Blog

Excerpt from a talk given at Rochester Unity on April 10, 2022   

  In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy had to take a journey and her first step was to embrace her fear, so she could discover her wisdom, her courage, and her purpose.   It was only after this journey of self-discovery and identifying all of these aspects of herself did she realize that what she was seeking was always there, within. So, she clicked her Ruby Red Slippers and she was home: connecting to God Within and connecting to her true self and then able to see those around her from the Vantage point of love. Dorothy’s journey is like ours. All Spiritual leaders speak of this epic Soul Journey that we all must take. Joseph Campbell talks about this journey  as ~listening for our call to adventure~   The key is to listen to our deepest knowing so we can hear the call This courageous journey enables us to discover and be  be the best version of ourselves.   When we hear our call to adventure and become willing to put even one toe on our authentic path, our soul illuminates our path. Dorothy’s path was known as the YELLOW BRICK ROAD. We all have our own YELLOW BRICK ROAD AND NO ONE ELSE CAN TAKE OUR ROAD AND WE CANNOT TAKE ANYONE ELSES     Each person’s path is different. Once when I was sensing that my path was going to take a new turn, THAT is, I was hearing that CALL TO ADVENTURE,  I said to the universe:  “this year,  I’m going to get a  Horse   so I can do Equine Assisted Therapy,   or I’m going to get my PhD.   Two days After I said that I received a notice from an organization that I was CERTIFIED with, that they were sending free horses to therapists so we could do equine assisted psychotherapy. My horse Harmony was in my arms within 3 months! 
This choice did not make sense to anyone but me. Many people were telling me that horses are hard to have, they  cause problems, are expensive  and on the other hand: getting a Ph.D. would be great for my future. Problems arise when we let others tell us what our path is.   My life completely expanded to new levels of wonder when my horse came to me, and I became a horse mother. She made me more of who I am. I listened and took action:  This was my latest call to adventure.   Another example of a Call to adventure that was not taken: I knew a young man once who so wanted to be a policeman. He knew this from the time he was 10 years old, and this knowing never left him. His parents selected a college that did not offer law enforcement because they wanted him to go into Business so he could make a lot of money. He went to that school but still kept his dream intact.  When he graduated he still planned to be a policeman.. His parents still would not let up so now he has a very expensive business degree, and he does very little for work. He leads a forlorn life. When we take steps on our path, we are engaging in a very courageous act, we are loving ourselves in a way that many people will not understand. When we do take this step, many good things happen that would never have happened before. This quote from  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe  says it all Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.        A meditation teacher that I know, Lou Redmond, tells us that if we are not being who we are we are lying, and lying to ourselves leads to a very sad and lonely life This sadness and loneliness come from not honoring who we are. A really fun way to discover our one true path is to tap into our creativity.  Most of the time, people think that unless they are an artist that does painting, or sculpting or other typical ways of creating, then we are not creative This is so not true. Your wonderful church, Rochester Unity, has so many people expressing their love and creativity and their gifts. I have seen so many of you expressing who you are and using your gifts; you are indeed a radiant community filled with people who feel safe to be who they are. There are some really simple ways that people express their love and true self and their creativity. ~ someone who holds the door for someone who can’t walk very well is expressing courage and love; and wow, have I needed a lot of that these last 2 months Someone who plants flowers for the world to see is using their time and talent to fill our world with beauty. The prayer chaplains here volunteer to help the community to know they are enfolded in prayer. I could go on and on Oh, one more story, our son, Christopher, though he has a degree in Sociology and psychology blesses the world with music and being the leader of the band. One way he nurtures his creativity is by Rock Balancing. I have no idea how he creates these rock sculptures, but it is a centering activity, and this activity keeps him on his path. I am mentioning him right now because we must be willing to create balance in our lives. As we’re on our call to adventure we need to have a balance of following our own path and not getting sidetracked by what others demand of us. If we choose to follow our own path then things fall into place very easily .

