My Shift

“Doesn’t back seat driving drive you nuts?” I asked my mom.

“Not really.” She replied. “I appreciate it because they might see something I don’t.”

And with that simple exchange several years ago my attitude began to transform. The wisdom of my mom’s perspective was, I believe, God speaking to me through her.

There are a couple people who are my back seat drivers. Before I had that brief conversation with my mom, I bristled every time one of them told me how to drive. After all I have been driving for over 40 years. Do they think I’m stupid? My defenses erupt. Thinking someone else considers me stupid isn’t pleasant and neither is feeling my defenses erupt.

Wednesday’s Daily Word was Transformed. Here are some parts of the meditation: “I look into my heart to see what I can shift to better align with God…. I affirm: I trust God’s power to renew and change my life. I am transformed in mind, body and spirit. Repeating this statement many times leads me to change the way I think.”

I knew I had made a positive and healthy shift when, this week, my husband and I decided to go see the movie “Mr. Holmes.” I was the driver that day. As I pulled onto Interstate 78, I said to him: “You need to be prepared.”

“Why?”

“Because you have to pick our parking place.”

“Oh, okay. I think I can do that.”

And we laughed.

The meditation ends with “I am grateful for the power of God!”

Amen to that.

~ JEAN

P.S. The movie was very good.

Unexpected Blessings

This past week, while I was on vacation at the shore, I happened to pick up my copy of the book “Break Out! 5 Keys to Go Beyond Your Barriers and Live an Extraordinary Life” by Joel Osteen.   Part of my morning routine is to read something inspirational before sitting down for meditation.  And on this particular day, Mr. Osteen’s book was exactly what I needed.

In one chapter, entitled “Explosive Blessings,” he talks about how we should always be ready to receive unexpected blessings.  

Boardwalk - Photo Credits to Dave Stoker

“You may think your current situation is permanent.  You’ve been there a long time, and you can’t see how you could ever move up.   All the facts are telling you it’s impossible that things will improve, but God has ways to increase you that you’ve never dreamed of.  He’s saying today, ‘You need to get ready.  I have explosive blessings coming your way.  Where you are is not permanent.  I will take you higher . . . I will suddenly change things for the better in your life.’ ”

The encouraging words from this chapter created a tremendous shift in consciousness for me.   They helped to begin to free me from a cycle of negativity and frustration which was beginning to feel like a new permanent way of being for me.

After I finished my reading and completed my meditation, I went out for a run on the boardwalk.  As I ran south, the wind was at my back and running was easy.  But when I turned to go north, I was running into the wind, and it was difficult.  On any other day, I might have given up and started to walk instead.  But having just read that God can turn things around at any moment, I found that I had more stamina to deal with my current challenge. 

I’ve been reading a little from the same book each day before my meditation.   Although Joel Osteen and I differ in many ways in our understanding of God, I believe that he has the third Unity principle down pat – “we create our own reality through our thoughts and beliefs.”  And my thoughts and beliefs could use a little pick-me-up recently, so I’m very, very thankful for his inspirational words.
  

~REBECCA

 

Beauty

I see beauty all around me today:

I've named her Callie

Our first dahlia

I woke up this morning to 63 degree temperature, sun and a cool breeze. Perfect as I walked my doggies! "Our" feral cats were about this morning - there are six including the one that lets me pet her and pick her up - not the most beautiful of cats, but beautiful in my eyes. Newcomers to our garden this summer are several spectacular dahlia plants. It gives me a hint of what Katherine Ballantyne's gardens must look like.

And at Unity:

When I walked into our office this morning, greeting me was the beautiful bouquet of snapdragons Katherine brought for last Sunday's service - sitting on my desk. These are also from her gardens. Wonderful sight.

Dave Moran dropped by with supplies for the kitchen. He shops for Unity when he's out doing his own personal shopping. Thank you, Dave. Bob Faltings is push-mowing the lawn today. As all of us who have lawns know, as we are blessed with rain so are we blessed with rapidly growing grass. Thank you, Bob. Connie Wilson and all the Joel Goldsmith/Infinite Way students have just passed through my office this morning. They are a happy group are studying "The Altitude of Prayer" right now.

