... in the flow

Week 3 REAL prosperity REAL security

2010-02-11T12:40:00.000-08:00

Everybody finds it really easy to feel prosperous when they have money in the bank, though I'm sure, even then, there are people who worry about it; how long it will last; how far it will go; what needs it can meet. Even when we have an influx of money we can feel prosperous and still block the flow of our Good with worry. A friend recently said to me, "When I get money, I'm so relieved, I begin thinking immediately, "OK ... I've got enough to last me until ..." Guess what, entering into a pattern of thought where I celebrate I've got enough to get through the week or to the end of the month or until I die, stops the flow. "Having enough" means I have enough and that's what I have. The Universe does not stop the flow. I do because I told Source. "Thank you. I'm so grateful. I have enough." The assumption is that there won't be anymore and so this has to last me until ...

Kinnear says on page 78 of The 30 Day Mental Diet, " The prosperous person knows that he is prosperous and that he always will be. There is an inner conviction that permits of no doubt." As I read those lines, I immediately thought, Well, that doesn't apply to me, or even people like me. That's for the Trumps, the Rockefellers or the Gates' of this world. By putting myself in a different economic class from the "REALLY prosperous" I placed limitations on what Life could do for me. In a class the other evening a student referred to his prayer for uninhibited prosperity. I was truly excited to hear him say uninhibited by me and then talk about how he was conscious of limiting his Good AND how prayer had unlocked his thought process and allowed money, new contracts and opportunities to flow into his life.

This leads me to think about REAL security. I was one of those millions caught in the investment crash of last year. Remember that? Was it only last year? I just received a statement from the investment company that handles those things for me. I'm back to where I was. I suppose there are those out there who would say "Fine!! but you are no further ahead. Your investments haven't increased in value." I suppose that depends on your point of view. Again Kinnear says on page 81. "There are those individuals who always seem to come out on top of any calamity better than they were before." Again I went to that place of well that's not me. Really? If I am able to come to an understanding that regardless of what happens or happened, things will in some way, shape or form, be right for me, then I am more secure. Then I am better off! This is the soundest investment of all; an investment in myself and in Life. Life is FOR me. I know it! When I don't know it I consciously set about proving it to myself in small ways. I am never disappointed.

Day 11-13 Confidence and Fear

2010-02-09T15:07:00.000-08:00

One of the best parts of what I get to do for a living is sit down in front of curriculum, a book or a Lesson Topic and come up with a new idea about something. The amazing thing is that the flow of ideas is seemingly inexhaustible. When I prepare for a class; when I sit down in front of a blank "Lesson Worksheet"; when I envision a workshop or seminar, suddenly the ideas are there.

Frankly, I never considered the flow of new ideas even remotely remarkable until I read the Mental Diet for day 12. The idea that someone might question the availability of new ideas, feel uninspired or uncreative had never occurred to me. I had never once considered myself the source of these ideas. The fact was I had never considered a source for ideas, period. Ideas just were. inspiration just was. I began thinking then of those things in my life that hadn't always come to me quite so easily, money, love, personal satisfaction, purpose and joy of living.

There are people in the world, even people in my life who NEVER seem to trouble themselves about some of things that were always missing in my life. Was there an inexhaustible source of wealth, love, meaning and satisfaction that they just took for granted too and never questioned?

The Monday night, "Emma class" was all about faith and doubt and the central idea in the discussion was how what we have faith in expands. I have faith in a storehouse of ideas that I can dip into like dropping a bucket into a well. There's always water there. I also have had faith in "not enough". In those circumstances, we call it doubt but in reality, it is faith in there not being enough and our faith is rewarded. "When she got there the cupboard was bare ..."

Jesus didn't say "consider the lilies of the field" because he thought it would be a good idea. He said it because that is how he viewed the world. The idea struck me. Jesus NEVER walked up to anyone and offered to heal them, help them or save them. He also NEVER refused to perform a miracle when it was asked of him. Why didn't he go around just healing everyone where he saw the need? He didnt "see" the need.

He lived his life so connected to that which he called "the Father within" that he looked on all of life as "perfect" He needed to be reminded or have it brought to his attention that the paralytic at the pool saw himself as limited; that there was no more wine at the feast or that the crowd was hungry. He needed to be introduced to the limited experience of those around him, see it through their eyes before he could address it.

This absolutist vision of the world could appear to be callous and selfish. Such unmindfulness of human suffering can be interpreted as a denial, as well it might be.

