We are far from the shallows. We all grow. We all want to change and grow and it requires us to take risks. Sometimes those risks are really scary because we have to step outside of our box, our comfort zone.
When we do that, sometimes we take baby steps and sometimes we take giant steps, boldly, seeking forward, stepping forward. And the key to all of it is commitment. What are you committed to? Are you committed to yourself? Are you committed to a new way of being, are you committed to a new relationship? Are you committed to a new job or are you committed to putting God first in all that you say and do? I have found that when I come at things from that ego standpoint, I tend to attract that which I might desire, but it still keeps me seeking something more. It's not really totally satisfying when I logically embrace life. Instead of taking that deep dive within myself and really searching through the chaos and creating that void, that vacuum, that allows me to be my truth, which is not somebody else's truth. So you have to figure it out on your own. That makes it even harder because in our human psyche, we tend to like somebody to tell us what to do, when to do it, and how to do it because then we don't take risks. We're conforming. But that leaves us at times, unhappy, empty.
I really want to dive into the deep end and embrace that, which is embrace a new adventure. Something we've never done before.
It allows us to grow and yes, we're going to make mistakes and yes, we're going to fall down- as children, as adults, it doesn't really matter. We're going to step in, we're going to fall and that's okay. We're going to take a leap of faith and we might come up short and that's okay. Because the reality is when we allow ourselves to say, "I didn't quite make it to the mark that I wanted. Do I still want that mark? And if so, what do I need to change to get there?"
So that commitment and that realization that we started out gangbusters, right? And then we didn't quite reach the goal. And now, are we going to let it go? Are we going to change course? Because there's always a different path. It doesn't matter which path we go down. We're going to get to the end of our spiritual journey. We're all going to get there one day - right now - because we all think that this physical world is the end of the journey and it's not. So it's recognizing our truth, being happy, wherever we are even in the ugliness of life.
I've been in a lot of ugly in the last eight months, a lot of unrest. And I think a lot of us, I know for me personally, it has created unrest within myself. Not always understanding what my role is in the bigger picture and moving through some really yucky stuff that really wasn't mine, but I was part of it. So there I am and I have to move through it too. So making a commitment to move through it, no matter what, and to stay the course through prayer, reaching that change, coming up through the surface and breathing, allowing the unfoldment of whatever is yet to come. We are celebrating life. And that's what we do at Unity. We celebrate every Sunday, we celebrate life. We celebrate the pain and that is hard for some people to understand. We celebrate the emptiness, the change, the growth - we celebrate it all.
Yesterday in our strategic planning meeting with the board and the staff, we were continuing to cultivate and communicate what our next steps and goals are going to be for the next three years. And somebody remarked that sometimes we just have to stand in the yuck of it all until we can find the light and let it shine through. And I think that's what we've been doing for the last eight months is standing in the yuck with the world. Somewhere along the way, we'll lose our connection, which is kind of what we've done. We've lost our connection with the source collectively as humanity.
And so everybody's out searching, searching for something better, whether it be peace, whether it be social justice, whether it be food, housing, the basic needs in life, we all have the same basic needs. No matter if you're in this church, outside of this church, living on the street, living in Africa, living in South America, it doesn't matter where we reside. We all have the same needs, and allowing those needs to be met is important. And that's a commitment that we all have to make as humans, whether we realize it or not. It is part of the universal humanity's growth that for us collectively to move forward into a peaceful presence of humanity.
Basic needs, are for everyone, no matter where you're at, we have to figure out how to do that. And I don't have the answers, but I know that if we all collectively join in prayer together, that the answers will come. And I know that because in this community for 110 years, we have been the foundation of prayer and faith. We have weathered many storms. We have moved through a lot of chaos.
We've moved to the shallows into that guiding light, through the commitment of prayer.
We are an affirmative prayerful community. Everything we do is based in prayer. That is our basic teaching. I was surprised yesterday when someone said they did not know that. And so one of my commitments to the community is to remind us all that through prayer, we have unlimited opportunities for us as individuals, for us as a community, and for us as a world. I truly believe that in my heart, otherwise, I couldn't stand up here and say it. We have to learn that we release fear through prayer. We ask for that which we desire. We ask that all basic needs be met for every human being on this planet and beyond. And we release the fear and the anxiety about how it is going to happen.
