Spring Cleaning

Witnessing

When we cleanse an area of consciousness through prayer, fasting and speaking words of power, a void remains which needs to be filled.  The void created as we release old habits and beliefs that no longer serve us also creates a void in the energy patterns we use to connect to our world.  This can leave us feeling lost and isolated.  Some would call it a dark night of the soul.  We all enter that dark night from time to time; it is a natural result of the cleaning we have done.  But there is no need to wallow in it.  The way out can be quick and easy.

Become a witness to all the good news you know.  In every one of the world’s religions we find some reference to witnessing; some reference to sharing the good news, not just keeping it for ourselves.  When we have a spiritual experience, we’re wired up to share it with others, to be an example of what is possible.  This practice is called testifying, or evangelism.  What we’re going to explore today is being a different kind of witness.  Often, witnessing has the purpose of converting others to MY religion.  I tell someone my experience in order to get them to change to my path.  This approach is entirely different.

   When you share the good news or when I share it, in my jeans and sweatshirt at a garden shop, at a movie, on an airplane…if any of us shares the good news in the context of our daily life, you and I are creating new connections.  We’re sharing the good news for a whole different reason.  This kind of witnessing is not about getting anyone else to become or do anything.  It’s not a result oriented witnessing.  This is about sharing our experience, our good news, for its own sake.

Remember the void in energy patterns which comes from clearing our consciousness, leaving us feeling lost and isolated?  This kind of witnessing creates new energy patterns which connect us to a higher level of being, shifting the relationships we have and bringing new people and opportunities into our lives.  The only things we change are what we think and how we speak about it.  The rest of the world will take care of itself.

How many tales of woe and fear cross your awareness every day?  Perhaps you and I can bear tales of possibility and encouragement.  It only takes a small number of people to tip the balance away from negativity and toward peace and joy.  Will you be one of them?

Spring Cleaning

Speak the Word

We live in a generous universe, conspiring for our good, and yet many of us have settled for mediocrity; we settle for just getting by.  Today lets open to a greater abundance and live in the free flow of creation.   The practice for this week is “speaking the word,” sometimes called affirmations.

The first affirmation is I am worthy of all the good I can imagine, and more.  Say that out loud and notice what comes up for you when you say/hear that statement of truth.  Most of us have attached our sense of worthiness to what we do, or what others think of us, or have said about us, or our education or our wealth.  We measure our worthiness by something in the world, outside ourselves.

The truth is our worthiness is attached to only one thing, and that is we are a Divine creation.  We are born worthy.  We can’t earn it and we don’t need to.  No matter how much we can imagine, the universe promises more.  This is a worthiness that’s not based on behavior or history.  It’s a worthiness that’s based on identity as sons and daughters of the force that created all of life.  I am worthy of all the good I can imagine, and more.  That’s the truth.

   The second affirmation this week is I release the past and bless it as a stepping stone to my highest good.   That one might stir something up.  For most of us, there is something that is hard to let go.  What if that one thing is the foundation of all the good awaiting us?  As we hold on to an experience as a failure or injury, the flow of the good that is meant to come through that experience is closed down because we have not yet learned to bless it and call it good.  What is it in your life that most needs to be blessed so it can be released?

   Affirmation 3, I give and receive freely and fully.  Knowing my source is Divine, I give and receive freely and fully.  Well, sort of?  On a scale of 1-10, how am I doing?  Are the channels in my life completely open in both directions or am I limited?  Do I give in relationships and then watch for that person to give back to me?  “I’ve given, now it’s your turn to give.”  Do I financially support the thing I believe in, even practice tithing, then immediately look for that raise at work or a windfall or something else to prove it’s going to come back to me, or do I give  knowing that freely and fully giving opens channels that cannot be blocked?  If I’m stuck in linear thinking, “I’ve given this much here and that much there, so I’m supposed to get this relationship and that lottery winning,” then I’m blocking the flow by limiting the possible channels of good.  But when I know I’m worthy, when I release the past and move into gratitude, I can’t help but express that gratitude by giving, and the universe cannot help but respond with abundance and the good pours in.  The trees in the orchards don’t give just to those who are deserving.  They give to live.

Spring Cleaning

The Pause that Refreshes
This week our spiritual practice is prayer, and discovering what living a prayerful life can mean to each of us individually. In examining prayer, it’s important we consider a basic truth about life. For instance, mind creates what it contemplates. Mind creates what it contemplates? The old Unity phrase is “thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.” Well, almost nearly but not quite hardly. When Emerson was asked, “what is prayer”? he responded, “Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.” That’s an important point but it’s missing something.

