I don’t believe in God, was the statement I made, in a casual tone, as we lay watching television in our bedroom at our home in South-central Los Angeles. “What!" my older brother replied. How could there be a God when black folks are subject to so much apathy, injustice, and flat out evil? Of course I was not able to articulate my sentiments in such a fashion at the time. I was barely fifteen but I felt confident that my stance had been validated within my statement as such. He looked at me, rolled his eyes and said, "Whatever," as if I was just going through a phase.

By the Spring of 1986, I would put my atheistic beliefs into practice by indulging in the un-godly crack-cocaine epidemic that plagued our community at the time. After spending six to seven months in one-room apartments and motels, both selling and using the illicit drug, I would spend another six months in many of the various juvenile facilities throughout the county of Los Angeles. In June of '87, after being released back to the custody of my mother, we relocated to Sacramento. I made an earnest effort to reform upon arrival but it did not last very long. One year later, the day after graduating high school, Mamma said that I 'gradually-waited' for them to give me a diploma, since I barely graduated receiving a D grade in the majority of my classes. I went to the local Carl’s Jr. and got a job. The very next day I went into Der Wienersnitzel right down the street and took a second job. While my classmates were enjoying their summer and preparing to enter college, I was working sixteen to twenty hours a day cooking corndogs and double-cheeseburgers. This endeavor may have been honorable if it were not for my intentions.

After working all summer I went into the bank and withdrew every dime that I had spent the summer earning, $2,500, hopped on a Greyhound bus headed for LA and proceeded to purchase two ounces of crack for the return trip to Sacramento. It did not take my mother long to find out what I was up too. One morning as I left to pick up some money from a fellow drug dealer I returned home to find that 'the authorities' (Mamma) had raided my room. I had the drugs hidden in the box spring of my twin bed, but the way my mother tossed the room proved she was bound and determined to find them. Mamma flushed the crack down the toilet, but I was able to convince her to hand over the cash that she found with it. She only did so because she knew that I worked two jobs over the summer. I left home, checked in a motel room and within two hours had my hands on a ¼ pound of marijuana. Within forty-eight hours, before I was able to sell one gram of the weed, I was arrested for grand theft auto and possession of marijuana for sale. After being on the run, without actually running, I would eventually serve four of a six month sentence in the Sacramento County Jail.

Two months later I would be arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and strong armed robbery. Although I was not 'innocent' in the genuine sense of the word, I was far from guilty of the charges I was facing. The case went to trial, and after the prosecution finished presenting its case it was evident to everyone (including the prosecution) that the charges were a complete farce, and before my attorney began our rebuttal, the prosecution offered to drop the charges from strong armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon to misdemeanor battery. Anyone familiar with the legal system knows that the two charges don’t even belong in the same court room. In effect, this drama was the end of my career as a criminal. I simply felt if they could send me to prison for a long time for something I did not do, imagine what they would do if they actually did catch me. I completely turned from the criminal lifestyle, although I was still a devout, self-proclaimed atheist. When I was in juvenile facilities and adult jail I would read just to break up the monotony of incarceration. I also found that when you read it takes you to the places about which you read.

Although I found that I actually enjoyed reading, just like all compulsion, it did not stick once I left jail. Two and a half years after my last arrest, my first son was born. By that time what I had read, combined with my memory and my big mouth, made me a self-proclaimed expert on black culture. One evening while several friends and I filled the air of the parking lot of a low-income apartment complex with the aroma of marijuana smoke and cheap gin, the conversation turned to the plight of the black race. I received accolades from the group of my peers for my knowledge of the subject and thereby, in what is the custom of young black men, was told that there was a man who lived just right across the parking lot who would “tear me up” with his superior knowledge on the subject. Of course I accepted the challenge and being a brash twenty-two year old, I proceeded to walk right over to this man’s apartment and knock on his door. The fact that he even answered his door was a matter of Providence because he was known to blatantly ignore an unexpected knock at his door.

When he answered the door I was immediately somewhat intimidated by his physical presence, and not in the way one might think. He had a striking resemblance to Marcus Garvey, yet more handsome, with a more pleasant countenance. After I introduced myself and explained to him how this stranger came to knock on his door we spent the next three or more hours in discussion. One of the first things that he expressed was that he was a Christian and that his love and his knowledge for his people was founded and based in Christian doctrine/theology. I replied that I did not believe in any religion or God, and he just looked at me and smiled. Toward the end of our discussion I felt the need to iterate to my new found friend that I was a devout atheist and did not believe in God. This time he just looked at me with the same warm smile and a twinkle in his eye and said, “Yes you do, you just don’t know it.” Later he would elaborate on his statement by telling me that all the men I revered such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X (whom my eldest son is named after) were men of God and the reason why I admired them had spiritual significance that I was unaware of because of denial. The above statement was as far as he would go in regard to expressing my lack of faith. Throughout the early encounters of our relationship he would make no attempt to lead me to God, yet he would speak freely when he had no choice other than to speak from a spiritual perspective.

