Midweek Faith Lift
May 29, 2024
“Oneness, The Prime Principle”
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
May 20,2024
One evening, after 30 years spending every night watching television, a husband said to his wife, "We need a change. Let's do something exciting." His words indeed brought excitement to his wife, who had visions of a night-out on the town, traveling and seeing new places, taking long walks in the woods, holding hands. "Absolutely!" she exclaimed. "What shall we do?" Her husband answered, "Well, let’s swap chairs!"
"Humankind is being led along an evolving course and, though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream and will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are." – Rumi
Affirmative Prayer for Today; Infinite Presence of Spirit awaken in me the powerful flow of affirmative prayer that enlivens and moves my whole being into the true expression of my full Divine/human potential. Amen
We all may laugh at the couple in the opening story, but haven’t we all been in that very place? Wanting excitement and change and the best we could do is swap chairs? The bottom line for most of us is that we want change and we don’t want change unless we can say exactly how it will look….from the perspective of another chair! But last week, in our first foray into the energy of affirmative prayer, we noted that one of the primary impacts of affirmative prayer is that it changes us, not just the chair we sit in! Affirmative prayer when fully embraced is much like the Rumi quote, it eventually startles us back to the truth of who we are if we allow the events of our lives to open us to truth.
What I love about Revs. Linda and DeeAnn’s take on prayer that is different is that is that they describe it as the affirmative prayer flow. If we are to truly embrace the power of affirmative prayer, then we do more than just change chairs. There are 5 aspects to this prayer flow that we will explore throughout our journey. They are:
I open to new possibility
I recognize God is
I integrate I AM
I realize I can, I have, I know
I appreciate the shift in consciousness
Let’s take these one at a time, as they are the foundation for our understanding of the affirmative prayer flow.
When we begin with that statement “I open to new possibility” that is much like tilling the soil before we plant seeds, or a flower or a tree. If we don’t clear out the old roots, dead matter and turn over the soil, well not much will grow, or at least not very well. Rev. Linda writes, on p. 19 “Our willingness to open to something new is what creates the space for a shift in consciousness.” We each have our own version of this and the one I shared last week “I am open and receptive to all of my good,” is what has helped me with this opening process.
The next statement, “I recognize God is” opens us to embracing all of our 12 spiritual powers. In this affirmative prayer flow, our next step is to recognize that God is Wisdom, God is Power, God is Love, God is Strength, or whichever one of the 12 Powers we want to make real in our lives right now. This process is actively praying with intention focused on our 12 Spiritual Powers. We connect to the Divine and the Power of our Divinity.
That brings us to the next step which is to affirm “I integrate I AM” whereby we actively integrate and embrace the energy and action of that Divine Power in us. God is Wisdom and acting from that Divine Wisdom that I AM, I move forward in prayer. We actively integrate ALL of our 12 spiritual powers in this process of affirmative prayer and recognize each one as part of our “beingness.” Not all at once, not all completely, but intentionally, as we recognize the need for each power. That is part of our waking up process!
We then realize “ I can, I have, I know” which takes us to the spiritual truth of any situation, not just the human truth, but the spiritual truth. We realize what we can do, as in the story last week, give our shoes to the student who needed them! We recognize what we already have and see it as an asset or strength rather than a liability and then we pour our energy and attention into the manifestation of a divine outcome, activating a divine principle in time and space, in our human world experience.
Then our final movement of affirmative prayer is to recognize and appreciate the shift in consciousness through which the actual change or manifestation came about. This process of affirmative prayer is what brought about a realization of Truth, and we are grateful! The core elements of this practice are: Recognizing God is, naming a power or principle that would be useful to us right now. Integrating I AM, integrating that power or principle as the truth of being. And finally Realizing I can, I have, I know: we can now live this principle in a new way.
So what is this Principle that we want to deeply know and live? A principle is a fact or a Truth that is constant and has no opposite. This simplest illustration is 2+2=4, a mathematical principle of addition. This principle is neutral, but once understood becomes very useful when used constructively. We note that this principle is active in our lives whether we understand it or not. Principles build on one another, so that addition leads to subtraction, to multiplication and division and so on.
The Law of Gravity was discovered by Sir Isaac Newton; he did not create it. Gravity is neutral, it just is. Gravity operates in our lives whether we know about it, understand it or not. When we do understand it, using mathematical principles along with understanding gravity, humans invented airplanes an incredible application of mathematical and scientific principles. Buoyancy is another and we play with both gravity and buoyancy whenever we get in a swimming pool. Buoyancy mitigates the impact of gravity when we are in the pool….who doesn’t feel lighter in the pool, after all?
There are also Spiritual Principles, which are always at work whether we know about them or understand them. Affirmative prayer is intended to consciously work with spiritual principles to aid us in developing spiritual maturity and mastery and ultimately spiritual liberation. The Prime Spiritual Principle is that of Oneness, which is what affirmative prayer is built upon. Oneness is a changeless Truth, a constant within consciousness, as Rev. Linda says on p. 24 of Discover Your Divinity. What this means is that there One and only One true power in the Universe, in all of life and by its very nature it cannot be split.
There is no equally powerful and opposing force, it is whole always, whether you call it Spirit, God, Divine Mind or the Universe or Consciousness. There is no devil, no equal and opposing force because this Oneness cannot be split or divided against itself, it is always whole, no matter what we as humans do. The attempts a duality are a human effort and they have never ultimately succeeded. This Oneness is a mystical teaching of all the major world religions as we discovered in our previous book of World Religions. It is challenging to grapple with this, especially in light of all that we can see at work in our world today.
The best way I had to understand it is that it is like the warmth or heat of the sun. Coldness happens when we remove or block the warmth, but there is no force that brings cold, it is just the subtraction of heat. Oneness, is not a person but the very essence of life that is mysterious and mystical, the very energy of God. Charles Fillmore in The Revealing Word described it this way:
Principle does not occupy space; neither has it any limitations of time or matter, but it eternally exists as the one underlying cause out of which come forth all true ideas.
And H. Emilie Cady, in Lessons in Truth, says that God is the name we give to this unchangeable principle at the source of all existence.
Our journey is to explore the nature of this Univeral Energy that is Spirit and to learn how it works and how to cooperate and co-create with it to manifest it in this human dimension. It is there whether we “believe in it” or not, much like gravity or buoyancy or mathematics. And as we explore this Prime Principle of Oneness we also discover other, related principles, which Rev. Linda describes as the “Omnis!” These are Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnipotence and these are all nouns, not adjectives. The prefix “Omni” relates to everything, everywhere, all there is all at once. These three principles flow from Oneness are always active and available.
So now our journey is to discover and uncover how our couple in the opening story might engage spiritual principles to change more than chairs in their quest for engagement, newness and excitement. How is it that this might work in their lives and in ours? We hold space for change, even as we resist it, but as Rumi notes, the evolution of the human has been to move to in the direction of the truth of who we are. And as Mary Oliver said: "I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."
May our affirmative prayer adventure begin!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb