Closed for renovations
The first time I had an idea to use this statement as a Lesson topic, was in a pizza shop, if you can believe that. Back home, one of my favorite pizza places was run by Italians, imagine that!
They may have been right from Italy as they spoke in broken English. One day we ordered pizza and went to pick it up. At the time the rest rooms weren’t working. The sign on the door said, ‘she no-a work!’
We teased Mom about that for a bit…

Does not work. Needs Repair. Out of order. Have you ever felt like that? When does that feeling come about?

We HUMANS are often at our wits end over one thing or another. What to do about some such ‘emergency’ or ‘crises? And we use those ‘breaking news’ terms too! Disasters, crisis, tragedies….Why do we let ourselves get into these situations? It isn’t for lack of intelligence.
We forget. We forget to remember who and what we are. WHY?
Well, Jesus said to have a single eye. In other words, to keep our thoughts on the Kingdom of Heaven. On the PRIZE.
But we forget, and we place our thoughts and ‘eye’ on material things. Our job. Money. Some item or another that will give us prestige.
We let others take our power away, we get angry, we are manipulated, fall into destructive patterns. We forget that we are children of God, that we are God in action. We forget that we create our world by our thoughts and emotions.
The Israelites did the same thing, if you recall the Hebrew Bible stories. They trusted their God and flourished in all ways. Then they forgot or were manipulated to follow a foreign “god” and fell into despair.
They were conquered by their enemies over and over again, each time they would be over whelmed, they would return to the God of their ancestors and their God would lead them out of bondage and to victory.
The Israelites would praise God and say they will never go astray again, only to miss the mark and stumble…one more time.
Metaphysically, when we look at the Hebrew Bible, we are looking at our souls’ journey.
So, how many times have you stumbled only to repent?—to repent means to turn from a belief in error to a belief in God and righteousness; a reversal of mind and heart in the direction of the All Good.
The Israelites forgot who they were time and time again. I have forgotten again and again, even after I found my Truth at Unity. It takes a while to turn to the Light and stay there sometimes, doesn’t it?
That’s what “Let there be light” can mean…turning to understanding. At the beginning of our opening prayer when I say “open your hearts and mind to the love and light that is in part we are saying open to the Truth, to the understanding of the message, that we are part of the whole, of God.
Instead of focusing our thoughts and emotions on the good in this world, we fill our minds with idle thoughts, musings about what someone did to us last year, last night or a minute ago.
Or we look to the ‘future’ and think about all the things we will say or do when we come across that person again. We expend so much energy on anger at the driver in the next car, or the red light that just turned, the button that just popped.
Why? Because we forget who we are, what we are. We forget what power we have. We let our ego mind go into ‘protect mode’ and think about how it will protect us from whatever happened.
Instead, we should be controlling our mind, our thoughts…be conscious of them and direct them in the way of our Way-shower. If we are Spiritual Beings, let’s BE Spiritual.

How can we keep from forgetting? From being unconscious? What must we do to remember that we can create a better experience for ourselves?
Charles Fillmore did a lot of research on the different religions and spiritual cultures of his era. Then, he determined which one he wanted to ‘stick with’. It so happens in was Christianity, or his understanding of it.
I’m assuming that many of you have made some research, maybe not in the way that Charles did. I started this journey looking at different religions by attending their services. Learning about them by experience. I knew there was SOMETHING more, …different, but didn’t know what.
It wasn’t until later that I started reading about different ideas, some of which were spiritual, some more New Age, some quantum physics, etc.
The important thing is I knew I needed to find IT, whatever IT was. Luckily, I found others along the way who would take the time to get into discussion about all sorts of things. The gift there was the expansion of the mind, the opening to more ideas, new ideas, for all of us.
All this time, I still felt ‘out of order’, because I didn’t know what MY Truth was. And until we all find our own Truth, we will feel that sense of uneasiness; that need to continue searching. Because we KNOW there’s something there for us.
Remember— All who are searching are not lost….just looking for more…more Truth, more questions to be asked.

So, we read. We take classes. We discuss topics with others of like mind, after we find those who are willing to discuss different topics. We ask questions. We answer questions. We pray. We meditate. We contemplate. Some days we are ‘working’. Other days we are ‘out of order.’ We DO all these things.

But we also must let go of some things/activities. Some things don’t ‘fit’ anymore and if we hang onto them, we hang onto the “Closed for Renovations” sign.
We become responsible for ourselves. We do the work. We search ourselves for our integrity.
Sometimes we have to move away from ‘friends’ who do not serve our journey. Sometimes, it’s family members. This can be a difficult thing to do. But if we don’t change our group, the support won’t be there for our journey. We must be with ‘likeminded’ people.
In the book “The Quest – A Spiritual Journey”, one of the very first things that is discussed is about having a support group to travel with you. This is why it is important to have a place like Unity. We are happy you chose us.
Not because we need to be in a ‘church’ or Center to be with Spirit, but because we have a support system here to share the journey, to support us when we have a ‘growth opportunity’ or ‘project’ (my term for problem) to work on, to have a place to ask the questions and discuss the possible answers, and often, ask more questions.
Look back to who you were and where you were 5, 10, 20 years ago. What has changed? Do you still have all the same friends? Are your favorite activities the same?
My life has changed almost completely. What used to be a normal thing for me during the summer months softball, has completely dropped from my life. Oh, I still love the game but I am no longer involved in it. And not involved in all the ‘other’ activities that went along with it; practices, games, tournaments. Where did we find the time for all that???
My friends have changed too. Softball brought a different lifestyle with it. Though I was not a drinker, many of the players were. SO, after game activities almost always included a bar somewhere.
Those friends that I have now are so much more than friends. They are confidants. They are my teachers. They are my strength, often times. And I am that to them. We are always there for each other, wherever ‘there’ is.
What has remained the same? I am still the person searching for my place in the world. Searching for God, Spirit, Divinity in all. Searching for my Truth. Most likely I will be searching until I pass on to the next great adventure.
Does anything else feel as if it may have to change? Sure, there is still work to do, still trying to figure out who I am inside.
DO you have things to work on yet?
And there you have your next ‘project’!