I recently watched BlacKkKlansman,a movie based on a true story about Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer from Colorado who successfully managed to infiltrate the local Ku Klux Klan with the help of a fellow officer. His fellow officer shows up in his place at the actual meetings and eventually becomes head of the local branch. Without giving a recap and review of the entire movie, let’s just say it’s stylish, at times hilarious and definitely uncompromising in telling its story.
For me, the most impactful part of the film comes at the end when he movie juxtaposes this period in the early 70s to last year’s clash in Charlottesville, Virginia. It reminded me of how much the illusion of separation, the shadow side of humanity, remains in the collective consciousness. Yet just as the astronauts who viewed the earth from a distance had the spiritual epiphany that the lines drawn on the maps are nothing but human constructs, we too can come to realize that our belief in otherness is an illusion.
As I was leaving the movie, I had a brief conversation with another viewer that left each of us with the question, how can we as a society and a world realize and live out our oneness? It is a question worth contemplating if we are to create a world in which the cancerous energy of hate no longer exists and is replaced by a world in which everyone, regardless of their race, culture or religious background is treated as the wonderful child of God they are.
It starts with our individual consciousness. First and foremost, we must be the vision we want to see in this world. As the age-old axiom states, “as within so without”. Everything we see in our world unfolds from center to circumference. So we begin with ourselves. And when our consciousness aligns with the unchanging qualities of God, we take action that corresponds with that awareness out in the world.
Perhaps we may start by using the strategy of nonviolent resistance practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King to address the energy of hate and division. Dr. King called it “Soul Force.” It is a force that is used to support what one stands for rather than fight against what doesn’t work. Those who founded America on an idea that has the potential to be a model for the world did not claim that they created a perfect nation, nor were they perfect people themselves. What they did say is, “here’s the blueprint for a perfect nation, do your part to make it happen”. We have made much progress. And we are encouraged by these words of Dr. King: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Periods of history like those covered in BlacKkKlansman and incidences like what took place in Charlottesville last year show us an opportunity to go back to the First Principle (God) and align with healers everywhere to amplify and anchor the qualities of Spirit in our world. While most of us are not yet to a place where we may be the channels for God’s good, the challenges of separation and hate can be healed by those who are holding the high watch to guide us all towards realizing our oneness.
This is our charge. The question is, are we willing to take it on?
Peace and blessings,
James