Inevitably I would turn to my mentor for guidance in regard to my willingness to accept God in my life and even then he let me find my way. Because of my love and reverence for Malcolm X, not only did he accept my preference for my hero's religion, he suggested that I join the nation of Islam because God is God and if my endeavor was to live good according to truth than I could find that within any religion as long as I acknowledged God. It did not take the Lord long to let me know that the Black Muslims were not for me and prior to completing the necessary documents to become a member I decided to go in a different direction—the Bible. So I began to study Scripture without any guidance from my mentor, as he has always done, even to this very day. He leaves me in my freedom only to be guided within my endeavor and the Lord’s Providence.

Our introduction to one another appeared (at the time) to be due to are mutual love for the black race and it continued as such even as I began to enter the spiritual realm, with the difference being that I would be eager to share my new found faith. In the beginning, my endeavor within Scripture was to confirm a religious doctrine based on Black Nationalism. In a word, it was my intent to prove through Scripture that the black race, both in the states and abroad, was spiritually superior to other ethnic groups, especially Europeans. I say this in retrospect as I did not see it that way at the time; I simply believed that I was searching for truth. When I would share my understanding and interpretation of Scripture, he would agree with much if not all of what I perceived, yet he would constantly express to me that the Word in itself was a spiritual book and that I should make an attempt to read it as such. I was reading and studying the Word in a secular way and my study had no interior substance.

One particular day as my mentor and I were having one of our typical discussion about black people he stressed the fact that, "This little white man,” as he pointed to his collection of Swedenborg's literature, "means more to my path to become a good man than any man I know of (with the exception of the Lord himself)." When he made the comment without hesitation all I could think about was the great love and reverence he, himself, had for Dr. King. Who was this "white man” anyway? I thought to myself. He told me that if I wanted to see the Word of God in its genuine sense, that I was welcome to take one of those green books home with me. I asked him which one he recommended as there were at least thirty in the book case. He told me to look through them and choose one that I thought might appeal to me, so I scanned through and finally decided upon Apocalypse Revealed, simply because, well, it sounded apocalyptic. I had no idea what the term meant and even less knowledge about the Book of Revelation. As a matter of fact, I had no idea that the book I had chosen was an unfolding of the spiritual sense of the biblical text. It is all a moot point now simply because it took one simple, yet extremely profound truth to confirm that what I was reading was from a source like no other and that it was Divine Truth, although I would not come to acknowledge or even know there was such a thing as Divine truth until much later in my study.

I read one sentence and my mind came to an immediate halt. I was totally mesmerized by what I had read: the love of self and the love of the world are indeed the devil and hell. The reason why I did not use a direct quote is because I do not remember where exactly I read this in Apocalypse Revealed. In fact I do not remember how far I had gotten in that particular book and until this day, twenty years later, I have not read Apocalypse Revealed in its entirety. What I do know is that what I read made so much sense to me and had such a profound effect on the miniscule amount of truth that I believed that I knew, that I was able to easily accept whatever I read thence forth. I simply believed that any book that had this type of truth within it had to be true in its entirety, and this even allowed me to believe all of what Swedenborg revealed about his spiritual experiences and interaction with the Lord, angels, and spirits, both good and evil. After that first truth was acknowledged I needed no further convincing. Although I had found much of what I read quite incredible, I still believed it to be true. The consistency and repetition in which Swedenborg dictated these truths was a valuable means of confirmation.

I asked my mentor for another book as I found it hard to follow Apocalypse Revealed, being a novice and all, and of course it was only natural for one to have doubts about such things in their entirety. He suggested Heaven and Hell, so I took it with me and read it, and from there I was off and running. True Christian Religion, Universal Human and Soul-body Interaction, Divine Love and Wisdom, Four Doctrines, Journal of Dreams, Debates with devils, Divine Providence, and Helen Keller’s Light in My Darkness. I believed that I had arrived and that it was just a matter of time before my sword was sharp enough so that the Lord would sweep me off of my feet and allow me to accomplish my dreams, which were ultimately to use the truth to become great, through good use of course. Around 1998, I purchased volume one of Arcana Coelestia and would eventually purchase and read volumes two and three before actually ordering the vast majority of Swedenborg's theological works from the Swedenborg Foundation.

By this time I had put all forms of my criminal past behind me, I was a father of two, I basically kept employment, although I would consistently change employers, and I was well read on diverse subjects due to my thirst for history and spiritual/theological matters. So it appeared that the worse was all behind me and that it was just a matter of time before I came into my own and was able to put all my life experience and knowledge to use. There was a hitch in my giddy-up. All I did was work, drink beer, smoke marijuana, and socialize. Although I was a hard worker, my work ethic was not based on the principles of charity, so I was externally productive but still void of fruit. Even still, I believed that pure influx would lead me to a life of genuine good use and the most egregious part of my life was long behind me. Boy did I get a wrong number! What was to come was purely a manifestation of where my spirit was and it manifested itself in every particular of my life.

