Undelivered Snow-Day Sermon

 

 

(View from DrTom's Porch during previous snow day.)

 

Unity of the Lakes  intended for

Sunday March 2, 2014   

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Sermon:  I Can See Clearly Now: Your Gift of Daily Divination

 

The title of this sermonic essay is, “I can see clearly now:  Your Gift of Daily Divination.”  Although this work was influenced by the classic rock song (“I Can See Clearly Now” written and performed by Johnny Nash, released in 1972), its true inspiration came through a reading from Emmett Fox, one of the foremost New Thought Christian writers and ministers of the mid-20th century. This week, I was reading an excerpt from Power Through Constructive Thinking by Emmet Fox (see below). Listen to a few lines:

 

“…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.”

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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...”

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Here’s an opportunity for an affirmation: I can see clearly now…I see the world with such faith that I recognize problems are the leading edge of opportunities.

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When I was an Army chaplain serving in Colorado, I once had a very beautiful young female soldier come to my office with tears in her eyes. She and her soldier-husband were being evicted from their apartment. I told her the power of God can accomplish any task.

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 She said, rather sharply, “Can it pay the rent?”

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She was expecting my positive thinking to be silenced by that complaint in question form.        

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But, like a good Unity person, I said, “Yes.”

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“Immediately?” she insisted. “Today?”

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“If that’s what you need, yes,” I replied.

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She scoffed…quietly. After all, she was a junior enlisted member and I was a captain. But I insisted it was true.

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She turned to leave my office and her husband met her at the door with news of a new apartment he had just found. I was affordable, and they could move into right away. Today.

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I didn’t say a word. When you work with Unity principles, you can get a little smug sometimes if you’re not careful. Fox wrote:

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This Power is to be found within your own consciousness, the last place that most people would look for it.

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In 1980, 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.

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 As it is true about our bodies in the physical Universe, so is it true of our essential nature. You are not just star-stuff…You are made of God-stuff.  Because you exist, and there is only One Presence and One Power…God, the Good, omnipotent. God is in all and through all. That means your consciousness is God-consciousness. Previously, I have spoken about “substance”, which is the God-energy behind everything which outpictures in the Cosmos. When we understand the fundamentals of Christian metaphysics, nothing can faze us. Nothing can disturb us.

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I love the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila, which we’ve used so often it has almost become an “official” prayer for me:

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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.

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We strive for this kind of deep, abiding faith. To know God is all we need because God is All. It is absolutely essential that every Unity person understand this concept:

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“There is only One Presence and One Power in my life and in the Universe, God the Good, Omnipotent!” 

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How shall we illustrate this One Presence/One Power? Let’s try it this way. When I turn on a lamp, I am converting energy to light. The light from this lamp is powered by the electricity flowing through an extension cord, which is hooked up to an outlet, which draws power from the electric grid. Now, imagine with me, let’s get a little sci-fi here. Suppose this orange cable did more than just power the lamp. Suppose it was a Star Trek holographic cable, and it generated the lamp and the light.

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There already are holographic images; it’s not impossible. Just go along with me for a second…I’m getting to something. Suppose, then, like a Star Trek holographic cable, it generates both the lamp and the light. The energy of the power plant causes not just the light to be, it causes the lamp itself to be, if this were a holographic lamp. Got it?

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Now, think about the energy of God…Divine energy… Divine Power…. Unity says, God-power is the only power which exists. So why do we see so many different things, all seeming to have power themselves?

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You got it.

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The Cosmos is God’s holodeck. Everything and everybody exists and has power to think and act because God empowers them to exist, think, and act. You are a projection of God power, localized, expressing as the person you are today. You were different in the past…you were a baby, a toddler, a teen-ager…a young adult… You will be different in the future…older and hopefully wiser… But you will always be you, because you are that same Divine energy continuing through the years, making choices, learning and growing as you allow more and more of the Divine Power to manifest itself in your mind, body and affairs.

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You say:  What does this have to do with my life? Remember the question that female soldier asked, “Will it pay the rent?” and my answer, “If that’s what you need, yes,” ? Why was I so absolutely confident the Unity principles would “pay the rent” when properly applied? Because I knew the secret:  There is no limit to the Divine Power. And do you know what’s other secret most people don’t know? No matter what happens, good can come from it—so your faith can NEVER fail you, unless you fail to have faith. If she and her husband had been evicted, something good could have come from that bad experience, too.

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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…”

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Daily Divination?  “Divination” means to see the truth. To “divine” the truth. Most of us remember old movies, usually comedies, where they showed somebody walking around looking for water with a forked stick which they called a “divining rod”.  One of our main tasks is to “divine” the sources of good in our lives.  It all becomes so clear, once we understand the basic principle of “One Presence / One Power, God the good”.

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Everything is a potential 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! We suffer sometimes. We lose friends, relatives, loved ones, to the arms of death. We fail in business, make mistakes, say foolish things, crash into walls or wade through thorn bushes because we’re off the path. But the Unity Way of life knows this great secret: No matter what happens…God-power within us can convert this apparent evil into a good.

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When tragedy strikes, we start anew. We face new opportunities. We build again. We love again. We expand our minds to expect greater good, and it comes. It surely comes. It cannot be prevented from arriving unless we refuse delivery! “I can see clearly now…”

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 When we 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.  “Patience obtains all. Whoever has God needs nothing else. God alone suffices.”

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You are God-stuff… With God-stuff, there’s NOTHING you can’t handle. Problems are the leading edge of opportunities. No problem can defeat you. Bring it on, Universe. The next time a great, big problem presents itself, if you’re following the Unity principles, you’ll see that big, hairy problem coming your way, and you’ll rock back on your heels and look it in the eye and say, “Where you been?”

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Excerpt from: Power Through Constructive Thinking by Emmet Fox

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 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.

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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…

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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.