Finally, I pose this question: What makes us afraid to express ourselves creatively. What makes us afraid to be who we are? First of all, Our creative nature is entwined with our true self so when we are rejected for what we create, we often feel we are less than. Here is what Jesus said to do: in Mt 10-14 “When you enter a city or home, If the home or town is worthy, let your peace rest on it; but if it is not, let your peace return to you.
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, as ye go forth out of that house or that city, shake off the dust of your feet.” So many times, when we have been rejected, we come to believe that this rejection is about our inherent worth. When we have received rejection, Jesus tells us to shake the dust off our feet because when we don’t shake the dust off our feet, we allow the dust to remain and become a magnet to attract other dust. And what is the dust? It is a sense that we are unworthy; that we are less than. and we allow our value to plummet in our minds and believing we are unworthy, we then forget this truth; WE ARE MADE IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD, AND WE ARE HEIR TO THE KINGDOM OF ALL GOOD And why did Jesus say feet? Feet represents our understanding of who we are. Let our understanding be cleansed by the inner love that flows within. OUR MEDITATION HYMN TODAY IS I AM AS GOD CREATED ME Let us close our outer eyes, And I invite you to allow the focus of your attention to go deep within to a holy center of love that is within, deep within As we breathe into this place, I invite you to imagine a very safe and sacred gathering place to be revealed in your Mind’s eye. Imagine taking a seat in this holy place, and as you sit, allow the awareness of a spiritual presence to join you. It could be a spiritual leader, an angel, or your higher self. They come to you and sit beside you; They look into your eyes and you feel the love that they have for you. They take your hand and let you know that you are on your authentic path when you feel this perfect love Allow to come to mind, one thought about yourself that has made you feel unworthy This thought was erroneously taken in a long time ago. Allow your spiritual teacher to simply remove this thought from your mind and therefore your feet, which the understanding you carry about yourself. And your spiritual teacher Says to you YOU ARE AS GOD CREATED YOU, IN THE LIGHT, IN THE LOVE, IN THE GLORY. AND IN a moment of perfect silence. Allow this truth to become part of you, in the silence, AS WE RETURN TO THIS NOW MOMENT, LET US SEE IF THERE IS A CALL TO DO SOMETHING THAT IS UNIQUELY OURS TO DO BUT FOR NOW, let us bring to mind a loved one and lets join with them in this holy awareness and know their yellow brick road is appearing for them. Let us join with them and give thanks that any thoughts of unworthiness are also being dissolved…….. And in this, let us begin to deepen our breathing and be here in this moment of togetherness in the light, in the love, in the glory……… *********************************************************

An excerpt from a talk given by Suzanne on 3/27/22 at Rochester Unity.

 This is a series given by Nat and Suzanne based on Wayne Muller’s book: HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE?

   ~ Two more things to consider as we learn to live, knowing that our lives as we know them, will change. Wayne suggests we approach life with Acceptance and simplicity~  Let us look at Acceptance first. Mark Nepo tells us this about Acceptance: as we are willing to accept things exactly as they are, a new World of choice opens up to us.  So many times, humans will look away when they are approached with something difficult in their life rather than accepting what is showing up    so the issue can be resolved or dealt with ( a definition of dysfunction is not knowing that problems can be solved) LOOKING AT AND ACCEPTING something exactly as it is, ENABLES US TO SOLVE THE CHALLENGES WE FACE  There are so many ways we can choose to NOT ACCEPT things as they are. *We can look away…… by walking away *We can look away…….. by controlling others or ourselves *We can look away………………. by not feeling our feelings *We can look away……………………. by not connecting to our DEEPEST Inner knowing. * We can look away by medicating, that is by using various behaviors or substances to keep us from seeing OR FEELING what we believe we cannot handle. There is really nothing we cannot handle if we look, see, tell the truth, and get support as needed.

When we are confronted with a problem and Accept it as it is we can then allow our full consciousness to guide us as to how to deal with it  and we grow spiritually and emotionally as a result. 

And of course, connecting to our full consciousness means we connect with the DIVINE WITHIN …AND WE ARE THEN ABLE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS AND THEREBY CREATE HEAVEN ON EARTH. Let’s look at simplicity. When we think of the word simplicity, we often think of simplifying our life; maybe cleaning out our closets or not doing so much; trying to have a simpler life. There are coaches that help us do this, Coaches that help us clean out our closets, organize our house, maybe change jobs. Etc., etc. These are great techniques, and they will work; however, the true gift of simplicity is this: There is a way to be present to life that simplifies everything.It works like this:There’s one choice in life: THE CHOICE TO BE CONNECTED TO OURSELVES or not be connected to ourselves and get jerked around by everything or everyone outside of us.  To Choose to stay connected to ourself means that we stay connected to * What we think and feel, *Our past *Our dreams *Our perceptions, *What we want, and what we want to say yes to and what we want to say no to. If we are clear and we are direct; and speak our truth, life becomes simpler because we are the author of our life . This gift of simplicity is the easiest path because it’s choosing to be in touch with our inner knowing first,  and then speak our truth based on our own internal values When others are not able to support our ability to make our own choices, then they are not being a friend. Example with Mike: I had a friend a while back; we had been friends for a long time. He was moving around as was I. We both wound up in CO. We met for lunch, and somehow, he seemed different. He had just gotten married and was very stressed out. I was dealing with a few challenges myself. I did my best to listen and to understand but he was really directing me and telling me what to do. Long story short, when I told him that I did not need him to tell me what do, he said that he had to because I was not seeing right and he would not sit back and not tell me the right way. He would not stop and so our friendship ended. A Wise and wonderful coach of mine, Dr. Ted Klontz,  once said that if or when we want to tell someone what to do or we want to give them our opinion we should say: “ I would like to give you my wise and worldly advice; and are you willing to listen”. If they say Yes, we can share briefly but if they say no, we need to honor that boundary. Finally, Mark Nepo talks about the concept of HOLDING NOTHING BACK with regard to Simplicity “Holding nothing back is the quiet courage to bring all of who we are to each experience; Holding nothing back lets us be who we are and not hide who we are.In essence holding nothing back is about living wholeheartedly and is required to experience oneness “ And because Unity is known as PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY, I always like to offer a how to. One of the best tools that I’ve come across that helps us speak our truth and talk about our feelings and express our actual thoughts is called the feedback wheel. This tool has 4 steps and is used when any kind of mis-understanding occurs between two humans. 1.  Talk about the facts, only the facts initially. 2.  say what we’re feeling about the facts 3. say what our perception is about the facts and the feelings 4. make a request or a statement based on our own truth. Nat said he would  email a copy of this to you, just email him.