To have absolute faith in the "Good" back of all things can be seen as self-delusion. To have faith in an unfailing source of well being, happiness, love may appear to be the mark of a naive optimist but ... the truly wealthy never question their resources. When you are "in love" you never question love. when you are in good health you don't wonder if you'll one day be sick. When I sit down in front of the computer I don't pray, "I hope I have a good idea or two today." If I were to have that thought (which I never do) I think that would be enough to keep me away from the computer entirely.

The miracle of our Good doesn't come when we least expect it. On the contrary, it comes when we most expect it ... without expecting it at all.

Days 8-10, Degrees of Livingness

2010-02-01T11:50:00.000-08:00

On first approach, the idea of various different degrees of livingness is foreign to most of us. Either a thing is living or it isn't. Troward in the Dore lectures introduces degrees of livingness when he discusses the function of mind or consciousness. A fish is more living than a rock and a terrier more living than a fish. What small boy, he asks, would not prefer the terrier to the goldfish as a playmate? Thus the degree of enthusiasm in the boy meets the enthusiasm in the terrier and vice versa. This is what is referred to as the Law of Correspondence and it works in both directions. Life co-responds to my expectation of it.

In the reading today from 30 Day Mental Diet, Kinnear tells us to live with enthusiasm; to be engaged; to do something creative and constructive. So what is it that kills our enthusiasm for living without necessarily limiting our success? Self-doubt, self-condemnation and guilt.

One of the most significant and life-changing realizations for me came when I was almost 50 years old. I had a GREAT job, where I was loved and respected. I was well payed, certainly not at the top of my profession as a secondary school teacher but doing well. I had, according to my mother, the VERY best of all possible worlds in that I had good benefits and a pension. I was slated to retire in 2012, get the golden handshake and move to Arizona for the winters. In short, I was living my mother's definition of success and I was living it very well. In order to live that "well" though I had to forget that there were pieces of me, lost, or worse, hidden and denied.

Once I began, as Kinnear suggests, to look at the negative conditions and situations with which I had surrounded myself, I began to realize that they were a "necessity" I had permitted in the name of success. I began to understand that success in order to be truly meaningful had to be MY success. Since that day, I have continually grown in my understanding of what success means to me. There has been trial and error; ups and downs, even "boom and bust" but, through it all, I have continued to define success for myself. Every thought I have about my life is the beginning of a new sequence of events that I now know I can have to my liking; that enliven me, enrich my life and bring me ever closer to that which I call "God".

"The recognition of God ... with the cosmic drive of which the life-personality is the spearhead is the only road to fulfillment"

Day 7 ... Questions to Ponder

2010-01-31T13:51:00.000-08:00

Discovering Yourself ...

You have, time and time again, experienced the creative urge for expression. You must be creative in your life or you feel deeply frustrated ... There must be a givingness in all you do, otherwise you are depriving yourself of life

How do you see your present relationship with time?

What emotional need in you is calling to be satisfied today?

What need of others in your life or elsewhere will you seek to respond to today or this week?

What will you do to restore, maintain, or further stimulate your physical energy within your lifestyle?

What core values are leading your choice of activity today or this week?

How will you fulfill your need for intellectual stimulation or creativity this week?

Wishing you a richer fuller life this week!!

Days 5 & 6 ... Causeffect

2010-01-30T08:55:00.000-08:00

The last two days of Mental Diet I have jammed together on purpose in very much the same way as I jammed cause and effect together into one word, as above. If you been in SOM 100 with me you'll be familiar with this idea. But to review for a moment, the Universe is a UNITY and therefore there cannot really be cause AND effect. The one must be included within the other in much the same way as the acorn is cause to the oak, so that the entire oak tree is in the acorn as Aquinas would say in potentia . That is to say there exists in the cause the possibility of the oak tree as well as all of the subsequent acorns and oak trees. I was listening to a wonderful discussion of "Time" on CBC's Ideas on Wednesday evening that also relates to this blog but that's for another time.

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/living-on-oxford-time/index.html

So day 5 is about cause and day 6 is about cause and as such they are both about effect. DAMN! I hope I can make myself clear about this. It is the Law of Causeffect that Kinnear says is inescapable. He says Life withholds nothing. Great news right? Well maybe. Embedded in my thought process about my health, wealth, and love life as cause is the outpicturing of that thought as effect. I don't have to work on it or struggle with it anymore than the acorn has to work at becoming an oak. All I need to do is recognize it and ask myself, "So is this the life you want."

