Good Morning Beloved!

 

A married couple was sleeping one night when the phone rang. The husband answered and after a couple moments he snaps, “How should I know – it’s a thousand miles away!” and slams the phone down which wakes up his wife.

The wife asks, “Who was that?”

The husband says, “Ah, just some idiot asking about the weather.”

The wife asks, “Huh?” and the husband says, “Yeah, he wanted

to know if the coast was clear.”

 

 

Keys to the Kingdom – Key #2 – Hold the Vision

 

Last Sunday I introduced a prosperity series “The Keys to the Kingdom – an advanced course in prosperity consciousness building.” And I talked about the first Key, “Make the Commitment.”

We noticed that making a commitment is sometimes not an easy thing to do, but as we grow on our journey to wholeness and authenticity, we find that committing to do what is important to us is easier. It fits into our integrity, which is an important aspect of my life, and I hope yours.

And we all see that commitment here every Sunday as our various volunteers set up and prepare for Service, work through the Service and clean up after the fun is done.

I love our volunteers. It makes Sundays so much easier and inspiring for everyone, most especially me. So thank you again and again and again.

 

So did you question your commitment? That was your ‘assignment’ from last week.

This week we get to look at the second Key, “Hold the Vision.”

What exactly is vision? Merriam-Webster defines it, in part as ‘a thought, concept, or object formed by the imagination, a manifestation to the senses of something immaterial’.

We all talk about manifesting our dreams. This is about that process.

This week is about creating and holding a Vision for our higher possibility. David reminds us of this simple Truth: None of us will ever rise higher than the vision we hold for our lives … None of us will ever lead a greater life than we can conceive of!

Think about that for a minute.

What does that statement bring to mind for you?

There is a Divine “urge” behind all of creation “urging” everything into greater and greater expression. My early mentor would say, “God is in the yearning.” And we have mentioned that every cell has what is called a “God Code,” even science agrees!

This Divine “urge” is SPIRIT urging everything to evolve into greater complexity and greater levels of expression. Within every one of us there is a deep-seeded urge to move forward, be more, expand, and to grow.

When you follow that Divine Urge into greater expression and do something you’ve never done before, there is a sense of “aliveness” that comes with it. Sometimes we translate it as an urge to “have more,” but what we really want is the “experience” those things will give us. It’s actually an “urge” to BE more; to BE something greater than you’ve ever been before.

We are reminded through this process that we have free will. We mentioned that last week. We have all these wonderful thoughts and ideas during Sunday Service and maybe after Service for a bit, but are we choosing to put them into practice during our daily lives? THAT is free will. THAT is choice. And THAT is the effect to our cause.

Our response to the Urging that comes from our Divine Self is where we CHOOSE to COMMITT.

Or not.

Rumi, the Sufi poet said, “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”

 

So, if we have made the commitment to continue on this journey, what does your vision look like?   Where do we even start?

An interesting thing happened to me as I was sttempting to sell my house back in Camp Hill. The real estate market was not very good at the time, but I felt I needed to committ more to what I was doing for Unity in Frederick.

My thought was to move closer to Fredreick, MD. where I was doing my Leadership work to become licensed. That was an hour and a half drive one way for me. You see why a move was necessary.

And most of you know that story. If you don’t, ask me. My point in bringing it up is, I made a vision board…not as most people do, cutting out pictures and words to paste on a poster.

I made mine on my computer, and it’s still there. I forgot about it and life went on , I finally moved here. One day I was reminded of it so I went to find it and there was the house I had envisioned very similar to the one I am living in, I had dreamed of a place with the beach out one door and trees out the other. Well, I have water out the front door and trees all around the back.

Of course, I forgot about LEAVES in the fall….

 

David Owen Ritz says: “God has provided the means and the motivation for our growth and evolution, but the details are up to us.” In other words, the Divine Universe is the “big picture” entity… the details are up to us!

And THAT is your vision. Your Vision is the “roadmap” that you’re giving Spirit saying: “This is what I want my life to look like!”

 

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Matthew 7:7) Jesus uses the spiritual meaning of the word (or, more accurately, its Aramaic equivalent) as a part of a creative process by which we are to bring the Good that is God into manifestation in our lives. In this sense, “asking” is more about choosing what you desire. It’s an expression of the power of imagination. We cannot fulfill our role in the creative process unless we are willing to imagine the Good that might express. Then we seek. We brush away distractions, dissolve apparent obstacles so that we can truly feel and know our Oneness with God. Then we knock. We consciously become a free and open channel through which the infinite potential of God can express according to what we have imagined. We don’t ask and wait for an answer. We choose, we imagine, and then we become the answer.

SO, with that in mind, our vision of what we want is the start of the creative process. It is the first step.

How do we vision? Have you ever daydreamed? Of course you have! Sometimes we do it too much maybe at the wrong time…and nothing in our physical world gets accomplished!

Sometimes we get real serious about creating something in our lives and we create a vision board, or Treasure Map, as I mentioned earlier.

Sometimes we make lists, what we wish for, what we do not wish for…

And sometimes we have a visioning. We get together with our chosen group, those people who have an interest, an investment in what we wish to manifest and we talk, we meditate, we pray. And through all this we come up with those things that are important to us as a community.

We are going to do this as a community. And we are going to do it over a weekend, that is how important it is. Here’s the plan, our good friend Rev. Stephanie Seigh will be joining us again the first weekend in March. This time, the meetings are open to everyone. In fact, everyone is encouraged to participate.

She will help us to clear our minds of any fears and limitations and then open them to our imaginations. And through all that, we will discover what our vision for Unity of Rehoboth Beach is, and that, my friends, is what will guide us into the next years.

Yes, I did mention fears. We do that. We limit the Divine by our own limitations. How are you limiting yourself by your fears? What’s that Marianne Williamson quote?

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You’re playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

It takes courage to live your vision. Don’t let fear stand in your way.

Who are we, Unity of Rehoboth Beach, but a powerful, compassionate, peace-loving group of people praying for love to find its way into the hearts of ALL people. We are here to do that. We are here to reach out to the folks in this area and show them by our love and light, just what Jesus really WAS teaching….Love is the way.

In the end, most people don’t regret the things they do. They regret what they failed to do. …

We strengthen and develop our courage by using it. Don’t let it go to waste. Trust in who you are and be all you were created to be by living a courageous life. Choose to live courageously.

So, my Beloved, let’s start visioning. Let’s start using that Power of Imagination and let’s get ready to vision with Rev. Stephanie.

Namaste.