For an amazing short video, take a look at the following produced by BBC and just released April 1, 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrxmpihCjqw
PS: In a Cosmos full of everyday miracles, why not believe that penguins could fly?
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Higher Participatory Reality
“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” .- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
There is, at the heart of an apparently impersonal Universe, a higher participatory Reality which is transpersonal, caring and supportive. The whole process of existence functions like a grand computer program that runs endlessly, encompassing everything which exists or could exist and all the principles by which Existence functions, evolving and improving while re-arranging the furniture of the Cosmos and re-creating in myriad shapes the beauty of new forms. Humans are part of this program, like subroutines of a master program which is alive and making conscious decisions as the whole network learns and grows.
Nature is at once symbiotic and predatory. Ecologies are built on subsystems in which both cooperative and hunter-prey relationships thrive, all working together while simultaneously competing for resources. Plants and animals interact in the dance of life. Even through violent competition for resources and food, the needs of the system are served. To feed her family, lioness kills zebra. While this may seem cruel to the zebra, their predator-prey relationship culls the zebra herd of weaker individuals.
The driving force of this evolutionary program seems geared toward producing beings like you and me, creatures who can walk out under a night sky, ask questions about what it all means, and appreciate the work of mastery unfolding before us. Evolution knows where it is going, as Jesuit scholar Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said. Teilhard believed the very program of the Cosmos is headed toward Union with God:
“Without a doubt, deep down in the most spiritualized zones of our being, certain interior needs subsist which are inexorably forcing us to pursue our forward march. ... Doubling, and little by little relaying the push coming from the bottom, the appearance of an attraction descending from the top reveals itself as organically indispensable for the rest of the operation; --- indispensable for sustaining the vital evolutionary thrust… There can be ...only one kind of Universe ---convergent, [with]---some illumination, some vivifying revelation at the end of the tunnel..." [1]
In other words, Divine Order works in and through the natural order to bring about its creative, dynamic, infinitely diverse expressions. The divine-within is the local articulation of God as artist, creating new beauty and enjoying the adventure of life. We are consumer-packaged theophanies exploring the limitless possibilities available in a Cosmos where free will and divine order interact to “harness for God the energies of love” and reach heights yet unknown.
________________________________________
[1] http://www.noosphere.cc/tdc1.html
There is, at the heart of an apparently impersonal Universe, a higher participatory Reality which is transpersonal, caring and supportive. The whole process of existence functions like a grand computer program that runs endlessly, encompassing everything which exists or could exist and all the principles by which Existence functions, evolving and improving while re-arranging the furniture of the Cosmos and re-creating in myriad shapes the beauty of new forms. Humans are part of this program, like subroutines of a master program which is alive and making conscious decisions as the whole network learns and grows.
Nature is at once symbiotic and predatory. Ecologies are built on subsystems in which both cooperative and hunter-prey relationships thrive, all working together while simultaneously competing for resources. Plants and animals interact in the dance of life. Even through violent competition for resources and food, the needs of the system are served. To feed her family, lioness kills zebra. While this may seem cruel to the zebra, their predator-prey relationship culls the zebra herd of weaker individuals.
The driving force of this evolutionary program seems geared toward producing beings like you and me, creatures who can walk out under a night sky, ask questions about what it all means, and appreciate the work of mastery unfolding before us. Evolution knows where it is going, as Jesuit scholar Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said. Teilhard believed the very program of the Cosmos is headed toward Union with God:
“Without a doubt, deep down in the most spiritualized zones of our being, certain interior needs subsist which are inexorably forcing us to pursue our forward march. ... Doubling, and little by little relaying the push coming from the bottom, the appearance of an attraction descending from the top reveals itself as organically indispensable for the rest of the operation; --- indispensable for sustaining the vital evolutionary thrust… There can be ...only one kind of Universe ---convergent, [with]---some illumination, some vivifying revelation at the end of the tunnel..." [1]
In other words, Divine Order works in and through the natural order to bring about its creative, dynamic, infinitely diverse expressions. The divine-within is the local articulation of God as artist, creating new beauty and enjoying the adventure of life. We are consumer-packaged theophanies exploring the limitless possibilities available in a Cosmos where free will and divine order interact to “harness for God the energies of love” and reach heights yet unknown.
