Category: Spiritual Living

Cows Don’t Give Milk

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While living in Sonoma County California in the seventies, Clover Dairy billboards could be seen everywhere, even into Marin County to the south. One day, I saw my all-time favorite. It showed a Holstein cow sitting in full lotus with her eyes closed. The caption read, “I moo; therefore, I am.”

This is my last article for the Center for Spiritual Living Tucson newsletter, before I “ride off into the sunset” of retirement and my “next yet-to-be”. Therefore, it must include thoughts about frog-princes, farms, cows, love, and our relationship with Life and living. In specific, it focuses on cows and loving, and how they are connected, and that by looking at them together, one can capture a snapshot of reality, and if there is anything I want to leave with you, it’s another dose of reality, my favorite subject.

First: I must say, “The Science of Mind is a bunch of crap. This is true, if you think about the highest use of crap, and from this point of view, all philosophies are a bunch of crap.” Without crap, the garden of Life would not be nearly as rich; the plants would not have the basic nutrients and required elements to produce fertile crops. So whether it’s The Science of Mind or some other philosophy, the points of view they offer give us ways of understanding Life, and points of view about Life, so we can more readily experience Life and Its full bounty. All philosophies are crap, but they work for us, when we work with them.

Second: We are always in relationship. We’re never not in relationship, whether it’s with ourselves, another, our community, our planet, an idea, a philosophy or whatever. We’re always in relationship.

Third: Glamour and delusion change nothing, absolutely nothing, except our experiences in life. Smoke and mirrors do not change the world, or a person’s life. They only change appearances and set up expectations that always shatter peace of mind.

Many years ago, I edited and retold a story, which I called, “The Lady and The Frog.”

A woman had experienced difficulty in all of her relationships with men. She hadn’t succeeded with any. To add insult to injury this particular week, work had been exceptionally tough, so when she arrived home that fateful Friday evening, totally bent out, torqued and twisted about her whole life, she was thinking that life was too much of a struggle.

As she approached her front door step, the automatic sensor light came on, and when she put the key in the door, she heard “ribbet, ribbet.” She thought maybe one of her friends had gotten one of those noise-making guard frogs that croak “ribbet, ribbet”, when you walk in front of them. She looked around to find it, and sure enough, there in her little flower garden, next to the concrete slab porch, was a frog. But this was a real frog, and when the frog looked up at her, he puckered up his lips, air-kissed at her, and said, “ribbet, ribbet.”

She froze and thought, “My God! Am I freaking out? That frog just kissed at me and croaked ‘ribbet, ribbet!’” So she looked at the frog again, and when she looked at the frog, the frog looked at her, air-kissed her and croaked “ribbet, ribbet” again.

Since it already had been one heck of a week, this was the frosting on the cake, so she decided that she was up for a little bit of distraction and entertainment. She picked up the frog, walked into the kitchen and put the frog on the kitchen counter. Putting down the rest of her stuff, she poured herself a big glass of wine and couldn’t help noticing that every time she glanced at the frog, the frog would make eye contact, air-kiss at her and croak “ribbet, ribbet”. She poured a second glass of wine; followed by a third glass of wine, and then, all the fairy tales she had heard started becoming more real for her. That can happen after three glasses of wine. And it continued: Every time she looked at that frog, it air-kissed at her and croaked “ribbet, ribbet”.

Finally, she said to herself, “What the hell! I’ve got nothing to lose,” and she picked up that frog, held him under the faucet to clean him off a little bit, because you never want to take a dirty frog into your bedroom, and she put the frog on the bed. She went into the bathroom, took a shower and worked on looking good and smelling good. She was becoming more and more convinced that when she kissed that frog, it was going to turn into a gorgeous, beefcake of a Prince, and since frogs don’t wear clothes, neither would he, so she wanted to be ready. Throughout the process of her cleaning up, she kept looking to see if the frog was still there, and every time she made eye contact, it would look her straight in the eye, air-kiss at her and croak “ribbet, ribbet”.

Wow! She seriously started to get her hopes up here. It was looking like this could turn out to be a pretty good evening after all. She finally completed her cleanup process, walked into the bedroom; bent over and kissed the frog right on the lips, and sure enough, that frog transformed into a gorgeous, beefcake of a very naked Prince. She screamed, “My God! It worked!”, and as she looked into those deep, hazel-green eyes, he air-kissed at her and croaked “ribbet, ribbet.”

