Gracie Allen says to George Burns, “Oh, George, I had a crazy dream about heaven last night.”

George said, “And I suppose you are going to tell me about it, right?”

And Gracie said, “Of course, silly. Why else would I mention it? In my dream, Marilyn Monroe and three blondes (natural) died and found themselves standing before St. Peter. He told them that before they could enter the Kingdom, they had to tell him what Easter was.

The first blonde said, ‘Easter is a holiday where they have a big feast and we give thanks and eat turkey.’ St. Peter said, ‘Noooooo,’ and he banished her to hell.

The second blonde said, ‘Easter is when we celebrate Jesus’ birth and exchange gifts.’

St. Peter said, ‘Noooooo,’ and he banished her to hell.

The third blonde said she knew what Easter is, and St. Peter said,’ So, tell me.’

She said,’ Easter is a Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish festival of Passover. Jesus was having Passover feast with His disciples when he was betrayed by Judas, and the Romans arrested him. The Romans hung Him on the cross and eventually He died. Then they buried Him in a tomb behind a very large boulder.

St. Peter said, ‘Verrrrrry good.’

Then the blonde continued, ‘Now every year the Jews roll away the boulder and Jesus comes out. If he sees his shadow, we have six more weeks of basketball.’

St. Peter gasped, almost choking.

Love and Prosperity

A little article by Richard and Mary-Alice Jafolla, Unity ministers, and authors, on expressing love talks about the 1993 rampaging rivers in the Midwest that caused extensive flooding of farms, villages, and cities. The entire landscape along the river plains was changed. Abetted by torrential rains, the mighty Missouri and Mississippi rivers became even mightier, breaking through levees and dams to inundate parts of Kansas City, St. Louis, and other major cities along their paths. Nothing could stand in the way of the unrelenting power and persistence of the water.

Love can do the same in our lives: it can absolutely take over. It is the most powerful force in the universe. Nothing can stand in the way of love, and nothing can take the place of love.

Contrary to popular belief, love is not suddenly created when we find a person to love. Love is implanted deep inside us by our Creator and is always waiting to be released.

AS I mentioned the other week, I believe we are love, because we are Divine, made in the image and likeness of the Divine, and God is LOVE, then we don’t learn love, we BE it.

Expressing love is essential to our physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. It is unlike anything else. And why is it that whenever we humans express our love it feels so “right”? Because love is so basic to our nature that only when our love is allowed to express itself can we feel truly fulfilled.

Why, then, is it often so difficult for us to express the love that is in us? Could it be that part of the problem lies in our inability to accept love ourselves? We talked about that the other week too.

Just consider for a moment what our lives would be like if suddenly we decided to open ourselves fully to God’s love. Such a gushing torrent of love would fill us that it would flood into every part of our lives. No longer could we withhold love from others because we felt they were not worthy of love. No longer could we withhold love from ourselves because we felt we were unworthy. If we would allow such a rampaging river of God’s love to flow through us, the entire landscape of our souls would be transformed and we would be a continuous blessing for the world.

And that, my friends, would be PROSPERITY to the millionth degree.

Wayne Dyer said, “Abundance isn’t something we acquire, it’s something we tune into.”

Beloved, we cannot be separated from our good, so what thoughts or beliefs are blocking your flow?

Love is the great harmonizer. When called upon, it can adjust all misunderstandings and make our life and affairs healthy, happy, harmonious, and free. Love is the greatest worker and will accomplish amazing things in our lives. It expands our abundance exponentially.

Love in us enables us to practice the presence of God within, therefore “casting out” fears, which contribute to poverty, lack, ill health and adverse conditions. Love brings The Presence closer and closer in our everyday life. We see life as it is truly meant to be lived.

Doesn’t the Bible say it’s the Creators great pleasure to give us the kingdom? That kingdom is blessed with love as our birthright. And part of that birthright is abundance.

We must trust that the Universe is always conspiring for our good and our belief is the determining factor to what happens in our world.

So I ask again, so what thoughts or beliefs are blocking your flow?

Here is something that may be a factor in your flow.

This story is from a book entitled “Kabbalistic Astrology: And the Meaning of Our Lives” author Rav Berg.

Although the story uses some different languaging than Unity, the gist of what the author is saying is pretty in line with our thinking and very interesting.

Berg writes that before there was anything, there was only the Light. There was nothing but the Light, and the Light had only one urge – that was to give and to share of Itself.

But that begs a question, doesn’t it? If there is nothing but the Light, then to what or to whom will the Light give and share?

Obviously, this would not do; something had to be done. So the Light created a Vessel to receive everything it had to offer. Receiving was the Vessel’s one and only job. That’s all it was made to do, and that’s all it did.

So, the nature of the Light was to share Itself fully and completely and the nature of the Vessel was to receive everything the Light had to offer.