 We can learn a lot about simplicity and acceptance by watching birds fly For birds, it is their true nature to fly. Certainly, they use their ability to fly, to seek out food and make homes and migrate, but they fly because it is their true nature.  Let us be willing to seek our true nature, to find out what our gifts are and be willing to use them to fulfill our soul’s purpose. Then just as a bird’s true nature is to sing when light dawns, let us connect to our true nature and sing our own song and sing it whether someone is listening or not, because it is our true nature. Let us now prepare for the meditation by singing I am as God created me Breathe Release, and now let us follow our breathe to a place deep within our own consciousness, let us breathe to the very center of our being, where we know of our truest nature. We are each made in the image and likeness of God. We are heir to the Kingdom of all Good. And say these words to yourself I AM AS GOD CREATED ME, IN THE LIGHT, IN THE LOVE, IN THE GLORY. And once again, I AM AS GOD CREATED ME, IN THE LIGHT, IN THE LOVE, IN THE GLORY. Because of this truth, we have two magnificent ways to solve all challenges we face. First we have love, DIVINE LOVE, that has the ability to transform everything unlike itself And second, DIVINE LIGHT illuminates our unique path Let us bring to mind a challenge that we face…………. And let us imagine DIVINE LIGHT now showing us what our next step it in the resolution of this challenge…….. Let us pause for a moment and acknowledge that we are guided in the way that God would guide us, not someone else but the Divine within Love, PERFECT LOVE, IS ALSO within and showing us what to do Let us pause in the silence. I AM AS GOD CREATED ME, IN THE LIGHT, IN THE LOVE, IN THE GLORY. AND  now let us bring to mind a loved one, who simply needs a little prayer support  a little acknowledgement of who they truly are Holding them in our heart and mind Let us say to them in the silence: YOU ARE AS GOD CREATED YOU, IN THE LIGHT, IN THE LOVE, IN THE GLORY. Let us see and know for them that whatever is challenging them has a solution and they are finding their very next step. ********************************* Thoughts to consider: How Then Shall I live Knowing I Will Die? Remember what you love. Remember what is sacred. Remember what is true. Remember that you will die, and that this day is a gift. Remember how you wish to live.” What helps you remember? What touchstone(s) throughout your day can bring you back to an awareness of how you wish to live? “God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.” – Meister Eckhart Where could your life be simpler? Where are you making it more complicated than it needs to be? What is getting lost in the busy-ness? “We can so quickly lose our capacity for surprise and delight. Beautiful things become commonplace…” What has become commonplace in your life that once brought delight? Can you remember the childlike experience of everything being new and wondrous? How can you bring that innocence to your life today? Where in your life is resentment or bitterness preventing you from being grateful? What would it take to shift to a place of gratitude? What would you need to see differently? “Our life is not a problem to be solved, it is a gift to be opened… If we are preoccupied with what is missing and what is broken and wrong, we lose the miraculous harvest of all these tiny gifts…A single word of gratefulness can transform a moment of sorrow into a moment of peace.” Many of us have cultivated a gratitude practice over the years. What has your experience been with creating, and maintaining, an attitude of gratitude? It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small 

• And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all

 It's time to see what I can do To test the limits and break through No right, no wrong, no rules for me I'm free  Let it go, let it go 

• I am one with the wind and sky    Let it go, let it go

 And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast 

• I'm never going back, the past is in the past

 Let it go, let it go When I rise like the break of dawn Let it go, let it go   That perfect girl is gone Here I stand in the light of day

