There’s a lot to be said for teaching our children

to be in the world

and to be themselves

in connection with the Source of Everything,

and not of the world.

 

That is so very different

to teaching them that they are better than the world.

 

It matters deeply because our goal is to create community that is connected in love and respect. 

 

The supremacy of modern Christianity creates shame and division.

Shame because our unconscious core knows

that we are equal and not better,

and our conscious ego creates unconscious anxiety and depression

as a result of the dissonance between supremacy and love.

 

We cause our children to feel ashamed of their very natural journey through life

when we have taught them that some issues

are ones that only “those” inferior people face.

 

Because when those issues arise for them

then they feel shame.

 

Shame caused Adam and Eve to run and hide,

and lash out with blame.

And it has been causing us to follow that same pattern since.

 

As Baba Ndiri came towards them then, so He comes towards us now to say: 

 

“Child, no struggle is shameful.

All struggle is a part of the deep desire to survive.” 

 

A survival which we grasp at with a plethora of self-medicating norms, until we grasp Baba’s outstretched hand, 

or hold the gaze of M’shikha’s loving eyes.

 

And hear Them say: 

 

Smoke in someone’s face or lungs is not the deepest issue.

What matters is the story behind the smoke.

The ache. The fight. The coping.

The fact that they’re still breathing,

still trying,

still alive.

 

The smoker is a fucking warrior fighting hard to stay alive.

 

Baba does not focus on the outward appearance. He focuses on the heart. 

 

And this is WHY Decolonizing Divinity is vitally important.

Because Yeshua M’ishika sat and vibed and ATE

with the people whom the elite called publicans and sinners.

 

Yeshua flipped the empiric tables totally upside down

by calling the embezzling treasurer,

the loud rambunctious fishermen,

the radical zealot,

the doubters,

the naked adulterers,

the lepers,

the tax collectors

to be His closest Loveolutionary followers,

whom He knew would find joyful transformation into friends along the way. 

 

Yeshua followed thus in the footsteps of Baba Ndiri / Creator / Yah,

who conceived hope with an unwed woman from the ghetto,

announced the stable birth to shepherds,

and then fled to the pagan former enslavers as a refugee.

 

And He made sure to make it clear that those whom He called were equal in value and, sadly, more open to divine intervention than those deemed learned and elect of any day. 

 

So let’s take our respectability elitism 

and bury it where the sun does not shine—

after all that is where the prophet says The Father casts our sins 

– Into the depths of the sea. 

 

And until we can see these things clearly,

we are still trapped in supremacy pretending to be holiness.

 

This knowing was desperately hard won! 

 

Hopefully we will allow Mweya waMwari’s refining fire to unite us with their golden love, as we wrestle for peace.

 

Hopefully we will begin to lay down our thrones and sit in circles at a newly set table, 

instead of in hierarchal rows.

 

Our family’s journey to healing, restoration and transformation.

Yesterday, my two daughters spoke profoundly from wisdom and love:

Anjali: with tears streaming down her face said, “I love them. I’m not giving up on them.

Priya said: “The experience wasn’t all bad. They learned some good things, and now they have to heal from it.”

And they are right.

It was deeply encouraging to hear them speak those words.

Though Priya was reflecting on someone else’s story, the truth she named belongs to us too.

This is why we fight to heal.

This is why she fought like a warrior to walk across a graduation stage she never believed she’d reach.

And she did it.

This is why Anjali fights like a warrior to hold and build relationships with truth and love.

She keeps doing it.

And together we will keep fighting and keep rising.

With love. With encouragement.

With the right tools and treatment.

With the community we’ve built on the pillars of compassion, commitment, and care.

In the Adventist system, we did learn some good things:

Community. Rhythm. Reverence. Servolution.

And now, we are healing. And calling for a Loveolution, centred not on control or conformity, but on the sifted pattern of divinity. In true alignment with divine love.

There are wounds Adventist families carry that don’t show up in the stories we’re taught to tell at church.

Others from other systems and denominations carry it too, but I cannot tell their story, I can only tell ours.

There is pain, soul-deep, body-held pain that has no place in the sanitized testimonies we were expected to give.

And yet that pain is real.

My family has struggled under the weight of harm inside the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

What we endured wasn’t always obvious. It wasn’t always shouted.

But it pressed into us quietly, steadily, almost lethally.

Shame disguised as righteousness.

Control disguised as care.

Silence that wrecks the nervous system with louder fear than any hellfire sermon.

Depression and anxiety have become unacknowledged companions for many of us who’ve lived through spiritual abuse in this church.

They are not signs of weak faith.

They are the body’s honest response to harm long ignored.

They are the echo of invisible wounds buried under doctrine, drowned in hymns, dismissed by leaders more concerned with order than healing.

