By Helen Rousseau,
Recently, I’ve been listening to Handel’s Messiah. As an Interfaith Minister, my journey has led me through the path of rejection of institutional religions, especially my Catholic background, to a new understanding of God, the Divine, Ultimate Consciousness or Unconditional Love. I have come full circle and can listen, with new ears, to Handel’s Messiah without the overlay of religious interpretations. It begins “Comfort ye my people.” When I sit in the Presence of all that is, I find comfort, my heart hears the message as well as the call to go out into the world and give comfort, however I am called to do that.
“For unto us a child is born.” Today the children of this world are our teachers, scolding us for how we have treated our mother earth. The children are leading the way like Greta Thunberg telling the members of the United Nations, “Shame on you.”
“Rejoice O Daughter of Zion.” As women, we are being called to bring feminist energy into the world, into politics and the workplace. As we have nurtured families for millennia, we are now being called out of our families into the public sphere to radiate a hope for humanity that has been lost in the patriarchal rhetoric, especially that of organized religion.
“Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain.” If I was a prophet, calling out to the people today, I would say, “You who have been on the mountain of money and greed, watch out. For the lowly are rising from the valleys you have cornered them in, from the poverty you have inflicted on them, and they will not so much enact revenge on you, as they will bring you low by their courage and bravery, by their true source of power: their inner light.
“Come unto Him(Her) all ye that labor and you shall find rest unto your soul.”
And thus, the old becomes new again.
Helen is an ordained Interfaith Minister. She was a Catholic nun for thirty years and spirituality has always been central to her life. The transition from nun to Interfaith Minister was a very long journey, but to paraphrase C.S. Lewis: After all our exploring, we arrive where we started and though it is familiar, it is totally new.
Helen is the author of Coming to The Edge: Fifty Poems for Writing and Healing. She leads writing classes using her book and has witnessed deep healing from the writing process, in herself and in her students. This book is also used by many therapists with their clients. Visit Helen at helenrousseau.com
Organ image by Andrea Don