   While in Ministerial School in 1985, I was blessed to take a class on BECOMING A METAPHYSICAL THINKER, with Rev. Marvin Anderson.  Marvin  loved that I brought psychology to Unity. He said too many people were hoping to just manifest without changing their consciousness or healing it and when someone uses the Mind-techniques without the healing, then even if they get what they want, it will not really be what they want. I also brought a new awareness to Unity at the time about the importance of feeling awareness now known as Emotional Intelligence. Marvin told our class that it was our job, our true job as baby Unity Ministers to keep working on ourselves first and then we might be able to continue our careers as ministers. In our class of 40 people, I was the youngest and I believe that Nat and I are the only ones still in ministry. We took Marvin's words to heart. Well, especially me. Revs Marvin and Ed Rabel,) also a Unity minister) told us that using only mind power to "try to get" what we want can be seen as "Unity's free introductory offer", and then hopefully people will stay and do the work after they get that first "free" thing. They went on to say that to eliminate fear or anger misses the boat. Marvin taught our class, "The 4 functions of consciousness", as expressed by Carl Jung. The 4 functions help us understand our world, and our relationship to God, to self, and to others. The way I use them every day is this The 4 functions and how to use them: Physical: what knowing is my physical body and senses telling me about my experience (so right now, I am being exquisitely in touch with Divine Life flowing through me as my ankle heals and of course the whole body gets this blessing too). I also notice the pain and follow my guidance as to what to do. Amazingly, I have not taken one of the opioid pain killers which they insisted I take. I do take Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen as needed. Emotional: (what my emotional awareness tells me: I notice the sadness of course for not being as able-bodied as I am used to be; I notice the slight frustration that I did not follow my purest guidance and take safe steps to protect myself; I notice Thanksgiving for all the many, many miracles I receive every day in this healing process. etc, etc Intuition: What my deep intuition tells me every time I connect is that this is simply a time to let go into the vast consciousness I have been working on since I was 2 and Trust the process. When I do this, I know that the Harmony Relationship Center is an idea that has been forming my whole life, and again, I am so grateful that Nat and I work this together now. As Jesus said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven within you"(heal our consciousness), and then and only then remember what Jesus said "where 2 or more are gathered, there am I"........so Nat and I seek to gather in this higher consciousness knowing that when two or more seek this deep gathering and listen deeply that their deepest desires come forth. But here, as Mark Nepo teaches, the journey to the manifestation is the most important part of this. Thinking Nature: (of course what are my thoughts telling me and here of course), the key is to get below the surface thinking to the true beliefs we have that are part of our soul's awareness. Marvin and Ed emphasized that Unity had to get to a deeper consciousness than just thought or mind control or Unity would not last. Thus, Nat and I are doing our best in every way that we can to create a Unity center that will teach deep Unity, which includes psychology etc.

The answer to this question will then enable you to answer this question in Wayne Mueller’s book: HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE, KNOWING WE SHALL DIE.   Once upon a time there was a very bad snow- storm in Denver And of course, all the flights were canceled, and the airport was filled with people who needed to get from here to there as quickly as possible. About 80% of the people, we’re simply accepting that this is the way it is and they were willing to be as patient as possible to find their next step. The other 20% of the people just couldn’t accept what was going on:   THE DENVER AIRPORT AND THEREFORE THE PLANES HAD  3 feet of WET SLOPPY, HEAVY, SPRING snow and In order for everyone to survive, the flights were canceled. At one of the ticket counters, a man who had waited in line for two hours got to the front of the line and the airline agent said: “ how can I help you”? He said, “yes I need to get out of here within the hour”. She replied: “sir I will do my best to find a flight for you, but I don’t think it’s going to be within the next hour” He went on to tell her that he needed to be in Boston because of a very important meeting. She replied: “Sir I’m sorry but I will not   be able to get you out of here in an hour, and I will do my best to find you a flight”. He puffed himself up and said to her: “Excuse me but do you know who I am”?. The airline agent who at this point was emotionally and physically exhausted, said to the man: “Just a moment sir” and she looked at the crowd of people and turned her microphone up so everybody could hear her. (The insistent man thought somehow, she must know who he is and was going to find an immediate flight) She said over the microphone so that everyone could hear: “excuse me ladies and gentlemen, this gentleman has just told me that he doesn’t know who he is…… I am asking you on his behalf:    DO YOU KNOW WHO HE IS OR DOES HE BELONG TO YOU ? ~the question is for all of : do we know who we are??: Do we know that Each one of us,  whether we are made of fur, fin, feather or skin, we are all   made in the image and likeness of the DIVINE and heir to the kingdom of all good.?Do we really know who we are?   In the movie THE LION KING, the main character, Simba, lost his father in a tragic accident. This story is an iconic story about how after tragedy occurs, we often leave the life we knew  and live an alternative  because the tragedy and the feelings that come as a result of the tragedy seem impossible to deal with and thus we forget who we were,  who we are and who we are meant to be. Simba ran to a faraway land thinking he could leave his past behind him. Simba stays in this far away land and he grows into a fine young Lion, But he always hears this kind of deep inner knowing that somehow this was not what he was supposed to do. Then one  night, he is listening for his ancestors in the stars as his dad had   taught him to do His dad appears in the clouds and tells Simba, “Simba, you have forgotten me and you have forgotten who you are” “You are more than what you have become.: “Remember who you are. Simba realizes what he must do:  he must return home because he is  the one true king and his Dad lives on in him. I tell you these two stories for this reason:  some people go to their deathbed not knowing who they are. Today as we explore this question, HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE, KNOWING WE SHALL DIE, I would say the only way to live is to live consciously, to live mindfully,  Living Mindfully means to PAY ATTENTION, PAY ATTENTION TO WHO WE ARE. Pay attention to our own thoughts, feelings, dreams, our history, and what are own inner gifts are. What our Divinely inspired purpose is It helps to understand that we all have 2 aspects of our personality:   the true self, and the false self.  The true self can also be known as our inner knowing, a Divine inner voice that opens us to our truth. The other aspect within is a   voice that is scared to death to show it’s truth to others for fear of rejection Perhaps there is no greater pain than the pain of not expressing who we truly are And how do we know what is true? I have a model that was popular in Unity circles in the 90s   called the Four functions of consciousness. These are four ways of knowing ourselves and knowing what is  ours: to do,  to  say and  to  be. These 4 ways  are Thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting these 4 ways help us  to connect with GOD, SELF AND OTHERS. 