Cortland Bell

Those who trust in the Divine are altogether different. Though concerned about the morrow, yet are they unconcerned, in that they are not anxious, let alone worried, when they give thought to the morrow. They remain even-tempered whether or not they realize their desires, and they do not grieve over their loss; they are content with their lot. If they become wealthy they do not become infatuated with wealth; if they are promoted to important positions they do not consider themselves worthier than others. If they become poor they are not made miserable either; if lowly in status they do not feel downcast. They know that for those who trust in the Divine all things are moving towards an everlasting state of happiness, and that no matter what happens at any time to them, it contributes to that state. (Heavenly Secrets 8478)

Lori Odhner

Lori Odhner is married to John. They share a ministry for marriage as well as one for music. You can learn more about that at www.caringformarriage.org where Lori publishes poignant stories called Marriage Moats.

There is a phrase which has the power to scatter a thousand demons. There is a phrase which can instantly wash the mind of evil thoughts and feelings. There is a phrase which the Lord spoke as a voice from heaven to His servant Emanuel Swedenborg as a gift for our people to free ourselves from the bonds of hell. Would you be surprised if I told you this phrase was beyond our expressing with physical words and that it must be searched for in the heart beyond the shores of our spiritual awareness? Well that might be what you would expect, but actually we are lucky enough to have this phrase written down for us in Emanuel Swedenborg's work True Christian Religion 567.4 where it says these amazing words,

"[I] do not will to do this thing because it is a sin against God."

Now let me give you a moment to test this out. Find some evil thought, feeling or intention in yourself; if you need some help think of something in this article that may have frustrated you and what it makes you want to do. Do you have it? Now think the words, "[I] do not will to do this thing because it is a sin against God."

You may not notice anything at first, but take a look at your thoughts and you may be suprised to find this thing has jumped off your mental radar screen completely. If you want to try, start counting and see how long the thought, feeling or intention takes to reappear. I have had times where the thought, feeling or intention disappeared never to return.

I have found this tool so incredibly useful in my life. The hardest part has been remembering that I can use it. There are times when I was being overwhelmed by something and then a little reminder would pop into my head, and I would say those miraculous words:

"[I] do not will to do this thing because it is a sin against God."

Now similar statements in the Writings just say, "I will not 'do' this thing", but I have found that saying, "I do not 'will to do' this thing" is much more powerful.

One of the interesting things about using this phrase is that its effects are invisible to us. We actually can't watch the process happen. This is because the Lord is changing our very self, the very essence of what we are seeing from. It is almost like trying to watch a new eyeball get installed in yourself. When we use this phrase it can feel as though nothing has changed, but watch the thoughts in your mind before and after and you may be amazed to find that what we did not feel as any change at all was a complete blanking of some evil or false thought.

I have also found that this phrase is almost magical in that I don't need to be totally focused on the words I am using to get the effects. I can just say it and let the Lord go to work. These very words, when they are used, are coming from a new self. Divine Providence 73 says,

"As soon as we [think that an evil is a sin, we do not will it, and we look to the Lord], we are in [spiritual] freedom; for no one has the power not to will evils... unless from a... higher freedom which is from a higher love.... We may come into this freedom provided we are willing to think that there is an eternal life, and that the temporary delight and bliss of a life in time are but as a fleeting shadows compared with the never-ending delight and bliss of a life in eternity. This we can think... because the Lord... continually gives us the ability to do so."

So the Lord has given us a hand hold on our spiritual reality and has given us the power to change the very essence of who we are. All this is possible if we are only willing to be made in His image, that is, receive His new will as our own.

In my spiritual journey I have come to realize that my path is as easy as remembering that Divine power from the Lord can be accessed in a moment, and a peace can return to my mind on command. Sometimes I have found that I need to repeat this phrase every few seconds for a period of time, but for the most part I can get it in one or two tries.

My wish for you is that you might try this phrase out and see what you think. :)

"[I] do not will to do this thing because it is a sin against God."

Ronald Schnarr

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. You could write for Meditate, too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor.

New arrivals to heaven relaying an idea found in Swedenborg’s writings: “Every single thing that exists on earth exists in an infinitely more perfect form in the heavens… After death, we are perfectly human. In fact, we are more perfectly human than we were before in the physical world...”

One of the new arrivals, a politician: “I cannot actually tell any difference between my being alive then and my being alive now, except that my reasoning is now sounder. When I have reflected on what I used to think, a number of times I have felt ashamed of myself” (True Christianity 693).

This meditation helped me in the circumstances I’m in right now. My one-year-old son is sick and I feel a lot is being asked of me. Well, not a lot, but one big thing: not to put myself first, but instead put my children and my husband first, and handle it gracefully, that is, with Grace, without turning the experience into resentment and reason for blame—which I did just this morning.

I find comfort in the truth in these passages that my thoughts and ideas here in this world are often misguided and that events that happen in the world or in heaven are not to be feared. The Lord is here with me, in me and in them, “for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). The Lord never abandons us. The Lord will never abandon me, no matter how terrifying I find my current circumstances. The actual movement of life can be trusted, has love in it and power, even though it means going through states where I feel overwhelmed by my own attachment to negativity.

The fear these negative states bring me into is a fear of “what could be,” imagining that it’s ever possible to have something happen outside of the Lord’s providence, outside of the Lord’s care. In truth, nothing ever can happen this way; that’s the covenant, the rainbow after the flood. It is a thought not rooted in truth that somehow life could happen in such a way that wouldn’t be in keeping with the Lord’s everlasting covenant.

