I have found love, and I live to share it. I have lived through and spoken peace to many big storms, and life has been beautiful. I believe that our individual stories are important building blocks in the beautiful communities that life was meant to be. For it is only when we share our stories, with deep compassion first for ourselves and then for each other, that we recognize that we are not alone, we are not very different, we are and have always been very much the same at the core - souls seeking to shine and enjoy the light of all others as we move through this human experience: “We’re only human and we’re looking for love... Human by Her Brothers. “ I believe in love, in the pure love modelled by Divine I AM, which is expressed in myriad ways, and in all ways is always perfect. https://youtu.be/KxluyC3JdCQ
Suuuuppper Bowl Day! I don’t know shit about football 🏈 😂, and I am 💯 100% always stoked about times that draw people to gather together, to eat, connect, relax, and own their awesome.
So have fun today wherever you gather. Rock out or not with Kendrick, AND listen to the words of his Not Like Us smash hit which has resonated with people around the world. There’s a reason that it resonates.
And hold a candle 🕯️ of hope and awareness in your hearts for those who will be sex trafficked around this event today. Because statistics say that while many gather for sport and connection there are also those who misuse this and other celebratory gatherings as an opportunity to profit from enslaving and abusing their fellow humans.
People of all ethnicities are trafficked, and racialized people, who are disproportionately affected by factors that create vulnerability to exploitation, are more likely to be victimized by enslavers and traffickers.
*Do due diligence before donating to or interacting with any of the organizations listed in the article below.
You might wonder why I live and speak so openly. Why am I deeply passionate and committed to pointing out that we need to shed the weight of shame under which we have been unconsciously living for so long so that we can build healthy community together?
It is because that weight has been dragging us down and causing us to focus on masking so much that we have not been able to look up to fully see the light of hope to be found in inclusion, integrity, and innovation. We have been squinting at glimpses of light through a veil of difficulty.
The veil of difficulty which prevents us from accessing that light has definitely been drawn back for me a bit more in the last 4-5 years.
As I have worked in the community for the last two decades I have seen the difficulties and formed relationships to build bridges, hold space, and fill gaps where I could.
Being directly affected by a bit more of the factors that drive individuals and families to suicide, addiction, and other types of dysfunction has made the need for joint community innovation more poignant for me than ever.
It all hit home more than ever in the last year.
This month, February 2025, we are creating something new on February 19, to replace the horrible experience that began for us on February 19, 2024, as “Zamira”, was assaulted, abused, and held mentally and emotionally hostage by a predatory young man who took advantage of her desire to experience life beautifully in its fullness, as we all deserve to enjoy life. That date is burned into Zamira’s memory, and she has asked me to help her to make it into something new.
When something similar happened, in the fall of 2024, to the family described in the news item featured in the attached photos, I reached out to them to help them to get through that, and to give them tips that I had gathered through my experience, so that they could more effectively keep their daughter safe when the RCMP and other organizations would not respond as was needed. Our family has had very similar experiences with the RCMP and other organizations which are designated to support our most vulnerable adults, people living with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
In addition to navigating generating income while living with Long COVID, I have been advocating tirelessly for my daughters more now than ever. I have been advocating passionately and sometimes furiously for them for all of their lives. I am firmly resolved to ensure that BOTH my daughters live in this world with a firm sense of belonging, fulfilling their intrinsic desire to shine brilliantly, to connect profitably, and to take up space as valuable assets to humanity.
The weight of all of this while struggling to pay rent, get groceries, parent, keep utilities on, and create memories of enjoyable moments with my daughters has been excruciating.
And because I know that there are many others who struggle similarly, many whom have given up and taken their lives, and many whom are on the verge of taking their lives I keep advocating and encouraging and providing space for people to feel supported, seen and heard as they navigate these very real storms, and make their way through.
I especially hold this space for women, single mothers, and Afro-descendant women with whom I can more closely relate, so that we can be light for each other through the dark nights of life and the dark nights of our souls, and we can celebrate every time we rise back up into the light.
I invite women from anywhere in the world to use the links below to join the group which is relevant to you.
Tears poured down my cheeks in the early sleepless hours of this morning, on January 31, 2025, as the questions which have been at the core of my heart finally became fully clear in connection to the living divine guidance of our Creator and Sustainer as expressed in Psalm 9:7-10
The Lord reigns for ever; he has established his throne for judgment. 8 He rules the world in righteousness and judges the peoples with equity. 9 The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. 10 Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
The tears came from both relief at finally knowing my questions and fear attached to my abandonment disappointment wound which usually seems to create disconnection when I express myself.
