Midweek Faith Lift
May 27,2026
We Remember Who We Are
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
May 19, 2026
A teenager brought home her new boyfriend to meet her parents, and they were appalled by his appearance: leather jacket, motorcycle boots, tattoos and a pierced nose. He was unshaven, used poor language, and displayed bad table manners during dinner. They were not impressed. Later, in the kitchen, her mother took her daughter aside and said "Honey, he doesn't seem very nice. Are you sure he’s right for you?" "Mom," replied the daughter, “I was concerned a bit myself at first. But then I found out how compassionate, and giving and at peace he is. You wouldn’t guess to look at him, but he’s performing over 5,000 hours of community service!"
"Imagine that each of us is a spoke in an infinite wheel, and, though each spoke is essential in keeping the wheel whole, no two spokes are the same. The rim of that wheel is our living sense of community, family, and relationships, but the hub where all the spokes join is the one center where all souls meet. And that unexpected wholeness - that moment of unity - is the atom of God." - Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening, p. 6
And from Hebrews 10:23-25 we read
23 Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (NRSV-UE)
Affirmative Prayer for Today:
As we remember who we are, we awaken to infinite possibilities that the Mind of God, the Heart of Love offers each of us. We embrace and live into the Reality of our true spiritual nature. We remember and we stay awake. Amen.
I love the image of each of us as a spoke in an infinite wheel, each one essential but no two of us alike, all of us doing some version of 5000 hours of community service! Every one of us is a unique expression of Infinite Love and Divine Beingness. Pause and appreciate us! That is worth remembering on this Memorial Day weekend. We remember all those whose wisdom has shone the light on our path and served as a catalyst for our spiritual growth. This is a time for gratitude for how we have been nourished by those who have come before us, travelled with us and continue to support us in our spiritual unfolding.
Here at Unity of Ames, let’s pause and remember Joy Munn, John Anderson, Charlene Boll, Mary Nakadate, Fred Johnson, Sherry Bradley, Claire Uldrich, Larry Westergard, among others who have been part of our spiritual community and then moved on! It was so much fun to have Teresa and Phil Propes and Huckelberry with us last weekend for Trivia! And we heard from Chris Foster who just recently re-married and I had an email from Steve Newell and Mary Cochran in response to the email I forwarded about the Unity Village Labyrinth. Revs. Heather and Don were also with us for Trivia Night, a joyful and very fun gathering! We remember and we create new memories as a human/divine spiritual community.
Last week, our exploration was of how our habits of thought and feeling frequently determine how it is that we show up in life. The profound spiritual Truth is that when we are empowered to really examine and explore those habits, then true possibilities open to us for change as we decide to let go, really let go of what no longer works. That’s not easy. It’s kind of like when the power is out due to a storm and you walk into the kitchen and flip the switch expecting the light to come on. Not gonna happen….need a different way! How easily I forget! Do you remember the Derecho? No power for three days…..no matter how many times I turned on the light! Habits die hard, for sure and that’s just about electricity.
As Myrtle notes, in How to Let God Help You, our mind receives from two sources:
….the Universal Mind of Being, which has its outlet through your consciousness, and the intellectual activities of the individual minds about you, which have both conscious and subconscious phases of expression. (p.54)
What our mind receives from the Mind of God, of Love is always good. What our mind receives from our senses, the minds of others and race consciousness may be true and helpful or false and harmful. How do we navigate this with compassion, wisdom and discernment to determine what is real and what is illusion? When we buy into illusion or what Myrtle calls “error thinking” we usually end up suffering or in some version of what we would call hell. And who hasn’t been there, more than once, if only momentarily?
The treatment is to turn our attention to God, the indwelling Christ energy that allows us to come up higher in consciousness whereby we can see the old patterns and also hold the possibility of healing, peace-giving, joy-filling, prospering ideas of God love at work in our lives. That is a lifelong project, not a one-and-done, for sure. We experiment with what our human mind thinks the “Kingdom of God” consciousness is and that typically yields yet another growth opportunity! Myrtle blesses these for each one gives us what she calls “the lessons of experience” which usually stick with us! We pray to learn from the lessons of experience!
It is also true that the positive experiences we have, the “aha” moments also stick with us because the deep awareness of our greater self, our true divine self, makes a difference in how we perceive what is happening all around us and within us. In this spiritualized consciousness, we begin to see that we have choices which we did not see before now. It is in navigating our lives in relationship with others that we learn who we are, as humans and then who we all really are as human/divine beings. We learn in isolation, in silence and prayer and we also learn from one another in practice and engagement as we observe just how we show up in our lives.
It is the power of our words, the words we say to each other and the words we say to ourselves, that have a significant and lasting impact. Do you recall that phrase, “words wisely woven within work wonders?” To that end, Myrtle advises us to learn from the past but to not “brood on things that stir up strife!” Let it be finished, at least as complete as it can be for right now. If there is more to learn rest assured that a new version of the lesson will present itself in the fullness of time! We all do our version of 5000 hours of community service, after all!
I love what Richard Rohr says about forgiving our thoughts in his 5-18-26 Daily Meditation, “Forgiving Our Thoughts”
We don’t have to hate or condemn ourselves for a thought or feeling, but we do have to let it yield its wisdom. Then we will realize it is a wounded or needy part of us that creates these unhealthy thoughts. Our true self, our whole self, doesn’t need them, and will not identify with them.
If we can allow our thoughts and feelings to pass through us, neither clinging to them nor opposing them—and without ever expecting perfect success—I promise that we will come to a deeper, wider, and wiser place. Even our inability to fully succeed is, in itself, another wonderful lesson.
As we become more aware and capable of wisely weaving our words that form our thoughts and express our feelings, we open to that deeper, wider place where we experience a shared sense of joy and expansion in body, mind and spirit. It is mysterious, it is mystical.
Myrtle says it this way in How to Let God Help You:
We are learning about things that were mysterious. We are knowing ourselves better; we are finding that there is something in us that understands better than the intellectual self….We are gradually coming to know that we are one with Him who knows all, one with perfect life. We are finding that the Spirit within us is greater than all else. (p.63)
This is the journey of spiritual growth, the journey of faith, an unshakeable faith that we are much more than the worst things we have ever done or said, either individually or collectively! And as noted, we all make up that collective infinite wheel of humanity that is connected at the center by the unexpected wholeness that is “the atom of God!”
I will leave you today with words of Wisdom from Buddhism
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that we do not make the spiritual journey alone. We move as part of a community of practice, refuge, and shared strength. “Taking refuge in sangha is a very deep practice. You trust the sangha. You become the sangha. If you are a drop of water, you might wonder whether you have the capacity to go to the ocean. But when you become a river, you are sure you don’t have to worry. You will certainly come to the ocean. And by practicing becoming a river, we suffer much less. Individual suffering can be transformed very easily when we share the concern of the sangha, the happiness of the sangha, the dedication of the sangha.” - Thich Nhat Hanh, Go as a River, Not a Drop of Water
May we all flow together as individuals in this River that is Unity of Ames.
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb