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April 20, 2014 – Becoming The Butterfly

by

4/20/14 Rev. David McArthur
Becoming The Butterfly

“I was a pathetic wreck at every level.” Mike’s once successful career was in shambles, so too his relationships. He was despondent. He asked what many of us have asked, “Why me?” But he went further and also asked, “Who is this person I am meant to be?” He was aware he didn’t look anything like what he began to see. So he asked, “How can I be of service to You?” And he was grateful for the qualities that he now desired in his heart. Since, as minister to a large Unity church in Sacramento, he has become an inspiration for thousands. The shift to live according to what he asked for in his heart is what Easter is all about.

Zhuang Zhou, Taoist philosopher, 4th century B. C., in a dream, flew freely about as a beautiful butterfly. The dream was as real as his life as Zhuang Zhou, and he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Both states are our reality. The butterfly is a symbol of the spiritual self. The freedom of flight, the joy, the magnificence is our reality if we so choose. Mike had made the shift to choose the reality of a spiritual being. “I am a magnificent spiritual being!”

I was in Costa Rica sitting on a river bank captivated by the dense rainforest on the other side of the river, when flashes of a beautiful blue caught my eye. It was a blue morpho butterfly, a wonderful symbol of the free spiritual being we each truly are. In Canada, six year old David was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, and given only one or two more years. The Make a Wish Foundation granted his wish to go to Mexico to see a blue morpho butterfly. After returning home, he went into remission. At the age of 30, he watched on the set as his story was filmed.

Making that healing connection to that in us which is whole is the meaning in Easter, to see the Christ Self within. We have the capacity to see that within ourselves. We each have made that connection one time or another. To go there is a simple thing; it is to experience love.

By fifteen, with 15 arrests, a boy landed in solitary for two weeks. In that “tomb” he discovered his love for his mother. He mentally wrote her many letters, and from there he vowed he would never again do anything to hurt her. And in keeping that promise, he knew he could do anything. Now 33 and a pro in the NBA, Caron Butler made that choice. He made that shift to the highest within him.

Are you open to experience the highest within you? “I am open to the highest within me.” Make that connection within your heart to the love within. Mike made that connection with his spiritual self. Zhuang Zhou did too with the butterfly in his dream. Butler made it to the love in his heart for his mother. And little David made that connection to the blue morpho, the symbol of his spiritual self. You can make that connection in your heart! Bless you!

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April 13, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 6. Ask & Appreciate

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4/13/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 6. Ask & Appreciate

We have been hurt. We feel we’re not ok, not good enough. We have loss by death, and the death of dreams. It hurts. We’ve hurt others. We carry that pain too. And when we say “There is only one presence and one power, the all-loving goodness of God”, a part of us says, “I doubt it”.This part says God isn’t good all the time. But we say it not because at that point we believe it to be true, we say it to take and move our attention away from what’s too difficult, too draining, too hurtful for us to live in, and start heading in a different direction. I wanted it to be true when I first experienced deep pain; I asked to know. I saw the presence of a God of infinite love, that the pain I carried was immersed in love. And it healed. Now it took me a while to understand that there was present a love that could heal me and free me, and that what I had experienced was only the goodness of God.

Over the past weeks I have shared with you the steps of the HeartMath tool called CutThru. The steps are a cascade of heart feelings and energies, a single flow to a point of wholeness. Each step is a powerful spiritual tool in it’s own right, but they lead us to where we soak the pain in the love that is within us. It brings the healing. The first step: embrace your pain. What love it is to look at that part of us that is so hurt and say yes, you are there. Next, turn on the power of your spiritual being through your heart: breathe love. It opens us to this flow, this infinite power and transformative energy within the universe. Once you are in that powerful spiritual place, step up to the eagle view and see what is there. Tremendous wisdom within brings clarity. It is the descent of light into darkness. From there pull the feelings into the heart and hold them there in neutral. Not finding them good or bad, not needing to suppress them nor empower them. Then soak them in love through compassion for yourself. An amazing thing happens—the self, in its pain for so long, begins to experience peace. It heals. Sometimes it’s the first time you do it; sometimes the tenth. Then you ask for the wisdom and guidance that is there. This isn’t a guidance technique, it is a healing focus. But sometimes when I go there and I ask, Spirit begins to show me how to make changes.

