Prosperity Sundy 9 of 12

Today is Prosperity Sunday #9. On the last Sunday of each month we are reviewing chapters from the book Spiritual Economics: The Principles and Process of True Prosperity.

The title of today’s chapter is “The Money Enigma”

The Webster’s Dictionary tells us that an enigma is something that is hard to understand or explain. In the past this may have been true. I say, “No longer.”

The University of Michigan conducted a study about how money affected people’s lives. Three findings below stood out above all the rest:

1. What do people worry about most? Money

2. What makes people most happy? Money

3. What makes people the unhappiest? Money

Our thinking, feeling, and actions around money have a direct effect on our prosperity. Money represents different things to different people and is clouded with “not enough” thinking. Money is nothing more than a piece of paper that allows us to trade it for the things in life that we think we want or need. As a monetary exchange, it is indispensable, but when we allow it to become our obsession, it drains us mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. As long as you have impressed on your money the thought of insufficiency, it will continue to misrepresent you in your time of need. But if you contently infuse your money with the idea of abundance, it will begin to work for you in positive ways.

Money is a symbol of the currency or flow of universal substance. How we think, feel and interact around money can become the object of life’s search for meaning.

I invite you to resolve for yourself that money will always be a symbol of abundance, not limitation, not the goal of your life. Doing this will firmly establish balance in your spiritual well-being and will allow you to experience life more abundantly.

          Here I have a jar of clear, clean water. For the purposes of this demonstration, this water represents the pure invisible substance all around us.

          I also have here some green food coloring which represents our thoughts.

If I want to “activate” this water to produce some green for me, what do I have to do?

Yes! I have to put green into the water.

I’m sure you see the metaphor here. In order for the water to produce some green for me I have to g i v e  s o m e t h i n g  t o  i t.  If I give green to the invisible, the invisible returns green to me.

If I sit solemnly and beseech the water to give me green, will it?

If I yell and cry and wail, “If you really loved me you’d give me green,” will that that water produce green for me?

If I mope around and cry about my lack of green; if I say, “I think I’ve been forgotten,” or “I’m not deserving,” will that will guilt, or entice, the water to give me green?

The demonstration here is an important reminder that what we have to put something in to get something out. “As you sew, so shall you reap!” The invisible thinking we put into invisible substance shows up for us to see.

If you were asked, “how much money do you make each week?” your reply may well be, “I only make “X” amount a week.” But why only? It is a self-inventory term that is commonly used, but it invariably represents limitation. Question: How much money do you have on you right now? Answer: “Only $8.14.” Again, why the only? As long as this “onlyness” consciousness is in any way identified with your money, you are depreciating it.

“Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind… As you sew, so shall you reap.”

I invite you to reach into your pocket or purse and pull out a bill. Any denomination will do. If you aren’t carrying any bills, don’t go negative in your mind… just follow along in your mind’s eye.

There is a black side and a green side to our bills. Let’s look at the green side. What do you see in the center of this bill?

“In God We Trust.”

Here is this statement of All-ness. Now, perhaps, we can think of money in a more expansive way. Where before we might have been thinking, “This is only a dollar.”(i.e. diminishing thinking) Now, maybe we can see it this way, “This is worth a full dollar!” (i.e. fullness thinking)

If you really believe in as you sew, so shall you reap, which thinking do you want to sew into the invisible creative substance all around you, diminishing thinking or fullness thinking?

Fill in the blank for me, 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is…?”

Most people will say just what most of you here today said, “For the love of money is the root of evil” but the actual passage is just a little different and I think it’s important to know, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”

          If we can remember, as Butterwoth writes on page 148, “the right attitude towards money is the root of all kinds of prosperity.”!

          The key to any condition of lack is spiritual principle. Poverty is not corrected by dollars, but by the non-material creative substance that is all around us.

          Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity with his wife Myrtle, has this to say,  “Watch your thoughts when you are handling your money, because your money is attached, through your mind, to the source of all substance and all money. When you think of your money, which is visible, as something directly attached to an invisible source – that is giving or withholding according to your thought – you have the key to all riches and all lack.”

You are only as rich as you think you are and the only poverty is of the mind. So you can begin to do something about your financial position in life (or any other position in life) by reshaping your attitudes about what you think about.

Wealth is in ideas and ideas can be controlled through the discipline of mind.

You are not a victim of life, you are a co-creator with God.