And the deeper truth is:

Most of us don’t even realize how deeply we’ve been hurt.

We have been mentally and emotionally wounded by a church culture that trained us to spiritualize our suffering.

To “count it all joy” while our voices were dismissed.

To see obedience as holiness, even when it demanded silence in the face of harm.

To confuse submission with faith, even when it meant betraying our own discernment.

The culture of silencing in the Adventist Church is not a mistake.

It is deliberate.

It is systematic.

It is designed to protect the image of the institution even at the cost of our safety, our sanity, and our children’s well-being.

And when the harm becomes too visible to ignore, the Church begins its performance:

Public statements. Managed apologies. Carefully timed “listening sessions.”

A show of repentance when it becomes politically or publicly expedient—

while behind the scenes, the truth is buried, the wounded are dismissed, and the real path to healing is suppressed.

Because healing requires more than apology.

It requires consistent accountability.

It requires truth-telling.

It requires reparation and return, not just to God, but to the people who were harmed in God’s name.

This abusive-avoidance is not the way of Yeshua M’shīkhā.

The empire’s Jesus upholds abusive power.

The real Yeshua flips tables, washes feet, and walks beside the wounded.

He does not demand silence in exchange for belonging.

He does not dress control in the language of care.

He loves in truth.

He heals through justice.

Honouring Jesus by His real Aramaic name has freed me.

It has helped me to lead our family to peel back the layers of colonized religion to find the sacred root beneath the rot.

It has helped us see our pain clearly—and know that our pain was neither caused or blessed by God.

We are unlearning the trauma response that called suffering “holy.”

We are reclaiming the dignity that was stripped from us in the name of obedience.

We are telling the truth—not just about what happened to us, but about how the Seventh-day Adventist Church allowed it to happen.

As Mom, I am holding space for both grief and gratitude in our home.

We are not pretending it didn’t hurt.

And we are not pretending we didn’t grow.

We are doing the sacred work of healing—together.

We are not walking away from God.

We are walking with the One who never walked away from us.

To the One who is Love.

To the One who is Justice.

To the One who sees us and says:

“Come. Let us heal together.”

To those who have lived this:

You are not imagining it.

You are not overreacting.

You are not alone.

Your story matters.

And your healing is holy.

To those who still live with the abuse as normalized behaviour—

while being taught that it is the real and full and best truth—

my heart hurts for you.

I pray for your healing.

And I will keep fighting for your freedom too.

Even now many plan to take their children to Campmeeting insisting that it is holy and sacred ground, while ignoring the unveiling of known harm that lies within.

We have spoken up and will keep doing what we can, as our family holds space for healing, and the grief and gratitude therein.

With love and solidarity,

Saran Lewis

The last person to call me the n-word was a young Indigenous girl whom I was supporting through the aftermath of a grave traumatic experience.

This is not about individuals.

It is about what white supremacy teaches all of us to believe about whose pain matters most.

Last week in Brandon, Manitoba, an Indigenous student entered Neelin High School with a sword. He walked past white students and targeted Black and immigrant peers, stabbing 15-year-old Chinonso Onuke, a Nigerian student, repeatedly.

Accused in Manitoba high school stabbing driven by racism, police chief alleges

Premier Wab Kinew, who also offered an apology “on behalf of the Indigenous people”, visited the victim’s home with Deputy Premier Uzoma Asagwara, who is Nigerian, to express solidarity and support.

This was not random.

Brandon police confirmed it was racially motivated.

This is what anti-Afro-descendant racism looks like – active, weaponized, and born from silence.

❤️‍🩹 The Reality That I Have Been Naming

Anti-Afro-descendant racism is being quietly stoked in Canada through a harmful narrative: that our calls for justice around systemic anti-Afro‑descendant oppression are somehow blocking Indigenous reconciliation and land‑back efforts.

That we should “wait our turn.”

We are told to be less vocal about our pain.

We are told our anti‑racism work must serve justice for Indigenous people first.

What’s missing is the recognition that this framing is unconsciously shaped by the colour‑coded hierarchy of white supremacy.

It treats Black suffering as a distraction.

It demands our silence until others are served.

But justice is not a lineup.

Liberation is not a limited resource.

🧩 How We Move Forward

In anti-racism spaces—where BIPOC are invited to share our pain—I have been told that Afro‑descendant people are making Indigenous participants uncomfortable by naming the need for justice and reparations.

This is a resurgence of colonial hierarchism.

We will not heal by recreating colonial hierarchies.

Afro‑descendant and Indigenous communities are not enemies fighting for scraps.

We are both survivors of the same empire.

Until Afro‑descendant people are no longer pushed to the back of the line under the myth that justice is triage, resentment‑fuelled violence—both direct and systemic—against us will continue to rise.

