February 15, 2015 – Romance – I Love You


02/15/15 Rev. David McArthur
Romance – I Love You

Today we’re talking about a sacred experience between 2 people, that beautiful relationship which happens with couples. It comes from that simplest understanding that God is love, and when we experience it we experience God. It changes us and the way we perceive. We see the other through divine eyes. It is a unifying power.

Told that if he’d survive at all he’d be a quadriplegic, a young man fixed his eyes on his wife and mouthed the words, “Maybe we should let me go.” She replied, “I will support whatever you decide, but I am in it for the long run.” The next words she spoke gave him his life back. “You’re still you. I love you.” He mouthed, “This is way beyond ‘in sickness and in health’”. It was Christopher Reeve—Superman! Their love went beyond their vows. She saw him and he saw her as they really are.

Perhaps the most profound statement found in the Bible is “He who is without love is without God.” Love is greater than even marriage. In the most hostile climate of northern Scotland Peter and Eileen Caddy were known for their beautiful gardens. Years later I contacted Peter. He had a new wife and child in Hawaii! He explained that Eileen’s purpose and his had changed. Love doesn’t own. It releases when the connection doesn’t serve the soul’s growth. It doesn’t mean that love is not there and vibrant. It is part of love—letting go.

An ice skater from the age of four, Ekaterina Gordeeva was partnered with Sergei when she was 11, he 15. They skated as a pair for the Soviet Union and in 1988 took Olympic gold in Calgary. Their partnership blossomed into love, and soon into marriage and a beautiful baby girl. In Lillehammer in ’94 they again took the gold. The next year, while they trained in Lake Placid, Sergei collapsed onto the ice dead from a heart attack. He was 28.

Ekaterina was not sure she could skate without Sergei. But at the stadium for his memorial service she felt Sergei’s presence right there beside her. Hearing her coach say, “just trust Sergei” she skated to the music they had used to win the gold. She said she never felt so much power. “I didn’t have a thought in my head. It was all in my heart—my soul.” She later spoke of how they had agreed to smile at each other every day, and every day to say one extra time, “I love you.”

God is love and goes beyond time. Remember feeling that love for your special person and say, “I love you.” So one extra time each day this week say, “I love you.”

February 15, 2015 – Romance – I Love You

02/15/15 Rev. David McArthur
Romance – I Love You

Today we’re talking about a sacred experience between 2 people, that beautiful relationship which happens with couples. It comes from that simplest understanding that God is love, and when we experience it we experience God. It changes us and the way we perceive. We see the other through divine eyes. It is a unifying power.

Told that if he’d survive at all he’d be a quadriplegic, a young man fixed his eyes on his wife and mouthed the words, “Maybe we should let me go.” She replied, “I will support whatever you decide, but I am in it for the long run.” The next words she spoke gave him his life back. “You’re still you. I love you.” He mouthed, “This is way beyond ‘in sickness and in health’”. It was Christopher Reeve—Superman! Their love went beyond their vows. She saw him and he saw her as they really are.

Perhaps the most profound statement found in the Bible is “He who is without love is without God.” Love is greater than even marriage. In the most hostile climate of northern Scotland Peter and Eileen Caddy were known for their beautiful gardens. Years later I contacted Peter. He had a new wife and child in Hawaii! He explained that Eileen’s purpose and his had changed. Love doesn’t own. It releases when the connection doesn’t serve the soul’s growth. It doesn’t mean that love is not there and vibrant. It is part of love—letting go.

An ice skater from the age of four, Ekaterina Gordeeva was partnered with Sergei when she was 11, he 15. They skated as a pair for the Soviet Union and in 1988 took Olympic gold in Calgary. Their partnership blossomed into love, and soon into marriage and a beautiful baby girl. In Lillehammer in ’94 they again took the gold. The next year, while they trained in Lake Placid, Sergei collapsed onto the ice dead from a heart attack. He was 28.

Ekaterina was not sure she could skate without Sergei. But at the stadium for his memorial service she felt Sergei’s presence right there beside her. Hearing her coach say, “just trust Sergei” she skated to the music they had used to win the gold. She said she never felt so much power. “I didn’t have a thought in my head. It was all in my heart—my soul.” She later spoke of how they had agreed to smile at each other every day, and every day to say one extra time, “I love you.”

God is love and goes beyond time. Remember feeling that love for your special person and say, “I love you.” So one extra time each day this week say, “I love you.”

Play

February 1, 2015 – Snow White – God is Good


02/01/15 Rev. David McArthur
Snow White – God is Good

Each archetypal symbol in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is some aspect of ourselves on our spiritual journey. When the soul enters the Earth it loses sight of its identity as a child of God, taking on a false idea outpictured by the stepmother, the Queen. She goes to the mirror. That outpictures our insecurity. We are concerned how people see us. We need the world to like us.

