What Does It Mean to Ask, Metaphysically Speaking?

One of our spiritual practice is to pay attention to the flow of circulation, the moving parts: giving, receiving, asking, forgiving, celebrating, and thanking, to make sure they don’t get stalled.  In the same way that we maintain cars or equipment with moving parts, we make sure all the parts are moving along beautifully.

It’s difficult to be in the divine flow if your gratitude is not flowing

It’s Difficult to be in the flow if your giving and receiving is stalled or stuck

It’s Difficult to be in the flow if you are not forgiving

It can be a challenge to be in the divine flow of circulation if you don’t let it be known what you want.

Right here it is important to pause to acknowledge that we sometimes mix up our social relationships (how we interact with people) with our divine relationship (how we interact with Spirit).

There may very well be social conventions about asking about politeness and culture, about what it means to ask, and good ways to ask.  

None of that relates to how we interact with Spirit.

Today's message explores what it means to ask, metaphysically speaking.

To see this week's video on YouTube, click here.

Continue Reading...

Your Super-Power of Receiving and how to activate it

Some of us are better at giving than we are at receiving

Some of us practice being good givers to hide that we are uncomfortable receiving

Some of us can receive but there is something off about it - our receiving looks and feels more like taking.

Taking is not a super power – receiving is

Taking is one sided, receiving is mutually beneficial.

My grandmother was a good receiver.  Receiving was one of her super-powers for sure.  She was gracious, appreciative, and kind when she received. If you gave her something she didn’t like, or want or need, you would never know it because she didn’t focus on the gift, she focused on you and your giving. That meant the world to her.  

No matter what form it came

No matter if it was the wrong color, or if it was late, or the wrong size, or if it was a conversation all about yourself, or about something she shared no interest in.  She could see through the outer to the inner.  To her the gift was just a vehicle for your love

So today’s question is how do you and I activate gracious receiving? 

First, we have to unpack a few things.

We have to answer a few more questions.

To watch this week's video on YouTube click here.

Continue Reading...

Your Superpower of Charity and How It Can Guide You Through Election Time

Charity is a superpower. Although we did not create our capacity to be kind, generous, and loving, we can activate. And when we do, we set in motion a Power greater than we are that helps evolve our world so that it works a little better for all.  Charity to me means to be generous with my thought, possessions, and time, to make generous assumptions about others, to help, contribute, give, and share. 

It may seem counter-intuitive to talk about generosity right now. Times are difficult, and there is so much stress, and being a human is getting more and more complicated.  The inclination may be to withdraw, to self-protect.

Here's why it's important to use our superpower of charity: because generosity, giving, sharing, caring, loving are well known to:

• rebalance our mind, body, and soul,
• relieve the pressures of fear, isolation, and confusion.
• make a positive difference to others
• have emotional, physical, and even material benefits
• bring meaning, connection, fulfilment
• benefit to the ones giving it and the ones receiving it.

That's why.

To see this week's video about the virtue of charity, and how it relates to the upcoming election cycle, click this link.

Continue Reading...

Don't Panic, Believe, Trust, and Know, Then Act.

We are going through a great dying away.

And at the heart of our teaching is the reminder of the immortal, eternal nature of that creative field we call Mind. In other words, a reminder that there is life after death… and that the resurrected body is not the same as its former self.

A falling away must happen.

Racism must fall away.

Gender inequities must fall away.

Corruption must fall away.

Food insecurity must fall away.

Planetary trauma denial must fall away.

So much must fall away.

I want to say, wake me up when it’s all over.

But I think of this: future generations will assess us by what we say, do, and think now.

Yes, It’s disturbing. You and I are being disturbed because the vision of a healthy, loving world that lives in us, and because what is happening in society is alarming and cannot stand.

I want to say, wake me up when it’s all over, but I can’t because now I know that it is through being awake that we get to move through to the other side.

We've been waiting for this
What if this is the answer to our prayer
How is this an evolutionary step forward, and how can I add my voice to it.

Do I know what I know?
And do I have faith in what I know?
Do I believe in what I know?
So much so that I can see it

I can see it.

