The following is a copy of a letter I sent to one of my dearest friends who has been rightfully angry and frustrated with the state of our world and the actions of a certain administration. I trust these words will be a comfort to others.

Dear Friend(s):

For awhile now I’ve been wanting to offer some words of comfort as we are moving through this massive upheaval of what we once believed in as a political system. There can be no mistaking, the Republic is in the midst of its own collapse, in this case, by its own hand.

I know this causes you much fear and concern – rightly so. I know it also ignites anger and rage – again, rightly so. Today I heard someone call this “a war on women.”  Indeed, that often appears to be the case. Equally, it appears as a war against everything that we all hold dear as it relates to universal civil rights and the promises of liberty – for all.

Unfortunately, the system was never made to support anyone other than white, wealthy, men – regardless of what we’ve been told. In the simplest of words, a system that was never meant to support us is showing itself for what it truly is and in its revelation, it will ultimately destroy itself. As scripture says:

“a house divided against itself cannot stand. (Matthew 12:25)”

Knowledge, of this destruction, however, is not necessarily a source of comfort. To offer that, I will have to go back fifty-five years.

Somewhere around the age of five, while vacationing with my family at Lake Lumby, under the light of a bright orange harvest moon, I was given a dream. In the dream the end of the world was about to happen, and I pleaded  “how can we stop this and save humanity?”  The answer – cryptic as dreams often are was, “Gather your friends and dig up Lincoln’s real bones and restore them to their rightful place.” I was five – but even at that young age, I had a sense of the dream’s meaning. It meant that what Abraham Lincoln represents to many of us (honesty, integrity, equal rights, etc.) needed to be restored to our world.  I knew this dream to be true and a prophecy of what was to come.

Fast forward to the early 2000’s and I start to see the proof of this dream playing itself out. In prayer, through dreams, and in connection with others receiving similar messages, there seemed to be a great unfolding taking place. The great unfolding is and has been an ongoing revelation of the division and fear that have shaped western culture (especially) and the United States specifically. We might call the cause of this division patriarchy but it is much more than that. It is every single system that has its roots in fear, and which seeks to manipulate others by this fear so as to serve the self-appointed ruling class. (The movie/documentary Origin explores this in depth.) 

The good news is that a system built on fear is unsustainable. The challenging news is that we are witnessing proof of this as we are living through one of the many times that a system such as this has collapsed under the weight of its own arrogance and greed  – ie: The Fall of Rome. (I have often wondered if Rome knew it was falling and what the impact was on those NOT of the ruling class.)

Since 2016, and even more so since 2020, the pace at which the empire is falling has quickened. We have seen it most obviously on the political stage, but it is indeed impacting every single institution that is rooted in fear, power, and control. The experiment of capitalism has worn itself out and is proving itself to be unsustainable – at least in the way it has been lived out in our lifetimes. Unbridled capitalism has no destination except failure – especially since much of what we understand as wealth today is purely imaginary! It’s a folly. It’s a ruse. It’s a straight up lie.

The house of cards is falling about itself, and those who have benefitted from the lie are clinging and grasping after power and control in their attempts to save the system that has given them perceived power.

They cannot, however, save a dying system. They will, however, become louder and more desperate as it all slips through their fingers.

It all must die. It is not going to be pretty. Death never is. In the face of this dying, we will witness and likely experience fear, anger, depression, and helplessness. We may disassociate, bargain with ourselves, and spend moments in denial. So too will the dying system. Apply what you know about the faces of death (E. Kubler Ross), and this is what we can expect – in fact, we’re already seeing it in droves.

Kamala was not going to save the dying system. Trump may strangely be the hammer that brings the system to its knees. He sure is working hard to destroy it from within and in doing so, showing us the vulnerabilities of the system. UGH!

What I was shown in my dream, was not the salvation of the current system, but the creation of something new. Something built on integrity, honesty, collaborative effort, and true liberty for all. In this, I find the following words of Abraham Lincoln a balm for our times:

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” – Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862

We cannot remain in the dream of a once virtuous United States. We must look at the failings that have been present since its inception and then look beyond them. Should the current system collapse (I am certain it will), we must envision something new. The new that we envision is already planted in our hearts and we are reminded of it every single day as our souls rile against injustice, poverty, hunger, homelessness, the destruction of our environment, corporate greed, human trafficking, sexism, racism, genderism, xenophobia, etc. etc. etc. We KNOW the world we want to live in and as much as we had hoped it was or would have been, the world we have lived in IS NOT THIS. Live for what you dream – not what you had hoped it would be.

One final word of comfort, I KNOW a new world is coming into being and I have seen signs of its emergence. It is present in the mass of people who came together in support of one another, for clean-up, and to begin the steps of rebuilding after Hurricane Helene. It is in our children who carry the vision of the new world within them and who are quietly – and perhaps unknowingly – contributing to its birth. It is in all the individuals I know who have seen the dying, along with the vision of something new.

One final reminder that supports my words being true and not just something I cooked up in my head to make myself feel better. I have been through the death and dying of several institutions. It is hell. I also learned through these experiences that we can and do survive and that on the other side of the death is always something better – something new and improved – or even more likely – something entirely new that leads us toward the freedom that our souls long for and know to be true.  Faith in this is what keeps me going.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. – St. Paul

I love you and your magical family, and we are together in this time to bear witness to the death of the empire and to be support for a new world that is in the process of being born. Thank you for being one of those gathered friends my dream so-boldly promised!

Love,

Lauri