Spei Lumina - Lights Of Hope Rev. Donald Knight

Christmas may have come and gone almost a week ago, but liturgically at least, we are still in the Christmas Season until Epiphany on January 6th.
As this is being recorded on New Year’s Eve, I thought I’d share a simple meditation of some beautiful Epiphany prayers to closer out our earthly remembrance of the year 2022 and to embark with surer footing on that path to Epiphany this year where we ask to be like the Magi, transformed, enkindled, renewed by God’s manifestation of the Light of the World within and through our own lives.

For those of you who observe Lent and Easter, I hope that yours was a blessed Lenten season and Easter celebration.  I hope that all listeners have had a blessed Winter and the budding leaves and flowers and green of Spring instills hope to the beauty of this year that lies ahead.
 
During Lent, I came across this quote from David Benner which really spoke to my soul:
 
“We are created from love, of love, for love.  Our existence makes no sense apart from Divine Love.” — David G. Banner
 
It is so easy in the hustle and bustle of life to forget this.  It is so easy in the polarized society we live in to forget that all those we meet are also create from love, of love, for love.  The news cycles and the media incite us to boycott, to shame, to call out, to ostracize those we who do not believe as we do.  While not enabling and turning a blind eye to those who oppress, to those who discriminate, to those who sew fear, to those who bend the truth, we must all come back to that center of knowing, of living, of reflecting that great truth that all of God’s children are loved by God and you will never look into the eyes of another person whom Divine Love does not love. 
 
So I thought we’d take time to unwind at this moment of time and sit down, relax, take a deep breath.  To get comfortable and preferably seated away from our phone, away from a clock.  To somehow stop the measure of minutes in our day and minutes we can afford to “make time” to spend in that truth of the Love of Divine Love.  To close our eyes, breath in, and just be for a moment with that Love.  For it is in moments like these, moments with our loved ones and friends that fond, consoling, comforting memories are made.

omorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US.  A time when we gather together with family and friends giving thanks for the abundance and opportunity we have in our wonderful democratic republic.  
I am looking forward to tomorrow’s Thanksgiving holiday.  I hope you are too.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday by far.  Has been to some degree since I was a kid.
Over the years, I have gathered and celebrated Thanksgiving in the home I grew up in, the various homes of friends and neighbors, a parish hall of a church, the homes that I have lived in as an adult, the homes of various family members.
I’ve gathered in Tulsa, New Bedford, Tukwila, Boston, Hudson, New Ipswich, Louisa, Virginia Beach, Huntingdon, Floyd and Palymyra with family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving.
I’ve gathered with beloved family members, beloved friends and acquaintances old and new.  I’ve gathered with friends and family of all faiths — Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and those who don’t subscribe to any one in particular or those who let their subscriptions expire long ago journeying along, hoping to find a renewal of faith, always eager to gather and give thanks and gratitude for the abundance we enjoy in our beloved democratic republic.
I’ve gathered with people on the right, on the left, and those just present with no need to pick a side or color.  I’ve gathered with those who support and affirm you, those who like to push your buttons, those who roll their eyes as you are just you, those who love and cherish you being you.
I’ve gathered with many no longer physically present on this earthly journey, with many still present on their earthly journey.  I’ve gathered in person.  I’ve gathered on the phone — you know those friends and family that Thanksgiving, Christmas and their birthday may be the only times you talk to one another.  I’ve gathered on cold Thanksgivings, on mild Thanksgivings where I walked along the beach with only a light sweater on, on rainy dreary Thanksgivings, on sunny bright Thanksgivings.
Each and every Thanksgiving gathering I’ve attended I cherish in my heart.  There may have been tension between some of the hosts and hostesses and attendees and friends and family members.  There may have been differences of opinion, of faith, of what it was each of us were thankful for.  
It’s not the tensions I remember.  It’s not the petty things said, thought, expressed that I remember.  It’s not the food — no gathering was lacking in that.  Nor the drinks or dessert.  It’s not the topics discussed I remember.  It’s not the opinions or politics of the attendees present at each gathering.
What I remember most about each gathering were the moments where I was able to steal away from my ego and tap into my heart energy, my higher self and realize it was in these gathered moments that memories are made, that love is recorded, that the wonder of having an opportunity be it ever so rare to gather with friends, family, and acquaintances and offer thanksgiving each in our own way transcended time, space, here and now, and all our individual differences.  Somehow in that moment, we weren’t just brother, sister, mother, father, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, grandfather, grandmother, son, daughter, or friend.  We were all united by our toddling along, attempting as best we can to express gratitude in this journey and to reflect that great Love from which we all come. 
I hope that you have memories of similar gatherings and similar experiences of the eternal power of love in your life as well.
I thought today’s imaginal prayer, would be one of imaginally gathering with our ancestors, our spirit guides, and those we’ve known in this life who have passed over in spirit to help us prepare for the big celebration with family and friends.

