Principle #5

 

We’ve come to the end of our series on the fundamental Unity principles.  We covered the first 4, let’s review…

Principle One: There is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and

as my life, God the Good. God is all power, all knowledge and everywhere present.  God is not out there somewhere, but in us and around us. (Take that in and truly feel it)

 

Principle Two: Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. This God

essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus. We are not born into sin, but

into blessing. Jesus came not to be an exception, but to be an example to us all. (Take that in and truly feel it)

 

Principle Three: We are co-creators with God, creating reality through thoughts

held in mind. We recognized this as the Law of Mind Action – Our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs have the power to create our reality. In other words, how we see our experience, and what we make our experiences mean, create our reality. (Take that in and truly feel it)

 

Last week we looked at, and experienced, the Fourth Principle: Through prayer and

meditation, we align our heart-mind with God.

When we take the time to get quiet, to go within and connect with our true

essence, that of Spirit, we align our hearts and minds with the One Mind and One

Heart, God. Denials and affirmations are tools we use. (Take that in and truly feel it)

 

Throughout this series, we’ve looked every week at how to live the Truth we know

through our thoughts, words and actions.

 

We saw that to live the first principle is to become grateful for whatever appears in

our lives, to trust that it truly is all good; to know as we learned in Romans 8:28 that

everything is working together for good for those that love God, and work according

to God’s purpose.

 

To live the second principle is to recognize our own innate goodness, and the

goodness of others, and to act accordingly. This means to not only see the best in

each other, but to expect the best from one another…. to truly behold the Christ in

everyone we meet. We saw that practicing the second principle is to become more

loving, more forgiving, more compassionate, more interested in the awe and

goodness around us than in whatever else is showing up.

 

Using the first and second principles as a foundation for practicing the third principle,

we saw that living it requires us to examine our most closely held thoughts, beliefs

and opinions, and to become willing to let go of those that don’t fully support us in

showing up as our true wonderfulness. The third principle teaches us that we live

from the inside… out.  We are creating our world through those thoughts and beliefs.

 

Last week, we practiced the fourth principle in the service, using Unity’s five step

prayer process: Relax, Concentrate, Meditate, Realize and Give Thanks. As with all

the principles, it’s important that we live this practice daily. Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, co-founders of the Unity movement, knew this to be true and spent hours every day in prayer and meditation. Still at Unity Village, the staffs schedule regular prayer times throughout the day. And of course Silent Unity is our 24 hour a day prayer ministry.

Prayer is at the heart of our Unity message and movement.

 

SO we come to Principle 5 – Knowledge of these spiritual principles is not enough. We must live them.  Or, it is not enough to know the Truth; we must put that Truth into action in our lives. Or as we like to say, Put feet to your prayers.

You have probably seen this quote on Facebook, though I do not know who wrote it, but I love it just the same; “Spirituality must be lived, not just studied.  All the books in the world will not help us if we do not live what we have learned.”

The Truth you know is the Truth you use. Otherwise, it is only theory and has no power to change your life. We must live the Truth we know. This principle frees us from inertia and stuck-ness. It frees us from pain, caused by the split we feel, between what we believe, and how we can behave. It frees us to act on our beliefs and live the rich fulfilled life that God has intended for us from the very beginning.

 

We talk a lot about truth in Unity, as evidenced by the Fifth Principle. We talk about

“truth principles” and refer to ourselves as “truth students.” We talk about capital “T”

truth and little “t” truth. We consider Lessons in Truth to be one of our foundational

texts, and become more than a little offended when someone, anyone, questions

“our truth.”

I mean, don’t we love our truth and don’t we always tell the truth?

 

Well, no, not really. We tell our perceptions of the truth, or we share our opinions

about what happened, but very frequently, this isn’t actually the truth. It’s not that

we’re deliberately not telling the truth, it’s just that we see people and things through

our filters, our history and our perception of what’s happened. That old ‘domestication’ keep showing up.  To tell the truth, literally, is to tell what has happened, or not happened, in physical reality, regardless of how we feel about it.  And we are responsible for how we act no matter how we feel.

 

So what does it mean to truly live the fifth principle? It means that through our thoughts, words and actions, we are willing to live the Truth we say we know.

As a community, what are these truths that we say we know?  First, we say we know the five principles, and are committed to practicing those principles in our daily lives.

Motivational speaker and author, Jim Rohn has said; “Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn’t going to get the job done.”

People can only see what is in your heart through your actions.  That’s the Truth you know.  Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86, 400.  It carries over no balance from day to day.  Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.  What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course?

Each of us has such a bank.  Its name is time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.  Every night it writes off as lost whatever of this you have failed to invest to a good purpose.  It carries over no balance.  It allows no over-draft.  Each day it opens a new account for you.  Each night it burns the remains of the day.  If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.  There is no drawing against ‘tomorrow.’ You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, love and success.  The clock is running.  Action is needed Make the most of it.

One of the greatest challenges in creating a joyful, peaceful and abundant life is taking responsibility for what you do and how you do it. Again, living your Truth. As long as you can blame someone else, be angry with someone else, point the finger at someone else, you are not taking responsibility for your life.

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” Jane Goodall.  IN other words, how you spend your seconds.

To merely abstain from wrong thinking is not enough, there must be active right thinking.  Thoughts create action, action creates habits, habits create character and character creates destiny. See how negative thoughts can change your life just as positive thoughts can?

Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?

 

 

James 2:14-18, tells us; What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?

 

 

The common question we ask is, “Where did I meet God today? And where did I miss God?”

The Five Principles – #4

Welcome back as we continue our series on the Five Principles, Unity’s five basic,

foundational teachings.

To recap, Principle One: There is only one Presence and one Power active as the

universe and as my life, God the Good. God is not out there somewhere, but in us

and around us, both transcendent and immanent.

God.  Divine Spirit. The Universe. It’s all good.  There is nothing but good.

 

Next, we explored Principle Two: Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently

good. This God essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus.

And WE can express that Christ by being open and receptive to who & what we truly are.  We are Divine Expressions of our Creator.  Each individually expressing as ourselves.  How we do that is our choice.  And THAT choice leads us to Principle 3: We are co-creators with God, creating reality through thoughts held in mind.  Thoughts held in mind with emotion, with feeling manifest in our world.  And if we are thinking thoughts with feeling, with energy and others are thinking similar thoughts with feeling, we often find major manifestations – like a cure for a disease or some idea coming to fruation.   That can work in reverse, and we can see negative manifestations like riots and war, or even family up-heveal.

We must watch our thoughts and our words, and the energy we place behind them.

 

This week, we move onto the Fourth Principle: Through prayer and meditation, we align our heart-mind with God. Denials and affirmations are tools we use.

Another way to say it is there is power in affirmative prayer, which we believe increases our awareness of God.

And –

Prayer and meditation are essential elements of the spiritual life because they keep us awake and aware of our Oneness with God and all creation.

 

Prayer is where Spirit meets language.

In her book, “The Five Principles,” Rev. Debenport says:

Of course the universe does not need our words; it responds to energetic vibration. Words resonate within us; we say them for our own sakes. They clarify our thoughts and intentions.  They are the voice by which we call forth what we want from the field of possibilities.  When we speak consciously, we release our words as if shooting an arrow at a target. We refrain from saying anything we don’t want to see in our lives.

That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Ask and it will be given.”  Asking is not begging or beseeching, a many of us were taught.  It is focusing our thoughts, aiming our intentions.  Prayer is the time we take to focus, to align ourselves in oneness with the divine and affirm that whatever we need is already ours.  This is affirmative prayer.

Like the other principles, affirmative prayer-declaring that our needs are already fulfilled-sounds presumptuous to any who were taught that humans should grovel before God.  We may fear that claiming we attracted whatever shows up in our lives drives God out of the process or fails to acknowledge our gifts and blessings.  But remember Principle One: It’s all God.  Jesus taught us to pray in utter confidence. “Your father knows what you need before you ask him,” he said, and “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

Whatever we need or want already exists for us.  It is already ours. We can’t get ahead of God.

In affirmative prayer, we are remembering who we truly are as expressions of the eternal life force on earth, and we are taking time to align our thoughts and feelings with our highest good.  We affirm our well-being, that our needs are filled and that there is no lack in the universe.  Because the universe senses our vibration, prayer is more than words we utter between “Dear God” and “Amen.” Every thought, every feeling, is a prayer.

And the response is always yes!

 

 

Through prayer and meditation, we align our heart-mind with God.

This teaching frees us from feelings of alienation, and isolation, from God and other people. Prayer and meditation free us from the mental, emotional and physical cravings and addictions that restrict our freedom. By teaching us to take charge of, and tame our unruly minds, they restore to us the freedom to choose, what and whom we will give our attention to. Silence, is our pipeline to the rich, peace-filled fields of God.

 

The personal characteristic of this principle is guidance!

–Søren Kierkegaard –

“This is how it is.

To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking,

Prayer involves becoming silent,

And being silent,

And waiting until God is heard.”

 

Prayer is connection

 

Biblical reference: Matthew 5:37 Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay and 6:6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

 

There are many ways to pray.  Some even say, every thought is a prayer, and essentially, that is probably true, which is why we say to watch your thoughts.  We do not encourage beseeching prayer, that is encouraging the thought of separation, a God outside of us.

We do encourage a prayer of listening, being open and receptive. And we teach it in five steps.

1. Relax
2. Concentrate
3. Meditation
4. Realize
5. Give Thanks

Ellen says: Prayer moves us into a state of allowing and nonresistance. We don’t receive an answer to prayer as much as we let the answer into our lives. It is like opening the shades to let the sunshine stream in. The sunlight was always there, but we were blocking it. God is not watching and deciding whether we deserve good outcomes.

Jesus said, “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” and the

kingdom is already among us. We need only open ourselves to it.

 

So instead of talking more about prayer and meditation, let’s practice…

 

Relax – Let’s get comfortable, take some cleansing breaths.  Really get comfortable.  If that means taking your shoes off, and you already haven’t, do so.  If it means lying down, or sitting on the floor, do so.

 

Concentrate on what it is you are intending to do, in this case, clear your mind. Allow Monkey Mind to just flow through.  Don’t give it energy.

Now go to that special place where you find comfort and peace, meditate in that peace, connect with your inner Christ. Pray, say what you wish to say to the God of your understanding.

Realize that you are connect with the Oneness that is —that you are, feel that connection.  Listen to what the God of your understanding wishes you to know.

Gratitude – thank that God of your understanding for the time, the love, the connection, the comfort, the joy in your life. For the response to your thought, whether you received it already or for when it comes in the future.

And we all say – AMEN.

 

My prayer time comes in many forms. It may be a simple “Thank You” or an elaborate ritual. It may be silent or audible. It may be one of the reminders that I have programed in my phone or the final thank you at the end of the day.  Regardless of how or where it happens, prayer centers me in the presence of God.

Through prayer, my perspective expands. I see beyond current situations or circumstances to the power of God at work in my life. Prayer changes my mind and heart. It lifts me into an experience of oneness with God, it transforms us.

We realize that as we transform our thinking, we also transform our personal concept of God. We realize that our God is not a God who is moody, vengeful, or angry, but a God who is the God of Jesus Christ: a God who is very much alive, a God who sees ALL GOOD, a God who is Love.

And so are you love.

Principle #3

We are continuing our series on the Five Principles, Unity’s five basic, foundational teachings.

We started with Principle One: There is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good. God is not out there somewhere, but in us and around us, both transcendent and immanent. In reality, there is not opposite to God and good. No devil and no evil.  That is a HUMAN concept that we label. I know that is hard to fathom, but in truth there is, only God, only good.

Principle Two, last week: Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. This God essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus.

Can you say you are the Christ? Most of us have trouble saying that with meaning. But we must believe it. And recognize that there are many times when we are living it. We just let those moments fly by instead of letting them sink in to our consciousness. We need to breathe them in, that is breathing in the spirit of the Divine.

Maybe the better question is how can I show up as the Christ?

And look around you, we are all ONE. We’re you looking with judgment or with love? There is an opportunity to see us all, everyone as the Christ, and we can do that every day.

 

This week, we look at Principle Three:  We are co-creators with God, creating reality through our thoughts.

 

You may have heard it spoken as The Law of Mind Action or Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind. This is not simply The Secret or Law of Attraction, but much more. You are co-creating!

