1-4-3

For those who were at service on Sunday, February 10, 2013, a few bullet points to jog your memory.
To read the complete text of "1-4-3"  click here.

• Minots Ledge Light (Scituate, MA) is special
• Rather than have a steady rotating beam it has been blinking out a repeating series of pulses; 1, then 4, then 3 since 1894
• 143 represents the number of letters in each of the words of a three word phrase: I Love You
• In 1947 when the US Coast Guard wanted to automate the light and return it to a steady rotating beam there was such an uproar from the the people of New England and sailors worldwide that the Coast Guard left it to blink out its unique message: 143 I Love You
• Love is powerful
• Unloving expressions are like sand in the machinery of your life. Add it in continuously and soon enough and your life won't work anymore
• Love is like oil in the machinery of your life; it keeps things running smoothly
• “For this is the message from the beginning, that we should love one another... let us love not in word or speech, but in truth and action” (1 John 3:11,18-19)
• Love is powerful, but it is abstract until it is expressed in and by you
• If you would like to transform your relationship with a person, circumstance, or situation, enfold them in love. Let this be an experiment in secret. Do this quietly in your heart every day. Bless them/it every time you think of them/it.
• A woman opened a restaurant where two others had failed. She succeeded. Her “secret?” “I just blessed all my customers. I loved them as Jesus taught us to do. I loved the complaining man as well as the satisfied customers. When customers leave my place I not only invite them to come back, I silently send them a blessing of love and pray for their prosperity and happiness.”
• Love is powerful
• There is nothing you or I have ever done, ever said, or ever thought that can diminish or destroy the love God has for us
• When you think of our church would you silently send a blessing of love and happiness?
• Thank you, 143.

To read the complete text of "1-4-3" from Sunday, February 10, 2013,  click here.

Your Ego is a Bully

For those who were at service on Sunday, February 3, 2013, a few bullet points to jog your memory: 

Bullying is an epidemic these days.

16 year old “Joseph” (Oak Ridge, TN) was bullied after coming out to his schoolmates

He was told he was stupid, worthless, unwanted, wrong, God didn't love him, etc.

Have you ever thought, “This is exactly how my ego treats me?”

The ego is a bully.

Do you let ego bully you around?

Do you let it bully you into fear.

Do you let it bully you into shame?

Do you let it bully you into guilt?

Do you let it bully you into believing you're worthless... stupid?

Do you believe the lies it tells you about yourself?

Do you let it bully you into squelching your natural you? Have you been bullied so deeply that you've lost the awareness of your real you and you think the bullied you (angry, etc.) is the real you?

Don't believe your inner bully.

Your family deserves better.

Your friends deserve better.

Those who look to you as a role model deserve better.

Those who observe you in life deserve better.

You deserve better. 

Psalm 1:1-3 “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked (doesn't listen to his ego), nor stands in the way of sinners (acts out negative behavior), nor sits in the seat of scoffers (passes judgment on others); but his delight is in the law of the Lord (extending Love), and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” 

Lexi James was teased and taunted in High School for stuttering, her bright red hair, and a desire to be a country singer... and she wrote this song, which she could well have been singing about how the ego treats us and how we can respond.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it7L2qp8OwQ  

What are some ways in which we Make this our time... and shine? Here are some suggestions:
Stand guard at the door of your mind
Feed it something good every day (30 minutes)
Keep your body strong
Find a mission bigger than yourself
Find a role model
Help somebody seemingly “worse of” than you. 
 
“The secret to living is giving.” 

Give Love.

• ||||||||||||||||
  
  
  
  To read the complete text of "Gratitude" from Sunday, February 3, 2013,  click here.

Gratitude

 For those who were at service on Sunday, January 13, 2013 a few bullet points to jog your memory:

·        An attitude of gratitude brings altitude

·        When we are “at altitude” we can see a larger picture

·        Spiritually speaking gratitude allows our hearts to open and see “a larger picture” of our attitudes and our circumstances.

·        Spiritually speaking gratitude allows our hearts to open and see “a larger picture” of other people in our world; a world beyond the words our ears hear and the “pictures” our eyes see.

·        The more we extend gratitude, the greater our hearts are open. The greater our hearts are open the more Love naturally flows from us.  The more Love that naturally flows from us the more we experience love.  What we give is returned to us a thousand fold or even a hundred thousand fold.

·        The more love we give in our lives, the more love we know in our lives and love is the emotion we feel when we are joined with God.

·        Just like a fireplace needs fuel to burn (wood, coal, peat, gas, etc) in order to generate heat. Gratitude is one of the kinds of fuel that our heart burns in order to generate love.

·        Romans (1:21) “for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

·        Now let’s restate that from the positive, “for they knew God, they did honor Him as God and give thanks to Him, thus they became useful in their thinking, and their wise hearts were luminous.”

·        Gratitude is the fuel of an illumed heart.

 

||||||||||||||||

To read the complete text of "Gratitude" from Sunday, January 13, 2013,  click here.

