Good Morning! And a BIG Thank you to my dear husband for doing the talk last Sunday, on Father’s Day. I had a great time with my dear dad and sister in St. Louis on Father’s Day, which was something I had visualized for a long, long time. While you all were learning about “visualize to realize” last weekend, I had the “aha” moment this past week, that I was actually doing it on Father’s Day. That was a powerful awareness! I actually was living my dream, my heart’s desire.
What I have always wanted the most, for as long as I could remember, as a kid and as an adult was a family that got along, laughed together and could actually express love to and for each other, in words and behavior. On Father’s Day 2018, I truly experienced it with my family of origin! It has taken us a while, but at ages 58, 66 and 90, we did it! Wow! My sister and I sat there with my dad, at brunch and we both said to each other, “I am so glad we have a good relationship, that we really have become friends!” And my dad, hearing that, got tears in his eyes and said, “So am I!” The seeds of that idea were planted in consciousness many, many years ago and have finally been realized according to my heart’s desire.
That, dear ones, truly is Spiritual Prosperity and a faith sustained belief coming into reality or into “beingness.” I like to think of the Law of Visualization as “Begin with the end in mind” and then call into your awareness all that you need for that end to be made real. Thomas Troward, a metaphysician from the 19th century is referenced by Butterworth on p. 50 of Spiritual Economics, stated “Having seen and felt the end, you have willed the means to the realization of the end.” Butterworth goes on to say, “Having conceived and deeply felt some thing or experience, you have actually created the condition in mind that makes a particular result inevitable.”
I can personally attest to this as being capital “T” Truth! My family of origin may have had financial prosperity, but we have also had emotional and relationship poverty and lack in consciousness and in lived experience. How many times I longed for some kind of true emotional bond and connection with my sister and dad. I would try to make a heart connection only to hit a wall. There were too many taboo topics and unhealed hurts from the past. When people don’t want to connect, they become very skilled at changing the subject, hanging up the phone, signing off or spacing out so no real connection is possible. And I was just as guilty of all of that as they were! That is just a description of behavior, not an indictment of it. People do what they have the capacity to do. The Presence and Power of Love is always there. It is you and I who have to make a true commitment to experience it. When we do that, it becomes real. It may take a while, but it does happen.
I heard a statement at Conference last week from one of the speakers and I wrote it down because it really struck me. The statement was “Commit to experiencing the One Presence and One Power that you are.” Commit to experiencing the One Presence and One Power that you are! As I was tussling with this whole business of what Butterworth calls the “Faith process” I realized that I still get caught up in the “out there” evidence, rather than the “within here” experience. I want to see that it is true “out there” in order to be assured that it is true “in here” and feel that I am on the right path. It doesn’t work that way….that is NOT the Faith Process.
Faith asks me to keep my focus on the inner experiences of that Power and Presence in me, Commit! Faith asks me to know that it will be made real in the outer according to my heart’s desires. Faith asks that of all of us. Faith asked that of Jesus just as much as it asks us to stay centered in God. Here is how Butterworth describes it on p.68 of Spiritual Economics:
The whole Universe of innate substance is centered in you. There is nothing you can do to add to that or take away from it. And this centering, as far as God is concerned is the same in all persons. That leads to the inescapable thought-shocking conclusion that the Universe was no more centered in Jesus than it is in you. Of course, that doesn’t explain the quite obvious difference. Jesus in his disciplined consciousness was centered in the Source, while we are usually centered in various levels of limitation.
People do what they have the capacity to do. People love as they have the capacity to love. It is all about consciousness. Since my first year here at UCOA, I have been committed to personally growing in consciousness and to planting the seeds of growth in consciousness and holding the space for growth in consciousness for this spiritual community. I have been committed to turning up the Light in our collective beings more and more each day, each week and each year so that more and more of that Christ Light that we are can be made real in us; to increase our collective capacity to shine that Light of Love even brighter both inside and outside these church walls.
There was a lot of talk at the Conference about the future of Unity of church in general. What would we look like in 2030? Would we even be here in 2030 in the same way? And then the challenge to us was to “Imagine” what it could look like in 2030 and to ask ourselves what we would need to make that vision happen. That is 12 years from now, friends! What kind of commitment is Faith asking of us for UCOA for 2030? What are the seeds we now plant that we put into the UCOA Garden of Consciousness to grow in the next generation?
Butterworth likens the Faith Process to that of a rheostat on a light switch. All the power you need is there, all the light you need is there, all the Power and Presence of God that you are is there, all the time. The question is how far up are you willing to move the switch? How much light are we as UCOA going to let shine? We have been in the Ames Community for 25 years, and I have faith that our presence in this community has made a difference. Last Wednesday, I signed and sent letters to all the organizations and people we have connected with since I have been here. This includes MICA, YSS, ACCESS, the Ames Tribune, First National Bank, the Dream Seed & AMP Program, all the nursing homes and senior living centers that the Reader’s Theater visits, the Plant a Row people, the Interfaith Community and more. What difference have we made?
I have faith that we have prospered the Ames Community in Love and in Consciousness. That we have sown seeds of giving, of love and of goodness in this community. When I first started in 2012, my personal intention was to grow in consciousness, both personally and for our spiritual community. Sometimes it has seemed like the more I have spoken about the Power of Love being greater than the power of fear, the more race consciousness has pushed back with fear and all that fear brings. I wanted us to awaken to awareness of our true nature as the Power and Presence of God and to stay centered in that awareness and to live into what that truly means. That has been my personal mission as your minister for these 6 years.
But I think there can be more, so much more. I want more and more people to awaken to this truth of who they are and to make a real commitment to experience the One Presence and One Power as them. I have no idea what “church” will look like in 2030 but I do know that the need to love and to be loved and to express and experience that love will be just as strong then as it is now. And all the Light, Power and Love to meet that need, will be just as available then as it is now.
Our calling is to keep our hand on the rheostat and keep moving it up so that all who are searching can see us and find us. A turned down rheostat is like a “consciousness that restricts the flow of substance.” I want us to have a turned up rheostat that is “faith centering” that opens the way to an experience of affluence. I see us as being affluent in the powerful light of consciousness so that more people find us. I see this sanctuary full on a Sunday so that all can awaken and commit to living that Power and Presence that they are. Our world, our human family needs more and more awakened and committed people for consciousness to shift and the Light to be made visible.
Folks need to hear on a regular basis that they are loved, that they matter and that they can learn to live from a place of love rather than continue on a path of fear. They need to hear stories of how faith as a process, not as a belief , has manifested in each of our lives and in the life of this spiritual community. They need to hear and realize as we all do that we are “God’s living enterprise; a unique individualization of the universal creative process.” We need to recognize that Unity Church of Ames is “God’s living enterprise” and hold fast to shining the light that we are, however we are called to do that.
My life has truly been a journey of faith, of commitment, to make real the truth that I am the Power and Presence of God in expression. It has been made real in the emotional and relationship richness that the three of us, my dad, sister and I have experienced together. It has been made real with my husband and my children. And it has been made real with you in this Spiritual community that we call Unity Church of Ames. Let’s take hold of this faith process together, see ourselves as the collective Power and Presence of God and commit to turning up the faith rheostat that invites all to see and seek and find what they are looking for here at Unity Church of Ames.
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb