I Just Knew It!

I’m moved this week to write once again about faith. For my atheist and agnostic readers, stick around. This isn’t just going to be about God. It’s going to be about what we expect out of life. It’s about changing our thinking so that when we say, “I just knew it!” it will be an exclamation of joy for some wonderful event happening, and not a reminder that someone predicted gloom and doom.

Not long ago I met a couple who are complete atheists. They announced this to me while we were sitting in my office at Unity of Harrisburg, so I’m not quite sure what reaction they were expecting from a minister. I believed my reaction surprised them. I explained I love atheists because they are some of the people whom are the quickest to understand the principles I teach. You see, I told them, I spend an awful lot of time trying to convince my congregation they are, in essence, God. But atheists already know that!

The couple didn’t quite understand until I explained how most religions believe in a God that is distant, separate, not just a little judgmental and pretty fickle, if you ask me. Because of that, most people don’t have as much of a “faith” in God as they do a “hope” in God. In other words, people hope God will answer their prayers. They hope God will forgive them and they hope they aren’t going to hell.

I believe, however, in a very different kind of God. Since everything around us is one essence (proven by science through quantum physics and agreed upon by my new atheist friends), it means the power most people call God is part of our being. The Christian hell-bent on martyring themselves into heaven gives more power to the Devil than he does to God. In the absence of divine power the atheist, on the other hand, must accept that humanity is fully responsibility for our condition. That’s also what we do in New Thought.

The atheist’s faith rests in her own power and ability. In truth, so does the Christian’s, for our great teacher, Jesus, told us that it is our faith that makes us whole. A faith in something better, accompanied by the emotion of assured results, creates a new experience for us. It doesn’t matter if the person believes in God or not. How we expect things to turn out, how we believe in the outcome and how we act in the meantime will produce the exact result we are expecting.

Too few of us believe in the best outcomes in life. Most of the world is racked with fear of the outcome, which Ernest Holmes taught was “faith mis-placed.” Fear and faith are not opposites. They are the same. Our fears are merely faith in a negative outcome. Our speech, our actions and all our racing thoughts cause it to be so.

As we near the Easter holiday and the celebration of the resurrection, consider applying these thought to your own life. What thoughts from the past, still plaguing you today, will you be willing to crucify on Good Friday? And, to what new life will you be resurrected? Will it be a life full of great health, loving relationships, financial security and full self-expression in your career or retirements? Great! I just knew it!

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry

What's Possible?

What’s Possible?

It’s easy to get bogged down in details. In fact, just fretting over how we will achieve a goal can be a stumbling block to success.  With an uncertain job situation it’s hard to figure out how we can afford to pay all our bills, let alone consider taking a luxury vacation. The same is true for our relationships. The single parent may feel he’s unable to date. A person in a city can often feel even more alone than someone living in a rural area. Finding a mate, to either of those people, can feel hopeless, since they both may wonder how they will ever find someone with whom to share their lives.

My late friend, the Reverend Helen Street, often reminded me that when we pray we are communing with Divine Intelligence, not “Big Dummy in the Sky!” Do we really think our problems or challenges are so special that we, out of all the billions of people alive today and those who have moved on, have the one issue God can’t figure out? Seriously?

We who live the paths of Unity or Religious Science know our reliance on and practice of prayer is evidence of our faith. There is perhaps one simple fact why some prayers are answered and others are not:  faith. Scripture tells us that “faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of reality though not yet beheld.”

What that means is that we know we are supported by a power greater than us, while at the same time acknowledging the presence of God within us. It means that God gets to express love and life through us in a unique and special way; one that no one else on the planet can duplicate. Because we are all individuals, yet unique in the way we express Spirit, we are all truly “only-begotten.”

This designation means that we are supported by God in all ways, but there is a catch. We have to allow this to happen. Many New Thought churches and centers end their services with the “Peace Song.” The phrase, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me,” holds the key that unlocks all the padlocks on our most difficult problems. WE have to let it be. WE have to allow God into our lives to support us through our conscious recognition that God is already here.

God is willing now and forever. The question is whether or not we are going to “let it be.” Be willing this week to have more answers than questions, to have more solutions than problems. As a child I was taught by my mother to, “throw your burdens upon Jehovah.” That’s good advice, because I’ll tell you:  God’s shoulders are a lot broader than ours and can take on more weight than we’d ever thought possible.

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry

I Need to Know Why

As many of you know, I end my blog and most of my correspondence with “In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness.” This week I’m going to be a little heavy on the Truth and Spirit part. Some stuff has come up for a number of people in my life and there’s a difficult subject I need to write about.

For some friends and colleagues recent events have revolved around the need to know “why.” There are a number of situations that can come into our life. We are left in a state of confusion, anger or disbelief. The same can be said of historical events that we find horrific. We often want to know why we ended up with the outcome we or someone else experienced.

We want to know what we did to make him/her have an affair and leave the relationship. We want to know why a friend committed suicide when we thought they had everything going for them. We want someone to tell us why a newborn baby who gave such joy to her parents simply ceased to exist. The list goes on.

Do we always need to know why? What is behind our need for explanation? Some may think if we know why something happened we can avoid the same result in the future. That may be true, but often any answer to a “why” question still leaves us with a feeling of emptiness, unsatisfied that our query was sufficiently addressed.

The leaders and teachers in the New Thought movement didn’t have much use for looking at the past and dissecting our failures. Although Ernest Holmes called his Science of Mind philosophy “spiritual psychology” I don’t recall our history indicated he held out endless years of psychotherapy as a solution to better living. Today the answer in any New Thought religion is still prayer first before anything else.

It is our ego that seems to need to know the answer to the “why” question. Our ego is big on being in charge by figuring things out and somewhat lacking on faith. When my friend and mentor Rev. Sandhi Scott was asked how we can understand what Hitler did she responded by saying that she didn’t want to understand Hitler. To understand him, she explained, would in some way mean that she could conceive of such horrors. It was not something she wanted to entertain.

In many faiths the “why” questions have a simple and direct answer:  It’s either the devil’s doing or God’s will. This belief creates an atmosphere of hatred for a non-existent entity and confusion about a God who acts in ways that make no sense. New Thought takes a completely different approach.

When we take responsibility for our lives we open up the door not only to affect change where necessary, but also release ourselves from the bondage of being a victim. Having said that, do bad things happen to good people? Yes. Everyday. But taking what is before us, making the best out of a horrible situation and loving each other through the process of healing sure sounds a lot better to me than crying that God doesn’t love us or has forsaken us to Satan.

If you need to make sense of the senseless get some help. Call a prayer practitioner or minister to help you over the hump. Seek professional help from a licensed and trained therapist if you feel so inclined. But above all, love yourself through the process and surround yourself with others who care for you.

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry

How Positively Annoying!

Do you ever just get "stuck in your stuff?" I mean really down about your living situation, your job, your relationship or how many extra pounds you might be hauling around? We work so hard to be positive, to be uplifting to ourselves and others, but there are days (sometimes weeks) when nothing we do seems to work out the way we expect it to. It can be very discouraging.

That's about the time when a friend or partner comes along and says something like, "Just be positive! Isn't that what you are always saying?" How positively annoying! First of all, can't they see we are in pain and agony? And, secondly, don't they realize they are speaking to a spiritual master, a metaphysical ninja of affirmative thought and prayer? Before we remember to thank them for their positive attitude and cheerful approach our first thought might be to slap the living snot out of them. That would be our ego. Not terribly spiritual...nor helpful.

Yeah...it sucks to be an example of spiritual principle when we are mired in the muck of mindless mud. There are those of us who believe we are spiritual creatures having a human experience. That means we are here to experience all of the human condition, not just the situations we find desirable and convenient. Then there's that other metaphysical principle about co-creating our experience with God, meaning we no longer get to blame the devil, God, our parents or the government for our problems. Most annoying. But, hey, if taking charge of our lives and being consciously aware of directing our thoughts was easy everyone would be doing it. The fact is, most are not. Being mindful of our lives and our actions is far harder than any manual labor we will ever do.

Our words have the ability to create and destroy. As The Quest notes, our thoughts are like the scattered light of a light bulb. Our words, however, are focused, like the "cohesive light" of a laser. What a visual that is! To imagine that everything coming out of our mouth has the same impact as either a gentle, precise laser that could assist with micro surgery, or the destructive impact of an industrial laser capable of melting steel. Think on that for a moment and realize the potential we have.

The annoying person who reminds us of who we are is a blessing in our lives, even though it doesn't seem so at the time. The situation also gives us the opportunity to realize how compassion, not preaching, is a far better way to support one another through crisis and stressful times.

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry

Clarify from Confusion

Emma Curtis Hopkins once wrote that “order is heaven’s first law.” If the spiritual realm is perfection, and that perfection is reflected in our human experience, then why do our lives look more like a supernova at times instead of harmonious cooperation?

The quick and easy answer is that what looks like chaos can actually be order in motion. A hurricane, for example, is a very orderly and predictable phenomenon. Meteorologists can now use complex computer models to very accurately predict the path and strength of these events.