Let this not be another era where we are manipulated, exploited, and virtually silenced.

I speak with hope and trust in the ability to listen that is at the heart of anti‑supremacy work.

We are not in each other’s way.

We need to truly stand together.

We can walk home together as kindred in love.

Unconscious racism—often subtle, unintentional, and embedded in daily interactions—deeply injures Afro‑descendant children at the playground and beyond. Here’s how:

🌱 1. Learning and internalizing negative signals

Decades of research show that children absorb societal biases not because they’re taught to hate, but by observing attitudes and behaviors around them. By age seven, kids may already believe, unconsciously, that Black children feel less pain or are less worthy of empathy—despite there being no direct teaching of these biases  . When a Black child’s call for help at the playground is met with less concern than a white child’s, that child subconsciously receives the message: “Your pain matters less.”

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-children-acquire-racial-biases/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1157&context=all_theses&utm_source=chatgpt.com

🧱 2. The power of nonverbal cues

Kids are expert social learners. They mimic what they see in adults’ body language, tone, even eye contact. If teachers—consciously or unconsciously—anticipate misbehavior from Black children and focus on them more, or reward them less, children notice. Over time, these micro-aggressions become internalized, making children feel surveilled, misunderstood, or less valued .

⚖️ 3. Reinforced by institutions and peers

Unconscious bias doesn’t stop in the classroom—it extends to discipline disparities, game selections, and peer interactions. Black children are disproportionately disciplined or excluded from play in preschool and early childhood programs. These exclusions tell them, without words, that they don’t fully belong  .

⏳ 4. Lifelong emotional toll

These daily micro- and macro-aggressions compound: Black children walk away from shared play feeling less trusted, less included, and less safe. Over time, this erodes self-worth, belonging, and mental well-being—even before they’ve learned to articulate why they feel hurt.

💡 5. Even well-meaning adults contribute

Most people don’t intend harm—and that’s the point. These are often unconscious patterns people don’t even recognize in themselves. Yet the effect remains real. Scholars call this “aversive racism”: believing in equity while still behaving in subtly biased ways, born from cultural conditioning .

In essence:

Under the radar – These aren’t overt insults, but quiet exclusions, shifted gazes, and unbalanced empathy. Unseen teaching – Children learn from observing these patterns—even if no one ever says “you’re less.” Daily toll – Every minor slight chips away at a child’s confidence and sense of belonging.

What support for children looks like:

Adult awareness: Being conscious of how we react, who we call on, who we empathize with—especially around play. Explicit anti-bias conversations: Normalizing discussions about race early helps counter the silent messaging  . Empowering peers: Older children can be taught to recognize exclusion and speak up—peers play a powerful role in countering bias. Institutional change: Schools and programs must track and aim to close racial gaps in discipline, referrals, and participation.

Chinonsu’s visible harm on that day is heartbreaking—but the daily, invisible wounds inflicted by unconscious racism around every game, shared toy, or classroom moment are just as profound. They teach our children—no matter their intent—that some lives matter less. Healing and true belonging begin only when communities actively unlearn these deeply rooted patterns, and replace them with inclusion, empathy, and recognition—starting from the sandbox up.

#Nurturing Kindred #DecolonizeTogether #AfroIndigenousSolidarity #JusticeIsNotAScarceResource #LandBack #AntiBlacknessInCanada #ReconciliationMustBeTrue #ChinonsoOnuke #MutualLiberation

When Trump was first elected I said that it was a moment of grace. I didn’t fully understand why. I wouldn’t call him 45; he is a person with a name. Human like all of us.

I understand more now, and so I am trying to express it as I understand it, as a reflection of us – seeking wholeness and grappling with infection and deceit.

This is how I see the world. This is how God has been teaching me to see, as They whispered gently to me, encouraged me to heal; stayed constantly until I asked to see through the lenses of love.

Trump Is the Kind of God That Most Believe In

By Saran Lewis

Golden towers and threats of fire,

boasting from the heavens,

ruling by fear and flattery,

smiting enemies with tweets and plagues.

He exalts who serves,

strikes who strays,

demands loyalty—

not love.

His grace is a gamble,

his wrath a given.

He honours walls,

not gardens.

Gains with war

Not through patiently crafted peace. 

And yet—

millions kneel

not to him,

but to his reflection:

framed in stained glass,

enthroned in pulpits,

cloaked in tradition,

laced with the perfume of piety.

Because this is the god we were taught:

a god of control,

not comfort.

A god of exclusion,

not embrace.

A god whose justice justifies control,

and whose “blessings”

favor the wealthy.

This is the god who

strikes children into silence,

calls submission “salvation,”

and cloaks abuse in “authority.”

This is the god

who watches the slap

and calls it sanctified.

