Guest Speaker: Christopher Brown
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reality
September 22, 2024 – “Don’t Fight With Reality”
Guest Speaker: Christopher Brown
September 18, 2016 – The Art of Letting Go
Rev. Sheila Gautreaux, L.U.T.
“The Art of Letting Go”
A mountain climber was playing Pokemon Go when he fell off a cliff. He grabbed at a branch sticking out from the mountainside. It stopped his fall. He looked down. He looked up. He cried out, “God, please save me. I’ll do anything!” The clouds parted and he heard a deep voice. “Do you trust me?” “Yes! I’ll do anything!” God repeated, “Do you really trust me?” “Yes! Yes!” “If you trust me, then let go.” The man looks down, and then looks up. “Is there anyone else up there?”
We do that. Sometimes our guidance can be a stretch. We don’t trust it. If the mountain climber had let go there was a ledge just a few inches below his feet, but he couldn’t see it.
There is so much going on in the world now we get confused. Charles Fillmore, in “Dynamics For Living”, said that it is essential we learn to let go to learn something new; that there is a balance between receiving and giving. It’s important we learn to let go.
The scripture I quoted on your handout is from Isaiah 43, “Remember not the former things…” which are the things that no longer serve that we’ve carried from childhood and young adulthood. They have shaped our lives, but a hand closed on the old isn’t open to the new. In Isaiah, God says, “I am doing a new thing…I will make a way in the wilderness (our uncultivated errant thoughts) and rivers (the flow of our vitality) in the desert (those dead things we carry that no longer serve but take up energy in our spirit and body of affairs).” Take for example, an old relationship or job that is no longer fulfilling, yet we stay and are miserable.
My favorite instructor in ministerial school was Dr. Robert Brumet, “Finding Yourself In Transition.” He wrote that each transition in life begins with an ending. But before the new beginning we must first let go. That brings the next stage, the void. We wander until we get to the new beginning. Many transitions are happening in our world and we are called to let go of old judgments, old habits, patterns and prejudices. Many of you are experiencing transitions in your lives right now. Right here, our Rev. David is leaving. We want to hang on, but God is doing a new thing. We must let Rev. David move forward on his new path. If we don’t let go we will be left in “the desert”.
Rev. Denise is coming but can only take us to the door. The ministerial search team is finding our new minister; our new minister will go through the door with us. So we have to let go. We have to prepare for this new thing God is placing in our path.
How do we release? How do we let go? I suggest several steps in the handout.
In step 1, if you have only a little willingness, give it to the Holy Spirit, who will take the necessary steps for you, (ACIM). In step 2 remember to do your work; you don’t want to get more of the same thing you had before. Step 3, there is really nothing to forgive because, as spiritual beings we learn on our spiritual path, and therefore nothing wrong really ever happened. Everyone can find good in those things we need to forgive. Step 4 is the void. It’s ok. Step 5, is ok. Get your cry on, your mad on; beat a pillow. In step 7. Celebrate!
We must Let go; let God. Let go; let God. Let go; let God.
I see for all of us an amazing future! I believe that you and I have the power to create infinite possibilities out of the challenges we are facing. I trust you and I trust God!
September 18, 2016 – The Art of Letting Go
Rev. Sheila Gautreaux, L.U.T.
“The Art of Letting Go”
A mountain climber was playing Pokemon Go when he fell off a cliff. He grabbed at a branch sticking out from the mountainside. It stopped his fall. He looked down. He looked up. He cried out, “God, please save me. I’ll do anything!” The clouds parted and he heard a deep voice. “Do you trust me?” “Yes! I’ll do anything!” God repeated, “Do you really trust me?” “Yes! Yes!” “If you trust me, then let go.” The man looks down, and then looks up. “Is there anyone else up there?”
We do that. Sometimes our guidance can be a stretch. We don’t trust it. If the mountain climber had let go there was a ledge just a few inches below his feet, but he couldn’t see it.