________________________________________
[1] http://www.noosphere.cc/tdc1.html
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Excerpt from Just-Submitted Q&A Column
Dear Mr. Shepherd: What are Unity's views on the evil and hatred emanating from the entire Arab Islamic culture? I am stuck in a stage of repulsion, anger, and contempt for a culture that raises their children to kill themselves as a means to murdering as many people as possible, a culture that gives nothing to humanity except oppression and destruction, a culture whose heroes are mass murderers. If I were a young man instead of a middle-aged woman, I would probably become a soldier so I could fight this scourge with my entire being. I think it is strange that Unity is so silent when evil is so prominent. I wish Unity Magazine contained articles that address these issues.
P.G., Bronx, NY
Dear P.G.: Well, I am fairly certain your letter has my readers leaning forward in their chairs. I don’t think I’ve ever reproduced anything more strongly worded in the fifteen years I’ve been writing my (Unity Magazine) column. Yes, I believe Unity people should address current events, especially those which are divisive and painful. Conflicts which lead to shouts of trembling rage cannot be resolved without first acknowledging these emotions exist. Let me I reiterate that I am NOT speaking for Unity, just giving my theological-political analysis...so here goes.
You mention being “stuck in a stage of repulsion, anger, and contempt...” Let me begin by acknowledging that your epistle comes from deep inside my storage vault of worthy-yet-unpublished correspondence. Since it is something you wrote several years ago (2003), it may not represent your current viewpoint. (You might be un-stuck by now.) However, this old letter has raised some new issues which I want to address today.
From unpublished parts your two-page letter, I surmise you are a native New Yorker, a strong supporter of Israel, and a woman of the Jewish faith. These three factors make it somewhat easier to understand the distress you must have felt when events of 911 hit home, literally. Many Americans, indeed many people around the world, are sympathetic to the struggles of the Jewish people and are strong supporters of a free and independent State of Israel. Certainly, the torrent of violence from hostile neighbors, which Israel has endured since its creation by United Nations mandate in 1948, has not shown any signs of abating. There are deep and bitter sources of this conflict, as I am sure you know.
After what the Hebrew people suffered through history, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust, the United Nations decided that Jews deserved a place to settle down and raise their families, and the ancestral home of Israel was the logical choice. However, the battle over that 60-year-old decision still rages today, and there are complicated religious and political overtones to the ongoing struggle. Westerners tend to see Israel as the re-established biblical homeland for Jewish emigrants to return after the Diaspora. However, most Middle Eastern Muslims see Israel not as an ancient land reborn but as a European colony not unlike the Crusader kingdoms of the Middle Ages.
Commentators have frequently noted how odd it is that a land considered so holy by many religious faiths continues to be the focal point of so much antagonism. Much of the ongoing unrest is fed by a fatal combination of high unemployment and religious fanaticism in the Palestinian communities, coupled with endless armed clashes between Israelis and Arabs. Although I agree with your assessment of the outrageous brutality which radical Islam has brought to the world, I don’t see how this makes all Muslims equally guilty agents of hatred and violence. The problem stems not from ordinary believers but from a rather small percentage of extremists who have hijacked Islamic tradition and gotten way too much media coverage for their frankly heretical point of view. Violent opposition to Israel and Western society comes not from ordinary followers of Islam but from the Islamists, which apparently is the culturally preferred Muslim word for their radicals.