The Huntsman cannot kill Snow White (the feminine, our feeling side). He thinks he can hide her like we think we can hide our feelings. The 7 Dwarfs (the 7 chakras) can be seen as not fully grown, an early picture of our spiritual development. The mirror tells the Queen that there is something more powerful, more beautiful than she. So the poison apple.

The Dwarfs are so dualistic. Full of fear that Snow White is dead. But it is a false fear. Our journey is to know fear but learn there is nothing but God. Snow White is taken up the mountain by the 7 Dwarfs, the 7 centers of knowledge. It is the rise of awareness that there is no duality. But they cannot put her in the ground because they are still touched by her presence. The Prince just has to come riding by. He is also us, the thought part of us that knows but cannot feel. He finds the feeling self (Snow White) deep asleep. So we open to our feeling world and find incredible beauty with Love’s First Kiss.

A young 20-something guy lost his very closest companion, his dog, and plummeted into a deep depression. His friends wanted to help, so held a memorial. The young man wrote a eulogy, but found it difficult to deliver. “I could barely continue, but right at the point where I released myself into my feelings there was a pinpoint of light through my grief, and a smile. This point of happiness expanded rapidly, vastly, and immensely into a paradoxical experience of grief and happiness, into a greater sense of well being than I had ever had.”

 Give into that where the soul is awakened. It is not loss because there is only one power—the goodness of God. There is no fear. It is beautiful. Once we touch it there is no more evil Queen. She holds no power over us. This is what Jesus and Lao Tzu taught. God is good all the time. Yes, there is strain when things all come apart, but God is good all the time. This week there will be someone to challenge you, but check it out: God is good all the time.

I Am There
By James Dillet Freeman

Do you need Me?

I am there.

You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.

You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.

You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.

I am at work, though you do not recognize My works.

I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.

Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I am, and then but as a feeling and a faith.

Yet I am there. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.

When you need Me, I am there.

Even if you deny Me, I am there.

Even when you feel most alone, I am there.

Even in your fears, I am there.

Even in your pain, I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.

I am in you, and you are in Me…

When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.

You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.

And I am in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there.

I am there because I have to be, because I am…

February 1, 2015 – Snow White – God is Good

02/01/15 Rev. David McArthur
Snow White – God is Good

Each archetypal symbol in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is some aspect of ourselves on our spiritual journey. When the soul enters the Earth it loses sight of its identity as a child of God, taking on a false idea outpictured by the stepmother, the Queen. She goes to the mirror. That outpictures our insecurity. We are concerned how people see us. We need the world to like us.

The Huntsman cannot kill Snow White (the feminine, our feeling side). He thinks he can hide her like we think we can hide our feelings. The 7 Dwarfs (the 7 chakras) can be seen as not fully grown, an early picture of our spiritual development. The mirror tells the Queen that there is something more powerful, more beautiful than she. So the poison apple.

The Dwarfs are so dualistic. Full of fear that Snow White is dead. But it is a false fear. Our journey is to know fear but learn there is nothing but God. Snow White is taken up the mountain by the 7 Dwarfs, the 7 centers of knowledge. It is the rise of awareness that there is no duality. But they cannot put her in the ground because they are still touched by her presence. The Prince just has to come riding by. He is also us, the thought part of us that knows but cannot feel. He finds the feeling self (Snow White) deep asleep. So we open to our feeling world and find incredible beauty with Love’s First Kiss.

A young 20-something guy lost his very closest companion, his dog, and plummeted into a deep depression. His friends wanted to help, so held a memorial. The young man wrote a eulogy, but found it difficult to deliver. “I could barely continue, but right at the point where I released myself into my feelings there was a pinpoint of light through my grief, and a smile. This point of happiness expanded rapidly, vastly, and immensely into a paradoxical experience of grief and happiness, into a greater sense of well being than I had ever had.”

Give into that where the soul is awakened. It is not loss because there is only one power—the goodness of God. There is no fear. It is beautiful. Once we touch it there is no more evil Queen. She holds no power over us. This is what Jesus and Lao Tzu taught. God is good all the time. Yes, there is strain when things all come apart, but God is good all the time. This week there will be someone to challenge you, but check it out: God is good all the time.

I Am There
By James Dillet Freeman

Do you need Me?
I am there.
You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.
You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.
You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.
I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.
I am at work, though you do not recognize My works.
I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.
Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I am, and then but as a feeling and a faith.
Yet I am there. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.
When you need Me, I am there.
Even if you deny Me, I am there.
Even when you feel most alone, I am there.
Even in your fears, I am there.
Even in your pain, I am there.
I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.
I am in you, and you are in Me…
When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.
You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.
And I am in all.
Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there.
I am there because I have to be, because I am…

Play