Israel

Sequestered and Waiting to Exhale

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

I’m writing today as a kind of “energy report” but I’m not sure these are even the proper words.  More accurately, I’m writing to share some deep observations of what seems to be happening for those of us who are here to be and share Love in the world.

This may not be universal, but I know for myself and those with whom I am in close contact, we have been sequestered. This is not surprising considering we are in the middle of an eclipse portal between the lunar eclipse on March 25th and the upcoming full solar eclipse on April 8th.  This is a big deal eclipse for the US as it makes a wide swath across the nation and will be visible across much of it.

This sequestering feels deep, quiet, and still. For myself, I haven’t had much to do but be. Actually, it’s been glorious. I’ve been living my favorite kind of life – private, silent, gentle, with lots of time for reading, creating, learning, praying, and just being. We even got socked in last night by a HUGE snowstorm that effectively closed most of Wisconsin. Hey, I will never be disappointed with a snowday where I get to stay home, do nothing, and be cozy.

But there’s much more to this sequestering than snowdays. While we are being sequestered, set apart, told to stay home and stay put, while we’re perhaps being deprived of anything related to doing or making things happen, the world out there is about to LOSE ITS SHIT!

The two biggies that draw my attention: The war in Gaza. The US Presidential election.

I’m not going into details because if you’ve been paying attention, you know.

It feels like the universe is holding its breath and we are holding ours with it as it all seems like a powder keg is about to go off.  And go off it will. These conflicts need to come to a head, and they will. Two metaphorical representations of that which has never served and which desperately needs to come to an end.

So we wait. We watch. We take note. We pay attention. BUT WE CANNOT be emotionally involved. We must stand back as objective witnesses to paradigms in their death throes, because WHEN THE SHIT HITS THE FAN, we have to be here, ready and able to step forward in whatever way we are called. 

Until then, we wait, sequestered, holding our breaths, and waiting for the moment we can exhale. It’s back to work for me tomorrow, but today I think I’ll be spending the majority of the day in prayer.

I’m interested in hearing how you are experiencing this sequestering.  Please share in the comment section below! 

How Love Calls Us

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

This morning I received an email from a dear friend. In her email she shared a news video of the October 30th “Not in Our Name” protest at Grand Central Station in New York City calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel’s war against Palestine. Most of those attending were Jewish Americans speaking out against the war, asking for an immediate ceasefire and demanding freedom for Palestine. As American citizens, they condemned the use of US tax dollars in support of the war and implored the US government to stop its complicit participation in the ongoing oppression of Palestine, including the murder of thousands of innocent people. (Watch video HERE).

This is how Love calls us!

  • Love calls us to look beyond human made dividers such as religion, race, nationality, gender, orientation, and belief to seek out the path of compassion, peace, and justice.
  • Love calls us to bear witness to genocide, hatred, and injustice, and to speak on Love’s behalf.
  • Love calls us to listen deeply to the voices of the oppressed and to be their voice in the places where they are unable.
  • Love calls us to see beyond the pride of nationalism so that we might work together for the cause of peace and justice that seeks to support the dignity of all.
  • Love calls us to risk ridicule and condemnation from those who want us to remain silent.
  • Love calls us to see and point out the evils before us and to hold the purveyors of evil accountable – even (especially) when the purveyors are our own elected officials.
  • Love calls us to move beyond any conditioning that may have attempted to cast “the other” in the role of “enemy,” and to seek instead, the Love that dwells within all.

The protest at New York’s Grand Central Station is the perfect example of how Love speaks and the power of Love speaking. Jewish Americans speaking out against the oppression of Palestine and the violence being inflicted upon the innocent at the hands of the Israeli government. Jewish Americans speaking out against the US’s complicit participation in the oppression and genocide of Palestinians. Jewish American taking a stand for Love and calling for the freedom of those that another wants them to call enemy. Jewish Americans saying, “NOT IN OUR NAME.” Jewish Americans acknowledging that being pro-Palestine does not make one anti-Semitic.

This is what Love does.

This is how Love calls us.

How is Love calling you?

Revelation, Rapture, and Apocalypse

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

With the recent (ongoing) war in Palestine and Israel, there has been an uptick in talk of the apocalypse, the rapture, and the end of days. This uptick is based on the belief of a fringe group of evangelical Christians that the return of Jews to the Holy Land and their eventual conversion to Christianity are both necessary for paving the way for “The Second Coming of Christ.”

Christian Zionism is an insult to our Jewish brothers and sisters and to the faith they rightly hold. It is also an affront to the Palestinian people who have been displaced and increasingly sequestered since the partition of 1948. Christian Zionism is a gross misrepresentation of what it means to be an adherent to the Love that Jesus embodied and taught. Finally, and the point of this writing, Christian Zionism’s beliefs are based on a grave misunderstanding of the writings of John of Patmos, specifically his creation of The Book of Revelation.

Throughout the centuries, The Book of Revelation has defied interpretation and has been used by many (if not most) to put forward their own fear-based agenda. The Book of Revelation falls within a specific and unique biblical genre, that of apocryphal writings. Apocryphal writings have one intention only: TO REVEAL. To reveal what is hidden. Unique to apocryphal writings are the language of code – a code that is known only to the community for and to whom they were written.

In the case of John of Patmos, he was writing to and for his own community of Christians who were suffering persecution under the Roman Emperor Nero. John was writing to remind them of the teachings they had already received. He was writing to encourage and support them in their ongoing endeavor to remember and live as Love – the Love that John learned from Jesus and that John was called to bring forth into the world. John wrote in a code that his community would understand. Like Jesus, John was writing in a symbolic language (parable), that would be fully understood by those who had received the fullness of Love, but which might confuse others.

The Book of Revelation was never meant to be a predication of future end times. It was not meant to herald “The Coming of Christ” as it has most often been perceived (Jesus coming out of the sky on a cloud to save all of humanity). It was not meant to predict plagues and horrors that would mark the end of days.

Instead, The Book of Revelation is an instruction manual for the inner journey of transformation. By following its instruction, we are each, in our own unique journey, led to the remembrance of Love, and supported in embodying that Love as Jesus did and as Jesus instructed his followers.

In embracing the guidance of this text, we will indeed experience “The Second Coming of Christ,” but not in the form of Jesus on a cloud.  Instead, we will come to know The Christ within us and in this experience our own salvation. This is not a salvation experienced in some heaven light years away. Instead, it is the peaceable kingdom Isaiah foresaw, the promised land that Moses pursued, and the kingdom of God about which Jesus spoke. This is a salvation that is present within ourselves and when known, leads us to the Love, peace, contentment, understanding, compassion, and joy that is our true nature. In this Love, we know that all of humanity is One and that this oneness is independent of religion, race, nation, or belief.

Come and explore this mysterious and often confusing book of the Bible from a different perspective while reclaiming the role of the Divine Feminine as the true heroine of this epic mythological tale. 

Victory of the Holy Bride shatters over 2000 years of patriarchal dogma that cast the Book of Revelation in the role of doomsday prophecy and presents to you the tools for discovering a profoundly simple truth that is the key to inner peace and the formula through which we endure the “times of tribulation” while building a whole new world – one rooted in peace, understanding, wisdom, harmony and love. 

Learn more here.