Being in the path of one, however, is far from orderly. The question is not why something is happening to us (like a hurricane-sized problem), but why we have somehow chosen to be in the situation to experience it in the first place. We often have warning of climatic events that can affect our lives, just like we have warnings of a coming storm. Yet some people choose to remain in the path of certain disaster.

We can do that in our relationships as well. We may see all the warning signs of a storm, yet refuse to get out of the way or prepare ourselves for what is ahead. We can become so sure that what we see around us will protect us that we fail to remember that nothing physical is permanent. We place our faith in what we can see, hoping for survival.

It comes down to a lack of faith. We hope that things will get better, but we don’t really have anything upon which to base our expectations. Ernest Holmes once wrote that faith is not hope. He said that hope was a good thing and certainly better than despair, but it paled in comparison to true faith in God and the Laws by which the universe operate.

Personal storms will come and go. We can be as prepared for these events as we can be for a heavy rain or snow storm. But, when you are in the middle of the storm it is not the time to criticize yourself for not remembering to close the windows in the car. In other words, do the best that you can. In the midst of chaos remember that somehow everything is working in Divine Right Order, regardless of what you see in front of you. Then be gentle with yourself, as you would with a scared little child. To borrow from the quote started by Dan Savage against bullying, “It gets better”. And you know what? It always does.

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry

Blessing Our Way to Happiness

It is said that what we resist persists. The implication is that if we want to get rid of the problem we need to stop fighting against it so hard. But it can also sound like not resisting is tantamount to rolling over and giving up, which gets our ego in a total tizzy. Surrendering our ego doesn’t have to mean giving up either our values or our character.

            Adopting an attitude of acceptance about a person, situation or philosophy is possible without discarding our own views or personality. There is a balance between acceptance of a situation and giving up the authenticity of who we are as individuals. That balance is the realization that we cannot please everyone, nor will everyone please us. There’s no shame in that fact, but if we lean toward or embrace the category of a people pleaser we can get ourselves in quite a mess.

            We often do things that annoy others. For example, I’ve learned not to crack my knuckles around the house. Neither is it a good idea for me to attempt to dunk my cookies in someone else’s milk. Guess it’s a cultural thing that central Pennsylvanian’s like to have their own glass. Back at the trailer park no one cared. You get the point.

            If we meet adverse situations or individuals in our lives with resistance and rigidity it will be like banging our head against a boulder. The boulder won’t budge and we’ll only hurt ourselves. Instead, blessing the situation and loving the person – knowing that everyone is doing the very best they can with what they have to work with and from – will result in a softening of the situation and a lot less stress. Boulders have a way of staying put. That’s fine. We can ineffectively resist that fact to our determent. Or, we can go around, over or under the obstacle, resulting in us reaching our goal. Either way, the boulder really doesn’t care.

            You may be thinking of a boulder or boulders in your life right now. Soften your perception of the state of affairs and bless yourself out of the conflict. The only thing standing in the way of our happiness in this situation is our ego. Thank the ego for its service to you and then choose the path to happiness, blessing your way to happiness.

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry

Read past blogs and messages at http://drterry.blogspot.com/ . You may also hear Dr. Terry most Sundays at Unity of Harrisburg or listen to his Sunday talks online at:  http://unityofharrisburg.org/77212.html/

What's in Your Consciousmess?

            No, that’s not a typo in the title. It was a typo when I was writing an email to my prayer partner this morning and then it hit me:  The situation about which I was writing was a “consciousmess!”

            In both Unity and Science of Mind we teach that the Universe is abundant. But even those of us who have studied these New Thought philosophies for years can fall back into a fear and overall attitude of lack if we allow ourselves to do so. Ernest Holmes wrote that “fear is faith misplaced.” In other words, we have a strong belief that something will go amiss.

The result of such thinking I was I call a “conscious-mess,” as we have created yet another mess in our lives. How did this happen? Because this kind of thinking causes us to succumb to the notion that God will not provide. But is that possible?

            The answer is obvious:  It isn’t possible because Spirit always provides. It’s our job to open to that abundance. Either we believe in the unlimited power of God or we don’t. It doesn’t mean we don’t have doubts from time-to-time. We know the principles in which we believe are simple, but not always easy. But that doesn’t mean we get to spread our doubts and fears all over everyone around us, attempting to infect others with diseased thinking.

            This consciousmess of which I was made aware has been created by others, but if it’s in my face then it must be there for a reason! It has the potential to involve and affect me should I choose to participate. I’ve decided it’s not my mess. The situation allows me to act in love, instead of reacting in fear. It’s hard to see others suffer, but when others are not willing to change then often the best we can do is stay positive and pray for their peace and harmony.

We get to choose our experience. I choose to live in a world of abundance, peace and harmony. How about you?

In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,

Terry