« October 2009 | Main | December 2009 »

November 20, 2009

November 21 Message - Thanksgiving Harvest

thanksgiving_harvest_corn.jpg
 
"So once in every year we throng
Upon a day apart,
To praise the Lord with feast and song
In thankfulness of heart."

-Arthur Guiterman, The First Thanksgiving

"Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude."

-E.P. Powell

This is the last Sabbath before the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving is founded on the Jewish harvest festivals. It is time to celebrate Divine provision. Unfortunately, our modern culture seems to have lost the original concept somewhere between the turkey and the football games. 

Let's take a few minutes today to remind ourselves of what it means to be truly thankful. 

Call to Worship

Click below. Listen and recite the invocation in Hebrew along with the cantor.  Let the words resonate within you and settle in your heart.
 Deuteronomy 6:4

Opening Hymn

                           Let's begin our worship time today with a  traditional Thanksgiving tune. 

 

Opening Prayer

Our Father and Mother, God of Heaven and Earth,
Speak to us today, Cultivate within us a heart thanksgiving.
If our hearts are hardened and insensitive, break up the ground and till it with Your Mercy
then sow seeds of gratitude
 Water them with Your Spirit
Nurture them in the warmth of Your love
so that our lives become a harvest of Thanksgiving to You.
Amen
 
 

Scripture Reading

 1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

 2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
       come before him with joyful songs.

 3 Know that the LORD is God.
       It is He who made us, and we are His,
       we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

 4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving
       and His courts with praise;
       give thanks to Him and praise His name.

 5 For the LORD is good and His love endures forever;
       His faithfulness continues through all generations.

Psalm 100

  1 It is good to praise the LORD
       and make music to Your name, O Most High,

 2 to proclaim Your love in the morning
       and Your faithfulness at night,...

 4 For You make me glad by Your deeds, O LORD;
       I sing for joy at the works of Your hands....

 12 The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
       they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;

 13 planted in the house of the LORD,
       they will flourish in the courts of our God.

 14 They will still bear fruit in old age,
       they will stay fresh and green,

Psalm 92:1-2, 4, 12-14


"I will praise Your works with songs of Thanksgiving continually, from age to age, in the circuits of the day and in its fixed order, with the coming of the light from its source and the turn of evening and setting of the sun, at the break of dawn and the coming of the day, continually, in all the generations of time."

Thanksgiving Psalms, Dead Sea Scrolls, 17 (12:4-12)

17Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
James 1:17-18
 
...the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.... 27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1: 25, 27
 
17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
18Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.
James 3:17-18
 
 

  Message 

I heard someone the other day describe Thanksgiving as America's annual "festival of overeating". It sad to think that the day supposedly set aside for gratitude has instead become a day of gluttony. That is the opposite of the original intent.  As I prepared the message last night, I became acutely aware of how this holiday has been transformed by our culture. I typed the word, "Thanksgiving" into  Youtube looking for appropriate music for this message. I got videos of food, stop-motion cartoons of turkeys, the Macy's parade and lots of irreverent goofy stuff but very few videos about thankfulness. That is a far cry from the spirit of the first Thanksgiving celebration.

The original Thanksgiving in this country was a feast of gratitude for God's provision. The Pilgrims were truly thankful for a harvest that was adequate to survive the winter. They came together on that first Thanksgiving feast and shared the joy of God's bounty. They sang psalms of joy like the thanksgiving psalms in the scripture reading. In those psalms, you see the true spirit of thanksgiving. The writers exhort us to "shout for joy", sing praise continually and worship as an appropriate reaction to recognizing God's faithfulness and Divine provision.

It is difficult to find the essence of the first Thanksgiving in the modern US culture. Maybe that is because we are so far removed from the struggle for survival that those first Pilgrims endured. Here on the Hopi reservation, the elders tell a story about the beginning of this world that illustrates this point. The Hopis believe we are living in the fourth world. Each previous world was destroyed when man forgot the good ways. The first world was destroy by fire and a breaking up of the earth. The second world was destroyed by ice. The third world was destroyed by a flood. Each time a few survived to start the new world. According to the Hopi, we now live in the fourth world.