I can resonate with the politician’s sense of humiliation about what he used to think while in the world. I’m grateful that in this life now, through meditating on the Word I can come into some humiliating awareness of how misguided this fearful train of thought is. Seeing it for what it is in contrast with a heart-felt recognition of the truth makes it easier to let it go, have compassion for myself, and feel empowered to live according to the truth in my relationships.

Chelsea Rose Odhner

Chelsea is wife to a PhD candidate. In addition to mothering her two young children round the clock, she is an assistant editor for New Church Connection and an editor and writer for New Church Perspective.

]]>http://www.newchurchperspective.com/essays/2012/4/13/appearances-of-reincarnation.htmlNew Church Perspective2012-04-13T11:00:46Z2012-04-13T11:00:46ZIan takes arguments for reincarnation and views them through a Swedenborgian lens. He changes the question from 'does reincarnation exist?' to 'how could one's experience appear like reincarnation?' -Editor

According to Emanuel Swedenborg, we only live once on earth. After death we live in a spiritual world and move eventually to a permanent place that depends on the spiritual nature we created by our actions on earth. We are not reborn or reincarnated again on earth, to have another attempt to do better next time.

Historically, however, there have been many stories about reincarnation, notably the "transmigration of souls" (metempsychosis) that Plato describes in the Republic. Reincarnation has been an essential part of Hinduism and Buddhism. It is interesting to see when it became popular in the west. We might assume it came with the great interest in spiritualism in Europe and America that started in the 1840s, which lead to a great many scientists becoming interested in it, with the formation of the learned societies of psychical research in the period 1850-1900. But it did not: there was no hint of reincarnation among those beliefs. Instead, it came through the books of theosophists like Annie Besant and was imported into western thought from the early 1900s. It has subsequently become rather widespread among spirit communicators, and it is especially dominant in the "channelled works" written under dictation from spirit sources that claim higher knowledge.

This essay is not concerned with the moral or theological basis of reincarnation, but discusses instead the evidence that has been presented in its support. The idea might simply be regarded as mistaken if it were not for the evidence that has been described for example by Ian Stevenson in his 1966 book Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. There are two main kinds of evidence. The first is the evidence of birth marks in young children as shown by Stevenson. The second comes from hypnotic regressions, in which a subject under hypnosis is "taken back" to relive his past lives. Often a great deal of historical evidence is produced that cannot be plausibly only invented; realistic names may be given; and unusual languages may be spoken fluently. Sometimes these pieces of evidence are spontaneously recalled.

Most recently there has been regression to the "between life" status and reports of discussion with spiritual advisors about the choice of life into which to incarnate, and afterwards a review of the "lessons learned" from the reincarnations. Taken all together, these pieces of evidence are sufficient to convince a lawyer like Victor Zammit that reincarnation does in fact occur (see Ch. 24 of his book A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife: Irrefutable Objective Evidence).

I am not going to rehearse the numerous details of the observations and histories here. Rather, I want to suggest alternative interpretations of both of these kinds of evidence, interpretations moreover which are to be expected if Swedenborg’s descriptions of the spiritual world are correct. To start with, therefore, I remind the reader of some aspects of Swedenborg’s account.

According to Swedenborg, the conjunction between heaven and earth is by means of beings in the spiritual world:

With every individual there are good spirits and evil spirits. Through good spirits man has conjunction with heaven, and through evil spirits with hell. These spirits are in the world of spirits, which lies midway between heaven and hell. … When these spirits come to a man they enter into his entire memory, and thus into his entire thought, evil spirits into the evil things of his memory and thought, and good spirits into the good things of his memory and thought. These spirits have no knowledge whatever that they are with man; but when they are with him they believe that all things of his memory and thought are their own; neither do they see the man, because nothing that is in our solar world falls into their sight. (Heaven and Hell 292)

That is, there are indeed close to us beings who have lived in the past and in whose memory there are indeed descriptions of past ages and past languages. Those memories are not active, so there is no interference with the current life. Sometimes, however, there is some ‘leakage’ of that memory into the current consciousness of an individual on earth, and, then, strange voices or memories from past lives appear that he attributes (erroneously) to his own past life. Swedenborg relates:

If a spirit were to speak from his own memory with a man the man would not know otherwise than that the thoughts then in his mind were his own, although they were the spirit's thoughts. This would be like the recollection of something which the man had never heard or seen. That this is so has been given me to know from experience. This is the source of the belief held by some of the ancients that after some thousands of years they were to return into their former life, and into everything they had done, and in fact, had returned. This they concluded because at times there came to them a sort of recollection of things that they had never seen or heard. This came from an influx from the memory of spirits into their ideas of thought. (Heaven and Hell 256).

It appears that the normally-quiescent memories of the associated spirits may be specifically awakened during hypnotic sessions, when the current individual’s mind is quieted. The minds of the spirits may then be aroused to think of their own previous lives. It thus appears that memories are not "labeled" with their originator, so whatever memories are recalled in hypnosis may afterwards be appropriated to whoever experiences them (not necessarily the originator).