 

We create our life experiences through our way of thinking.  Want different results in life?  Change your thoughts.

Our thoughts and words have power.  In Genesis “In the Beginning God said;” In the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”

Or as we see in Romans 12:2; “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Mind, not circumstances.

My Metaphysics teacher would always remind us to “watch your words.”

Does that seem scary – knowing that you create your life?  It is.  But becoming conscious and aware of what we think, feel and how we react or not, to the world makes it a bit easier to handle….faith helps too.  This is all part of discerning our integrity.

 

Whatever we consistently focus our thoughts and feelings upon, manifests in our lives, in some way. This principle frees us from feelings of being a victim by life. It frees us from feelings of blame and powerlessness that keep us from prospering. It frees us to accept responsibility for our lives, when we realize we have the power to change that which is holding us hostage. It frees us to co-create the life we dream of.  We are empowered!

Paul defines the essence of spiritual law: “God is not mocked; for you reap whatever you sow.” If we judge others, then negative judgment is what we sow, and negative judgment against ourselves is what we reap. We may try to cloak our fearful and angry judgments as the Will of God, but God will not be mocked. The judgments are coming from our human anger and human fears, and we will reap the consequences.

 

This passage from Paul is not about passing judgment on other people, but rather becoming conscious of the seeds we are sowing. There is always a choice, and it is always the same choice, no matter what situation or challenge we may face. Do we “sow to the flesh” by accepting as true the fear-based input of our mortal brains, or do we “sow to the Spirit” by choosing to embrace our Oneness with God and the divine guidance that is provided? We do not eliminate problems by denying their existence, but rather by evoking the ability that enables us to solve them, and find the blessing of God that is always part of the solution. We will have all the Power we need to live our own lives as expressions of divine Love. And none of us is given the perspective of God to pass judgment on what is happening in others’ lives.

Rev. Ellen Debenport, in her book The Five Principles, says this about Principle Three:

“Our thoughts, feelings and beliefs have the power to create our reality. And while

I think of it as co-creating with God, the law also works for those with no concept

of God. Like any universal law, it is in effect for everyone, the same way, all the time.

This idea of our innate creative power has become more widespread recently,

although it is ancient wisdom. The Buddha said 2500 years ago, “All that we are is

the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain

follows him… If man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like

a shadow that never leaves him.”

 

Unity is a faith that puts a great deal of emphasis on self-responsibility. We believe that we choose how we will react to what life brings our way.  Nobody and no situation can make us feel or think a certain way, regardless of the circumstances.  We create our experiences by our reactions and thoughts and feelings. Life just is.  We choose to make it good or bad by what we do with it. Choosing to see the positive is a better way to live.  We begin attracting other people who work hard to see the positive, too. We start surrounding ourselves with more positive people because they want to be around us, too. That, in turn, starts creating relationships and situations that tend to turn out more positively, too.

This is what walking in to Unity is about.  The energy is so positive, filled with love that when you walk into a Unity Center, you feel as if you have come home.

This is also about leaving worries and anger and fear outside those doors.  We know and understand that life still keeps happening.  Marriages and divorces occur. Friends move away and new friends move into our lives.  Family members make their transitions, but family members also have new babies and bring new life our way.  And at every turn, the law of mind action still prevails:  thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.  Want different results in life?  Choose better thoughts. The third principle implies that a positive attitude will lead to positive things in your life.  At every point in your life, we are presented with one simple, straightforward option:  Choose again.  Choose conscious language.

 

The third principle isn’t magical or wishful thinking, or a secret. It’s also not a means by which we judge what we have “attracted” into our lives.

It’s a universal law that describes how energy works, and interestingly, how our brain

works.

If we think of ourselves as a tuning fork, whatever tune we’re humming is what the Universe picks up on and reflects back to us. If we’re humming a happy tune, a happy tune is what is reflected. If we’re worried or angry or cranky, that’s the tune the Universe is going to hum along to. Or as Ellen points out, “If you’re vibrating with joy, you’ll experience more joy. If you are vibrating with misery, you’ll experience more misery. Your vibration is reinforced, no matter what.”

So we may think, “Well I was having a happy day and then this happened! I can’t

control what shows up in my day. I am not the cause of my own misery!”

Sorry… but we are. Because it’s not what’s showing up in our day that’s causing our joy or misery, it’s how we see it that’s causing that experience. Again, this isn’t New

Thought, it’s ancient thought. Epictetus, (Ep·ic·te·tus). a Greek philosopher from the first century, taught, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.”

In other words, while we may think that what happens on the outside is causing our inner experience, the opposite is true. We live from the inside out.

Wayne Dyer notes; “That which offends you only weakens you. Being offended creates the same destructive energy that offended you in the first place; so transend your ego and stay in peace.”

 

It turns out that our brains are conclusion forming, evidence gathering, meaning making machines. And while you’d think that the evidence came first, and then the conclusion, the opposite is true. In other words, our brains create conclusions and then we spend the rest of our days gathering evidence to support those conclusions.

 

Once we’ve formed a conclusion (or a belief, or an opinion), our brain is predisposed to only gather evidence that supports that specific conclusion. It’s not that we don’t want to see another way, it’s that our brain is now wired to only see a certain way. You might say, “then how can we change our thinking, how can we co-create if our brains are predisposed to only seeing things in a certain way?”  Can you think of any?

While it is true that we have very little control over the evidence we gather once a conclusion is formed, we do have control over creating a new conclusion. In order to do that, we need to wake up to the fact that we are actually creating a new way of seeing and being, and this is where the third principle comes in… this is where we start co-creating with God, this is where we make new pathways in the brain.

Here’s how it works: We create a conclusion. We then gather evidence to support

that conclusion. We show up based on that evidence (we might say we are a

reflection of the evidence we gather). Then other folks show up around us based

on how we’re behaving, and that reinforces our conclusion. To paraphrase Jesus,

“How we show up is what shows up around us.” Or in other words, we say we need

to see it right before we can make it right.

We usually do it the other way around don’t we? We try to change our behavior (or

the behavior of others – good luck with that!), and then wonder why that doesn’t

work. It doesn’t work because we’re still operating under the same conclusions, the

same beliefs and opinions, maybe even the same stereotypes, the domestications from our youth, that we always have.

We’re trying to show up differently on the outside, without looking at what’s going

on, on the inside. We’re working against our brain instead of with it.

For example, if we have the belief that our boss, or our job, (or minister) is against us – how are we going to show up?

Another way for us to work with the third principle is to see everything that happens

to us as an opportunity to wake up, or at the very least to see where we’ve gone to

sleep!

 

When we explored the first principle, we looked at this spiritual journey as an exercise in waking up. So when stuff happens in our lives, we can spend our time figuring out how we “attracted” it (pretty much insuring that we will continue to attract it, given that we’re focusing energy on it), or we can see where we might need to wake up.

Did we attract that car crash, or were we asleep to the red light we ran through? Did

we attract a broken ankle, or were we not paying attention to where the curb was

when we stepped off of it? Did we attract an abusive spouse, or did we ignore all the

warning signs along the way?

In each of these cases, we have the opportunity not to condemn ourselves or others

for being asleep, but to gently and with great compassion for the human condition,

observe where we have opportunities to wake up.

I believe this is what Jesus was pointing to when he prefaced many of his teachings

with, “Let those with eyes to see, see; and ears to hear, hear.” He was observing that

if we are open to seeing and hearing, we’ll see and hear. But if we have beliefs that

are contradictory to what is being presented, we won’t be able to see it.

In fact, many of Jesus’ teachings reflect his understanding of the third principle. “The

measure you give is the measure you will get back.” We usually interpret this literally,

but what if we look at it energetically?

 

 

How can we live the third principle? We need to become aware of what we’re

currently creating. Remember what we looked at a couple of weeks ago – if you want

to know what you believe, look at your life. What is showing up is what we really

believe in, regardless of what we say we believe in.

What can we see differently? And just as importantly, who can we see differently?

If we’ve been holding resentment or un-forgiveness, can we see that person or

situation differently? If we’ve been experiencing lack in any area of our lives, can we

see that as an opportunity to give in that area?

Joseph Campbell asks. do we see the obstacles on our path as problems or opportunities?  Ask yourself if you are living a Christ conscious life?

Principle 2

Last week we explored the First Principle of our fundamental operating Truths: There is only one Presence and one Power active as the Universe and as my life, God the Good.

We saw that God is not outside of us, but is both transcendent (all there is and everywhere) and immanent (personal and within). We saw that God is a force of energy. And how that energy expresses, or doesn’t, is up to us.

I hope you all found many ways to express God through you throughout your week.

 

And that brings us today to the Second Principle:

Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good.  This God essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus.

Or we could say….

We are spiritual beings, created in God’s image. The spirit of God lives within each person; therefore, all people are inherently good.

Or, another way….

Humankind was created from absolute good and our inherent nature is also good. We call our inherent goodness the Christ.

Or simply: as John 14:20 puts it: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

Anyway we look at it, we are inherently good, made in the image and likeness of God.

 

In his book, “Original Blessing”, Matthew Fox gives us cause to deny the traditional doctrine of original sin.

He says we do not enter existence as sinful creatures, instead, “We burst into the world as ‘Original Blessings.’” The only sin Fox recognizes is the sin of dualism; i.e., of seeing people and things as being separate from one another.

The only sin, therefore, is the refusal to see all as one.

I find comfort in Original Blessing…don’t you?

Fox continues: “The forces of fear and pessimism so prevalent in society and religion need to be countered by an increased awareness of awe and goodness,” and he teaches that when Original Blessing replaces Original Sin, relationships of awe, of passion and compassion, of love for justice and for the earth, are resurrected.

Nature gives us so many opportunities of awe.  And our families and friends give us opportunities of passion and compassion.

In her book, The Five Principles, Rev. Ellen Debenport writes: “Most people still want to believe in a God that knows and cares about the details of their lives, that can make a difference in what happens or at least in how they feel about what happens. Even with a concept of God as the Ground of Being, as impervious to our dramas as the air we breathe, that personal relationship with the divine has not been lost. With Principle Two, it merely has been relocated – inside us, as us.”

 

Ellen continues: “People who insist that humans are divine are often accused of thinking they are God, and the secret is: We are! Just as every tree is God in expression, just as every sunset or newborn child or act of mercy allows us to witness the divine, we, too, are expressions of God on Earth. We are the divine expressing in human form. At first it may sound grandiose to claim it, but properly understood, the awareness of our own divinity is where we derive our comfort, guidance and strength for the human experience. We can never be separate from God, and we have only begun to tap the power of the human spirit.”

This is what Jesus came to teach us, isn’t it?  He taught on several occasions that we would do even greater things than he did. He taught his disciples when they tried to deify him, “It is not I but the Spirit within who does the work.”

Jesus allowed himself to be a clear vehicle for the expression of God and as such was able to love, forgive, heal and teach from the Christ within him. Just as a drop of water from the ocean, or a wave of the ocean, is not the whole ocean but contains all the attributes of the ocean, so are we expressions of God, not being all of God, but having within us all the qualities of God, if we are only willing to demonstrate them.

This means being willing to live from our Christ self, to be more interested in doing the right thing than in being right, to be willing to show up as who we really are, not who we’re afraid we are. We learned a few weeks ago how the Four Agreements would help us be who we are meant be to, would help us to dis-guard some of the domestication we have learned, to release our negative history.  By Being Impeccable With Our Word, Not taking Anything Personally, Not Making Assumptions, and Always Doing Our Best; we move closer to our Christ selves.

We need to become increasingly more aware, as we heard Fox observe earlier, of awe and goodness.

This is what Jesus was trying to teach us and what he demonstrated with his life. When he healed, it was because he only saw wholeness. When he forgave, it was because he didn’t recognize anyone as sinful. Jesus became an absolutely clear conduit for Spirit, for the Christ consciousness, to fully demonstrate as him. And he did his best to try to teach us that we could do the same!

Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth, observed: “Jesus speaks of the innermost I Am, the essence identity of every man and woman, every life-form, in fact. He speaks of the life that you are. Some Christian mystics have called it the Christ within; Buddhists call it your Buddha nature; for Hindus, it is Atman, the indwelling God. When you are in touch with that dimension within yourself – and being in touch with it is your natural state, not some miraculous achievement – all your actions and relationships will reflect the oneness with all life that you sense deep within. This is love. … “

Jesus came to teach us that we are one with God, that the Kingdom is within us and all around us. Now, do we always act that way? Probably not. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, with human brains that have been a little slow to catch up with our soul’s unfoldment. Brains that second guess our inner wisdom, that try to be the boss.  But as humans, we have the capacity to change. We have the capacity to observe our own evolution. We have the capacity to choose awe and compassion and goodness.

So how do we live the Second Principle?  Be curious… to explore, to discover how and why your life is unfolding as it is.  Be in the question!

Become willing to stop clinging to what we think we know, about ourselves and others. We see that everyone is of God and is inherently good, regardless of how we or they are behaving.

Please hear that this doesn’t mean that any and all behavior is OK, because clearly it isn’t. What it does mean is that we’re willing to see beyond what is currently demonstrating in physical reality, as Jesus did, to see the truth of ourselves… that our essence is of God and that we are inherently good.

As we make our attempts to live as Jesus has shown us, my guess is that this will cause us to become more loving, more forgiving, more compassionate, more interested, as Fox observed, in the awe and goodness around us than in whatever else is showing up.

It means that we become willing to see that everything is working together for good when we are willing to trust and let go of our old ways of thinking and being. We become willing to question the beliefs and assumptions we’ve based our actions and reactions on, and see through innocent eyes once again. The Buddhist’s call this having Beginner’s Mind… where we are willing to become teachable again, to see with new, fresh, innocent eyes, not limited by all our preconceived notions and prejudices.

We realize that all people are created with sacred worth and that no one exists outside the heart of God.

This principle frees us from low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence. It frees us from earlier teachings that told us we were inherently sinful. It frees us to express the Truth of who we are which, like our Creator, is goodness and love. It frees us to trust ourselves. In awareness of our Christ nature we realize that, “No One, and Nothing, is Against Me!”  Our self-esteem grows.

 

Ellen completes her exploration of the Second Principle with these observations: “The Easter metaphor of crucifixion, tomb and resurrection reflect our lives as they play out over and over. The worst of our experiences can become the greatest blessings of our lives. The darkest human behavior can move us to compassion and to the expression of our higher selves. Remember the global outpouring of love and our sense of oneness on September 11, 2001? With our response to a terrorist attack, we glimpsed who we truly are and what the kingdom of heaven can be. Love outweighs violence, our human oneness trumps our differences. As we continue to call on the best of ourselves – whether we call it the prefrontal cortex of the brain or the divine within – we consciously evolve for the better.”

These sentiments still hold true as our country and world continues to hold the light of love against terrorists.  You are the light of the world… you are the hands and feet, the ears and mouths, the heart and soul of God. You are the face of God….

We again ask ourselves “What is mine to do?” with regards to this and the negativity in our own nation.  It is not more negativity…it is love. It must be love. Love is the healing balm for us all. And it ALWAYS starts with each and every one of us.

If there is negativity in your house or mine, in your heart or mine, we must release it.  Resolve it.  Remove it.

So ask yourself if there is and where is it coming from and how is it resolved?  And then put feet to your prayers and resolve it in whatever way is needed.

We must remember something stated by Russell Brand, and many others in different ways, “Beneath and beyond our identity as human beings there is a divine self that is connected to all living things that is part of an infinite source of creativity.”

 

This is the One who will never leave us, the One who is not different from the essence of who we truly are.

Principle 2

Last week we explored the First Principle of our fundamental operating Truths: There is only one Presence and one Power active as the Universe and as my life, God the Good.

We saw that God is not outside of us, but is both transcendent (all there is and everywhere) and immanent (personal and within). We saw that God is a force of energy. And how that energy expresses, or doesn’t, is up to us.

I hope you all found many ways to express God through you throughout your week.

 

And that brings us today to the Second Principle:

Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good.  This God essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus.

Or we could say….

We are spiritual beings, created in God’s image. The spirit of God lives within each person; therefore, all people are inherently good.

Or, another way….

Humankind was created from absolute good and our inherent nature is also good. We call our inherent goodness the Christ.

Or simply: as John 14:20 puts it: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

Anyway we look at it, we are inherently good, made in the image and likeness of God.

 

In his book, “Original Blessing”, Matthew Fox gives us cause to deny the traditional doctrine of original sin.

He says we do not enter existence as sinful creatures, instead, “We burst into the world as ‘Original Blessings.’” The only sin Fox recognizes is the sin of dualism; i.e., of seeing people and things as being separate from one another.

The only sin, therefore, is the refusal to see all as one.

I find comfort in Original Blessing…don’t you?

Fox continues: “The forces of fear and pessimism so prevalent in society and religion need to be countered by an increased awareness of awe and goodness,” and he teaches that when Original Blessing replaces Original Sin, relationships of awe, of passion and compassion, of love for justice and for the earth, are resurrected.

Nature gives us so many opportunities of awe.  And our families and friends give us opportunities of passion and compassion.

In her book, The Five Principles, Rev. Ellen Debenport writes: “Most people still want to believe in a God that knows and cares about the details of their lives, that can make a difference in what happens or at least in how they feel about what happens. Even with a concept of God as the Ground of Being, as impervious to our dramas as the air we breathe, that personal relationship with the divine has not been lost. With Principle Two, it merely has been relocated – inside us, as us.”

 

Ellen continues: “People who insist that humans are divine are often accused of thinking they are God, and the secret is: We are! Just as every tree is God in expression, just as every sunset or newborn child or act of mercy allows us to witness the divine, we, too, are expressions of God on Earth. We are the divine expressing in human form. At first it may sound grandiose to claim it, but properly understood, the awareness of our own divinity is where we derive our comfort, guidance and strength for the human experience. We can never be separate from God, and we have only begun to tap the power of the human spirit.”

This is what Jesus came to teach us, isn’t it?  He taught on several occasions that we would do even greater things than he did. He taught his disciples when they tried to deify him, “It is not I but the Spirit within who does the work.”

Jesus allowed himself to be a clear vehicle for the expression of God and as such was able to love, forgive, heal and teach from the Christ within him. Just as a drop of water from the ocean, or a wave of the ocean, is not the whole ocean but contains all the attributes of the ocean, so are we expressions of God, not being all of God, but having within us all the qualities of God, if we are only willing to demonstrate them.

This means being willing to live from our Christ self, to be more interested in doing the right thing than in being right, to be willing to show up as who we really are, not who we’re afraid we are. We learned a few weeks ago how the Four Agreements would help us be who we are meant be to, would help us to dis-guard some of the domestication we have learned, to release our negative history.  By Being Impeccable With Our Word, Not taking Anything Personally, Not Making Assumptions, and Always Doing Our Best; we move closer to our Christ selves.

We need to become increasingly more aware, as we heard Fox observe earlier, of awe and goodness.

This is what Jesus was trying to teach us and what he demonstrated with his life. When he healed, it was because he only saw wholeness. When he forgave, it was because he didn’t recognize anyone as sinful. Jesus became an absolutely clear conduit for Spirit, for the Christ consciousness, to fully demonstrate as him. And he did his best to try to teach us that we could do the same!

Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth, observed: “Jesus speaks of the innermost I Am, the essence identity of every man and woman, every life-form, in fact. He speaks of the life that you are. Some Christian mystics have called it the Christ within; Buddhists call it your Buddha nature; for Hindus, it is Atman, the indwelling God. When you are in touch with that dimension within yourself – and being in touch with it is your natural state, not some miraculous achievement – all your actions and relationships will reflect the oneness with all life that you sense deep within. This is love. … “

Jesus came to teach us that we are one with God, that the Kingdom is within us and all around us. Now, do we always act that way? Probably not. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, with human brains that have been a little slow to catch up with our soul’s unfoldment. Brains that second guess our inner wisdom, that try to be the boss.  But as humans, we have the capacity to change. We have the capacity to observe our own evolution. We have the capacity to choose awe and compassion and goodness.

So how do we live the Second Principle?  Be curious… to explore, to discover how and why your life is unfolding as it is.  Be in the question!

Become willing to stop clinging to what we think we know, about ourselves and others. We see that everyone is of God and is inherently good, regardless of how we or they are behaving.

Please hear that this doesn’t mean that any and all behavior is OK, because clearly it isn’t. What it does mean is that we’re willing to see beyond what is currently demonstrating in physical reality, as Jesus did, to see the truth of ourselves… that our essence is of God and that we are inherently good.

As we make our attempts to live as Jesus has shown us, my guess is that this will cause us to become more loving, more forgiving, more compassionate, more interested, as Fox observed, in the awe and goodness around us than in whatever else is showing up.

It means that we become willing to see that everything is working together for good when we are willing to trust and let go of our old ways of thinking and being. We become willing to question the beliefs and assumptions we’ve based our actions and reactions on, and see through innocent eyes once again. The Buddhist’s call this having Beginner’s Mind… where we are willing to become teachable again, to see with new, fresh, innocent eyes, not limited by all our preconceived notions and prejudices.

We realize that all people are created with sacred worth and that no one exists outside the heart of God.

This principle frees us from low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence. It frees us from earlier teachings that told us we were inherently sinful. It frees us to express the Truth of who we are which, like our Creator, is goodness and love. It frees us to trust ourselves. In awareness of our Christ nature we realize that, “No One, and Nothing, is Against Me!”  Our self-esteem grows.

 

Ellen completes her exploration of the Second Principle with these observations: “The Easter metaphor of crucifixion, tomb and resurrection reflect our lives as they play out over and over. The worst of our experiences can become the greatest blessings of our lives. The darkest human behavior can move us to compassion and to the expression of our higher selves. Remember the global outpouring of love and our sense of oneness on September 11, 2001? With our response to a terrorist attack, we glimpsed who we truly are and what the kingdom of heaven can be. Love outweighs violence, our human oneness trumps our differences. As we continue to call on the best of ourselves – whether we call it the prefrontal cortex of the brain or the divine within – we consciously evolve for the better.”

These sentiments still hold true as our country and world continues to hold the light of love against terrorists.  You are the light of the world… you are the hands and feet, the ears and mouths, the heart and soul of God. You are the face of God….

We again ask ourselves “What is mine to do?” with regards to this and the negativity in our own nation.  It is not more negativity…it is love. It must be love. Love is the healing balm for us all. And it ALWAYS starts with each and every one of us.

If there is negativity in your house or mine, in your heart or mine, we must release it.  Resolve it.  Remove it.

So ask yourself if there is and where is it coming from and how is it resolved?  And then put feet to your prayers and resolve it in whatever way is needed.

We must remember something stated by Russell Brand, and many others in different ways, “Beneath and beyond our identity as human beings there is a divine self that is connected to all living things that is part of an infinite source of creativity.”

 

This is the One who will never leave us, the One who is not different from the essence of who we truly are.

Principle 2

Last week we explored the First Principle of our fundamental operating Truths: There is only one Presence and one Power active as the Universe and as my life, God the Good.

We saw that God is not outside of us, but is both transcendent (all there is and everywhere) and immanent (personal and within). We saw that God is a force of energy. And how that energy expresses, or doesn’t, is up to us.

I hope you all found many ways to express God through you throughout your week.

 

And that brings us today to the Second Principle:

Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good.  This God essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus.

Or we could say….

We are spiritual beings, created in God’s image. The spirit of God lives within each person; therefore, all people are inherently good.

Or, another way….

Humankind was created from absolute good and our inherent nature is also good. We call our inherent goodness the Christ.

Or simply: as John 14:20 puts it: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”

Anyway we look at it, we are inherently good, made in the image and likeness of God.

 

In his book, “Original Blessing”, Matthew Fox gives us cause to deny the traditional doctrine of original sin.

He says we do not enter existence as sinful creatures, instead, “We burst into the world as ‘Original Blessings.’” The only sin Fox recognizes is the sin of dualism; i.e., of seeing people and things as being separate from one another.

The only sin, therefore, is the refusal to see all as one.

I find comfort in Original Blessing…don’t you?

Fox continues: “The forces of fear and pessimism so prevalent in society and religion need to be countered by an increased awareness of awe and goodness,” and he teaches that when Original Blessing replaces Original Sin, relationships of awe, of passion and compassion, of love for justice and for the earth, are resurrected.