Hopi mythology tells of a time after the end of the third world when most people had died. However, some people, including some Hopi, had been spared. They had been kept safe until the Earth's surface was again habitable. When the Earth was ready, these humans emerged on land and were met by a being named Masaw, who was tilling the soil. Masaw offered the groups of people different kinds of corn by which they might make their livelihood in this new fourth world. While others grabbed for the biggest ears of corn, the Hopi deliberately chose the smallest ear of blue corn.

The wise old Hopi ancestors' selection of the little ear of blue corn symbolizes their intent to live a life that would be difficult. Their harvest would be small for their efforts. However, they believed that this is a life that  endures. These ancient Hopi, fresh from the destruction of the third world, had observed that there are dangers inherent in an easy lifestyle. People become complacent, take their abundance for granted, and then lose their spiritual connection with the Source of their abundance.

The end result is that, over time, such people do not endure. Their greed leads them to hoard goods, ruin their environments and go to war with each other. Choosing a difficult life way...a way that requires much hard work for relatively small harvest, guards against greed by keeping people humble and grateful for what they have. To survive, such people must stay spiritually in tune with the Earth and keenly aware of the plants and animals around them; consequently, they endure beyond the lifetimes of the people who live easier lives.

Like the Hopi, the pilgrims lived in a harsh environment in which it required effort to survive. They were truly thankful for God's bounty. Out of that joy came a desire to come together. They had little but they wanted to share because they knew what it was like to do without. That is a great contrast to where we are in the United States today. We live in an age of selfishness because we have too much. The United States is a country of excesses. Even our landfills are overflowing. It is hard to appreciate what we have when there is even more all around us. TV ads and internet pop-ups keep reminding us  of all the things we don't have and yet most of us already have more things than we need or can properly appreciate.

We were not created to be self-absorbed. We were created to be one with the One. We were all given life by the same Breath and placed in this creation to follow the same path ...The Way.  There is no separateness in the Way. We are interconnected with all creation. When we lose the Way and start following our own path, it creates a disconnect with the Source. The Source is still there, but we have separated ourselves. We are not meant to be separate so we feel lonely and we do not know why. We try to fill the gap with things. It distracts us but does not fill the void so we look for more things.

What we really need is to return to the Source. Perhaps that is one of the lessons God has been teaching in the recent economic crisis. By removing some of our financial under-pinning,  God brought us back to reality. It provided us all as a nation a chance to reassess what is truly important. This thanksgiving is the perfect time to reassess and recreate the true spirit of thanksgiving within us. My husband and I recently read that there are now 50 million people in this country who skip meals unwillingly.  That number is the highest on record. More troubling is the fact that nearly one in four children in our country are not getting an adequate diet. Reading that caused us to rethink our blessings.

The psalms and scriptures above provide a good description of how to cultivate a heart of thanksgiving. The first step is realizing the Source of provision. As James said "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change" The one Divine Father and Mother is the Source. God is love and all good. He is the Sun and She is the Rain...faithful and everlasting. Finding  the Source is the beginning of thankfulness. Out of that knowledge, pure Joy begins to germinate in the heart. Next, we must cultivate that joy by tending it every day. Spend quiet time connecting to the Source. Use this time to remember the good. Looking at the good allows joy and gratitude to spring up and grow strong in our heart.   Lastly, as you daily tend the garden of thankfulness your heart,  joy and gratitude will bear fruit in your life in both words and actions. This is the harvest of thanksgiving.

Like the Pilgrims shared their bounty with the natives, thankfulness always bears fruit. Living in a spirit of thankfulness brings great peace. You are happy for what you have instead of grabbing endlessly for what you don't have. "Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness." Those who realize they are blessed naturally want to extend blessings to others. I challenge you this Thanksgiving to cultivate the true spirit of thankfulness then look around you for what you can sow in the lives of others.

