Living Christ: Redeeming

Welcome to Living Christ, a program of the Spark of Humanity Network. My name is Martha Holden and I'm a member of the Spark of Humanity Network. The Spark of Humanity Network is has developed from the insight that there is a spark of humanity in each one of us. in you, in me, in everybody who's watching and everybody who's not watching. There's a spark of humanity and that when we connect with our own spark and go ahead, connect with your spark and through that, not through our noggin, through that spark of humanity, wherever it lodges in us at the moment, we reach out to connect with and affirm the spark in someone else. It strengthens their spark. And it seems that the strengthened spark acts to erode the defenses, clarify the bafflement, release the distortions. The sparks can't be extinguished, they can't be corrupted, they can't be polluted, but they can be defended and they can be distorted and they can be baffled. And if you most of us when we look inside ourselves can say, "Oh yes," and often all three. So that's the network from which this developed. Working with this concept and letting it sort of take us wherever it wanted, like a big fish towing us through unknown waters, we came to realize, oh, there's something else that besides there's more than humanity. And we're, you know, what words do we put on it? How do we express it so that us human beings and others can include the members the our fellow creatures within this community in which we find ourselves. We came to realize that there is we all exist within a living process all of us within a living process. And this process lives within us. It's living within you. It's living within me. And it's pressing to be lived through us. And we came to call this process Christ. Small caps Christ. Not big C Christ. small caps Christ being the process that the man Jesus who we think of as the big C Christ lived truly and effectively enough. So it's demonstrating that there is that process working within every one of us. And we have a little video to show you. I'm going to stop it partway through because today we're going to be talking about redeeming. And so I'll stop it partway through and carry on about redeeming unless you call in or zoom in and interrupt me, which would probably be a good thing. And then we'll finish up the video at the end. It's just just a short video. But here we go. The Christ sings life streams the divine evolves being flows toward fulfillment. may be more than Jesus as we understand Jesus. There is Christ in everyone. We can't get rid of it. We can deny it. We can do our best to mangle it. We can try to distort it. We cannot get rid of it. We're stuck with it. We can choose to live in harmony with it and deeper. We can choose to join it. It is the nature of the Christ to attract, heal, transform, blossom. It's the nature of the Christ to attract, heal, transform, blossom. Last time we talked about healing and about how that is that it's the nature of the Christ to heal. So, it's a matter of our letting go of whatever is getting in the way of that healing happening. which can be bad habits of course, it can be laziness and it can be our thoughts. Now this is not to say that healing is limited to our mortal beings. We're not just talking about staying alive here. We're talking about healing and sometimes for some people healing, a full healing requires our departure from our mortal bodies and we go on to be healed. But the Christ, we're still part of the Christ process and it's still moving towards healing. It's still living within us. it continues to be pressed pressing to be expressed through us. So, so it's the thing is so healing when we allow healing to happen on any level that opens up the possibility for what we are calling redeeming which to me in my very sort of elementary simple way I think of like taking that which is broken which seem dark which seem lost lost and healing it and letting it become it becomes better than it was before. It becomes stronger. It's like I don't know whether it's true or not but I've heard you may have heard too that if you heal a limb it breaks then you let it knit back together it's stronger afterwards. I don't know whether that's true or not, but that's basically the the principle when I use the word redeeming something. When we allow ourselves to be healed, when we do the work of allowing ourselves to be healed, then there's the possibility of being redeemed, which means the whole incident is retained redeemed. We think of it differently. The thing here about the nature of the Christ says healing, transforming, blossoming. And the transforming and the blossoming are aspects of the process that I'm talking about when I'm talking about redeeming. Once again, like healing, it is a letting go of our judgments, most probably most importantly of our judgments, of our naming, our blaming, our labeling. It's It's like, "Oh my heavens, this just happened to me. It's the worst thing ever. Oh my gracious. How could H this is so terrible and I'm just going to sit here allowing it even though I'm healed now. In some ways I'm this is as healed as I'm ever going to get and I am going to just stay right here with this is a tragedy. This is a