There is so much going on in the world now we get confused. Charles Fillmore, in “Dynamics For Living”, said that it is essential we learn to let go to learn something new; that there is a balance between receiving and giving. It’s important we learn to let go.
The scripture I quoted on your handout is from Isaiah 43, “Remember not the former things…” which are the things that no longer serve that we’ve carried from childhood and young adulthood. They have shaped our lives, but a hand closed on the old isn’t open to the new. In Isaiah, God says, “I am doing a new thing…I will make a way in the wilderness (our uncultivated errant thoughts) and rivers (the flow of our vitality) in the desert (those dead things we carry that no longer serve but take up energy in our spirit and body of affairs).” Take for example, an old relationship or job that is no longer fulfilling, yet we stay and are miserable.
My favorite instructor in ministerial school was Dr. Robert Brumet, “Finding Yourself In Transition.” He wrote that each transition in life begins with an ending. But before the new beginning we must first let go. That brings the next stage, the void. We wander until we get to the new beginning. Many transitions are happening in our world and we are called to let go of old judgments, old habits, patterns and prejudices. Many of you are experiencing transitions in your lives right now. Right here, our Rev. David is leaving. We want to hang on, but God is doing a new thing. We must let Rev. David move forward on his new path. If we don’t let go we will be left in “the desert”.
Rev. Denise is coming but can only take us to the door. The ministerial search team is finding our new minister; our new minister will go through the door with us. So we have to let go. We have to prepare for this new thing God is placing in our path.
How do we release? How do we let go? I suggest several steps in the handout.
In step 1, if you have only a little willingness, give it to the Holy Spirit, who will take the necessary steps for you, (ACIM). In step 2 remember to do your work; you don’t want to get more of the same thing you had before. Step 3, there is really nothing to forgive because, as spiritual beings we learn on our spiritual path, and therefore nothing wrong really ever happened. Everyone can find good in those things we need to forgive. Step 4 is the void. It’s ok. Step 5, is ok. Get your cry on, your mad on; beat a pillow. In step 7. Celebrate!
We must Let go; let God. Let go; let God. Let go; let God.
I see for all of us an amazing future! I believe that you and I have the power to create infinite possibilities out of the challenges we are facing. I trust you and I trust God!
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January 24, 2016 – I Am Compassion
Ron Salazar, L.U.T.
I Am Compassion
Two weeks ago Rev. Sheila taught us to live each day with a compassionate heart; not to climb into a friend’s pit of depression. Instead, hold the ladder to help them climb out. Last week Rev. David asked us to affirm for others and ourselves, “I hold you in the compassion of my heart.” I have the third week of speaking on compassion, and I ask you to say with me, “I am compassion.”
Charles Fillmore said compassion is “A characteristic of love and mercy prompted by an understanding heart. A compassionate mind sees the error, but does not condemn.” So when we are compassionate we are using the power of love. It is one of the 12 powers which are the expression of the divine spirit. Unity says compassion is the attracting, harmonizing power. When you feel love for anyone, even if they can’t give it back, there is still a peace within you.
There is someone in my life whose lifestyle had reached a point where I knew she had to change. Out of love I went to her to tell her she needed to change. I knew I was right, but she was really resistant. I saw I had to let go of my judgment of her, even though it was made out of love. I had to let go of being right. So I went to her in compassion, and she was then open to change. Now things are working out really well. Compassion is how we stay out of the pit and hold the ladder with love and spiritual wisdom.
You’ve heard that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime. Stay in the power of love and SPIRITUAL judgment. When Jesus told those wishing to stone the adulteress that he without sin cast the first stone they melted away. Then he told the adulteress, “Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more” (John 8:11). His compassion saved her.
Love is the harmonizing and constructive power. During World War I, on Christmas night, in 1914, the German soldiers left their fox holes and began singing Silent Night. Allied soldiers joined them in the celebration. Gifts were exchanged. The war resumed the next day, but for one night their compassion brought peace.
