All Souls Day

October 27, 2021

Dear Members and Friends,

Life is a journey.  Sometimes straight and sometimes winding, we are guided and helped by unseen influences from beyond the threshold of the spiritual world. 

At the end of our lives we take a very different kind of journey and cross the threshold of death.  It has been described that everything is turned inside out.  We review our lives in reverse order from the way things occurred.  We feel what the other person experienced in our shared interactions.  And we can receive help and support from the world of the living. 

When we think of and remember those who have died, they can be present with us.  We can think of moments when we saw them being most truly themselves, when we caught a glimpse of their higher selves.  Our loving and true memories of those who have died can help them on their continued journey. 

As we approach All Souls Day, it is an opportunity to spend time with our beloved dead, to remember them, and to help them on their way. 

(For information and inspiration for working the the dead, see the compilation of Rudolf Steiner's lectures called Staying Connected, edited by Christopher Bamford.)


With warm regards,

Rev. Jeana Lee

Truth and Love

October 21, 2021

Dear Members and Friends,

When it is hard to discern the truth one can ask, “What is behind the statement that is being made?” “What is the underlying motivation?”

Is truth ever destructive? The Truth that we know that streams from God is drenched in Love, God’s Love for us - sacrificial Love.  At Eastertide the resurrection forces are all around us in the outer world. During Michaelmas those forces can be revealed to us in our souls.  At Michaelmas, as the natural world slowly turns brown and the etheric forces recede back into the earth, the resurrection forces that were so powerful at Eastertide can now be born within us.

We are becoming human. We are not yet our truly human selves, but we can get a glimpse of our true humanity through these resurrection forces within us. In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we are instructed by Paul to put on the armor of God, with truth wrapped around the center of our being, a breastplate of right relationship with God at our heart and our feet wrapped in the peace of Christ that we may speak, the truth filled with the love of God, spreading peace in the world. For truth without love is destructive, and love is the power of Christ. Only through Christ we will become our truly human selves.

With warm regards,

Rev. Victoria Capon

The writings of the youngest of the founders of the Christian Community is inspiring for our own times.

The Revelation of St John, the Apocalypse, knows the secret of the increasing power of evil. When humanity consistently rejects Christ, then the Beast, the possibility of the sub-human, emerges from the abyss. Yet it is within the mission of this increasingly powerful apocalyptic evil to ‘provoke’ the good — to call it forth and thereby help it to come to realization.

Just as evil increases in intensity, so should Christianity continue to ‘grow up.’ Christianity must become increasingly mature and conscious, ever more clear and capable of transformation. Only a Christianity with an apocalyptic orientation will carry us through apocalyptic destinies. Such a Christianity will be capable of placing us in proper relationship to the apocalyptic event of the Second Coming. What does this ‘return’ of Christ mean? Since the Resurrection, is he not with us ‘always, even unto the end of the world’ (Matt 28:20)? True, but until now his presence has remained more or less hidden from humanity’s view. With the development of Christian awareness, human beings will gradually unfold eyes of soul, eyes of spirit which will enable them to contemplate the supersensorily present Christ… Christ’s coming is his entry into the waking consciousness of human beings. Christ thus, becomes more and more manifest. ‘Apocalypse’ means an ‘uncovering.’ The hidden presence is revealed.

Rudolf Frieling from “The Essence of Christianity,” 1948.

If we need another reason to read the Gospels...

Mankind is always in need of truths which cannot, in every age, be wholly understood. The assimilation of truths is not significant only for our knowledge; truths themselves contain life-force. By permeating ourselves with truth we permeate our soul-nature with an element drawn from the objective world, just as we must permeate our physical being with air taken from outside in order to live. Deep truths are indeed expressed in great religious revelations, but in such a form that their real inner meaning is often not understood until much, much later.

The New Testament has been written; the New Testament stands there as a record for humanity — but the whole future course of the Earth's evolution will be required for a full understanding of the New Testament to be reached. In the future, people will acquire much knowledge of the external world and of the spiritual world also; and if taken in the right sense it will all contribute to an understanding of the New Testament. The understanding comes about gradually, but the New Testament is written in a simple form so that it can be absorbed and, later, gradually understood. To permeate ourselves with the truth that resides in the New Testament is not without significance, even if we cannot yet understand the truth in its deepest inwardness. Later on, truth becomes cognitional force, but it is already life-force, in so far as it is imbibed in a more or less childlike form.

(Italics added.)

-Rudolf Steiner, from Lecture 4 of Christ and the Human Soul, GA 155

Second Trinity Sunday between Johnstide and Michaelmas

Gospel Reading: Mark 8:27-9:1

Hopes, dreams and wishes become prayers when realize we cant bring the to fruition on our

own. When we realize we need help to bring them to be, and then ask.

When life is overwhelming, lonely, painful and we become aware that we need help from others

we can remember to ask. This is a prayer.

The generosity of friends, acquaintances and strangers offered so freely can be overwhelming.

When we are in need we think we are alone, but we are never alone. He walks in the spirit

before us and He hears our prayers. He knows what lives in our hearts. In the asking there lives

an acknowledgement of a need and also a hope, an opening to the possibility of receiving gifts

from others.

Through prayer we lift what is earthly up to the heavenly, and through our love for one another

we bring what is heavenly to the earth and build a future for each other that includes Him.

Rev. Victoria Capon, August 1, 2021

First Trinity Sunday between Johnstide and Michaelmas

Rev. Bastiann Baan’s latest homily can be found here….

Mark 8:27-9:1

In the book of Genesis, God gives humanity the task of naming all of the animals. Names are powerful. Perhaps we have had the experience of learning the name of a particular animal, or plant, or maybe a tree, and then walking down a familiar street and suddenly seeing all of the trees of that kind as if for the first time. It is as if they exist, newly, through our recognizing them.

We see something similar with children, when their parents put a name to their experience, reflect back to to the child what they experience, the child can take hold of it and understand it. The experience becomes somehow more real. Even as adults, becoming conscious and naming it, recognizing it, allows us to take it in more deeply. And when we ourselves are recognized, truly seen, we feel our own reality and are empowered to express ourselves more fully.

In this week’s Gospel reading, Christ asks the disciples if they recognize him. And Peter does, he sees him and names him: ‘you are the Christ.’ This enables him to work more fully, more deeply, because of this recognition. He truly becomes the Christ for the ones who recognize him.

We too can come to recognize him, to recognize and name when he is working in our lives. When we bring this into our consciousness, we can participate in his activity. It becomes more real, more powerful. He works in us through our conscious participation.

-Rev. Jeana Lee, July 25, 2021