9th DAY OF LENT – FASTING/FEASTING FOR THE NEW GOLDEN AGE

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A TIME OF RETREAT

9^th DAY OF LENT – FASTING/FEASTING FOR THE NEW GOLDEN AGE

(Devotionals may be best understood by reading in order)

Nancy B. Detweiler, M.Ed., M.Div.

A Light for my Path

In the 8^th Day of Lent devotional, we learned that the unpardonable sin (missing the mark) is persisting in the belief that Mother/Father God can and does create something of disharmony or dis-ease.

 The unpardonable sin does not mean God will NOT forgive us … it is unpardonable because as long as we believe God inflicted a dis-ease on us or God caused the earthquake that killed our family member, we close the door to the true gift of God:  unconditional, everlasting parental love that is “Incapable” of causing us a mini-second of distress.  Blaming God for the disharmony in our lives is missing the mark in our search for truth.   WE are the only ones who can open our minds to truth … until we do so, we continue to miss the mark, to commit the unpardonable sin by placing the responsibility for disharmony on God.

Why is humanity so prone to committing the unpardonable sin … to blaming God for the pain in our lives … to believing God is punishing us?

The answer takes us back to the predominant Western religions’ teaching that we have only one life to live.  This teaching fails to recognize humanity as eternal spirit beings.  With only one life to live, we are forced to reason that this one life begins at the time of conception in our physical mother’s womb and ends when we leave our own physical body.  This means that eternity “begins” at death and proceeds into an unending future of “walking the streets of gold” with no real purpose or being punished in the fires of hell.[i]

First of all, the definition of eternity is having no beginning and no end.  Second, how barren of purpose is having only one life to live?  No wonder people ask:  “What is the meaning of life?  We are born … live a few decades, then die … never to live again.  No wonder people blame God for everything that happens!  With this belief, we have very little input and can only explain to ourselves, “This is life.”   No wonder the mental hospitals are full.  No wonder people commit suicide or kill each other.  Only one life to live has no lasting purpose.   We simply come … stay for a few years … and leave.

Why have we so readily accepted this nonsensical teaching?  It totally removes any sense of enduring personal power and meaning … any sense of individual sovereignty … any sense of having an integral role in the Cosmic Divine Plan.  Many question whether or not God has a Divine Plan.

We say, “But I don’t remember living before.”  Others refuse to accept more than one life to live because they do not want to live again.  The extremely tragic outcome of not accepting the Truth of eternal life during which we incarnate into a wide variety of circumstances is that humanity is left with no way to explain life or ourselves and we unknowingly persist in committing the unpardonable sin.  We blame God for our pain because we can fathom no other reason. 

Sadly, many read the Bible … do not see the word reincarnation in the entire book … and decide:  we have only one life to live because the Bible tells us no differently.  This is the trouble with reading the Bible on a surface level …  or, on the literal level of the English words … and not digging beneath the surface for Truth.[ii]

Knowing the Truth that we are eternal beings of spirit will allow us to view God in a very different light and to gain a framework in which to begin understanding ourselves as integral parts of the Whole of Creation.  It will afford us the understanding we need to never again commit the unpardonable sin.

On this 9^th Day of Lent, may we “fast” from accepting the lie that we have only one life to live. 

 May we “feast” on observing our self and determine how often we use “only one life to live” as an explanation.  Note how often we hear this phrase in TV shows, in advertisements, and in social/religious venues. 

 May we “feast” on becoming alert to how we are affected subliminally by this message—repetition of any lie results in humanity finally believing it … unless we are alert to what is happening.  May we “feast” on waking up!