Our kitchen renter is in today. She is mourning the loss of her father last Thursday. I totally honor the beauty and purity of her love for and of her grief for her father. And yet she has faith and joy that he is with her mom now.

From the Daily Word for today: "When I look at the world with loving eyes, I see God expressed in all things....Beholding God's glorious creation, my heart is filled with love and gratitude."

I affirm:

I see beauty in and around me.

~ JEAN

My Desktop

I recently changed my desktop image at Unity to this:

When I turn on my computer at work, I smile, take a deep breath and am filled with gratitude. This image reminds me to let go and let God. I don't have to worry about Unity. Unity is God's church. My job is to get on with the things I have to do today: finish Unity's First Quarter Highlights, change the toilet paper, put the bulletins in the backs of the seats for Sunday's service, invite the usher/greeter team to volunteer for the Sundays in July and August, do the deposit and send an events calendar to Natural Awakenings magazine for their next issue.

I credit Unity with teaching me that I don't have to have the answers. In fact, I'm learning to turn my questions over to God too.

Holy Spirit often sends me answers over night. I wake up with some direction or a resolution to a situation I have been "Golden Keying." Rebecca wrote a description of Emmet Fox' concept of  the Golden Key prayer in her last post on Prayers. I "Golden Key" everything now.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not perfect at this. I have my "knee-jerk" reactions and I've learned to have them in safe places with safe people - my husband, my sister and a couple good friends. I have my worries and I'm grateful that I've learned to stop the worrying sooner rather than later and turn the situation over to God.

I love a visual spiritual reminder in front of my face whenever I turn on my computer at Unity. My wish for each of you is that you find your own similar regular spiritual reminder.

~ JEAN

Prayers

Three years ago a friend of mine suffered an unthinkable tragedy – the loss of a child.  She shared her entire heart-wrenching journey on Facebook - from the day her 7-year-old son had his first seizure, to his brain cancer diagnosis, through his many medical procedures, and finally to his death in her arms in Germany  where they had gone to receive a new miracle treatment.  In my eyes, this friend is a hero.  The courage and willingness to be vulnerable that it took for her to share the intimate details of this awful ordeal with an entire community of friends, family members, and strangers is extraordinary.  We all experienced her son’s illness along with her, and now we are experiencing her terrible pain and debilitating grief, as well.  The depth of emotion that surrounds this story is almost too much to bear, even for me as a bystander.  I can’t even imagine how raw she must be feeling.  My heart aches for her and for her family.   

  

Jacob

This same friend recently commented on Facebook that she is happy for a couple whose prayers have been answered – their child has received a clean bill of health – but she wonders why God didn’t answer her prayers.  Why didn’t God make her child well?  

How do you respond to a question like that when somebody is going through Hell?  It's not hard to see why a person would question God in the wake of such a devastating loss.  I've tried to picture what I would do in her shoes.  Would I get any comfort from the Unity principles?  Would I have the presence of mind to practice the type of prayer that Unity teaches? 

On the topic of prayer, in his book The Gathering, Unity minister Jim Rosemergy states , “A need is not an avenue through which God can work . . . Whatever God is doing, God is always doing it . . . If God could end the wars that plague the earth, it would be done.  If the Almighty could end the pandemics, they would be no more.  . . . If God’s work was handling needs, when a need appeared, it would be met. . . We continue to insist that a need is an avenue for God’s power, and it is not. . . Needs do serve a purpose; they turn us to God.  We identify the need and then no longer focus on it.  We turn to God and release the need . . . and instead we seek a greater awareness of the presence of God.” 

Emmet Fox recommends something similar in his Golden Key exercise:  “All that you have to do is this: Stop thinking about the difficulty, whatever it is, and think about God instead. This is the complete rule, and if only you will do this, the trouble, whatever it is, will presently disappear. It makes no difference what kind of trouble it is. It may be a big thing or a little thing; it may concern health, finance, a lawsuit, a quarrel, an accident, or anything else conceivable; but whatever it is, just stop thinking about it, and think of God instead -- that is all you have to do.”

This way of praying is challenging for me to practice when I have a burning desire for a new sweater or a summer vacation.  It’s hard to imagine that I could muster such faith and trust and non-attachment to outcomes if the stakes were as high as my child’s living or dying. 