Imagine if God were hiring (let’s say the ad read, “Hiring in all areas”) and you applied for a job… and here’s God showing you around Her factory when She comes to a set of double doors leading into a room. Above the doors is a sign that reads “Creation Department.” In you go and God says to you, “Y’know what, I really need some help. I’m could use a co-creator. Would you be willing to co-create with me?”

If you think of that in those terms, it’s kinda cool. Can you see yourself saying to your friends, “Yeah I was up at God’s place the other day and She was showing me around, and when we got to the Creation Department, God says to me, “I really need someone to co-ceate with me. Would you be willing to do that?”

Well, that’s already the case. You’re a co-creator with God, and the good thing (#1) is, you’re never out of a job… and (#2) you can create any life you want for yourself by disciplining your mind to move away from “only-ness thinking” to “Fullness thinking.”

Lastly, count on me to always support you in this; in fact if anyone ever mentions your name to me I will be happy to tell them, “You’re full of it.”

The "F-Word"

Sunday, March 9, 2014

          If you do any texting you’re probably aware of the way phrases are shortened. We have LOL for laugh out loud; IMHO for in my humble opinion; K for OK (the letters O and K are apparently too long to type); TTFN for ta-ta for now. And then there’s this one: WTF!

          I got to use this phrase just a few days ago. I was speaking with Unity Worldwide Ministries inquiring about the process for signing up just to come to the business meeting.

          “Well, the business meeting is part of the Annual Convention, so signing up for the convention includes the business meeting.” ($450.00)

          “I understand that but I only want to come for the business meeting, not the convention. My intention is to drive into town, spend a night, attend the meeting and drive home.”

          “OK, in that case we have a smaller convention package that includes admittance to the Assessment Discussion and the Annual Meeting. That’s $200.00”

          A little surprised and a lot frustrated, I politely ended the call and said to myself WTF!

          A few years ago, maybe two or three minutes before I was to begin a wedding ceremony, one of the members of the wedding party got right in my face and started shouting at me.

Caught unawares by this, I took a minute after the encounter to sit down and I thought, WTF!         

Have you ever had that experience where you go to anger over something, or you get blasted unexpectedly by someone and you say to yourself, WTF!

Yeah, that’s right, I use the F-word. I’ll come right out and say it. I don’t just abbreviate it; I actually say it, “Work That Forgiveness!”

(What, you thought it was something else?)

The fundamental tactic that’s taught in A Course in Miracles as the path to peace is forgiveness.

Jesus, in LUKE 5:17-26, there is the story of “Jesus healing the paralytic.” In the story, the friends of the man take him to see Jesus, and the crowd is too packed into the building where Jesus is speaking. There is no more room. So these friends do what any loyal set of friends would do; the carry the man onto the roof, take the roof apart – make a hole in the roof, and lower the man into the building to Jesus.

Imagine it as if it were happening right now. You’re in this room and it’s filled to capacity, and by capacity I mean like a big city subway car at rush hour, so many people squeezed in you can barely catch your breath. Then, all of a sudden the ceiling starts to fall down upon us because a handful of friends really, really wanted their paralyzed friend to be in here.

There’s a metaphor for the kind of intensity we need to have in our willingness to be exposed to, experience, the truth. In other words we will do whatever it takes; we’ll be vigilant to get to where we need to be for healing.

So what does Jesus do?  Make a big scene of it? (What I’m going for here is a Hollywood style tent revival kind of thing) No! Luke 5:20 reads, “When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”

Simple and straight to the point (and because of the faith present), “…friend, your sins are forgiven you.”

Doubts and objections are raised by the Scribes and the Pharisee’s, the authoritative guardians of the word as they thought of themselves.

Have you ever had a glimpse of the truth only to be shouted down by the seeming authoritative voice inside that says, “You can’t do that?”

The concept of authority is important in this story.  Let’s read the rest of it: “Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, “Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” ²² When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? ²³ Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? ²⁴ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the one who was paralyzed—“I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home.” ²⁵ Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God.”

Do you think that only God can forgive what we traditionally have thought of as sin?

Take another look.

Jesus uses the F-word where you’re concerned. He says that you have the authority to forgive… on earth. Right here, right now, on earth; not in some distant time or place, not when you’re “good enough,” and certainly not in heaven; the idea of sin doesn’t exist in heaven, so neither does forgiveness. You have the authority to forgive right here right now.