Berg writes that the Kabbalah teaches that the Light is the first cause. The Vessel is the first effect. Truth students – does that sound familiar?

The Vessel was filling up with the Light and, because time and space hadn’t even begun yet, the Vessel was filling endlessly. The Light kept giving and the Vessel kept receiving. It was perfect. In fact, it was paradise.

But let’s pause for a moment in the story of creation to emphasize something – because here’s where it gets interesting. What was the nature of the Light? What was the only thing the Light wanted to do?

It wanted to share of itself fully and completely with the Vessel. And that is what it did. Therefore, the Vessel received not only Light from the Source of Light, but the Vessel received from the Light the desire to share of Itself as well.

And this desire to share felt good, very good to the Vessel. In fact, the Vessel wanted to start doing some sharing on its own, to shed some Light of its own, so to speak!

But how could the Vessel express the Desire to Share if its whole nature was to receive? Sharing wasn’t part of its job. So the Vessel made a decision, its first decision, and a very important one.

As part of Its desire to express what It was, the Vessel pushed back the Light and said, “No more! I don’t want to receive any more.”

The moment the Vessel pushed back the Light and stopped simply being the receiver, the Light said, “Okay, I understand your need to evolve and express yourself.” Just as a loving parent who stands back to allow a toddler to take his or her first awkward steps, the Light withdrew. It gave the Vessel the space to learn about sharing and the opportunity to become a causative force in the creation process.

The ancient Kabbalists called the Vessel’s act of pushing back the Light, “the Restriction.” Science has another name for it …THE BIG BANG.

According to Kabbalah, once the Restriction or the Big Bang took place, the Vessel exploded into zillions of zillions of pieces. The pieces of the shattered Vessel became all the fragments of matter and energy that make up our entire universe – atoms, animals, people, planets, everything.

Everything in the universe is a portion of the original Vessel, which was made by the Light and of the Light.

Berg writes:
“Kabbalistically, the Desire to Receive is the secret engine that drives everything in the universe and is, in fact, indispensable to the world’s functioning. It is when the simple Desire to Receive is changed into the Desire to Receive in Order to Share that we become most like the Light and we become the cause of our own fulfillment.”

According to the wisdom of the Kabbalah:
“…the unifying link between the spiritual and the physical worlds – the World Above and the World Below – is the Desire to Receive the Light of the Creator – and humankind is the highest embodiment of that desire.”

Isn’t that a fantastic creation story?!

Nothing is more naturally geared toward being receptive than a baby, and if the secret of staying young, vibrant and vital throughout life is to hang onto those precious characteristics we all have as children but which get drummed out of us – like having big dreams, being curious and believing in yourself – then one of those characteristics is being open to receiving, being hungry to receive, being ravenous to receive!

In fact, all of those things just mentioned — having big dreams and being curious and believing in ourselves – those are all aspects of being receptive, they’re all the same thing as being receptive.

Being open to receive is EVERYTHING!

Charles Fillmore said, “Loose all thoughts of lack and lay hold of thoughts of plenty. See the abundance of all good things, prepared for you and for all of us from the foundation of the world. We live in a very sea of inexhaustible substance, ready to come into manifestation when molded by our thought.”

Trusting in God, we have faith in Spirit as our resource, and that faith becomes a perpetual spiritual supply and support; but when we put our faith in the power of material riches, our trust in God weakens and we establish our trust in the transitory substance of sense living.

We feel rich everytime we delight in the bounty of our life. It is all around us. You touch it every day. You see it every day. And you feel it every day. Do NOT take this abundance for granted.

Wait! What are you taking for granted? There’s a good question.

This point of our abundance is not clearly understood by those who are hypnotized by the money idea. When the metaphysician affirms God to be their opulent supply and support and declares that they have money in abundance, the assumption is that they love money and depend upon it.

The man who blindly gives himself up to money getting acquires a love for it and finally becomes its slave.

It’s the love of money, not money itself, is the root of all kinds of evil.

The wise metaphysician deals with the money idea and masters it. They trust in the law of God.

It is our job to RECEIVE the Kingdom that Spirit is giving us.

Unity leader Eric Butterworth wrote:
“It is our inability to be a gracious receiver that is indicative of a spiritual problem that would no doubt answer the questions about many other problems of life such as “Why can’t I get ahead?” or “why do these troubles always come to me?” . . . If I were to refuse to accept the gift or even if I were to accept it grudgingly with a sense of personal obligation, with an attempt to immediately reciprocate, I cut off my good, and I cut off the other’s good too.”

Let your dominant intent be to feel good which means be playful, have fun, laugh often, look for reasons to appreciate and practice the art of appreciation. And as you practice it, the Universe, who has been watching you practice, will give you constant opportunities to express it. So that your life just gets better and better and better. —Abraham