Historically speaking, your comment that Islam is “a culture that gives nothing to humanity except oppression and destruction” is simply untrue. Muslim scholars in the Middle Ages saved much of Greek and Roman literature and sciences; Islamic civilization invented algebra (an Arabic word) and the university system. Arab traders opened routes to Africa and Asia. In fact, some historians argue that trade with the Muslim Near East inaugurated the European Renaissance movement which subsequently revitalized slumbering Western Civilization. During the five hundred years when Spain was a Muslim country under the Moors, Islamic culture promoted a remarkable degree of religious tolerance on the Iberian Peninsula. Jews and Christians and Muslims lived together in a reasonable measure of harmony, because the Prophet Muhammad had told his followers to respect “people of the Book,” i.e., those whose religious traditions flow from the Jewish and Christian Bible. Unquestionably, those who chant their hatred for Jews and Christians in the streets of the Arab world are not in harmony with the teachings of their great Prophet, any more than the KKK is showing its Christian character by burning a cross on someone’s lawn.
Although every faith has its fanatics, sometimes strong convictions can bring out the best in people, even among those with different religions. Corrie Ten Boom was a young Christian woman whose family decided to join the Dutch equivalent to the Underground Railroad. They began secretly housing Jews who were escaping from the Nazi’s. Corrie recorded their remarkable story in her bestselling autobiography The Hiding Place. Not all Dutchmen were as faithful to the teaching of Jesus as the Ten Boom family. After her pastor refused to risk helping runaways because the fugitives were Jews, Corrie’s father, Casper Ten Boom, dryly evaluated this “Christian” minister by observing that just because a mouse lives in a cookie jar doesn’t make him a cookie.[1]
Having said that, it is important to recognize that a major disconnect exists between Islamic and Western societies. Historian Karen Armstrong has identified a reality which cannot be ignored, i.e., that religious fervor runs deep in the Muslim world and it can reach vituperative levels which are unintelligible to Westerners. Armstrong writes in a pre-911 book which now sounds prophetic:
Obviously, the religious passions in the Middle East are no longer always amenable to rational control. The area has become a tinderbox that could ignite into a nuclear holocaust, if this extreme spirit were allowed to get out of control.[2]
Some Islamic scholars argue that Muslims who hate all non-Muslims are not being true to the faith of Islam, any more than burning crosses in the night represents true Christianity. Both Jesus and Muhammad wanted their follower to live in peace and harmony with God and neighbor. As a Christian, I am outraged at some things which misguided and fanatical people have been done in the name of Jesus Christ, and I know from personal contact with American Muslims that they feel the same about radical Islamists who claim to be acting in the name of the whole religion but are just hiding under the mantle of a great world faith in order to spread prejudice, hatred and violence.
Unity is not silent on these issues, because the work which Silent Unity began over a century ago is today a network of praying and caring people around the earth. Prayer for peace and justice seems mandatory for people of good will. If humanity has learned anything from its great religious teachers it should be that peaceful cooperation is the only hope for a healthy and prosperous human society. The ancient debt to God and neighbor is not so much an obligation as it is the only healthy recourse for a world united by the Internet, facing global geo-political, ecological and climatological challenges, and reaching outward to the stars as one human family.
Unity believes in the Divine-within, that each sentient being is best understood as imago Dei, the image and likeness of God in a concrete, finite expression. And, yes, this includes even terrorists whose painful path has led them to choose a religion of hate. I do not presume to understand their motivations or their decisions; I certainly do not condone their actions. But I do believe we should pray for everyone involved while affirming that God works in and through every circumstance. Take a look at the next letter, also from the vault, written around the same time you took pen in hand, in which a woman twice your age has some advice for all of us.
Dear Tom: I apologize for not typing. I am 84 and physically handicapped, but I hope you can read this (on yellow lined paper). I recently read one your fine answer to someone who asked about non-Christians going to heaven. It strikes me that God is not Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist, etc. God is spirit and to be worshipped in Spirit and Truth, as I think it says in the New Testament. It seems to me that all our human-made concepts about God, heaven, hell, etc. are for our convenience of communication, like Daylight Savings or Standard Time. Can you believe it, someone once asked me why God made Daylight Savings time? What do you think about that?
J.M., Yellow Springs, OH
Dear J.M.: You said it all: “God is not Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist, etc..” (Usually, I’m Christian. But some days I find myself a firm believer in the faith of Etc.) I’m only sorry I didn’t publish your letter a few years ago when I received it and stuck it into my “goodies to hold for later” bag. People can distort the kindest sentiments into expressions of hate and discord, and the previous letter-writer was deeply troubled by this tendency in radical Islam. The best way to oppose such hatred is to hold to the truth of love and the basic goodness of all people, everywhere. This may be hard to see sometimes, but the sun never vanishes simply because clouds form in the earth’s atmosphere.
