Good Morning Beloved!
A little boy was walking down a dirt road after church one Sunday afternoon when he came to a “Y” in the road where he met a little girl coming from the other direction.

He said, “Hello.”

‘Hi,’ replied the little girl.

‘Where are you going?’ asked the little boy.

‘I’ve been to church this morning and I’m on my way to my aunties,’ answered the little girl.

‘I’m also on my way home from church. Which church do you go to?’ asked the little boy.

‘I go to the Catholic church down the road,’ replied the little girl. ‘What about you?’

‘I go to the Protestant church back at the top of the hill.’

They discover that they are both going the same way so they decided that they’d walk together.

They came to a low spot in the road where spring rains had partially flooded the road, so there was no way that they could get across to the other side without getting wet.

‘If I get my new Sunday dress wet, my Mom’s going to skin me alive,’ said the little girl.

‘My Mom’ll tan my hide, too, if I get my best Sunday suit wet,’ replied the little boy.

‘I’ll tell you what I think I’ll do,’ said the little girl. ‘I’m gonna take off all my clothes and hold them over my head and wade across.’

‘That’s a good idea, replied the little boy. ‘I’m going to do the same thing with my suit.’

So they both undressed and waded across to the other side without getting their clothes wet. They were standing there in the sun waiting to drip dry before putting their clothes back on, when the little boy finally remarked:
‘You know, I never realized before just how much difference there really is between a CATHOLIC and a PROTESTANT !!!

So, good morning! How are you all today? Well, I hope, because today we have some big, important questions to ask….and anyone that knows me knows I love to ask good questions. I wish to make you think. I believe THAT is part of my job, for you to leave here asking yourself if you are being the person you wish to be.

So, here’s the big question for today—–How Big is your God? Have you even thought about your Creator lately? And your relationship to the Divine Being that is ALL. I know some of you are getting comfortable with what ever it is that your call that energy that is in all – and of all – and creater of all.

But have you thought about what your concept of God really is? And, for brevitys sake, we’ll use that term loosely.
Look at your concept of God as you were growing up…here’s mine…in Sunday School, it was all about a loving, kind “Father type” guy in the sky. Growing out of Sunday School and into the church service, I sat and listened to a mad, angry God and heard all about sin, hell and damnation, and how I needed to be saved.

How has that changed? Or has it? Do you need to have a ‘concept cleanse’ regarding your thought about the All Mighty that is?

And what exactly do you mean when you use the word God? When do you use the term? Only when referring to the Divine Universe? Or do you throw the word around like, say the word Love…I love your dress…I love my car….I love black raspberry crumb pie….I love my brothers….I love my Harry Potter collection…..are you getting the picture?

When we use a word casually, it loses it true meaning. We then have to define what it means to us…I love you…as a friend, not Love as in love, not love like I love my dogs or I love juicy fruits, or PA Bakery whoopie pies..you get the picture.

Think a few moments how often you use the term God.

In the Near East, it is very common to use the term very loosely… As God is my witness, this camel is only 3 years old and there for worth the price! God strike me down if this shirt isn’t worth 5 dinars! These dates are fresh and for you, because God guides me, I will let you have them for only this price….

Maybe we DO need a’cleanse!’

As my metaphysics instructor would always sa , “Watch your words.”

Now lets look at what all that Divine Mystery could encompass. As our consciousness expands, so does our concept of what we mean when we say God.

There was a time when many believed the family of God did not include women. And there are still some places and beliefs that remain so. Is your God big enough to include women? ALL women?

Would it include Kim Davis? (The clerk sent to jail for a few days in contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples) Catlin Jenner? The Black woman in the grocery store? The Muslim one?

Our Wayshower, Jesus was anointed by women,learned from a Gentile woman, spoke up to defend a woman, raised the dead for women, healed women, constantly helped the unnoticed women, enjoyed the attention and the company of women, said that there was no hierarchy in faith, and had female disciples traveling with him. Possibly married one….

He never once in word or deed spoke ill of or did harm to a woman. His resurrection was revealed first to a women, who was also the first to announce it to the others. Jesus is absolutely a feminist.”