Put some thought and time into how you can celebrate Thanksgiving this year by sharing instead of just taking. If you want a starting point, I will share with you the plan that my husband and I came up with.  As I said above, we were really touched when we read the article about hunger in the US. We have an abundance of food in our house and we had really forgotten what a blessing that is. So to remind us, we have been fasting for the past week and will continue to fast up to Thanksgiving day. Each day, we thank Mother and Father that we are CHOOSING to be hungry instead of having no choice. Then, we set aside all the food we would have eaten that day. We will give that food to a food bank in Flagstaff right before Thanksgiving. And on Thanksgiving day...I think we are really really going to be thankful for that meal. Laughing

Thanksgiving Thoughts 

So now take a moment to  review the good gifts you have been given, and think about the good gifts you can give.  Remember, Thanksgiving is an action word.


Closing Prayer

 As we end this service, let us reclaim the true spirit of Thanksgiving while we pray this ancient Essene prayer.

From the "Thanksgiving Psalms" of the Dead Sea Scrolls VI (iii. 19-36)

"I am grateful, Heavenly Father and Mother,

for You have raised me to an eternal height

and I walk in the wonders of the plain.

You gave me guidance to reach Your eternal

company from the depths of the earth.

You have purified my body

to join the army of the angels of the earth

and my spirit to reach

The congregation of the heavenly angels.

You gave man eternity

to praise at dawn and dusk

Your works and wonders

In joyful song."

Amen 

Closing Hymn





 
 
 
 


Posted by Reverend at 08:51 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

[ Yahoo! ] options

November 11, 2009

November 14 Message - Two Roads: The Art of Making Mindful Choices

 

Road in Woods.jpg
The Road Not Taken

 By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
 
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
 Our lives are filled with choices. There are many different paths that we can follow each day. The consequences of our choices range from mundane to life altering. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to perceive which ones are which. Sometimes just one step can make "all the difference".
Thankfully, we do not have to walk blindly through the paths of this life. If we take the time to find them, all the tools for a successful journey are available. Those who came before us left behind sacred writings that light the darkness. Our Father is always available to provide strength and sustenance  for the trip. Our Mother is ever present as well.  She has the important task of guiding us in the Way. Her wisdom provides our direction. She was sent to us specifically for this purpose. That is why one of Her ancient names is Sophia (Greek for "Wisdom"). 

 

Opening Prayer

Our Father and Mother in heaven and
around us and within us.
Grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can
and Mother Sophia, Your Divine Spirit of Wisdom will help us know the difference. 
Then we will live one day at a time, 
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Following as you guide us down the  pathway to peace,
  
Amen

Opening Hymn

Before the message, take some time now to become one with the One, our Father and Mother

Call to Worship

Now listen and recite the invocation in Hebrew along with the cantor.  Let the words resonate within you and settle your heart.
 Deuteronomy 6:4

Scripture Reading

 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
       and lean not on your own understanding;

 6 in all your ways acknowledge Him,
       and He will make your paths straight. ...

 13 Blessed is the man who finds Wisdom,
       the man who gains understanding,

 14 for She is more profitable than silver
       and yields better returns than gold.

 15 She is more precious than rubies;
       nothing you desire can compare with her.

 16 Long life is in Her right hand;
       in Her left hand are riches and honor.

 17 Her ways are pleasant ways,
       and all her paths are peace.

Proverbs 3:5-6, 13-17

 12 "I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence;
       I possess knowledge and discretion....

 20 I walk in the way of righteousness,
       along the paths of justice,

 21 bestowing wealth on those who love me
       and making their treasuries full.

 22 "The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works,
       before his deeds of old;

 23 I was appointed from eternity,
       from the beginning, before the world began...

 27 I was there when he set the heavens in place,
       when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,

 28 when he established the clouds above
       and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,

 29 when he gave the sea its boundary
       so the waters would not overstep his command,
       and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.

 30 Then I was the craftsman at his side.
       I was filled with delight day after day,
       rejoicing always in his presence,

 31 rejoicing in his whole world
       and delighting in mankind.

Proverbs 8:12, 20-23, 27-31

 

13 Wisdom is glorious, and never fades away, and is easily seen by them that love Her, and is found by them that seek Her...
 21 And all things that are hid and not foreseen, I have learned: for Wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me. 

