peace

3/18/12 Rev. David McArthur

Oneness — It’s at the root of our spiritual journey. Emilie Cady wrote that man is at first living in the selfish, animal part of himself and will grow up into Divine or Spiritual Understanding to know his oneness with the Father, like Jesus when he said, “The Father and I are one.”

But there’s another thing, how do we do it?  Where is the oneness? When the Spiritual Self awakens, we experience a deep desire for connection with what has been expressed as the Divine.  Man’s limited understanding has tried to explain it in the terms of our various cultures.  Throughout the Ages, great teachers or guides have come to the people to explain this longing for connection with the Divine in the terms of each of our various cultures. They all taught on a level that was not fully apparent to ordinary people and so people have spent millennia trying to figure out what they said, which of course led to differences of opinion about what they meant and that led to most of the wars humanity has fought.

In the “Bhagavad Gita” from the Hindu tradition, we see Prince Arjuna just before his army goes to battle. He has family and friends on both sides, and expresses anguish over the coming slaughter.  God, in the form of Lord Krishna, his Charioteer, loses no time to use this “teaching moment”.  He tells Arjuna to not worry, that he must do his duty in the battle, and that all those who will die that day have chosen death and will return again (reincarnate), as they must.

WHAT??  Did he just tell Arjuna to just go ahead and slaughter his family and friends? Gandhi’s great teachings state that the “Bhagavad Gita” was the world’s greatest teaching of non-violence.  In his metaphysical interpretation, the conflict between the “armies” is actually within ourselves.  How can we harm another when it is really ourselves?

All religions teach the same things: prayer, meditation, spiritual service, love. There is only division if we choose to see division.  If we are aware of oneness, we see oneness. There is no separation, no difference.  There is only One.  As we always recite at the beginning of our services; “There is only One Presence and One Power in the Universe and in my life.  The All-Loving Goodness of God.”

3/4/12 Rev. David McArthur

The second tool in this journey into oneness with the divine is one we all use. It’s a connector. It’s the tool of prayer. If there were no connection, prayer would be really stupid—we’d be talking to ourselves. There was a two month old baby being kept alive by extreme measures, who had known only pain in its short life. Surgery was necessary, but did not go well. In fact, the surgeon announced the baby would not live beyond the operation. So a nurse closed herself in a closet and prayed that the child would know a pain free life with its parents. After removing the life-sustaining devices, the surgeon said the baby would die. There was no way it could live. But its vital signs became strong and it did live. The doctor called it a miracle.

Healing is the experience of greater wholeness. So who is healed? A man asking for prayer?  His friends who prayed? The doctor and nurse who witnessed a miracle? We experience a connection we cannot explain any other way. If it touches one, it touches all. It changes the very fabric of consciousness itself. In prayer we’re able to take a hold of something that completely defies what we know of the world. But With God all things are possible.

When you pray you take a hold of that, otherwise you wouldn’t pray. It is a level where we know and understand each other. We understand we’re one. Whenever we reach for that presence and power and reach for the knowledge that with God, all things are possible, we invite hope. Whenever we reach for it, it is easier for anyone else in the world to touch it—a possibility of connection that wasn’t there before. When one of us heals, we all heal. You can’t explain it, but you know it’s true. Every prayer you say lifts everyone here. For that we thank you!

2/26/12 Rev. David McArthur

You’re late and there’s only one check-out line at the store. The customer at the checker holds up the line. Full of judgment, you feel far from free, and wonder, “What am I doing here?”

Emilie Cady likened the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt to a state of selfish animal consciousness, where we see no value in others (or ourselves). Through the intervention of an outside God, we are freed to wander through the desert of separation. We feel we have some value because the outside God values us. “My God (Grandpa with a sword) gives me value.” Then Jesus showed us the state of consciousness in which the “Father and I are one”—but so is everyone else!

We have gone through that the past 200 years. In a war with ourselves we rejected the slavery consciousness. But because our sense of value was still so low we remained in a state of consciousness of separation, or Segregation. Feeling, “I have to be better than others to have value”, we still did not see the value in ourselves.

The African American church took us out of that state. The 100 years from Emancipation to the end of Segregation was where we journeyed through the consciousness of separation toward the Oneness. But still we held onto Discrimination, still standing in the judgmental line, finding differences which we might need to protect against. But the heart is a higher intelligence which tells us we are all children of God, we are one. So we are done with Discrimination. Now we are working it out, from Segregation to Discrimination to acceptance of homosexuals to accepting those of the Muslim faith.