Have you ever said, “I just can’t forgive him (or her)?”  Well, yes you can, Jesus just said so.

Forgiveness is a powerful healer. Before I tell you another story consider this: Charles Fillmore (co-founder of Unity) in his wisdom made this very powerful statement, “It is through forgiveness that true spiritual healing is accomplished. Forgiveness removes the errors of the mind and… harmony results in consonance with divine law.”

I would say the errors of the mind that forgiveness removes is the idea that someone else, or yourself, is somehow “less than” as a person.

This week I received a pamphlet in the mail titled, “The Freedom of Forgiveness.” In it is a story written by Tom Baker, a former Catholic priest.

Baker writes that he and his father were very different. He a vocal believer, his dad a vocal atheist. Baker an optimist, dad a pessimist.

There was tension between them that turned to ice once Tom was ordained a Catholic priest. At that point they barely spoke.

About a year into his priesthood Tom’s father began to attend church sporadically, always sitting up front.  He writes that he would see his father nod his head in agreement when Tom said something positive about God.

“As a priest you get to know people as they are,” Baker writes, “You visit them when they’re sick, you hear their confessions, you listen to their prayers, you know their secrets. The effect this had on me was to open my heart to the struggle we all have being human – and there was my father, another struggling human. My dad started to be a person in my mind rather than a disappointment.”

Soon afterwards Baker’s parents announce to him that they are going to become Catholics. “I was shocked and asked my father if he had started believing in God. And he laughed and said, "Heavens no, I haven’t started believing in God! I believe in you…”"

“…I heard his respect and warmth and trust…At that moment I chose that he be a person to me…”

“Most of my life I was a person and he was a role that he was playing in a way not to my liking. When he said he believed in me it broke open my heart and I let him be a person.”

This is forgiveness.

 “Forgiveness is not for other people, it is for ourselves so we can get well and heal.” (Max Lucado)

Forgiveness is an act of radical self-interest.

If you have a struggle with another person, or yourself, please always remember that you have the authority to forgive. You have the authority to see another person as a person and thus begin your healing and wellness.

One of the things forgiveness can do is make you feel better. So if you have a struggle with another person or yourself, drop an F-Bomb. Shower them, and yourself, with the healing power of forgiveness.

Lobsters, Butterflies, and Cake

          Last week I ended by talking about oysters. This week I’ll begin with lobsters.

          Lobsters are said to be protected by the shell that a full-grown man could stand on while the lobster is in the water, and not harm it.

But this shell that protects the lobster also confines the lobster. The lobster cannot grow past the size of its stationery and protective shell.

In order for the lobster to grow, it must shed its protection which means it willingly becomes vulnerable. Underneath the shell, there is just a thin, pink, membrane skin, the consistency of wet, tissue paper; the lobster is vulnerable.

So, the lobster has a choice to stay protected and forever remain the same, or to be willing to risk everything to grow. Most of the time, the lobster will choose growth – even if it is risky, and causes his life to be shaky for a period of time.

We, too, must choose growth, spiritual growth. Spiritual growth can happen when we choose to view life from a higher perspective; a perspective higher than a judgmental and critical mind.

Some of us grew up in the Fifties. We remember those black and white shows on the little 6 inch screen. Those shows seemed very simple, sweet, and idyllic. No matter what was going on, it all happened quickly and within half an hour, there was a happy ending.

Many of us got conditioned to think life was really supposed to be, like “Ozzie and Harriet,” or “Leave It to Beaver.”  Possibly we thought life was supposed to be really easy and that we would never have any real conflicts come into our lives.

I believe that one of the reasons why Christianity or any religious approach is appealing. It appeals because it promises to make life easier; it promises that God is good, and it promises there can be an ease in our lives.

But challenging things keep taking place in our lives, often we can't quite figure out whether it is happening to us because we fail to understand God,
or perhaps we are being taught a lesson, or maybe we are misapplying God's ideas somehow; and we ask what am I doing wrong? Or we affirm, “I must be doing something wrong.

When we say that, “I must be doing something wrong,” we affirm incompleteness; but remember what I said last week, “We are whole people living in a whole universe.” We are whole people who make errors and errors can be corrected.

It takes a little bit of being tested, a lot of contemplation, seeking, a lot of prayer, a lot of guidance, and asking around in church, a lot of going out into the world and serving people—to help us understand that we are not misapplying the biblical principles, that things actually are just perfect the way they are. Puzzling, isn’t it? I’ll un-puzzle that for you in a moment.