Is your God big enough to include your family? Look at what happened to Joseph…his brothers were jealous of him and they wanted to kill him. Finally they choose to sell him into slavery. Of course that eventually turmed out for the good, the Divine Plan usually does if we keep an open mind and heart. Joseph always kept the love of his family with him through it all.

Is your God big enough to hold your family?

Does your God include our government? All of it…even the other party? Are you doing what is yours to do to encourage your government to do what is theirs to do for the citizens of the nation? The world?

Is your God big enough to include Muslims? All Muslims? Aren’t they the ones who want to kill us all? An appropriate question since we just had the anniversary of 9/11.

How about the Buddhists? Well, they have similar beliefs as us so they might be ok, right? But the Jews….didn’t they play a part in the killing of Jesus?

Is it big enough to include say, Hitler? Stalin? Sadam Hussain?

Or, lets get personal, the person who hurt you the most, whomever they may be. An ex, your family, a friend…
Would your God be big enough to include you?

In Galatians 3:28, it says, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one….“

If we look at our progression through the evolution of our soul know as our Journey, we can see how and maybe even where we have progressed to include women, and gays and Muslims, and killers and rapists and the Right Wing Christians and the people who hurt us, in our family of God.

SO before you judge whether someone can be or not be in your family of God, consider this: We can see less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum and hear less then 1% of the acoustic spectrum. Right now you are traveling at 220 kilometers per second across the galaxy. 90% of the cells in your body carry their own microbial DNA and are not ‘you.’ The atoms in your body are 99.99999999999999% (14) empty space and none of them are the ones you were born with, but they all originated in the belly of a star. Human Beings have 46 chromosomes, 2 less than the common potato. The existance of the rainbow depends on the conical photoreceptors in your eyes; to animals with out cones, rainbows do not exist. So, you don’t just look at it, you create it, even though of all the beautiful colors you see, they only represent less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum.
We must all work on our prejudices, we obviously do not see as much as we think we do!

So what would a God for grownups be? Well, according to Ellen Davenport, Unity Minister and author of “The Five Principles” it might look like this:

First, one that meets us where we are and welcomes our questioning, growing, changing and doubting. The idea that God is made in humans’ image is usually leveled as a criticism of religion, but what else could God be? Our human minds cannot conceive of All That Is, cannot encompass a universe of spiritual laws and dimensions that we only guess about. Our world religions are but feeble attempts to describe our varied experience of the unknown. God is understood as best we can, and we need a growing, malleable image of God that expands with each spiritual insight we glean.

Second, God for grownups has to be more than Santa Claus. The All Being surely is not making a list of who’s naughty or nice and arranging eternal reward or punishment for each. This God is the creative force behind sweeping galaxies and infinitesimal life forms, of bewildering fractal patterns and perfect seasonal cycles, of mind-blowing beauty and pure potential, the oak tree in the acorn, the child in a microscopic twist of DNA. God for grownups is far outside the human pattern of thinking. Any limits to God are our own.

Third, most people want to believe that God is involved in their lives. Humans have always intuited a Presence they could not see, a silent source of guidance, wisdom and support—even love—and have sought throughout history to connect with this power.

Descriptions of the divine force in the world have blossomed into a fascinating array of expressions through the world’s religions, and they have changed over time. The Bible itself is the story of humans’ developing concepts of God described in a range of ways, from a harsh judge to a mother comforting her child. Jesus introduced a personal, paternal God that he called Abba, the Aramaic word for “papa” or “daddy.”

The Bible also reflects the expanding consciousness of human beings, which continues today. Our task is to nurture the evolution of our own species, which will naturally include a deeper understanding of how the universe operates and our role in it. Quantum science now accompanies us on the journey.

Yet we struggle with words adequate to reflect our experience of the divine, and we haven’t even begun to realign religious language with the discoveries of science. We will never understand the totality of the divine, but it permeates our lives nonetheless.

We have lived so long with our childhood idea of God as an old man in the sky, keeping books on our behavior or at the very least watching from a distance, that we may struggle to bend our minds around the idea of our oneness with Being.

Where are you on that struggle?

We are made in God’s image.

Remember that every single moment of your life, you have the choice to either be a host to God or a hostage to your ego.