The moral of the story is, that no matter how much make-up and glamour and delusion you bring to a situation, a delusion is still a delusion, and no matter how much wine you drink, a frog is still a frog. You can dress them up and make them look like a Prince, but they always will be a frog.

Take out a piece of paper up and draw a vertical line down the middle. At the top and of the left-hand side of the paper, write the word Delusion. On the right-hand side write the word Reality. Now spend a few minutes listing situations and conditions in your life, under the column where they belong: Does that situation or condition belong in the Delusion or in the Reality column?

It has been said, “Pain is the difference between what is, and what I want it to be.”

The Delusion column is your, “What I want it to be.”

Life experience tells us: “If my ‘Want to be’ is different than ‘What is,’ that’s what causes the pain or chaos or confusion in my life.”

Tell yourself the truth now, and tell it fast. Write down at least three situations or conditions in each column, before continuing with your reading.

You have heard me say, “Love is a Verb.” In my mind, as a noun, Love falls horribly short sometimes. It makes a very crummy noun, unless you’re talking about the effects of Loving.

Looking at Love only as a noun can be problematic, and in fact, sometimes catastrophic, since our definitions shape our experience. This is how love and milk begin to relate.

If I want love (as a noun), without loving (as a verb), it may take a while, and it likely will not last very long. It’s hard to fill my love-bucket without putting in some energy.

As a verb, Love would be something we do. It’s active, it has impact, it moves, and there is an exchange of energy. Verbs support an exchange of energy.

At the same time, Love is part of our nature. It’s a function of the True Self. If it’s a function, then it’s a verb. It’s something the True Self does. It’s part of our “frogness”, as well as our “prince-ness” or “princess-ness”; it’s part of our essence. It’s natural. When we’re natural, we love. In fact, we have to stop ourselves from loving.

Love is a verb. It falls radically short of its true potential if it is considered only as a concept. Love needs to be actualized; it needs to be practiced and lived.

In Ernest Holmes’ and Willis Kinnear’s New Design for Living, we find, “The proof of any truth rests only in our practical use of it, and each individual must prove this theory for himself in his own life and experience.

Here is the story that became the title of this article:

I had a Great Uncle and Aunt, who lived on a little farm near Newcastle Texas. When I was four years old, I got my first pair of real cowboy boots for my birthday. In Texas you can get them early, and earlier, when I turned two, I had a pair, but they weren’t real cowboy boots. These four-year old versions had red leather and stitching up the shank; the whole bit. They were really cool looking, brand-spanking new boots, and I wore them proudly.

We went to visit my Great Uncle and Aunt’s little farm, and Uncle Richard was going to show me how to milk a cow. Most of my life, I have lived in a particular way. My Dad used to say that I “bogied right in,” which meant that if I wanted to do something or go somewhere, I just took off and went there, fearless to a fault sometimes. So I stepped right off that porch and started walking, hell bent for election toward the corral, determined that I’m gonna milk me a cow. Four years old. Sooner or later we learn things, and it musta’ been time for this one thing to be learned.

I stepped through the lower slat of the corral fence and stepped right into it. Yep, I stepped into some of that stuff that I called The Science of Mind and other philosophies. I stood there for a moment, looking down at the mess, and that’s when my Dad learned that I knew what it was. I called it what it’s called, but I said it as an expletive. He roared with a belly-jiggling laugh. He thought it was hilarious: What I had just stepped in, that I had stepped in it, and that I knew what it was and said so, for all the world to hear.

Well, I stepped right back out of that corral and started rethinking things a bit, as much as a four-year-old can rethink things. After a while of standing there, stomping for some time, to get that stuff off my brand-spanking new boots, Uncle Richard walked over to me. He had on those big, black, knee-high rubber boots. He had figured out how to do this thing, so he grabbed my hand and hauled me around the corral. He said gently, and not without a grin in his voice, “You don’t cut through the corral, Donald. You walk around the corral to get into the barn.”