• Let’s look at thinking or intellectualizing, Thinking is about using our cognitive skills to understand things from a rational and logical perspective.
• 
  

 Thinking is the foundation of science, of Mathematics, AND other sciences. Thinking is about facts! We humans have tended to over-use the intellect, and to intellectualize everything that we experience. For example, if  we feel sad we go in your heads and intellectualize about our sadness, berating ourselves for feeling sad. Our thinking nature will say “ it does not make sense to be sad, because there is nothing you can do about it anyway” . 

• Let’s look at feelings and emotions.
• 
  

 our body generates emotions to help us understand and make sense of our world and what is happening and what we are experiencing. For example, Sadness is simply about loss and right now, there is so much sorrow in the world; so much loss, that a spiritually mature person will feel sadness when they look out into the world Many people in spiritual circles make the feelings of mad, sad and fear bad. These emotions are not bad; they give us information about what we authentically are experiencing. 

• A 3^rd way of knowing is with our senses or our body.
• This way of knowing gives us information through our body.
• We have all heard ourselves or someone say, I have a “gut-awareness about this.
• The body is of the earth, and so we notice what our body tells about being hungry, tired, thirsty.   We can notice our body’s reaction to certain things. Do we tense up around certain people b/c they always act like they are better? Do we relax
• around certain people b/c we know they love us.
• And finally, our intuition.

 Intuition is that deep level knowing. We can call it our INNER KNOWING VOICE OR JUST A DEEP INNER KNOWING. Our intuition may be a way to access the Divine Voice and is often thought of in the realm of Spirituality. The  4 functions of knowing relate to the 4 levels of intelligence IQ: thinking EQ: feeling PQ: has to do with our body and sense knowing SQ: intuition Our meditation today will be a way to use these for functions of knowing.. Closing our outer eyes let’s breathe into this truth that we are made in the image and likeness of God   we are heir to the kingdom of all good  allow the focus of your attention to go to a place deep within you to a place where you do know this. A place deep within our consciousness that has never been harmed and is vibrantly alive and well with the truth of who we are. From this place of deep knowing & deep awareness, we shall look at our path from 4 vantage points. Let us first look at our path from a feeling awareness. As you imagine your path stretching out from you, what feelings come to mind.? what feelings are there? Simply be present to the emotions and be willing to notice them . And now let us look at our path from the vantage point of sensing, or Body  awareness,   let our body feel the earth beneath our feet Imagining  our feet connected to our  unique and authentic path  allowing our feet to tell us which way to go   and then let us look at our path from the vantage point of facts and thoughts. Seeing our paths stretching forward from this moment what facts are coming forth from our thinking nature? Let us notice our  thoughts  one thought at a time, easily slowly . And then finally from the vantage point of our intuition  which is a way of hearing our connection to the divine.  What does our inner knowing tell us about our next steps on our path?  Let us  breathe into this moment and let us  pause in the silence connecting to our inner knowing but also having access to our feelings and our thoughts and our body   listening carefully for the still small voice that will show us  in the silence we pause.  deepening our breathing but allowing the focus of our attention to  be in that center still point where we know we are one with God  and from this place of deep awareness let us  bring  to mind a loved one who also has the ability to understand their own authentic path.   and let us imagine sending this awareness to them so they receive it on a body level and a feeling level and a thinking level and also intuiting. Let us hold them in the vision of our heart breathing love to them and because we are all clearly connected, we sing once again, I AM AS GOD CREATED ME, IN the light in the love and the glory I am

What do You Love? 