Spei Lumina has been on a hiatus of sorts since April.  My apologies for the long delay in publishing a new episode of imaginal prayer during these trying times.  If you are like me, the polarity and division that continues within our society and culture between the Left and the Right, Conservatives and Liberals, Maskers and Anti-Maskers, Vaccinated and Unvaccinated in this ongoing post COVID-19 pandemic is truly wearing to your soul.  It’s hard to be that reflector of Light, of Hope, of Truth when all around us is division and scorn for the other and those who don’t agree with us.  
I’ve been reading some old metaphysical and spiritualist journals and papers from the 1800’s to early 20th century.  From 1934 - 1937, Joseph Benner of Akron, OH published a periodical titled The Inner Life - The Herald of the New Age.  Benner was the owner of SUN PUBLISHING CO. in Akron, OH.  He wrote many books, his most notable was, “The Impersonal Life.” Also known as “The I AM teaching.”
Elvis Presley was known to have been introduced to this book by one of his acquaintances and it was supposedly one of his favorite book that he gave away hundreds of copies of the book during his lifetime.  
In the July, 1937 issue of The Inner Life there is an article entitled, “A Challenge to Metaphysicians”  wherein the author asks his brothers and sisters in spiritual ministry to consider developing the Christ Consciousness within all by starting their meetings with his proposed invocation and prayers outlined int he article.
What follows is my adaptation of his invocations as an imaginal prayer exercise, helping us to invite that Light of the Christ consciousness within so that we in turn may broadcast that Light, that Love, that truth out to all in these trying times.
I hope you will join me in this imaginal prayer exercise grounding ourselves in the Christ consciousness within each of us and emanating and broadcasting that Light and power and love out to all.
This episode is dedicated to the memory, ministry, and mission of the article’s author who is known simply by the initials H.F.C.

It seems to me we live in a time where more and more people are being devalued.  Where corporate rights appear to be growing at the expense of individual rights.  Where, in the age of Artificial Intelligence or AI, many services including customer support and chat support are being replaced by AI bots that supposedly provide the same level of service as their human counterparts once did.  The trend seems to be an expanding devaluation of the human person and with this expansion a greater denial of the existence of that which truly provides us value — the soul.  
Our value comes from the spark of the divine that innately exists in each and every person.  Our value comes in helping nourish that spark within ourselves and shining the light of that spark brightly so as to nourish and heal and restore awareness of that spark within for those individuals directly impacted by this expansion of devaluation of the person.
I recently came across the Gnostic influenced Manichaean writings that really seemed to speak to my soul.  Manichaeism would be condemned by the Latin Church as a heresy, the Manichaean writings provide a richness that speaks more true to the human condition as a soul embodied, incarnated in this physical body we live and experience this earthly life than most of the Christian spiritual writings ever shed on the soul.   I hope you too find it just as enriching as I did.

In this age we live in with so much dissension and rhetoric dividing humanity across the globe, I thought it important to remind ourselves of the mandatum Christ left his followers, “To love one another as I have loved you.”  The love that Christ was speaking about and instructed and lived out by example is not solely a feeling, or an emotion, rather, it is a dimension with which to live your life.  The dimension of love connects you to the divine in a way that no other dimension, no other emotion, no other feeling or thought can.
Please join me.