22 For in Her is the spirit of understanding: holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hinders, beneficent, 

23 Gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits, intelligible, pure, subtle. 

24 For Wisdom is more active than all active things: and reaches everywhere by reason of Her purity. 

25 For She is the breath of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God: ...She is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of His goodness. 

27 And being but one, She can do all things: and remaining in Herself the same, She renews all things, and through nations conveys herself into holy souls, She makes the friends of God and prophets. 

28 For God loves none but him that dwells with Wisdom. 

29 For She is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars: being compared with the light, She is found before it. 

30 For after this comes night, but no evil can overcome Wisdom.

1 She reaches therefore from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly...
3 She glorifies her nobility by being conversant with God: yea and the Lord of all things has loved Her. 

4 For it is She that teaches the knowledge of God, and is the chooser of His works.

Wisdom of Solomon 6:13, 7:21-30, 8:1, 3-4

Message

I have always like the poem, The Road Not Taken, by Frost. It represents all the untraveled choices that are part of the human saga. We all have just one life to live and many possibilities. How can one person with a finite mind choose correctly from among all the paths that life offers? That is the crux of the poem. The answer is you can't. It is often not until many years later that we see the full repercussions of our choices. Sometimes we never see the true impact of the paths we choose.  That is why the Frost poem ends on a melancholy note...."I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference"

The point is that the physical mind only has limited capability to see. We are all limited by time, space and logic. If we journey through life only using the knowledge of the physical realm as our guide, we will be traveling through this existance with blinders on. We only see straight ahead and the road of life is not straight.  There is much more to it than the physical. That is where the road starts to "bend in the undergrowth".  

Fortunately, there is a Infinite knowledge in this world that knows all the paths. The Infinite One is all and knows all and has plotted out the correct path for each of us before our creation. The One is everything. She is Mother and He is Father. He is God Creator and She is Spirit Nurturer. The One is Yahweh and Shekinnah. The One is Lord and Sophia. The Infinite One has created a Way for the universe. Within that Way are the perfect unique paths for each individual.

There is a perfect path pre-designed for each human born into this creation. We were sent here for a purpose. Each of us has our own lessons and miracles to experience in this life. When the lesson is missed because we are too busy or too preoccupied, that lesson must be repeated. We also each have our own gifts, a piece of the Infinite within us. That innate Gift is our calling...what we are meant to share with the world.  Since the Infinite is made up of much more than physical. We can only truly understand our Gift...who we are... with a Wisdom that goes beyond physical experience. 

So how do we access Infinite understanding while we are encumbered with physical minds. The answer is we do not use our minds. Scripture says, those that are to know God must worship in "spirit and in truth" The Holy Spirit is Wisdom beyond the finite. She is the one that knows the path for us and can be our guide. She is Sophia. She speaks to us from a place that is beyond our mind's understanding. She is spirit and as such speaks to the spirit in us.

But to hear her, we must quiet the physical. The scripture also says to "Be still and know that I am God." That means we must  tune out the noise of this world. We must slow down enough to "hear" and "see" with the Spirit. Wisdom is there. She is ready and waiting to share. She wants to guide you to the hidden beauty of each day.... past the bend in the road. But you have to be willing to walk with Her.

 

Closing Hymn

Let's take some time now to slow down and let Wisdom speak to the wisdom within us.

Final Thoughts

On a cold January morning in a Washington, D.C. Metro Station, a violinist played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time about two thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

In the end, only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money, but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The man collected a total of $32. When he finished playing, no one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

That violinist, Joshua Bell, is one of this nation's greatest musicians. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before this impromptu performance, Joshua Bell had sold out a theater in Boston. The price of the tickets for that concert averaged $100.

A columnist for the Washington Post had organized the metro station performance as a social experiment about perception, taste, and people's priorities. In a common place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do you perceive beauty? Do you stop to appreciate it? Do you recognize talent in an unexpected context? As you watch the video of the Metro Station experiment, consider what your actions might have been if you had been present on that winter morning in DC.

If you can not slow down for one moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, what else are you missing?

Wisdom is calling you to take time to look and hear with your Spirit. Will you take the time for Wisdom to speak?