The god who rules

by fear and scarcity

and calls crumbs grace.

This is the god

of the silent, manipulative, exploitative church—

the church that takes and takes,

that “gives” only sparingly,

that praises tithes and gifts,

and ignores trauma.

This is the church wrestling to learn how to consistently be a good neighbour.

This is not Christ reflecting our divine Parent.

This is church

in the image of Constantine,

not the Christ of foot-washing and wild welcome.

This is monarchy draped in robes.

Empire, crowned and cross-adorned.

And Trump?

Trump has simply boldly unmasked

what others kept hidden.

He ripped the veil

off the god we already served.

He shouted what we spoke of behind closed doors.

He played the same game

but refused to hide the rules.

And so increasing numbers worship this god whom we have always worshipped 

mindlessly

Pharisees and priests

Pastors and deacons

Healers, apostles, visionaries

smothered othering in piety,

but the character was the same 

infected with supremacy 

doling out inferiority

inspired by the one who grasps at divinity without comprehending that

Sanctified disdain is not love.

Silenced children are not saved.

Slaps are not sacraments.

Swords are not signs of the Spirit.

From the altars of kings

to the pews of presidents,

from Vatican crowns

to colonial mandates,

from crusades to codes of conduct—

religion and government

have long conspired

to make empire look divine.

Deceived, they have traded gardens for borders,

hospitality for hierarchy,

and the Christ who welcomed children

for the god who wounds them

and calls it obedience.

Do you see it now?

Does it stir a holy ache?

A fire?

A yearning?

Or fear—

that this god,

this hollow god of empire,

might smite you

for daring to tell the truth?

Then slow down and experience the truth infused with a resounding whisper from the One who comforted, cared for and corrected Elijah after his misaligned slaughter. 

Because Christ is not empire.

Christ is not wrath wrapped in ritual.

Christ is not the slap.

Christ is not the silence.

Christ is not the sword.

Christ is the child,

the wounded,

the weeping,

the wanderer.

The torn veil.

The undone temple.

The one who says,

“Let them come to me.”

Whisper it true. 

It will resound. 

Christ is not empire.

Christ is not wrath wrapped in ritual.

Christ is not the slap.

Christ is not the silence.

Christ is not the sword.

Christ is the child,

the wounded,

the weeping,

the wanderer.

The torn veil.

The undone temple.

The one who kneels in the dust

with the shamed,

and refuses to unclothe the shamers publicly,

but writes with his fingers:

I know you.

And just as I have covered her,

I cover you too.

The one who says,

“Do you love me?”

“Do you doubt?”

“Have you betrayed me?”

“I understand.”

“Come with me.”

“Walk with me,

and learn how to feed my sheep…”

Trump is one of the sheep to be fed, nurtured, restored. 

He is not to be blamed for being just like us. 

Deceived. 

Infected with supremacy and suckled on inferiority. 

And to us, Love says come. 

Sit, listen, heal.

Experience the kingdom of the true God.

Now. 

On Earth as it is in heaven. 

It’s Sunday now, and on all of day sixty-nine, Saturday, May 17, 2025, in the countdown to a woefully unprotected Camp-Meeting, my mind was partially focused on the quality time that I was spending with my daughters, and partially wrestling with how and if to tell the story at the core that drives me to advocate for change in the British Columbia Seventh-Day Adventist Child Protection Policy related to sex offenders.

This is hard. And I’m doing it anyway.

Because across the globe, from the islands of Micronesia to the campsites and classrooms of British Columbia, a chilling pattern has emerged within the Seventh-day Adventist Church—one in which the mantle of spiritual authority has been used not to protect the vulnerable, but to shield the guilty.

Testimony: The Father, The Son, and the Hollow Church
This isn’t just a cause to me.
It’s my life.
My survival.
My sacred knowing.

I was a teenager when I was sxually assulted.
Not by a stranger.
By someone raised in the church.
Someone groomed by power.
Someone who learned, intimately, how to silence conscience and override boundaries–because that’s what he saw modeled, sermon after sermon.

His father was a prolific abuser.
A man who preached with fire
while his hands were full of ash and ruin.
He led the church.
He led the flock.
He led the lie.

He passed down more than scripture.
He passed down entitlement.
Control.
The belief that spiritual authority gave him access to bodies, not just pulpits.
And the son learned well.
He carried the mantle of manipulation like a birthright.

I wasn’t his first.
I wasn’t his last.
But I was silenced–like the others–by the machinery of respectability, shame, and sanctified denial.

When I tried to say no, I did twice.
I fought and won.
And then he waited–until I was unguarded.
Until sleep wrapped me, and trust had not yet learned to scream.
And then he took.