My notes to myself when I worked on this last in 2003 were about controlling the outer ... even other people; using the Law. It's great to recognize that I'm learning a few things too. My old buddy Plotinus affirms that for me.

"As for Soul, the part of it directed to Intellect (Spirit) is, so to speak, within, and the part outside Intellect directed to the outside." (Enneads V. 3-7)

So long as we remain filled with our illusory ego-selves, absorbed in what we mistakenly consider ourselves to be, Spirit can only "write its Laws" on whatever blank pages of Soul exist."

When we use the Law we may, in fact in our own minds at least, become more spiritual. When we let the Law use us we become more Spirit. Use of the Law is intellectual. To be used by the Law is to live at the level of the intuitive faculty. When I let Life help me, as Kinnear suggests, I live at the level of the intuitive action of LIfe in me, as me. The battle that I wage is not with life or even the circumstances or conditions of my life. Instead I become aware that the only thing against me is my own thinking.

How much potential is there in an acorn? We know for a fact that there is at least one 1000 year old oak and innumerable 999 year old oaks and in fact a virtually inexhaustible supply of 998, 997, 996 year olds etc. etc. The acorn uses all that it is because it knows intuitively (in a manner of speaking) all that it is. We on the other hand often do not use all that we have because we have forgotten all that we are. The hidden splendor of the human being spoken of by Wordsworth, the splendour of the Sefirot, all of the created world, is what we have lost sight of. We now find ourselves imprisoned in the dark world of the Law. Kinnear finally says on Day 6, Free Yourself! Instead of knowing the laws of the cosmos come to know you are the lawgiver.

Day 4 How's My Blood Pressure?

2010-01-28T08:38:00.000-08:00

How does this sound?

"As I renew the content of my body with only good and constructive elements, I know that my entire body is remade to conform with the nutritive value of these foods."

Is there anyone who would question the truth of that statement? Is there anyone who would affirm that a diet of junk food is n likely to be of greater benefit to me than a well-balanced regime of nutricious and wholesome foods? The answer is obvious yet even an hour spent watching TV will present us with a bizarre dichotomy; depictions of beautiful people doing healthy and satisfying activities, playing sports, running, dancing, enjoying a rich full life. These programs are sandwiched in between ads for junk food. We are a society which aspires to be happy, healthy and have a good life but in reality chooses something quite different.

Kinnear says in today's reading. "Constructive thinking ... is creating good in your life and experience rather than wishing things were better and thinking constantly about how bad they (things) are." The "armchair quarterback" in me will admire the skill, strength and agility of the pro athlete, secretly wishing that were me on the field and then head to the kitchen for the Cheetos and another beer.
What really stands out for me in "The Diet" today is how creative of my experience my thought really is and it is not only what I might call the systolic movement of thought (Sorry about the reference. I had my blood pressure taken yesterday.) when my mind is pumping out "good" ideas but the diastolic, when my mind is at rest. Well maybe my mind is not at rest but rather in its old familiar pattern.

There is a lot of press in the New Thought community for thinking good thoughts; doing affirmations, Treating, praying, visualizing and all manner of systolic mental activities. Today I'm curious about how creative my negative patterns of thought are. Ernest Holmes maintains "All thought is creative." When I say negative I mean diastolic. Nobody would say it is a negative thing when my heart is at rest. Nor would I say that it's negative when my mind is at rest. I guess my question is where does my mind take its rest? What is the prevailing pattern of my thought when I am not consciously working on something?

Day 3 and the Social Activist

2010-01-27T08:23:00.000-08:00

The calamity in Haiti has thrust the whole question of social activism into the foreground of our thoughts these days. Questions about who is doing what for Haiti and who is not doing enough lead me to I ask, "What am I doing? Is it enough? Can I do more?"

I was recently watching my friend Edvard Viljoen on Spirit TV as he delivered his Sunday Lesson from CSL Santa Rosa and he made a reference to Emma Curtis Hopkins. Beloved Emma, mystic, absolutist for consciousness, keeper of the "High Watch" always hammering away at the fact that "You have no other work and no more important work than raising your own consciousness." Isnt it amazing that, that doesn't feel like enough. When faced with the destruction and loss of life on the scale of Haiti or the tsunami of 2004 raising my consciousness feels like a cop out. Like the thing you do when you don't want to do anything else.

