Love

11/13/11 Rev. David McArthur

In our great fairy tales the story characters are us. Sleeping Beauty (reflects the female, feeling part of the soul) is raised without knowing her parents. So too are we asleep to the knowledge that we are children of God, heir to all the goodness and authority of the kingdom. We are asleep to our power.

We are also the Prince, the male aspect which knows we are heir to the divine and that part of us which is to do the work. And we are also the evil fairy– the fear with all the power wrapped up in it. It captures the prince and imprisons him. We are in prison, controlled.

“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” But the first thing we do is figure out how the other person is so wrong. We blame anyone else. But the only thing in our way is us. Nobody has power over you but that you are willing to play the game. It isn’t given away unless you give it to someone.

The ring of thorns around the castle are the negative thoughts you hold–how you think someone else has the power. The prince cuts through with the sword of truth. Use your wisdom and guidance and cut through. You have the power and wisdom to accomplish anything in your life. When faced with fear, transform the situation with heart vulnerability. Look within with complete honesty. Where you have power and respect for yourself, that’s heart vulnerability. See clearly: “There is only one presence, and one power in the universe and in my life, the all loving goodness of God.” That’s the truth.

“God is good all the time!” slays the dragon of fear. There is only good, only God. You can take hold of it anywhere, any time. Touch it at depth through your feeling nature, that feeling of love. Wake up to who you are. The power/beauty/knowledge is within you. When you get to the point, “what do I do?”, when you are stuck in your fear, stop and take hold of your truth. Use the beauty and power of your being to step through. Enter into that beautiful place within yourself known as “happily ever after”.

11/6/11 Rev. David McArthur

Vibrations. We constantly connect with the Presence through vibrations, which can be words of care and love, or our thoughts that we constantly send out to others, or colors of vitality and warmth. Maybe a place with the consciousness of people coming to touch healing in their lives, like a beautiful church with a vibration or energy which is exquisite – that you relate to. Some places support a vibration within you. (Not cause it.) It’s within you; it’s not out there. We find the inner places through outer places.

We might experience the need of healing a vibration that is not where we want it to be. Recognize how important it is that we heal vibrations from loss, hurts, even changes which seem to violate who we are. It’s important that we bring that hurt into healing. Remember, God is good all the time – even if we don’t feel it. But just knowing that doesn’t take away the hurt. Healing is resolution.

So think of that place where you feel really good – a place where you were full of vitality and life. That place is God. It’s the place you are while watching children at play or when you get lost in an ocean view or the view of a mountain top. Remember that feeling. Let it be alive. Enjoy it. Touch it. Feel it.

Now bring the worry/anxiety/feeling which is not comfortable – a hurt or loss – bring that into the feeling of wholeness – the place where you have let the goodness be alive in you. Bring the uncomfortable feeling in and let it rest in that alive place. Tell your mind to shut up! It’s not about thinking. Perhaps that hurt made you grumpy, and you have found yourself pulling away from that place of healing. Sometimes we’re too tender. But you will forget to be grumpy. You might even feel alive, alert, awake, joyous, enthusiastic about life. Because of that love you find all about you. Bring the feeling of the hurt to that place of beauty and wholeness. Touch it in its fullness. Feel the goodness. Hold the hurt in that good place. Let it rest there. Don’t try to think it through. Let Spirit do its beautiful work of healing.

Yes, sometimes you have to come back to it again. But remember, all the time, you are a beautiful child of God!

10/30/11 Rev. David McArthur

Our God-thought, what we as humankind have perceived as the Divine, has unfolded over time. Worship of nature – the sun, a volcano, a river, or animals – touched the human capacity to ask the divine to respond to us. Then when humankind had become more confident in itself, the gods were beautiful human figures greater than life – magnificent beings out there controlling our lives. Once Constantine spread the new God thought – there is only one God – Jesus had become the sacrifice to get to God. The Roman and Orthodox Churches took over with the fall of the empire, and taught with pictures. For a thousand years it was taught that God was up there in Heaven and it was dark and dirty down here. With the Renaissance, the God pictures took on images of people down here where we live. The Divine began to touch us as people.

