Meditate | My Dear Self-Interest

“The tree of lives is love and the faith it leads to; in the middle of the garden means in the will that belongs to the inner self.

The main thing the Lord possesses in a person or angel is the will, which the Word refers to as the heart. Since none of us can do good on our own, our will or heart is not ours, even though it is described as ours. What is truly our own is self-interest, which we call our will.

Because the will is in the middle of the garden, in which stands the tree of lives, and we have no will aside from self-interest, this tree is the Lord’s mercy, the source of all love and faith and so of all life” (Secrets of Heaven 105).

I remember vividly a number of years ago waking up in the morning from sleep with the phrase, “there is love in your heart,” reverberating through my mind. It felt like a huge awakening. Acknowledging this phrase as true meant trusting the Lord to supply love to me in or through my heart. Reading this passage takes me to the next level—the Lord IS my heart! It’s not my heart at all; the only thing that is my own is self-interest! Contemplating this in meditation, my heart feels like it is a glowing red, vibrant center giving light, warmth, and life to the rest of my body. It is by living from my heart that I truly can live from the Lord.

So next in my meditation, I think about my day. My will is self-interest, and the Lord’s is my heart. Yes, after examination, I realize everything I want to do today—“my plan”—is self-interest: I have a haircut appointment; I need to do laundry; I have an interview scheduled…all self-interest. Then I ask, “What is the Lord’s will?” What would it look like? What would I do today if I lived from my heart and humbled my self-interest to that…?

I have no answer at all. Then I realize, of course I don’t know—I’m all self-interest! So then it comes to me—“live from love according to faith.” This simple phrase just keeps repeating itself in my mind. This means sacrificing knowing the future and any attachment I have to what I’ll really end up doing today, because to live from the Lord, from the heart, means to live in the present; to live without self-interest is to live in the present because self-interest immediately wants to know the future and “what’s in it for me?” So I’ve got to go do that now—live from love according to faith. That changes my perspective on my day!    

Genuine Love

Ronald describes eternal love as unwavering and full of splendor, but if we are preoccupied with time bound concerns, it may not appear to us as it truly is. He directs us to live from a higher perspective, one where the pleasure of acting from love is the only reward we seek. -Editor

Genuine love is not something that is always easy to see, in fact when we look out at the world we can never really be sure that what we are seeing is genuine love. Genuine love takes many forms and often lives deep beneath the surface of most of our relationships. While at times it may be quite apparent as when we see a beautiful smile or selfless act of kindness, often it is buried far within a persons actions. Love sometimes is expressed in ways that do not look loving at all. Love can lie behind the stern look of a parent or a gentle expression of disapproval. Love can also be at the heart of a refusal to show untimely compassion as when a judge puts a criminal in jail for the protection of the community. Love, because it has what is eternal in its heart, will not always be easy to see, and at times love will not be appreciated as much as it should be.

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Possible Married Partners: One or Many?

Judah examines choosing a partner to marry from two different perspectives, the Lord's omniscience and the individual's limited viewpoint. Humans desire certainty but paradoxically would resist directives from an authoritarian god. Judah arrives at consent as the bridge between these two perspectives. - Editor

I need to find my soul mate

Have you ever said, heard, or felt something like this before? Everlasting love is a theme in cultures around the world and one that’s especially prevalent in the New Church, where it’s often called conjugial or married love. Needing to find a soul mate implies that there is one out there—and that we need to be certain he or she is the right one; which leads us to a question: is there only one possible married partner for each of us or are there many? (I use the term “married partner” for what in broader culture might be called a “soul mate”.) So is there one or many? There are two very different answers to this question, depending upon whether we’re dealing with the Lord’s perspective or ours.

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Meditate | The Time of Conflict

“The time of conflict is when the Lord is at work (for which reason the prophets call a regenerate person the work of God’s fingers [Psalms 8:3, 6; Isaiah 19:25; 29:23; 45:11; 60:21; 64:8; Lamentations 4:2]), and he does not rest until love takes the lead. Then the conflict ends.

When the work progresses so far that faith is united with love, it is called very good, since the Lord now makes us likenesses of himself” (Secrets of Heaven 63).

For some reason (and I’d be curious to know if it’s the same for others), I often fear that love will never return, that I’ll stop loving the people and things in my life and it will never come back. This is how it feels for me in conflict (internal or spiritual conflict). Conflict is one of the most uncomfortable states to be in; I feel totally alone, stuck, helpless, and hopeless. This passage is extraordinarily comforting for how it assures us that those times of conflict are when the Lord is at work and does not rest until love takes the lead. This is a passage much worth repeating throughout my day as a reminder for how I can trust that the Lord actually is leading me to more genuine love even when I am undergoing conflict.  

Creating Your Own Reality

Todd Beiswenger leads off a series of three dissertation digests. In the following short essay, Todd gives us a taste of the topic he is exploring for his capstone research and writing project in the Academy of the New Church Theological School (ANCTS, www.ancts.org). Todd's goal is to uncover what role humans have in manifesting or “creating” their own destinies. In the following two weeks we will hear from two other ANCTS students: Pearse Frazier on Celestial Bliss and Stephen Muires on The Sacred. -Editor

Every love has a purpose. If you understand all this in the right way, you will be able to see the universe as a coherent work from beginning to end, a work holding purposes, means, and results in indissoluble connection. (True Christian Religion 47)

Every now and again, I drive to some familiar place, and ask myself, “How did I get here?” I’ve driven it so many times that the turns, the traffic, and the surroundings are tuned out. I don’t remember hardly a thing about the drive, but nevertheless I made it to my destination. This happens to us as well with our whole life. We have certain mental routines that drive us to various places, often without us remembering why it is we do these things. The fact is there is a reason why we do what we do.

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It Will Not Be So Among You

With excitement and urgency, Isaac Synnestvedt asks the reader to consider the Lord's powerful and present rule in this world and in the lives of all individuals. He considers the difference between useful and destructive loves of ruling. Finally, Isaac leads the reader to consider the amazing blessings in store when we “persist in charity against all odds.” -Editor.

In actual fact heavenly blessedness does not consist in wishing to have dominion and to be served by others but in wishing to serve others and to be the least, as the Lord teaches.... (Arcana Coelestia 6393:2)

Can our love and good works be filled with the glory of the Lord? Yes! if we prepare ourselves and receive Him. Can we shine from our hearts and rule nations and peoples in the presence of the mighty God of the universe? Yes! The nations we will rule are the affections of good flowing in continually from heaven that we will form into beautiful vessels receptive of life according to our art and skill. The peoples we will govern are the tools of thought and reflection that we will use with intelligence and increasing knowledge to shape our offerings of service. This humble rule will be ours as we turn away from any desire to exercise external compulsion of our neighbors' words or actions. We shall inherit our thrones as we decline the invitation to control our neighbors.

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