The vampires are gone, and Petunia and I are becoming good friends.  However, that doesn't mean that I'm free from any conflicts in my body.  But I am more sensitive to the reality of conflict at any level of our being. And the importance of inviting God into them with us.  This brings us back to this month's theme.

As we journey on the road towards our oneness with God, we need to pay attention to where there is conflict in our lives.  It can be with other people; and it can also be inside of us -- even in our body. Whatever its source,  if we let it fester, it can hinder our journey with God.  We've been looking at how the 12 steps of AA can provide a spiritual road map that is compatible with our Swedenborgia theology.  Step 9 is about making whatever amends we need in orer to restore harmony with God.  I realized that amends could even be with one's body.

Swedenborg  wrote about conflict in his 5th stage of spiritual growth.  He saw us as a completely whole -- a hologram -- in body, mind, and our actions in the world.

All the while the Lord is constantly fighting on our behalf against evil and falsity and through these battles strengthens us in truth and goodness. The time of conflict is when the Lord is at work … and he does not rest until love takes the lead. Then the conflict ends. [Swedenborg, Heavenly Secrets, #3].

Swedenborg says that conflict is not a distraction from our spiritual growth:  it is the essence of our growth with God.  Conflict is part of our journey to wholeness, and God is hard at work to help us find our way through each one.  I'm realizing that each conflict in our lives can interact with all the levels of our being:  our relationships with others, our inner harmony, and the functioning of our bodies.  As Swedenborg says, we are a combination of love and wisdom and action in the world.  Our conflicts are not signs of weakness; they are signs that we are growing.

However, we cannot ignore our conflicts.  Our spiritual growth is about facing each one of them.   In the 9th step, we are guided to do whatever it takes to make things right with God. That usually includes  addressing the harm we have done to others.

This theme is expressed in our movie of the month for September: The Flatliners. In it, medical students want to find out what it is like to die – and then come back. They develop sophisticated ways of crossing that border, and then coming back to tell about it. However, they find that when they come back, they don’t want to talk about what happened. It has churned them up at their very depth; for reasons they don’t understand. They are left with frightening experiences that they can’t understand. [and here comes  a spoiler if you haven't seen it yet]:

As they allowed themselves to go more deeply into their terrifying  experiences, they found that each one grew out of their guilt for someone they had hurt many years ago. That person was now in the spirit world.  The medical students made the amends that were blocking their growth in love. The conflicts were resolved in a way that left everyone more integrated than before they faced it.  They could not bring those people back to life on the earth, but they released guilt and fear.

Swedenborg compares this stage of spiritual growth with the 5th day of creation:  And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky."   As we resolve our conflicts we can feel the freedom of seagulls sailing over the water.  And we start to live in wholeness.  the time arrives when we first start to live.

Have you invited God into those conflicts with you?