Speaking from my current point of view as a queer, single, Afro-descendant Canadian woman, of Caribbean parentage, who is a parent, and who is experienced as an immigrant:
As I always do, I feel some trepidation around sharing my thoughts for fear of being ignored, ridiculed, or labelled as a disappointment. I am not this world’s norm, and I still speak up in the world in general from my heart with this fear, because I believe that the thoughts and questions of my heart are valid, and belong as a part of the human community quest to experience the kingdom of God, which is God’s will done, now on Earth as it is in heaven. God’s will is that above all else we would prosper in this human experience as our souls prosper.
I have experienced active engagement in this community quest more in the last three or four years than I have ever experienced it at any other point in my lifetime. I am deeply grateful for this because the gifts of this engagement have kept me living when life otherwise would have pushed me to death.
My deepest and primary engagement is with God, My Love Most High, and They have given me the reassurance that I can literally walk through the valley of the shadow of death in response to life’s relational, psychological, and economic needs, and keep living as They comfort me until we find the way through. That knowing has come through slowing down to respect and listen to lessons about different aspects of healthy community from every person, animal, place, thing, and idea. This has been my lived experience.
Next deepest has been the experience of asking questions, sharing thoughts, highs, and lows, and having conversations that explore the norms of our human culture to understand whether what we do flows from connection and community with the innovative creative loving heart of God, or if our norms flow from the dogma of rightness. The most beautiful part of this journey with the Highland community is the active (stated and lived) commitment to understanding that the process will involve misunderstanding, disagreement and hurt feelings which we deliberately slow down to address with love, openness, compassion, and patience. Rightness is not centred. God’s love is. Everything else flows from a united desire to live in connection to God’s heart with trust in Their character.
Every one of my liftetime community experiences: family of origin, family of choice, religious, social, political, academic et al. has been a profound learning opportunity. And the Highland community religious experience has likely been the most healing, since my profoundest wounding has been attached to interaction with the god created by orthodoxy.
Our world has been endemically infected with the virus of supremacy by the being who has made an enemy of God (that enemy is a colonizer). That enemy is patient zero on Earth in the spread of the supremacy virus (be the strain of that virus parental supremacy, gender supremacy, racial supremacy, religious supremacy, academic supremacy, cultural supremacy etc. etc. etc.) Do we approach searching the scripture with the realization that Christian orthodoxy is a supremacist perspective which is bound up in the root word orthodoxia which means correct/right opinion?
When considering moving towards the experience of growing, serving, living, and working in a seamless community are Christians engaging in the process with conversations which are centred on the premise that orthodoxy is the baseline?
If orthodoxy is right opinion, does centring the opinion create a center of supremacy? If supremacy of any kind is centred in our conversations can we hear, see, feel, taste, touch, experience anything else on a level which may inspire needed change and/or innovation?
What changes if the heart of God as reflected in Jesus is centred in our conversations and decision making processes instead of orthodoxy?
Jesus did not come to destroy the law and the prophets/messengers but to fulfill the will of God around which the law and the prophets was centred.
What is that will of God? Have we lost sight of it again by allowing supremacy/rightness to be the centre of the community conversation?
If we consider the Parable of the Samaritan Neighbour which we have renamed The Good Samaritan, we might see the impact of centring orthodoxy instead of centring God, with centring God seeming to be centring the desire that we would all prosper and be in health as our souls prosper in connection with the source of love.
By renaming the parable, The Good Samaritan instead of keeping the focus which Jesus created, we may have begun to build on a foundation of supremacy which is consistent with the enemy’s enduring slight of hand that has taken the focus off of the only One who is good, God, My Love Most High. Jesus referred to the importance of this in Luke 18:18-19 and Mark 10:18.
What changes for the community’s ability to move more in the Spirit of Pentecost if we recentre the goodness of God in our conversations instead of centring orthodoxy.
These are my questions.
With love and solidarity, Saran Lewis
“Be an improvenist, not a perfectionist.” Mr. Chazz
“Perfection impresses it does not inspire” (Stephanie Morales-Beaulieu, Anything but Ordinary).
Forgiveness brings healing and life. May we speak Bathsheba’s name with awe forever as we bear witness to how she painstakingly lived forward to overcome oppression and all of its associated injustices with utmost grace.
And may we never stand silently by as we witness injustice.
In a kingdom where David and other members of his team facilitated the murder of Uriah and the rape of Bathsheba no one stood up and spoke up for either Uriah or Bathsheba, until Nathan the prophet confronted David.
God sees, and does NOT remain silent.