Nature gives us so many opportunities of awe.  And our families and friends give us opportunities of passion and compassion.

In her book, The Five Principles, Rev. Ellen Debenport writes: “Most people still want to believe in a God that knows and cares about the details of their lives, that can make a difference in what happens or at least in how they feel about what happens. Even with a concept of God as the Ground of Being, as impervious to our dramas as the air we breathe, that personal relationship with the divine has not been lost. With Principle Two, it merely has been relocated – inside us, as us.”

 

Ellen continues: “People who insist that humans are divine are often accused of thinking they are God, and the secret is: We are! Just as every tree is God in expression, just as every sunset or newborn child or act of mercy allows us to witness the divine, we, too, are expressions of God on Earth. We are the divine expressing in human form. At first it may sound grandiose to claim it, but properly understood, the awareness of our own divinity is where we derive our comfort, guidance and strength for the human experience. We can never be separate from God, and we have only begun to tap the power of the human spirit.”

This is what Jesus came to teach us, isn’t it?  He taught on several occasions that we would do even greater things than he did. He taught his disciples when they tried to deify him, “It is not I but the Spirit within who does the work.”

Jesus allowed himself to be a clear vehicle for the expression of God and as such was able to love, forgive, heal and teach from the Christ within him. Just as a drop of water from the ocean, or a wave of the ocean, is not the whole ocean but contains all the attributes of the ocean, so are we expressions of God, not being all of God, but having within us all the qualities of God, if we are only willing to demonstrate them.

This means being willing to live from our Christ self, to be more interested in doing the right thing than in being right, to be willing to show up as who we really are, not who we’re afraid we are. We learned a few weeks ago how the Four Agreements would help us be who we are meant be to, would help us to dis-guard some of the domestication we have learned, to release our negative history.  By Being Impeccable With Our Word, Not taking Anything Personally, Not Making Assumptions, and Always Doing Our Best; we move closer to our Christ selves.

We need to become increasingly more aware, as we heard Fox observe earlier, of awe and goodness.

This is what Jesus was trying to teach us and what he demonstrated with his life. When he healed, it was because he only saw wholeness. When he forgave, it was because he didn’t recognize anyone as sinful. Jesus became an absolutely clear conduit for Spirit, for the Christ consciousness, to fully demonstrate as him. And he did his best to try to teach us that we could do the same!

Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth, observed: “Jesus speaks of the innermost I Am, the essence identity of every man and woman, every life-form, in fact. He speaks of the life that you are. Some Christian mystics have called it the Christ within; Buddhists call it your Buddha nature; for Hindus, it is Atman, the indwelling God. When you are in touch with that dimension within yourself – and being in touch with it is your natural state, not some miraculous achievement – all your actions and relationships will reflect the oneness with all life that you sense deep within. This is love. … “

Jesus came to teach us that we are one with God, that the Kingdom is within us and all around us. Now, do we always act that way? Probably not. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, with human brains that have been a little slow to catch up with our soul’s unfoldment. Brains that second guess our inner wisdom, that try to be the boss.  But as humans, we have the capacity to change. We have the capacity to observe our own evolution. We have the capacity to choose awe and compassion and goodness.

So how do we live the Second Principle?  Be curious… to explore, to discover how and why your life is unfolding as it is.  Be in the question!

Become willing to stop clinging to what we think we know, about ourselves and others. We see that everyone is of God and is inherently good, regardless of how we or they are behaving.

Please hear that this doesn’t mean that any and all behavior is OK, because clearly it isn’t. What it does mean is that we’re willing to see beyond what is currently demonstrating in physical reality, as Jesus did, to see the truth of ourselves… that our essence is of God and that we are inherently good.

As we make our attempts to live as Jesus has shown us, my guess is that this will cause us to become more loving, more forgiving, more compassionate, more interested, as Fox observed, in the awe and goodness around us than in whatever else is showing up.

It means that we become willing to see that everything is working together for good when we are willing to trust and let go of our old ways of thinking and being. We become willing to question the beliefs and assumptions we’ve based our actions and reactions on, and see through innocent eyes once again. The Buddhist’s call this having Beginner’s Mind… where we are willing to become teachable again, to see with new, fresh, innocent eyes, not limited by all our preconceived notions and prejudices.

We realize that all people are created with sacred worth and that no one exists outside the heart of God.

This principle frees us from low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence. It frees us from earlier teachings that told us we were inherently sinful. It frees us to express the Truth of who we are which, like our Creator, is goodness and love. It frees us to trust ourselves. In awareness of our Christ nature we realize that, “No One, and Nothing, is Against Me!”  Our self-esteem grows.

 

Ellen completes her exploration of the Second Principle with these observations: “The Easter metaphor of crucifixion, tomb and resurrection reflect our lives as they play out over and over. The worst of our experiences can become the greatest blessings of our lives. The darkest human behavior can move us to compassion and to the expression of our higher selves. Remember the global outpouring of love and our sense of oneness on September 11, 2001? With our response to a terrorist attack, we glimpsed who we truly are and what the kingdom of heaven can be. Love outweighs violence, our human oneness trumps our differences. As we continue to call on the best of ourselves – whether we call it the prefrontal cortex of the brain or the divine within – we consciously evolve for the better.”

These sentiments still hold true as our country and world continues to hold the light of love against terrorists.  You are the light of the world… you are the hands and feet, the ears and mouths, the heart and soul of God. You are the face of God….

We again ask ourselves “What is mine to do?” with regards to this and the negativity in our own nation.  It is not more negativity…it is love. It must be love. Love is the healing balm for us all. And it ALWAYS starts with each and every one of us.

If there is negativity in your house or mine, in your heart or mine, we must release it.  Resolve it.  Remove it.

So ask yourself if there is and where is it coming from and how is it resolved?  And then put feet to your prayers and resolve it in whatever way is needed.

We must remember something stated by Russell Brand, and many others in different ways, “Beneath and beyond our identity as human beings there is a divine self that is connected to all living things that is part of an infinite source of creativity.”

 

This is the One who will never leave us, the One who is not different from the essence of who we truly are.

The 5 Unity Principles

 

How many of you have been active in other Unity Centers or Churches? Please stand if you are able.

Now how many of you remaining were aware of Unity at all, before coming to Unity of Rehoboth Beach?   Please stand if you are able.

SO we see that some of us know a lot about Unity, some a bit more than others and some of us not much of what Unity is about.

It’s one of the things that is exciting and difficult as a teacher…. trying to say things in a way that can reach all levels of knowing and understanding.

Today we are going to start a series of Lessons on the 5 Basic Principles that are the basis of what Unity believes.

These are not creeds or rules that one must follow.  WE do not require adhering to specific rules.

These Principles Are Spiritual Law.  They apply to everyone all the time, everywhere.  Like 2 + 2 = 4, always true. Like gravity.

Whether or not we believe in the law of gravity, gravity exists. It’s not like we can wake up in the morning and say, “Today, I’m going to ignore the law of gravity.” You might give it your best shot, but in the end, gravity will win.

Just as we’ve learned to work with gravity and math, we can also learn to work with spiritual principles… for as many of us have learned, they work when you work them!

We must become willing to practice them. “I am willing…” three of the most

powerful words in the Universe.  (let’s say them?)

Second, we observe the difference between a principle and a rule. According to Dr.

Maria Nemeth, “A principle is a guideline, an important underlying law or

assumption required in a system of thought. It shows us the basic way in which

something works. Spiritual principles are therefore basic underlying laws that show

us how to wake ourselves up to our true nature…”

As such principles cannot be broken… they simply are, whether we practice them or not. When we practice a spiritual principle, there is a sense of all is well, a sense of grace and of waking up.

A rule, on the other hand, is something we sense is being imposed from the outside, and hence can be broken.  An example would be speed limits; though I do not suggest that we break them.

Practicing these spiritual principles is the foundation for our works. They give meaning and purpose to our actions.

You were given a card with the 5 Principles for your reference and use.  I hope it is useful to you.  A gift from us. Let’s look at them:

The 5 Principles, then, are:

1. There is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good.
2. Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good.  This God essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus.
3. We are co-creators with God, creating reality through thoughts held in mind.
4. Through prayer and meditation, we align our heart-mind with God.  Denials and affirmations are tools we use.
5. Through thoughts, words and action, we live the Truth and we know.

These Principles have been written several different ways. You can see some on our website, Darla has posted some for us. There may be a version there that you may like better than what you see and hear today.  They each say our Truth in different ways so all can understand.

We will take the next weeks to explore each Principle.

So, the first; There is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good.  God is Absolute Good, everywhere present. This is Unity’s foundational belief, upon which all our other teachings rest and are built.

 

In her book, The Five Principles, Rev. Ellen Debenport observes: “Principle One affirms that God is all there is. God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent – but not all-powerful but all power, not all-knowing but all knowledge, and present everywhere. God is the stars, the rocks, the animals, the people. God is the love, the creativity, the wisdom that human beings express. All that we are and have is

God, and we can never be separate from that universal power.”

 

And that means everything is Divine.

Think about that for a minute.

Everything, everyone is Divine.

 

Many traditions have taught this truth of our divinity.

Taoism teaches that the Tao, the flow of the Universe, is everywhere present.

From the Bhagavad Gita we read: By me is this entire universe pervaded.

All things are in Me, and I in them. Know that as the mighty wind blowing everywhere rests in the sky. All created beings rest in Me. I am the Father, the Mother, the Supporter and the Grandsire of the Universe.

And of course that wise teacher and Jedi master, Obi Wan Kenobi, taught, “The

Force is… an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates

1. It binds the galaxy together. …The Force is with you. Always.”

 

Principle One maintains that we are one with God, or as St. Paul taught, that we live

and move and have our being in God.

So, we say God is the source and creator of all. There is no other enduring power. God is good and present everywhere.

Often the next question is, what about evil, bad things happening?

Rev. Ed Townley answers that question this way:

Historically, the argument has looked like this: If God cannot prevent bad things from happening, then God is not all powerful. And if God will not prevent evil, God is not all good.

The problem is known as theodicy, and theologians have traditionally offered three types of solutions to this dilemma:

1)    God is not all powerful. God is limited in some ways, and there are some things He/She/It cannot do in an orderly universe.

2)    Evil is good for you. Bad things are not truly evil but a disguised form of good. For example, suffering can be a challenge to faith, a hidden growth experience, a spiritual test.

3)    Evil and suffering are a mystery. These matters cannot be understood by limited human minds. Resolutions to the problem of theodicy will wait until we receive what Catholics call the beatific vision in the afterlife.

 

None of these explanations are very satisfactory, especially for a parent who has just lost a child or any innocent bystander who has suffered the collateral damage which goes with living in a physical universe.

We all have examples of situations and events that happen to us and we wonder why.  I’ve mentioned my family situation and the lessons learned from what many would a consider terrible situation.  Those lessons teach empathy that can be expressed to others who are going through similar situations.

The same goes for being gay and the compassion I can show to others as they struggle with acceptance of themselves.

And we all have been cut off in traffic at one time or another, yet if we ‘stay on our card’ and be present, we can allow that the person in the other car may need to be someplace fast, a hospital to welcome their first child, a hospice to say good bye to a parent for the last time, and yes, even what they think is an important meeting.

Just let them go and keep your cool.

Rabbi Harold Kushner’s best-selling book When Bad Things Happen to Good People makes the following comment, which is the key to the problem:

All the responses to tragedy which we have considered have at least one thing in common. (Have you figured out what it is?)  They all assume that God is the cause of our suffering and they try to understand why God would want us to suffer … We were left either hating ourselves for deserving such a fate or hating God for sending it to us when we did not deserve it. There may be another approach. Maybe God does not cause our suffering.

The confusion begins with a misunderstanding of God’s nature. Instead of pulling strings like a puppeteer, perhaps God is not separate from the cosmos. What if God’s power in fact animates the very atoms of the universe, yet even the smallest molecule has a measure of free will? Suppose God wants all sentient beings to be happy, healthy and wise and has provided a cosmos in which individualized expressions of Divine Intelligence—you and I—must discover and apply the physical and spiritual principles necessary to produce such happiness, health and wisdom.