Edvard went on to say that the person of "raised consciousness" would find and be lead to a sphere of action that would be THE most effective one for him by virtue of the degree of livingness that he brings to life. In the end the best action steps for all are the ones that are best for us.

Today, Willis Kinnear tells me why I'm important. Two phrases struck me in my reading this morning. In You Have a Job to Do " ... there is a limitless potential of ability that is always trying to find its way into expression through you." I believe this to be true and so raising my consciousness enables me to discover where and how that limitless potential will find expression. Today I am more aware of my importance as a unique individualization of Life's purpose.

Kinnear goes on to say in the next section Live Up to Your Own Importance "Live up to that importance, You have an obligation to Life. Live. Be, not do!!

Seems to me I undervalue consciousness because I undervalue being in favour of doing. Seems to me that what Emma was saying is that you came here to be and doing is something you do while you're here. That your doing finds its greatest expression and its highest expression when it flows naturally out of your "being" So is there anything more important than raising my consciousness? I said on Sunday, Haiti is a calamity and we can deal with that and are dealing with it. More importantly, Haiti is a tragedy and I wonder if we are dealing with that. Haiti is a tragedy in the fact that it is the poorest of the countries in the western hemisphere; that 80% of its population is unemployed and more than 50% are illiterate. It is a tragedy because when calamity on this scale struck there was no infrastructure to fall back on. Prosperity, education, social services, purpose and meaning are ideas, tools of the mind, expressions of consciousness. Perhaps I have failed Haiti because I have not assumed my position of importance. I have not done all that I can do to express love, harmony and creativity for the greatest possible good right where I am.

Day 2

2010-01-26T07:13:00.000-08:00

There are two images of Adam and Eve in the Garden that Joseph Campbell talks about. The Myth itself seems to be about gardens and gardeners. Who will look after the garden? In the 1st Chapter of Genesis, man grows out of the garden. He is made of the mud of the place. He grows out of the organic material of the place itself. In Chapter 2, he is pitched into the garden from somewhere else, a weird interloper, an accidental tourist who ends up having to look after it.

Within these two stories, one can see the entire history of our race on the planet; everything from colonial conquest, "Manifest Destiny" to the space race of the 60's to the ecological and environmental challenges we face today. Not to get too pop culture on you but Avatar is the latest great meeting place of the two cultures of Genesis; the Nav'i of Chapter 1 and the Earthlings are Chapter 2. Whether you're from 1 or 2, you ARE the point of power that Kinnear talks about in the reading for today, "Where Are You"? It is not a requirement that we know that we are one with ALL that is, to make it so but it is useful. Jake's journey in Avatar is to become aware of the fact that he part of a universe that is intelligent, orderly and definite. The nature and purposefulness of the garden is built in to him as part of the grand design.

To be at the point of power is to be at the point of limitless possibilities. All of the creative potential of the garden, its creative action is available in that particular place; essentially right where Jake was; right where you are, right now. Sages and scientists have known this, as you can see, from the beginning of human history. There was a point in our evolution when it looked as if it served us to imagine ourselves as separate from the natural world. It is now dawning on us that such an approach to Life does not serve us and that stubborn adherence to such a view will insure that we do not survive.

What is true for the macrocosm must also be true for the microcosm and vice versa. Here comes my attempt to bring this to a personal level! As I did my "required reading" this morning, I was thinking what could this possibly have to do with me. Again ideas of separation turned out to be the key. The idea that life is happening outside of me; that there are forces arrayed out there that can hinder me; that at some point in the future I might be in the right place or right circumstances to take advantage of an opportunity, a job, a windfall.

If I knew that I could bring all the forces of Nature to bear on something in my life right now what would that something be?

"The infinite potentiality and possibility of every good thing is immediately available to me right now, right where I am."

Did Kinnear build a convincing argument today; present a plausible theory? Try it out. What have you got to lose?

Today I will apply this idea to the following aspects of my thoughts and actions ...

My particular problem, condition, or situation which it can be used to correct is ...

Day 1

2010-01-25T08:08:00.000-08:00

Maybe you've read the capsule statement for today ...

"There is only One Mind, Spirit, or Intelligence which increasingly flows into fuller harmonious expression as all that I am. As I now affirm this, and accept it, so it is done."