Living a Full Life, part 1

For those who were at service on Sunday, January 6, 2013, a few bullet points to jog your memory:

Christmas is over and what are you doing with our gifts?  Are you using them or have you put them away so nothing can happen to them?

In the parable of the three talents, the two servants who used what they were given to be in charge of experienced increase.  The one, who, for fear of loss, buried what he was in charge of, experienced no increase.

And so it is with our God given gifts, one of which is the awareness of the Presence of God. Use that awareness and our life “increases.” Hold it back and our life experience is stagnant.

Another gift of God is compassion.  Our world, both inner and outer, is crying out for compassion.

People, who exercise their gifts (the awareness of the Presence of God, compassion, etc.) day after day, little by little expand their experience of those gifts (we experience what we express).  People who do not exercise their gifts find that they wither away and life becomes more and more distressing.

Matthew 7:16, “By their fruit ye shall know them.”

Matthew 7:26, “And everyone who hears these sayings of mine and who does not do them shall be likened unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.”

James 1:22, “But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”

Clearly the scripture above and the Parable of the Three Talents indicate the necessity of action in applying spiritual “ideas,” or “principles.”

Aristotle, “In order to learn the things we need to know, we learn by doing.”

Exercise your gifts and live a full life 

Stright Line Connection

For those who were at service on Sunday, December 2, 2012, a few bullet points to jog your memory:

• As demonstrated by nature, transformation is a regular occurrence
• Tadpoles transform into frogs
• caterpillars transform into butterflies
• What about us? Can we transform our belief in ourselves as primarily human to the awareness and experience of our identity as divine?
• When the day comes that we realize, "There must be a better way," transformation begins
• Our trip through transformation likely will include these moving through these ideas:  
• (1) We say, “I’m not just a human being.  I’m a being with the Creators potential.”   
• (2) Then the day comes when we think of ourselves as more than just a limited person with potential – we think of ourselves as a child of God, just as Jesus said we were.
• One of the hardest tasks we'll face on our journey is the dissolution of our crippling negative self-talk
• "Once you make a sincere effort to tackle your dysfunctional thinking you'll have fewer bouts of depression, anger, shame, etc." (A paraphrase of Dr. Don Colbert in his book, "Deadly Emotions: Understand the Mind-Body-Spirit Connection That Can Heal or Destroy You"
• "Replacing lies with God's truth isn't hard. It just takes intentional and consistent effort" (ibid.)
• If you are stuck in negative thinking, bathe yourself in truth; in thinking about God; in extending love to your circumstances, conditions and thoughts so that you may know the truth... that sets you free

 ||||||||||||||||

To read the complete text from Sunday, December 2, 2012,  click here.

Gratitude

Hi.  No Monday Message today.  Yesterday the congregation shared the service expressing what they were thankful for.

I hope your Thanksgiving was enriching and that we all remember to be grateful everyday.

Bless everything,
Rev. Brad

"But-Head"

For those who were at service on Sunday, November 18, 2012, a few bullet points to jog your memory:

• Please don’t take this the wrong way.  I have to ask, “How big is your “but?””

• The “but” I’m talking about is your, “Yeah, I know, but…” followed by a reason why some good idea (aka application of spiritual principle) won’t work for them.  “But… thinking” is what keeps us stuck in our experience.

• I hear, “yeah, but…” a lot as the reason why people aren’t willing to choose a different path of thinking that will lead them away from the experiences that come with their entrenched habits.

• “But thinking” is a choice that keeps us stuck.  Is being a “but-head” working for you? :o)

• We are here to find freedom.    
• Freedom is having a sense of complete well-being regardless of our circumstances or conditions 

• We find freedom by choosing to live by proven spiritual principles, (aka a God-centered life, Christ consciousness) in any given moment. 

• Spiritual freedom is a choice.

• We want to push away our feelings – I hear this all the time – “I don’t want this, I’m tired of this, I want to get rid of this feeling.”  Then I might suggest a spiritual approach and that’s when it comes out, “Yeah, I know, but…” Have you ever heard yourself say this?

• I once heard a man say, “The healing is in the feeling.”

• I believe we have to feel our feelings in order to heal them.

• What we resist persists… looms larger.

• Feel your feelings and act from spirit no matter how loudly your feelings invite you not to.

• Freedom is a choice.  Make a commitment to choose Spirit over fear.

• A woman tells a story about the day her son came into her office to tell her he was going to make a parachute jump the next day, what he was going to do and how he was going to do it the next day when he made that jump.  She said she could also hear the fear in his voice.  “Yet,” she said, “it was about feeling the fear and doing it anyway.”

• The next time the pressure is on and you want a change, don’t fall back into old patterns of pushing away the pressure…don’t be a “but-head…” feel the pressure and choose to express Spirit. :o)

 
||||||||||||||||

To read the complete text of "But-Head " from Sunday, November 18, 2012,  click here.