We now see an ending to the current Donald Trump’s trial regarding falsifying business records.

The opinions are everywhere and in all directions.

To consider this in terms of spiritual lessons, we can look according to our own prejudices and opinions. Or we can look at what Christ said.

Some facts:

• Everyone involved is human – on every side.
• Every human has both the light and the dark within us – on every side. No one on either side is All Light, or All Dark.
• If we decide that one side or the other is Absolute Right and the other is Absolute Wrong, then the problem is ourselves for seeing absolutes where they don’t exist.
• We will not be abandoned in our seeking the Truth, (sometimes taking long periods of time.)

Jesus told Pontius Pilate:

“You have the authority over me, because God gave it to you.”
The challenge for Pontius Pilate and for anyone is –
‘Now, what are you going to do with that authority?’

It is true that all of us can say ‘we have this because God gave it to us’ about many characteristics of who we are. We have the life we live, because God gave it to us. The question also applies to us. Now, what are we going to do with all that we have?

God allows us all many characteristics and many events in our lives. What are we going to do with them?

Are we going to use our life to help others, or to harm others?

Will we use what God allows us – for ourselves only, … or for sharing with others?

Will we take what God gave us to raise ourselves above others – or to raise up everyone equally?

Will we use our traits, abilities, skills, awareness and life resources to help people that come into our life – or to harm people who come into our life?

-to work to create a heaven on earth, or to help create hellish experiences for people?

-to walk the challenging road of walking a path of loving kindness, or to look for ways to be indifferent.

No one person is one or the other of these opposites. We are all both sides of these questions. Hence, it does help to work at remembering to ask ourselves throughout our life –

“What am I doing with the life chances, opportunities, and traits that God has given to me and helped me to develop.”

***
Joseph said to his brother who sold him into slavery, “Can I take God’s place in judging you? What you meant for evil, God meant for good.”

We do not have the wisdom, or the level of consciousness to know God’s will always or to know 100% of what is involved with the events and happenings of all things. God alone has the consciousness to know all the Truth about a person or an event. We don’t have the wisdom or insight to see into everyone’s heart, mind or soul. We humans are only yet at the level, where we are learning how to be kind, how to show mercy, to forgive, to love, to show patience, to learn about having faith and trust in God, others and ourselves. We are at the level where we still need to seek and pray for wisdom and understanding. We are students, still hoping to learn so much that is waiting for us.

We are children still, and we cannot assume that we can take God’s place in being over other people. Yes, we human beings on the planet Earth have established a legal system so that we can find a way to have peace and laws on the planet. And we do the best we can with what we have – whatever tools, and resources we have to help us. We Earth humans have established laws in which we seek to build societies of peace and respect towards each other. And we have decided that these laws pertain to every human soul alive. We have established systems whereby we set these laws in place to be enforced. We are spirits living inside the experience of the human being, and we decide that the laws we set in motion, while not perfect, are still meant to be respected as that which governs and rules.

***

The only black/white in all this is in our self – if we don’t see that each and every one of us are human beings, like that human being 2000 years ago, named Pontius Pilate, who was a man of his time, just doing the best he could with the tools and laws he had at his disposal, in the same way that we are people of this time period, just doing the best we can with what we have.

All the people involved with the Donald Trump trial that just finished are human, including Donald Trump. The worst of these people, still have good in them. The best of these people, still have bad in them. We are all equal in this. This is why we are “peers” and every human being is equal with every other human being.

We have opinions, but our opinions don’t erase that we humans all have both dark and light within us. And more often than not, when we judge and condemn anyone, we are also judging and condemning that part of our own self that still tries to live, reside, and hide in the darkness.

“Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” deals not just with others, but how we deal with our self, as well. The chain of placing guilt and shame on anyone, is one chain, and places guilt and shame on all who touch it and who it touches. We have to hold onto it to place guilt and shame on others, and because we are touching it to hold it on others, we are also touching it and receiving our own guilt and shame which we assign, the source of which may still hide in the darkness. The choice is ours, always.

The heaven and/or hell which we create for others, is the heaven and/or hell which we are creating for ourselves. Each of us goes through our own heaven and hell in our lives and while we don’t know what God knows about ourselves, we do know that we’re not perfect – there is both light and dark in ourselves.

We’re going to have opinions, thoughts, feelings and more about the events and people of our lives. And we’re trying to work on all the qualities of our spiritual path so that we can bring in more Light, Love, Kindness, etc. – which is worth our effort. It is our efforts to try to help create more heaven than hell for ourselves and others, and we can do that even within the confines of this political year and all the associated events.

May God bless our efforts to bring light, love, kindness, patience, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, understanding and more into our own and others’ lives.

*******

You may be surprised by the direction I took in this article. I write in hoping to help people continue to seek to walk a spiritual path, and not get entrapped by an “Us vs Them” paradigm. Walking a spiritual path is rightly described as walking the razor’s edge. It is most challenging. We invariably trip and fall flat on our faces from time to time, make mistakes, act accidentally, harming ourselves and others via the attitudes which we take on. Walking the spiritual path does not exclude these events, but rather is a path where we choose to get back up, dust ourselves off, clean up our mess, take a deep breath and start over, trying again to walk our spiritual path letting go of attack thoughts, attack attitudes and extreme judgements and criticisms.

Our challenge is not to be perfect on our path, but to activate and live from the spiritual qualities which we seek to practice – seeking wisdom and practicing that wisdom; expressing patience with and understanding of the turmoils of human life by letting go of judgment and condemnation of others; practicing kindness, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, whenever we are in life situations where these qualities will help to bring healing to ourselves and others; holding onto higher ideals of brotherhood, Oneness of all life, and answer the challenge of being willing to love and manifest love in our lives; and to pray and meditate as acts to help bring forth greater strength of the presence of God for helping all life.

All of these acts are recognized as being part of a spiritual path, and are ways in which we can choose to cooperate with God, by doing the best we can with the effort we put forth. As I mention above, we are not called to be perfect, but rather do the best we can and keep trying whenever we make our mistakes and trip up, not living up to the higher ideals which we want to have within our life. It is through practicing as best we can, that we get to experience the reality of how challenging life is for all human beings, growing in understanding just how easy it is to fail and fall flat on our face, and how much we need our spiritual help to keep on keeping on.

“But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26
….. including seeing the possibilities of building and strengthening the unity and oneness of the Family of Man. We’re all in this together. All of this is the source of the hope that is innate within the walking of our spiritual path – the hope of healing, and the hope of manifesting Love.

“May God bless us, everyone.”