To complete it, to let it move deep into the cells and anchor within, use the power of appreciation. Say yes, this is now my reality. I am whole. I am no longer the instrument of pain. I am the instrument of love. Receive it with open-hearted gratitude and appreciation. I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful. Let it move deep deep into your consciousness.

Picture the whale that was so entangled in fishing nets it was surely going to drown. For hours divers cut each rope with great care until finally the whale was free. In it’s freedom, it circled the divers many times, then went to each one and touched him, “I am grateful.” And the next, “I am grateful.” To each one, “I am grateful.” And it went away, free. We’re going away free, acknowledging the deep deep deep gratitude on our hearts for this love, this power that brings us to whole. I don’t begin to understand, but I know it’s there, and I know it’s real, and I am grateful. Join me, I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful. Whatever it is, there is a power and presence in you that is pure radiant love. It is wholeness, and it brings forth its wholeness within us. And for that, in my life, and in yours, I am grateful!

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April 6, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 5. Heart Soak

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4/6/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 5. Love Soak

We have been getting ready to enter a place with great creative power and energy where Spirit frees. The steps we’ve taken are 1) Embrace the feelings we have. They are the emotional markers which point to where we need to heal. Then connect with our power by 2) Breathing Love. It lifts us to where we see the patterns in our lives that we have been tripping over. This is divine objectivity, or 3) Spiritual Understanding. In step 4) Heart Neutral, we hold our feelings in our hearts in neutral. They’re not good, not bad. It is not the time for us to to do anything with them but step back and let Spirit be active in us.
The real fun is step, 5) Love Soak. Give yourself a hug! It feels good. Let it fill you until there is no pain, until Spirit within calls it into wholeness.

Victoria was a classmate of mine in ministerial school. Upon graduation, the committee that grants ordination told her no, that she was “too childish” to be a minister. Afterward there were tears and blame, but she knew it was due to something inside her, a block that she had pursued for years, that caused her to respond with childishness whenever she felt threatened. So she followed the 5 steps, and let that love in. It lifted her to where she could see the pattern in her life of using her “pretty little girl” whenever she felt fear. She saw the need in her that the “little girl” stood for. She poured her love on it. It didn’t matter what “Little Vickie” had done, what mattered was that Vickie loved her. That which carried the pain began to heal. What came through was the true peace of the being she was. She went back to the committee, and has been a successful minister now for over 30 years.

Thich Nhat Hahn says, “It’s like a mother, when the baby is crying, she picks up the baby and she holds the baby tenderly in her arms. Your pain, your anxiety is your baby.” You must care for it. We have become trapped in emotional constraints that keep us from functioning, that keep us weighed down. Let’s heal that baby till it doesn’t hurt at all. It takes a while to let it soak in, but this is how you heal yourself, how you take the plank out of your own eye. Let that amazing power of spirit heal. We can heal everything. Take just 10 minutes when that certain feeling comes up. Soak it in love.

What we find at the end is that it’s really true—Love is what it’s all about!

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March 30, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 4. Heart Neutral

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3/30/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 4. Heart Neutral

We can create a state of consciousness for which some people have searched a long, long time. We are aware that we are in the world but not of it. We touch experiences and enjoy their richness but they do not control us. It takes focus and special energy in the heart, and the way to bring it forth is seen in HeartMath Cut-Thru. HeartMath is a secular way, but it shows the spiritual potential and maturity within us. The steps are 1, embrace your feelings, 2, activate the power by breathing love, 3, call forth the amazing wisdom within through spiritual understanding, divine objectivity.

Today is 4, Heart Neutral. Feelings come up, and that is wonderful, but they can control us. Heart Neutral is different. We can hold the feelings in our hearts but we don’t have to be controlled by them. The power of Spirit is always there to act on them. Heart Neutral can release levels in us we have no idea are there.

Lao Tzu: “The Tao is like a bellows: it is empty yet infinitely capable. The more you use it, the more it produces…” So too the heart. There is room to hold whatever you are feeling in your heart because in there there is infinite ability. “We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move… We work with being, but non-being is what we use.” Then we hold it in non-being, in neutral—the part we don’t see, we don’t understand, that flows through us.