Your responsibility is to express your own individual experience of the divine spirit within you. Be yourself. Express your own experience of God and it helps others to do the same. That’s how WE ARE COMPASSION. Myrtle Fillmore: “As you do this, you will touch the reality of individuals, and you will invite only the best from them.”
It isn’t that we each have good in us, it is that all of us ARE good. If divine spirit is love, is compassion, and we are expressing the divine then: I am compassion. I am compassion. I am compassion. Thank you! Have a beautiful Sunday!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
January 24, 2016 – I Am Compassion
Ron Salazar, L.U.T.
I Am Compassion
Two weeks ago Rev. Sheila taught us to live each day with a compassionate heart; not to climb into a friend’s pit of depression. Instead, hold the ladder to help them climb out. Last week Rev. David asked us to affirm for others and ourselves, “I hold you in the compassion of my heart.” I have the third week of speaking on compassion, and I ask you to say with me, “I am compassion.”
Charles Fillmore said compassion is “A characteristic of love and mercy prompted by an understanding heart. A compassionate mind sees the error, but does not condemn.” So when we are compassionate we are using the power of love. It is one of the 12 powers which are the expression of the divine spirit. Unity says compassion is the attracting, harmonizing power. When you feel love for anyone, even if they can’t give it back, there is still a peace within you.
There is someone in my life whose lifestyle had reached a point where I knew she had to change. Out of love I went to her to tell her she needed to change. I knew I was right, but she was really resistant. I saw I had to let go of my judgment of her, even though it was made out of love. I had to let go of being right. So I went to her in compassion, and she was then open to change. Now things are working out really well. Compassion is how we stay out of the pit and hold the ladder with love and spiritual wisdom.
You’ve heard that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime. Stay in the power of love and SPIRITUAL judgment. When Jesus told those wishing to stone the adulteress that he without sin cast the first stone they melted away. Then he told the adulteress, “Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; from henceforth sin no more” (John 8:11). His compassion saved her.
Love is the harmonizing and constructive power. During World War I, on Christmas night, in 1914, the German soldiers left their fox holes and began singing Silent Night. Allied soldiers joined them in the celebration. Gifts were exchanged. The war resumed the next day, but for one night their compassion brought peace.
Your responsibility is to express your own individual experience of the divine spirit within you. Be yourself. Express your own experience of God and it helps others to do the same. That’s how WE ARE COMPASSION. Myrtle Fillmore: “As you do this, you will touch the reality of individuals, and you will invite only the best from them.”
It isn’t that we each have good in us, it is that all of us ARE good. If divine spirit is love, is compassion, and we are expressing the divine then: I am compassion. I am compassion. I am compassion. Thank you! Have a beautiful Sunday!
November 22, 2015 – Flowers Protect Us
11/22/15 Rev. David McArthur
Flowers Protect Us
For several days recently I was out of touch with the world, didn’t even have wi-fi! When I got back I learned about the Paris bombings. The news kept focusing on command and control; the focus was on fear. I felt that I was alone. When I feel that way I pray, “Please help me see what is going on here.”
As an answer, I saw that video clip where Parisians laid flowers and lit candles, and a little boy talked about the terrorists. “Those people are really bad. They’re so mean. Daddy, we have to move.” Beside him, his father said, “No. France is our home. There are bad people everywhere.” The boy: “They are so mean and they have guns!” “But,” his father replied, “we have flowers”—a beautiful response of compassion and love by so many. The flowers and candles were brought to heal. “Will the flowers protect us?” the boy asked his father. “Yes!” his father said. Millions and millions of people have gone to that video. They understand that’s what heals us. That’s the ONLY answer—not bigger guns. What heals us is when we reach out to that greater consciousness of connection.