The focus of the story has usually been on David and his psalm seeking a new clean heart. Good for David. Accountability matters. AND can we talk about this from Bathsheba’s perspective?
Everyone around them pretended that everything was just fine as they 1) brought Bathsheba to David so that he could rape her (The balance of power was entirely lopsided in David’s favour. He was the king.) 2) tried to get Uriah drunk to cover up David’s rape 3)murdered Uriah to cover up David’s rape 4)pretended that Bathsheba’s pregnancy from rape was a normal situation
So let’s talk for a minute about how Bathsheba had to have done some truly mindbending, gut wrenching, excruciating work to forgive David and every single person on his team who had a hand in the destruction of her family and the destabilization of her mental and emotional health.
Bathsheba continued to live in the same community whose king raped her. As he watched her take care of her needs, he began to envision how he could use her. That was it. Instead of honourably allowing Bathsheba to continue to build her beautiful life, David commanded that Bathsheba be brought to him so that he could use her.
David was king. The difference in the balance of power between David and Bathsheba meant that as Bathsheba was brought before David, she would have had to continually process how to act in order to preserve her life. David just took what he wanted.
Bathsheba’s husband had dedicated his life to serving the king as a warrior and had committed himself to David as a friend.
David murdered Uriah so that he would not have to deal with the discomfort of being accountable for his actions. To his credit, David did not also murder Bathsheba. Although taking Bathsheba into his home after Uriah’s death also covered up David’s crimes, and made him appear to be a redeeming hero, Bathsheba lived.
Not only did Bathsheba continue to live physically after being so horribly violated, but she chose to heal the deep gaping wound that David had inflicted upon her. She raised a son fathered by David, as she daily saw all the people who had just followed orders and ruined her life.
From experience I can fathom how hard it was for Bathsheba to forgive David. From experience I can fathom the flare ups and days when she would have loved to kill David too. From experience I can fathom the pain on the days when it hurt so much that Bathsheba would have been okay with dying. From experience I can fathom Bathsheba’s renewal as God walked closely with her throughout that whole process and helped her to heal.
And Bathsheba raised Solomon, a son who became king after David, through proper ascension to the throne, not through rebellion and revolt. Bathsheba raised a son who had the kind of heart that maintained peace in Ancient Israel longer than any other king. Bathsheba raised a son who was a connection builder. He had a great relationship with the neighbouring nations. The rulers of nations far and near came to sit and reason with Solomon.
That was Bathsheba’s son. Solomon was the living witness to Bathsheba’s wisdom which lead her to do the excruciating work of forgiveness for as long as it took to become whole again so that she could “live love well” (to use LifeApp’s founders lyrical statement), and raise a son who held no bitterness in his heart, and strongly valued peace.
David raped Bathsheba. David murdered Bathsheba’s husband to cover up his crimes.
Bathsheba’s investment in forgiveness created King Solomon who was known as the wisest king to ever rule Israel.
Doing the work of forgiveness while experiencing the excruciating pain of injustice and exploitation is essential if one hopes to become truly free.
Forgiveness brings healing and life. May we speak Bathsheba’s name with awe forever as we bear witness to how she painstakingly lived forward to overcome oppression and all of its associated injustices with utmost grace.
Merry Christmas everyone. Jesus came to banish shame, blame, and contempt so that we could finally experience love. Those are the core disconnectors which leave us thinking that we are not good enough and must therefore run from love.
The thing is that we feel those things most deeply towards ourselves, and in our desperate battle to stay alive, to survive, we can not look at ourselves, so we look at others with the kind of deep shame, blame, and contempt that we feel towards ourselves. We are so deeply in shame that if we looked at ourselves with that kind of contempt we would writhe in excruciating pain, and beg for death to take us. That is hell. And Jesus came to change that.
For God did not send Their son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Jesus would be saved.
JESUS CAME TO SAY: My sweet loves, that pain did not begin with you, AND it can end with you if you will let me teach you how to be free to feel ALL THE LOVE FLOWING TOWARDS YOU THAT YOU HAVE NEVER FELT FOR AS LONG AS YOU HAVE LIVED. That can actually happen. I know, because I have experienced it.
Jesus came to teach us how to love ourselves just as we are, so that we could love each other just as we are. Isn’t that the most beautiful thing? Jesus came to free us from shame so that we could keep growing in love and compassion and learn to love each other shamelessly the way we love ourselves.
Jesus came to teach us how to count it ALL joy, how to keep LIVING everyday until our beautiful body temples expire here on Earth, and we EVOLVE TO LIVING WITH LOVE WITHOUT SHAME FOREVER, if we will accept the opportunity to learn how to love ourselves, from THE Source of love.
