Sources of Love and Peace comprising of 52 meditation texts is a handbook for all those who want to decide for radical new ways of living. Through a sensitive interpretation of the inner voice Sabine Lichtenfels sets out the necessary sources that will once again connect us to our vision of peace.

Autorentext

Sabine Lichtenfels, born 1954, theologian, one of the '1000 Women for Peace', founder of the 'Grace Foundation for the Humanisation of Money', and the Tamera research center in Portugal. She is engaged in international peace-work,focusing on the Middle East and has led several pilgrimages through Israel-Palestine (2005, 2007), Colombia (2008) and Portugal (2009). With her comprehensive knowledge and her radical engagement, she is a spokesperson for a global perspective of peace.

Klappentext

Sources of Love and Peace -comprising of 52 meditation texts - is a handbook for all those who want to decide for radical new ways of living. Through a sensitive interpretation of the inner voice Sabine Lichtenfels sets out the necessary sources that will once again connect us to our vision of peace.

Leseprobe
ForewordFor where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. These words by Jesus have been with me since my early youth. As a theologian and friend of original Christianity, I have for many years been engaged in peace work. My most important goal is the dissolution of fear and the creation of trust, both between human beings and between humans and their co-creatures. All beings can become partners in the worldwide work for peace, if they can connect with each other in trust. When I am in prayer, I often receive inspirations regarding this topic.I live in a community in Portugal, in which new paths in the area of the healing of the human being and of nature are being developed and tested. Currently, about 50 people live in this community, which has no religious affiliation, but where all members actively follow their own spiritual paths. Many have had religious experiences that have connected them to the unity of Creation.Many orient themselves toward the original Christian values of truth, trust, love and non-violence toward all creatures. For a long time now, I have spoken the morning prayers every morning. Whereas in the beginning I had to find the right words to say and prepare a text in advance, suddenly the words began to come by themselves. They came so quickly and so unequivocally that I only had to take them down every morning before prayers. What came were messages that I feel are so relevant to our future that I want to pass them on.If we allow ourselves to fully receive these messages, then a peace-generating power enters into our souls. The messages tell us that the information of peace and healing already now is present and accessible. Every day they tell us anew that we carry the Divine within us and that we have the power to realize it. We have the real possibility to make a decision for peace, here and now. It is a decision for trust and against fear, for solidarity and against hatred.It is your decision to live in the name of peace. Peace can occur through you, here and now. It wants to be understood and realized here on earth, not in the beyond. Stop your habit of projecting your longings into a distant future. Learn to live at a high level of presence. Live in the expectation of a fulfilling presence. I am a woman. Maybe that is why the source of the messages often appears to me in the form of a Goddess, as the female aspect of God. All material life seems to me to be pulsating with the energies of a female deity, sometimes appearing spiritually in front of me with very personal features. The old matriarchal peoples of early history probably had similar experiences when praying to Isis, Freya, Ischtar or Nammu. It is a very vital and highly present appearance of the Divine. I might add, as a theologian, that even in the Bible, the Holy Ghost sometimes appears in a female form. In the Christian gnosis and in the tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, the female aspect of God has remained in the form of Sophia or Sophia-Maria. In the tradition of the Catholic Church, Maria, as the Mother of God has a similarly high religious status. But ultimately God is not tied to any gender, name, concept, culture or time. I ask the reader not to be irritated by the female form that I have chosen. We should all choose those images that give us the greatest power and trust. After all, these are our projections, for God is neither male nor female. God/dess is the soul of the world that lives and operates in all things and yet stands above all things. God/dess is the highest authority of Creation and of love, connecting all beings to each other, calling us to make contact with her/him. If we allow this connection with the soul of the world to occur, we will notice that it can speak to us in a very living way. In the morning prayers, it speaks to us repeatedly in the I form, which reminded me of the I am statements in the Gospel according to John. In this personal contact with the soul of the world, we experience messages that we alone would never have thought of, for example about the inner connections between erotic and religious life. One may be surprised that there are statements about sexuality and love in a prayer book. There is a connection in our souls between Eros and altruism, and an essential contribution to peace and healing on our earth consists of re-balancing the universal male and female forces. They should follow the principle of complementarity instead of that of domination. One reason for human violence is that these forces have lost their natural balance and are fighting each other instead of inspiring and loving each other. The idea of dominance and subordination lies deep in our cells and has left deep wounds. Instead, we should carefully raise our heads into the light of a Creation that lies outside of such categories, for we constantly carry the building plan of love within us. If we enter this inner plan, it is as if we pass through a gate into a new reality. We are challenged to step out both from the spirit of fear and the spirit of anger and revenge and recognize an entirely different reality. We then leave all resentment and power games between man and woman behind us, for we see the beauty and the deep peace that lies in the fact that they complement each other.I once stood at the threshold of death, and since then I feel repeatedly challenged to open up spiritual doors and overcome, already in this earthly life, the blocks that separate us from truth. I have been privileged to look into the gifts of love that have been given to man and woman. Religions have done much to suppress these gifts. May a new spirit now contribute to bringing them to light again. We need truth and divine guidance, also specifically in the area of sensuality, for here the greatest joy and the greatest pain lie close together. I am especially grateful for the inspiration that these morning prayers provide in this area.Imagine that you come to a gate. You open it and enter into the beyond. The beyond is paradise and this paradise is the earth. Could not the earth turn into a paradise if we learn to understand and accept the laws of happiness? Could not much healing occur if we again understand that the living spirit of Eros cannot be tied to two people, but was created for the universal celebration of Creation?This book is intended as a book of meditation. The intent of its 52 morning prayers one new message of peace and one power sentence for every week of the year is to let us see and understand our everyday issues on a deeper and more encompassing level. The texts can liberate us from our habitual fixation on problems and create a new opening for solutions to emerge. Since the texts arose during a number of community meetings, they partially mirror the concrete spirit…