... and your wondering, like me. That all sounds really good but what does that have to do with my problem. My problem is real and that statement as nice, comforting and re-assuring as it is, is pretty theoretical. Well you're right. Your/my problem is real. Well real for me. Real in my mind. You might want to check it out with someone you trust and someone whose consciousness you respect to find out if your situation or condition is as real to them.
As far as the theory put forth by our author. It is just that, a theory and a theory is only as good as the experimental evidence you can bring forth to prove it. So I suggest you try it out. That's what Ernest Holmes would have told Willis when he was a student. It is what he would tell you today. It is what he says on page 51 of the Science of Mind,

"One of the great difficulties of any new order of thought is that we are likely to indulge in too much theory and too little practice. As a matter of fact, we can only know as much as we can prove by actual demonstration. That which we cannot prove may or may not be true but that which we can prove MUST be, and IS, the truth."

So what a great place to begin a new diet. Eliminate sugar, alcohol, bread or meat from your diet and see what happens. I'm going to begin today by eliminating those thoughts that have proven in the past to be damaging to my self-esteem and my self-worth. I once had a man in counseling who often referred to himself and being "not the sharpest tool in the shed." One day, in a session, he announced to me that he had decided to eliminate that phrase from his conversation. He reported over the weeks that followed how people suddenly began to compliment him on decisions he was making and how great it felt to say "thank you" when they did.

We are all familiar with the words of Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no "try" Make a note of the number of times in a day when you "try" to do something and then start eliminating it form your mental diet. Many years ago I eliminated the word problem from my vocabulary and replaced it with struggle. Well recently I've notice how much I struggle with things. It's time to refine my "diet". I'm becoming increasingly allergic to struggle.

Intelligence is in fact flowing into fuller harmonious expression in my life but it can only work with what I give it by means of raw material. My body may be getting stronger and fitter as a result of the exercise I do but I need to feed it as well. Chips and a beer after a workout just won't cut it. Taking a look at myself in the mirror will prove that.

30 Day Mental Diet: A Beginning

2010-01-24T21:11:00.001-08:00

Joseph Campbell said that the stories we tell ourselves are an attempt to answer the following questions, or versions of them. Who am I? Where am I going? What is my life about? Am I important? Does all of this mean anything?

The stories we tell ourselves are our attempts at explanations and they reveal more about the storyteller and his worldview than adequately answering any of those questions. A story is nothing more than an accumulation of all of our struggles, desires, hopes and successes in a narrative. So the author of the Noah story told us what was scariest in his desert world ... a flood.

Shakespeare caught up in the dramatic social upheavals of the Elizabethan era told us that life is about growth and change. More modern authors like Orwell and Huxley on the verge of yet a new era wrote of the uncertainty, darkness and promise before us.

If our life is about questions and we (or those we empower) are the ones who ultimately supply the answers, then I want to look very carefully to see where those answers are coming from.

Noah's flood reported by CNN would have been a very different affair. Who knows what Fox's coverage of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I with Nancy Grace adding local gossip from Stratford would have made of William Shakespeare.

A Mental Diet might mean tuning out the worst of the sensationalist news reporting than convinces us that life is something that is happening "to" us. It might mean nourishing our life with prayers of gratitude and faith. It would most certainly mean taking responsibility for how lean and mean my spiritual life is or how soft and flabby my consciousness has become.

For the next 30 days I'm going to be watching my Mental Diet; working from the book by Willis Kinnear, The 30 Day Mental Diet. Willis Kinnear was a student of Ernest Holmes, author of the Science of Mind. His book is available at the Centre.

Gratitude ...

2009-11-15T07:18:00.000-08:00

I was shocked when I checked the "Concordance" of the Science of Mind this morning to find that there was only one reference to gratitude in the entire book. It IS the famous "attitude of gratitude" quote we often hear. Yes Ernest Holmes really DID say that!

Even though Gratitude or, rather, Thanksgiving, is one of the steps of "Scientific Prayer", it doesn't seem to figure very prominently in SOM. Could it be that Holmes looked at gratitude and thanksgiving as two different and very separate ideas. Thanks, thankful and thanksgiving only get ten references in the book. What's going on here? Wasn't Ernie a "grateful kinda guy"? I know that, as a child I was constantly being told to be grateful and reminded how guilty I should feel when I wasn't grateful. What has remained with me since those days was more of a sense of obligation; really a feeling of not being grateful than a sense of a spontaneous welling up within me of just how blessed, loved, taken care of I am.