And the worst part?
I had been trained to ignore the alarms in my own soul.
To forgive too quickly.
To submit.
To assume that silence was safer than truth.
Because the church had already taught me that obedience was holier than boundaries.

But I am breaking the silence now.
Not just for myself,
but for the ones still hiding under pews of shame.
For the ones still told to “leave it with God” when justice is demanded.
For the ones who are still learning that God is not the same as the church.

The father harmed many. The son harmed many.
And the church–
The church kept letting them lead.
Emboldened by the silence of the abused.

So I testify:
This is not the will of God.
This is the work of systems
that substitute charisma with character,
and repentance with reputation management.
And I will not protect them with my silence anymore.

As the Adventist Church leaders who are policy decision makers have remained silent, ignoring all communication around the concern for safety at BC Camp-meeting because sex offenders are allowed to attend with conditions that are not adequately protective, I have created a petition to seek engagement towards progress. Please sign if your conscience speaks to you:

https://chng.it/kHFCLqsxyS

The Hollow Comforter
(The Church Edition)
by Saran Lewis

You came with scriptures on your lips
and policies in your pocket—
robes rustling like they were holy,
like they hadn’t brushed past bruises
to get to the pulpit.
You offered me comfort
with hands that clutched
the silence of my suffering
like a relic.

You preached redemption
while tucking away
the names of the men who broke us.
You offered prayer
while kneeling on the graves
of the warnings I gave you.

You said:
“We are here for you.”
But only if I whispered.
Only if I bled quietly.
Only if I let your stained glass version
of forgiveness
rewrite the truth
until it fit neatly into your service schedule.

You called me a “survivor”
but flinched when I spoke like one.
You said “God loves justice,”
but only when justice
didn’t stain your carpets.

You wanted my testimony,
but not my trembling.
My healing,
but not my fury.
My strength,
but only after you repackaged my pain
into something “edifying.”

You wanted me
cleansed, not crying.
Forgiving, not fierce.
Silent. Not sovereign.

But I have learned the language of God
in the dark.

And God does not sound like you.

God did not erase me.
You did.
God did not demand my silence.
You did.
God did not call me too much,
too angry,
too broken.
You did.

You are not the comforter.
You are the cloak
behind which the predator prayed.
You are the hymn that drowned out
the sound of children weeping.

You are the hollow thing
offering comfort
with the same hands
that signed the silencing orders.

And I—
I am the altar you tried to burn
but could not.

My grief is not your enemy.
It is your reckoning.

In 2013, when Alicia Koback filed suit against the church, I sat in a Sabbath School class and seethed. A man sneered and called her a money grabber. I didn’t know who Alicia was—I’d never met her—but that article is seared into my mind forever. And I knew that man. He was one who had been protected.

What made it worse was that his sneer directly contradicted the church’s own official statement, published in response to a Vancouver Sun reporter’s inquiry. The statement claimed that the church had a policy of reporting abuse as legally mandated.

And yet, this man—speaking so casually, so assuredly—so disparagingly of a survivor seeking accountability knew that the church had protected him when he was found as a leader to have had inappropriate relationships with multiple minors.

Policy on paper is hollow when it isn’t practiced in truth. Many have been harmed, and many continue to be harmed, while the church crafts polished statements that remain unfulfilled.

And children continue to be harmed

Children continue to be harmed
while leadership pilots whited sepulchres—
not tombs of stone,
but policies and PDFs,
gleaming with performative righteousness
and empty of repentance.

In 2025, the culture of closing ranks persists—
silencing survivors, shielding abusers.
It has become painfully clear:
the policy on paper was never meant to protect the vulnerable.
It was designed as a smokescreen,
a public relations shield to deflect liability,
not a refuge for the wounded.

Within the Seventh-day Adventist community,
great good is done—
and great harm is buried beside it.
Harm that leaves deep generational wounds
and continues to expose little ones—
like the child whose hand
an attending offender held
as if he were her hero,
while yearning to pick her up.

And with the complicity of local pastors,
the leadership executives of the local, regional, and global church remain silent.

Policy and practice need to be ethically constructed and implemented with integrity .

Read the article in the Kandit News for context. If we the people speak up there is hope for progress.

SDA admits it knew teacher molested boy, accused of covering up other sex crimes throughout Micronesia

I write from the point of view of a woman who was raised in the Christian religion, with its brand of orthodoxy. Therefore my language and terms of reference may revert to the dialect of that community. That language does not suggest that Christianity holds the universal default set of beliefs. It is the normal impact of being exposed to any first language. In adulthood, I have examined the doctrines and beliefs of my childhood, and have emerged with a view of grace and compassion that connects me to a closer more open connection with the Source of Love as the creative power that has a much broader view of freedom than is held in the orthodoxy of any one system. We have so much light to give and take from each other.

