Spirit Has a Reason (6.6.21)

Buds on a tree, black text, Spirit Has a Reason, Rev Valerie Mansfield

There is a deeper way than you or me. Evidently, there's a pattern with the ocean way that I was unaware of until I heard this song. Every seventh wave is the largest wave. Spiritually, seven is that number for completion or perfection. It just really hit me that spirit has a reason. There's a reason for everything that we have been going through today, yesterday, the last 17 months. We don't know what it's all about, but there is a bigger picture. I truly believe that because I believe in the divine law of life, in that creative process of good.

Humanity has been living in the darkness for a long, long time, separate. I think Spirit is saying, "Wait a minute, stop, wake up." Destruction only leads to destruction. Life is about joy. Life is about love. That's what we should be creating. Not destruction, not war, not those violent words or thoughts that come into your head. I don't know if you guys get angry or not, because we all do and that's okay, but what do we do with it? What's the pattern? What is the pattern of your life? Think about it for a minute. You get up in the morning. What do you do? Do you talk to your body? Do you tell it you love it? Do you say you're healthy, you're whole? Do we create that pattern of good? Do we set the intention for the day that we are going to be joyful? No matter what comes our way?

It's not always easy, because life is challenging at times. You can get in your car and go to work and somebody else is having a hurried day and not really paying attention and folks have accidents. It happens even on the way home from church after you have spoken. It happened to me. I was very aware. I saw it coming. I couldn't stop it, but I did stop the destruction and slowed down the process a little bit. We have to be aware. We have to be awake to where we are in our life. The only way that I know how to do that is to create a pattern of good in my daily practice.

I forget sometimes. If I forget my daily routine that day I might as well just stay at home in bed because it's usually not a very fun day. I didn't set my intention for good and chaos is all around me. I get caught up in it instead of staying in my own lane. It's the patterns of our everyday living that are part of the bigger picture. I know that there's a bigger picture because there are too many coincidences in life for there not to be no.

When you're taking a bunch of kids out to the country from the city that have never been to the country, and you have all these plans, but the van gets stuck in the mud that morning before your hike. Okay, well we have to wait until lunch so somebody can come and drag us out of the mud before we can go to our hike. It's amazing when you get there, people are telling you, "Hurry up, hurry up, they're getting ready to start." And I'm like, "Start what?" The kids are all running. Lo and behold, there is a wild animal exhibit that wouldn't have been there if we got there early in the morning. These city kids got to handle snakes, rats, lizards, and just about anything else that you can think of that is roaming around out in the country. There was a racoon that was tamed. They had the forester there that day and we would have missed that. It was a great, great day. Even those days that look bad can turn out really good.

That's the biggest wave. That's the perfection of the universe telling us to let go and follow that divine instinct because spirit has a reason for everything. We don't know what that reason is, and that's okay because we don't have to have all the answers right now. It'll calm and you'll see it. The light bulb will go off and you'll be like, "Wow, what an amazing event. What an amazing day." I'm sure you've had it.

This last year has been a real learning and growth experience for me. I don't know about you all, but when COVID hit, there was a fraying of my life in one hand and chaos in the other hand. This freedom, this chaotic process of trying to figure out which way was next, what the next turn was going to be, how to do church with no people. We were lucky. We were so much luckier than others because we were already live-streaming. A lot of folks didn't have that comfort. It was freeing to be able to be at home and work, taking lunch out on the deck, in the sunshine. Working in my garden in the middle of the day. Who does that? Not me. Not when I'm here. It was this really nurturing time for me. There was the stress of running two churches, trying to figure out how to keep folks actively engaged, and more than it was the stress of the universe. The exiting of the mass of folks who left the planet. There was a great sadness over the last year. I lost an aunt and we had some family members who got sick that did make it through, but not without changes to their life. It's been that time of 'What's the new pattern?'.

I spent the last couple of weeks on vacation. Being with my two youngest grandsons at my mama's was a real treat. Mama will be 90 and the littlest one is two. Just to see them light up and talk to each other and be free and know each other, that was the amazing part of it. The little one ran in, hugged her and said, "Hey, GG-ma!" Last time he saw her, he was maybe nine months old. So he had no real memory, but that presence of love was there. It made me think, how do we recreate that spontaneity? That love, not only for me, but for all of you, how do we share that with each other? I don't have all the answers. I'll be the first one to say I don't know at all. But I think collectively there is a reason.

There's a reason for all of us to be gathered together, looking for a new way of being, because we all know that we're not going to go back to the old way. It's not probably the healthiest way to be in our society. We have a lot of unrest socially, and I don't think we want to go back in that respect. That's for sure. I'd like to continue to see it moved out of our thinking, out of our realm of consciousness, into that oneness. How do we do that together as a community? Is that our purpose? I know that being in the flow is part of the answer, allowing spirit to guide us into that new perfection, that new direction, whatever it looks like, as a minister, as a person leading a community, and as a community leading a larger community. We can be that seventh wave in Louisville. What would that look like? That huge shift in consciousness coming from this community? When I say this community, I mean, both of our communities, because I did find out that our sister church, Unity of East Louisville, is watching this stream in their sanctuary today.

For the first time we are doing new things together and together there's a lot of power in New Thought here. We have the power to change the world, not only ourselves. Our mission statement is to transform ourselves and the world through love and healing. How do we do that? How we put feet and action to those words? I think we have to change the way that we do classes, the way that we do Sunday service. We're already doing that to some extent, and we'll decide what we like and move on from what we don't like. We might have to toss stuff out and think of something new, but the main thing is that we do it together. I'm inviting you to be involved. What is it that you want this community to be? How do you want to show up as Unity in love?

Both communities are Unity in Louisville and we are here to make a bigger difference, to spread that love, to stand in the flow of universal life, and to teach new patterns of thinking. As we continue to awaken, some of us have been going through a process many, many years. I've been awakened and it doesn't always happen overnight. It does for some, but for others, it takes a little longer for the awareness and the new patterns to take hold. I know that we are all going to awaken gently standing in our truth, knowing that there is a greater beauty on the horizon for all, not just for me, not just for you, but for all our brothers and sisters in the universe, for all cultures, for all religious facilities, faculties, communities, and societies, there's a bigger picture of allness. That is the goodness that we are taught here. Our first principle, there's only one presence and one power in the universe. That presence of God.

I truly believe that there are better works coming through us. The souls are stirring and the darkness is rising away. We are on a journey together as a family, as a community. We will shift and transform and to all the good that's awaiting notice. We have the unlimited ability to be and do whatever it is we choose to be and do. There is no stopping the universe. When we're following spirit, doors will open. The funds will flow through, whatever we need is already waiting for us to say, "Yes, I'll do it." So remember we are never alone. Therefore as one, we can have it all.

We can have happiness. We can have joy, we can have competence and strength. We can have folks living in a home instead of on the street. We can have all folks employed in some capacity, taking care of themselves and their family. There are more than enough resources in the universe for everyone. We just have to remember that they're there and that when we tap into it and spread that love, transformation happens within us and within others. We can have it all.

Namaste 


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