I've just returned form a very short visit to California; to my former home and Center in Nevada City. I was there to celebrate a friend's 89th birthday. Happy Birthday, Len! I came away from that experience with a deep feeling of gratitude for all of the good friends, connections and just "wonderful" stuff that happened there. I came home as well with a realization of how important my time there had been in my formation as a minister and spiritual teacher. The experiences I had there either matured me or set me up for further growth later when I was ready for it. Like a lot of what we learn about ourselves, there are what we call "good" and "bad", positive and negative. It's only in hindsight that, I can see that nothing that happened there or, in fact, happens anywhere is anything but salutary or, to put it another way. Everything serves my good.

What if I approached everything and everyday with the knowledge that whatever I encountered that day would "serve my good"? What if it's never the circumstances of my life but rather what I think of those circumstances that creates happiness or its opposite? And finally. What if approaching my life with gratitude FIRST sets me up for a better experience?

"An attitude of gratitude is most salutary and bespeaks the realization that we are now in heaven" SOM p. 497

The Practice vs the Pursuit of Happiness

2009-11-09T11:19:00.000-08:00

I had no idea when I decided to follow John Kehoe's lead and think about happiness as something to be practiced as opposed to something to be pursued that it would generate so much enthusiasm. Thank you, John. We sold out all of your books in two Sundays. I expect there will be a demand for more by next week.

I also wasn't ready for the excitement that is palpable in the room on Sundays before and especially after the Sunday celebration. A lot of it has to do with the music. Thanks are due to our wonderful music director, Diane Lines. Thanks for introducing Dawn Pemberton to us and us to her. Dawn come back soon. Jonathan Bruce. You wowed us with your rendition of the Happiness Song from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

The theme yesterday emerged unplanned from all of the material available; resources, music and even those in attendance. Children know how to be happy. Ernest Holmes inspired the Lesson. I picked up on Ernie picking up on Jesus. "Unless you become like little children, you shall not enter the kingdom." Translation, "Until you remember what little children know you won't enter the kingdom of happiness, BUT as soon as you do, you'll be there. (SOM p. 456). The Law of Good the trust in which resides all happiness (please excuse the weird construction. I don't know any other way to get it out) is not something outside of us we have to get. It is not something inside of us that we have to find. It IS us right now; an option we choose to exercise moment by moment.

Felt to me like by the end of the Celebration on Sunday, we all got there. Felt like we made that choice.

About "heart" times

2009-10-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit the image is puzzling. So that's not a good thing?

The original image is called "candy heart". Ants at a picnic, like the fruit flies that have been hanging around our house, are drawn to the last sweetness of the fading year. You know, Keats' "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ..." The sweetness of the heart of our Life is easily and often consumed by the "hard times" of our condition. The sweetness is real. The condition, though appearing real is as mutable and insubstantial as the seasons. In other words, I can focus on the candy heart or the ants. Where I put my attention will determine what I experience. While prepping for Sunday, I was struck by how much I focus on changing my mind about things; how easy it is for me to say about any thought I may be entertaining in any given moment, "Well, that's an option." I don't often exercise the same option with respect to my feelings. I don't stop and examine what I'm feeling and say, "Well, that's an option."

I recommend two books for this series. One will inform the heart by speaking to the mind. The other will pass directly into the heart. Return to Love by Marianne Williamson will create that very familiar loop. You know the one that goes something like, "hmmm, ohhh yeah. I remember that. Or, "That feels right. Or, "Wow! That's so true." Head to heart. Dumbo, the Flying Elephant will do what Karl Jung suggests by appealing to the Subjective Mind. A boing, a twing, a ping or an "ouch" will happen somewhere in the "heart" and the mind will ask, "What was that about?"

You see, the mind is the surface of the heart and the heart is the depth of the mind.

These are indeed "heart" times; times to engage the heart. Times to ask it questions and times to allow it to supply the answers.

Form my Sunday Lesson ... These are times to give the heart.

The Heart is for "Giving" giving to desire " From the light of G-d that I am, I call forth ... (fill in the blank)

giving over to freedom to express, experience ... (fill in the blank)

giving up on excuses. "I can't ... (fill in the blank)

My Meditation this AM rocked me! I have to share with y'all ... ENJOY!

2009-09-17T07:40:00.000-07:00

"Through Divine Intelligence, I become an outstanding individual. The fullness of experience is mine. I have no fear of taking the initiative. I do not limit the possibility of my future to anything that has happened to me in the past. I realize that I exist at the standpoint of limitless opportunity for self-expression.