How do you get to neutral when the feelings come up? There is head neutral and heart neutral. When the mind tries to choose it suppresses feelings. Our teens have a wonderful expression for this—“whatever!”—it’s head neutral, “I don’t care.” But Heart Neutral embraces the experience, it cares, yet it is unattached. Embrace the feelings. Affirm, “I hold the feelings in my heart in neutral.” They’re ok. I don’t need to give them power; I don’t need to withhold power. But they are part of my experience.

In India, Joanna was in neutral about a fly in her cup of tea, so did nothing. Then her awareness was lifted to another level when a monk carefully lifted it from her cup and told her the fly would be all right; she was opened to an entirely new appreciation for all life. What she had been missing!

A few days before Valentine’s day, Walt was driving Patricia over here. He ran a red light and got pulled over. When the officer walked up, he might write the ticket; he might not. After a short friendly talk, he let Walt off. In neutral there is a beautiful caring. Spirit works through it. With affirmation and encouragement, not suppressing or putting down, hold the feelings in that beautiful embrace of care, of neutral. “I hold the feelings in my heart in neutral.”

It’s like with a piece of chocolate—you enter a moment when your heart is full. When you taste it, there’s appreciation! Let it flow!

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March 23, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 3. Understanding

by

Tsu3/23/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 3. Understanding

On our journey to be free the first step is Embrace your feelings, especially the ones not in harmony, identified by that reactive pain. When they come up, there is healing to do. Then turn on the power of the heart by Breathing Love. Today step three, Spiritual Understanding. It’s divine objectivity. It’s in the heart because love is there, God is there, and there is intelligence and light.

I found myself filled with anxiety and a very strong feeling to get away from a conference that I really wanted to attend. Feelings are something we experience, but are not our nature. It was time I healed my feelings. So I took time to be alone. I turned on the power of my heart and spent five beautiful minutes breathing love. Then I asked for understanding. Within that love is the wisdom to truly see. When we look at ourselves through the head it is judgmental. The brain loves right and wrong. We feel guilt, fear, blame. That’s why we don’t like to look at ourselves. But I was in my heart, breathing love, opening to Spirit, to the heart’s deep understanding. It is enlightening, compassionate. Wholeness is it’s nature because Divine Presence is wholeness.

We know a secret: God is good all the time —even when it doesn’t feel like it. There are those who are healed just by the spiritual power when they open to compassion. A young missionary found she was increasingly unhappy, even depressed. She didn’t know she could just go in and turn on the power by breathing love. But she prayed, asking for help, a beautiful expression of self love. She opened to that until she could the feel love. She asked for understanding. She then understood it wasn’t her dream, but her parents’. She needed to go home and attend to her own needs. She was freed of her unhappiness.

The medicine wheel is a wonderful part of the Native American teaching. One of its four directions is Eagle. This young lady had the experience of Eagle, seeing from above. Emily Cady put it this way: “Understanding is a spiritual birth, a revelation of God within the heart of man.” It’s a greater vision from God through the power of the heart. The Taoist, Lao Tzu, said, “The master observes the world but trusts his inner vision…His heart is open as the sky.”

Affirm Breathing love, I open to understanding. In a quiet moment in your day, ask, “Were there recent times when pain or emotions not in harmony came up?” Then Breathe Love. That openness is the opening to the beautiful, powerful individual you are. It brings understanding to everything in our lives!

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March 16, 2014 – The Most Powerful Partnership

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3/16/14 Rev. Rita Marie Johnson
The Most Powerful Partnership

Have you ever gotten stuck on your spiritual path? Did some old stuff come up, or maybe you just got bored? Me too. I wanted inspiration and growth! So I started searching. I found a partnership within, a two-step process.

The first part is Empathy. It is respectful understanding of what others are feeling. When we name our feelings and needs, we empathize with ourselves. When we guess what others are feeling, we are empathizing with them.

The second part of the equation is Insight, which comes from being in Coherence. A few years ago I could not breathe through the left side of my nose. It was quite uncomfortable. The doctors only gave me slight, temporary relief. Then I remembered my two steps. I named my feelings and needs in this regard, and I went into coherence in my heart and asked. I got a surprising insight—that I should stand on my head! But I acted on my insight, and went to the corner of the room and stood on my head for as long as I could. I actually could breathe a bit better. I did it again, and then again, and I got total relief! It is answered prayer. It is Spirit speaking through your heart.