An excerpt from a Sunday talk at Unity Church of Rochester NY

 I am so grateful to be here with you today; and speak about this topic of WHAT DO WE LOVE? HERE ARE SOME OF THE WAYS, That Wayne Mueller reflected on this topic in How Then shall We Live “When we do what we love again and again our life comes to hold the fragrance of that thing” “When we hold something in our hands day after day our hands conform to the shape of what we have held”“ all that we are is a result of what we have loved” “ what we love draws us forward and shapes our destiny” first a story to illustrate these ideas:  WHEN our son, Christopher, was about 14 months old we were going to his favorite Restaurant which was Bob Evans.     Nat was going ahead to get the table while I was getting Christopher out of the car. As we approached the door, I noticed two people standing in a weird way next to the door.  And then I realized that a very large man was hitting a much smaller woman. I surprised myself with my response.  I called Nat back to me and I handed Christopher to him, and without a word to Nat, I walked up to these two people, and I told the man to stop it right now.  He was sort of taken aback and he was acting like he was going to hit me.  I stepped back AND then I told him again to leave her alone.  Nat is standing at the door with Christopher and I said  Please  get the manager and have him call 911 and I continued to  stand by this man and woman.  >>> the manager came out and the man left, and the woman called a friend to come pick her up, thanking me as she left. I was actually really shocked at myself. In my life I was actually quite shy and had trouble even saying my name in a group of three or four before I went to ministerial school, LET ALONE TAKING ACTION LIKE THIS  what this was truly about is this:   when I became Christopher’s mother everything changed for me.  I was in so much awe about being the mother of this precious baby that it opened up the mother archetype in me so deeply that  IT CHANGED EVERYTHING OR ACTUALLY, I BECAME MORE OF MY TRUE SELF.  Wayne Mueller goes on to say that when we love something: “We feel the truth of it and we touch it’s deeper natureand we are changed by this experience of love So what is love? Love is complete acceptance: When we accept  someone exactly as they are, without any belief that they aren’t good enough, without any belief that they would be “better” if they were different, this is love.  and as it says in the Bible:  “for where your treasure is there will your heart be also”.    When we know where our treasure is, when we know what is sacred to us, we are filled with a clarity of purpose and a breathtaking capacity to act on what we believe.  Our treasure is what has us come alive, It is not something we have to think about, it just is. People often tell me that when they see a horse, they think of me.. Horses make me come alive; So we each must notice what makes us COME ALIVE AND SEEK TO MAKE TIME FOR THAT IN OUR LIVES. When we make time for what makes us come alive, everything changes. We must  not put these things off. If you feel alive when hiking in the woods, then that must be a spiritual practice. If you feel alive when reading certain spiritual books, then you must make time for that. If you feel alive when gardening, or swimming, or cooking, or writing a book, then it is imperative to devote some time every week to these things.  ********************************************  A GREAT way to know what we love   is to do a values exercise  There are a lot of values exercise  If you google:  “values exercise”,  you can find one. . But once we truly know what our values are, we can then begin to align our actions in life according to our values  Our values point to what we truly love the most! Re: Values, most people well say, “well, I know what my values are”.  But I might suggest looking deeper. When I was becoming a Spiritual Intelligence Coach with Deep Change, an organization let by Cindy Wigglesworth    Cindy asked me if I had my values in line?  I said, “well yes” but with some hesitation.  She asked me: “do you really?”   I said “Well maybe not as clear as what I would like”, and she said to get this done immediately as part of the requirement to be a coach with her organization.    Wayne Mueller says we need to have the courage to stand by what we love; we need the courage to stand by our values.    Truly it does take courage to name and follow what we love!    It takes courage to follow the teachings of our heart! Wayne Mueller tells a story about a man  that was dealing with a lot of fear in his body.   The man said it was always there but as Wayne worked with the man, Wayne asked him if there was a time that he did not experience his fear. The man said, the only time he did not experience the fear, was when he felt love  for his daughter and for when he used  his hands when he was building furniture  This man went on to notice that the things that he loved helped him cast out this fear more perfectly than anything else.   This reminds me of a system of thought that was developed about 25 years ago called HEART MATH Heart Math has become very popular in Unity Circles.     The Idea behind Heart Math is this:  when we seek to connect with our Heart, we are able to access a level of deep inner knowing, that of our heart’s intuitive guidance. The Heart Math institute tells us this: By Tuning into your heart’s wisdom a profound shift occurs that helps us approach difficult  situations with  emotional balance, compassion,  and personal confidence . (repeat) Here are the steps To use to solve any problem by connecting with the wisdom in our heart or by using Heart- Math. 

• go to your heart and recall some experience of love - either love that you gave or love that you received. Try to remember the experience in as vivid detail as you can. As you tune in, it can also be a 4-legged child or something you love in nature.
• 
  
• Then from this place of connecting to your Heart’s wisdom, ask your heart what you need to know to deal with a problem or challenge.
• 
  
• 
  

 We will use these steps today in our meditation. Let us close our outer eyes now and allow the focus of our attention to rest in our heart center. In the heart is perfect love All of creation has a center of perfect love Let us breathe to this place within…….. And as you do, bring to mind An experience of perfect love This experience can be- either love that you gave or love that you received. It can be with a person or a 4-legged or even an experience in nature. Your heart will tell you Allow an awareness of what this we like. Allow details of this experience to come to mind. PAWS!! Breathe to this experience. If this love had a color, what color would it be…….. If this love had a name, what would it be. Imagine this love to flow from your heart into every cell in your body…. Each cell receives this, and shares it with the cells around it. Let us abide in the silence for a moment and simply be with this love PAWS….. And while still abiding in  your heart  NOW allow something that  causes concern to come to mind As you bring this concern to mind, See it from the vantage point of the heart……. The wisdom, the intuitive guidance in the heart will guide us at to what our next step is in the resolution of this concern   See the concern with heart eyes and heart vision. See or feel what the next step is……..all we ever need do is take our next step MAYBE our next step is  just a step of willingness to see anew, to see from the Heart. But for now, right now, allow this love to flow into you again, Returning the focus of our attention back to ourselves. Breathe And let us know that as each of us abides in this now We are part of a Divine force field of love And it goes before us, and all around us And it blesses those we encounter today Perfect love casts out fear Perfect love transforms everything unlike itself….. And for this let us be grateful Thank you God,