Yesterday, I expressed a resounding “Amen” as I read what my friend, Leah, wrote it in the “God’s Hand Leads” women’s group. I felt that the Spirit of God was clearly moving on our hearts with the same message for some deeply healing reason. I went to the group to share a thought that had been weighing on my heart. Expressing it had finally came together, and there I saw that earlier in the day, Leah had beautifully shared something similar.

The synchronicity is such a blessing of confirmation.

This is what I shared there.

This year is ten years since I have allowed God to work on purging my heart of the desire to gossip, as They show me why it’s so deeply dangerous. Tonight, as I watched Wicked with my children, the thought below began to unfold for me.

Gossip is a deeply horrible popular form of manipulation, which is so prevalent among us that we have accepted it as a relational norm. It is dangerous and harmful because it facilitates the transformation of innocent people into flying monkeys, who steal the freedom, productivity, and creativity of the gossiper’s target. It so deeply painful to the ones unnaturally transformed against their true will, and it is ultimately destructive to the common good of all, including the one who seeks to control the narrative.

This is the real horror of narcissism. And what is narcissism? Narcissism is a protective destructive illness of the mind of a being who thinks themselves inadequate and powerless, having been separated from loving community.

It is the result of intentional or unintentional isolation, criticism, and repeated insult to natural talent in the formative years when personality is emerging.

The intention is immaterial. The outcome is what matters: narcissists do not see the beauty of themselves reflected in the loving relationships around them. They only see themselves in the mirror of isolation.

Narcissism is born of fear, and can only be cast out by a choice to take the medicine of love.

In this world of both chaos and goodwill there are elements of narcissism in all of us, as each person in each generation is affected by isolation, criticism, and insult to varying degrees. Some of us are affected more profoundly than others.

Since the choice to accept love is the only cure for narcissism, is it best for us to label, ostracize, and shame narcissists, or is it best for us to compassionately offer more love while creating personal boundaries where we determine how we will engage, and how we will rest?

Social, public service, civic, personal, and religious experiences over the last several years have taught me something that I fully learned today: being in a relationship with someone, or with an organization is not equivalent to consenting to abuse, assault, and exploitation.

Experiencing some positive interactions in these spaces does not eliminate the possibility and reality of abuse, assault, and exploitation.

Abusers try to gaslight and rewrite the narrative to suggest that proximity implies consent. This is an attempt to evade accountability.

We reject that premise and we choose to live and win like Bathsheba did when faced with the same dilemma.

I think that we all need to examine our hearts, and see where this is true of ourselves. We may want to look outward at some person or organization which has abused us. And what about what we have done?

This may seem as if it is no groundbreaking realization, but today my mind is fully open for the first time without doubt about the normalization of the culture of abuse, assault, and exploitation in churches, businesses, governments, and nonprofits, which is carried over into families, friendships, schools, and professional care settings.

I am not looking at these things through brand new eyes, I am just finally fully accepting what my eyes see, and I am hoping that as I share this realization more people will experience the freedom of recognizing that living with abuse, assault, and exploitation is not okay.

It is acceptable to be free. It is our right to be free, respected, protected, and cherished in all spheres of life.

Whether the abuse, assault, and exploitation was intentional or unintentional is immaterial. What matters is that we call it what it is, and require change and accountability.

This is the purpose of the process of truth and reconciliation which Jesus outlines for us in Matthew 18:15-17. Reconciliation cannot exist without truth.

Our very core peace is unleashed when we recognize that in the final line of this passage Jesus was instructing us to forgive the one (individual or organization) who is still bound by fear and shame, and who has not yet chosen to be freed by the medicine of love.

The scales of doubt fall off of our eyes, and we can see clearly as we claim the deep peace which is wrapped in these words: “My God, I forgive them and yearn that they will find forgiveness from you, because at this point they do not recognize that they are building a personal and collective legacy of pain instead of claiming the freedom and prosperity that they seek (Father, forgive them for they know not what they do).

It is probably of utmost importance that we first forgive ourselves of such things so that we can freely forgive others.

What blame and shame are we experiencing towards ourselves that is preventing us from fully accessing our power with the full capacity of compassion and love, which frees us to directly connect in love to the Source of Love with all our hearts, and build a more beautiful world than we could ever even imagine as we love our neighbours as we love ourselves?

In a world where injustice existed some people chose to try to create equal opportunity legislation which would encourage justice for marginalized racialized people. This has been the case in both countries in North America. In the United States legislation has covered all marginalized people. In Canada, as far as I am aware, legislative action is mainly geared towards Indigenous people, with movement being made to create some equity for other marginalized people.

That legislation has been beneficial to some degree, and it has also created conscious and unconscious fear and resentment among the group who had been told for more than four hundred years that they were the ones entitled to positions in those spaces.