I am a centre of consciousness in life. I am myself, an individual, a person, a reality. I am one with life, one with people, and one with events. I have no fear of expressing myself. I do not seek to imitate others or live from the resources of anything other than my own nature, because all wisdom, guidance and power is mine now.

I welcome the opportunity to live fully, freely, and joyfully. I accept the fullness of life in this moment. I believe in myself. Within me is the source of knowledge, of inspiration and of guidance. I put myself and any cares I may have in the hands of Divine Intelligence. I release all sense of worry or anxiety ...

Thanks Ernie!!

You see this is the kinda stuff, I/we need to be tryin', thinkin' believing'. Then start expecting extraordinary results in our lives that look like ... I don't know ... whatever you're looking for. Ernie was the master of "I tried that once and ..."

He basically challenged the adherents to his "new thought", his students to try it, prove it! If it works use it. If it doesn't scrap it.

No new thought student I know who really practiced affirmative prayer and the shift in consciousness that it produces in the person praying has ever told me. "Oh yeah, I tried that once. It didn't work."

responding ...

2009-09-04T08:42:00.000-07:00

I've been asked to let community members in on the process of preparing my "Lesson" for Sundays. I often tell people I begin working on it on Monday morning right after Sunday. This is true. I've been doing this consistently over the last 12 years. The process has changed a bit.

I used to put the title of the next lesson on a worksheet and leave it on my desk, letting its presence there direct my attention and awareness. Throughout the week I would jot down notes to myself, add articles and scraps of information that presented themselves. I notice now that the entire process happen internally.

This Sunday's title, "ISRAEL: I'm Not Comfortable with God" came to me as I thought about how often people tell me that they don't like the word God because of all of the associations with violence, oppression, religious wars etc. that come to mind, the ongoing Israeli Palestinian Conflict being a good example. It's an old argument we have to get over. It's as simple as getting a bigger idea of God. The Declaration of Principles of the Science of Mind inspires me to get a bigger idea.

We believe in God, the Living Spirit Almighty; one, indestructible, absolute and self-existent Cause.

I remember sharing this, the first element of the declaration with my mother in the early 90's while I was a ministerial student. I and it were summarily dismissed by my Roman Catholic mother with "far too many words." Of all the things I learned in Ministerial School, this rebuff was one of the most valuable. I learned how important it would be to make this idea of God easily accessible. It's our idea of God that is the problem. Thomas Merton once said that the single largest cause of atheism was "silly" theism. All of problems are not with God but with people's ideas about God, including our own.

If the conflicting ideas of God/Allah are not at the root of the conflict in the Middle East then the rhetoric and posturing around those differences are great fuel for a territorial and economic standoff that has been going on since the Hebrews returned from Egypt circa 2500BCE. That a Supreme Being cares where people live serves to make God too small to solve any real problems I may have and will render me powerless to deal with anything more significant than going to the store for a litre of milk without first consulting my "Sacred Writings of choice."

A New Series

2009-09-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about the new "Sunday Lesson" series for Sept. You know the kids go back to school moment; the let's start all over again; the how can I teach the same old material and make it new dilemma. Plus people have been asking me. "How do you come up with these talks week after week?"

Well, like anything, I think it generally boils down to finding something I care about and writing or talking about that. I guess what I care about right now is the direction of New Thought as a teaching and its role in a world that is evolving faster than any of us can actually get a grasp on. I think we used to be able to feel confident in predicting at least 6 months into the future. It may have been a fantasy but it was a fantasy we were comfortable with. I don't think anyone has even the remotest sense that our predictions about 2010 are based in anything solid.

The Provincial Government in British Columbia just presented its budget for the next year (a 2.6 billion dollar deficit) and then projected 1.8 billion for 2010 and less for 2011 and so on into 2013. Really Mr. Hansen? Without getting in any way political here, I have absolutely NO confidence in these figures. Not because I don't trust Liberals, or Colin Hansen or politicians but because I don't trust predictions in an economy and a world that it re-creating itself while im sitting here by the river writing this blog.

So back to the role that New Thought, Centres for Spiritual Living, our Community and my "lessons" have to play in this massive shift in perception, evolution of consciousness and general "sea change" in life on this planet ...

I'm thinking about a declaration of Principles that is a foundation for where I, we, society might go from here. I'm thinking about not so much predicting a future but fashioning one out of what is available. What's available ...? ALL possibility, the only thing that has ever been available. That's it. That's all I've got for today.