Photo credit to Kovina Đurić for Unsplash+

How long will it take you to let go of the Age of Faith? This era lasted for thousands of years. While our mainstream culture doesn’t yet accept that there is such a thing as the Age of Awakening.

History plays jokes on us mortals, you know. Some of the most significant changes in human history go unobserved for decades or centuries. Meanwhile, Trivial Pursuit remains popular, not just as a cute game but (for many people, imo) as a way of life.

Did you know? Trivial Pursuit was designed within 45 minutes, on the back of a cigarette carton. 

Wisdom Seeker, maybe more educated than most, could it be? Some of you with the chance to read this article may feel like bobbleheads afterward. Due to making so many new discoveries about what it means to live during the Age of Awakening. 

How Can You Let Go of Age of Faith Values

When You Were Raised with Them?

Humanity’s Age of Faith lasted for thousands of years, right until the Shift on Dec. 21, 2012. Thus, most of us readers have had the remarkable privilege: Living during both eras, including this Second Consciousness Era for Humanity.

Think about it. That double-era standing won’t be true for anybody born after Dec. 21, 2012. Or true for anybody who died before Dec. 21, 2012.

It May Become One of the Defining Features of YOUR Life

How Well Do YOU Live in This Age of Awakening?

Required for this kind of success: To let go of living as though we were still in the Age of Faith.

Assuming that you care about emotional growth and spiritual evolution, it’s vital to learn how to live in this Second Consciousness Era. Let go of the Age of Faith and you may start to appreciate how this world where you live is a spiritual wonderland. You have an amazing opportunity! I like to call the place where you and I live “Earth School.”

I’ll add this controversial observation: Folks who live like it’s still the Age of Faith are becoming increasingly stuck.

Some of you readers already know quite a lot about attending Earth School. You just might refine your understanding, though, about how to live here well in the Age of Awakening.

For example, can you think of any public figures who are still trying to make life better by living as if it’s still the Age of Faith?

Or can you copy any quotes about this from Facebook? Please put each quote into a response here? (Facebook is loaded with Age of Faith ideas. Ever notice?)

Here’s an example, chosen at random from my Facebook on Sunday. A wonderful post from my Facebook Friend Chellie Campbell begins thus:

The purpose of this article is to help you live now, in the Age of Awakening. In Part 2, our emphasis will be on letting go of the Age of Faith.

Grow your discernment through this article, Seekers of Wisdom!

Before Continuing Further, Let’s Get This Straight

What is my standing to write today’s article? It is powered by:

Energy Spirituality® ENLIGHTENMENT COACHING 

I just linked you to an article on that standing. Today I’m here to help you gain a sense of history and, also, a new kind of personal clarity. All about how important it is for each of us to let go of Age of Faith values.

No AI from Rose Rosetree, I promise.

Always find human, practical perspectives from Energy Spirituality®.

Please send your comments only to the version of this article on Medium. Why have I made the switch to taking responses on Medium only? Learn the very human reasons from my pinned post on making that switch, over at the link just provided.

Wisdom Seekers, your questions and reactions enliven all the articles at this Energy Spirituality® Blog. As we explore together, I’ll give you Wisdom Seekers many chances to share your point of view. Respond any time!

Now, How Can You Learn to

Let Go of Old Age of Faith Ideas?

This article can help, since we have a very human cast of characters to learn about here: Ida Mae, George, and Robert. As you’ll soon see, their stories provide many clear examples of Age of Faith Values. Today we’re going to hang out with them, and with author Isabel Wilkerson–all of whom share these values.

• Even if you haven’t read “The Warmth of Other Suns,” Part 1 of this series summarized enough to give you a context for thinking these three courageous migrants. People we’re going to be hanging out with, first in this Part 2, and then Part 3.
• Today I’ll do my best to make it real for you: What does it means to have Age of Faith loyalties that cling to us still? Loyalties that we can let go!
• Did you know? I’ve already published a book about letting go of the Age of Faith, and learning how to live well during this Age of Awakening. Consider reading The New Strong: Rules & Tools for Thriving in the Age of Awakening. 
• Meanwhile, I’m here to give you a very human introduction to How to Let Go of the Age of Faith.