Have you ever been handed “the diagnosis?” Some examples might be, “you have cancer,” or, “your grades are not good enough for you to graduate,” or perhaps, “I’m really sorry but I’m not happy. I want a divorce.” Maybe the worst one of all is, “I have some bad news about your kid.” Facing devastating news like this leaves most of us unable to pray in any way other than “Oh, God, please, no!” That is a kind of prayer which focuses on life from the scariest point of view, which is not only less than useful, it can actually be destructive, and I’ll tell you why. “Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind” is only half the formula. The other half of the formula resides in two words, “with feeling.” The sacred marriage of mind and heart, thought and feeling, must take place for prayer to be effective.

Now here is the gift. When we receive “the diagnosis” our loving Creator protects us from manifesting the worst of our fears by sending an angel with numbing juice for our minds. We can’t pray. Our feelings may be running wild and contemplating the worst, but we lose the ability to marry mind and heart, thought and feeling. We can’t even think clearly. How many of us can focus on the highest point of view when faced with a child in trouble or devastation in our relationship? Our answer comes from two directions. The first is to surround ourselves with a trusted circle who can hold a vision of the highest outcome and who will pray with us and for us. Hopefully that circle is a part of our lives before we need it, and never forget the rest of the circle needs us as well.

The second is, in the words of early New Thought leaders, to be “prayed up.” Fill your spiritual tank with your prayer practices when life is calm and you can use your mind for visioning and your heart for filling the vision with love and delight. You wouldn’t attempt a coast to coast trip without putting gas in your car. Please don’t attempt life without gassing up your soul! But we’re all so busy! Where will the time come from? It takes no more time than is required to breathe if you are present in the moment.

As you button your shirt in the morning, use that time to deliberately connect mind and heart, then, reach for Spirit. Waiting for a traffic light or an elevator, holding on the phone, waiting for the microwave to heat your cup of water, standing in line anywhere…..you get the idea. Pause and connect. Pause and connect. Learn to use the time you usually spend on what I call the mindless merry-go-round and create a power pause. You will be amazed at the strength and serenity you will possess when life challenges you. Get prayed up while building your trusted circle of prayer partners, then when life throws you a steep uphill challenge, as it will, you will have the gas to make it.

Spring Cleaning

Fasting

   For a very long time Lent has been a time of repentance, of fasting and sacrifice, of prayerful preparation for the holiest days in the Christian calendar, Easter week.  When I was a kid, I thought Christmas should be the holiest day.  I liked Christmas presents a lot better than Easter baskets.  Yet throughout the world, from time before time was recorded, spring rituals were the most sacred because they prepared for new life.  The greatest wonder of all is that new life arose from the ashes of what had died in the dark of winter.

   All the great religions have times of prayer and fasting and repentance at this time of year, in preparation for their holiest days.  The ritual is not valuable because we are Christian or Jew or Muslim or Hindu, it is valuable because in the cycles of our lives this inner journey is what brings life’s greatest riches.  Times of community ritual bring structured opportunity to examine what’s happening inside us, and to make wiser choices, leading to greater joy.  Repentance isn’t about beating our breasts and proclaiming we are sinners.  Go back to the Latin roots, “Re,” which means go back, and “Pentare,” which means choose again.  Go back and choose again.  We look at fasting not as a punishment of our sinful bodies, but as a release of what we no longer want.  So we fast from blame, from judgment, from a physical habit that is unhealthy for us.  We fast from fear and other negative thinking.

   We are invited to engage in some major spiritual practices, and really work with them in the next few weeks, taking real steps in growth so that when we gather together for the high holy days of our tradition, it is not a celebration of historical events only, but also a celebration of what is happening in the core of our own lives; that there is a rising up.  There is new light at work in us.  The life that we have known has been laid down, and we are on new ground.  That is the invitation from Spirit to each and every one of us; an invitation that is repeated every spring during our entire lives.  We answer that invitation with the recognition that these are spiritual practices, not just Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu practices, and as such have been used and proven in all the world’s great religions from time immemorial.  Today few are aware that the ancient, forgotten religions and those of indigenous peoples also share this time of rebirth with their own rituals.  Spirit calls us to this season of remembrance and renewal in every time and place.

   I invite you to begin your holy practices in this season by clearing space in your being for a greater reality by fasting.  As you fast from something you no longer want in your life, you make room for a higher expression of your true nature, as a son or daughter of life itself.