To see this week's video on YouTube, click here.

Continue Reading...

Faith: How to Embrace Your Inner Greatness

There is always something more to learn.

There is always some new angle to view life from.

The Infinite, which is a name of the Divine we use,

the infinite is not limited to what I already know.

And It in me, is where my magnificence comes from.

But it can’t come through me when I depend on my own council.

That phrase, my own council, comes from one of Ernest Holmes famous prayers in which he says….

"...let me not pursue the paths of my own counsel. oh Eternal and Blessed Presence, illumine my mind and command my will that my Soul may be refreshed and that my life may be renewed." 

That’s a clue to the waking up to our spiritual magnificence.

It’s so much more than my personal magnificence,

we are talking about the magnificence of

the Eternal Blessed presence that illuminates my mind

and your mind,

that refreshes us, and renews us –

and here comes the but…

but It doesn’t do so without our willingness,

openness, agreement, and alignment.

To see this week's video on YouTube, click here.

Continue Reading...

Faith. What Do You Trust To See Clearly? A Spiritual Guide to Voting

What is the filter through which you will look when voting this year?  As a spiritual community, we have the opportunity to put our spiritual values, vision, and principles first when making important life decisions.  Whether that is in voting, or in choosing a new career path, or anything, taking a moment to get clear on what is spiritually important to you, can make the world of difference.

We have provided a spiritual guide to voting for you to use this election year.  The guide is nonpartisan and can be adapted to any faith tradition.  The guide includes resources that you can use if you, or someone you know, is a first-time voter, and, it includes reflection questions to stimulate conversation among family members, neighbors, and friends, about the key issues facing our nation from a spiritual perspective.

It is quite a burden lifted when we realize that we do not have to move the world – it is going to move anyway. This realization does not lessen our duty or our social obligation. It clarifies it. It enables us to do joyously, and free from morbidity, that which we should do in the social state.
Dr. Ernest Holmes
The Science of Mind (p. 270.5)

To see this week's video on YouTube, click here.

 

Continue Reading...

Believe in Your Dang Self, and Vote! How ARE you going to vote?

Inspired by Rachel Hollis's concluding thoughts in "Girl, Stop Apologizing," Dr. Edward explores our Center's organizational vision of a healthy, loving, world, and asks the question "how are you going to vote in this election?" 

He isn't inquiring about who or what you are voting for, he is asking how we will connect our spiritual values and vision to our choices. Today's message is more than a pep talk, it's the awakening in us of what our soul already knows.

Dr. Edward is working on a spiritual guide to voting that he will make available to our community in the upcoming weeks.

To see this week's video on YouTube, click here.

Continue Reading...

Better Together

Better together. That's the topic suggested for this week by the Diversity Inclusion Commission of Centers for Spiritual Living

Our teaching, the Science of Mind states that there is one Presence that is the Source of All. Based on this, we say that Oneness is the central principle of metaphysics. And everything else develops from that, like a puzzle.

One space – I am where you are and you are where I am, which is why we accept that we can pray affirmatively for each other.  Only one time – the present moment, endlessly unfolding.  Only one being – you are part of me and I am part of you.

And the puzzle is this – One means there is no other in absolute terms, and yet, that Oneness shows Itself in an endless variety of forms. We call that diversity. And see it as a valuable and necessary part of Creation, to be celebrated, explored, and integrated.

We are one, not because we are the same, but because we share the same Source

And together, we create something more substantial than what we are alone.

The creators of this week's content give us this image:

Wire rope begins with a single steel wire that's anywhere from .6 to 8 millimeters in diameter. The first step is to wind several of these small wires together into a strand. With each addition strand, a greater strength develops.

Any single strand of wire is perfectly good, and when integrated and wrapped around others, it becomes something mighty.

In the same way, our inclusion of more and different cultures, views, individual expressions, makes us stronger. Better. Together.

I leave you with this affirmation:

"I AM the activity of inclusion. I embrace the multiplicity of Creation as a Community expressing Divinity on Earth."

To view this week's video on YouTube, click here.

Continue Reading...