The Old Gray Book

I just read that humanity is in its last days. Hummm….

Fear based religion has always been a prominent thread in my family. The reason I know so well this theme is because my foremothers and forefathers kept everything and I inherited the legacy of “these things”!

My grandmother kept everything in chests or wardrobes. There were no closets in her house like we are accustomed to today. There was a grandmother’s chest, a momma’s chest, and a Poppa’s wardrobe to name a few. All were forbidden to peek in! Well as time, 1993, my grandmother’s health declined and my sister and I were going to do a good deed and help her clean (in truth it really needed it). However, in doing so we discovered in a cedar chest a treasure trove of pamphlets, Christian Bibles (not the ones you carry to church), but the ones you collect from circuit preachers, do-gooders, and missionaries of the local churches, some even political propaganda that shouted their agenda. There were also what my family calls “secular books” which was always said in a tone that denoted evil or the very least not of God.

Now, what was extraordinary, these Religious pamphlets, and the inside of the front covers of these Bibles, and the political rhetoric were all riddled with the exact words “We are living in the end times”!!! What was even more extraordinary were the dates and years. The very first was 1870’s and the very last was 1988!!!!

Interestingly, after the shocking bold type of “We are living in the end times” there was always but always a fear-based call for the individual to do something. The “something” was worded differently in each decade but the meaning was the same which was “the end times are here and we should be in fear if we did not take necessary steps to absolve our souls from sin and transcend the horrendous trap of the human body. The political pamphlets were saying the same yet in more practical terms, such as “being certain your government is ensuring your individual rights are preserved in this darkest hour”. That was from 1918!

As I look back on those things I found in that cedar chest, I remember a weathered small gray book that had browned edges on the pages some had been loosened from the binding suggesting much reading. This was a “secular book”. It was the most worn in the chest. The date was 1887. I opened it and that page’s chapter said, “A Timely Love” and handwritten in the margin it said, “Forget not to love”. The writing was, to my eyes, quantum calligraphy! Even all those years ago when I read it (1993) knowing very little about the terminology of measuring subtle energy, I knew some miracle was working in those words binding me to them in a way I could not know!

The book, I know not where it has gone. The chest, my sister has it. The contents, gone from my knowing. The totality of what I found and read speaks volumes as to where we are now as humans. Think about the years and years that the same low-level fear literature permeated my ancestors and me; 120 years’ worth, just about, housed in that beautiful cedar chest.

I am writing this because those headlines I read, quite by accident, triggered my memory of the chest. It also triggered my heart because I am challenged to not buy into the collective fear and add to it.

Do we consciously become aware of our opportunity to evolve(learn and grow)? Consciousness, awareness, and evolution are three separate and distinct states of being and energies.

Quite simply, “Do we choose to continue the fear or shall we “forget not to love”. Tina 💜