If people center themselves on the Truth of God’s absolute goodness, even in the face of apparent “evil” and unspeakable suffering; if they rely upon God while walking the valley of the shadow—for that is what evil and suffering are in eternity, mere shadows—then no calamity can overwhelm their sense of okay-ness about life, for they know God has issued a guarantee that everything will work out for the good. This does not mean I should glibly dismiss suffering as an “error in consciousness,” or feel superior to people who are in pain or feel guilty when I face a health challenge or some personal tragedy. Our human response to happenings will play out in one form or another.

Our Free Will allows the freedom necessary for spiritual growth.  That is why we are here.

Keep in mind, too, that good and bad are mere labels we use to attempt to understand situations as they happen.

And, events themselves do not have to be good in order for good to come about. Events are just events.

 

This 1^st principle frees us from fear of a God that punishes. It frees us from the fear that there is a Satan who can and will overpower us, if we are not constantly vigilant. It frees us from the belief that any other person has authority over our spirit. This principle offers us the freedom to trust in a benevolent, loving Universe which has only our good in mind.

Trust is our personal characteristic of this Principle.  Trust in ourselves and the integrity we have and are developing.  Trust that inner voice that is the Divine.

 

So our next obvious question is what would it be like to actually live what Jesus taught… to live what we said we believed?

So what does it look like to live the First Principle? What would our thoughts, words and actions be if we lived this Truth; there is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good? Time for responses

Well, we’d probably complain a lot less! I mean, if it’s all good, what do we have to complain about, right? Being gifted with hot weather so we can appreciate snow

Someone cuts me off in traffic, consider that they may really have an emergency.

We’d probably find ourselves judging a lot less, and being grateful for a lot more.

We would see good in everything.  No reactions.  See only love.

This then would mean we would remember that we are all one, and if there is a problem with one of the One, it may be a problem with you.  Didn’t Jesus say something about the log in your own eye, and to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile?

One of our core values is Community.  Fellowship.  And it came out as the best thing we were doing correctly here at Unity of Rehoboth Beach from our little survey. So where could you and I improve in our Community?

Where in my life have I not gone the extra mile?

I look at my week and most of it is spent on Unity things, prayer, writing, doing social media and out-reach.  Calls and emails.  Letters and reports. Reminders to people who may have missed a Sunday service that they were missed and that we hope to see them again soon. Thank you;s to new people.

Sundays’ arriving here early, helping some to set-up and seeing that all the set-up is organized.  Sometimes finding helpers where needed.  Trying to keep the service on schedule.  After the service, I try to speak even a little to as many people as possible to let them know they are honored in my heart and loved here at unity.

And then we have clean-up, unfortunately. And we must leave our Unity family for a time again.

And then the week starts all over again.

The extra mile for me is giving more. Even more to those who are reaching out, who ask for guidance, who hurt and betray and still, I am here for them, for you, all of you.

Talking about this 1^st Principle has made me contemplate where I am with my faith and I know that I am doing what I am intended to do at this time. And I trust that I will always be guided to the right and perfect answer to each and every call, question, situation. I Trust in God.

Where has your extra mile taken you?

The 5 Unity Principles

How many of you have been active in other Unity Centers or Churches? Please stand if you are able.
Now how many of you remaining were aware of Unity at all, before coming to Unity of Rehoboth Beach? Please stand if you are able.
SO we see that some of us know a lot about Unity, some a bit more than others and some of us not much of what Unity is about.

It’s one of the things that is exciting and difficult as a teacher…. trying to say things in a way that can reach all levels of knowing and understanding.
Today we are going to start a series of Lessons on the 5 Basic Principles that are the basis of what Unity believes.
These are not creeds or rules that one must follow. WE do not require adhering to specific rules.
These Principles Are Spiritual Law. They apply to everyone all the time, everywhere. Like 2 + 2 = 4, always true. Like gravity.
Whether or not we believe in the law of gravity, gravity exists. It’s not like we can wake up in the morning and say, “Today, I’m going to ignore the law of gravity.” You might give it your best shot, but in the end, gravity will win.
Just as we’ve learned to work with gravity and math, we can also learn to work with spiritual principles… for as many of us have learned, they work when you work them!
We must become willing to practice them. “I am willing…” three of the most
powerful words in the Universe. (let’s say them?)
Second, we observe the difference between a principle and a rule. According to Dr.
Maria Nemeth, “A principle is a guideline, an important underlying law or
assumption required in a system of thought. It shows us the basic way in which
something works. Spiritual principles are therefore basic underlying laws that show
us how to wake ourselves up to our true nature…”
As such principles cannot be broken… they simply are, whether we practice them or not. When we practice a spiritual principle, there is a sense of all is well, a sense of grace and of waking up.
A rule, on the other hand, is something we sense is being imposed from the outside, and hence can be broken. An example would be speed limits; though I do not suggest that we break them.
Practicing these spiritual principles is the foundation for our works. They give meaning and purpose to our actions.
You were given a card with the 5 Principles for your reference and use. I hope it is useful to you. A gift from us. Let’s look at them:
The 5 Principles, then, are:
1. There is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good.
2. Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. This God essence, called the Christ, was fully expressed in Jesus.
3. We are co-creators with God, creating reality through thoughts held in mind.
4. Through prayer and meditation, we align our heart-mind with God. Denials and affirmations are tools we use.
5. Through thoughts, words and action, we live the Truth and we know.
These Principles have been written several different ways. You can see some on our website, Darla has posted some for us. There may be a version there that you may like better than what you see and hear today. They each say our Truth in different ways so all can understand.
We will take the next weeks to explore each Principle.
So, the first; There is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good. God is Absolute Good, everywhere present. This is Unity’s foundational belief, upon which all our other teachings rest and are built.

In her book, The Five Principles, Rev. Ellen Debenport observes: “Principle One affirms that God is all there is. God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent – but not all-powerful but all power, not all-knowing but all knowledge, and present everywhere. God is the stars, the rocks, the animals, the people. God is the love, the creativity, the wisdom that human beings express. All that we are and have is
God, and we can never be separate from that universal power.”

And that means everything is Divine.
Think about that for a minute.
Everything, everyone is Divine.

Many traditions have taught this truth of our divinity.
Taoism teaches that the Tao, the flow of the Universe, is everywhere present.
From the Bhagavad Gita we read: By me is this entire universe pervaded.
All things are in Me, and I in them. Know that as the mighty wind blowing everywhere rests in the sky. All created beings rest in Me. I am the Father, the Mother, the Supporter and the Grandsire of the Universe.
And of course that wise teacher and Jedi master, Obi Wan Kenobi, taught, “The
Force is… an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates
us. It binds the galaxy together. …The Force is with you. Always.”

Principle One maintains that we are one with God, or as St. Paul taught, that we live
and move and have our being in God.
So, we say God is the source and creator of all. There is no other enduring power. God is good and present everywhere.
Often the next question is, what about evil, bad things happening?
Rev. Ed Townley answers that question this way:
Historically, the argument has looked like this: If God cannot prevent bad things from happening, then God is not all powerful. And if God will not prevent evil, God is not all good.
The problem is known as theodicy, and theologians have traditionally offered three types of solutions to this dilemma:
1) God is not all powerful. God is limited in some ways, and there are some things He/She/It cannot do in an orderly universe.
2) Evil is good for you. Bad things are not truly evil but a disguised form of good. For example, suffering can be a challenge to faith, a hidden growth experience, a spiritual test.
3) Evil and suffering are a mystery. These matters cannot be understood by limited human minds. Resolutions to the problem of theodicy will wait until we receive what Catholics call the beatific vision in the afterlife.

None of these explanations are very satisfactory, especially for a parent who has just lost a child or any innocent bystander who has suffered the collateral damage which goes with living in a physical universe.
We all have examples of situations and events that happen to us and we wonder why. I’ve mentioned my family situation and the lessons learned from what many would a consider terrible situation. Those lessons teach empathy that can be expressed to others who are going through similar situations.
The same goes for being gay and the compassion I can show to others as they struggle with acceptance of themselves.
And we all have been cut off in traffic at one time or another, yet if we ‘stay on our card’ and be present, we can allow that the person in the other car may need to be someplace fast, a hospital to welcome their first child, a hospice to say good bye to a parent for the last time, and yes, even what they think is an important meeting.
Just let them go and keep your cool.
Rabbi Harold Kushner’s best-selling book When Bad Things Happen to Good People makes the following comment, which is the key to the problem:
All the responses to tragedy which we have considered have at least one thing in common. (Have you figured out what it is?) They all assume that God is the cause of our suffering and they try to understand why God would want us to suffer … We were left either hating ourselves for deserving such a fate or hating God for sending it to us when we did not deserve it. There may be another approach. Maybe God does not cause our suffering.
The confusion begins with a misunderstanding of God’s nature. Instead of pulling strings like a puppeteer, perhaps God is not separate from the cosmos. What if God’s power in fact animates the very atoms of the universe, yet even the smallest molecule has a measure of free will? Suppose God wants all sentient beings to be happy, healthy and wise and has provided a cosmos in which individualized expressions of Divine Intelligence—you and I—must discover and apply the physical and spiritual principles necessary to produce such happiness, health and wisdom.
If people center themselves on the Truth of God’s absolute goodness, even in the face of apparent “evil” and unspeakable suffering; if they rely upon God while walking the valley of the shadow—for that is what evil and suffering are in eternity, mere shadows—then no calamity can overwhelm their sense of okay-ness about life, for they know God has issued a guarantee that everything will work out for the good. This does not mean I should glibly dismiss suffering as an “error in consciousness,” or feel superior to people who are in pain or feel guilty when I face a health challenge or some personal tragedy. Our human response to happenings will play out in one form or another.
Our Free Will allows the freedom necessary for spiritual growth. That is why we are here.
Keep in mind, too, that good and bad are mere labels we use to attempt to understand situations as they happen.
And, events themselves do not have to be good in order for good to come about. Events are just events.

This 1st principle frees us from fear of a God that punishes. It frees us from the fear that there is a Satan who can and will overpower us, if we are not constantly vigilant. It frees us from the belief that any other person has authority over our spirit. This principle offers us the freedom to trust in a benevolent, loving Universe which has only our good in mind.
Trust is our personal characteristic of this Principle. Trust in ourselves and the integrity we have and are developing. Trust that inner voice that is the Divine.

So our next obvious question is what would it be like to actually live what Jesus taught… to live what we said we believed?
So what does it look like to live the First Principle? What would our thoughts, words and actions be if we lived this Truth; there is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good?
Well, we’d probably complain a lot less! I mean, if it’s all good, what do we have to complain about, right? Being gifted with hot weather so we can appreciate snow
Someone cuts me off in traffic, consider that they may really have an emergency.
We’d probably find ourselves judging a lot less, and being grateful for a lot more.
We would see good in everything. No reactions. See only love.
This then would mean we would remember that we are all one, and if there is a problem with one of the One, it may be a problem with you. Didn’t Jesus say something about the log in your own eye, and to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile?
One of our core values is Community. Fellowship. And it came out as the best thing we were doing correctly here at Unity of Rehoboth Beach from our little survey. So where could you and I improve in our Community?
Where in my life have I not gone the extra mile?
I look at my week and most of it is spent on Unity things, prayer, writing, doing social media and out-reach. Calls and emails. Letters and reports. Reminders to people who may have missed a Sunday service that they were missed and that we hope to see them again soon. Thank you’s to new people.
Sundays’ arriving here early, helping some to set-up and seeing that all the set-up is organized. Sometimes finding helpers where needed. Trying to keep the service on schedule. After the service, I try to speak even a little to as many people as possible to let them know they are honored in my heart and loved here at unity.
And then we have clean-up, unfortunately. And we must leave our Unity family for a time again.
And then the week starts all over again.
The extra mile for me is giving more. Even more to those who are reaching out, who ask for guidance, who hurt and betray and still, I am here for them, for you, all of you.
Talking about this 1st Principle has made me contemplate where I am with my faith and I know that I am doing what I am intended to do at this time. And I trust that I will always be guided to the right and perfect answer to each and every call, question, situation. I Trust in God.
Where has your extra mile taken you?

The Four Agreements, Pt. 2

 

We’re back again this week to conclude the lessons presented in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, “The Four Agreements – A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom”.

