Meditate | Shoveling

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor

"Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity;
Yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood.
He made a pit and dug it out,
And has fallen into the ditch which he made" (Psalms 7:14-15).

"The Lord witnessed the outer self at its most beautiful, when united with the inner self. He also witnessed what it is like when not united to the inner self (verses 10, 11, 12, 13 [quoted as follows])" (Secrets of Heaven 1538).

"And Lot raised his eyes and saw the whole plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered (before Jehovah had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah), like the garden of Jehovah, like the land of Egypt as you come to Zoar.
And Lot chose for himself all the plain of the Jordan; and Lot set out from the east, and they separated, a man from his brother.
Abram lived in the land of Canaan, and Lot lived in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent as far as Sodom.
And the men of Sodom were very evil and sinful against Jehovah" (Genesis 13:10-13).

Lately I’ve had ample opportunity to witness what my outer self is like when not united to the inner self. It’s painful to witness the outer self chugging along in all its falsity and compulsion. What’s worse though is the stretch of time when I’m falling for it,

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Repentance: Incomparable Process of Life Change and Spiritual Transformation

This week Mark introduces the Begin A New Life program - a process using the steps of repentance as a means of self examination. He offers personal testimony as to the amazing, deep, and life changing process that is repentance. -Editor

On January 25th, a one-day seminar/workshop was held at the Bryn Athyn Cathedral in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania (USA). Twenty-four people—college age and up—were there. The subject was the New Church’s “steps of repentance” as a disciplined spiritual practice¹. The title of the seminar was Begin a New Life: Four Universal Steps of Life Change and Spiritual Transformation.

Begin a New Life is a universal, faith based process of life change and spiritual transformation. It involves a formatting of the steps of repentance into a set of worksheets which allows people to go through the process in journalizing fashion. It also borrows on Swedenborg’s full explanations of the Ten Commandments at two different points in the process—recognition and living a new life.

The purpose of this article is to give a testimony to the value of this process in my own life.

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Feeling the Lord's Love in Repentance

This week Abby takes a fresh look at the concept of repentance in her life—a concept that once made her feel heavy and stuck now genuinely lightens her load. She finds that this welcomed, new perspective on repentance aligns more convincingly with her understanding of God's true nature—one of love and forgiveness. -Editor

By nature I am a person who tends towards negative, victimized ways of looking at my life. It has taken me years to nurture a more empowered and positive outlook. I feel like for the first time in my life I “get it” in a way that I never have before. Up until recently I think that any time I read the Writings or the Bible or really most any religious or spiritual work, I had the victim lens in front of my eyes. I understood the ideas, but they felt hard, depressing, and not particularly helpful in developing the happy, secure life I longed for. They didn’t feel like the evidence of an all loving and supportive God I hoped to have a meaningful relationship with. Everything felt sort of on the edges of application and realization in my life. But in the last 6 months things have changed for me, and I recently had a very uplifting and hopeful experience reading a passage I’ve probably heard many times before.

Being raised in a minister’s family, I have known the major ideas and teachings of the New Church for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember thinking about or hearing the word repentance for the first time, so obviously it’s been an idea that I’ve had in mind for years. I was recently reading the Seven Practices of Peace spiritual growth program produced by General Church Outreach and came across this sequence of quotes over a few pages (40-41). As I was reading them the idea of repentance struck me in a new way.

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The Power Of Positive Thinking

God has equipped us with many tools to give us a happy life. This week Mary describes the difference it makes in everyday life when we use our mental tools to choose trust, to work to understand, and to choose to see the peace and beauty in each moment. -Editor

Have you ever noticed that doing the same action can be changed drastically by your own attitude and expectations? For example, let’s say you have to drive 50 miles to get somewhere today. If you are on your way to a job interview, you probably left early, gave yourself lots of extra time, planned your route and spent the drive rehearsing what you will say. If you are on your way to see a loved one that you haven’t seen in a long time, you might be singing happily to yourself, noticing the sunshine or bluebirds and wishing you could just get there faster. But if you are running late to get to a meeting that you are dreading because you don’t feel prepared and you don’t like the people who will be there, you might be feeling very differently. It might seem like everyone is cutting you off in traffic, it is taking a very long time to get there, the sun is glaring in your eyes and you just spilled your coffee on your new outfit.

The Lord has been showing me that often the most important thing I have a part in is my reaction to what is happening. He might still ask me to do something for which I feel terribly unprepared. He might show me some frightening giants that I need to conquer in my spiritual life. I might feel like I’ve been captured and taken away into captivity at times. And I do still have to take responsibility to do the next right thing each day. But what if I had choices that could make all of it better? What if it could actually work out more smoothly and with less suffering because of something that I have been given the power to do?

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The Power to Act Righteously

It can feel overwhelming to try and understand Jesus' life and all of the implications it has in our lives. This week Joel looks at one powerful element that can help us see one kind of daily impact. -Editor

We are told many times in the Writings that the Lord’s life on earth is essential to our salvation. That somehow, what He accomplished thousands of years ago on this earth still has ramifications on our own lives today. Certainly, as a historical event, it is important that the Lord conquered the hells. He conquered them then, and so they remain conquerable in our time.

But we might start to wonder why we are told so many things about the Lord’s process. Surely the Lord does not simply want us to know about His life as a history lesson. Knowledge of what He did contains an infinite amount of truth about who our God is, the same God who is with us even now.

We could not possibly cover all of the Lord’s life in so short an article; but if we explore even just one aspect of His life, we can learn much about how He works with us today. Take for instance the teaching that the Lord, in His lifetime, became righteousness itself. This is a powerful teaching, yet it can be hard to see what it means for us. So let’s take a closer look.

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Meditate | Heading South

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor

If you bring out your soul for someone starving and satiate an afflicted soul, in the shadows your light will rise, and your darkness will be like midday. (Isaiah 58:10)

And he [Abram] moved from there onto a mountain to the east of Bethel and spread his tent; Bethel was toward the sea and Ai toward the east. And there he built an altar to Jehovah and called on Jehovah’s name. And Abram traveled, going and traveling toward the south. (Genesis 12:8-9)

Toward the south means into goodness and truth and so into a condition in which inner things would be clear. (Secrets of Heaven 1456)

Heading south sounds pretty nice right now given that the thirteen winter storms so far this season have made this the third snowiest winter in Philadelphia’s recorded history. Actually, I like snow—it’s the cold that’s really getting to me. I long to be somewhere sunny and warm! Not coincidentally, heading south on a spiritual level would feel pretty good, too! What’s going on before Abram travels south?

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