It will unfold if we live in the moment and we take those creative ideas that come to us individually and collectively and manifest them into the world. That's our second teaching, our thoughts and mind create. And it creates through prayer and affirming that prayer in all that we do because we are born into life as love, whole and abundant. When we lose that connection to the source and we're searching outside of ourselves, take a breath and reawaken to your truth, to that source. Because yes, ego drives us. And it's a good thing to have it because it will carry us through some dark days until we can reawaken.
We thrive in the knowledge of the world because that knowledge will help us find and manifest the answers to the prayers that we ask. So it takes us to take that action into our course, and this all takes commitment. We have to feel that empty void, but before we can fill it, we have to create, it has to be a vacuum. The vacuum is already here and that's time to fill it. That all humanity has. Their basic needs met, allowing us to wake into the truth, to live and grow spiritually through all challenges in prayer.
I want to share today a little page in "Words and Times of Prayer," but the book is the prayer. It's by James Dillard Freeman. And if y'all don't know who James Diller Freeman was, in the late sixties and early seventies, he was the CEO of Unity Worldwide Ministries, a poet, and a Unity minister. He is the one that wrote the "I am" that the Apollo astronauts took to the moon where it still resides. So in this book, he writes of words and times for prayer morning and night.
"I said to the master, tell me about the times when I should pray. The master said, tell me about the times when you should not pray.
There are many times to pray when you wake in the morning is such a time. And just before you fall asleep at night. Another good time to pray is when you wake at night. Many times, I wake up and lie alone with my thoughts in the dark. Instead of worrying, I think of God. I have found such wakeful moments to be a good time to pray for others. There's always someone I know who needs help. I can think of them and place them lovingly in God's keeping and see them in my mind's eye, blessed and at peace, hold them in. My heart loves lying quietly in the dark. I have nothing to distract me. It is one of the best possible times to pray. Usually, in a short time, I fall asleep.
"Also, we should say grace. I say grace before a meal, no one has the right to eat without giving thanks. No life belongs to us. No life is ours to take all. Life is the gift of life itself. Before we eat, we thank him or her who is the source of life and acknowledge the life that we take for our own is not ours. Saying grace before a meal helps us to see ourselves from the right perspective. As part of the life process, Muslims are expected to pray five times a day - at dawn, at noon, at mid-afternoon, at sunset, and at dark. These ritual prayers, the wording of the prayers, the manner in which they are to be made, these are fixed. We need fixed prayers no less than Muslims do."
Everyone needs a few familiar words of prayer that have meaning and worth to them. Being committed to that prayer for the presence of life, it's who we are.
There's a prayer that I was taught to say in the evenings, growing up in Unity, many of you may know it, it's called the prayer of faith. And so then now lay me down to sleep. We didn't say that one. We said the prayer of faith.
"God is my help in every need. God does every hunger fee. God walks beside me, guides my way through every moment of the day I am now wise, I am now truly patient and kind and loving to all things I am can do and be through Christ. The truth that is in me, God is my health. I cannot be sick. God is my strength and failing quick. God is my all. I know no fear since God and love and truth are here."
I say that prayer today, not only for myself but for the world, for all the veterans who have fought for freedom all over the world, For all of those affected by the pandemic that ravaged our world. See them whole in mind, body, and spirit. We're all of those. Those in America who are torn, and our nation's political system, we send prayers of harmony, unity, and oneness. We stand in faith after 110 years of challenging lives and changing times as a community of love transforming the world.
Yesterday, our board of trustees and staff met to begin constructing that plan that will carry us through 2024. And we realized there's one item left from our current strategic plan. And that is the sale of this beautiful building. So I'm going to ask you to join me in prayer today. As we lovingly release this physical home, we have shared together for 60 years for the right and perfect price within the next six months, we ask for this or something better for this community to continue to boldly step into the next 110 years beyond.
Because we know as we live each day in for seasons, come and go, yesterday's harvest provides for today's nourishment thoughts. Now in the past, continue to inform us prayer. We have a practice which bears fruit. We begin a fresh period of time and Thanksgiving for that which has come and gone. All that remains is a blessing. This building has blessed us, and now we release it lovingly into the hands and the hearts of the community who will take it forward. As we step into actions and other areas, wherever that is, our hearts are here together.
As one, wherever we will be.
I love you. I bless you. I behold the living Christ as you.
Let it go, let us go and find the blessings within the deep and climb your way to heaven so that in the silence we let go and let spirit guide us.