Fear has been on the rise as the world faces economic uncertainty, and some have used that fear to stir up the smoldering sparks of entitlement among the historically oppressive group, and to also fan the flame of survival compliance which has been smoldering among the marginalized group.

Therefore here we are today in a world which seems to be hopelessly regressing. Regressing? Yes. Hopelessly? No.

As long as there are people who continue to learn and who are committed to progressing courageously we will continue to move forward, no matter how slowly we progress.

The timing will always be perfect. May we continue to build, working out the kinks of progress together with love and solidarity; and may we not yield to the temptation to come down to fight the opponents of that progress; for they truly do not know what they do. Forgive them.

Parasites. This week a person in the public eye labelled some people as parasites, and laughed at the idea that these parasites were being starved of life. It makes sense that they would express this thought because they were raised in the country which most prominently and most recently used the system of humiliation to govern for generations. Apartheid. I believe that we can build beyond humiliation with integrity, inclusion, and innovation.

Kofi Annan, once said “all the cruel and brutal things, even genocide, start with the humiliation of one individual.” I believe that this humiliation is caused by personal shame and blame in the heart of the individual who humiliates the other. I believe that this shame and blame is caused by that person’s own relational experiences. I believe that this shame and blame is the only original sin; it is what separates humans from each other and from true love. And I believe that in order for humanity to progress as fully as we are capable of progressing we need to recognize that this shame and blame did not begin with us, and it can end with us if we choose to consciously move towards being healed by the love of the original source of love.

Kofi Annan’s full quote is: Paying attention to the woman or man next to you, to the individual, is very important, because all the cruel and brutal things, even genocide, start with the humiliation of one individual.

For so long we have been immersed in this system which has humiliated and labelled a sector of humans as parasites, takers, while indoctrinating another set to see themselves as the givers as the humans in the equation.

The system of indoctrination went so far as to officially define the parasite class as 3/5th’s of a human.

Interestingly the wealth and stability of those who called themselves fully humans were built using forced unpaid labour of the marginalized, oppressed, brutalized humans who were humiliated and debased as 3/5th’s of a person.

For more than four hundred years of modern history France, Britain, the United States of America, and Canada built their nations on this concept of humiliation and exploitation of humans. Their governing systems used elements of Prince Henry of Portugal’s racist theory of humanity which was developed in the 1400’s when he sought to justify building his empire through brutal colonization.

Hitler’s Nazi party studied the American model of humiliation – slavery and then racial segregation, in order to implement the Nazi German system of White Supremacy which created the holocaust and the systemic extermination of millions of Jews, homosexuals, and people with different kinds of ability whom we call disabled.

Dutch Caucasians built the South African system of apartheid, and studied all of the preceding systems of humiliation to build theirs.

And here we are again in musky times where ego seeks to trump the good of humanity.

If we are to be messengers of hope and architects of equity, then we, the people, likely need to focus on building connections in our communities as whom we really are, instead of whom we have been indoctrinated to be.

To build as we are, and not as we have been indoctrinated to be, we have to focus on getting to know ourselves again, and then be careful to shed the elements of the system of dominance and inferiority which will creep in as pre-existing parasites in our gut.

The group which has been enjoying the benefit of dominance is not the dominant group.

The group which has been labelled and treated as subordinate is not subordinate.

These things are true whether we are in the parental system, the traditional educational system, the religious system, the political system, the employment system, friendship systems, the professional caring systems, etc etc.

There are no dominants and no subordinates. There are only equals. And leaders in each of these systems are responsible for creating equity among equals so that we can live with the full benefit of inclusion, integrity, and innovation.

Because we have all internalized these labels, it is extremely important that we intentionally pursue a mind shift as we do our work of building more functionally healthy communities.

It is most essential that we shed the shame which is unconsciously attached to living this lie in which we have been marinated.

It didn’t start with us, and it can change and shift with us.

May we embrace Portia Nelson’s compassion-based vision of learning, as first shared with me by David Loyst:

Learning is a process.

https://youtu.be/5E5_Sbml0XY?si=XtYB4aPjMD7F5MGT

Unconscious incompetence: we don’t know what we don’t know.

Conscious incompetence: now we know what we don’t know.

Conscious competence: we begin to intentionally practice to do what we have learned to do. And sometimes we’ll fumble.

Unconscious competence: we have evolved into just naturally doing what we now know without even thinking about it.

And along the way may we remember the innocence of our little souls whose initial deepest desire was to experience the fullness of the light as a part of the human community, as illustrated in Neale Donald Walsch’s The Little Soul and The Sun.

This parable was first read to me by Dr. Vanessa Lapointe, in a private session with Jodi Higgs in 2017 or 2018. It was a glorious moment of awakening for all of us I believe. And I believe that we have several, if not many, such moments throughout our lives.

