Photo by Tim Marshall @ Unsplash
Please forgive me for recent essays that provide very little solace, Sensitive Soul. Today I’d like to share a few personal details that I hope will provide context for the shift in content. When I enrolled in The New Seminary in NYC in 2002, my classmates and I were welcomed by Rabbi Joseph Gelberman, its very wise and very elderly founder. He told us that as interfaith ministers, it was our vowed responsibility to Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. He instilled within us the guiding principle of our education and spiritual formation on our very first day:
If you will guide others spiritually, you must remain true to the God-Within-Your-Own-Soul. You don’t have to be perfect, but it is essential that you practice your spirituality, in whatever form it takes. Commit to educating yourselves in the perspectives of others for the rest of your life and speak out against injustice wherever you see it. ~ Rabbi Gelberman
This great and humble man understood the many religions to be many expressions of the human spirit, and much more about man than about an incomprehensible God. He showed us the variety of ways people around the world performed ceremonies that celebrate a reverence for life, nature and a creative Source beyond human understanding. He also pointed out the heavy burden of human suffering and injustice and how we could offer people a soft road out of their pain by listening without judgment.
If we continually return to a unifying understanding of love that includes everyone, he reassured us, we would be guided when to speak and when to stay silent, when to comfort, and when to afflict or compassionately challenge others. Rabbi Gelberman founded The New Seminary along with a priest and an imam, on the principles of love, equality and mutual understanding among all people, regardless of their background or way of life. His wisdom continues to inspire and inform me twenty years after ordination as I do my best to live up to my vow to stay true to the God-Within-My-Soul, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Hence, the challenging essays I’ve been compelled to write lately.
My daily practice of spiritually connecting, as well as my writing and work with individuals and groups over many years has carved well worn grooves in my intuitive apparatus. When someone gives their intent to grow spiritually, I get to intuitively see images or apprehend concepts that may mean nothing to me, but reveal meaningful clues for the person seeking counsel. I comfort and support them as they find their own solutions or a positive way forward after a setback. Information that is beyond my personal knowledge comes to me for their enlightenment. I honor each person’s sovereignty and sacred right to take that information and make choices that align with the God within their soul, whatever form that takes. I offer my gift of intuitive guidance as a perspective to be considered and accepted or rejected by the receiver, who ultimately decides its value and relevance, not me.
What I’ve shared in recent essays is the integration of my intuition and my very curious intellect. When a dear friend told me she’d passed out from blood clots, startling images emerged spontaneously on my mindscreen. My intellect was troubled and wanted verification for what I intuited, so I began reading, researching, analyzing and praying about the images and information I received. I scoured primary sources, news reports and analysis by independent thinkers. I prayed some more, pondered deeply and asked for Divine guidance. Recent Solace for Sensitive Souls newsletters are the product of that process.
My extensive and deeply discouraging discoveries unsettled Pollyanna, the eternal optimist in me. Since learning about the underpinnings of our worldwide crisis, which I believe to be a spiritual crisis at its core, I find myself identifying more with Kassandra, a Trojan priestess in Greek mythology who was cursed to utter true prophecies, but never be believed. Whether my essays comfort or afflict you, they represent a perspective that’s true to the God-Within-My-Soul. They are an offering. I invite you to run them by your soul and your intellect and share your experience with me.
Though much of what I’ve written is heretical to current mainstream orthodoxy, it is rooted in my passion for freedom, equality and transparency. I see the devastating effects of injustice on individuals and on our entire society. In spiritually perilous times like these, when I’m not sure whether to stay silent or speak up, I return to the wisdom of Rabbi Gelberman and make an appeal that together we generate a love big enough to include everyone. It’s the only way to banish the fear that will otherwise lead us to fulfill Kassandra’s doomsday prophecies.
https://www.revkatiegrace.com/
Many people have eyes, but cannot see the devastation, hatred and manipulation that’s being forged among our people.
Many people have ears, but cannot hear the cries of millions of children suffering from isolation, stolen education and the loss of faith in their own bodies to keep them healthy.
Many people have a mouth, but are too afraid to speak up for their fellow humans who are being segregated, forced out of their jobs and marginalized.
Many people have a nose, but they cannot sense the foul smell of weaponized fear, the putrid fear of healthy people being programmed to fear other healthy people and fear that their God-given bodies are too weak to survive without the help of those who profit from their sickness.
Many people have a heart, but they cannot feel the suffering of the millions of lives that have been destroyed, not from a virus, but from the archaic societal treatment of a virus. They cannot feel the pain of parents fighting to ensure their child isn’t part of an uncertain experiment. They cannot feel the pain of the children who’ve been locked up with their abusers. They cannot feel the pain of the disadvantaged children who’ve been left even further behind, solidifying their odds of staying in the cycle of poverty, incarceration and chronic disease.
What is it to have senses but to act so senselessly?
What is it to be endowed with perspective but not shift to see from the perspective of others?
What is it to be blessed with so many possibilities, but only believe there is one way to solve our most pressing problems?
What is it to have knowledge of our history, but rely on the same entities that have lied, oppressed, imprisoned and killed so many of us?
Wake up your senses before it’s too late.
~ Shawn Stevenson, author, research scientist
A Love Big Enough to Include Everyone
Thank you so much for writing this. It's a real comfort to me since I have been struggling so much to gain the courage to speak out to all my friends, in particular my contemplative reading group, members who are such lovely people with deep spiritualities. But alas, they have all opted to accept the official narrative on this so-called virus, and I have been so afraid to broach the subject. Last week, however, somehow I did finally manage to speak up in a very jumbled up way, but I admitted that I have chosen not to take the injection. I wanted to also address the issue of the divisiveness that has arisen in the country between those who have had the shot and those who have chosen not to, and how painful this is for all.
The situation in one of my groups has been one where when one of the members references the virus they say things like "well, I assume we're all vaccinated". And of course, up until last week I said nothing to contradict those statements. Also, the same kind of thing has occurred when discussing politics, or the elections. They assume that everyone is a Democrat. I used to be about 10 years ago until I came to see that there is no party that has the common good at heart, and that both parties are working together and share the same agenda, and work for the same evil forces behind the curtain. The Democrat Party is a mere shadow of its former self from back in the JFK, RFK and MLK era. It has completely turned itself inside out and upside down to become exactly what they had professed themselves to be against.
So, please continue to speak the truth as you see it. I want to share with my friends what you have written, but I worry that it would be overstepping my bounds. However, I'm very concerned that many people have not questioned their government and the so-called experts that are constantly being quoted in the MSM press. Nor have they really done their due diligence and researched other theories on the virus or the jab. I worry that there will be consequences for them or their family members on down the road. I want to warn them, but I think they would feel disrespected.
Thanks for listening.