Closing Prayer

This closing prayer is taken from Wisdom of Solomon Chapter 9. These are the words that Solomon spoke when he prayed for Wisdom.
 God of my fathers, and Lord of mercy who has made all things with Your word,
give me Wisdom that sits by Your throne.
Your Wisdom which knows Your works...was present  when you made the world
and knew what was agreeable to Your eyes and what was right in Your commandments.
Send Her out of Your holy heaven, and from the throne of Your majesty that She may be with me. 
For She knows and understands all things and shall lead me soberly in my works and shall preserve me by Her power. 
So shall my works be acceptable... For  who among men is he that can know the counsel of God?
Or who can think what the will of God is?
And who shall know Your thoughts except You give Wisdom and send Your Holy Spirit from above.
Amen

 Further Reading

Read the Wisdom of Solomon (also known as the Book of Wisdom).
Source for the info on the Youtube video of Joshua Bell (Metro subway violinist) :  Washington Post article

 

 


Posted by Reverend at 10:06 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

[ Yahoo! ] options

November 05, 2009

November 7 Message - Flow of the Spirit Bringing Waves of Change

wavebreakingonrocks3.jpgWater washing over the rocks and sand eventually changes the geography of the shoreline.

Spiritual insight flows over humanity in the same manner.

If enough of mankind can be gathered up in the same movement, a great wave of change can be created.

The force of such waves can alter the landscape of civilization.


"We know the battle ahead will be long,
but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way,
nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change."

Barack Obama after losing New Hampshire primary January 2008 

 

Opening Prayer

Our Father and Mother
who are all around us,
awaken Your Spirit
within us, Your children
Give us eyes to see today.
Open our hearts to Your will for this age
Then let us each find our place within that will
so that we can work together to create
Your kingdom on earth. 
Amen

Opening Hymn

As we prepare for the message, let us come to God in this song and open our hearts to allow the Spirit to flow

Call to Worship

Now listen and recite the invocation in Hebrew along with the cantor.  Let the words resonate within you and settle your heart.
 Deuteronomy 6:4

Scripture Reading

 1 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth of the month, in the fourteenth year after the fall of the city—on that very day the hand of the LORD was upon me and he took me there. 2 In visions of God he took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose south side were some buildings that looked like a city. 3 He took me there, and I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze; he was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand. 4 The man said to me, "Son of man, look with your eyes and hear with your ears and pay attention to everything I am going to show you, for that is why you have been brought here. Tell the house of Israel everything you see."...1 The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. 2 He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the south side.

 3 As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. 4 He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. 5 He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. 6 He asked me, "Son of man, do you see this?"
      Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. 8 He said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea. When it empties into the Sea,  the water there becomes fresh. 9 Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. 10 Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Great Sea. 11 But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing."

Ezekial 40:1-4, 47:1-12

 

 31After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

 32All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.
Acts 4: 31-33

 

 

  Message

Scripture often identifies the Spirit of God as a wind or as water. The reference is appropriate since both of these forces of nature have unlimited energy and are capable of awesome and powerful movements. Our first scripture reading, today describes a vision of Ezekial. In this vision, Ezekial saw the Holy Spirit flowing out of the temple like a stream of water. The water got increasingly deeper until it was so deep that he could not touch the bottom but, instead, he said at this point it was a river that "no man can cross".  The implication was that if you were caught up in the flow at this point, there is no going back. However, he does not describe the flow of this river as an ominous thing. Where the river flows, there is healing and life.

Instead, the danger seems to come when the river flow stops. If there is no flow, the water becomes stagnant. If debris gets in the way of the flow, a swamp is created. The swamps and marshes harbor disease. There is no life when the river is stopped.

The metaphor of Divine Spirit flowing from the throne of God like water can be applied on a personal and a global basis. On the personal level, we are all children of our Father and Mother. In this metaphor, our Father is the Throne. He is the great "I am". He is the source. He is the immovable, impenetrable force of creation. Our Mother is the flowing water. She is the one who brings us healing and spiritual awareness. We were created with a thirst for the water of our Mother and Father. Each person has an innate  desire to seek the Spirit.