Both of these women had touched my heart in different ways many years before we came together for that session. None of us had ever envisioned us being in a room together.

My first encounter with Vanessa was at a Discipline Without Damage workshop hosted by Wind and Tide Preschool in 2014. I had no clue whom she was, but I did know that the email which announced the workshop seemed like an invitation which I could not resist on my quest to experience the fullness of the peaceful, powerful, nurturing, woman that I knew myself to be. I moved heaven and earth to attend.

Jodi and I were in a Facebook community moms’ group together. Her contributions to the group discussion connected so deeply with the way my heart had begun to seek to walk on my aforementioned quest. And then one day in discussion as a mom was seeking input from that online community, Jodi mentioned that she was a foster parent support worker, and my heart immediately locked in as that was exactly what I needed and had been asking for as a foster parent.

Again, I had to move heaven and earth to finally meet her in person as a part of my team. It took years, and many tears, and it was absolutely 100% worth it.

On the day that we three sat together in Vanessa’s office, as Vanessa read this parable out loud for us, a glorious energy filled the room that seemed to be the merging of the spiritual, logical, and mystical powers of the universe. I had never experienced anything like it, and never did again until I had another session on May 24th 2021, with a person whom I experienced as my twin flame friend, even though we have since divorced as friends.

I have since had two other more intimate and personal experiences of awakening, alone, with that complex powerful source, named I AM, whom I lovingly call My Love Most High.

And all of that has brought me to this place of crystal clear knowing that we are meant to progress together as the beautiful beings whom we really are; and to get there each of must choose to engage in our personal healing learning experiences, saturated with grace, compassion, and faith, so that we can finally move humanity forward together.

As we work towards building equity and inclusion in worship communities centred on love, it was so refreshing to witness a gentle call-in to competence right in the open worship gathering, in a North American largely Euro-descendant community. It was even more refreshing to experience the call-in graciously accepted. The fire of that moment of engagement with justice in the divine pattern has been warming my heart since.

I was surrounded for so long by proponents of the idea that North Americanness which was really unconsciously Whiteness is what makes a particular ideology attractive to the rest of the world. That was taxing. I was surrounded for so long by proponents of the idea that North Americans of that system should separate from the racialized global community in order to move equity forward in that particular system, when North American writers, governing leaders, and lobbyists within that very system continued to campaign fiercely to maintain the status quo.

I was surrounded for so long by proponents of the idea that North Americans in that system were givers being held hostage in inequity by the takers of the racialized global community.

I experienced for so long the inability of the proponents of these ideas to see that the fruit of racism embedded in the system were the sins of the fathers which impacted the minds and psyches of the children unto the third and fourth generation, which prevented them from seeing how much they were given by the racialized global community in North America and abroad.

That was taxing. That was burdensome. That robbed us all of the connection which would have moved inclusion, innovation, and equity forward. That robbed us all of increased competence in living love.

Experiencing that call-in and its gracious acceptance has bolstered my hope. It was the kind of encouragement and relief that I imagine Elijah felt when God told him that there were at least seven thousand others who were also committed to learning what living faithfully with their Creator really meant.

I experienced the kind of chagrin that I imagine Elijah felt having recognized that he had murdered the prophets of Baal needlessly, because there were many times when I had slashed people gleefully with my tongue, to punish them for daring to drip the juice of the generationally produced fruit of racism on us.

I also felt vindicated for being the ass that keeps warning us that we are headed towards death, the death of the communities of our dreams, if we continue to go along the path down which we have been travelling.

And so I am grateful for Black History month and every initiative, book, podcast, and movement which is geared towards helping us make a well informed decision about waking up and moving towards competence in living love.

1 Corinthians 13. 💚🕊️🦋

Shalom.

“…The Word of God in print was given to us in order to lead us to the Word of God in Person. In other words, the pages of Scripture lead us to know the Living Word, Jesus” (Word Play http://www.highlandcommunitychurch.ca).

These words touch the core question of my heart about the Bible, the book which Christians hold as sacred, and I hold the same question about the books which other religions hold as sacred: Which of the words in print are the direct words of God which lead us to see the fullness of God in Jesus, the Living Word?

If there are bits of God’s glory in every one and everything, yet not everything and every one is the full reflection of God as Jesus was, are there indicators, patterns, throughout the sacred books that indicate which words are the wholeness of God’s character and glory, and which words bear bits of God’s glory with the imprint of human interpretation?

I love the experience of discovering God and becoming a community centred on God’s love with those who gather at Highland Community Church.

I think that it is important for our journeys of discovery to be experienced in communities which honour the individual perspective as worthy of being shared and examined by the collective community. May we find or build these beautiful spaces which move humanity forward in love together.