When we arrived in the barn, there was old Bessy, or whatever her name was, and she was huge. Here I was, a little bitty shrimp in red cowboy boots, just about to milk my first cow. Uncle Richard showed me where the milking stool was, and he brought another stool over and sat next to me. He showed me where the bucket was; and this next part, I will never understand: That cow was just down-right dirty, and Uncle Richard made me wash my hands before milking her. Explain that one to me! Anyway, after washing my hands, I looked down under that cow, and I can tell you for sure, that was one utterly huge bag. I had never seen anything that big in my life. I was bottle fed, and my bottles didn’t look nothin’ like that udder.

Uncle Richard reached out and grabbed one of those puppies, and he started working on it. Right away, he got milk, but I noticed that the milk didn’t fall out on it’s own. He said to me, “This is what you’re supposed to do, Donald,” and he showed me the hand action, so I grabbed on, and I went for it. I started pulling, and kept pulling, and pulling, and pulling, and I thought, “I ain’t getting no milk.” It was the goofiest thing. So I looked at him like, “You’re tricking me. You’re playing a practical joke on me. This thing doesn’t work. It’s empty!”

And he said, “You’ve got to squeeze hard and like this.” Well those little four-year old hands could barely get around it all, but I worked and worked, and finally I got a couple of drops and began to feel pretty satisfied with getting even a couple of drops. I was ready to bag all this nonsense, because the longer I sat there and struggled, the more I noticed that it stunk in there. I just didn’t really enjoy the process much. Farms were dirty, and it seems like a whole lot of work to me.

On again and off again throughout my life, I have held to the romantic notion that living on a farm would be sweet and lovely and fun. Then I found out that my Great Uncle and Aunt get up before sunrise, go to bed after dark, and they work their tails off. It’s dirty. It’s messy. It stinks. They dealt with the realities of life like life and death every single day. Farm life is hard work! They had to eke out every drop from the cow, every head of lettuce and every single carrot they got from that land. They had to work for everything. Eggs were the easiest part, except for cleaning out the coop. And as I watched my Great Uncle and Aunt that day, they weren’t worn down by doing all of that work. They loved it. It was a true labor of love for them. It was their livelihood.

To complete the story, my aunt cooked a homegrown ham for dinner, and that was the sweetest piece of pork I have ever tasted. After eating that literally homegrown dinner, I could easily have called that farm their lovinghood, and I think that’s how Love is, as a verb. It doesn’t have to be struggle, and it yet it’s work. Energy gets exchanged, and when it does, it’s powerful and the most magical of activities. It’s as sweet as that ham.

I learned a great lesson that day. The lesson didn’t complete itself until many, many years later, but it finally finished percolating: Work doesn’t have to be a struggle. Work is nothing more than the exchange of energy. Metaphysics can be hard work, too, but it doesn’t have to be a struggle.

We don’t have to eke and pull out every single drop from this thing called Life, especially with Love as our nature. It’s just that we have been trained out of loving naturally. We have gotten trained into thinking that Love is a concept, an abstraction, a noun, a thing. But when we are at our best, most natural state, we simply love, and we naturally perceive and receive love. The flow of real love is a natural exchange of energy.

Loving is easy. It’s natural. It just takes practice. It takes practice to realize that loving is what we are, and when it’s natural, it’s what we do.

From The Jerusalem Bible: “Love is always patient and kind, it is never jealous, Love is never boastful, nor conceited, it is never rude nor selfish, it does not take offense, and it is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love gives naught but itself, it takes naught but from itself, Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed, for Love is sufficient unto itself.”

Cows don’t give milk. It is in their nature to provide it, but energy must be exchanged to express the milk. The same is true for love. The greatest souls are those who love.

Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself.”

Become the great soul that lives within. Become the love within you. Become the great Center; the Center that lives in you and awaits your discovery.

I trust that you continue to milk Life for all It’s worth, and It’s worth a lot of love!

I love you and have appreciated our time together, so with the Best of Blessings and with Love in Its Greatest Verbness, I leave you.

~ Rev Donald Graves

Crossing The Threshold

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As I reflect on the events and opportunities I experienced this year, I am reminded of specific angels written about by Brian Andreas (StoryPeople.com), “there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don’t get too comfortable & fall asleep & miss your life.” Like all years, this year has contained moments when I surely must’ve been dozing. There have also been many moments that I was glad to be wide-awake.