What about the bodily birthmarks and scars that Stevenson found on many Asian children? In some cases the alleged cause of death in an immediate past life is reflected by a birthmark in the present life, since investigators could find and identify by family interviews the life history of a matching recently-deceased person. For example, Stevenson found that in cases of violent death the child may show a birthmark where he was knifed, shot or from whatever caused his death. These cases definitely do not appear as "spiritual possession" as described in psychiatric cases because the child’s life is otherwise normal. Zammit argues that these phenomena cannot be attributed to extrasensory perception, to fraud, to cryptomesia (memories previous acquired but since forgotten), to inherited memory, to collective unconscious, or to possession. In his mind, that leaves reincarnation as the only possibility.

We note that many (but not all) of Stevenson’s examples come from cultures in which reincarnation is the expectation. Moreover, many of them involve violent deaths. In that situation, what expectations should we envisage in the recently-resurrected spirit in the spiritual world? I should expect that many such persons want to reincarnate, if only to resume their earthly life cut short. Mostly, we can conclude, they become associated spirits with young children. The child’s memories appear between the ages of two and four, and then the association fades between the ages of five and eight. It is somewhat surprising to me that they manage to produce birthmarks and scars on the children, but, whatever the details are, they do not support the claim of the reincarnation of a single person any more than they support Swedenborg’s theory of associated spirits.

What then about the apparent memories between earthly lives, where events in the spiritual world are recalled under hypnosis? An author such as Michael Newton in his book Journey of Souls has given many stories of people recalling these. If we take these as veridical, this appears to be strong evidence for reincarnation. I argue, however, that some things like these should be expected in the spiritual world described by Swedenborg.

To understand what is happening, we have to consider events in the quotation Heaven and Hell 292 above from the point of view of the spirits involved. Imagine what must happen. They are living like "normal people" in the spiritual world, and then (somehow) they are transformed to be associated spirits with us (on earth) and with no active memory of their own. I suggest that this process appears to them just like reincarnation. We should expect there to be some discussion beforehand with their advisors concerning with whom to best become associated. We would expect that any decisions be taken with their long-term spiritual objectives in mind (with concurrence of the Lord). Then, after some period, they return to their friends and advisors in the spiritual world. (That period might not be a whole earthly lifetime, but they may perhaps not be able to judge time scales in the same way as us.) Moreover, many such "reincarnations" should be expected during life in the spiritual world, before their permanent place is found.

Again, I can envisage that some memories of associated spirits can be awakened under hypnosis and retrieved, as if they were the memories of the earth individual. Thus can not only "past lives" be "recalled" in this way, but also "between life" events. Moreover, something like "successive reincarnations" can and do occur which involve persons in the spiritual world. I can easily imagine this process being inaccurately described as the reincarnation, not of associated spirits, but of our actual selves, especially since the memories can hardly be distinguished. So there is reincarnation, but not as we know it.

Ian J. Thompson

Ian Thompson is a theoretical nuclear physicist, and has been a student of Swedenborg for thirty-five years. He has recently integrated these interests and written a book Starting Science From God. This was published in 2011 and is introduced at Beginning Theistic Science. His personal website is at IanThompson.org, and he maintains twelve Swedenborg-related websites.

If I were to distill all of Emanuel Swedenborg’s writings into one concentrated principle it would be this: You are what you Love and you Love whatever you give your attention to. In the same way that the Earth circles around the Sun, everything revolves around this Law - every facet of human and spiritual existence.

Think of this Law as running sunlight through a prism. It reveals a spectrum of colors, the true essence of light, that is invisible to the naked eye. Everything is understandable and knowable in light of this Law. There is no spiritual maturity without embracing it and making one’s peace with it.

To further explore this Truth let’s see it in action. Take forgiveness for example. What is it? How does it happen? What does it look like? How does it feel? How can you be sure you are in a right relationship with it? Forgiveness is a choice, your choice, to grow beyond what has hurt you. But it is more than that. It is having the power to grow beyond any and all limitations.

Forgiveness is a choice to define yourself as Divine Love and Wisdom and absolutely nothing else. When a person chooses to see themselves as Divine Love and Wisdom, they are also simultaneously senior to any situation or condition in their life. Nothing in the physical and non-physical worlds has more power than Divine Love and Wisdom. There is no way any person can be a victim, helpless, hopeless, powerless, shameful, or “less than” and be embracing their authentic identity as Divine Love and Wisdom at the same time. Clearly one choice will exclude the other.

When you know that you are Divine Love and Wisdom, everything that unfolds in life has to be in the service of your highest growth. Why? Because Divine Love and Wisdom is the most powerful force in the Universe. It wins! Divine Love and Wisdom does not have the power to create a learning experience of itself that it does not need or benefit from. It creates what you need when you need it.

This means that predators and violators do not have more power than your Divinity or your ability to grow beyond their rein of terror and injustice. As Swedenborg states it, others can only touch your life if, within that interaction, there resides the seeds of a higher development for your essence. So, no matter how overwhelming or painful your life lessons are, the offenders are here to serve you and your ultimate liberation. The question is, will you give your attention, your Love, back to investing in your Divinity as having more power than these other people’s violence and wrongdoings? The choice to take your power back as a force of Love is forgiveness in action.