An Easy Question for You to Answer:

What’s Just Beginning to Emerge?

Knowledge about this Second Consciousness Era on Earth and how best to live NOW.

Of course, The Warmth of Distant Suns was about folks living in the Age of Faith. Published during the Age of Faith, in 2010–two years before the Shift.

Seems to me, hanging out with Ida Mae, George, Robert, and Isabel can help us to gain a human sense of Age of Faith values. And I’ll take every opportunity I can to call out those values.

Have you ever noticed? It’s impossible to let go of a NOTHING. Reckoning with abstract values is nearly as hard. Unless you have a knowedgeable teacher to help!

In Her Epilogue to this Book, Assessing the Migrators, Wilkerson Shared

Her (Understandably) Age of Faith Views

In that Epilogue, Isabel Wilkerson summarized the lives of all three of the migrators whom she had explored in such rigorous detail. Only at the end of this book did she allow herself the luxury of sharing her personal opinions of the three key migrators.

In The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel saw these people as refugees from the Jim Crow South. Besides that, seems to me, she viewed their personal success in the light of Age of Faith Values. In the Epilogue, only, Wilkerson allowed herself to evaluate their lives and, even, ascertain which of the three lives was “spiritually” the most successful.

And yes, patient Wisdom Seekers, after laying all this groundwork, now we’ll start to check out the Age of Faith Things to Let Go.

Age of Faith Values that Likely

Shaped Wilkerson’s Perspective on the 3 Migrators

Compared to The Age of Awakening, spiritual consciousness was relatively sleepy during The Age of Faith. The following three values were especially important. In today’s article, and also in our Part 3, I’ll discuss these values in some detail.

Seems to me, these are values that you Wisdom Seekers can LET GO, if you aim to live well in the Age of Awakening. (Yes, I have let all three go. I’m spreading the word, “Good riddance!”)

In the culture of the South as described in Isabel’s book, Age of Faith values were like a religion.

Age of Faith Value #1.

A. Family Comes First

Taking in family, taking care of family–of course this mattered greatly during the Age of Faith. It would have mattered extra for Black people living under the cruel Caste system in the South.

In The Warmth of Other Suns, we saw multiple examples of that value. For many migrators, Black people who stayed in the South qualified as family. Also, migrators from the South in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles also counted as family.

Most other people, Black or White, didn’t matter much. They weren’t family.

Age of Faith Value #2. Personal Growth Doesn’t Matter

What Matters Is Fitting in Socially

For Black Americans, no matter what they did, fitting into society was exceptionally tough.

If a Black person stayed in the South, the prejudice was invasive and pervasive. So disgusting that I wrote in our Part 1 article:

Karmically, in Southern Racism, there were no innocent bystanders. Seems to me, Black Southerners were all, likely,RECEIVING some very Bad Karma. As for the Whites, most were CREATING some very Bad Karma.

Even if they didn’t actively persecute every Black person in sight, they were complicit.

Generating so much Bad Karma for themselves.

Personally, I’m amazed that more White People of Conscience didn’t also participate in The Great Migration.

After Black migrators moved North or West, the prejudice against them didn’t disappear. Refugees from Eastern Europe, being White, could rise more quickly, could find more affordable housing and better jobs.

Yet — as we’ll see in Part 3, George, Robert, and Ida Mae did manage to contribute to their society in meaningful ways, magnificent ways. Count two of the three as ultra-successful by Age of Awakening standards.

Age of Faith Value #3. A Good Person Supports the Church Community

And Has Faith in the Old-Time Religion

As a spiritual teacher in the Age of Awakening, this topic fascinates me. You too, Wisdom Seeker?

It’s as though, during the Age of Faith, FAITH became a substitute for GOD.

Next, Wisdom Seeker, let’s view Wilkerson’s summaries of the lives of George, Robert, and Ida Mae.

While you read what follows, can you find any Age of Faith Values to Let Go? Respond with your first reaction. Best served up fresh and hot, like a doughnut!

#1. George Starling. He Migrated Successfully to New York

But Lived Unhappily (According to Age of Faith Values)

Under Jim Crow, George Starling was not given the opportunities he needed to fulfill his ambitions. He married hastily, mostly to spite his father. That father chose not to pay for George’s college education.

