Our Center is changing; it is growing, empowered by the intentions and work of each person making up our community. At the start of each new year we celebrate our opportunities for growth and change by participating in a Community Intention Setting, (previously called a Community Envisioning). This year our event is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, February 2^nd and 3^rd at the Center’s office. On Friday night a potluck is planned to kick off the event and on Saturday we will begin at 9:30am, work through the morning with a brown bag lunch, ending at 2:00. This year is extra special because we will ground our intentions after the meeting with a Property Blessing at our land on 22^nd Street at 3:00 on Saturday.

As Reverend Janis explained last Sunday, we employ both rational and intuitive methods in articulating our goals. We use our rational thought to figure out who we want to be as CSLT. We also vision about the highest ideal for CSLT to catch thoughts from the One Mind within each of us. But there are even more parts to successful Intention setting which track the process of manifestation illustrated by our Science of Mind teaching symbol “V”.

When I was trying to figure out how to write this, a memory came to me about something that happened in my life that I had not thought about in decades. The story is a useful analogy. Back when I was at the U of A, I took an elective class in Astronomy. I got very excited when the professor announced that the student with the highest grade at the end of the class would get to view the planets through the University’s telescope on Kitt Peak. I wanted that opportunity so I decided at that moment that I was going to be that student. I had set my intention, and at the end of the semester I was the student who won the trip.

Likewise, we at CSLT desire a permanent home and in 2016 we purchased land on 22^nd street to begin fulfillment of that intention. But that is only the beginning of the adventure of manifestation. As my story continued, I learned that winning the opportunity to see the planets still required me to get to the top of Kitt Peak. The “how” of getting up the mountain turned out to be both scary and thrilling and largely out of my control. I learned I had to ride with a grad student in a dilapidated state car up the curving mountain road on a moonless night without benefit of headlights. This was to avoid light pollution for the telescope. I never wavered in my belief that I would somehow safely traverse the switchbacks to the top of mountain because I could see that telescope in my mind’s eye. I had what Holmes calls a mental equivalent of my desire. Similarly, we at CSLT have a desire to occupy our new land with expansive dreams to set firmly into our vision as a mental equivalent. This is where faith plays a role, for we must believe that our intentions, like seeds, will grow fruit. We must believe in our final success and let Law figure out the “how”.

I did see Mars up close and personal that night on Kitt Peak, and in looking through that huge telescope I was inspired by the endless expanse of space. It awakened in me a thirst to explore and expand. I was ready to set a new intention but first I had to descend the mountain again in the darkness, car brakes squealing, to return to the level desert floor. I had to assimilate the experience into my life.

Likewise, we as CSLT develop our intentions about using our land to grow our community and then we implement our vision. The old saying goes “faith without works is dead”. Our success as a Center requires both faith and action. We will finish our intention setting Saturday afternoon and drive out to our new property. Our Land Blessing gives us each an opportunity to bring our personal intentions to the property and ground our experience there. We will implement our vision with action and go forward in this great endeavor.

I experience CSLT as a community without limits, as vast in potential as the Milky Way in the sky. I look forward to this Intention Setting event and I hope every CSLT congregant participates, as they are able, next weekend.

— Leah Hamilton, RScP (and Board Chair)