___________________________________________________
[1] Casper Ten Boom www.worldofquotes.com/author/Casper-Ten-Boom/1/index.html
[2] Karen Armstrong, Holy War (NY: Anchor Books, 2001), 538.
P.G., Bronx, NY
Dear P.G.: Well, I am fairly certain your letter has my readers leaning forward in their chairs. I don’t think I’ve ever reproduced anything more strongly worded in the fifteen years I’ve been writing my (Unity Magazine) column. Yes, I believe Unity people should address current events, especially those which are divisive and painful. Conflicts which lead to shouts of trembling rage cannot be resolved without first acknowledging these emotions exist. Let me I reiterate that I am NOT speaking for Unity, just giving my theological-political analysis...so here goes.
You mention being “stuck in a stage of repulsion, anger, and contempt...” Let me begin by acknowledging that your epistle comes from deep inside my storage vault of worthy-yet-unpublished correspondence. Since it is something you wrote several years ago (2003), it may not represent your current viewpoint. (You might be un-stuck by now.) However, this old letter has raised some new issues which I want to address today.
From unpublished parts your two-page letter, I surmise you are a native New Yorker, a strong supporter of Israel, and a woman of the Jewish faith. These three factors make it somewhat easier to understand the distress you must have felt when events of 911 hit home, literally. Many Americans, indeed many people around the world, are sympathetic to the struggles of the Jewish people and are strong supporters of a free and independent State of Israel. Certainly, the torrent of violence from hostile neighbors, which Israel has endured since its creation by United Nations mandate in 1948, has not shown any signs of abating. There are deep and bitter sources of this conflict, as I am sure you know.
After what the Hebrew people suffered through history, culminating in the Nazi Holocaust, the United Nations decided that Jews deserved a place to settle down and raise their families, and the ancestral home of Israel was the logical choice. However, the battle over that 60-year-old decision still rages today, and there are complicated religious and political overtones to the ongoing struggle. Westerners tend to see Israel as the re-established biblical homeland for Jewish emigrants to return after the Diaspora. However, most Middle Eastern Muslims see Israel not as an ancient land reborn but as a European colony not unlike the Crusader kingdoms of the Middle Ages.
Commentators have frequently noted how odd it is that a land considered so holy by many religious faiths continues to be the focal point of so much antagonism. Much of the ongoing unrest is fed by a fatal combination of high unemployment and religious fanaticism in the Palestinian communities, coupled with endless armed clashes between Israelis and Arabs. Although I agree with your assessment of the outrageous brutality which radical Islam has brought to the world, I don’t see how this makes all Muslims equally guilty agents of hatred and violence. The problem stems not from ordinary believers but from a rather small percentage of extremists who have hijacked Islamic tradition and gotten way too much media coverage for their frankly heretical point of view. Violent opposition to Israel and Western society comes not from ordinary followers of Islam but from the Islamists, which apparently is the culturally preferred Muslim word for their radicals.
Historically speaking, your comment that Islam is “a culture that gives nothing to humanity except oppression and destruction” is simply untrue. Muslim scholars in the Middle Ages saved much of Greek and Roman literature and sciences; Islamic civilization invented algebra (an Arabic word) and the university system. Arab traders opened routes to Africa and Asia. In fact, some historians argue that trade with the Muslim Near East inaugurated the European Renaissance movement which subsequently revitalized slumbering Western Civilization. During the five hundred years when Spain was a Muslim country under the Moors, Islamic culture promoted a remarkable degree of religious tolerance on the Iberian Peninsula. Jews and Christians and Muslims lived together in a reasonable measure of harmony, because the Prophet Muhammad had told his followers to respect “people of the Book,” i.e., those whose religious traditions flow from the Jewish and Christian Bible. Unquestionably, those who chant their hatred for Jews and Christians in the streets of the Arab world are not in harmony with the teachings of their great Prophet, any more than the KKK is showing its Christian character by burning a cross on someone’s lawn.