I gave myself the gift of time to read a novel over these last two weeks. The Promise, by Chaim Potok, is not a book I would select based on the cover art, or on the synopsis of the story-line, however it was a stunning coming-of-age story about a young man growing up in a culture that I had very little awareness of, and even less experience with. He finds himself at several difficult and uncomfortable crossroads, those proverbial ‘rocks and hard places’, where he faced no easy or pat answers, and no one could really guide him in choosing the most universally beneficial choice. While at times he seemed to be frantically flying by the seat of his pants, he thoughtfully and intentionally chose the path that ultimately led to the greatest good for himself, as well as for all others who were directly involved in the story. The story of this young man’s coming-of-age is everyone’s journey (also recognized as the hero’s journey or Joseph Campbell’s classic monomyth). According to Campbell, everyone hears the call to adventure, and everyone responds in the way that seems most appropriate, reasonable (or perhaps, safe) to them at that particular moment of time.

I remain very clear that life isn’t tidy like a novel, or a 60-minute drama on television, where every little thing gets wrapped up and there are no loose ends by the end of the hour. And I know a successful life doesn’t depend on a one-time only event, which means you can’t miss it! There are always opportunities to perceive our world with new eyes, make decisions about our place in it, and choose, and choose again, as we learn, have experiences and increase in our own awareness and sense of place. At the same time, a sizable dose of self-compassion remains in order. Self-criticism, flagellation, diminishment and deprecation provide no value. Always, and in all ways, we each do the best we can, with what we know, what we have, and what we believe we are capable of at the time. It is enough. It is always enough.

This past weekend we allowed space and time to engage in a very special, succinct, year-ending and year-beginning ritual, to take stock of our individual decisions around events, conversations and activities that had left us feeling diminished in some way, and those that had enlivened our lives. I got the chance, just like everyone else, to formally accept and allow that freedom and grace in the releasing and claiming rituals that we shared this past Saturday evening.

I trust you found your way through the events and activities of this holiday season and feel easy and comfortable with the choices you have made, and any intentions you may have set, about how your bright, brand new year will unfold. I also trust you to remember to be compassionate with yourself and others when things don’t turn out exactly the way you envision them.

Best blessings for 2017 as we walk this road of life together.

By Rev Janis Farmer

You Never Know

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by Karen King

On July 15, 2014, I was stopped at a red light at the split in Camino Seco that is interrupted by Golf Links. My car was facing West and all of a sudden I was rear ended by a commercial truck barreling west on Golf Links at sixty miles per hour.  He hit me so hard it knocked the ABS system right out of my car. The Ford 350 driver got out of his vehicle and we exchanged insurance info and he said, “Gee, I forgot all about this light, I wasn’t looking anyway, I had my mind on something else.”

I felt fine at the time, no adrenaline shakes, just a slight stinging sensation running from my heels to the top of my head that didn’t seem to last very long. I thanked God for that and went on with my business. Within a few weeks, I began to develop symptoms and began asking the Master Physician for Guidance. “Who’s going to help us with this one?” With no obvious mechanical parts broken or fractured, no bruises or signs of physical trauma, where does one begin?

It’s been a journey and I had such wonderful healing help along the way: prayers of my fellow Practitioners and friends, a pain clinic, a physical therapist trained by a Brazilian Osteopath, my D.O, and since late summer, another physical therapist who had a whole body approach (neuro-muscular skeletal).

On Black Friday, I awakened realizing I had had a major breakthrough. The pain left my body. Oh, it flirted with me for a few more days, but it finally disappeared. I give all these healers credit for this accomplishment but I can’t help but wonder that this prayer on my refrigerator didn’t make a big difference; perhaps a big difference within me. I had been reading and experiencing these words for thirty days in a row while my morning oatmeal was cooking.

I wrote this affirmative prayer (treatment) for a Roots class and then rewrote it for Sunday invocation at CSL Tucson. (I write all my prayers/treatments while in meditation.) Many of the congregants asked for copies of it. I know that somehow, this prayer so appreciated by the congregants had its influence on me and in all places, next to the microwave where I cooked my daily oatmeal. So, here I stand, in the light of God and all those who were part of this healing and share it once more:

I set all other thoughts aside and silently breathe in the breath of God. There exists no other moment but this one occurring right now. With my deep breathing, I release the tension of the day on each exhalation. I spend some time in that space right now. I allow the God energy that I breathe in to extend to every inch of my body and feel the light energy of God penetrating every cell of my being.

