Greetings, friends, and welcome back to my altar.
This morning I want to share this picture, which some of you probably recognize — a picture of the great Helen Keller, namesake of the new collaborative I’m in the process of forming and bringing into being.
She’s a really important person to me, and to so many — not because she was a saint, perfect in every way, but because she was who she was. She accepted her limitations, she expressed her strengths, and she shared her inner experience, both in the many books she wrote and in the relationships and friendships she made.
Helen Keller was a global celebrity in her time. People all around the planet knew her story. A big part of why that story was so remarkable is that most people believed someone who was deaf and blind couldn’t have a robust inner life — couldn’t build relationships, couldn’t travel, couldn’t hold perspectives on geopolitics, religion, faith, and what it means to be a human being. She dashed all of those expectations by having and living all of those things.
Another reason Helen is so important to me is that, as a Swedenborgian minister seeking to live into the life of the new church, I am deeply inspired by how she embraced that vision. Helen was sixteen when she was introduced to the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg through a friend and mentor named John Hitz, and she would say she was a devotee of Swedenborg’s writings for the rest of her life.
That devotion didn’t manifest the way it might for the rest of us. She didn’t join a church. She didn’t direct the choir or teach Sunday school. She lived the vision of the new church through her political action, through her embrace of relationship and connection and love, and through her following of her own unique calling. She understood that vision to be connected to a larger vision of a new world — a new paradigm of life in which we could be in relationship and connection with people incredibly different from ourselves.
It seems quite likely that Swedenborg’s vision of heaven — of the diversity of the heavenly community — helped Helen move through so many diverse circles and stay in deep relationship with people of different cultures, different religions, different perspectives. She walked, almost seamlessly, through these different scopes of humanity.
It’s interesting to be speaking of her at a time when many of us are grieving the loss of Dolly Parton. It might seem strange to compare the two, but I think in similar ways, much of what’s being said about Dolly as we bid her farewell and she makes her transition into the spiritual world is that she walked between the worlds. She was loved by people on both sides of the political aisle, by people of low economic status and people wealthy beyond measure. She bridged divides we sometimes believe separate us, and showed there was no real separation there. Helen did the same. She walked between many different worlds.
And this work I’m doing right now — inviting in a new community of people who are also seeking to live into the vision of the new church in their own unique way, finding ways to coexist and support and nurture one another — is all about walking between the worlds. It’s about looking for the divine center that exists in each of us, so that we can feel our unity, and then honor and stay curious about our diversity.
For all of these reasons, I keep Helen on my altar — not because I worship her, or want to mimic her life, but because I see her as an example of a full, vibrant, creative life that informs my own. She’s part of this new church collaborative life I’m bringing into being.
It’s so helpful to have Helen on my altar, especially in moments of challenge, confusion, or feeling misunderstood and alone. She reminds me that she’s on my team, even though she’s no longer here in the flesh.
One of the things Helen remarked on before she died was a belief that after death, she would actually be more effective in helping to bring new church life into the world than she had even been during her lifetime. I find that incredibly moving, because obviously she was quite effective during her lifetime. So how might she be affecting us now, if that effect is even greater? I have a feeling she’s part of the shift happening on our planet right now — a movement to really grow up, to remember our divine core, to let go of the childish assumptions that we’re not worthy, or that we need to compete or earn our worth. To let go of the distractions that have kept us from living into the life of the new church, so that we can embrace who we are just as she embraced who she was — and in that embrace, discover what in our inner life wants to step forward, just as she did.
I’m so grateful for Helen, and for all that she’s calling into being through me and through so many others. This is going to be a year of thinking about and celebrating her. Our exhibition team is gathering in September to begin the practical work of developing a vision we’ve held for a long time: building an exhibit in Helen Keller’s name that can travel around the globe, bringing people together to celebrate her spiritual life — and to reflect on and consider their own.
I’m excited to bring together many people who might also have Helen on their altar, who look to her as an example in their own way, and to find ways to work together in love, in honesty, and in usefulness.
So there’s my offering from the altar this morning. I wonder — what are you discovering on your altar? What people, images, pictures, and words are grounding you as you discover your divine nature and become more grounded in it?
Blessings, friends.
Share images and stories from your altar in the comments!
I’d love to see what spaces you are creating ❤️