When you know you are Divine Love and Wisdom, you know that no matter what harm others intend to inflict upon your life, they are only empowering your personal evolution. When that is true for you, the next deeper question is what actually needs forgiving?

What most likely is in need of forgiveness is where the Divinity of any or all parties involved was betrayed by not honoring the Spiritual Identity that connects us all to God. In other words, the first thing to grow beyond is the habit of seeing ourselves as separate from Divine Love and Wisdom and at the mercy of the natural world. Then forgiving our loyalty to giving our power away to people and forces outside of our Divinity. Finally forgiving where we did not claim that whatever happens, it is working for our highest good. And considering that forgiveness is the means to putting pain and limitation in the rear view mirror, choosing forgiveness is its own reward - not something that requires a sacrifice on our part or enables an unjust outcome. No one is getting “let off the hook.”

Because of this Law, you are what you Love and you Love whatever you give your attention to, when you give your attention to seeing yourself as Divine Love and Wisdom you are beyond any and all limitations and the grip of senseless suffering. You are now in a position to take your power back and realize that your growth can only be heightened and accelerated by the challenges that you face. Your choice to align with Divine Love and Wisdom now has more dominion than anyone or anything. You now Love recognizing only one power in your life and that is Divine Love and Wisdom. You have graduated from seeing fear, worry, and loss as having any authority in your life. You now Love growing beyond what has hurt you, as how you choose forgiveness as your passage through life.

When you know you are Divine Love and Wisdom, you also know that you are immortal and timeless. Let’s merge that with what Swedenborg writes about in relation to what happens when a person dies. Once the mortal coil is shed, the spirit enters the spirit realm minus the baggage of the physical body. The life review begins. In the life review, you experience how you and your actions affected other people. If, for example, you beat up someone, in the life review, you will now feel the pain that you imposed upon their life. You will see and feel everything from their perspective. Conversely, if anyone has harmed you in any way, what greater punishment could there be than for that person to now be on the receiving end of the pain that they have inflicted? This larger point of view makes it easier to let go of the need to have earthly conditions in place in order to forgive. No judgment or court on Earth has the equalizing leverage of the life review.

How does forgiveness happen? It is put into motion every time you choose to return your attention to, “I am Divine Love and Wisdom.” But like anything involving a choice, practice makes perfect. Focusing on forgiveness happens fluidly and gracefully in life by seeing every offense as an opportunity to advance your Divinity. Everything that touches your life is a sacred opportunity to practice giving your attention, without hesitation or restraint, to knowing your oneness with Divine Love and Wisdom. In short, forgiveness happens every time you Love giving your attention back to the Divine.

What does forgiveness look and feel like? As Swedenborg underscores in his writings, forgiveness is not an intellectual construct. It is the direct result and complete manifestation of what you Love. When you Love seeing yourself as Divine Love and Wisdom, that engagement of Free Will is going to intersect with the totality of your human experience. All of life takes on the look and feel of what you give your attention to. Everything will always come back to this Law: you are what you Love and you Love whatever you give your attention to. Forgiveness takes on a life of its own based on the actions you take when you choose to show up as a force of Love right here, right now. Forgiveness starts with what you choose to imbue with your attention and therefore your Love, and it extends sequentially into your intentions, service, and finally to the consequences of your actions.

Forgiveness is the physical embodiment of Divine Love and Wisdom choosing to create Heaven on Earth beyond the reach and the contamination of fraud, deceit, violence, mean-spiritedness, and evil.

How can you be sure you are in a right relationship with forgiveness? Again it all comes down to this: what are you giving your Love and attention to on a moment-to-moment basis? Spirit means life; there is no life without Divine Love and Wisdom. Examine your relationships and your life. Are they expansive and resilient like Heaven, or are they constrictive and reactive to hellishly limited emotions and perceptions? Forgiveness, Truth, Wholeness of mind, body, and spirit all have one thing in common: they are all based on the well-Loved practice of giving your attention to seeing, relating, and defining yourself as Divine Love and Wisdom, and the actions and relationships that spring forth from that Love.

The answer to everything in life, be it forgiveness, an across-the-board experience of abundance, self-confidence or personal happiness will always be as simple or as complicated as you are what you Love and you Love whatever you give your attention to. So, from the bottom of my heart and Swedenborg’s writings, please choose to Love wisely.

Vaishali

I first read The Shack early in 2009. I had been married less than a year, and since getting married my Mom had died, I had miscarried a pregnancy at ten weeks, and I was at a loss as to the direction I was supposed to be heading with my life. Oh, and my husband was in his second year of Theological School, and in the daily practice of examining religious texts and wrestling with doctrine.

I was vulnerable and hurting. He was thinking critically as a theology student. We started the book together, but before long decided that I would continue it on my own. Malcolm couldn’t get past the questions he had about the presented doctrine, especially the presentation of the trinity and the human representation of God that is a major part of the plot. He felt mainly critical about the book, while I felt like it was teaching me things about the Lord and religion that I needed to hear.