Jesus came to free us from the hell of shame, blame, and contempt SO THAT WE COULD LIVE in the heaven of love, NOW ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN!!
I am SO excited to share this.
Oh my heart is overflowing with joy, because God freed ALLLLL my fucks, and became my very dearest, closest, most compassionate, encouraging, friend, who does life WITH me, on this journey of learning to forgive.
A part of my anti-racism work is connecting with and honouring my roots. On the weekend of September 29-30, when I went across the ocean on a forgiveness and cleansing quest to find the answers that my soul needed, with just me and My Love The Creator, I found that my roots are with the Shona people of Zimbabwe.
My sweat lodge experience was divinely gifted to me from God and my ancestors, as I slept beside the water, and as I later washed the family icon in the water of the ocean, as my soul felt lead to do while invoking the power and names of my God Team (except that I used the term father which was from habit and not at all from heart).
There was no person present to teach me. I was completely alone, except for the energy of the hearts of those of you who connected with mine as I asked. I was entirely guided by God and the ancestors.
Two weeks later, I found out, as I had a conversation with a Zimbabwean aunty whom I “randomly” met in the community that my strong connection to the water was because of this root connection.
May our freedom work return us each to our roots. And may we understand the deep energetic significance of remembering AND being whom we are.
So I relate deeply to Michael Jai White’s story of his experience in connection to his homeland.
Judaism is a religion. Anti-semitism is anti-Judaism. It is intolerable to persecute and/or hate any group because of a difference in religious beliefs.
Is anti-semitism the issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or is anti-colonialism and protection of Palestinian homeland the concern?
In 1948 a chunk of Palestinian land was taken from Palestinians and given to Jews who were looking for a place to call home.
The continuing genocidal war is supported with funding and weapons by a sect made up of a wealthy minority which continues to misuse the Bible to assert a supremacist right to control the world.
This sect of Christianity has sold Christians the idea of being allies in supporting the seizing of this land as holy land since Jesus is said to have been a part of ancient Israel in that area of the world.
Christianity has misused its religion and its Bible to give itself permission to support colonial seizing of land and to support gross oppression of their neighbours all around the world.
People are holy. The divine lives in us. Genocide is atrocious. War is destructive. This is not of God.
Jesus claimed zero property. The founding couple, Abraham and Sarah, who formed the nation of Ancient Israel set up their home territory with peace and just bargaining.
The founding couple, Abraham and Sarah, lived peacefully among the people who occupied the territories to which they moved.
I struggle to see consistency between the God who guided Abraham and Sarah to live peacefully with their neighbours and the God who ordered genocide to reclaim land.
Which God did Jesus model for us?
Colonialism and supremacy are the core of this conflict. This is not of God, of Judaism, or of Israel. This does not support the healthy forward movement of humanity.
It seems like a racist colonial movement which needs to be abolished as apartheid was abolished in South Africa.
Do you guys realize that as Antiguans and Barbudans, we have been living on stolen Indigenous land?
We have been stolen people living on stolen land.
The Caribs and Arawaks and other Indigenous peoples were brutalized by Columbus, who treated the Indigenous people on the land like non-living items to be moved out of the way, crushed and demolished to make room for European domination. And then colonial powers fought over land that was not theirs in order to build their wealth, using African and Afro-descended people as their free and oppressed labour.
This continued in the name of the European monarchs who claimed to be appointed by God to subjugate “heathens” and reclaim the land in God’s name.
This is one of the core reasons that I have a huge issue with the Bible and its genocidal land reclamation stories.
God gave Abraham the job of leading a nation which was to ethically settle in an area. Abraham was an immigrant. Nowhere does God ever in Their dialogue with Abraham advocate the use of any violence or oppression to build a nation.
In fact, Abraham is said to have moved many times when locals disputed land ownership.
Jacob was disgusted by his sons’ attack on the Shechemites whose prince had raped his daughter, Dinah. Jacob’s willingness to give Dinah to her rapist is a different and equally problematic issue. That’s not the point of this though.
The point is that nowhere in any of God’s many conversations with Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob was genocidal claim or reclamation of land proposed or supported.
So how can I trust history that claims that Creator God suddenly decreed that Israel should begin a campaign of genocide to claim land as “God’s people” when the minor prophets and other writers state that all people are God’s people, and that ALL had come short of God’s way of being?
Jesus came and debunked the idea of Jewish military campaigns to reclaim control of land.
