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?

Magic Carpet Ride

February 9, 2014

A new week is beginning tomorrow. Are you filled with enthusiasm?

Can you sense the God-given potential that is in front of you? A “new you” and a “new life” where you perceive you need it?

Any day, any moment in time you have a God-given opportunity to take a look at your life, to see where you have been, what you have accomplished in the past, to take a real honest look at where your life is now, and the trajectory you’d like to see it take from here.

In other words, you have an opportunity for a reality check, to take a look to see if you are on track living life the way you’d like to.

How often do you take the time to check to see where you are right now in consciousness and perhaps release a few things from the past that you have dragged with you, complaining, and yet at the same time have been unwilling to let go of?

Earlier this week I had a conversation with an acquaintance who told me – and I’ll put this in my words – that when he comes up against people who moan and complain that he tells them to “put down their story.”  No too many sentence further and he was telling me how he had been wronged some number of years ago; how some, now former friends, acted against him and how it was wrong, and how he wished it was now, different… but he just couldn’t deal with the other people involved.

At one point he stopped and mused, “Maybe I should put down my story about that!”

“I think it would serve you well to do so,” I said, “and forgive too. Forgiveness will allow healing to occur.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but it’s just that these people are so arrogant and self-centered. They just don’t get it. I’ll never be able to be around them, and besides……” and he was off to the races clutching tightly onto his story and keeping it alive.

For a moment there, I thought he was going to put it down.

Yesterday Tom Newman spoke for a few minutes at the funeral for a friend. I suspect kind words were spoken about the deceased. Imagine if my acquaintance was invited to speak at a service honoring one of “those people” by whom she was offended? Imagine him talking this way, “Oh, she was pigheaded, a master at holding onto old hurts. She was angry, self-righteous and opinionated. It just too bad she never “saw the light.”

Clearly we have all have flaws. I love this statement from A Course in Miracles, “Our job is not to be without limitations, but to overcome them.”

Every single day you have the opportunity to begin, again, and to create a whole new pattern for your life if you so desire.

Shel Silverstein, in his writings speaks of the opportunity that is at hand in a little quip entitled “Magic Carpet.” He said:

·        You have a magic carpet
that will whiz you through the air
To Spain or Maine or Africa
if you’ll just tell it where.
So will you let it take you
where you’ve never been before?
Or will you buy it drapes to match,
and use it on the floor?

Are you willing to step onto that magic carpet of life? Are you ready to take off this week, and take the experience of your life wherever you want it to go?

Within each you lies that beautiful God-given potential. You are a children of God.

Some months ago it was commented to me that, as the minister, I really had to practice what I preach.

In my opinion practicing what we preach is the only way to live… and that the days of living a split life need to be dissolved.

Taking to heart the idea put forth in A Course in Miracles that ((Y)our job is not be without limitations, but to overcome them,” you can see that you needn’t expect yourself to live a mistake-free life according to your highest vision all the time, but I would say that it is important not to allow yourself constant leeway.  I’m suggesting that you must continue to call yourself to a higher level of expression (which you can do), and to live your life honestly (which you also can do). If you make a mistake, realize that you made a mistake.

Now, let me put a finer point on this: It seems to me that mistakes made with the attitude of, “I don’t care,” or “whatever…” are harmful.  “Honest” mistakes as we call them are not harmful when (1) you recognize the mistake, (2) you don’t try to project it onto someone or something else… and (3) when that issue comes up again you handle things differently because you stopped to think instead of acting out old patterns.

(Put on top coat) Here’s a mundane story about not acting out of old patterns. Before I went to unity Village for my initial interviews and testing I thought I should bring a top coat with me… but I didn’t own one. Jane and I went to the Salvation Army store in Boulder. I went to the rack that had a few men’s top coats on it. (As an aside, I will tell you this, I don’t think a single business man in Boulder, Colorado wears a top coat. That’s very “un-Boulder.’ J)

There were a couple of men’s topcoats but they were both shabby and not my size.  The next thing I know, here comes Jane carrying a top coat, the one I have on now. Not only did it fit me but it’s like brand new.

Where did you find this I asked? It turns out that the coat had been mis-marked as a woman’s coat and was on the women’s rack!

Jane wasn’t bound by the old patterns: men’s topcoat, men’s section. Her vision of possibilities was expansive: “What I’m looking for isn’t in the place I’d expect it to be; might it be in some unexpected place?

I saw a cute posting – I think it was on Jane’s FB page – it read, “When the past calls, don’t answer. It doesn’t have anything new to say.”

When the past come calling you don’t have to “go to the same place’ you’ve always gone, go someplace that may be different or unexpected for you: God, forgiveness, prayer, gratitude, compassion, etc. You might be surprised at what you find there!

Live a new life; a life in which you look for and see the beauty present.

Today I’m going to end with a picture. Holding a picture in the mind is very powerful. I saw this saying on the back of this man’s t-shirt at the Subway restaurant in Pendleton last summer.

Live a life so the preacher won’t have to lie at your funeral.

I think that’s good advice.

Inlet-Outlet

February 9, 2014

From time to time I hear this comment from people after their first visit to Unity, “It feels like home.”

We are all on a path heading toward a spiritual coming home. Some have already experienced “home.” The job now, is to stay there.

We are all interested in a personal experience of Heaven.

Whether you are new to Unity or an old hand at it, I pray it is your spiritual home. Just like a highway sign points to a destination, I hope that Unity is a spiritual signpost for you pointing your way to an experience of God.

