News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Many dogs exhibit separation anxiety. Our rescued twelve-year-old Scottie, Piper, having lost 75 percent of her hearing, is now very dependent upon her care-giver. In the past she stayed in the car for an hour without getting upset. Now she howls the minute the car door closes. Bernie, the other Scottie, is with her for company, but that isn’t enough. She wants me with her.
Her first five years were spent in a happy home. Then her caregiver passed away. The next two years were spent in an unstable home, including going days without food. Finally, the situation was noticed, and she and her companion were put up for adoption. Five years ago she came to us and found peace and happiness. But now she seems afraid, and she’s feeling vulnerable.
Many Americans feel lonely and vulnerable. In a nation of wealth, 55 percent of older adults with health issues, including hearing loss, say they are lonely.
How can faith in a higher power help? During my seven-plus decades on this earth I’ve watched the glowing exclusion of faith from our government, schools, workplaces, and many other venues. During the 1950s, 98 percent of Americans believed there was some kind of power greater than themselves whom they could call upon during times of anxiety or trouble.
My uncle Pete, who served in the Navy during World War II and lived through the sinking of his destroyer in the Pacific, told my dad that there wasn’t an atheist left in the remaining crew after the ship’s sinking. All the survivors called upon faith to save them.
Yes, basic faith and a quick prayer can help during troubles. It takes a greater grasp of deeper faith, such as truly understanding what Jesus taught, to conquer deeper problems like seeping, creeping loneliness.
Many people with a basic faith in God do not fully comprehend the amazing message that we are not just our bodies but that we are all Spirit, linked with the powerful creator of the universe, regardless of our conscious faith. This is why we are all called “children of God,” and why we are never alone.
Today’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, and it has gone through many versions over the past two thousand years, begins with, “Our father who art in heaven.” This prayer, as most Western people know it, immediately separates us from the creator. God is in heaven, and we are on earth.
During research for my new book on faith, I discovered a fantastic recent translation of the Lord’s Prayer from 2,000-year-old Aramaic texts found in Egypt in 1947.
This prayer begins, “Father-Mother … Radiant One: you shine within us — outside us, even darkness shines…”
In other words, the Lord’s Prayer, as written during a time much closer to the days Jesus walked and taught, tells us right away that God is in us. In the West, this Power is called the “Christ” within. Other cultures and faiths call it by other names. Once we understand this concept, we can never be lonely again.
I’ve followed quantum physics for years. Recently, well-written books have come on the market explaining the research progress in terms that nonphysicists can understand. They show us that this tiny subatomic world can behave in ways that Jesus must have used to create the numerous “miracles” he revealed.
The quantum world demonstrates that tiny particles such as photons and electrons can change from energy into material matter simply by the thought of a person. If one knows the mental formula, that sounds like multiplying the loaves and fishes.
Experiments by both private and military scientists have demonstrated that human emotion can change DNA. That sounds like a consciousness tool for miraculous healings.
These new scientific windows demonstrate there are higher natural laws that we have not understood. But apparently Jesus knew about them and how to control them in a way we have yet to understand. He always said we would be able to do everything he did, but that we had to raise our consciousness and fill our hearts with love to get there.
Physicists are seeing that thought can change the material world. Thought and faith are the same thing. Deep faith in a higher power is a thought and a feeling. The deeper the faith, the more powerful the feeling. When your thought energy is more powerful, your consciousness rises above the pull of your body’s hold on it and you can see things and do things you never dreamed possible.
Jesus had a highly raised consciousness, actually making him one with the creative force. He told us in many ways that a raised consciousness was the key to reuniting with God. God is love, first. When you begin to touch something so powerful as changing energy into matter, you must be led by love or you could destroy the earth and everything else.
This amazing power is inside each of us. Our journey is to reach it. That begins with loving all living things on earth. We can find this power bit by bit with quiet time. Those who think they are lonely simply need someone to open their minds to faith. Growing faith will end the loneliness.
Rather than forbidding the discussion of faith, not religion — religion is rules and dogma — we need to bring back the opportunities to introduce the idea that there is an amazing power living in each of us.
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God? – I Corinthians 3:16
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