#Tunesday: “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke

February 21, 1965: In New York City, Malcolm X, (later known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. He was 39.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/malcolm-x-assassinated

Malcolm X is frequently differentiated from fellow civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. in his stance on non-violence. What sometimes is misconstrued however, is that Malcolm X did not advocate for the fomenting of violence, but instead in fighting back against anyone perpetrating violence upon African Americans.

What to do with this differentiation? Consider what Swedenborgian Minister, Rev. Lee Woofenden cites on his website. Swedenborg does not believe in not making wars for the sake of glory or vanity, but states, “that the nature of good is to defend;” even the angels are constantly coming to our defense.

https://leewoof.org/2018/11/22/war-military-service-violence-and-self-defense-whats-a-christian-to-do/

Video excerpt from the movie “Malcolm X” featuring Denzel Washington, with the song “A Change is Gonna Come,” by Sam Cooke.

Give Thanks to the Lord…

Crabapple Tree in Suburbia

Thank you to the Swedenborgian Church of North America for their recent email with the following text from Emanuel Swedenborg:

For everything that flows from the Lord… is freely given. The Lord does, it is true, demand humility, worship, thanksgiving, and much else from a person, which seem like repayment, so that His gifts do not seem to be free. But the Lord does not demand those things for His own sake, for the Divine derives no glory at all from a person’s humility, worship, or thanksgiving. It is utterly inconceivable that any self-love should exist within the Divine, causing Him to require such actions for His own sake. Rather, they are required for humankind’s own sake, for if someone possesses humility they are able to accept good from the Lord, since in that case they have been parted from self-love and its evils which stand in the way of their accepting it. Therefore the Lord desires a state of humility in a person for that person’s sake, because the Lord can flow in with heavenly good when that state exists in them. The same applies to worship and thanksgiving.

Emanuel Swedenborg

#InternationalWomensDay: #CelebrateWomen #HonorWomen #FreeWomen

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” www.womankind.org.uk

What does Swedenborg say about Freedom?

Doing harmful things in freedom seems to be freedom, but it is actually slavery. It comes from selfish and materialistic loves, which come from hell. (The Heavenly City §142)

and also…

All freedom is a matter of love, even to the point that love and freedom are the same thing. Since love is our life, freedom is also essential to our life. Every pleasure we experience comes from our love; there is no other source of pleasure. Acting for the sake of the pleasure of our love is acting in freedom, because pleasure leads us along, the way a river bears its burdens quite naturally along its current. Since we have many loves, some of which agree with each other and some of which disagree, it follows that we likewise have many kinds of freedom. In general, though, there are three kinds: earthly, rational, and spiritual. (Divine Providence §73:2)

The Power of Prayer; Hope, Comfort, and Joy

From https://swedenborg.com/the-magical-power-of-prayer/

Regarded in itself, praying is talking with God, while taking an inward view of the things we are praying about. In answer we receive a similar stream of speech into the perceptions or thoughts of our mind, so that our inner depths open up to God, in a way. The experience varies, depending on our mood and the nature of the subject we are praying about. If we pray from love and faith and focus on or seek only what is heavenly and spiritual, something resembling a revelation emerges while we pray. It discloses itself in our emotions in the form of hope, comfort, or an inward stirring of joy. (Secrets of Heaven §2535)

#FridayFeeling Count Your Blessings

Count your blessings.

Blessing Cards from our Harvest Feast 2019

Since heaven comes from the human race, then, and since heaven is living with the Lord forever, it follows that this was the Lord’s goal for creation. . . . The Lord did not create the universe for his own sake but for the sake of people he would be with in heaven. By its very nature, spiritual love wants to share what it has with others, and to the extent that it can do so, it is totally present, experiencing its peace and bliss. Spiritual love gets this quality from the Lord’s divine love, which is like this in infinite measure. It then follows that divine love (and therefore divine providence) has the goal of a heaven made up of people who have become angels and are becoming angels, people with whom it can share all the bliss and joy of love and wisdom, giving them these blessings from the Lord’s own presence within them. He cannot help doing this, because his image and likeness is in us from creation. (Divine Providence §27:2)

Happy #FullMoon #FridayThe13th!

#FridayFeeling #Cincinnati #FeelingTheHeat #FridayImInLove

#DeepThoughts #ThursdayThoughts #Correspondences

Everything in the material world is an effect. The causes of all effects lie in the spiritual world, and the causes of those causes in turn (which are the purposes those causes serve) lie in a still deeper heaven. (Secrets of Heaven #5711)

via https://swedenborg.com/emanuel-swedenborg/explore/correspondences/

#NationalDoughnutDay #GetOneForYourNeighborToo

“Usefulness (that is, the good that comes out of love and charity) is accordingly the substance, the source, and the measure of the angels’ happiness.” -Secrets of Heaven, Emanuel Swedenborg

So, be loving and charitable and don’t just get yourself a doughnut/donut, get one for your neighbor, too!

Art by Leo Panyko, CAC Thursday Art Play

#ThursdayTheology #Heaven Is Where Love Is #CincyPride

“Heaven is not located on high, but where the good of love is, and this resides within a person, wherever he or she might be.” -Emanuel Swedenborg

Finding where the good of love is this Sunday, at the New Church of Montgomery in Glendale. 10:30 Hospitality; 11:00 Service with Guest Minister, Rev. Jenn Tafel