I won’t give you a comprehensive plot summary, but you can read some here. Here’s a short version (spoiler alert): the main movement of the book follows Mack, a man who goes to meet God at the shack where his young daughter was murdered years before, and through his time there discovers the power of God’s love, trust, and forgiveness.

After what had been a difficult couple of years for my Mom, and wondering about how and why the Lord could allow such difficult things as death and miscarriage, the topics in the book felt particularly relevant to me. I felt like I was reading words from the Lord, meant to help me understand the questions and grief I was dealing with. So I didn’t respond well when Malcolm felt primarily critical of those same words. I had a lot of hurt feelings from our interactions about the book. So as I read the book and found it incredibly powerful and meaningful in my life, I didn’t really talk to anyone about it for fear of getting criticism rather than appreciation.

To add to the complexity of the situation, when I first read the book I was under the impression that it was a true story that was being questioned by church organizations and individuals as a false and heretical story. My impression was that people were trying to make it seem like a novel when it was actually a real person’s story. Let me be clear: it is a work of fiction. Mack and his family are not living people. I don’t remember exactly where I got the impression that they were real. My recollection is that I heard an interview on the radio—probably only a snippit of it—but I went to buy the book believing it was factual. I admit, I don’t look at every bit of print on the cover of a book, and The Shack is clearly labeled a novel, in the category of fiction. I didn’t see this, however, and when I read the introduction it confirmed my impression. The forward is “written” by a “friend” of Mack’s who has agreed to ghost-write the story. It very convincingly asks readers to put aside their disbelief and listen to one man’s experience and beliefs. It isn’t stated anywhere that this forward is actually a part of the novel. The friend’s name is Willie, and William is also the first name of the author of the book. The presentation seems to be suggesting that the real author, W. Paul Young, wrote a forward about his friend’s story, signing the forward Willie, and went on to write his friend’s story for him.

While I don’t blame the author and his publishers (two friends who started a publishing company expressly to publish his novel) for presenting it this way, I was hurt and embarrassed when I realized my mistake just months ago, almost three years after first reading the book. And while their website is very clear that it is a novel, I can’t help but believe they intended for people to make this mistake. The author actually goes by his middle name, Paul, but on the website they refer to him as Willie. The link from the book’s website to the author’s website is the text “Willie’s blog” but on the blog he refers to himself as Paul. It seems to me this can only be intended to prolong the confusion in people like me. In looking at websites and blogs trying to find an answer about the book’s veracity I found many people commenting on blog posts, surprised, embarrassed, and hurt as I was. I think the original hype about the book (it spiked quickly to the top of the best seller’s list) was in part due to this confusion. People like me want to share this amazing man’s story—mainly because of the power of the “true” story.

I re-read the book over the last few weeks, and found the book has lost some of its power for me. I think part of the power it held for me when I believed it was true was the realization and what felt then like a strong belief (now wounded) that the Lord doesn’t hold back in loving humans. Why wouldn’t God invite an injured and grieving person to such an intimate meeting where the hurts of the past could be healed through real one on one interaction? I wanted to believe that through reading Mack’s experience I was reading the Lord’s words to me about how much I am loved by the Lord; about how powerful forgiveness is (an issue I was dealing with in connection with my Mom’s last years); and about why the Lord allows bad things to happen (like having miscarriages). I wanted to read these words, take them in as a message to me from the Lord, and know that I could defend that point of view, because this was a real man’s experience, and who are we to question him? Who are we to limit the things God might do to reach even just one person?

While the influence of this belief certainly affected my first reading of the book, I found that even without it these messages about love and forgiveness were still very powerfully presented in the novel. It isn’t as powerful without the Truth behind it, but it leaves me free to criticize the parts of the story and doctrine that don’t make sense to me or fit with the teachings found in the Writings much the way Malcolm first read it. When reading I still felt the power of the words—the idea that the Lord loves us so completely we will always be forgiven, always be reached out to, always supported and taken care of—particularly as I connected the ideas back to passages from the Bible and the Writings that say these same things but do have the Truth behind them.

It is interesting to me that a somewhat simply written novel can cause so much healing and pain all at once. When it was first published it caused a lot of anxiety among various churches and pastors as they worried after the bits and pieces of “heretical” ideas and doctrine that this novel was espousing. It took quite a beating from most churches while many individuals spoke to its powerful influence. There are more discussions and forums and posts than are really worth linking to here, but they are easy to find, and some worth the read. I identify mostly with the commenters who express frustration and hurt that there wasn’t more effort at clarity. My reading of the book will always be tainted by the feeling that the author and publishers led me to my mistake. I am trying to let go of what may or may not have been the creators' intentions and instead hold on to the powerful shift that took place in my trust of the Lord as I read this book.