Some get side-tracked in their search. An undercurrent pulls them away from the stream of Life. They get caught up in addictions or the lure of power or materialism. They mistake these emotional or physical experience as the end of their search. these misguided souls are looking for spiritual awareness in a swamp.  Unless some kind person takes the time or interest to guide them back into the river of Life, the people in this group will never find what they really need.

There is another group that only get their feet wet in the river. This describes the majority of people. Their spirit calls them to search for the Divine but they don't want to go too far from the shore. These people want only to wash off the dust of the journey of through this life for a moment. They do not want to get too deep. They seek a shallow relationship with the Spirit in which they are refreshed but always have firm footing and can walk out quickly whenever they are ready.

Others seek a more complete communion with the Spirit. These people will walk out further into the stream of their relationship with the Divine. They walk out to knee deep or maybe even thigh deep waters. Their lives are still firmly planted in themselves. However, they allow themselves to be more completely cleansed, refreshed and made whole before they walk out of the stream.

Lastly, there are a lucky few who allow themselves to experience total immersion in a spiritual, life-changing experience. For those who swim out to the deepest waters, there is no turning back. At this point, this is a river that man can not cross. The best thing to do when the midst of this overwhelming current is go with the flow. Allow the river to take you to the Ocean....oneness with God.

Some have reached the point where they realize their feet don't touch bottom and they get scared. They think they wanted to be in control again. They try to swim back to shore. They want back their status quo "regular" life like "everyone else" that they left behind. The shore is too far away, however, and the water has transformed them. Even if they could make it back to shore, they don't fit there anymore.

Some try to go against the flow of God's will in their lives. They know they cannot go back to the shore but they try to swim upstream like a salmon. I tried that for a short time in my life. It does not work This river is too strong for that. Once you have been immersed the waters of Divine awareness, there is no turning back. Your eyes are opened. You can try to shut them but the water will just splash you in the face again. You can not go back to sleep once you have been fully awakened.

It is better and much more efficient to use your energy to swim with the flow. Allow the current to take you where you are meant to be. Find your place in the Divine plan. Along the way you will find healing and life and strength. That is the personal message of the Ezekial metaphor. 

On the global level, all of humanity is part of the cosmic ocean. The water is all around us. The shores are just illusions that we make for ourselves. We think we are on firm ground...our place in this reality. However, even the hardest granite succumbs to the waves with the passing of time. Sometimes the change is almost imperceptible - a slow but constant wearing away of what was. Other times it comes crashing down in a giant tsunami and all that was once solid and unyielding crumbles

How do the waves of change occur? There is Divine will that calls to us all around us to be One and to consciously create good. Currents of goodness are all around us. When enough of humanity is captured by the flow of one of these currents, great things happen. A wave of goodness washes the shoreline of that civilization and permanently alters it.

Unfortunately there are also dangerous undertows and rip currents in the ocean of humanity. What can appear to be a good current can be altered and an entire society can either be brought down permanently or pulled into a swampy morass. The nation of Germany prior to WW II was caught up with the idea of nationalism. It appeared to be a good idea to help their nation heal from the wounds of the first world war. It lead to an ugly current and so many were caught up in this same wave, the strength of it almost destroyed them. 

Our nation, the United States, was created when a critical mass of humanity caught the wave of two great beliefs, freedom and equality. Flowing with this current, created our strength and our diversity. Unfortunately there are some dangerous undertows in these waters as well. We have been led off course to believe freedom means we can do whatever we want to seek our own pleasure. That led us to a swamp of materialism. Now we are stuck in the mud of our own over-consumption. We are becoming increasingly aware of how hard it is to pull ourselves out.

Luckily, there is a new current flowing in some of our society today. It is a current that seeks to bond together for the greater good of mankind.  I see it increasingly in the younger people. Maybe it is because they were raised in the midst of the "Me Generation"  and see the fallacy of a self-centered life.  For those of you who wondered how Barack Obama won the last election. That was his secret. He was able to put into words a set of beliefs that a critical mass of humanity was feeling flow through them. His message was hope, unity and working not for oneself, not for money but for the good of all.