Insight needs empathy to keep it humble. Otherwise, we could get really arrogant. And empathy needs insight to lift us out of misery, or we would be overloaded with the feelings of others. When the two are put together, the synergy propels our spiritual growth forward. It’s growth with joy.

Myrtle Fillmore got stuck at one point in healing herself. She used this process in her way, and got an insight: “Look among your virtues.” She had felt it was a virtue keeping her feelings to herself. With this insight, however, she determined to deal with a feeling “before I swallowed it and it made me ill.” She used this method that has now been proven by science, and her healing was complete.

That’s how life gets better. Jesus also taught this two step process. In Mark 20, verse 30, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…” Feel the deep connection in your heart with God. Coherence leads to insight. In verse 31, He said, “The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is guessing the feelings and needs of your neighbor, empathy. “There is no commandment greater than these.” There is no greater way to live than this. It accelerates our spiritual growth joyfully because we have our two partners within us all the time.

Before directing the lightening in the sky we must first harness the storms in our own hearts. We can bring ourselves out of unnecessary suffering. We can make it so! Amen.

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March 9, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 2. Breathe Love

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3/9/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 2. Breathing Love

We are walking a journey to the true freedom found in the soul. We took our first step last week, 1. Embrace Our Feelings, to move into wholeness, healing. To step into who we are. And we know at any moment, Divine Presence is good, which let’s us touch that part of ourselves,the feelings, with tenderness and love. This week we 2. Turn on the Power! There is a simple way which is so powerful it will bring some of the greatest experiences in life. It is to Breathe Love. But the mind will try to take over, and say, “What is love?” It will try to put love in a box. Love can’t be put in a box, but you know what it is because you’ve been there again and again. From John, 4:16-18, “God is love.[not a being “out there” loving us, but what moves through us] Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. There is no fear in love… love drives out fear.”

We say we “breathe through our hearts” to bring our attention to the area around the heart. Then to activate the feeling of love, you can use the power of intention. Breathe in and out intending to feel love. Be aware of how you are feeling. In entering into a feeling it is often more helpful to focus on something specific, which is clearer, such as appreciation. You can think of someone you really appreciate. Now let it grow into love. Breathe love. Or you can remember one of those beautiful moments when your heart was full of love. The memory is “past”, the feeling is “right now”. Remember that feeling of love. Breathe love. What a marvelous way to spend some time!

Intention. Appreciation. Memory. Which way was strongest for you this time? At different times and in different situations you can use different ways. At any time, affirm, “I breathe love. Love is what I am.” “I breathe love. Love is what I am.” “I breathe love. Love is what I am.”

This week, in one of “those” business meetings, breathe love. Or in any situation that comes up this week, breathe love. What a magnificent way to be in the world! In the words of Mother Teresa, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.

“I breathe love. Love is what I am.” You are right; you are love!

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March 2, 2014 – The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 1. Embrace

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3/2/14 Rev. David McArthur
The Heart’s Path to Freedom: 1. Embrace

Going further on our journey into the heart means admitting there are things within us we have to heal. To exist without feelings of limitation brings freedom. It’s “being in the world but not of it.” Feelings come up to protect us from pain, but there is this divine presence that will heal us. “He will heal the breasts of folk who are believers. And He will remove the anger of their hearts.” —the Qur’an 9:14-15. “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him… There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…” —John, 4:16,18.

Scripture tells us what to do, but seldom how to do it. In “alternative wisdom writings” like “Winnie the Pooh”, Pooh is the part of us that wants to journey out and see what is there. Piglet is the part of us that gets frightened as we journey further into the soul, and wants to run back home. Christopher Robin is the Christ Self that, with knowledge and love, makes our Hundred Acre Woods safe. One day Pooh and Piglet are following a growing number of tracks in the snow and become afraid that there are fearsome beasts gathering. Piglet wants to run home, but then Christopher Robin calls from up above. Pooh looks up into the branches of an old oak tree. From up there Christopher Robin had seen they were following their own tracks! He admonishes Pooh for trying then to apologize for his silliness, telling Pooh he “is the best bear in all the world!”

Both scripture and Pooh are telling us that there is a presence and power within us; we can explore the tracks before us without fear. We can overcome the pain of loss, great hurt, abuse, and rejection.