I am left feeling conflicted about the book. I don’t have a thorough enough New Church doctrinal knowledge to easily go through and point out the doctrinal differences, but I can see the point of view of those churches who criticized the “doctrine” presented. The author undoubtedly has Biblical knowledge, but he jumps to ideas that are sometimes hard to take in their entirety. While some of the ideas presented are powerful and real, it is hard not to question the authority behind them when the book is categorized as a work of fiction. Add to that the confusion around the veracity of the story and the lack of clarity from the author and publishers, and it is hard to sort it all out. As I read the book a second time I felt more aware of these questions, but was also reminded of the shift I felt reading it the first time. Despite the conflict it is powerful to read the words of God in the book and take them as a personal message. I believe that the Lord loves me unconditionally and that that is evident from teachings in the Bible and the Writings, but it is a different thing to read the words articulated in a very familiar and direct language. Reading the book changed my thinking and opened up my understanding of the ways in which the Lord cares for me. That is a shift I am grateful for regardless of how it came about.

As a point of interest, below is an excerpt from Young’s blog, from a post about his process of writing the novel:

“So, I didn’t have to follow any normal rules about writing something.  Actually, I didn’t even really know or care about what the normal rules might be…never thought about it.  I wanted my kids to enjoy a story and through the story to understand their own father better and the God that their father is so in love with.  I even had this brilliant idea to have Willie (me) ghost-write the story for Mack, and so on my very first Title Page, it said, The Shack, written by Mackenzie Allen Phillips, with William P Young.  I thought it was clever and that the kids would get a laugh out of it.

This means that Mack, of course, is not a ‘real’ person.  My children would recognize that Mack is mostly me, that Nan is a lot like Kim, my wife, that Missy and Kate and the other characters often resemble our family members and friends.  So it was no big deal…until the first version of the loose leaf book sort of ‘got out’ (because people kept passing it to their friends), and I find out that somebody in California and somebody in Canada think seriously about buying plane tickets to come to Oregon to meet and talk to Mack.  Now that would have been a little embarrassing, don’t you think?  So we removed Mack as the author, but I kept the ghost-writer idea as a story element…which is still causing some problems but not near what could have happened the other way.”

Abigail Smith

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. This month Stephen Muires writes about the subtle breathing that ensues during periods of mindfulness and its potential to connect us with heaven. You could write for Meditate, too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor.

If praying is talking to God, thanking God, asking God, then meditation is listening to God answering.

In mindfulness our own thoughts are temporarily invited to leave center stage and leave space in the middle for a fullness of experience involving the full mind. That’s why it is called mind-full-ness.

In the teachings of Swedenborg the mind has three parts, natural, spiritual, and celestial. We are not really conscious of the inner levels here. Meditation, both in ancient religions like Buddhism as well as in the modern version of mindfulness, has been interested in integrating the deeper levels of the mind into a new way of being conscious.

Then there is the breathing. Lots of references to breathing in Swedenborg's Writings. I have found that during mindfulness meditations my breathing changes. Instead of becoming deeper and more regular, as might be expected of certain meditation or yoga techniques, it becomes very shallow, almost to the point of stopping altogether. This is remarkably similar to Swedenborg’s description of his own breathing:

"I [Swedenborg] first became accustomed to breathing in this way in early childhood during the praying of the morning and evening prayers, as well as later, at times, while I was investigating the harmonies of the lungs and heart, especially when my mind was engaged in writing the works that have been published over many years. At such time I noticed now and then that there was a tacit breathing, hardly perceptible. So for many years from early childhood I had been introduced to such breathing, most of all during intense moments of insight, when breathing comes to rest, and if it does not, an intense insight of truth is not given.

Then later, when heaven was opened, so that I would speak with spirits, and thus would not breathe in at all for the space of a short hour. I only drew in as much air as I needed to think. In this way I was introduced by the Lord to inward ways of breathing" (Spiritual Experiences 3464).

This implies that a practice of mindfulness is useful in the coming into harmonious contact with heaven, the angels, and the Lord. See also the breathing descriptions concerning the Most Ancient Church, as in Arcana Coelestia 7361:

"The type of speech which those people who belonged to the Most Ancient Church employed, was not articulated, like the vocal speech of our own times, but was non-audible, produced not by external breathing but by means of internal breathing. I have also been allowed to ascertain the nature of their internal breathing. It came from between the navel and the heart and so through the lips without any sounds when they were speaking.

With those people of the Most Ancient Church words were delivered in a far more perfect way because it was done by means of internal breathing. And because this interior breathing is also far more perfect, it is more applicable and appropriate to the actual ideas comprising thought. Because that type of speech existed with them, and because they had internal breathing, they were therefore able to live in company with angels."

The astounding quantity of descriptions of the Most Ancient Church in the Writings cannot, in my mind, be for the purpose of giving us interesting intellectual knowledge about a time long gone. There has to be a practical purpose for that information, something we can use today. Mindfulness seems to me to be one very practical way of applying the Writings in daily life.

Lastly, let’s mention church growth. Because mindfulness has a modern form that is completely religion-neutral it is acceptable to people from many diverse backgrounds. Mindfulness in the New Church can therefore be a fruitful contact surface with the people around us, a common ground, and beneficial for all involved.

Stephen Muires

Stephen is forty-eight years old and currently located in Stockholm. That's his first job as minister and the experience is shaping. His main areas of interest are aliens, the Native American flute, and the awakening human race. He blogs at Muires.wordpress.com.

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