May 2013 - Essays on the Eternal

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Swedenbourg,             Butterflies,

Transformation, Unity & You!

 

 

 
 ~Rev. Richard A. Schumacher
 
Growth is something that we choose; it is something we decide upon. Maybe most of all it is about deciding in favor of the Divine and allowing that Divine to arise from the delight of our individual cravings. Emmanuel Swedenborg wrote: “Anyone can decide in favor of the Divine on the basis of visible phenomena in nature by looking at caterpillars. From the delight of their individual cravings, they strive and long for a change of their earthly state into a state that parallels the heavenly one. So they crawl into their nooks, put themselves into a womb, so to speak, in order to be reborn....”

Something wonderful happens when we decide to be transformed by the Divine. What happens? We are changed; we are transformed. Transformation is not evolution! Evolution is reflected in small changes over a long period of time whereas transformation is becoming a new creature very quickly. To decide for the Divine is to commit to transformation. It is to go apart, in consciousness, and enter into the womb-like silence so that we may be reborn and a new and heavenly creature emerges. Swedenborg continues,"Then, with this transformation complete, endowed with lovely wings according to their species, they fly through the air as though it were heaven...."

As we consider the message of the springtime ritual of the caterpillar spinning its chrysalis only to emerge as a totally different creature, we realize that the nature and work of this ministry must go through a similar experience. No longer can we accept evolution as the model for growth.  The time has come for this ministry to take its rightful place as a leader in providing spiritual teachings that are guilt-free, Spirit-led, and love-centered. In short, we are prepared to bring the freeing, life-transforming Truth of Jesus Christ to our community, our Unity Movement and our world. To do so is, in the words of Swedenborg, to "fly through the air as though it were heaven." We have said "yes" to this process countless times as we, individually and privately and collectively and publicly, declared, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven." Nature in its beauty and order serve to teach this truth and Swedenborg challenges us again.

"Can anyone who is deciding in favor of the Divine on the basis of phenomena visible in nature fail to see some image of our own earthly state in them when they are worms, and an image of our heavenly state in them when they are butterflies?" I don't think so. So I challenge you to see yourself and this ministry as butterflies: butterflies with the most powerful but gentle, beautiful and strong wings. These wings are wings that lift us beyond the clouds of personal and organizational limitation. They shall be wings that will allow us to "fly through the air as though it were heaven."  That will be true because our earthly experience will be heavenly.

 

Come Home to Unity

Come Home to Butterflies