I allow my deep breathing to return to normal; I relax into the private time with the one Source, the one Power, Universal Spirit, God the Good. I know that I manifest as a perfect creation of the living God…..spiritual, harmonious, fearless, and free. I reflect all that consists of the universe of Good.

From every direction, everywhere, come words of truth, making me know that I feel free, wise, and happy.  I appreciate the world in which I live. I show forth to the world health, wisdom, and peace.  I reveal to myself and those around me perfect health in every part of my being.

I feel fearless, free, strong, wise and able to do everything that belongs to me to do each day. God works through me to will and to do that which ought to be done by me. I function as a living demonstration of the power of Truth to set freedom into health and strength for living service to the world.

I acknowledge to myself, and to my internal being that I generate wealth and strength and a livingness through and through. God emanates life, health, strength, and support forever. I sense it in body, mind and spirit. I pronounce myself well and strong. As God saw the works of His hands Good, so I myself manifest as Good. All manifests as Good. And So It Is.

 Adapted from The Sixth Treatment of Emma Curtis Hopkins, modernized by Karen King RScP  p.261-262 of Scientific Christian Mental Practice

Heart of Gratitude

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by Shelly Dunn

About six weeks ago I had a definite, unpleasant, sorrowful experience when I received my cat’s ashes back from the crematorium. I knew in my gut that his ashes belonged in California where my mother’s ashes had been spread four years ago. This was a definite order from my Universe that this was what wanted to be done, seriously, and soon.

As a school counselor, I have a publicly-funded position. There was talk at work that none of us were going to receive back pay because of a vote that happened last May. So after pondering a bit about all of this, my prayer partner did a spiritual mind treatment with me for money to cover a plane ticket to go back to San Francisco over the Christmas holidays. I had been really clear that I didn’t know how the Universe could possibly supply me with cash for an airplane ticket and spending money, and knew I needed help in changing my mind.

I absorbed the treatment given by my prayer partner, and felt it resonate in my heart. Because I allowed this possibility, I felt so open and accepting. Then the very next day I was slammed with a few unexpected bills that had to get paid. Crap. So yes, I did do argumentative work (i.e. deny the impact or effect of the unpleasant and unwanted experience and claim /allow/accept the desired experience) with myself, saying “no” to feeling worried or fretting, and started saying to myself “I choose to trust my Universe because my Universe is gracious and bountiful!”

My “busy monkey mind” would randomly start chattering on and on, trying to force me to slip into doubt. It occurred to me I could counteract, or minimize, that Negative-Nellie by doing a gratitude list of ten things that occurred during the day, every day, that were blessings. It didn’t matter how small or inconsequential these blessing were, they still counted. I did this every night for a week right before bed. Within the week of persistent gentle self-work through the argumentative conversations with myself, continuously reaffirming my belief in the possibility of a positive outcome and doing my nightly gratitude list, I had a lovely surprise — a friend blessed me with a free round-trip airplane ticket!!! I feel such humble gratitude for this teaching and the BIG heart of my friend! I also found out that there would be extra money I had previously earned in my next paycheck!

This definitely goes into my demonstration log just to prove that THIS STUFF WORKS!

Note: Practitioner students have been asked to keep a written record (or log) of when they have, or see, demonstrations of answered prayer treatments. This helps them remember, and build their faith muscle around, the knowing and affirming that prayers do yield the life-affirming results desired. This practice is not restricted to practitioners and practitioner students, but is available to anyone who desires to prove to themselves that they have access to all the potential Good of the Universe.     — Rev Donald & Rev Janis

Grateful … For This?

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An attitude of gratitude is most salutary, and bespeaks the realization that we are now in heaven. (Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind 497.2)

Wednesday night following the elections, we had a regularly scheduled Journey class. It was supposed to be about “The Hero’s Journey” and how archetypes color our lives. In a way it was. This election moved each of us through our own personal hero’s journey, or as I like to think of it, the agitation and spin cycles of a washing machine. Ultimately, we come out cleaner, clearer and more focused, and the process tends to be disorienting and generally unpleasant.

