There is a lot to reflect on our estrangement from God. As we have mentioned several times, the essential message our Prophets make us aware is the consequences of living disconnected from our Creator. Again we are summoned to a “reality check” in order to make an inventory of what we are, believe, and pursue in this material world. As we live in ego’s fantasies and illusions, indeed we forget not only Who created us but the realization that He also is the One that bring us back to Him, our Redeemer. We haven’t been mindful of our Essence and true identity as the stronghold from which we face all facets and dimensions of life.

We come from the goodness and loving kindness of God, hence we are good and destined to be and do good as pleasant saplings. Though we have free will to make choices — preferable good ones –, we turn ourselves into strange shoots. Time and again our Creator confronts us to be mindful about who we truly are, our connection with Him, and the destiny He wants to share with us.

“On the day you were planted you flourished, and at dawn your seed flowered; but your branch is removed on a day of affliction and acute pain. Woe to the tumult of the many nations, who are as tumultuous as the tumult of the seas; and to the uproar of the nations, who roar like the uproar of powerful waters!” (17:11-12)

We are destined to flourish and flower by, in, with and for the goodness from which God created for us to be and transcend. The goodness of Love’s ways and attributes as the material manifestation of God’s Love. Then the extension of our negative choices turns back to us, as the natural course of cause and effect. This extension is the branch that must be cut off in a painful transition from darkness to Light. We have referred often to the pain and affliction we suffer as we detach ourselves from addictions, obsessions, habits and trends that harms and damages the goodness in who we are. We know these acute pains and affliction as withdrawal effects.

In this painful withdrawal process our negative attachments and addictions fight back. These are the nations that invaded and afflicted the goodness from which we live. Nations as strong beliefs, ideologies, thoughts, emotions, feelings, passions and instincts embraced by ego’s fantasies and illusions of pride, greed, lust, and coveting. The latter are triggered by even stronger nations such as consumer society, fashion trends, political correctness, light culture, and vanities that seduce us and control all aspects of life. Indeed very powerful roaring waters!

“The nations roar like the roar of many waters but He shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like dust before a stormy wind. At evening time, behold their is terror; before the morning dawn he [the Assyrian enemy] is no more. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.” (17:13-14)

The Prophet denounces the harm and destruction (the roar of many waters) the nations inflict on us, which God’s compassion will remove as chaff before the wind. We have said that mountains and hills also represent strong beliefs (in this case negative ones) that in this metaphor will be wiped out from our consciousness. Our affliction takes place in the darkest moments, the evenings and nights when we feel the pain of our estrangement from Love’s ways and attributes, after embracing ego’s fantasies and illusions. This affliction caused by an invading nation (Assyria) representing a particular negative trend in consciousness that spoils and robs the goodness in us.

“Woe to the land of the buzzing of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. That sends agents by the sea, even in [fast] vessels of papyrus upon the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to the nation that is dragged and plucked, to the people that inspired awe from their beginning onward; a nation that is detested and trampled, whose land the rivers [their kings] ravish!” (18:1-2)

Other nations join the invading crusade against us as the nation that is dragged and plucked, detested and trampled, looted and ravished even by rulers of far away countries (beyond the rivers of Ethiopia). Let’s be aware that our nation represents the goodness in life and the positive traits and trends in human consciousness, which are our Essence and true identity.

“All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers of the earth, when an ensign is lifted up on the mountains, you will see; and when the horn is blown, you will hear. For thus has the Lord said to me: ‘I will be at ease, and I will look after My dwelling place, like crisp warm after the rain, like a mist of dew in the heat of the harvest’.” (18:3-4)

God promised through the Prophet that He redeems us from the negative trends in consciousness. He does it as we begin to choose goodness as the common denominator of His ways and attributes. These are the ensign lifted up on the mountains we see, and the sound of the horn we hear. The special mountain that represents our permanent connection to Him awaits for us, and that is His dwelling place. God’s words through the Prophet are allegorically filled with the warmth of His Love, which is also the goodness of the harvest we reap out of it. Hence it’s our job to rebuild His dwelling place among (in) us as the eternal bond with Him.

“For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the bud becomes a ripening grape, He will cut down the young branches with pruning-hooks, and the shoots will He take away and lop off. They shall be left together unto the ravenous birds of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth; and the ravenous birds shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.” (18:5-6)

In this harvest God’s Love will remove what we don’t need anymore. All from which we have learned enough to finally choose the goodness of Love’s ways and attributes over ego’s fantasies and illusions, amid the negative trends in consciousness. We already learned that the wicked is killed by his wickedness, for evil belongs to evil: “(…) that wicked man shall die in his iniquity (…) (Ezekiel 33:8, Psalms 34:22).

Ravenous birds and beasts also belong to their own kind, and devour which is dead, for death is their food. God will redeem the goodness in who we are, as is also written, “and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). As we just mentioned, we learn from our dark moments, as it is also reminded: “Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6).

“At that time shall an offering be brought to the Lord of hosts, the people that are dragged and plucked, the people that inspired awe from the day it came into being and onward; the nation that is oppressed and trampled, whose land is ravished by rivers, to the place of the Name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion.” (Isaiah 18:7)

In our Redemption from God’s Love, our goodness is vindicated. In total freedom from negative traits and tendencies, our goodness begins to fulfill its destiny: “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My Name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble, I will rescue him, and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him, and make him to behold My redemption.” (Psalms 91:14-16).

Our Essence and true identity return to the Creator to bond eternally with Him in the place of His Name. This is Zion, the Temple of Jerusalem, as the eternal time and space where we are destined to be with Him.