Although every faith has its fanatics, sometimes strong convictions can bring out the best in people, even among those with different religions. Corrie Ten Boom was a young Christian woman whose family decided to join the Dutch equivalent to the Underground Railroad. They began secretly housing Jews who were escaping from the Nazi’s. Corrie recorded their remarkable story in her bestselling autobiography The Hiding Place. Not all Dutchmen were as faithful to the teaching of Jesus as the Ten Boom family. After her pastor refused to risk helping runaways because the fugitives were Jews, Corrie’s father, Casper Ten Boom, dryly evaluated this “Christian” minister by observing that just because a mouse lives in a cookie jar doesn’t make him a cookie.[1]
Having said that, it is important to recognize that a major disconnect exists between Islamic and Western societies. Historian Karen Armstrong has identified a reality which cannot be ignored, i.e., that religious fervor runs deep in the Muslim world and it can reach vituperative levels which are unintelligible to Westerners. Armstrong writes in a pre-911 book which now sounds prophetic:
Obviously, the religious passions in the Middle East are no longer always amenable to rational control. The area has become a tinderbox that could ignite into a nuclear holocaust, if this extreme spirit were allowed to get out of control.[2]
Some Islamic scholars argue that Muslims who hate all non-Muslims are not being true to the faith of Islam, any more than burning crosses in the night represents true Christianity. Both Jesus and Muhammad wanted their follower to live in peace and harmony with God and neighbor. As a Christian, I am outraged at some things which misguided and fanatical people have been done in the name of Jesus Christ, and I know from personal contact with American Muslims that they feel the same about radical Islamists who claim to be acting in the name of the whole religion but are just hiding under the mantle of a great world faith in order to spread prejudice, hatred and violence.
Unity is not silent on these issues, because the work which Silent Unity began over a century ago is today a network of praying and caring people around the earth. Prayer for peace and justice seems mandatory for people of good will. If humanity has learned anything from its great religious teachers it should be that peaceful cooperation is the only hope for a healthy and prosperous human society. The ancient debt to God and neighbor is not so much an obligation as it is the only healthy recourse for a world united by the Internet, facing global geo-political, ecological and climatological challenges, and reaching outward to the stars as one human family.
Unity believes in the Divine-within, that each sentient being is best understood as imago Dei, the image and likeness of God in a concrete, finite expression. And, yes, this includes even terrorists whose painful path has led them to choose a religion of hate. I do not presume to understand their motivations or their decisions; I certainly do not condone their actions. But I do believe we should pray for everyone involved while affirming that God works in and through every circumstance. Take a look at the next letter, also from the vault, written around the same time you took pen in hand, in which a woman twice your age has some advice for all of us.
Dear Tom: I apologize for not typing. I am 84 and physically handicapped, but I hope you can read this (on yellow lined paper). I recently read one your fine answer to someone who asked about non-Christians going to heaven. It strikes me that God is not Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist, etc. God is spirit and to be worshipped in Spirit and Truth, as I think it says in the New Testament. It seems to me that all our human-made concepts about God, heaven, hell, etc. are for our convenience of communication, like Daylight Savings or Standard Time. Can you believe it, someone once asked me why God made Daylight Savings time? What do you think about that?
J.M., Yellow Springs, OH
Dear J.M.: You said it all: “God is not Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist, etc..” (Usually, I’m Christian. But some days I find myself a firm believer in the faith of Etc.) I’m only sorry I didn’t publish your letter a few years ago when I received it and stuck it into my “goodies to hold for later” bag. People can distort the kindest sentiments into expressions of hate and discord, and the previous letter-writer was deeply troubled by this tendency in radical Islam. The best way to oppose such hatred is to hold to the truth of love and the basic goodness of all people, everywhere. This may be hard to see sometimes, but the sun never vanishes simply because clouds form in the earth’s atmosphere.