We started last week looking at the premise that we are domesticated by our families, our schools, our churches, our cultures, even our Nationality.

Ruiz says “Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement, and it becomes part of our belief system.  …somewhere someone told us through their word, that we were not enough and we agreed with it.”

He suggests that if we accept these four agreements and put them into practice…then many of our old, painful outdates agreements (or beliefs) will fall away.

We are here to transform life to, aren’t we?  Our lives and the life of the planet.    We are here to find deeper parts of ourselves, to let go of that which binds us…and to find something larger which expands us and moves us into a deeper peace, a deeper appreciation and a deeper love.

So let’s move on.

 

Last week we looked at the first two agreements –

 

1. Be impeccable with your word…and that means each and every word we think and speak. The word impeccable means “without sin,” or anything that you do which goes against yourself.  When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.”  “Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.” Ruiz tells us that this is the most important agreement.

 

2. Don’t take anything personally.  The second agreement is about the thoughts, actions and words others have about us and how to handle them.  For example:

 

A policeman was heading home after a long, hard day on patrol. He had dealt with a whole succession of difficult people, and a mountain of frustrating paperwork. All he wanted at this point was to kick back, unwind, enjoy some peace and quiet, and maybe watch a few innings of baseball on TV.

But, as he neared home, he was startled by a vehicle that came careening around a sharp curve and narrowly missed his squad car. As the car passed within a few inches of him, the other driver shouted “Pig!”

The police officer was suddenly energized. He slammed on brakes, all set to turn his squad car around and head off in hot pursuit. But as he rounded the curve, … he ran head-on into a large pig that was standing in the middle of the road!

Did he take anything personally?

 

Now we are ready to look at the last two agreements.

The 3rd agreement is: Don’t make assumptions…

 

We do have the tendency to make assumptions about everything.  The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth.  We could swear they are real.  But they are all based on our domestication…

When we fail to ask for clarification about something, we make an assumption about it.  Sometimes it’s a simple thing like seeing someone with an “I Love Italy” shirt on and assuming they are Italian.

 

But when we make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking, and it’s not true according to them, we take it personally, we blame them and react by sending them “emotional poison” with our word or reaction in the form of anger, negative talk, negative body language, avoidance, etc.  We try to make them be in the wrong when it was us who made the assumption!

Think about it…when have you made an assumption lately?

I could be making an assumption about whether or not you are even listening to me by your body language.  You may have a serious face, sometimes frown – may be shaking your head- maybe just staring off at the field behind me!  I’m thinking – they aren’t getting it or they must really disagree with what I’m trying to say.  After Service you may come up and surprise me by saying, “you wrote that lesson just for me!”

 

When we make assumptions – we make mountains out of molehills, create conflict and make ourselves miserable.

We continually make assumptions, in our relationships, often to our detriment.  I can remember in an early relationship thinking if they love me, they will know what I like.  Or how I pay attention to what they are saying so I know what they want, so they should do the same.

Of course, back then there was little real communication about what we wanted.  Now I know better.

We have many, many questions in our heads and we need an answer to feel safe.  We have a fear of not knowing – fear of the mystery of life.  We don’t like “not knowing.”

Ask yourself this: How comfortable am I with saying “I don’t know?”

 

To have clear communication, we are called to move through our fear and stop making assumptions.  Imagine what your life would be like if you started communicating from “I don’t know.” and started saying “I don’t understand.  Can you help me get more clarity?  or What do you mean by that?  or How do you feel about that?  what do you think?  And my mentors’ favorite – “Say more about that.”

 

Let’s imagine the day when you stop making assumptions with your loved ones and eventually everyone else in your life.

 

Your way of communicating will completely change and your relationships will no longer be plagued by conflicts that arise from mistaken assumptions.

 

1. ASK QUESTIONS> It’s easy to jump to conclusions. But, before you jump the gun on anything you might read or hear, remember one simple word: Clarify. By asking questions and filling in the blanks, you can weed out fact from fiction.
2. LISTEN> Are you really listening to the person talking? It’s called Active Listening. Are you misinterpreting what they are saying?  Are you finishing other’s sentences?  Sometimes we only see what we want see to see and hear what we want to hear.  Take a minute to truly be present.  Then take a few deep breaths, make eye contact and listen.
3. GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK> Remember that you are perfect in your imperfection. We sometimes make progress by moving two steps forward, one step back. Recognize that – be present to it and keep moving forward.
4. Practice> Don Miguel Ruiz writes ‘Taking the action over and over again strengthens your will, nurtures the seed, and establishes a solid foundation for the new habit to grow. After many repetitions these new agreements will become second nature’

 

 

 

 

“There is just one more agreement, but it’s the one that allows the other three to become deeply ingrained habits.  The fourth agreement is about the action of the first three.  Always Do Your Best.

 

Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less.  But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next.  Everything is alive and changing all the time, so your best will sometimes be high quality, and other time it will not be as good.”

 

Ruiz says, as we build the habit of the four new agreements, our best will become better than it used to be.  So we are called to always do our best in practicing the first three agreements – being impeccable with our word, don’t take anything personally, and don’t make assumptions.   At first, this sounds like a source of stress, this thinking we must do our best at all times, especially for those of us who battle with a tendency toward perfectionism.

But here’s what he says about doing our best:

We must accept that “our best” changes from day to day, from hour to hour.  It ebbs and flows with our mood, with the state of our health, with countless other factors.  He says we often stress ourselves out by trying to do more than our best.  Intentionally doing less than our best leaves us feeling guilty and frustrated, but overdoing things simply depletes our energy and keeps us from accomplishing our goals.

 

And if you are one of those people that takes everything seriously and turns this inward, take a deep breath and be gentle with yourself.  We need to remember that this is not about perfection, it’s about progress.  So the real question for us in regards to this practice, or any other practice is, “Where are we now?”  Not compared to our neighbor, but where are we now in how we handle ourselves in difficult situations and conflict and challenge and joy and opportunity?  Where are we with that now, compared with where we were a month ago?  Six months ago?  A year ago?  Our own Personal Best.

 

It’s important in our daily practice for us to always do our best.  No matter what.  Whether it’s a small challenge or not so small challenge.  No matter what the circumstances might be.  Even if we think the people around us don’t deserve our doing our best.  Doing your best, no matter what.  That means we don’t say, I will do my best when I get another job.  Or when I meet someone else.  It means right here and now.  In the job I am already in, in the relationships I am already in.

 

Isn’t it interesting that we start a new relationship doing our best and that is called courting?  And then there is the honeymoon – where we put our best forward physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.  And then at some point in time there is a time when we get lazy….  We say well, I’ll do my best when she is more loving and affectionate.  Or I’ll do my best when he listens to me.  Or I’ll do my best when….  well, not until they change.  Any one relate to that?

Whatever we do, we must strive to do our best, because when we always do our best, we help ourselves grow spiritually and then we’re better equipped to handle our next challenge.   The truth is Yes; some days we are going to feel better than others.  But it is important for us to do our personal best – the best we can do at that moment.

 

Doing our best means taking action. It means setting an intention or goal, putting our attention on that intention and then practicing.  You know, the fifth basic Unity principle is putting into action the truths that we know.  It’s good to study and to have an intellectual understanding of spiritual truth, but knowing the truth doesn’t change our lives – putting what we know into practice is what changes.

 

Don Miguel says, Action is about living fully.  Inaction denies life.  God is life in action.  Every action becomes a ritual honoring God. We are an individual expression of God.  We honor that by doing our best.

 

I’m convinced that the way of God is not about perfection, the way of God is about authenticity.  It’s about showing up as all of who we are.

 

The way of God means waking up to our God consciousness.  And when we do that we become spiritual warriors, showing up with the courage to create the life that we want to live.  When we are committed to leading our lives from God Consciousness we possess the spiritual courage to look at what’s not working in our lives and to make changes.  When we live from God consciousness, we will always do our best.

 

Don Miguel says you can only be you when you do your best.  When you don’t do your best, you are denying yourself the right to be you. You express your divinity by being alive and loving yourself and others.

 

Doing my best means being open and available to Spirit, reaching for the way of God in every area of my life.  If I’m looking to leap into the unknown, or I’m thrust into the unknown, doing my best is saying, Here I am, God, move through me.  Because it’s in that place that there’s divine wisdom, divine power, divine love, divine wholeness.

SO, there you have it…4 ways we can all use to continue on our Spiritual Journey.  Be Impeccable With Your Word; Don’t Take Anything Personally; Don’t Make Assumptions; & Always Do Your Best.  Simple but not easy; still very helpful for us all to be the best representation of the Christ within, expressing as ourselves.

 

 

The Four Agreements Pt 1 Agreements 1 & 2

 

Last Sunday Richard made some really important points throughout his message.  One was something I have been speaking about for several years. And that is the importance of learning about who you are, learning about yourself as part…a very big and important part, of your spiritual journey.

I was really joyful to hear him say it.

And that ‘getting to know and understand yourself’ often goes back to your childhood.  Sometime some of us do not wish to go there, but we must, if at least to acknowledge that certain things happened, things were said and done.

Doris Mortman said, “Until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have.”

And that is part of what Don Migel Ruiz’s message is in “The Four Agreements- A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom”.

The foundation of The Four Agreements is that when we were young we were taught certain things that we had no control of; think about it…did you have a say in what language you learned and what religion you practiced when you were a child?

We learned, sometimes through trial & error, what behaviors were good and what were bad according to our family values, our religious values and our National values.

And we were rewarded and punished accordingly.

As we processed all of this, we made “agreements” with ourselves about how we would behave.

We learned the rules of the world we lived in and what would bring us love and what wouldn’t.

If we were beautiful enough, we would be loved.

If we were smart enough, we would be loved.

If we didn’t cry or show emotion, we would be loved.

If we were the star athlete, we would be loved.

Ruiz says- “Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement, and it becomes part of our belief system.  …somewhere someone told us through their word, that we were not enough and we agreed with it.”

 

We end up judging ourselves and judging others in our search for perfection.

The agreement, and the power of our agreement is so strong that even if we understand the concept of it not being true, we feel the blame, the guilt and the shame that occur if we go against these old rules. This is our DOMESTICATION. We idealized normalcy.

I think this is interesting…In Tibet they don’t even have a word for ‘guilty.’ The closest thing is ‘intelligent regret that decides to do things differently.’”

 

We all have personal power, unfortunately, we spend much of it holding onto these agreements that were born in our early lives.

So, Ruiz’s “Four Agreements” are to aid us to break the agreements we made through our domestication.

 

Be Impeccable with your Word.

 

“The First Agreement”, he says, “is the most important one. Be impeccable with your word.”

The word impeccable means “without sin.”  “According to the Toltecs, a sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself.  When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.”  (Just curious, how many of you had a reaction to the word SIN?  Domestication.)

 

In the words of Ruiz “Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.”

Being impeccable with your word is much more than “Be honest.” This is more like “be thoughtful about your speech, use your speech to build love and community rather than to tear it down, do not gossip, and do not speak negatively about yourself.”

Story of village man….?

Being impeccable with our word begins with ourselves. We all have a lot of negative self-talk that goes on. Self-rejection is the biggest ‘sin.’ That which we use against ourselves, we will also inevitably use against others.

Yes, we make mistakes, but then we need to take responsibility for our words and actions without judging or blaming ourselves. Learn from it, grow from it, and move on. Being impeccable with our word means using our energy in the direction of truth and love for ourselves.

WORDS have POWER! IT is a force, an energy you have to express and communicate, to think and thereby create the events in your life.

We’ve all seen what our words can do, yes?  They can lift up or they can tear down.

Being impeccable (without sin) with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself and for others.

 

Rumi says:  Raise your words, not your voice. It is the rain that grows flowers not thunder.

Being impeccable is

1. Building your own self up with the word.
2. Supporting others, sharing love, radiating positive thoughts and feelings.
3. Using your word in the direction of truth and the energy of love.

 

 

The second agreement is about the thoughts, actions and words others have about us and how to handle them.  The second agreement is “Don’t Take Anything Personally.”

the words of others…Don’t take it personally.

 

When was the last time you were really offended?

At least once in the last week?  Can you think of the last two or three times you were really offended?  I know, it doesn’t sound like the Unity thing to do.  We think we’re supposed to forgive and forget instantaneously.  But today I’d invite you to pay attention to when and how we are offended.