horror. people who've suffered brain injuries, who've been able to find their path towards healing and redeeming, discovered, oh no, that's not the case. the blessed neuroplasticity as we call it the brains the central nervous system's possibility to reconfigure itself and get pull its way out of the distortions that we've inflicted on it in our prior life in our earlier life. the and you know it starts it's I probably starts before we leave the delivery room if we were born in a delivery room but it starts very early this this distortion this now because I need to ple I need to please these people because my being my survival depends on them. So therefore I will you know to in order to survive I will do what is indicated by these people. What I think what I think I need to do in order to survive. It doesn't take much imagination to see that that could lead to some rather distorted ideas and later on behavior. So the redeeming process ideally we allow the healing to continue beyond the physical healing or the emotional healing or whatever to so that we begin to open up for re-evaluation. We begin to consider we begin to let go of our judgments. We begin to let the Christ process work within us and within this situation that we're, you know, saying it's so horrible or, you know, the person or the memories or whatever that we we begin to allow that to work and let go of our grip on how it is our story. We love stories, you know. I tell stories to myself all the time as if someone were asking me a question and I need to tell a story, you know. No, no, no. I'm just making it up. I'm just I don't know what I'm doing. Entertaining myself as if I need it. So we letting go of those ideas, those old ideas, those old habits of response, all that stuff that gets in the way of the living Christ to work through the circumstances of our lives, to work through our thoughts, to work through our behavior and our understanding. And there are many of us whom I am on that I cannot will myself to do that. I can probably at best recognize that that would be a good thing. I would like to be open to be redeemed. I would redeemed. I would like to open to be transformed. I'm willing to be transformed and I'm willing to blossom. Th those will probably have to go back to this in later shows because those are scary things for me anyway. And I think we need to help each other. We need to sort of coach each other through it. We need to support each other through it because it's it's you know I'm just fine just the way I am. You know I don't really I'm who needs transformation? Save that for people who need it. I'm just fine just the way I am. Well, maybe I may think so, but the fact is I am not I'm not becoming who I'm needed to be in this world at this time. This show is an offshoot, a followup to the living mosaic series a couple years ago. You might want to look at it where we talked about that there is a solution to the distress, pain, horror, tragedy that we see in this world. And the solution can be envisioned as a living mosaic. And that we're each a little essential and unique bit of the mosaic. So what we can do to move towards the solution towards peace well-being you know environmental sustain you know whatever we all that stuff to become part of the solution is that we work on we become willing to to become the unique and essential person we are. Nobody else can do it. And we're not the same as that person there or that person there. We don't need to judge them. We don't need to be comparing ourselves to them. We need to be supporting each other in this journey of living Christ essentially is what it is. So that's so that's sort of the incentive to being willing to be transformed and blossom the willingness to be redeemed. So you know once we get in our heads oh that's I think that's a good idea. I you know you know I've signed I've written postcards. I've contributed money. I've signed petitions. I've marched on the streets or I've thrown eggs at people who march on the streets. whatever I've done as much as I can think to do on the outside. Maybe it's time I looked at the inside and how I might allow myself to be redeemed, transformed, blossom so that I become the essential part of the solution that I am that nobody else can be. So you know get all the principles. Yes, that would be a good idea. That would be a very good Yes. Yes. Yes, I should do that. Ah, how do I do it? How do I let go of those old ideas? How do I, you know, quit with the judging? How do I And that's where the spark of humanity network has something to offer. There are probably numberless numerous ways to do the spiritual practices that would apply in this situation because it's what we've been been doing for quite a while now. We can recommend the the what we call the spark practice because when you through your spark of humanity connect with and affirm my spark of humanity because you know that I need it obviously and so you want to strengthen my spark so that my defenses will be eroded so that my bafflement will be clarified so my distortions will be released so I'll be a little more available to being transformed so that the Christ process of redeeming can have a little freer flow through me and in me and with me when you're