To help understand this process, imagine what a caterpillar might feel like if it were crawling across a Persian rug. From its point of view crawling across that rug, it must encounter a lot of strange things
before its eyes. It probably would make no sense with colors changing right and left. It would just seem like a mish-mash of colors and feelings, just like life sometimes appears to us.

But one day, when that caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it can fly over that very same rug, and it will see something else. It will be able to see
the patterns of color in that rug and it will all make sense. It will see that there really was a design to the mish-mash. That design of the so called mish-mash is based upon the outworking of “The Law of Life (or we could call it biblical principles)” which we might define this way: The spirit of God working through our consciousness = the experience of our life.

So that un-puzzles why things are perfect just the way they are: the spirit of God working through our consciousness equals the experience of our life.

It’s not that we misapplied the law; the law is dependable and only works one way. There is however one variable there - your consciousness - and you can choose what you want to hold in your consciousness again and again, and again and again, as often as needed.

Here’s an article I read online.

“Have a bite of flour.

Yuck!

A little baking soda, then?

Blech!

How about a raw egg?

Ick!

A spoonful of cooking oil?

Nasty!

Maybe a little sugar? A nip of vanilla? A bit of chocolate?

Yeah, those sound good … but all by themselves?

The individual ingredients aren’t very appetizing, yet when they are mixed together and cooked in a hot oven, they come together to form a beautiful and mouth-watering cake.

The individual ingredients of life often aren’t very appetizing, either.

Yet mixed together throughout a lifetime and cooked through love, they form a rich and lovely life.”

There are really only two ways to respond to our experience of life, with love or with fear. When we respond with love, whatever is touched by that love begins/continues to heal.  When we respond with fear, yes we do deepen the pain and struggle… however, there is something much more important to realize; when we respond with fear we are really deeply calling out for love.

Our job is not to set things aright, that’s (God’s job) the job of unconditional love. Our job is to see things aright; in other words, that our experience of ourselves and others is either an extension of love or a call for love.

Seeing things aright is a vital step in allowing love to do its healing work.

I have given you three metaphors for a higher vision this morning. It is so important to have a spiritual vision for our life and to have that higher point of view, and to look at our life with some perspective to see the underlying design or pattern, like the butterfly; to look at our lives and see that the ingredients of our life may be un-tasty at any given moment but combined together with an awareness of the Presence of unconditional love (God) and the extension of that love into everything we express, feel, and think (to the best of our understanding) heals what needs healing; to look at your life and to put down your defenses, be vulnerable so those old constricting ideas can be healed, enlarged, enlightened by love.

It becomes very important how we respond to life in the moment.

Contemplate this. Contemplate your life, just the way it is. Everything is an extension of love or a call for love.

All the yucky ingredients, all the dizzying mish-mash of feelings, all the tender vulnerabilities you are willing to uncover  are your opportunities to bathe them in love and heal your life.

And you can do it!

Will You?

February 16, 2014

Last week I started service by saying that a new week is beginning tomorrow, and I asked if you were filled with enthusiasm.  I asked if you could sense the God-given potential that is in front of you to establish a “new you” and a “new life” where you perceive you need it?

Maybe you did something about that and maybe you didn’t, I don’t know. Today, instead of saying, “You can make a choice,” I am going to ask you to make a choice. Are you willing?

This week, I’m asking you, would you decide to be happy; to use your freedom of choice to choose to be happy and to share your happiness with others? After all, you are endowed with free-will. Your life can be whatever you choose it to be.

This week, I am asking you to choose to be happy!

I’m asking you to choose to have a happy, positive, joyous, enthusiastic state of mind. Will you do that?

Will you choose to smile often, to laugh more, to love, and be loving?

Will you choose to allow the love of God to flow through you and out to everyone and everything around you. Will you do that?

Choose to see the good of God in others, to love them as they are, not to judge nor try to change them. I ask you to choose to see the beauty all around
you; to feel your oneness with order, and harmony in the universe.

I ask you, this week, to choose to trust God, to align your will with God’s will, and to allow God to express through you as peace, and love. Will you do that this week?

Choose this week to walk in the path of joy.

As a spiritual person, you already know this, don’t you, that you do not need outer events to change in order to be happy, but, rather, that you choose the way you react the outer events.