Ultimately I know that there is very little I can say to ease my friend’s pain.  I can only be present for her and offer her my quiet support as she moves through the stages of grief in her own way and in her own time.  I would like to believe that the Unity principles would bring me peace if I were in her shoes.  I wish for peace for my friend and her family - knowing that the light of God surrounds them and the love of God enfolds them through this difficult time.  Please join me in holding Jacob's family in prayer.

~REBECCA

Let It In

Last weekend, I was out for a run on my favorite nature trail.  As usual, I was lost in my own thoughts – churning and churning away in my mind and only half taking in the breathtaking beauty around me. 

At one point, I was the only person on a quarter-mile stretch of the trail.  In the distance, I could see a couple approaching – a man and a woman – out for a run just like me, and coming closer.  My first instinct was to put up my usual defenses and prepare for a polite nod and a faint “hello,” keeping my protective bubble intact as we passed each other.  But as the couple drew nearer, in a moment of grace, I had the thought that my exchange with them could be an exchange of love.  Rather than shielding myself from their energy, I could open myself to it.  As they passed and we each said our hello’s, I allowed myself to experience their words as an expression of love, rather than as a threat.  I felt a palpable shift in my energy as I dropped my defenses, if only momentarily, and let their love (really God’s love, showing up as them) in.  What a difference!  

As I continue to work with the idea of vulnerability as the path to true connection, I will have many opportunities to practice being open to receive God’s love from everywhere, not just from familiar people and in the familiar places where I’m used to looking for it.

~REBECCA

The Universe

I recently caught a clip from the sketch/stand-up comedy show “Inside Amy Schumer,” featuring hilarious (and sometimes quite vulgar) comedienne Amy Schumer.   In this clip, Bill Nye the famous “Science Guy” explains that while scientists once believed that the universe was a “chaotic collection of matter,” they now know that “the universe exists to send cosmic guidance to women in their 20’s.”  The camera moves to several different pairs of young women talking about how the universe communicates with them.  One woman recalls taking a wrong turn and ending up in front of a vitamin store, which she interprets as the universe’s way of telling her she should take calcium.  Another describes her recent anxiety over having an affair with a married man and the subsequent relief she felt when she saw a woman in yoga class wearing a t-shirt that said “CHILL,” which she interpreted as a sign from the universe that she should relax and keep having the affair.

At one point in the sketch, an exasperated Bill Nye just throws up his hands and says, “That just makes no f’in sense.”

I laughed (hard) as I watched this comedy sketch, but not for the same reason I would have laughed five years ago.  Five years ago, I would have laughed because I believed the silly writers of the sketch just didn’t understand the universe and its capacity for sending “cosmic guidance.”  But I realized the other day as I was watching that I was laughing because I am the one who doesn’t understand the universe.  I could see myself in these young women, and I have been just as inclined, even into my forties, to take an insignificant occurrence and turn it into a message from the universe telling me exactly what I want to hear.   Or to believe that if I simply put something “out into the universe” it will manifest without any focused action on my part.

Over the past year, my understanding of God, the universe, and the Law of Attraction has drastically changed.  Ironically, my year-long experiment with the Law of Attraction has made me less inclined to believe that everything that happens is a message from the universe, or that simply putting something on a vision board generates enough energy to make it happen. 

   

It’s so interesting to me how spiritual growth unfolds -how I can be absolutely sure I understand something and, a year later, come to see it from a completely different perspective.  Or how I can grapple with an idea for months or even years until I think I’ve mastered it, and then on the next turn of the spiral, watch it come back around in an entirely different context and throw me for a loop all over again.  I loved this comedy sketch because it shed a light on a part of me that is in the process of growing and changing.  I’m still playing with what I believe about the universe.  I’m working on trying to balance the idea of having faith, but also taking authentic action; of trusting God, but also taking responsibility for my life.  It's not that I don't believe in divine guidance, but I believe it's possible for me to use "the universe" as an excuse not to be accountable. 

In any event, I enjoyed this playful (and somewhat offensive) skit about a spiritual law I've come to know and love. 

~REBECCA