Divine Providence Reveals that Trial and Tribulation only Appear to be a Curse (Pt. 2)

You'll be surprised read, here in part two, that Cortland had farther to fall. Miraculously, he can see that all he went through was a direct expression of his spiritual state. Through it all, the Lord was revealing his inner state for what it was, calling him to love the truth for the right reasons. (Start with part one here). -Editor

From Part 1: 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 manifests itself in every particular of my life.

From here on the reader will have to excuse me for not going into detail about what happened over the next 10+ years. If I were to attempt to do so it would fill many pages so I hope the trials and tribulations in themselves will reveal what this small piece is trying to express.

On November 23, 1999, two days before my 30th birthday, my mother called 911 and told the operator that she was going to take her life and then proceeded to do just that. I appeared to be doing okay until about two months after when it dawned on me that Mamma was gone. For the next two years I sat in my studio apartment(as I had moved away from my children) with my one and only love: alcohol. I was able the receive a two year respite from full blown addiction only because of the fact that I drank myself into destitution and had to move back in with my family. I still drank on a daily basis, but it was not as bad as it had been during the previous two years when I lived alone.

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Divine Providence Reveals that Trial and Tribulation only Appear to be a Curse (Pt. 1)

This is part one of Cortland's honest account of where he came from and how he found (or was found by) the Lord. He lays out the exterior and interior facts of his life with abandon. It's a remarkable story. Stayed tuned for part two next week. -Editor

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.

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Tent Talk: Unexpected Treasures

If you ever find yourself in the wilds of Alaska, stuck in a tent with an obnoxious teenager, you will wish you had read this article by Lauren Anderson. In it she recounts her experience of a surprising opportunity to talk about the big questions of life. Are humans more than animals? Did the universe come from nothing? -Editor

During the month of July, I embarked on an outdoor adventure that would test my tolerance for adverse weather, steep boulder-clad slopes, and adolescent men with drug and attitude problems. My sea-kayaking and backpacking trip through south-central Alaska, indeed, was more of a social challenge than a physical challenge. The challenge was that the average age of my eleven-member student group was seventeen. The culture shock of interacting (for the first time ever in my life) with teens from affluent families and worldly backgrounds of blatant abuse of drugs, alcohol, and sex, was quite shocking and rather dismaying. One lad, in particular, let’s call him Peter, was a huge test of my patience due to his meticulous ability to shirk most work with procrastination and poor excuses, his disrespect of others made apparent by his colorful and repugnant vocabulary, and his disrespect of the environment, which was unfortunately exacerbated by his laziness. It pains me to speak ill of so ill of one, however, which is why I am quite pleased to relay my best (as in, most pleasant and somehow profound) interaction with Peter, and the coincidental – or, more accurately, providential – lessons I learned from it.

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Skinned Knees and Hurt Feelings Build Character

One of the things Chad does is raise children. Here he shares an anecdote of hiking up a mountain with his kids. Through analogy, and reference to the work Divine Providence, Chad explores ideas about the Divine perspective when caring for His Human children. This essay comes across as humorous and light hearted while conveying satisfyingly grounded philosophical conclusions. -Editor

Lately I have been thinking about the Lord as the Perfect Parent and Divine Providence as His consistent implementation of a flawless parenting philosophy based on the everlasting mercy of His Divine Love and Wisdom! I like this approach because it helps me think of Him in a more intimate way: He is the Person who has been in my life from the very beginning, making things work and loving me unconditionally—rather than my boss, or my coach, or my best buddy or some of the other perfectly acceptable ways of thinking about God. What I like best about this concept of the Lord is that, being a parent myself, it helps me: understand the limited nature of my own freedom; recognize some of the ways that the Lord is raising me toward heaven; and accept that I cannot grow up to be an angel unless the Lord lets me learn from my own mistakes and the mistakes of others.

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A Parable for the Future

Its difficult to summarize what Dylan does in this piece. You should probably just read it. The whole thing has the tone of challenge and asks New Church people to expand their thinking, to not assume that they are entitled, and to expect the manifestation of the Lord's presence on earth to keep evolving and out pacing any of our own expectations. He also promises us a sequel.

The world is still evolving.

I think those of us steeped in the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg tend to lose sight of that. We're understandably focused on the 18th century, that great event some two-hundred and fifty years ago when Heaven bent down and touched the Earth for only the second or third time in its multi-billion year life span; that brief embrace that left us with a tangible impression of the beautiful, spiritual reality perched just beneath our time-and-space mammalian existence. And yes, it deserves such focus. Cryptic only in its girth and intellectual rigor, a careful study of the Writings promises its readers a consistent, comprehensive blue print of the Lord's intentions for the human race. It fills in historical and theological gaps that the Christian world has fought with for millennia. It offers hope, and a plan of action. Freed from dogmatic constriction and endlessly interpretable parables, the Writings also feel true. And we have them now. Awesome.

And we've had them now for two-hundred and fifty years.

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