In Psalms 121:1, it is written, “I lift mine eyes up unto the hills.”

Those hills are not outside of you, as in difficult outer events. Those hills are inside of you, as in, metaphysically speaking, your higher consciousness – your state of awareness of God. So when we come to outer challenges we lift up our eyes unto the power and presence of God, remembering that we are not alone, that we have a trusted and loving advisor to guide us every time we ask with open hearts and minds. We know this because we keep the inlet and the outlet open to the flow of God.

I know you’ve heard me say this before, and it’s worth repeating: God is with you right now, you are never alone. In fact, it’s impossible to be alone because where you are, God is. You can close off your awareness, you can close off your knowing, but you are still not alone anytime, anyplace, anywhere, because God is there.

Most people live from the outside in, allowing other events (the events of the day, the events of the past, anticipation of things to come) to determine how they feel inside of themselves; allowing the unawareness of the presence of God to suggest to them what to do.

As a spiritual person you know to live from the inside—out; you know that you set the conditions of how you feel about the day.

I suggest that you do this before you even leave your bedroom in the morning; set the conditions of your day. Will you do that this week?

Here’s a related story. It comes from a book titled HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE by Barry Kaufman.

Kaufman was giving classes on developing attitudes of self-trust. During the Q&A session following class one day and asked this question, “My question, is um, somewhat related to what we’ve discussed, but in a bit of a different direction, and, er, more personal. I am having so much trouble with my asthma. I’ve gone from doctor to doctor. I take all the medication they’ve prescribed, but nothing really helps. I just can’t stand it. I wonder if you could say something, well, anything, that might be useful.”

Kaufman writes that he hesitated, thinking about all the scientific studies he could share, but class was essentially over.

Here’s what he replied, “This may sound silly or crazy or both, but I’ll do my best to give you a useful response. Be happy with your asthma, embrace it like a friend. If you change your attitude about your condition you’ll change the chemistry of your body. Every though we have is a physical event… this is a marvelous and concrete opportunity for you, not just a pie in the sky game. Give your asthma a different message and see what happens. So, when you have tightness is your chest, the shortness of breath, the wheezing or coughing, you could first welcome it, talk to it, even play with it. Then, open yourself to loving it… really loving it!”

He seemed amused, intrigued and skeptical. "I thought you'd say something like that," he replied, chuckling. "Well, what do I have to lose? I'll try it.

The very next day, he came to the morning session of the program visibly refreshed and alert. "I had a special experience last night," he told the group. "I greeted my nightly wheezing with a smile instead of my usual annoyance or depression. I actually did say hello out loud and laughed. I talked to my asthma like a friend. Wow! I told my asthma, we sure have a lot of history together." he smiled shyly, then continued, "I even thanked my bronchial tubes each time I coughed. At first, I felt...well, absolutely ridiculous, but soon something magically freed up inside and I felt really loving and loved." His eyes filled with tears. "You know, in no time at all, I fell asleep. Right now I feel more comfortable and peaceful in my body than i have in months."

That man had eased himself into being happy and loving toward a condition he had previously vied as intolerable." 

I’m asking you this week to choose to keep your mind open to new ideas, a new experience, a new attitude toward what you thought was intolerable. I ask you to take happy and loving action toward whatever, whomever you resist. Will you do that?

As a positive spiritual person, you are not trapped by yesterday’s past; you are a new person created in the joy and happiness of God. You are!

I invite you to choose to use your unlimited potential, to enjoy the aspects of your life that you now love, and reinvent the aspects of your life that you presently do not love.

Would you choose to enjoy abundant life?

You can use your freedom of choice to choose to be happy in every thought inside of your mind, and to let your happiness light shine out to others. Will you do that this week?

I believe that God will show you what absolute happiness is, and that this feeling is one that will remain with you.

So, I invite you to make a commitment this week, because to be a source of joy and happiness for yourself, and others, requires more than just mere words; it takes action on your part.  Will you do that?

Will you put down your story? Embrace what is occurring in your experience and you will live your life in happy and joyful appreciation of God, because you will feel the Presence manifesting in your life.

Yes, life may still present many mysteries, but you are secure in God. Rather than becoming anxious about what you do not know, or understand, embrace every opportunity to learn with the joy of God’s Spirit working through you. Will you do that this week?

This week you will be a source of happiness because you know God’s joy in your life?

As it says in Galatians 5:25, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.”

Will you do that this week?