___________________________________________________
[1] Casper Ten Boom www.worldofquotes.com/author/Casper-Ten-Boom/1/index.html
[2] Karen Armstrong, Holy War (NY: Anchor Books, 2001), 538.
Monday, March 31, 2008
I Can See Clearly Now
I Can See Clearly Now
Lyrics by Johnny Nash
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.
I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I’ve been prayin’ for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.
Look all around, there’s nothin’ but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothin’ but blue skies
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.
In his book Power Through Constructive Thinking Emmet Fox writes:
“…there exists a mystic power that is able to transform your life… This mystic but intensely real force can pick you up today, now, from the midst of failure, ruin, misery, despair – and in the twinkling of an eye…solve your problems, smooth out your difficulties, cut you free from any entanglements, and place you clear, safe, and happy upon the highroad of freedom and opportunity… This Power is to be found within your own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it.”
Note what Fox does NOT say: He does not say you will henceforth and forever avoid failure, ruin, misery, despair and problems…Rather, when those impostors come your way, the “mystic power” of God can instantly “pick you up” and as Fox says: “…place you clear, safe, and happy upon the highroad of freedom and opportunity...”
Like the song by Johnny Nash, I want to see clearly now…I want to see the world with such faith that I recognize problems are the leading edge of opportunities.
When I was an Army chaplain serving in Colorado, I once had a beautiful young female soldier come to my office with tears in her eyes because she and her soldier-husband were being evicted from their apartment. I told her the power of God can accomplish any task.
She said, rather sharply, “Can it pay the rent?” She was expecting my positive thinking to be silenced by that complaint in question form.
But, like a good Unity person, I said, “Yes.”
“Right away?” she insisted. “Today?”
“If that’s what you need, yes,” I replied.
She scoffed…quietly. After all, she was a junior enlisted member and I was a captain. But I insisted it was true. She turned to leave my office and her husband met her at the door with news of a new apartment he had just found. It was affordable, and they could move in right away. Today.
I didn’t say a word. When you work with Truth principles, you can get a little smug sometimes if you're not careful.
“This Power is to be found within your own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it.”
As it is true about your bodies in the physical Universe, so is it true of your essential nature. You are not just star-stuff…You are made of God-stuff. God-energy, which Metaphysical Christianity calls by the rather archaic word substance.
Because there is only One Presence and One Power--God, the Good, Omnipotent--then virtually anything is possible. God is in all and through all. This means your consciousness is God-consciousness. Substance is the God-energy behind everything which outpictures in the Cosmos. It is the power-matrix which causes everything to exist. Theologians call this panentheism, the idea that everything is in God, and generated out of God, like a fish is in the ocean in which it has evolved.
Understanding the fundamentals of Christian metaphysics means nothing can faze you. Nothing can disturb you. You may hurt and you might even suffer, but although you travel through the places of deep darkness, you shall not fear. Feelings of joy may not be possible at all times, but peace is. I love the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila:
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing affright you.
All things pass.
God is unchanging.
Patience obtains all.
Whoever has God needs nothing else.
God alone suffices.
To strive for this kind of deep, abiding faith is to know God is all you need… because, as our friends in Religious Science say, “God is All.” The only limit to God’s ability to outpicture good in our lives is our limited ability to visualize it, believe it, accept it, feel worthy of it, and allow it to appear. As Emmet Fox has said, the Power of God-within “can teach you all things that you need to know, if only you are receptive and teachable…” EVERYTHING is a source of good! EVERY circumstance can yield great bounties for everyone concerned.
Does that mean everything which happens is a good experience? Of course not. People hurt sometimes. They lose friends, relatives, loved ones, to the arms of death. They may fail in business, make mistakes, say foolish things, crash into walls or wade through thorn bushes because they’'ve wandered off the path. But person following a Unity Way of life knows this great Truth:
NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS…GOD-POWER WITHIN ME CAN CONVERT THIS APPARENT EVIL INTO A GOOD.
You can begin again with new opportunities. Build again. Love again. Expand your mind to expect greater good, and it comes. It surely comes. It cannot be prevented from arriving unless you refuse delivery!
