Meditate | Trust to Transform

Meditate is a monthly column in which Chelsea shares insights she has gained from meditating on the Word. You can too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column -Editor.

“Asking the Lord a question is done by consulting the Word. For the Word has the Lord present within it. He is present there because the Word consists of divine truth that comes from him” (Arcana Coelestia 10548).

“Surely everyone realizes that you cannot inject mercy into ruthlessness, or innocence into revenge, or love into hatred, or harmony into discord. Doing so would be mixing heaven and hell.

People who have not been reborn are, in spirit, like panthers and eagle-owls; they can be compared to brambles and stinging nettles. People who have been reborn are like sheep and doves, and they can be compared to olive trees and grapevines. Please consider, if you will, how panther-people could possibly be converted into sheep-people, or eagle-owls into doves, or brambles into olive trees, or stinging nettles into grapevines, through any assignment or attribution or application of divine justice. Would that process not sooner condemn them than justify them? In reality, in order for that conversion to take place the predatory nature of the panther and the eagle owl and the damaging nature of brambles and the stinging nettles must first be removed and something truly human and harmless implanted in their place. The Lord in fact teaches in John 15: 1-7 how this transformation occurs” (True Christianity 642).

Swedenborg just casually throws it out there that the answer to the weighty question, “How are we transformed?” is taught plainly in John 15: 1-7. Well, I had to explore.

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Other Revelations

Stephen brings our attention to how the Lord is revealing himself to us, and to others, in the present. He challenges the notion that the Bible and Swedenborg's writings are the exclusive and static emanations of a God who only wanted to speak twice. The water is still moving under the bridge. -Editor.

This is a New Church perspective on other revelations. Other revelations meaning: revelations from God through human beings other than those who wrote down the Bible and the Heavenly Doctrines.

The great thing about the New Church doctrines is that they allow for the validity of other religions and place all value in the embodiment of faith through action, good will and love.

But what about revelations? Don’t we consider the Word, including the Writings of Swedenborg, as the Divine Truth? We do. And sometimes those words “Divine Truth” get to have overtones that make it sound like “Final Truth,” or even “the Only Truth.” But that would be ridiculous, don’t you agree? That would be similar to asserting that the Hindu, Muslim or Native American religions are invalid, and they are not.

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A Common Heart

Chelsea writes of how religion, while becoming more central to peoples lives generally, is also the justification for increasing aggression between people of differing faiths. She calls on humanity to recognize our common heart, and shows us how New Church doctrine is uniquely suited to inform the growing desire for interfaith respect and love. -Editor.

Effort to understand people of various religions is needed right now in our national and global society. Religious intolerance and extremism are current issues in American society and around the globe. The combination of increasing religiousness world-wide and a vastly interconnected global society makes it nearly impossible for people of different religious identities not to cross paths. These current circumstances raise the question: is it possible under conditions of such close proximity for the world’s religious variety to coexist harmoniously?

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The Death of the Fear of Death

Erica vividly describes the path of her life. She shares a delicate awareness gained firsthand - the resolution to an abiding question - what is death, and must I fear it? -Editor.

As a child, while most little girls were learning how to tie their shoes and walk to school by themselves, I was busy working on a more distressing task: figuring out what happens when we die. I developed the awareness very early that I would not exist forever in my current form. I was young, healthy and growing, without ever knowing anyone who died, so this existential question was slightly unexpected. I cannot identify the exact moment I was hit by this painful and terrorizing realization (and it truly felt like a blow), but I can remember staying up countless nights, trying to determine the answer. What would happen after my body ceased to exist? When the sun blew out, how could I ever come back to life if there was no habitable planet for me? What did infinity and forever look like, and how was it possible that my whole life was just a small blip on the radar screen of eternity?

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Using the Letter of the Word to Fight in Temptations, Part 2

In part two of this essay, (see part one here), Malcolm delves into the practical details of the method he synthesized to use truth more consciously in resisting negative states. He invites your critique and your comment. - Editor

A Suggestion of a Spiritual Practice

Here’s the spiritual practice I’ve trying recently to use the literal sense of the Word more in temptations.

1. I take out a piece of paper (or a white board) and I write the thing that I’m struggling with in the middle. It could be a general topic, a question, a statement.
2. I think of as many quotes as I can from the literal sense of the Word about that topic and write them around the middle on the page.

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Using the Letter of the Word to Fight in Temptations, Part 1

Malcolm is developing his capacity to use the Word skillfully to fight in temptations. Part one of this essay addresses the power in the letter of the Word, and provides some doctrinal context. Part two? Well you are just going to have to wait! - Editor

Intro

Some time in the last couple of months I read a statement in the teachings of the New Church about spiritual combat and it’s stuck with me. I’ve been chewing on it since then—trying to think through the ramifications and possible applications of it.

Here’s the statement (preceded by a statement from a few numbers before that gives some context).

[T]here are both evil and good spirits with every man; the evil spirits are in his evils, and the good spirits in his goods. When the evil spirits approach they draw forth his evils, while the good spirits, on the contrary, draw forth his goods; whence arise collision and combat, from which the man has interior anxiety, which is temptation...

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