Unbroken

On Christmas Day I watched the movie Unbroken about the Olympic runner Louie Zamperini who survived a plane crash, over thirty days in the Pacific in a life boat, and incarceration and torture in four Japanese POW camps.  The movie ends with Louie's loving reunion at stateside with his parents and siblings after liberation.

But the story doesn't end there.  Louie, his Olympic hopes destroyed by injuries in the POW camp, cannot escape the nightmares of his tormentors.  He turns to drink and becomes violent including attempting to strangle his young wife who was pregnant.  But God had a plan.

After extreme badgering of his wife, Louie attended two Billy Graham services where Dr. Graham preached, "What God asks of men is faith.  His invisibility is the test of that faith.  To know who sees him, God makes himself unseen."  Through Louie's waves of anger and desperation to leave the service, God then spoke to Louie.   "A memory long beaten back, the memory from which he had run the evening before, was upon him."...."He was a body on a raft, dying of thirst.  He felt words whisper from his swollen lips.  It was a promise thrown at heaven, a promise he had not kept, a promise he had allowed himself to forget until just this instant:  If you will save me, I will serve your forever." 

"And then standing under a circus tent on a clear night in downtown Los Angeles, Louie felt rain falling.  It was the last flashback he would ever have.  Louie let go of his wife and turned toward Graham.  He felt supremely alive.  He began walking.  'This is it,' said Graham. 'God has spoken to you. come in."....  "Louie felt profound peace.  When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him." (Excerpts in quotes from Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand)

In my life I have experienced the viciousness of those who attempted to break my spirit.  As a result of that experience, I was terrified that I would never regain my ability to feel the light that comes of sanity and love.  But in a vision which was my reality, God showed me an Earth blanketed in snow, where there is no death, sickness, pain, or sin.  The vision of purity was so beautiful, despite my fear for the loss of my sanity, I began my path of trust in God and forgiveness of those who attempted to break my spirit.

Louie experienced the supreme acts of evil to degrade a human to make them feel "worthless, broken, and forsaken.'   He was on the brink of total destruction before God intervened and he emptied out his will not to his tormentors, but to God who is love.  God lifted his burden and Louie was able to forgive his tormentors and feel at peace. It is sweet surrender.

A Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving

In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

- 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NKJV)

Yesterday I celebrated Thanksgiving with my exchange student Lin and her boyfriend both who are Chinese.  They are warm and genuine and filled with love and goodwill. I enjoyed making all my traditional family dishes including homemade cranberry jelly.  I did miss my family, especially my mother and father who are now only with us in spirit.  After my celebration with Lin, I was invited into the family home of my new friend Lisa.  Lisa's mother remarked several times that their family celebration was a Norman Rockwell painting.  I had to agree.   The house was filled with joy and activity and there were numerous tables recently cleared from the Thanksgiving feast.  Their house was warm and inviting and filled with love and I felt instantly at home.

My walks around my neighborhood are my time to experience God.  The neighborhood is peaceful and beautiful and a contrast from the recent fear and riots in other areas of St. Louis.  As I walked this afternoon, I thought about Norman Rockwell and the love of life he depicted in his paintings.   But Norman Rockwell captured the American Dream based on faces found in a small town in the Fifties.  But now that the United States is more urban, more diverse, what artist now captures the essence of what it is to be American at Thanksgiving?  How do we create a unified vision and how would it be painted?   It seems that as the face of America becomes more diverse, we need to think about what binds us together.  Like Lin and her boyfriend, love is not isolated to a family that looks like a Norman Rockwell painting.  It is a universal value that knows no limits.  Our commonality is our freedom and our ability to form families and relationships while acknowledging our diversity.  

The painting in my mind, which is the essence of Norman Rockwell's vision, is of families of all races and nationalities surrounding a table spread with their traditional dishes while thanking God for all the blessings and gifts he has bestowed on us.

Let it Snow!

“Oh the weather outside is frightful

But the fire is so delightful

And since we've no place to go

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”

- Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne – Composers and Lyrists

As I left church this morning, snow was coming down steadily in perfect snowflakes.  I entered my "Passion Red" Volvo and turned on the radio station playing 24-hour Christmas music and reminisced about my childhood in the 1960s.   When I listen to the recordings of artists of that time including Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas," I remember the idealism of my childhood.  My parents, who were military, celebrated the Christmas season joyfully.  My mother decorated the house with fresh boughs of greenery done in bows of gold, silver, red and white.  Our tree was beautifully adorned and stood before a floor to ceiling set of windows.  My parents would part the curtains with the snow coming down just like the movie "White Christmas."  On Christmas Eve my parents went to Midnight Mass and when they returned rang the sleigh bells to announce the arrival of Santa.  I heard the bells and tried to be as quiet as possible to keep Santa from leaving.  My parents freed from the Great Depression, World War II and the Korean War saw the world with optimism and new beginnings.  They had faith in God that peace on Earth could prevail.  