I had waited in the Albuquerque airport for my flight home. I saw a young woman dressed like a Muslim. She walked with such confidence and centeredness in a time when the world was being judgmental and critical and all such people are feeling blamed. My heart was opened by this young woman. Peace was the way of her. It triggered lots of feelings of how women are treated in the Muslim world. Then I remembered one smart man at the Conference of World Religions last month saying it has nothing to do with “Muslim”, that everywhere there is a militaristic patriarchal society they must suppress the feeling, feminine part. It came to me, then, what will end all this need to command and control others—GIRLS READING BOOKS!
And I recalled Mahatma Gandhi, who said, “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.” They ALWAYS fall. Flowers are ALWAYS more powerful than guns.
At holiday time families come together. We return to relationships where we have judgments we have practiced for many years. But it is our chance to heal, to feel the gratitude that they cared enough to show up and give us the chance to bring a flower. We are at a time when the question is no longer “Will we make it?” We will—there are so many millions and millions of people who go to their hearts, go to compassion. The news won’t tell us about it much, but it is there. At this time join with me. The people of Paris, when they gave flowers, gave them to all of us throughout the world. They care. Send them that beautiful thought. Thank you for caring! What a beautiful thought to send the world! Thank you for caring! Give that Thanksgiving to the world, to all those beautiful beings! Thank you for caring! Truth and love ALWAYS, ALWAYS wins!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
November 22, 2015 – Flowers Protect Us
11/22/15 Rev. David McArthur
Flowers Protect Us
For several days recently I was out of touch with the world, didn’t even have wi-fi! When I got back I learned about the Paris bombings. The news kept focusing on command and control; the focus was on fear. I felt that I was alone. When I feel that way I pray, “Please help me see what is going on here.”
As an answer, I saw that video clip where Parisians laid flowers and lit candles, and a little boy talked about the terrorists. “Those people are really bad. They’re so mean. Daddy, we have to move.” Beside him, his father said, “No. France is our home. There are bad people everywhere.” The boy: “They are so mean and they have guns!” “But,” his father replied, “we have flowers”—a beautiful response of compassion and love by so many. The flowers and candles were brought to heal. “Will the flowers protect us?” the boy asked his father. “Yes!” his father said. Millions and millions of people have gone to that video. They understand that’s what heals us. That’s the ONLY answer—not bigger guns. What heals us is when we reach out to that greater consciousness of connection.
I had waited in the Albuquerque airport for my flight home. I saw a young woman dressed like a Muslim. She walked with such confidence and centeredness in a time when the world was being judgmental and critical and all such people are feeling blamed. My heart was opened by this young woman. Peace was the way of her. It triggered lots of feelings of how women are treated in the Muslim world. Then I remembered one smart man at the Conference of World Religions last month saying it has nothing to do with “Muslim”, that everywhere there is a militaristic patriarchal society they must suppress the feeling, feminine part. It came to me, then, what will end all this need to command and control others—GIRLS READING BOOKS!
And I recalled Mahatma Gandhi, who said, “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.” They ALWAYs fall. Flowers are ALWAYS more powerful than guns.
At holiday time families come together. We return to relationships where we have judgments we have practiced for many years. But it is our chance to heal, to feel the gratitude that they cared enough to show up and give us the chance to bring a flower. We are at a time when the question is no longer “Will we make it?” We will—there are so many millions and millions of people who go to their hearts, go to compassion. The news won’t tell us about it much, but it is there. At this time join with me. The people of Paris, when they gave flowers, gave them to all of us throughout the world. They care. Send them that beautiful thought. Thank you for caring! What a beautiful thought to send the world! Thank you for caring! Give that Thanksgiving to the world, to all those beautiful beings! Thank you for caring! Truth and love ALWAYS, ALWAYS wins!
October 4, 2015 – Can’t Touch This
10/4/15 Rev. Sheila Gautreaux, L.U.T.
Can’t Touch This!
