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"If
I could give you one thought, it would be to lift someone up. Lift a
stranger up -- lift her up. I would ask you, mother and father, brother
and sister, lovers, mother and daughter, father and son, lift someone.
The very idea of lifting someone up will lift you, as well.” -
Maya Angelou, GALA Festival V,
Opening Ceremonies. 7/7/1996 Tampa FL
"Re-examine
all you have been told in school or church or in any book and dismiss
whatever insults your own soul." - Walt Whitman
From the American Heritage Dictionary, Pride is defined as:
"A sense of one's own proper dignity or value; self-respect."
Each year in June throughout the world gay and lesbian people celebrate
"Gay Pride" ... and for anyone who has witnessed one of these
celebration parades and festivities, I don't have to tell you about how
marvelously diverse they are. The participants reflect the
diversity of the world we live in; all races, genders, nationalities and
economic classes. The celebrations are inclusive of the religious
and the non-religious. For some, aspects of these celebrations may
appear bizarre ... but for most of us they are an expression of the
uniqueness of Spirit as reflected through Creative Mind.
These celebrations began as a demand for
"self-respect" ... and as an end to abuse and blatant
discrimination. In metaphysics, we would call this a "shift
in consciousness" ... a "shift" in a group of people who
collectively shared a consciousness of being "outside of the
kingdom of God" ... or to state this more simply, people who had
been taught to believe that they were "less-than" and
possessed something to "hide" because they did not conform to
the ideals and social norms of the greater culture.
To understand the futility of this thinking we can
turn to the great Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Whoso would be a man,
must be a nonconformist,” he asserts a radical, even extreme, position
on the matter. Responding to the objection that devotedly following
one’s inner voice is wrong because the intuition may be evil, he
writes, “No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature . . . the
only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is
against it.” In other words, it is better to be true to an evil nature
than to behave “correctly” because of society’s demands or
conventions. Outlining his reasons for objecting to conformity,
Emerson asserts that acquiescing to public opinion wastes a person’s
life. Those around you never get to know your real personality. Even
worse, the time spent maintaining allegiances to “communities of
opinion” saps the energy needed in the vital act of creation—the
most important activity in our lives—and distracts us from making any
unique contribution to society. Conformity
corrupts with a falseness that pervades our lives and our every action:
“. . . every truth is not quite true.”
"Every truth is not quite true" ...
and this simple statement may be the "cause" behind the demand
on the consciousness of gay and lesbian peoples to walk in celebratory
protest to the unpleasant scorn of the masses of people who did not
understand nor want to understand a life-style that shook the foundation
of "social norms." This "shift in
consciousness" created a demand within many gay and lesbian people
to live their lives authentically and honestly. "For
what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul?" ... asked the Master Mind Jesus. We
must live to our truth ... whatever that may be ... and realize that all
that we are Is God ... expressing through us, as us and for us. No
one has been created to live in limitation ... or to live a lie.
Every negative thought we have about who we are ... or what we are ...
is a denial of our soul. In metaphysics we know that
"soul" is synonymous with consciousness. We cannot
demonstrate success, happiness, joy, peace and love ... and deny our own
soul's expression in this life for this denial saps the very dynamic
quality of Spirit within us that seeks to express Itself.
Every person who stands firm in their respect
for themselves and their respect for all people contributes to the
vibration in "cosmic consciousness" that creates change in the
collective consciousness. In California we have just witnessed
this shift in the collective consciousness when the California Supreme
Court, a conservative court by and large appointed by conservative
republican governors, made a decision that legalized same-sex marriage.
This decision, although by appearance came from the California Supreme
Court, was "caused" by a shift in the collective
consciousness. Polls taken after the Court decision clearly showed
a shift in favor of this decision. In other words, it
is "an idea whose time has come" ... and when this happens
either in our individual consciousness or the collective consciousness
... it is unstoppable!
AND
SO IT IS!
Keep
the faith!
Rev.
Dr. Henry Lee Bates
Visit Rev. Bates BLOG: Living
the Science of Mind
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