Excerpt from a talk given on 1/23/22 to Unity of Greater Rochester

DEEP within the heart of all human souls is  a desire to help others. This is a given because it is the way we were designed. Isn’t that lovely? We are here on earth, in this magnificent body, to help one another…… The challenge is that we often try to help others without first helping ourselves. That is, We may try to heal our lives by focusing on healing something outside ourselves before we heal within. There is also an innate desire, an impulse to continually move toward wholeness and healing. This is the basis for healing………This innate movement to healing is in every cell in our bodies. We see it every day: when we cut our finger and it heals, or we get a cold, and we get well………. even psychologically, there is an organic drive to heal whatever causes us strife. Rev. Marvin Anderson told our Unity ministerial class of 1986, that our job was not to be ministers, ………. that got out attention. He went on to tell us that our only job was to keep working on ourselves, and on our consciousness and then if we were lucky, we would have a career as a minister to encourage others to do the same. I took this command seriously as I already was a deep seeker.  I had been a seeker for most of my life; because as so many of us do, I came from a very traumatic and chaotic background, details are not necessary,  I came away from these early experiences  believing that  something was seriously wrong with me. So, I sought healing through Psychology and found Abraham Maslow, who taught about Self-actualization. I was so enamored with this idea that I followed this path fully from age 16 until I found Unity in 1980. Then the missing key was placed into my hand.  the missing key was the HOW TO,  the missing key gave the answer to how to work on Self-actualization ………  The how to is what Unity teaches: THE VERY PRESENCE OF GOD IS WITHIN EACH ONE OF US, WITHIN ALL OF CREATION AND THERE IS NO PLACE WHERE GOD IS NOT. THAT KNOCKED MY PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCKS RIGHT OFF. So, in understanding the Unity teachings, I was guided to seek this awareness about God within…….   However, I did find that though many people did believe this teaching from Unity, they were still not fulfilled. Many people erroneously believe that if God is within, we do not need to focus on healing. This erroneous belief has caused many a person a lot of pain and suffering. In the early days of Unity, people would think, “Well, what is wrong with me that I am dealing with this or that problem.”. They would believe they are just defective and not seek help from others. This is an “abuse of the Unity teachings” to somehow imply that there is something wrong with us if we are having challenges. So, early on, in my ministerial career, I knew that my job was to combine spirituality and psychology……and I have been working on that now for over 40 years. Today we are focusing on connecting with God in our 3-part series on DEEPENING CONNECTIONS WITH GOD, SELF AND OTHERS. And while working on my part of the talk, I noticed that it was hard to not diverge into talking about connecting with others or higher self when thinking about connecting with God.  When we connect with God within, and then with others from this place of Divine Connection, the connection we can have with others can be magical. Martin Buber, a German theologian   addresses this idea. He called a pure encounter with another as the The I-Thou encounter All of our relationships, Buber contends, bring us ultimately into a closer relationship with God,. Buber saw the meeting between I and Thou as the most important aspect of human experience. Buber contrasted this I–Thou relationship with an I–It relationship. In the I-It-relationship  the other person is used or influenced for the gratification of the other.
 Nat and I   have been on a very long journey to healing our own lives, healing our coupleship and then finding ways to teach what we learn.. Nat articulated this in the early 2000s: He said: Heal your life and live your dreams by   DEEPENING CONNECTIONS WITH GOD, SELF AND OTHERS. When I heard this from him, articulated like this, all of my socks were knocked off. That is exactly what I believed but had not languaged it like that. As Unity Truth students the main goal that we should work on is to make these connections our number one priority in life. So, we are advised to willingly seek God within. Then from this place of wholeness, we become willing to connect with others and this creates the space of  I- THOU

Thus, it is very important to find like-minded individuals who are also seeking to connect with God within and between and all around us. I used to lead safe and supportive group to facilitate this. Covid has hurt this, but I highly recommend gathering with small groups to further inner growth and to practice creating this sense of I -THOU. Let us prepare for a time of meditation Med-hymn is LORD’S PRAYER BREATHE CENTER RELEASE Turning WITHIN to a very sacred place turning to the kingdom of heaven within Let us breathe to this place, this inner sanctuary and consciously connect with our Father Mother God this inner connection to the Divine is our birth-right and in fact, there is truly never a time that we are not connected but let us make this connection conscious by considering 3 aspects of God within Let us begin with perfect love Perfect LOVE has the ability to transform everything unlike itself and this love is within each one of us Let breathe into perfect love It is within us and is in every cell of our body, it forms the ground of our being…… Pause Let us now connect to guiding light, Divine light is a way of connecting to our Divine Path, the path that our Father Mother God would have us take. The light emanates within and lets us know what is right for our soul. Let us connect with Divine Light Paws And now let us connect with Divine Life, The blueprint for all of life and not only is it within but we can consciously connect with Divine Life Divine life is the energy of God within, ever enabling us to seek to be whole and well and free as God created us to be As we connect to Divine life We can know that God’s life flows through us now…… And we seek healing and wholeness………. Paws in the silence. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be Divine Love, Divine Light, Divine Life Let us now find gratitude for these truths by singing Alleluia, thank you God, Alleluia