Obviously, we talked at length about the election results and our impressions of the particular candidates and our feelings and fears about them, recognizing that we each carry a biased caricature in our individual minds about who these two individuals are, and what they represent. By the end of the evening, most of the individuals present felt less at the effect of the election results, and recognized that this election calls each of us to shift from a sense of complacency into engagement and involvement in some fashion and at some level that is unique to each individual.

Each of us has had experiences, or have read about, or heard about experiences, that reinforce our viewpoint of the state of our country. I know it has been true for me; suddenly, random people seem more rude and pushy and arrogant and unkind. And we know, at least hypothetically, that we can only see what we believe. Is it time to pull out some elbow grease and scrub our pet points-of-view and see what we discover? When we remember, we know we are at liberty to think the kinds of thoughts we choose, and work towards the kind of world that we desire to live in.

No democracy, or organization, works long or well if participants willingly allow others to do all their thinking and deciding for them. Each one of us has to do our own heavy lifting. In this instantaneous information, misinformation and disinformation, age in which we find ourselves, sifting through the noise to find accurate, pertinent and meaningful input to allow conscious, intentional decisions can be challenging, and time-consuming. It’s not a whole lot of fun, unless you really enjoy detective work.

You have heard the quote, “Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.” It is attributed to Gene Fowler, a journalist, author and dramatist. I think it is fair to say that he was an observer of the human condition. Whether he is a cynic or a realist, I’ll leave that to your interpretation. He is also quoted as saying, “Everyone needs a warm personal enemy or two to keep him free from rust in the movable parts of his mind.”

So now, how do we move from disgust and distrust to that salutary (i.e. favorable, healthful, beneficial, wholesome) attitude of gratitude? How much personal work will it take so that we can find gratitude for the individuals who wake us up from our slumber, and move us back into our active, participative adulthood as members of our lives, and our society?

In The Hidden Power of the Bible, Ernest Holmes reframed the story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden as the necessary waking up that humanity had to do once they collectively chose to experience a world view that contained duality – good and bad, light and dark – and in that choosing, realized that each was always at liberty to choose, and choose again. Maybe this election has created the necessary momentum for each of us to remember to choose the biggest, boldest, brightest life expression we can imagine, and to step on to a bigger stage than we ever imagined. And maybe it has served as a bold reminder that we are in charge of our life experience, and not be at the effect of something or someone outside of ourselves. I can find gratitude for that reminder, and step boldly into my life.

Best, Rev Janis Farmer

Double Down and Flip

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by Holly Baker

Double Down – to become more tenacious, zealous, or resolute in a position or undertaking

By the time you are reading this article, without any threatened delays and, fingers double crossed, we’ll finally know the outcome of the 2016 presidential race.

Jangled nerves, a neck and back achy with complaint, my body, mind and spirit hunger to end my election year bender, a self-imposed bonafide media binge. Like a gawker passing a horrifying car accident, I couldn’t stop slowing down to look again and again.

No matter how repulsed, I’ve been fixated by this year’s election cycle – following all major newspaper coverage, missing not one minute of all three debates. To my glee, the latest IOS update for iPhone displays “Breaking News” on the opening screen. The words “double down” entered my awareness and vocabulary for the first time.

In this season of an in-your-face, all-persuasive feeling of separateness, even vitriolic hate – an us-versus-them atmosphere on steroids, how do we embrace our Oneness? How do we “double down” on our Truth?

In CSL’s “The Power of your Word”, an 8-week certificated course, weekly homework starts with the popular news – each student picks a current news story that triggers them, pushes their buttons, or repulses them.

The initial task in this course designed to teach students to formulate and use Spiritual Mind Treatment for themselves and others is to identify the God Quality in any situation, and then “flip” the perceived condition to a positive, an expression of Wholeness.

We learn everything we experience demonstrates a God quality. Behind every fear is a God quality. Knowing Wholeness, knowing Perfection, knowing it’s all God is the first step. There is no evil just a misuse of good. Science of Mind does not deny any circumstance; we deny it has power over us. Pain lets us know we are alive. We’re not supposed to put up with it, but change our mind about it and then it can change. We choose our consciousness. We bring every trigger to ourselves in order to develop mastery.