I have had little sticks of being offended when some people have left Unity without saying why.  And then I stop myself and remember everyone is on their own journey and maybe Unity is not for them right now.

We can’t truly be free and at peace until we get a handle on taking everything personally. The moment we get offended by anyone else’s comment, we are no longer free.  We are being controlled by the behavior, the words, the actions of others.

The moment we understand that what other people think about us is none of our business, we are free.

 

If I called you plaid – as you were walking towards me today and I said you’re looking very plaid today, how many of you would have been offended by that?  Anybody?  Most of us would not have been offended by being called plaid.  Why?  Because most of us don’t believe we’re plaid.  Most of us know in our heart of hearts that we are not plaid.  You don’t have any attachment to the word plaid.

When you take something personally, it’s because you believe it.

If I called you stupid or ugly or unworthy or lazy, you would only be offended if you believe it.

 

What I invite you to see today is that every time you get offended, you’re buying into a misconception that you have about yourself.  We get offended because we believe there’s some truth to what they’re saying and we then go into defense mode.  We close our hearts and put up our walls.  We put so much energy into protecting the exterior; we don’t have enough energy to heal the parts that are wounded.  We spend so much energy protecting and defending ourselves.  Some of us have incredible defense mechanisms.  So much of our energy is put into defensive action that we’re not taking care of the inner person.

 

Question, do you want to be right or free?  Some of the most miserable people I know are right.  They have been wounded or treated unjustly.  They are right.  But the question is because they know they are right, are they any happier?   Do you want to be free or do you want to be right?  Do you want to be reactive or responsive?

Get back to the Spiritual Truth about you.  You have forgotten what you are made of and who you are at depth.

 

We are of God, we are spiritual beings, born of the universal love, the creative power.  But what happened is we have come into an illusion, a dream, that we are powerless, that we are weak. And we have become insecure and we practice being insecure.  When people reject us or are mean to us, we take it personally, we buy into it and use it to feel bad about ourselves.

The truth is the infinite love of God is always pouring into us but we don’t recognize it, we buy into the old dream.  How many of us were taught to look to the world to get our needs met instead of looking within?  How many of us were taught that we were personally responsible for others personal reactions to life?

 

What would happen in our lives if we take the energy we generate from being offended and use it to be transformed? What if we put our attention on truly knowing what we are made of?

 

Don’t take things personally –

 

We hear that and we can believe it intellectually, but what happens the moment someone says to you, Now, I don’t want you to take this personally – what happens to your heart?

Boom.

Because you know that in the very next moment, the person is going to let loose an emotional lightning bolt and heave it into your heart.

 

So my question is can you keep your heart open and still not take it personally? Because the truth is, it has nothing to do with you.  But when we shut our hearts down time after time, we believe it’s easier to live with our hearts closed and we’re so busy defending the outer, we don’t remember what we’re made of.  From the moment we were created, we have been divine expressions of creation – the beloved of God.”

 

Now is the time for us to use the energy that we have been using to protect ourselves and convert it to energy used to transform ourselves.

Are you willing to stop living at the realm of emotions and from the outer and begin to start living from within, from our center?

Because when we live as the victim of other people’s opinions about us, (good or bad) it’s like we’re living on an emotional roller coaster.  We can either live our lives on that roller coaster of emotion or we can get serious about our transformation at depth.

 

Every time someone says something offensive and we take it personally, our spiritual progress stops because we’re involved in the drama and emotion of the offense.  We’ll never be free as long as we’re living in the external, as long as we’re protecting ourselves.

 

The only place where true freedom resides is when we know we’re created in the image and likeness of God – the image of light and the likeness of Love.

 

So I invite you to start monitoring what offends you, because every time someone offends you, they’re pointing out a wounded place within your soul.  They’re pointing out an old dream.  Now, you can try to protect that wounded place, that old drama or you can transform it, you can heal it.  We can only heal what we shine the light on, what we recognize.

Freedom can only be found when we know God is our center.

 

Closing – steps

The Progression of remembering what manner of Spirit we are of:

1. Someone says something that offends us.
2. Be still, be silent.
3. Recognize that our button is getting pushed. And be willing to look within to find the wounded place and to heal it. (recognize that it’s an old story.)
4. Remember to open our hearts to God rather than to defend our insecurities and defects of character. Remember what manner of Spirit we are made of.

Parables #3 The Lost Son

 

The Lost Son is the third in the Lost Parables series, Jesus is telling the three stories together, each ‘thing’ lost growing in significance – the sheep, the coin and now, the son.

We need to first understand that the Jewish culture is a shame/honor-driven society.  The primary motivation for what and how things are done is based on seeking honor for oneself and avoiding shame.

So we can see the importance of finding the lost item, whether sheep or coin or son.

Most people refer to this story as the Prodigal Son.  And that makes an assumption before we even hear the story, doesn’t it?  We are already being told that the son is” a person who spends, or has spent, his or her money or substance with wasteful extravagance”.  The poor guy isn’t given a chance from the start!

And the story begins “a man had two sons…” which leads us to believe right off that there is tension between the two.  We have seen many instances where there is tension between brothers throughout the Bible…Cain & Abel, Jacob & Esau, Joseph & his brothers.

Jesus uses this tension to capture the attention of his listeners.

Here’s the parable according to Luke 15:11-32. It’s a bit long, but listen to it and see if there is any place where you feel something about one of the players.

 

Luke would have us think that these parables are about those of us who have missed the mark and are repenting and God welcomes and even celebrates the return of the ‘LOST’. And that is fine.  And a common allegory for the older son is he is the representation of the Jews who slavishly serve God in order to earn a reward.  Surface assumptions.

Let’s look at this parable a little closer.  Keep in mind there are three main characters in this story, the younger son, the father, and the older son.  As you listened to the story, which one did you identify with?

The two sons metaphysically are the two departments of the soul or consciousness. The son who stayed at home is the religious or moral nature; the son who went into the far country is the human phase of the soul, in which are the appetites and passions.

So we have a Father who is a little lenient with his younger son and allows him to have his share of the family wealth to go off and find his own way.  We have free will, don’t we?  We all have gone ‘to the far country’ once and again.  The ‘far country’ is our ‘sense’ consciousness…. worldly affairs.

Curiosity is the real motive behind so much of our non-spiritual thinking and living – not badness, not wickedness, not stupidity, just curiosity. What is it like to be an individual person? What is it like to be a separate identity on your own? It is not a matter of is it bad or good, but what is it like, because we are curious about all the possibilities of experience in living, spiritual and non-spiritual. Aren’t you at least curious about some of the non-spiritual experiences?

The father gives the younger son freedom to indulge his restlessness and to satisfy his curiosity, and whose father gives us exactly that same freedom? Divine Spirit, of course.

What happens to the younger son symbolizes all of the typical life experiences and impressions and reactions which result from our trying to live our life off the basis of our central awareness of our self as a spiritual being.

The young man spent all his money having fun!  But then there’s a famine which symbolizes any person who is not able to receive any real soul nourishment from things in his outer world. Most persons sooner or later come to this type of dead end in their existence if they have no spiritual interests or spiritual commitments.

He ends up working for a pig farmer of all things.  The Jewish people do not eat pork, they consider pigs unclean.  Yet here the son must feed and tend the pigs while he is starving.

Poor choices caused him to hit bottom—a reality that many of us may confront at some point in our lives. Yet the pain that comes with bad choices often acts as a catalyst for change, and in this story the son chooses to return home and admit his failings.

The true power of every parable lies in consciousness. The consciousness of the younger son as he works in the pigsty turns to one of total surrender. The word younger is significant. It means a portion of our self which still has some catching up to do.

Beyond the physical challenges, he feels spiritually bankrupt, then “he came to himself”. He knows that he, of himself, cannot solve his problems. He returns to his father, not for a handout, but as a way of moving forward. ‘I no longer deserve to be your son,’ he says. ‘Just let me be a field hand on your farm; that will be far better than what I’ve managed on my own.’

And here, of course, comes the moment of grace. The father faced a choice when he saw his son approaching. He could have turned him away with an “I told you so!” Instead, he rushed out to greet his son with a kiss and warm embrace. The father’s choice demonstrated love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and understanding

He orders that he be robed and jeweled and shod and declares a celebration to honor his son, who “was lost and is found.”

The best robe represents a new consciousness; the ring represents divine love, unending power; the shoes represent strengthening understanding, the fatted calf represents the richness of strength always awaiting the needy soul.

Our new consciousness is strengthened with divine love and understanding and celebrated with rich strength for our soul if we only let it.

God’s grace is not something that we must earn or plead for. It is an infinite energy of love that is never absent, even when we feel most separate from it. It is God’s good pleasure that we move through this human experience, learning valuable lessons so that we return to our Source with a deeper appreciation for the love and abundance available there.

 

And what of the older brother? Certainly his sense of injustice seems understandable from a human perspective. But it is based on assumptions of limitation, lack and duality. “You love him more than me.” “If you give to him, there won’t be enough (or as much) for me.”

Divine Mind knows nothing of equality, because the very concept of equality implies duality, which is simply not a spiritual truth. Divine Love is infinite; it cannot be limited. Some of us receive it as we follow proscribed paths, stay home and perform the work that is ours to do. Others of us can only achieve our spiritual purpose by wandering freely, learning painful lessons and putting those lessons to positive, loving use. It’s all good! It’s all God!

The older son stands for that part of our nature which has not succumbed to the lure of experimenting with life. He stands for that part or aspect of us which always has stayed close to home base, so to speak. It would contain our sense of satisfaction from our good behavior, all of our good and safe opinions about ourselves and other things, our exercising of very cautious judgment, distrust of experiment and of risk-taking, and symbolizes that part of us which remains obedient to the voice of conscience; but all that he stands for can very quickly turn into a very touchy thing called self-righteousness until it is illumined by Truth.

He could also stand for hidden guilt and resentment. There is a bit of this in everybody, and it needs to be understood as well as overcome. The father does not scold or blame the resentful brother, he only tells him that he has the same rights as the younger son and that they are still all one family. So it is that God’s love responds to every part of our human nature.

 

The Father’s house would stand for the very center of our being, where we are one with His presence. It is the place in your mind, in your heart, where you know and where you know that you know, where you know God, and you know that you know God. It is that point where in your awareness from which you are able to understand what you really mean when you say “I am and, I and the Father are one.”

 

When a person is metaphysically living in their Father’s house, it means that we are living consciously. This means we are able to think only the thoughts we want to think, we choose to think, feel only those feelings we choose to feel, want to feel, and act only as we truly choose to act in our life. Such a person is, in that state, in control of themselves and therefore is in charge of their life. They are living from the center of their self and express toward the circumference of their life, all as matters of choice.

This conscious living, we do it sporadically. We are living in and out, in and out of consciousness; but when we are in that state of conscious living, centered and based in the Father’s house, then our life expresses and manifests the Truth of God.

The point Jesus is making comes to its climax in the decision of the son when he realizes the futility of his predicament in his environment, and then the fact that the father totally rejoices when the son, the one who had wandered away, was now returned. Remember that the father’s rejoicing begins even before the son actually completes his return. It says, “While he was yet far off.” Far off base, but now heading in the right direction. In other words, God, does not start the rejoicing after you and I have got it all figured out but when we are turned in the right direction.

This means something to us; God does not celebrate because of our successes but because of our right direction, our right effort. This is called repentance, and repentance does not consist of achieving your goal. It consists of making the effort to change your direction. Change your thoughts. That is what brings the big celebration

 

The father in the story talks to the elder son, meaning God will instruct and illuminate us, if we willing to listen. We will learn the Truth and be free from that kind of painful predicament that the older brother felt. This part of our human nature can and will be illumined when it is helped to understand that it, too, is part of the whole and that all that the Father has is ours “all that is mine is thine”, says the Father. “Thou art with me always”, says the Father. Every part of our human nature is always included in the workings of the principle of good, under all circumstances.

This parable tells us that we are all free to claim our divine inheritance from our Father and use it any way that we choose. Our divine inheritance consists of all the divine ideas in the Mind of God that pertain to us. Basically, they are our twelve spiritual faculties, which originate as divine ideas.