When one lives in a cosmic ocean, reality isn’t fixed; it isn’t a given. Shared beliefs and perceptions form the raw material from which reality is made. When people gather to promote a cause, they make an agreement, silent or spoken, to become co-creators. A feeling of shared responsibility arises and at a subtle level their spirits align. This alignment is what is described in the Book of Acts when it says the believers were of "one heart and mind" This group consciousness was the trigger for a great wave of change that began this age of mankind.

A similar group consciousness occurred in the last election. You may not agree with the outcome of that election. You may not be happy how things have progressed since that election. However, the currents of change, the beautiful ideals that motivated those voters, are still present in this culture. Those ideals can stil be harnessed for good. Those of us who are spiritually aware, have the responsibility to find our place in this current. We must move with the spirit that is calling for good appropriate change in our society and create a new wave...a wave that can crash through the status quo... the powers that be... and re-create God's goodness in this world.

I invite you to join us in the river of Life. Walk in. Keep on walking until you feel the flow carry you away. Then start swimming with it. It is not too late. Don't get disillusioned by what you see around of you. If enough join in, We CAN create a wave strong enough to wash this nation out of the mud. 



 

Closing Prayer

Father and Mother,

Gather us up in Your healing, cleansing stream.

Make us one with You

So that Your will may be done

On earth as it is in heaven

Amen

 

 

Closing Hymn

Let us find our place again with God before we leave our worship today. Listen to His name and feel Her spirit flow in you. 




Final Thought

Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, a Socialist or a Libertarian, there were some good ideals that our nation rallied around in the last election. I urge to put aside all partisanship at this time and watch this video with new eyes.

 Recognize that this is the current of change that is flowing through our nation right now. We are in such a mess right now. We NEED the change. 

 Don't see the man. Listen to the thoughts expressed and search your spirit to find what you can do to help further the good ideals. Help us truly be one nation under God. 

 

Posted by Reverend at 09:29 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

[ Yahoo! ] options

True Courage

indian in woods.jpg

"Courage is not the absence of fear. Absence of fear is ignorance. Rather true courage is defined as the ability to do what is correct inspite of one's fears."  Anonymous

This entry is dedicated to my wonderful son, Josh, who is presently deployed with the US army in Afghanistan

If

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And, which is more....

 you'll be a Man my son!

Josh, there is no doubt, you ARE a man...a good, kind, and mature man

 

Posted by Reverend at 06:07 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

[ Yahoo! ] options

November 02, 2009

Vegan Diet Can Save the World

The world is learning what the Essenes knew all along. We must live at peace with the world and all it's creatures. No good comes from a destructive lifestyle.

The title to this article may seem a bit dramatic but according to a UK climate expert, it is pretty close to the mark.  Lord Stern of Brentford is the former Chief Economist for the World Bank. He authored the influential 2006 Stern report on the cost of combating global warming. In an interview with The Times. Lord Stern stated that in order to be successful in the fight against climate change, people are going to have to become vegetarians.

So how does the carnivore diet endanger the world? Well it takes a lot of resources to raise animals. Compared to vegetables, it takes a lot of acreage and a lot of fossil fuels to create a pound of beef. Raising livestock is not an efficient system. Approximately eighty percent of the corn grown in the US is fed to livestock.  A whole lot of animals have to be raised to feed a world full of carnivores. The cost to the planet increases with each carnivore.  For more info on the impact of eating meat go to this article: Vegetarian vs Meat Eating: Statistics on Destruction of Body and Planet

To quote Lord Stern, “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Read the entire article here:  Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet - Times Online

If you are interested in converting to a vegan diet but aren't sure how to start, here is the info you need. This link will lead you to the first artical in an excellent series that takes you step by step into the vegan world: Vegan - 123


Article from the Times UK official, Lord Stern, claims that in order to be successful at combating global warming, people will need to become vegetarians. Lord stern is a former chief economist for the world bank and now a professor of economics. His remarks provoked anger from the meat industry. Su Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Vegetarian Society, welcomed Lord Stern’s remarks. “What we choose to eat is one of the biggest factors in our personal impact on the environment,”

Posted by Reverend at 06:04 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

[ Yahoo! ] options


Hosting by Yahoo!