During this divisive time as we begin our lives under new controversial leadership, how do we remember and apply the principle that we are ONE? What are the God qualities you can see?

Double down on knowing Oneness, double down on knowing Perfection, double down on knowing Love. Flip whatever angst you are feeling and “double down”. The source of peace lies within us.

My eyes behold the complete and perfect in all Creation, “In all, over all and through all.” I see the perfect; there is nothing else to see, and no suggestion of otherness can enter my thought. I know only the perfect and the complete. I am perfect and whole, now. I see the Good.
–Ernest Holmes

Come On In … The Water’s Fine

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While volunteering as a Chaplain at the Veteran’s Affairs Hospital in Salt Lake City, a Protestant Chaplain shared his motto with me: “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Intuitively, I resonated with the wisdom of this guideline, and when I shared it with peers or other chaplains, their heads always nodded in agreement.

The objective of an effective chaplain is to help people confront their demons so that they can deal with them. “Afflicting” is not about irritating. It’s about awakening to the truth of the situation and to a deeper truth beyond the conditions. It’s about bringing one to themselves, so they can bring out more of themselves.

An American proverb offers: “People are like teabags. They find out what they’re made of when they get into hot water.”

Just like with the chaplain’s point of view, when most people hear this proverb, they nod in agreement. What many don’t say, and more probably believe, is that “hot water” can be a bad and painful thing; that hot water is undesirable. Who wants to suffer? On the other hand, most believe that we need to hurt to wake up, and after being around this world for more than just a few years, this belief seems more regularly experienced than not. However, I don’t believe that life has to be this way, and neither does it need to remain this way if it has been up to this point in time.

When I think of hot water as a method by which a tea bag can bring out the tea’s true nature, its true essence, it becomes analogous to the hot water in a “Hot Tub”. Hot tubs can be therapeutic. They help us cleanse, feel refreshed and feel like a cooked noodle in a good way. The hot tub can help to bring out health and vibrancy, just like the hot water helps bring out the essence of the tea.

Hot water can help us birth our greatness, our magnificence, our true essence. In the same way, afflicting ourselves into a recognition of reality, can facilitate our awakening to the obstacles we have place in the way of that greatness and help us to choose differently.

Consciously or unconsciously, we create our own suffering. Consciously or unconsciously, we also create our own metaphoric hot water.

I think it is more difficult to experience personal magnificence, when we believe we have to suffer in order to get there. That would mean we could not experience greatness while having an ecstatic experience; that we have to suffer in order to awaken instead of enjoying the journey. This is absurd.

The belief that we have to be the wounded healer; that we have to limp along from the wounds of past experiences in order to step into greatness, is a horribly limiting way to go through life. And I say this, even though I have lived much of my life with this approach. However, just because we have lived our lives in that way up to this point in time, does not mean we have to continue in this manner. Maybe it’s time to consider doing it differently.

I think it’s time to celebrate the magnificence within us. I think it’s time to glory in and share the Power, the Intelligence and the Presence that lives within all of us, AS us, with each other. I think it’s time we climbed into the hot tub of magnificence together. I think it’s time to jump into the boiling pot that brings out our greatest selves.

Together, let’s steep in our magnificence and create a brew worthy of drinking and sharing. Together, let’s allow the Divine Tea (Divinity) to come forth from ourselves and share it with each other.

In case you have not started before now, it’s never too late to begin. Come on in. The water’s fine.

Many Rich Blessings On You…
RevDonald

“Stupid hurts, and it should.” (Graves’ Law #97)

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“This Is How It Works”

“Stupid hurts, and it should.” (Graves’ Law #97)

When we do something against the Laws of Nature, or against our true nature or values, we suffer… and we should. This valuable feedback gives us the information, and possibly the motivation we need, to change.

What’s interesting to observe is that the hurting escalates if we don’t pay attention.

Initially, we get feedback from our emotions and/or feelings. We feel emotional discomfort or upset, and this could be as vague as an internal “stirring” or something more specific as anxiety.

If we don’t listen, then it escalates, and we get feedback in our environment: in our affairs, at home, at work, in the world around us, etc. It shows up as “noise”, chaos, “failure”, defeat, resistance, etc.