When you and I realize the True nature of all things, we’ll see clearly. All obstacles in our way will stop being “obstacles” and become benches to rest upon, guideposts to mark the path, or refreshing stopovers along the journey.
We are God-stuff… With God-stuff, there’s NOTHING we can’t handle. Problems are the leading edge of opportunities. No problem can defeat you. Bring it on, Universe.
“I can see clearly now…” (Click on link below for Midi file, music and lyrics)
http://www.ezgeta.com/clearly.html
PS: Divine Order strikes again? I just noticed, the Word for today (03-31-08) is New Life.
_____________________________________________________
Excerpt from Power Through Constructive Thinking by Emmet Fox:
Strange as it may seem to you, there exists a mystic power that is able to transform your life so thoroughly, so radically, so completely, that when the process is completed your own friends would hardly recognize you, and, in fact, you would scarcely be able to recognize yourself... This mystic but intensely real force can pick you up today, now, from the midst of failure, ruin, misery, despair – and in the twinkling of an eye…solve your problems, smooth out your difficulties, cut you free from any entanglements, and place you clear, safe, and happy upon the highroad of freedom and opportunity.
It can lift you out of an invalid’s bed, make you sound and well once more, and free to go out into the world to shape your life as you will. It can throw open the prison door and liberate the captive. It has a magical healing balm for the bruised or broken heart. This mystic Power can teach you all things that you need to know, if only you are receptive and teachable….It can furnish you with the prosperity that means freedom…
But where, it will naturally be asked, is this wonderful, mystic Power to be contacted? …The answer is perfectly simple. This Power is to be found within your own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it. Right within your own mentality there lies a source of energy stronger than electricity, more potent than high explosive, unlimited and inexhaustible.
Lyrics by Johnny Nash
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.
I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I’ve been prayin’ for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.
Look all around, there’s nothin’ but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothin’ but blue skies
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day.
In his book Power Through Constructive Thinking Emmet Fox writes:
“…there exists a mystic power that is able to transform your life… This mystic but intensely real force can pick you up today, now, from the midst of failure, ruin, misery, despair – and in the twinkling of an eye…solve your problems, smooth out your difficulties, cut you free from any entanglements, and place you clear, safe, and happy upon the highroad of freedom and opportunity… This Power is to be found within your own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it.”
Note what Fox does NOT say: He does not say you will henceforth and forever avoid failure, ruin, misery, despair and problems…Rather, when those impostors come your way, the “mystic power” of God can instantly “pick you up” and as Fox says: “…place you clear, safe, and happy upon the highroad of freedom and opportunity...”
Like the song by Johnny Nash, I want to see clearly now…I want to see the world with such faith that I recognize problems are the leading edge of opportunities.
When I was an Army chaplain serving in Colorado, I once had a beautiful young female soldier come to my office with tears in her eyes because she and her soldier-husband were being evicted from their apartment. I told her the power of God can accomplish any task.
She said, rather sharply, “Can it pay the rent?” She was expecting my positive thinking to be silenced by that complaint in question form.
But, like a good Unity person, I said, “Yes.”
“Right away?” she insisted. “Today?”
“If that’s what you need, yes,” I replied.
She scoffed…quietly. After all, she was a junior enlisted member and I was a captain. But I insisted it was true. She turned to leave my office and her husband met her at the door with news of a new apartment he had just found. It was affordable, and they could move in right away. Today.
I didn’t say a word. When you work with Truth principles, you can get a little smug sometimes if you're not careful.
“This Power is to be found within your own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it.”
Emmet Fox is echoing, or perhaps more accurately influencing, Eric Butterworth's great story at the very beginning of Discover the Power Within You. The gods want to hide human divinity someplace we will never look. After considering several remote locations, the senior god says they will hide it deep within us, which Fox and Butterworth rightly note as the last place anyone would look for it. Yet, science has given comfort to those of us who believe we have great, unknown power deep within us, and the support comes from one of my favorite athiests, Dr. Carl Sagan.
