Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.
I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Matthew 10: 34 - 37
As lovely as it is, it is yet a boundary, a division between two very different states. With the frequent crossing, I could easily forget - if it weren't for the view and the long traffic jams on the bridge - that I was leaving one state and entering another.
The Columbia River crossing is a kind of sacred river for me. Each morning and each evening as I make that crossing, I leave behind in that other world all its cares and worries, its dramas and emotional turmoils. I shift my mind from one world to another.
The Columbia River crossing is also a spiritual sword, a dividing marker, clearly separating two very different worlds as I work in Oregon and live in Washington. Work can be stressful. I am challenged by a supervisor who doesn't understand the spiritual life in the way in which I understand it and express it in my work choices and writing. This job was not my best choice, but here I am anyway. How did this happen? How is it that I find myself in such a place? Nothing is an accident. Unaware, I attracted this situation to myself to be experienced and then healed and ultimately replaced by a new (and yet to come) situation that more closely reflects what I want to experience.
I've realized that we all contain a kind of energetic system that has a magnetizing quality that draws to us a person, place or thing - or job - anything - that matches that same level of energy. For example, a sad person will attract more sad people, news, events into their lives. So I'm a happy person, how did this happen? Apparently, I had allowed my vibration to be lowered, unintentionally. So, when this job came into my life - and I use this job as an example of what happens to all of us - I hadn't yet been able to separate my mind from an infectious negativity that had seeped into my unconsciousness, until I reflected on the power of the sword to separate the world's diminishing value of us and our incredibly awesome real self worth. We are priceless, lovable, and incredibly powerful, beyond our wildest imaginations.
The sword is our mindful intention to clearly choose our thoughts - on all levels of consciousness. Since we are constantly creating our life experiences through our thoughts, conscious and unconscious, these imperfect things in our lives point to yet unconscious negativity that needs remediation and transformation. That, I think, we can do when we embrace - even love - that which repels us. The sense of discomfort and angst is an arrow pointing toward something unconscious in us that can only be healed through self-love and the strong conscious decision to not allow your power - as in your emotional state and convictions - be defined, controlled or stolen.
That is the only real power anyone has - what they are thinking and how they choose to respond to any given situation. However, we truly have to be aware there are wolves in sheep's clothing and they do come to steal our power. If we fight them, they win. If we love them, we win, but in doing that we have to be aware of why we're doing it and remember that we are also choosing not to be controlled. That sense of restored power will lead us to an even deeper and greater inner peace and joy once we've created what we want, but to get there we have to transform the obstacle that plaques us today.
The sword is a powerful metaphor for that which separates - flesh from bone - human from human - and so it is a powerful and effective metaphor for separating our conscious thoughts and emotions from the world's onslaught of negative programing that seeps like poison from our news casts, our politicians, our banksters, our parents and our children. We are all unwitting co-conspirators in this massive outpouring of all things anti-life, anti-creation, hugely negative and spiritually poisonous and emotionally disturbing. There is violence in every breath. We have all done this. We've all found ourselves gossiping, or listening to gossip or commenting on the latest round of news to pour off the front page. Negativity is infectious. It is slowly becoming "the new normal."
The Light of God warned us - through the wisdom of Jesus the very human man who was also fully filled with the light of God in His own spiritual maturity - about this. He often said, "You are in the world but not of the world." We have to, at his urging, become vigilant by consciously setting our inner minds to recognize what is toxic to the spirit and block it mentally. We have to remember who we are and remain mindful of that at all times. It may be in precisely this context that He urged us to love our enemy, love those who hate us. Why would we want to do that? Because it will raise your power level to a higher vibration, making your own love stronger, and make you more effective creators, and also draw you closer to an authentic encounter with God.
We can monitor our thoughts by watching our feelings, our emotions. Our emotions are a thermometer to what is in our consciousness. So, when your boss is in your face, you can choose to respond humbly, kindly and openly, while reminding yourself that this moment is a sacred opportunity to expand your own creative ability, your own power. The more you do it, the less often she'll show up at your desk shaking her head and the paper in her hand. We also maintain our power because we chose to be positive which refuses her the opportunity to downgrade our power, which is another word for stealing it. A co-worker occasionally leaves angry because his power is undermined every day. If he could stay positive, despite anything our boss does or says, and stay focused on being joyful and mentally self-determining, he could stay free, liberated from another person's bad mood, and in joy. Joy is evidence the spirit is free of the negative influences of the world.
So, when we set our emotional gauge to joy or love or peace or healing - or even to the sheer power of pure unconditional love - we need to lock it there. The world - of which we are not - will attempt to infect that peace, that joy, that love in an effort to steal our inner power, the only real power there is in an otherwise power-hungry world. When we react to anything outside our inner chosen realm of peace, we feed it and fan the flame of unrest. So, we need some kind of boundary in our mind that separates us from these two worlds. For me, it's the river. For Jesus it was a sword. He was never a proponent of violence and yet he knew the most vicious crimes are in our minds and so to separate our thoughts, the image of a sword may have been the better choice. The mind understands what a sword does and so to separate two different realms - only a sword could do that.
He also knew - as we have come to see lately - terrorism, evil, will suck us in through the abduction - either spiritually, emotionally, psychologically or sadly physically - of our children, our parents, our loved ones. The most insidious evil from the dark side attempts to draw us off our chosen path through the words and actions of our closest family members. If, as in the case in Nigeria today, our children are taken, we have no choice but to go after them. Wouldn't we do anything for our children or our parents and siblings? Of course we would.
But, on another level, would we forfeit our own souls to follow them into the violence of the dark side? That is where awareness is being called for. Do we care so much or need so much their approval that we would abandon our own resolve, our own inner choices to be accepted by them? Right there is where Jesus' sword comes down, separating us. He would say, "no."
If we allow ourselves to be dissuaded off our path, away from our joy and love and light, we have nothing left to give, to shine out, with which to inspire others. We have to manage our thoughts as well as if not better than how we manage our financial lives. We have to be as careful about what we allow in our minds, even what we are thinking about, as we are not to consume toxic foods,
We have to draw up sides within our minds so when we see the news, we can see it but not allow our emotional natures be overcome by it. There is horror all around us, sadness everywhere, crime everywhere, and yet there is also a watery, mystical garden in there also, blooming with radiant colors, brimming with joy and light-filled high places of love and peace.
We are called to a higher standard. We are called to the abundant life, that authentic promised land of inner peace flowing like "milk and honey." We are called to be a light to the nations. We are called to be vehicles for the holy in an unholy land. And, so, we are called to be very aware of our thoughts. I also think if we are very good at this, we may become able to enter the other side of the river, or the sword, that place of toxic thought and darkness, while remaining on the side of light by keeping our minds fully steeped in our love and joy and peace and forgiveness. I think that is what he is asking of us. Since "the kingdom" is an inner realm, I think this is what is meant and is urgently needed today.
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