement. Although we each may relate to our Higher Power and Life in a different way than I’ve described, I think we’re tasked with uplifting it. And the world’s scripture emphasize that a huge part of uplifting and enjoying life is entering it with presence, awareness, and compassionate engagement.

If we do, I think we start to see and engage with God(dess) in all things. We start to see and feel the Sun shining within, pulling us into closer orbit, uplifting our joy and presence while dispelling our mourning and our grief. As we start to center on the light and life present within and around us in every moment, our worry of tomorrow starts to fall away. Our anxieties about life and our prestige fade and we find that we can start to enjoy living in a way we never had before, rejoicing at the wellspring of love and wisdom that infuses everything. Through the clouds of apathy and destructiveness the warmth of compassionate awareness grows and the light of Life invigorates our joys as we strive to uplift the same in others and our desperate world. Amen.