User!

Sunday, September 7, 2014

          A couple of months ago I received an email. In part it read, “Dear Rev. Brad… we have so many wonderful Unity authors who understand how to manifest prosperity. Could we have one of them come here to do a workshop?”

          The very first thing I did was get on my high-horse and think, “Really? That’s exactly what we are talking every “Prosperity Sunday.”

Then I remembered something I’m usually keenly aware of and I usually tell it this way, “When Jane and I were attending church and I was on the other side of the pulpit Jane might say something like this to me after a Sunday Service, “Wow! Did you hear when Jack said such and such? That was powerful! And I’d be thinking to myself, “Well, yeah, he’s been saying that over and over for the past 6 months.” And I also know the reverse has occurred, too. I have exclaimed about something that Jack said and Jane would look at me with this cocked head and say, “You never heard him say that before?”

          What I came to choose to believe about this - once I began to think about it - is that everyone moves at their own pace and hears what they need to hear when the time is right for them to receive it. So in regards to the suggestion about bringing in a speaker to talk about the very thing I’ve been talking about… Almost as quickly as I mounted my high-horse, I dismounted.

So let’s talk some more about “manifesting;” “manifesting” (or attracting) that which we want in our lives… and that which we don’t.

One of our handy Unity catch-phrases is, “Our way of thinking creates the experience of our life.”

This statement is general in scope (which makes it powerful in all situations), but maybe something a little more specific would be good, such as, “Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.”

I think where I haven’t done well enough is in helping you to understand this in not and intellectual exercise, but a feeling realm exercise. We have feelings attached to everything we think unless we make it a mechanical exercise.

What are you looking for in your life?

“You have to feel it to find it.”

One of steps to prosperity is to prepare a place for it. On several occasions it is noted in the Bible that Jesus went off to be alone and pray. When we begin a garden in which we want something from the nowhere to be now here, we have to prepare a place and cultivate it. The better the preparation, usually the better the value of what comes forth.

Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.

Spend time in silence holding before you a change in consciousness, both in thought and feeling. If we are willing to hold a thought, visualize it, and feel it, we’ll achieve what we seek sooner, deeper, and clearer.

While you are in the silence feel the joy of having what you seek, as though it were present right now. What would it feel like? How might your life be different?

Acknowledge it exists.

Acknowledge that you are a co-creator with God (or divine substance, or creative substance, or “Miralce-Gro” for human life).

The awareness you have to hold is

(1)             That you are a part of the creative process. Acknowledge that the creative substance of life exists; call it stardust, call it God substance, call it creative substance, call it energy, call it Life, call it Spirit… whatever you call it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you acknowledge that it exists, that it   is all around, and you are the User of it. It’s up to you to use it however you see fit.

(2)             The creative substance of Life always responds with an unconditional yes!

(3)             Acknowledge that the largest part of you – however you define you – lives in and from this creative substance.

“Now, imagine in your mind’s eye what it feels like to be in this space. Think of a time when all was going well and everything seemed to work easily.

Reach for the best feeling thought you can find.

Be alert to your thinking. Does this thought make you feel better or make you feel worse?

“I don’t have enough.” How do you feel when you think that?

“I’ve never had enough.” How do you feel when you think that?

“I don’t know anybody who has enough!” How do you feel when you think that?

“Where is all this headed?” Who’s going to fix this?” “Those maniacs in Washington have no idea what they’re doing.” The people who brought this down on us are greedy self-serving… oh… I can’t say that in church. How do you feel when you think that?

“It would be nice to have more money.” How do you feel when you think that?

“But where am I going to get it?

“But it would be nice.”

“But I don’t know where I’m going to get it”

“But it would be nice…”

We may have had several negative thoughts and we also had some good ones, so we’ve started turning things around.

Look at it his way, “Are my thoughts bringing me anxiety, or desire?”

Desire is what starts stirring the creative substance into action.

Desire puts you in a better place for manifesting what you want to appear in your life.

The universe responds to the feeling of your thoughts.

Imagine what you want and feel it.

Imagine what you want and feel it.

Imagine what you want and feel it.

The way you close the distance between where you are and where you want to be is by releasing any though that contradicts where you want to be.

Focus on what you do want and not what you don’t want… our way of thinking creates; thoughts felt deeply and held in mind produce…

You were created to be a user; a user of spirit substance.

Be playful about it all. Joy is what you really are. If you come at it with heaviness you will, in a manner of speaking, weigh down (restrict) the fullness of your desire.

Here’s a tip to accelerate manifestation in your life: Adopt the attitude and practice that I am offering this visualization for the pleasure of this visualization rather than I am offering this visualization to get…

Think, in the initial stages of conscious co-creation, about contrast rather than specifics. Which side of the contrast do you want; the feels bad side or the feels good side?

Are you a chronic thinker of lack or plenty?

This isn’t an exercise about looking at what you have in the world, but what you chronically hold to… enough or lack?

In summary:

Acknowledge that The substance of God (or divine substance, or creative substance, or “Miralce-Gro” for human life) is a pool of becoming and you are a co-creator with God.

The awareness you have to hold is

(1)             That you are a part of the creative process. Acknowledge that the creative substance of life exists; call it stardust, call it God substance, call it creative substance, call it energy, call it Life, call it Spirit… whatever you call it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you acknowledge that it exists, that it is all around, and you are the User of it. It’s up to you to use it however you see fit.