We have chaos and conflict around the world, religion against religion, violence, anger. It is said, however, that chaos precedes order; it is something calling to be birthed. Look at the shootings in Umpqua. Some say we need more guns, some say less. But the solution is in our hearts.
In Unity we use affirmations and denials. Many say that’s denying what’s really happening, but that’s not so. What we deny is that what’s happening has any power over us. That it has any power to take us out of the truth of our being, which is we are centered in the Christ Consciousness—we can get through anything! It is the “Christ in you; the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27.
It is not the Christ in Jesus which is your hope of glory, it is the Christ in you. Hope is not wishy-washy, mealy mouthed. It is the expectation of our future good that inspires the certainty that our good is ours right now. And glory is the merging of our mind with God mind. This is our “bookmark”. It holds the space for us as we wander off into our anger, fear, and doubt when we are lost. The Christ presence is our place holder. It’s always there. You can’t get rid of it even if you try. And it never interferes, but always leaves us our choice.
There are three steps to get there. 1) “There is nothing greater than God.” 2) “I AM one with God.” Finally, 3), “Therefore, there is nothing greater than me.” That last one might be difficult for you but it’s the truth. Can you believe it? Say, “yes!” It’s logic. You “Can’t touch this!”
When there’s less bank account and more bills, say, “I am poised and centered in the Christ Consciousness. Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul.” “Can’t touch this!” When you’re in the doctor’s office and the diagnosis almost stops your heart, it’s not that the condition is not real, it’s “I am poised and centered in the Christ Consciousness. Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul.” “Can’t touch this!” When a relationship sours, stand in the face of the impossibility of it and embrace the possibility that “I am poised and centered in the Christ Consciousness. Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul.” “Can’t touch this!” Take this home with you. Stuff will come up this week. Be prepared and say, “I am poised and centered in the Christ Consciousness. Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul.” “Can’t touch this!”
October 4, 2015 – Can’t Touch This!
10/4/15 Rev. Sheila Gautreaux, L.U.T.
Can’t Touch This!
We have chaos and conflict around the world, religion against religion, violence, anger. It is said, however, that chaos precedes order; it is something calling to be birthed. Look at the shootings in Umpqua. Some say we need more guns, some say less. But the solution is in our hearts.
In Unity we use affirmations and denials. Many say that’s denying what’s really happening, but that’s not so. What we deny is that what’s happening has any power over us. That it has any power to take us out of the truth of our being, which is we are centered in the Christ Consciousness—we can get through anything! It is the “Christ in you; the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27.
It is not the Christ in Jesus which is your hope of glory, it is the Christ in you. Hope is not wishy-washy, mealy mouthed. It is the expectation of our future good that inspires the certainty that our good is ours right now. And glory is the merging of our mind with God mind. This is our “bookmark”. It holds the space for us as we wander off into our anger, fear, and doubt when we are lost. The Christ presence is our place holder. It’s always there. You can’t get rid of it even if you try. And it never interferes, but always leaves us our choice.
There are three steps to get there. 1) “There is nothing greater than God.” 2) “I AM one with God.” Finally, 3), “Therefore, there is nothing greater than me.” That last one might be difficult for you but it’s the truth. Can you believe it? Say, “yes!” It’s logic. You “Can’t touch this!”
When there’s less bank account and more bills, say, “I am poised and centered in the Christ Consciousness. Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul.” “Can’t touch this!” When you’re in the doctor’s office and the diagnosis almost stops your heart, it’s not that the condition is not real, it’s “I am poised and centered in the Christ Consciousness. Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul.” “Can’t touch this!” When a relationship sours, stand in the face of the impossibility of it and embrace the possibility that “I am poised and centered in the Christ Consciousness. Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul.” “Can’t touch this!” Take this home with you. Stuff will come up this week. Be prepared and say, “I am poised and centered in the Christ Consciousness. Nothing can disturb the calm peace of my soul.” “Can’t touch this!”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS