"Get your I AM centered in God, and from that place of Truth speak true words.."
The words above, from Unity co-founder Chas. Fillmore's book, Christian Healing, are our instructions for healing the world. They are also probably the most difficult how-to of our journey.
Judging from the phone calls, emails, and conversations I've been involved in lately, we are walking through a really, really difficult time to remain centered in spiritual Truth. I don't know that it's ever really "easy" to remain centered in Truth, but these past few days... weeks... months... years (?)... seem especially difficult. Politically, racially, culturally, we seem to be hopelessly mired in conflict.
It's challenging enough to navigate the day-to-day issues of life: health challenges, family relationships, economic instability; you can fill in your own blank. When we add to that the incredibly divisive political climate and the excruciatingly painful, ever-escalating level of violence in our world, it becomes nearly impossible to even remember there is a spiritual path, much less remain grounded upon it. I am aware that suggesting that the only truly helpful, transforming practice is to turn inward and focus on the omnipresence of peace can seem impossibly self-centered and selfish, not mention just flat out impossible. And yet...
In Truth, none of us can, through human means, "fix" the world. I do believe we can each heal the world, but healing and fixing are not the same thing. To fix something, we first see that it is broken, giving a certain 'reality' to its brokenness, and then we take steps to repair the break. We glue the pieces back together, we put a new part into an old form, or we stitch together the torn seam. After the repair is made, we proceed much as we did before, knowing all the while that at some point, the stressors which caused the damage in the first place will eventually cause more damage, and we will again need to mend the aging and increasingly-prone-to-breakage form.
When we do the work of healing, we shift our focus from the forms which appear broken, and we ground ourselves in Wholeness. We stop looking at the always-deteriorating physical forms in the outer world and focus on the omnipresent Truth that there is only One Power in the universe which can actually create change, and that One Power is All-Good, Good Without Opposite.
As long as we are in this human form, having this human experience together, the "things" which happen in the world are important, AND they are ultimately temporary. Every single thing in the world, including the world itself, will eventually fade away back into the invisible substance from which it originally emerged. Everything we fix will ultimately break again. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't be good stewards and keep our bodies, our relationships, and our stuff in good repair. It just means that we need to recognize what is transitory and what is eternal. We need to base our actions on that which is eternal, and allow that which is temporary to pass away when it is no longer helpful or useful.
We are each a unique expression of the Whole, no matter what outer differences appear. What is True and eternal is the Love and the Life which underlies everything. We heal the collective human existence not by taking sides and trying to convince others w are right and they are wrong, but by withdrawing our thought energy and our feeling energy from the discord and allowing the Love and Life that Truth is to express in us, through us, around us, AS us.
We are healers when we look beyond hurt and injury to compassion. Not just compassion for ourselves and the ones we agree with and look like, but compassion for the ones who don't look like us or believe what we believe or who live with such human pain that they perceive no other way to behave than to inflict that same pain on others. We are healers when we remember that adding rage to rage only increases rage. We are healers when we remember that lashing out in anger at those who lash out at us only increases anger. We are healers when we choose to love those we have categorized as enemies, and claim the same Good for them that we would claim for our most beloved companions.
We are healers when we choose to withdraw our energy from those outer things which increase fear, separation, anger, and pain. We are healers when we choose to disengage from the outer things which profit from our fear. We are healers when we choose to recognize that the only place we can truly create change is in the realm of consciousness. We are healers when we recognize that the only thoughts, beliefs, and behavior we can actually change is our own.We are healers when we recognize that it is only as we move into the realm of Christ-Consciousness that we can truly influence others. We are healers when we recognize there are no "others".
We are healers when we choose to turn away from appearance and focus our thoughts on the omnipresence of Good, no matter what. This is not some wishy-washy pie-in-the-sky escapism, but genuine spiritual work. It is not easy. It requires us to steadfastly refuse to participate in the societal and cultural wars which seem to have no end. We are healers when we realize that our entertainment choices have universal repercussions. We are healers when we admit that the stories we tell and the words we speak help to create the human experience of everyone and everything with whom we share this existence in form.
We are healers when we center ourselves in God - Good - the Infinite Realm of All Possibility - Wholeness, and choose to allow ourselves to love even those who would do us harm. When and where we can give a voice to Truth with love, we should. But Love does not force itself on those who cannot or will not choose to accept it. We are healers when we choose to educate ourselves to others' pain.
We are healers when we choose to do the work necessary to center ourselves in Truth, and from that place, speak only true words. When we are centered in that place of Truth, speaking true words, we give peace a place to grow, and we allow Love to truly heal that which appears broken.
In peace, in Light, in Love-- 