Twenty years ago, astronomer Carl Sagan used his PBS-TV mini-Series Cosmos to teach the Western world about cosmic evolution. We learned that the metals and heavier elements in our bodies were formed in the supernovas of long-gone stars, “billions and billions” of years ago. “You are star stuff,” Carl Sagan said. He taught people all over the world to see themselves from a new vantage point, standing on the shore of the cosmic ocean where our chemistries were born.As it is true about your bodies in the physical Universe, so is it true of your essential nature. You are not just star-stuff…You are made of God-stuff. God-energy, which Metaphysical Christianity calls by the rather archaic word substance.
Because there is only One Presence and One Power--God, the Good, Omnipotent--then virtually anything is possible. God is in all and through all. This means your consciousness is God-consciousness. Substance is the God-energy behind everything which outpictures in the Cosmos. It is the power-matrix which causes everything to exist. Theologians call this panentheism, the idea that everything is in God, and generated out of God, like a fish is in the ocean in which it has evolved.
Understanding the fundamentals of Christian metaphysics means nothing can faze you. Nothing can disturb you. You may hurt and you might even suffer, but although you travel through the places of deep darkness, you shall not fear. Feelings of joy may not be possible at all times, but peace is. I love the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila:
Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing affright you.
All things pass.
God is unchanging.
Patience obtains all.
Whoever has God needs nothing else.
God alone suffices.
To strive for this kind of deep, abiding faith is to know God is all you need… because, as our friends in Religious Science say, “God is All.” The only limit to God’s ability to outpicture good in our lives is our limited ability to visualize it, believe it, accept it, feel worthy of it, and allow it to appear. As Emmet Fox has said, the Power of God-within “can teach you all things that you need to know, if only you are receptive and teachable…” EVERYTHING is a source of good! EVERY circumstance can yield great bounties for everyone concerned.
Does that mean everything which happens is a good experience? Of course not. People hurt sometimes. They lose friends, relatives, loved ones, to the arms of death. They may fail in business, make mistakes, say foolish things, crash into walls or wade through thorn bushes because they’'ve wandered off the path. But person following a Unity Way of life knows this great Truth:
NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS…GOD-POWER WITHIN ME CAN CONVERT THIS APPARENT EVIL INTO A GOOD.
You can begin again with new opportunities. Build again. Love again. Expand your mind to expect greater good, and it comes. It surely comes. It cannot be prevented from arriving unless you refuse delivery!
When you and I realize the True nature of all things, we’ll see clearly. All obstacles in our way will stop being “obstacles” and become benches to rest upon, guideposts to mark the path, or refreshing stopovers along the journey.
We are God-stuff… With God-stuff, there’s NOTHING we can’t handle. Problems are the leading edge of opportunities. No problem can defeat you. Bring it on, Universe.
“I can see clearly now…” (Click on link below for Midi file, music and lyrics)
http://www.ezgeta.com/clearly.html
PS: Divine Order strikes again? I just noticed, the Word for today (03-31-08) is New Life.
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Excerpt from Power Through Constructive Thinking by Emmet Fox:
Strange as it may seem to you, there exists a mystic power that is able to transform your life so thoroughly, so radically, so completely, that when the process is completed your own friends would hardly recognize you, and, in fact, you would scarcely be able to recognize yourself... This mystic but intensely real force can pick you up today, now, from the midst of failure, ruin, misery, despair – and in the twinkling of an eye…solve your problems, smooth out your difficulties, cut you free from any entanglements, and place you clear, safe, and happy upon the highroad of freedom and opportunity.
It can lift you out of an invalid’s bed, make you sound and well once more, and free to go out into the world to shape your life as you will. It can throw open the prison door and liberate the captive. It has a magical healing balm for the bruised or broken heart. This mystic Power can teach you all things that you need to know, if only you are receptive and teachable….It can furnish you with the prosperity that means freedom…
But where, it will naturally be asked, is this wonderful, mystic Power to be contacted? …The answer is perfectly simple. This Power is to be found within your own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it. Right within your own mentality there lies a source of energy stronger than electricity, more potent than high explosive, unlimited and inexhaustible.
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