(2)             The creative substance of Life always responds with an unconditional yes!

(3)             Acknowledge that the largest part of you – your Being – lives in and from this creative substance.

Every thought is like a firework sent up to display for you and all the world to see.

(P.S. One of the things I neglected to make a point about this particular Sunday is that it’s important to have a daily practice of some sort. That will work to change default thinking from lack to plenty. Additionally, I would like to thank the Abraham-Hicks work for helping to inspire this talk. You can see their fine work at by searching abraham-hicks on YouTube)

The First Time I met Him Was At His Funeral

Sunday, August 31, 2014

          Last week I was in Buffalo conducting a funeral service for my grand-nephew, Jay Sturtz. (A grand-nephew is the child of your niece or nephew, the grandchild of your sister or brother.)

          At Jay’s funeral there was a period of time set aside for anyone who wanted to come forward and speak about Jay. Several people took that opportunity. When it seemed as though no one else was going to step forward, I returned to my prepared remarks. After about a sentence I notice Paul walking up to me from my left side.

“One more person wants to speak” he said to me and motioned for a young fellow to keep moving from the hallway into the sanctuary.

His name was Bruce. He traveled to Buffalo from Canada. I had listened attentively to everyone else who spoke, but the first words out of Bruce’s mouth made me snap upright on the couch I was sitting on.

“I never met Jay until today,” he said.

I don’t know why but I immediately looked at the body in the coffin, confused.

Here’s the story that shows the big and caring heart that Jay possessed. Jay was a gamer and loved to play X-Box. Bruce was someone Jay connected with online as competition. Pretty soon just gaming turned into online conversations. Bruce said they talked about a lot of things over the years and their political conversations were the hottest. Bruce was also a loner. I didn’t find out until later that he has Asperger’s Syndrome.

People with Asperger’s generally have trouble interacting with others and often are awkward in social situations. They also have difficulty initiating and maintaining conversation and yet here was this young man standing before maybe eighty people he didn’t know, and in an emotionally charged situation!

“I never met Jay until today, but he changed my life.”

Bruce went on to say that he and Jay met each other in online X-Box gaming rooms. Aside from the competition, they started private messaging each other. Eventually Bruce told Jay that he was depressed, didn’t like to go outside, was uncomfortable around other people, felt deprived of power and marginalized. He said that Jay continued to tell him in conversation after conversation, year after year that he needed to change his thinking because, “negative thinking never ends in a positive result.” Jay also encouraged him over and over again to get out of the house and put in some job applications.

At the funeral, Bruce told us he got the first job he ever had in his life just a few weeks ago and he wasn’t depressed anymore; that he had hope in his life and that he owed it all to Jay… and he felt like he needed to be here today.

What a testament to the power of love! Now, don’t get me wrong, Jay was no angel. He loved to be inappropriate in a moment and in a way that would rile people up, and he did this with intention. In general he was probably a love-him or hate-him guy to the world around him. Regardless of whether he drove you nuts or you loved him, there was a tender caring person inside.

Bruce was in fear of people and the world. These words from “Love Without Conditions”:

“Love is the only response that undoes fear. If you don’t believe this, try it. Love any person or situation that evokes fear in you and the fear will disappear. This is true not so much because love is an antidote to fear but because fear is “the absence of love. It therefore cannot exist whenever love is present.”

Jay counseled that “negative thinking never ends in a positive result.” Maybe we could change that up a little to “fearful thinking never ends in a loving result.”

“Our way of thinking creates the experience of our life” is the way we say the same thing in Unity churches. Here is a very real story that demonstrates this, yet we are somehow too afraid to really dive into the deep end of this idea.

“Why are you afraid? Because you believe that you are neither lovable nor capable of loving another.”

“That belief is the only belief that needs to be changed. All negativity in your life will fall away as you undo this simple erroneous belief about yourself.”

“You, my friend, are not what you think you are. You are not simply an accumulation of all your negative beliefs and actions. That is who you think you are but that is not who you are.”

“You are God’s [child]. All that is good and true about God is good and true about you. Accept this fact, even for an instant, and your life [will] be transformed.”

What are we waiting for?

“Accept this about another, [that they are God’s child too and all that is good and true about God is good and true about them, too], even in this single moment, and all conflict between you [will] end.”

“What you see is a direct result of what you believe. If you believe you are guilty, then you will see a guilty world.”

Maybe it’s easier to reverse this exercise. However you see the world defines your thinking. See a happy world and you know your thinking is happy. See a forgiving world and you know your thinking is forgiving. See an angry, guilty, fearful world, etc., and you know your thinking is angry, guilty, fearful, etc.

What are you waiting for? Waiting before we take responsibility for our thinking, waiting before we accept the fact that no one and nothing makes me feel that way I feel is simply a delaying tactic. The good news is – and there’s always good news – in time you will tire of it (delaying). It will not be long before you begin to reject the whole concept of guilt – individually and collectively – and aspire to “come home,” as the saying goes.”

“On that day, when you see your good and that of your brothers as one and the same, all that separates you from [the awareness and experience of] God will fall away. Then you will know God’s love for you beyond any doubt; you will know that God has not abandoned you; God will not/does not punish you. You will know god’s love for you beyond any doubt. You will know the power of your mind to create and you will choose to create with God and not apart from God.”

I know you can do it and I have complete faith in you