 

The reason this story is so familiar is that we can identify with the prodigal son. We-sons and daughters-have done things that we think have alienated us from God. We need forgiveness, or so we think. But here in this story, Jesus seems to be saying that no matter how short of the mark we think we have fallen, God still loves us.

 

In truth, there is nothing so terrible we could ever do that would cause God to love us any less than God loves us already. Also, there is nothing so wonderful we could ever do that would cause God to love us more than God loves us now. God’s love for us is unconditional and constant, no matter what we do or fail to do. Divine forgiveness does not enter the picture, because with God, the universal Presence and Power of love, there is never criticism or condemnation, so no need for forgiveness.

This parable also helps us to be lenient and tolerant toward all the undeveloped and be-coming aspects of our own human nature, rather than as we usually do, judge and condemn, etc.

Then, if we are able to take that kind of an attitude upon our own struggling human nature, we are that much more apt to grant that same kind of acceptance to other people, in whom we can see this kind of thing being re-enacted. Then we will begin to admire more and more and more the character of the Father, and we will seek to emulate God more. We always seek to emulate those whom we admire most.

 

 

Which son is lost?

Good Morning Beloved!

Before we start today’s Lesson, let’s take a moment to send thoughts of Peace to the Universe.  Peace in our hearts, peace in the minds of our fellow world citizens, peace in every thought, word and deed.  It is only by our measure that peace will be found.      Thank you.

 

One summer night during a severe thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small son into bed. She was about to turn the light off when he asked in a trembling voice, ”Mommy, will you stay with me all night?”

Smiling, the mother gave him a warm, reassuring hug and said tenderly, ”I can’t dear. I have to sleep in Daddy’s room.”

A long silence followed. Finally, a shaky child’s voice muttered, ”The big sissy!”

 

 

Father’s Day

Poor Fathers, they get no respect.  They didn’t even have a national celebration until 1972!  Would you believe, even though there was interest not long after Mother’s Day was started, Congress and former Presidents couldn’t take that political chance to declare Father’s Day. It took until Richard Nixon to finally honor our Fathers with a national observance.  It’s amazing, sometimes, how our political process works.

 

If you were here on Mother’s Day, you heard a little about the relationship I have with my Mother.  It’s one that has taken much work over many years.

Bear with me as I talk about my Dad a bit. It’s my hope that you will find a message here for yourself as I need to say these words.

The relationship with my Father is different from that with my Mother, in part because he transitioned over 20 years ago.  So, all the time and effort I’ve had with my Mother, I haven’t had with my Father.  No time to mend fences, so to speak, but plenty of time to wonder about that relationship, to delve into it, analyze it.

My Father was a quiet man, until he had too many beers.  He was considered a fun guy by his pals.  My Mother tells me I am like him; she thinks I can talk easily to others.  I made sure that the other trait never had a chance with me.

I can recall trying to get his attention as I grew up, but I could never seem to break through.  I wanted to be my brothers because they seemed to get what little attention any of us got from him when not drinking.

I was a tom-boy, I wanted to mow the grass, be outside, wasn’t allowed to mow-he said I had skippers, I was the athlete, even with four brothers, didn’t matter.  Got myself a boyfriend, thought that would do it.  No. Took myself to college and I think I may have cracked that ceiling a little.  That is until I came home after graduation and acknowledged that I was gay.

 

They say you marry your parents…I have experienced both my parents in former partners!  Quite a learning experience!

And maybe that is how we get to know our parents better so we can move through the forgiveness that has to come.  And it HAS to come!

Our domestication tends to lead us in the direction of always trying to fill some kind of perfect vision.

There’s the perfect parent, the perfect child, the perfect me and the perfect you.

And we all will do anything to be loved, to be accepted.  Until we learn that we need to love and accept ourselves first.

My Father was a big man, over 6 foot.  Mom was barely 5 and that’s shrinking now.

I believe he was a frustrated man, intelligent but with a 10^th grade education and a taste for beer, let’s say he had a varied work record for the first part of his life.  So, my childhood was poor by any standard.

The lessons a child learns in a household like that are varied…. lack, insecurity, fear, they stay with you until you start ‘working on yourself’.

I don’t think my Dad got the “’working on yourself’ thing until late in his life, and I don’t think he resolved much.  I don’t think he could face himself even though he did change some.  He was a Father for my sister and youngest brother, his violent drinking ended by the time they were youngsters.  I was jealous of them.

I use to be jealous of other people too, when they talk about their Fathers and the relationships they have with them.  I’ve come to realize that what I have with my Father were some fond memories of family gatherings, of times when we were just like any other family going for a Sunday drive and getting ice cream on the way home.

I can see times when he tried to be better. Especially with my sister and youngest brother.  Even with me, there were some special times.

My Dad loved Christmas and so do I.  We went to Phillies games together and Eagles games too.  That was the one thing that I had with my Dad.  I think it was special for him too.  I think that’s part of the reason I still follow those teams.

I think we all have things to learn from our relationships with others.  We learn how we want to be and how we don’t want to be.  We see traits we like and some we don’t like.

And as we grow we learn that our parents really did do the best they could with what they knew at the time.  If we would look at them from the time they grew up and not by our standards of when we grew up, we would see completely different people.  We would understand them a little better because we can see from where they came.  We can forgive and accept them for who they were.

My Father’s Father died when Dad was a teenager.  I’ve often wondered what affect that had on him. I’ll never know because he never talked about his life much except the fun times he had with his friends and brothers and sister.

And of course the “stories” of walking to school in 5 feet of snow uphill both ways…you get the picture.

So, looking at all that, I can see where some of my Dad is in me and there’s some good stuff.  I thank him for doing his best.

I thank him for that handful of change and a golf tee that he gave me as he and Mom were dropping me off for my first year of college.  I still have that golf tee.

And later that first year, I thank him for coming to pick me up at the drop of a hat when I found out my boyfriend, Fred was killed in a motorcycle accident.

I thank him for rescuing me and two others when the car died on the way home for Christmas break.

I thank him for being there when I had my first car accident.

I thank him when he finally came to see me coach.

I thank him for eventually accepting me as best he could.

He did the best he could—–and I love him for that.

I’m at peace and I know he is too.

 

 

 

 

This is from a poem written by James Dillet Freeman, our poet laureate at Unity a long time ago. Please receive this blessing as your own:

 

‘You are our Father’s child.   Beneath, around, above, within you Is God’s Presence

And in your heart, God’s love.  God’s life is in your body.

God’s thoughts are in your mind. In your world God’s blessings on every hand you find.’

Good Morning Beloved! Let me look at you….I missed you.

 

On the first day at the new seniors complex the manager addressed all the new

residents, pointing out some of the rules:

“The female sleeping quarters will be out-of-bounds for all males, and the male dormitory for the females. Anybody caught breaking this rule will be fined $20 the first time.” He continued, “Anybody caught breaking this rule the second time will be fined $60. Being caught a third time will get you a fine of$180.  Are there any questions?”

At this point an older gentleman stood up in the crowd and inquired: “How much for a season pass?”

 

It’s All Good!

 

When I mentioned to one of our members that I wanted to do a Lesson titled Gay is Good, I received a skeptical look.  Not a good idea, I asked.  A bit too strong was the response.

So, I changed it to “It’s All Good.”

Better…., though I will still be saying Gay is Good too.

What brought this on.  Not sure.  Sometimes things just come to me and I say, yeah, I could make that into a lesson…I think.

 

Of course many of you may be thinking, how could everything be good?  I mean, there’s all kinds of things going on in the world today, and at least some of it is not good.

But see, there’s part of the issue.  We make a judgment about what is good and what is not good.

Good to me is probably a lot different than good to you.  We all have our likes and dislikes.  Just look at the different sport teams there are…I follow the Phillies and the Eagles.  What teams do you follow?

See, likes and dislikes.  My teams are good to me, but not to you…. well…if you are a true fan you stick with them through thick and thin….right?

And how about tastes in food?  Another biggie.  You coffee drinkers consider it a very big GOOD, while I insist that it taste terrible.

SO, see how judgment comes into play; ‘good’ implies a judgment of desirability and moral righteousness.

Plato defined ‘good’ as something metaphysical: ‘good’ is life, it is a higher power, it is the universe.  And if it is the universe, then everything is good because everything is in the universe and the universe is in everything.

 

We apply meaning to whatever happens in our lives.  We add a story to fit what it means to us.

When I said earlier the Gay is good, some of you may think NO.  How can being gay be good when many of us have suffered through discrimination from all parts of our lives, some even have experienced violence and death.

Yet I can look at the process of discovering that I am gay as a great learning experience. Oh yes, I felt pain and unexceptence.  My Father even made me leave the home that I was a part of for 21 years.

But I also experienced the first steps in my learning about who I truly was.  I learned to accept myself after trying and trying to be the daughter he wished me to be.  I learned to be me, to be strong, to do what I felt I needed to do. Accept who I was or die inside being something I was not.

And so I went on to teach and coach and made a life for myself away from my family of blood.

Eventually, Dad came around, a little.  But I was never accepted completely in my family, and I have learned to accept that too.

You learn to find a family of choice. You learn to look at the good, the lessons learned.

 

We all have events in our lives.  Things that happen and we can either look at them with ‘old eyes’, as we always have and maybe fall into the role of a victim.

Or we can bring ‘new eyes’ to the situation.  Buddhist refer to this as adopting the practice of “beginner’s mind”, knowing that wherever we are on our spiritual path, whatever is going in our lives, we can bring “new eyes”, a fresh perspective to things and see a deeper meaning, the lesson, the gift, the opportunity that is before us.

 

Fr. Richard Rohr talks about contemplation as a means to see with new eyes.  He says, “In contemplation, we become aware of God’s movement and surrender to it. We begin with “yes,” ready to receive reality just as it is and ready to let it teach us. Contemplation teaches us how to say “yes”–yes to the moment, yes to the event, yes to the relationship. It is what it is before you analyze it, compare it to something else, or prefer it to something else. It takes much of your life to learn how to always begin with yes. I warn you that if you begin with no–which culture by and large trains us to do because the ego prefers the negative–it’s very hard to get back to yes.

 

Saying “yes” to the moment allows space for the real question, which is “What does this have to say to me?” Come to every experience and ask not whether you like it, but what does it have to teach you. “What’s the message or gift in this for me? How is God in this event? Where is Divine Spirit in this suffering? What is Spirit calling me to do?”

 

Romans 8:28 tells us, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose”.

 

We are spiritual beings in human form, here by divine appointment to accomplish a spiritual purpose: to be the channels through which the Power of God creates the new consciousness that Jesus describes as “the kingdom of heaven.” So long as we remain focused on that spiritual purpose, then all the many aspects of our lives will “work together for good.”

 

Having trouble finding the good?  Remember, the ego prefers the negative. If it’s the will of God to be “working together for good” in our lives, either we are failing to see the good that is present, or we have allowed ourselves to become distracted from our spiritual purpose, to show up as God through me, through you.

 

There is always a choice, and it is always the same choice, no matter what situation or growth opportunity we may face. Do we stand by our integrity?  Do we live off our card?

 

The apostle Paul wrote, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom. 12:2). Jesus said it this way, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt. 4:17). Repent, from the Latin, literally means “to think again.”

To ‘see with new eyes.’

 

SO what do we do when things seemingly go wrong?  We focus on making them right ourselves rather than looking to others to do it.

How can I fix this? Or if it’s not possible to fix the situation, ask yourself How can I move on?  Admit that we learn the most from our most painful experiences. We grow the most from them because we’re forced to re-examine the world and ourselves. We’re forced to question all that we’ve been taught, believe, need, want, and have done.

 

If we have been hurt by someone else’s actions, it’s OK to acknowledge it as long as it’s true.  We’re allowed to say something sucks. This is not negativity; it’s validation. But once we’ve validated that something sucks, we can settle down to feeling the flow of the Universe again. To pack up the camper and move through the Valley of the Shadow and back into the Light.  It may feel like it’s slow as molasses or it’s in fits and starts, but that has more to do with our expectations and wishes than with what’s really happening.

And remember, they’re just events. The Universe is neutral.  The Universe flows but we can control whether it flows easily or with difficulty based on our choices.

Our very first Principle states that God is the One Power and Presence in the universe, that God is all good.  God is in all making everything Divine, good.

So, it’s All God and All Good.