doing that look out your spark is also being strengthened which means you'll notice this over time it's incremental it's not well at least for most of us I haven't heard of it yet being like a lightning bolt, but it could be. And you may be the one. Your defenses are being eroded. As you do that, which means you may be getting a little clearer about your bafflement, which means you may be willing to recognize the distortions and be willing to let them go. Say, "I don't need to do that anymore. I really needed to do that when I was three. I felt in order to survive and that's okay. You know, it's okay that I've been doing that for the last, you know, 83 years or 22 years or however long, but I I am willing to let that go. And that's this subtle subversive subliminal starts with sub I'm quite sure subconscious process that happens when we use the spark proc spark practice when we're feeling I'm not willing I I know it's a really good idea. This Christ redeeming stuff is really good. I really want to be part of that. I want to let that have a free reign in my life. I want to participate in it. You know, I'm willing to be transformed. I'm willing to blossom, whatever that means for me. Um, don't know how to do it. How do I, you know, how do I get some traction? How do I grab hold of this process? Well, doing the spark practice helps. On the website sparkofhumity.net, we have meditations. Um, we do this every other Sunday in the afternoon. You can send us an email at sparkofhumity.dot tnet. S p a r k o f u h u m a n i t yo f hu m a no d o t n a tggmail.com. Got it. And probably the lovely people here at Orca put that at the bottom of your screen. So that because it's not just the doing that the practice as we teach it or guide it is we start with somebody very easy. Um you can start with me if I'm easy or somebody you really care about. Um someone that you're just fond of. I suppose it could be your cat but that's hard with the spark of humanity stuff. Um and you go up in layers of success successful s increasing layers of difficulty. So start with somebody easy and go to somebody a little more difficult, more difficult, more difficult, somebody you just really detest or terrified of or you know think is demonic and and at some point in there you're likely or at least I always am likely to feel depleted. And so at that point what we teach is to gather in the resources that you need. Don't we think of the resources as stability, access to the living truth and community. And we have meditations for that. Think of roots of a tree, you know, stabilizing it, taproot going down into the aquifer of living truth, microisal network going out for community. So we have that feeling we're being fed that we're stable. We have community we have access to the living truth and then part of the meditation is the willingness and so do a because it works best when we ourselves are willing to be transformed obviously um you know can't transform you if we're not allowing ourselves to be transformed. So, so we do a meditation going up the trunk of a tree like and then like dew falling down the quality of willingness permeating all being on this beloved planet. So that's that's what we do in the guided meditations but you can do that on your own right you know however you wish um and that that incrementally so whenever you see somebody you know walking down the street driving in your car you can connect you can practice getting in touch with your spark of humanity and reach out to connect with and affirm their spark And you can get fluent at it. It can take some practice. Just getting in touch with your own spark may take practice. It some it's a meditation is good. Um getting in touch with your vagus activating your vagus nerve some people say. So, three deep breaths or looking way over one shoulder and way over the other shoulder for much longer than that. That activates the vagus nerve that gets us aligned and allows us to get in touch with our spark of humanity. So, that's how we work on the process of redeeming. So, we're going to finish up that little video. When we let the Christ be true to its nature, it grows. When the Christ grows, we don't know what will happen. Whatever happens will be true. True. Probably lively. >> Scary scary. >> Maybe fun. >> Scary. Scary. >> Interesting. For sure. >> Scary. >> Deeply joyous. >> Life worth getting out of bed for. Christ. Interested. Come along with us. Come along with us. >> Come along with us. Come along with us. So there you have it. You're invited to come along with us if you're interested. You can look at other sessions in this series. you can show up and you could zoom in or if it's too late, if you're looking at this on YouTube, it's too late to zoom in, but you can see what's happening out on the website. If the website is having problems, you can send us an email. We're happy to let you know what's going on. We are looking at we're encouraging the formation of groups of three to five people in person, hybrid, virtual to consider these ideas and support each other and becoming the unique and essential bit of the mosaic that we each are called to be so that we may be more fully and joyously and effectively living the Christ. Thank you very much. Enjoy.