It’s time to go higher

“The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”

America’s government is falling apart, and its light in the world is vanishing. This is a tragedy, but it can also be a cause for hope. As a corrupt version of America collapses, as it must, what Abraham Lincoln called “the last best hope on earth” can be reinvigorated by an idea of broad and timely scope – the idea of a spiritual nation. Such a nation is not tied to geography but can exist wherever in the world it is proved. If the loss of something noble but flawed is the way for Americans and everyone to find and embrace a more secure and lasting government and home, this is good. America can be saved by making it a nation for the world.

Nation-states represent the false assumption that we live, move and have our being in a material home. This assumption holds us back from embracing the spiritual identities of ourselves and humanity, with which we all can unite on a more secure basis. There is a bright future ahead for Americans and humanity if we free ourselves from prisons of geography and place ourselves in a universe of humility, compassion, truth and other moral and spiritual qualities. This is the challenge facing us now. Are we willing to rise to a new level of consciousness and behavior?

American political strategist Steve Schmidt sees some of the need:

More than anything else, the test at hand for the American people is a moral one.

But the test is not just for Americans: It’s a challenge facing humanity at large. Just as the American founders of the eighteenth century introduced to the world the idea of a free and democratic nation, so the people of the twenty-first century from any country can demonstrate the idea of a universal spiritual nation beyond borders.

A more spiritual allegiance may be the only thing that will enable America to survive Donald Trump and his wrecking crew. The path, however, will not be an easy one. Right now, as Schmidt says, in the fog of the moral confusion assaulting America,

The lines between decency and indecency have become blurred.... We have lost sight of the difference between toughness and cruelty, between patriotism and jingoism. We have lost sight of ourselves, and because we are a government of the people, by the people, for the people we have lost connection to the purpose of our nation.... The problem basically is theological...and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years.

Religious ritual and dogma are weak fuel for this endeavor. And much communications media – news, social or otherwise – scarcely grasp how to spread the moral courage and healing compassion needed by a world more troubled than it has been in a long time. Meanwhile, as Trump tries to manipulate the religious community and dismantle the free press to protect himself from exposure and prison, he’s doing us all a favor by forcing us to rise.

But rising mentally isn’t enough. We also have to prove, in our day-to-day lives, dominion over fear. That is the only way we can neutralize the poison of hate and greed now oozing from America. For example, Christ Jesus “spat on the ground” before he healed a man of blindness.¹ Citizens of this new world of inspired spiritual governance need to spit on the ground of narrow self-concern and jingoistic exaltation and prove the clear-sightedness of fearless love. Through such spiritually insightful behavior we can help each other unite on a level beyond nations.

There are two simple rules for proving this new universal government: Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. The Trump movement is about neither. Whoever will help build a robust spiritual community will need to do it not just in a specific location or even online, but in thought that is firmly rooted in spiritual values, and in action defined by demonstration of those values in politics, in business, in the arts, in education, in the family, spreading this community further and further around the globe.

But here’s perhaps the most challenging part: I wrote last week about mental assassination. Another term for it is mental malpractice – using the mind for destructive purposes. Americans by the thousands are facing mental malpractice in the form of random mass firings, malicious withholding of funds and attempts by a powerful elite to intimidate a whole society. How can we handle all this? Be alert to it – mental malpractice works so subtly sometimes that it can seem like our own fear-induced, rage-filled thought – and reject its attempts to control mind and body. Never hate, never fear, and do the good that you are inspired to do with principled patience and courage. There are many ways to contribute. It will all eventually knit together.

These next years may not be pretty, as evil destroys itself. Remember Jesus, who cured an insane man in part by letting the man’s “devils” enter the swine nearby and then self-destruct. The swine went crazy and killed themselves.² The fundamental battle is not political or personal, it is moral and spiritual. Elections will not solve the problem – Trump and Co. will not let another free election happen if they can stop it. As the spiritual sons and daughters of God, we can help shepherd a reorientation of humanity away from getting to giving, from taking to proving, by demonstrating individually and collectively the fundamental fact that God is infinite Love and is available now for all humanity. As David French of The New York Times put it at a recent conference about this moment in America:

[The crisis times are] when we come out to heal. That's when we come out to demonstrate love in the face of hatred. That’s when we come out to demonstrate kindness in the face of cruelty…. When hatred arises, love arises the greater. We should not be discouraged by the hatred. We can lament it. We can grieve it. But don't be discouraged by it…. Be motivated, but motivated in a specific way. Motivated in a way to heal this country.

It is your mission and mine to rise to the occasion. Wherever you are, don’t wait for a new government to arrive. Prove the one you already have, the kingdom of God within you.

Be not afraid.

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The subhead is from Matthew 21:43

1. John 9:1-7

2. Mark 5:2-13