So whose word do I trust? Definitely not the genocidal colonizers who “translated” the books of the Bible and anglicized it to support their brutal white supremacist colonialism.
I 100% trust Jesus though, and having accepted God’s invitation to be unravelled from the tangle of lies mixed with truth, I personally experienced the energetic healing of baptism by immersion in keeping with the rituals of rebirth in connection with Creator that I do not understand.
I did it on faith. And just so with faith I claim the full healing that has continued to unfold.
A major part of that healing is being absolutely clear that COLONIALISM IS EVIL! GENOCIDE IS EVIL. SLAVERY IS EVIL.
God has NOT ordained Israel to force Palestinians out of their land now OR EVER!
The widely taught Israel-Canaan narrative of reclamation is a lie.
Freedom from slavery, yes, that I can accept. Genocide and supremacy ABSOLUTELY NOT!
This Bible is rife with white supremacy and its white supremacist ideologies continue to be a major part of modern Christianity where people are exploited so that “the chosen” can build their personal legacies of influence and wealth.
Equity is NOT a part of modern Christianity. The worship of money and control from a white supremacist colonial perspective is foremost. Thankfully, God who HAS ALWAYS lived can show us a better way if we choose to trust the discomfort of the process to healing.
And therefore I can reiterate Maya Angelou’s statement that only equals can be friends. I accept her assertion that friendship requires an open and uncomfortable assessment of history and its impact on the present.
Until there is willingness to actively and consciously dismantle the lies of white supremacy and build a system of true love and togetherness, I accept that I will continue to have many friendly acquaintances and very few friends.
Israeli Zionism, the Western Euro-centred White Supremacist World, and the Modern Christian Movement are centred on supremacy and oppression and a long history of colonialist propaganda.
To refuse to confront policies embedded within us that rob persons of their freedom is to be complicit in stealing the individual’s healing connection to the Divine.
For a person fighting to survive through the many daily waves of racism into which they are cast cannot begin to fathom being heard by the Divine.
And just so persons refusing to confront the channels of abuse which have been embedded in us cannot be the vessels of safety which we think ourselves to be.
The flood of racism may not have begun with us, and we are choosing to deny its clear existence and therefore perpetuate its devastation.
It was a beautiful Sabbath – a wonderful time of rest and connection with God and my immediate family.
The desire for supremacy was the original sin. So why are we continuing to try to gain the gaze of the well known in order to feel as if we contribute significantly to the progress of humanity? Why is it not enough to invest everything possible in just one? Why do we keep trying to be well known instead of knowing how to love each one unconditionally well.
If we need (underline and emphasize need) and demand apologies in order to be made whole are we declaring that we are better than the people from whom we expect or demand apologies?
Are we debtors oppressing debtors, instead of forgivers forgiving forgivers? Are we punishers punishing and being punished or are we lovers loving and being loved?
Jesus told us that we would learn best and be most successful if we become like little children, so why do parents feel and behave as if superior to children, teachers feel and behave as if superior to students, employers feel and behave as if superior to employees, pastors feel and behave as if superior to congregants, husbands superior to wives, mothers superior to fathers, heterosexual superior to all etc. etc. etc.
When we stop blaming and shaming others and start to recognize that we are all looking at a reflection of ourselves in other people’s bodies regardless of age, skin colour, gender, we will become more and more grateful for grace.
We are souls with equal portions of divinity experiencing life in human bodies.
So far this has been my experience. And I am very deeply grateful that God is patient with me as I see these truths and struggle to improve.
We keep conflating awareness with proficiency, and so we struggle with the blight of superiority which robs us of joy.
Awareness has never been equal to proficiency, that is why forgiveness and grace are such valuable tools in relationship.
I am learning to keep trusting God to fill in the gaps where people have caused me harm, and I am learning to admit that God is filling in gaps where I have caused harm.
My goal is to be more consistently a forgiver forgiving forgivers and a lover loving and being loved with the wisdom of God’s grace equipping me to internally experience and interact with each person with the equity that they need. For this is the only way that I can live with good boundaries for self and not against other.
To do this I have to keep letting God teach me to feel everything and learn what to do with the information gained from my feelings, until my heart absorbs enough light to finally be able to see.
Oh my friend, Paul, blinded externally as you were internally on the Damascus road. You and I have wrestled for so long. And my heart this morning is so deeply connected with yours in understanding that we see through glasses meant to help our vision, and even then what we see is still shadowy and broken up by the thin lines of gold with which our shattered lenses have been repaired. For now, we see through a glass darkly and then we will see with perfect clarity, with new glasses with perfectly restored lenses one day.
Nurturing Kindred 