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.”

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.