There is a lot of discussion about whether a Christian God should be the center of a unified vision for our country.  I believe as a Christian, you lead through example not by lecturing.  But I have also come to believe that God should be discussed and honored in our country.   God, who is love, is a unifying force.  When we act out of love and serve others, we create God's Kingdom on Earth.

We need all members of our society to remember what it means to listen and serve.  This means often to sacrifice so that others can have a better life.  That is the root of Jesus' life and my parents’ generation.  My mother and father believed in leaving the world a better place than when they found it.  They knew what sacrifice really means and how to unify a country.  Evil is insidious because it creates fear and separates us from each other when we need courage to act as one through love.

Today's snow reminds me to create love and beauty to inspire others and to do so only if I am one person.

Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.

The Ark of the Covenant

The essence of my very being is to think in terms of metaphors and symbols and God has used them as his method for drawing me close to him so I now thirst for his presence through the Holy Ghost and his Word.  I recently embarked on a journey to read the Bible in entirety in chronological order so that I could understand his Word.  As I take this journey I will share my thoughts with the readers of Sacred Souls.

I have finished reading Genesis and Exodus and my objective today was to absorb the detail of God’s directions to Moses on how to build the Ark of the Covenant.  “The ark was made of acacia wood – two and half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high.  He overlaid it with pure gold, both inside and out, and made a gold molding around it.”  Additional rings, an atonement cover, and cherubim were all made of gold.  A table, lampstand, altars, courtyard, and priestly garments were also constructed of gold, silver, bronze, beautiful colorful linens, and jewels.  After reflecting on the passage in Genesis of Noah’s ark, and God’s promise to Noah he would never wipe out humanity again, I had a revelation on why the beautifully rendered ark by Moses and the Israelites meant.

The SIL Glossary of linguistic Terms identifies an ontological metaphor as “a metaphor in which an abstraction, such as an activity, emotion, or idea, is represented as something concrete, such as an object, substance, container, or person.”  The ark in Genesis was a vessel, a container and a representation of the covenant made by God with Noah, never to devastate the Earth again.  During the flood the ark physically contained and protected Noah, his family, and earth’s animals against God’s devastation.   So what did the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus represent?  It physically contained the Ten Commandments.  Moses and the Israelites recognized God wanted the Ark and the tabernacle in which it resided to be holy.  At the time of Exodus these objects symbolized how to outwardly and physically be holy by following the Ten Commandments, cleanliness, and through sacrifice.  However, humans through these actions could not wipe the stain of sin from our souls and its consequences on the human race.    What would be our ark that would save us in a flood (death) and how could we truly be holy with our innate sinfulness?  God’s answer was later revealed in the Gospels through Jesus (although unknown to Moses and the Israelites at the time of Exodus). Jesus sinless (cleanliness), sacrifice on the cross, promise of resurrection by God, and God's release of the Holy Ghost which enters each one of us as we submit our will to God and act out of love like Jesus did.       

A Book on the Library Shelf

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

― Marcus Tullius Cicero – Roman Philosopher and Politician

My cousin Carol who is a nurse, told me she was comforting a family of a 63 year-old patient dying of colon cancer in the hospital who asked why their loved one was dying so soon when there was so much still to experience.   Carol explained to the family that each life was a book in God's library, which once the story ended, was put back on the library shelf.   She said that stories in each book could be retold and honored by each of us when remembering our loved ones.

I thought Carol's story was a beautiful metaphor for our earthly life.   When we write our stories, even when written as short stories, they can be reread as a beloved book continuing to change other lives.   But I believe God would never leave our own dreams sitting unfinished on a library shelf.  Heaven is where our bodies and soul are renewed, our heart's desires are fulfilled, and the story never ends.

Revery

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a bee,

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.” 

― Emily Dickinson – American Poet

Today I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert on Ted.com.  She is a mesmerizing speaker who wrote Eat, Pray, Love and her Ted Talk topic is on the creative process.  She explained that genius is defined in the ancient Greek and Roman cultures as a spirit outside our human form that gives us creative inspiration.  About 500 years ago, genius became embodied in individual human form and that we lost in translation the divine inspiration from a genius or spirit outside of us.   Elizabeth postulated that it created a burden on the artist because the fear is that once a masterpiece is created, we may lose our ability to create a work equally inspiring.  

As I began writing my blog Sacred Souls there was so much that I needed to pour out of me.   My thoughts and ideas of the past twenty-five years seem to have become focused.   I realize without my creative or "brilliant" thoughts that propel me to another spiritual level, I feel quite ordinary and uninspired.   Those moments of inspiration now come less frequently and I find what was so vivid in my mind, all the amazing connections and meanings, quickly fade away.  Elizabeth spoke of a poet who found if she didn't immediately put pen to paper, her poems were lost to randomly rest in some other poet.

Like many other writers and artists, I love the creative process - the flight of ideas and thoughts.  Once I experienced the all-encompassing creative process, I had a glimpse of the divine in all its glory.   My beloved Uncle Roy quoted Emily Dickinson’s poem Revery to me when I wrote to him of my ideas about spreading spiritual communication.