If we don’t pay attention and listen, then it escalates further, and we get feedback in our body. It shows up as chronic and/or acute pain, disease, sickness, and/or with other physical symptoms. The body is the first and the last place where the Universe gives us both our first and our last chance to wake up to the thinking that is out of whack. If we continue and do not listen to the feedback of disease, we move into an even deeper phase.

Since the Universe “loves” us and gives us to ourselves so totally and continually, It is willing to kill the body and let us start all over again. The Universe escalates the feedback until we get it, up to and including our getting to “start over”.

Paying attention to this process can encourage all of us to pay more attention to the various kinds of feedback presented to us, and therefore, help us to find ways to live more congruently and joyfully.

I trust you will choose to enjoy your process.

Reverend Donald Graves
(Excerpted and expanded from Graves’ Laws: Aphorisms to Live By, by Donald Graves)

Spiritual Oneness Through Music

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How wonderful it is to observe and think about the many different ways people may walk a spiritual path, and the different places along that road where one can find oneself. This is not an either/or proposition, but rather an opportunity to exercise the power of choice among the many options available. Depending upon what someone needs at any given moment, different approaches can fill that need.

There are times on the journey when one needs inspiration or guidance or a change in perspective, or maybe a deeper realization of love while working through a life situation. Sometimes what’s missing is the mystical and transcendent experience of oneness: that deep realization of truth where everything shifts and one experiences everything as perfect, as divine, as God in everything and everyone.

As each spiritual center, church, synagogue or mosque finds their unique way of talking about and fulfilling these human needs, more people can experience a depth and richness in the teachings and feel invited into a deeper acceptance and understanding of the Infinite.

Music is one of the most effective tools in facilitating the spiritual journey, and it is a powerful avenue by which all teachings and philosophies can find common ground and provide inspiration, a deepened realization of love, joy and peace and sometimes, between the notes and lyrics, that transient experience of the mystery comes, joining everyone in the divine. What a sweet place that is…especially when shared with others.

Three spectacular and unifying musicians, David Roth, Jana Stanfield and Richard Mekdeci, will offer the first Tucson emPower Music PosiPalooza Concert, from 6 to 9 p.m., September 21, at Donald R. Nickerson Performing Arts Center, in Tucson.

Admission is $20, or two for $35. Concert location: 3231 N. Craycroft Rd. Buy tickets at empowerma.com/upcomingevents or at Center for Spiritual Living Tucson, Unity Spiritual Center for Peace and Unity of Tucson on Sundays.

Blessings, Reverend Donald

Groupon and the Farm Box

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tomato-9This story could more comfortably become a story I heard rather than something that actually happened to me today. About a month ago, Groupon offered a Farm Box for half the normal price. I had been curious about what local fresh organic produce delivered from the farm to consumer was like. I hadn’t been so curious that I wanted to sign up for regular delivery, so this was a perfect opportunity for me to find out how the FarmBox system worked and what was in a normal delivery. When I went on their website to arrange for pickup of my first (and probably only) FarmBox, I was not happy to learn that they required a credit card, in addition to my Groupon code to actuate my delivery. I communicated with their helpful customer service person about this and how I was unhappy that it really, really looked like I was being set up to be charged beyond this initial purchase, for regular weekly or twice-a-month-ly deliveries. The kind and helpful woman assured me that I would not be, that the consumer had to authorize any change in the program.

So the first box came and the contents were lovely, lively and fresh.  Still I was not inspired to change my subscription to start arranging for regular deliveries. The FarmBox people charge your card at the interval that you designate and if you do not pick up your box, they donate it to an organization that can use the fresh produce. This is a good business practice and good use of resources, since produce is so perishable, they have created a mechanism whereby it is not wasted.

Imagine my dismay this morning when I received an email from them that my credit card had been charged for this next week’s delivery, which I never set up and never authorized, but had been afraid would happen.

Emmet Fox wrote (in Around the Year with Emmet Fox), “When you give your mental assent to an idea, good or bad, you associate yourself with that idea and you incorporate it into your consciousness… It is the mental assent that counts.”

Oh that.

I e-mailed the helpful woman back and she got straightened out immediately. She remembered me from our previous interactions, was terribly apologetic, couldn’t imagine how it had happened, and that it must’ve been human error and wanted to make it right.

I knew exactly how it happened, and I know what to do about it. Shift my focus. Now.

—  Janis

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