All through this time, in every time and in every culture, there were mystics which taught that it is all one, all God. The view of mystics like Charles and Mildred Fillmore no longer was that the Church was an institution which helped people reach the Divine, but that it’s all God – everything to the center of the universe is all God. There is a tale which says God was asked how to make this information available, and He decided, “I’ll hide it in the heart, where everyone can find it if they are sincere and look deep enough.”

All the way back, even the ones who worshiped God as animals were just asking to know the presence of God in their lives, to find connection and comfort. What did it matter as long as their intention and purpose would expand in their lives. The form does not matter – whether a statue of Apollo, Jesus, or Krishna, rites of a priest or words of Moses – what matters is what’s in the heart. What makes the difference is God is love in your heart. That’s where the love and sincerity are. There is nothing out there to give it to you. The connection is in your heart. Let your understanding unfold from your heart. It is beautiful. Feel the love – not the building, painting, or statues – but the love poured into the form – the form doesn’t matter. The bottom line is the love. It is what matters; it is what’s growing. What we are building now is a spirituality that does not know division, but unity. It starts in your heart. Ciao!

10/9/11 Rev. David McArthur

How can we use spiritual power when we are reaching for that greater goodness but run into blocks? Then the busier we get the easier it is to forget that power, but we need it twice as much. We find the power in that still spot in which we experience the connection, just being at One. It is nothing and it is nowhere – the quiet, still point in the middle of our always-turning world.

How do we make the connection? Jesus said, “Peace. Be still.” “Be still and know that I am God,” comes from the psalms. The journey to the stillness has a path – meditation. But recognize that when we try to meditate, the mind wants to focus on random thoughts, forgetting to be still. Many use a mantra, mandalas, and so on, but still fall between the words. It is in the deep thought, the deep feelings where we experience the divine silence itself. In that stillness, that quiet, focus on the deep feeling of love until it goes into what is just “presence”, where you are resting deeper than thought or feeling. You are resting with the one that is God.

Then when you finish you go from deep peacefulness into the energy of the world which hasn’t been in the peacefulness, and the beautiful peace is lost to irritation and frustration with the world and negativity. Instead, come out through the heart. You went in through the heart. Come out sending the peace out to the world, the things you face in the world. Say, “Divine Love goes before me making easy, joyous and successful my way.” This way you are connected with Spirit as It is working through the activity before you– even if It seems well hidden. You know God is good all the time– in the stillness and also in all the busyness before you. And everything before you is the pure divine love of God!

9/11/11 Rev. David McArthur

When a broad survey asked, “What is it that you are looking for (in your church)?”, a large proportion answered that it was the personal experience of the presence of God. On a trip to the ancient section of the city of Jerusalem, I saw a group of obviously devout women. One smiled directly at me, and I felt waves of love. It was a gift. It awakened my feelings of love, and that it was “feeling” that was the way I was touching the presence of divine love. Through our feeling nature we are able to expand our awareness– to realize what is giving the feeling is the movement of divine spirit through us.
Remember someone you really appreciate. What is it that you appreciate about this person? Next, feel the appreciation, not just think of it. Move from thought to feeling. Feel how the energy comes up in you, a movement, a flow of Spirit through you. Appreciation is part of love. There is a delight in appreciating another, and the energy that comes up in you. Your ability to feel love is the movement of the presence of God through you. Anytime you touch that love you feel the goodness, the awareness, the experience of the presence of God in you.
Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father…I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” You are one with the divine. It is seamless from there to the presence of the divine when you see the light that you are– that energy– flow. How do we sense it? Through feelings.
Remember, God is good all the time! So what about the sad or negative feelings that drain us? They are the grief that we are not seeing the goodness, when we don’t feel the presence. But we know we are spiritual beings living in a spiritual world governed by spiritual law. And we know through feelings we touch the presence, and through appreciation we touch our feelings, and that it is easy to get to appreciation.
Feel the presence. You can’t get away from it. Everything is God. It is the wisdom, the light, the power that flows through you. Sad feelings are you ignoring that. So once a day this week, stop and go to appreciation. Feel the presence– that goodness. You are that love. Because we’ve seen you, we seen the Father! Bless you!