Reverend Billy Graham told of a time early in his ministry when he arrived in a small town to preach a sermon. Wanting to mail a letter, he asked a
young boy where the post office was. When the young boy told him, Dr. Graham thanked him and said, “Son if you will come tonight to the Baptist
Church, you will hear me telling everyone how to get to heaven.” The boy stood there for a minute, scratched his head, and said, “Well, sir, I don’t think I will be there because you can’t even find the post office.”

As I mentioned last week, in order for a pond to stay sweet, fresh, and renewed, there must be an inlet and an outlet. This is a metaphor for our lives. We must keep our awareness open to the Presence of God and we our expression must be delivered from that awareness.

Our job is to keep the inlet and outlet open. It is God’s job to keep the flow going. As we keep the inlet and outlet open, the experience of our life is sweet and fresh, a spiritual homecoming, and our experience of God is constantly renewed.

Through God there is available to us a daily spiritual homecoming. Keeping that inlet and outlet open we move from knowing about God to actually knowing God.  There is a huge difference between knowing ABOUT God and knowing God. Many people know about God. God is on our money. God’s name is used in our sacred documents. God’s name is used by the devout, and sometimes, sadly, only as a curse. Everyone knows about God. A 2011 Gallup poll indicates that nine out of ten people in America say they believe in God.

Nine out of ten people believe in God, although they may not know really how God works in their own individual lives. Knowing God is something else entirely.

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the professor who was given a choice of two doors to go through. One of the doors was marked “love” and the other was marked “knowledge about love.” This professor, loving knowledge, chose the latter. Just as there is a difference in knowing about love and experiencing love, so there is a difference in knowing about God and knowing God.

I know a lot about playing the piano. I know that a full sized keyboard is 88 keys and that there are black ones and white one. I know that if I press certain combinations of keys according to a certain rhythm, according to the instructions illustrated on sheet music, that I will play for you a lovely tune.

But I can’t actually do it because I’ve not practiced, and having no practice I have no successful experience of playing anything recognizable.

There is a story of another professor at a Seminary. He would often come back to hear his students give a talk on Sunday morning. This man, in
his style, would say to them, “You gave a good talk today, but I am never going to come back and hear you again. I only come once. I just came to see if you are a ‘little god person’ or a ‘big god person.”’ He said, “If you are a ‘big god person,’ I know your ministry will be successful, and that you are going to do great work in moving the hearts of people because you believe in a God who has great power. You believe in a God who can perform miracles. You believe in a God who can do the impossible if you are a ‘big god person.’  But if you are a ‘little god person,’ you will have trouble with God because God can’t do any miracles; God can’t take care of any of the inspiration and the transmission of Scripture or guidance to us. A little god cannot assist God’s people. If you are a ‘little god person,’ you really have trouble.”

That is what I want you to be this morning. I want you to be a ‘big god person.’ I want you to have a big God, a bigger God that is bigger than any of your problems inside of yourself or outside. I want your concept of God to be so large, so great that you know wherever you go, at any moment of the day or night, God is with you and you are home. You are walking with God, talking with God, and moving with God’s power. When a problem arrives and looks you right in the eye, you are not standing there by yourself. You are standing there with the biggest God in the world around you and working through you. You can do anything, face anything, because you are a ‘big god person.’

There is a saying, “Don’t tell God about your big problems, tell your problems about your big God!”

Here is a positive spiritual affirmation for you to repeat often as you need it: God is bigger than my problem!

 Isaiah 65:24, “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.”

When we keep the inlet and outlet open to the flow of God we feel, we can hear, the presence of God and God will direct us.

I was supposed to be at Unity Village this past week, but I didn’t go. Two weeks before my trip I started feeling like I didn’t want to go. Now this was a strange thought to me because I love going to the Village to interview and assess seminary students. This is a way in which I gave back to the Unity movement.  It was a strange thought, so I ignored it.

Now it’s a week before I leave and I felt this internal guidance to “take the truck.” I always drive the Jeep because I can’t fit everything I want to take in the front seat of the pickup, plus it’s not that comfortable on a 500 mile drive… it was a strange thought so I ignored it.

I left last Tuesday morning at 4:15am; temperature minus 6 degrees. An hour and a half away from home a light comes on on the dashboard, a light I had never seen before. I pulled off at the next exit to consult the owner’s manual. In essence, here’s what it said, “Your electronic throttle controller (ETC) is in need of attention. Your vehicle is probably drivable. Take it to a dealership as soon as you can.” Then the manual went on to say, “If your light is blinking (mine wasn’t), you vehicle engine may run at high RPM’s or run rough; you may even lose power and have to be towed.”

Internally I knew I should not push forward and run the risk of failure of the ETC and be stranded in this weather in an unknown location, so I turned around and headed home.

I believe that because I make it a priority to keep my awareness of God open as much as possible, guidance was able to flow in: “Don’t go to the Village… ok, as long as you insist, take the truck… now, turn around.”

Finally, I listened and turned around and went home. What was the guidance to not go all about? I have no Idea. I’m just glad I finally followed that guidance.

We are here in this place to have a spiritual homecoming. That means to have an open inlet and outlet. To have a receptive mind that is open and
receptive to the flow of communication of God. The answers you get, the solutions to your problems are going to be higher than your own human mind.  Therefore they may seem foreign (as did mine in regards to going to the Village). Therefore they may tell you to walk down a different path than you are walking down right now. It takes courage to turn around. It takes courage to go God’s way. But I really don’t know why, because as you walk God’s way, you are not alone. All you are doing is walking home. Can you come home? You had better believe it. God is always present and saying, “Come on home.

If you need a healing, come on home.

If you need prosperity, come on home.

If you need a solution to the biggest problem you have ever had in your life, come on home.

I am here for you and I am as close as your breathing, right where you are sitting. Come on home.

Open the inlet and the outlet. Come on home.”