So he moved to New York, and later brought along the wife he had married to spite his father. This marriage was not happy. Eventually, George had an affair, which led to a son born out of wedlock. This, he later regretted.

For 35 years, George worked as a Pullman Porter, helping passengers on trains that ran from South to North, and back again.

Important:

Age of Faith Values Shaped Wilkerson’s View of George

By the end of his life in New York, George felt socially disconnected. Overall, his narrative was poignant.

So much for Age of Faith Values! I’ll have plenty of George-flavored successes to tell you about in our Part 3 article. That’s when we’ll apply Age of Awakening values.

2. In California, Robert Pershing Foster Became a Successful Doctor

But Lived Unhappily

Robert gained social status by marrying  Alice Clement, daughter of the President of Alabama University. While he worked to establish his career in Los Angeles, Robert’s wife and children didn’t live with him but stayed at the family home.

Eventually, the rest of Robert’s family moved to L.A. How did that marriage succeed? Status-wise, the marriage was successful. Otherwise? Not so much.

Mostly, Robert showed off his beautiful wife, taking an active role in dressing her up. He entertained lavishly. One birthday party that he gave himself became legendary — deservedly. (Wilkerson’s book goes into all the amazing details.)

In his high status lifestyle as a top physician, one of Robert’s celebrity friends was Ray Charles, who would likely have lost one of his hands without Robert’s medical help.

Important:

Age of Faith Values Shaped Wilkerson’s View of Robert

After he moved to Los Angeles, Robert became very successful as a doctor. Later in his life he also became addicted to gambling, although he always had plenty of money to cover his gambling debts. After his wife died, he grew lonely, gambling more than ever.

Robert was not involved in the community back “home.” He visited only to bury his relatives. Nor was he much of a churchgoer, either.

So much for Age of Faith Values! I’ll have many more George-flavored successes to tell you about in our Part 3 article. That’s when we’ll apply Age of Awakening values.

3. Everybody Loved Ida Mae Gladney

She Brought the South with Her

Ida Mae Gladney was the beautiful, kind, wife of a sharecropper. Reluctantly she agreed to move to Harlem, New York. Always she remained strongly connected to “Home” and the people she grew up with.

Compared with Robert and George, she was the happiest. Wilkerson pointed out that she lived the longest, too, past 90.

Living in the North, Ida Mae Gladney became politically active, to some degree. Mostly, though, her life was shaped by religion, as if she still lived back “Home” in the South.

Isabel concluded that Ida Mae was the most spiritual of the three.

Whoa! This settled it for me. I felt compelled to write this 3-part series of articles.

Important:

Age of Faith Values Shaped Wilkerson’s View of Ida Mae

So much for Age of Faith Values! Which Ida Mae-flavored successes will I tell you about in our Part 3 article? Mostly we’ll apply Age of Awakening values.

Your Preview of Part 3

Wisdom Seekers, I’ll offer you  a very different perspective, an Age of Awakening perspective.

1. What a stark choice between Age of Faith values, like those that Isabel clearly had!
2. Versus Age of Awakening values, which cause me to arrive at a very different perspective!!
3. Most people living today have no clue that we’re all living in a Second Consciousness Era. In objective reality, it’s quite similar to life during the Age of Faith. Consciousness is what has changed. Spiritual consciousness does work differently now, in subtle ways. Such as each person’s new “Consciousness Positioning Superpower.”
4. If you become curious about how to live well in the Age of Awakening, I recommend this how-to book about using more-and-more of your full potential in life: Seeking Enlightenment in the Age of Awakening.
5. To learn more about the values and rules for success in the obsolete era, versus the current one, see The New Strong: Rules & Tools for Thriving in the Age of Awakening.

Wisdom Seeker, how important are Age of Faith values to you?

Your Overview of  This Three-Part Series

Inspired by The Warmth of Other Suns

• Part 1 introduced you to the topic and the three main characters. If you haven’t seen it yet, please take a look here.
• In Part 2, I brought you a perspective about spiritual consciousness, with an emphasis on letting go of the Age of Faith.
• While, in our Part 3, I’ll help you learn more about how to live juicy in the Age of Awakening.

And thanks for reading, everyone.