I have experienced violent, sudden loss, and many of you have told me you have too. In those times nothing can distract you from your pain. Some sleepless nights I wanted to scream, but was afraid if I gave in, I might not return to sanity. At some point I asked for help and I found an understanding. I then knew the pain was great because the love was great. The pain was part of the loving, and was sacred because it brought the gift of understanding. That understanding did not feel painful, but let me see. That greater wisdom in you helps you see. I invite you to embrace your feelings. You might not give up the deepest feelings, but they will pass when the time is right. Embrace every feeling. If you suffered a great or small physical wound, you would use the tools available to you to heal. So there is an obligation to embrace all feelings. Embrace them with God’s tender love.

I embrace my feelings with God’s tender love! I embrace my feelings with God’s tender love! I embrace my feelings with God’s tender love!

That power in your heart is love. Look up into that great oak tree of God’s tender love!

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February 23, 2014 – Reawakening the Heart of Christianity

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2/23/14 Rev. David McArthur
Reawakening the Heart of Christianity

From the African-American church came a new experience. When they came as slaves, Black Americans were “given” Christianity, and were told Jesus died for their sins in great suffering, which made their suffering acceptable. Over the generations, they found the man Jesus. Not The Christ, not GOD, but the Jesus who held them in love just as they were. They found the personal experience of Jesus. From Emilie Cady, Lessons In Truth, “God is the name we give to that …source of all existence. To the individual …He becomes… a personal, loving, all-forgiving Father-Mother.” Out of the experiences of slavery and the personal presence of Jesus came a passion, a consciousness that touches us all. You cannot be bored in an African-American church.

From a culture of constant abuse they chose to love, to live the teachings and create a consciousness so strong that the world could no longer tolerate slavery, or deny civil rights, not because it was taught, but because it was lived. Martin Luther King, jr., said “Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power… that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react… with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies.” Rev. King told all the people, “We must meet violence with non-violence… We must love our white brothers no matter what they have done. We must meet hate with love.”

This is really the only message in the Bible! Choose love! I choose love. I choose love. I choose love. Choose love in the office with that one who always gets to you; in the home, with that one in the family you have been working so hard to get along with; on yourself, when you do that thing again!

It overcame separation, segregation, government resistance, tremendous hurt on both sides. It is the choice that won out! Bless you!

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February 16, 2014 – The Long Journey Home

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2/16/14 Sheila Gautreaux, L.U.T.
The Long Journey Home

The fourteen inches from the head to the heart can be a long journey indeed. We have learned the 5 steps to the heart, and to receive unlimited good. Now let’s look at the parable of “The Lost Son”, also known by other titles. Among so many things, it illustrates our long journey of spiritual development. Metaphysically, the characters in the Bible represent aspects of us, and their stories illustrate our spiritual development. Many of us, during a “dark night of the soul”, can identify with stories about hitting bottom, when there is only up. That’s when we need to ask, “What is it I need to bring me up from this desperation?”

Well, we always know what we need to overcome. These challenges help us use our God muscle. Otherwise, how do you know you have faith if you never used it? And we always have what we need for overcoming our challenges. There is nothing we can’t do because magnificence is with in us to overcome anything before us! When we know we are one with the Creator, when we know we are Creator, we know everything has been created for us by us.

The steps on this journey line up with the steps to the heart. First, wake up! Remember who you are and whose you are. 2nd, look up! Raise your vision above the current situation. Then 3, get up! Step out of the mess and into the message. 4Th, turn around! Go back to what you know. Go back to the heart. 5, ask for directions! Go to the Heart, call upon the Holy Spirit for guidance. From A Course In Miracles, if you don’t know what to ask, say What would you have me do? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say? And to whom? 6Th, Take One Step at a Time! Make your way steadily along the Heart’s Direction. 7. Don’t Give Up! Keep the Faith and Rest in Knowing.

You were not put here to fail. You cannot fail. We are continually developing in consciousness. Charles Fillmore called it the upward spiral of the spirit. We can avoid letting our challenges destroy us! Emma Curtis Hopkins tells us, when facing a challenge, know that “This too is good. This too is God. This too is for me and I demand to see the blessing in it for me.” Welcome home! Forgive yourself and others; revel in the journey and settle in at Home. Home is where the heart is.

I am at home in the haven of my Heart! I am at home in the haven of my Heart! I am at home in the haven of my Heart!

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