How do we get there? Through love—the choice of compassion that the Master taught. Caring for others is caring for “me”. Patience for another is patience for “me”. So we give up that God “out there”. It is within. Emilie Cady said that all goodness that springs up is the God in us, and nothing anyone can do can take away that freedom!

It’s so simple—just standing in line feeling compassion. We already have everything—all that we need. So the only thing that we can get from standing in line is the love we need, the love that we are!

2/19/12 Rev. David McArthur

God is good all the time! And yet we worry.

Lucy appreciated her good life, but she always became anxious and worried for her husband’s safety every day before he got home from work. A friend suggested she spend that time in self-compassion, which she did. Gradually, the worry and anxiety was released. Later she found out that her grandfather once had an accident on his way home and after that her grandmother always worried about his returning home. Her mother learned that habit and passed it to her daughter. 3 generations of worry!

What does the worry do for us? Well, when we’re worrying, we’re not loving. It takes us out of the experience of knowing that God is there loving us all the time. Worry affirms “the goodness of God is not here”. It stops us from seeing the goodness of God in all and everyone.

Love is experiencing the presence of God with which we are one. That form of compassion heals us from believing there is something else. Hold yourself in that compassion. Let it move through you. You’d feel that for a friend. Let it happen for you– that self-compassion. Let yourself be aware of the presence of God and let God be responsible for that other being! The peace will come.

Stress and worry do come from love. But first feel self-compassion. Second let God be responsible for them just as God has been for you. Healing and learning has been brought forth in you, and God will bring that forth in the other being. For those you love that you worry for, say, “I place you in God’s care, knowing the very highest is coming forth.” It has to be because God is good all the time! God is good all the time! And all the time God is good! God is caring for them just as She is doing for you!

2/5/12 Rev. David McArthur

“When I feel You rushing by…” The flow of Spirit smoothes our sharp edges as the rushing waters of a river smooth the pebbles.

Experiencing a change within, you might ask, “What am I, really?” Unity’s answer is “I am a beloved child of God.” We’re from a mystical tradition in Unity, we are as often formed by experience as anything else. You might ask, “When am I, truly?” A psychic’s prediction comes true much later and it is now realized that the idea wasn’t even in your mind back then, but it was seen then, and now it is here. Where are you? Are you really “here” in your physical presence?

When you honor the experiences you have, you begin to experience things differently. A Unity minister, moved by his first experience of the city of New York, ran up to a hot dog vendor and cried, “Make me one with everything!” (Lighten up. Humor lets us see things differently.)

We can drop our perceptions and experience who we really are. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A man is the facade of the temple wherein all wisdom and all good abide… When it breathes through his intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love…”

And you are loved– you are a beloved child of God. Affirm, “I am one with the power, the goodness, the intelligence of God.” That Being which we move to discover– we awaken to feel the flow as the pebble. But the truth is you are the river!

01/15/12 Rev. David McArthur

You are one with a presence and power that has always been and always will be. The walls, your body, are just space! Hundreds of years ago a master pointed to a boulder, saying, “That boulder out there– is it really there or is it just in your mind?” One bold monk answered that it was only in his mind. The master replied “You must have a very heavy head!” Whatever the illusion, it is what we have here to deal with. It may not be real, but the assignment to deal with it is.

We do touch what is real, what doesn’t change, and when we touch the greater reality, our journey changes. We touch it in meditation and in “the silence”,– a totally private place, deeper than our mind, deeper than our emotion. We rest in that beingness which is here, now, present here in this moment. We align and “be”, one with that state of being.

Another way is doing rather than being. It is the experience of love, of loving. That greater reality is expressed in us, through us, as us. Go into the active way with your life radiating your love. (So often it is not a first response in our busy day, but it is always an option.)

Even more active is the experience of “God is love”. That greater reality is always present and in it is total wholeness and harmony. It can’t be anything else. Your experience becomes love. Radiate your love to one for whom you have resistance. Fill your heart with love “to the millionth power” and radiate it to this person until you feel delight in that beautiful child of God. You are experiencing the greater reality. That is the presence of God and it is who you are here, now!