Excerpt from a talk given on 1/16/22 to Unity Church of Greater Rochester 

 In considering this Spiritual teaching about learning to Love thy neighbor as thyself……I remembered that I used to say, “well to the degree that I love myself, to that degree will I love others” ……. But in really looking at this over the last few days, I am hearing even more depth to this. As I listened to   this command more deeply, it appears that to   LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF,  it really means To love my neighbor means loving me And loving me means to love my neighbor   In unity we look at the bible metaphysically, and so each character represents something in our consciousness.  The perfection of the Divine, as Jesus represented, is within and it is telling us as we look out upon the earth, we are looking in oneness, there is no separation. And of course, the only way we could do this is from the level of a higher awareness, a higher consciousness that each of us has access to. With all of this in mind, Nat and I were talking about one of the statements I make about God: GOD IS EVERY ONE OF US TOGETHER:  The Rocks, The Trees, The flowers and The Seas and all creatures whether of Fur, Fin, Feather or Skin. Let us look at what this might mean. If God unites us with rocks, then when we behold a mountain, it is easy to see the majesty of God in the Mountain. The sheer strength it possesses and all the ways each of us might see a Mountain. If God unites us with the seas, then we can imagine water as such a potent force that it has carved out valleys and riverbeds and yet it holds us up completely when we let go into it. If God unites us with flowers, then we can imagine how a flower grows from a seed planted deep within the earth. Its seed opens when it has the right amount of water and soil and it reaches for the light, even though it cannot see the light. That is surely true about us……. If God unites us with all creatures, then we can imagine how a horse’s majesty and beauty is also within us. Horses are prey animals and what that especially means is that they are motivated to be with their herd…they know that they need each other to survive and that is true about us even if we have chosen to no longer believe this. If God unites us with dogs, who are predators; what does that say about us? Dogs have this deep desire to please the human. So, even though their nature is a predator, they have learned to understand what their human wants, and they do their best to work with the human to accomplish what the one they love the most wants from them. And we can learn to love as dogs do? So, with all of this in mind, let us look at what might get in the way of us loving our human- neighbor in the way that we can love and appreciate Mountains, flowers, water, dogs, and horses……….  The way to genuinely love someone is to be present with our essence. That is, we identify and connect with our truest self, also known as the Christ within our or Divine Self. From this place of authenticity, Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. So, in this way, we can understand that we are all “equal to”. We are each made in the image and likeness of the Divine, though all different in our unique expression of the Divine So, there is no one or anything that I am not in relationship with. Although, the lizard/survival brain tells us this is not true, and it divides “the other “into groups of good and bad. And sometimes our lizard brain puts others into a group of people who are broken and need to be fixed and  we erroneously believe they need our worldly wisdom and advice to fix them. This practice causes us to make others in to our image rather than seeing the other as whole and well and free and in the image of the Divine. At other times, our lizard brain looks at what the OTHER has, and we may think, “well what is wrong with me”, and then we go down the rabbit hole of shame, thinking we are less than. And the opposite is true as well. Often when we feel bad about ourselves, there is no better antidote than to find someone we can look down our nose at and think they are less than. Once when in an online seminar with Mark Nepo and someone asked him what we can do with all of the violent polarization in our world. Mark did say, that there is no need to put up with someone acting like they are better or as I say:  NO EXCUSE FOR ABUSE. HOWEVER, Mark ended his response by saying: WE ARE THEY WE ARE THEY  There is no Other. But a very important caveat is We must learn to be who we are and speak from who we are and language our feelings, thoughts, dreams, perceptions and history ……..we could do a weekend workshop on that and what keeps us from expressing who we are. But for today, let us know When we choose to connect with the presence of love within, we then activate a higher knowing that we are “equal to”, even if we do not fully believe this truth. Then we can use advanced communication tools like listening, reflecting, and also forms of speaking like Non-violent communication to connect in love without attack. AND, when the conversation goes sideways or out of a true equal connection, we can walk away. This is especially important to know this: when we are not communicating from an equal stance, we are not communicating  When  do choose to   connect and communicate, there are no Mountains we cannot climb together, no valleys that we cannot cross, and no problem that we cannot solve together. When we connect in a higher consciousness, answers come out of the blue that would never have come before. So, with all of this in mind, let us take these thoughts into a time of meditation. Breathe into this moment, allowing our attention to go deep within to a small sacred place   ~we are invited to be in holy communion with our higher self, The Christ within us, and as we connect in this sacred place, we are also connecting with all others at this level of being. From this place of high awareness and high consciousness, let us bring to mind someone with whom we love, someone outside of us but with whom we feel a complete and a perfect connection. Let us imagine seeing them, touching their hand, they and touch our hand,  connecting eyes to eyes, heart to heart,  and soul to soul…………  Let us feel that love that is generated when we connect with them. Breathing into a place in our body where we feel this holy love, this love has the ability to transform everything unlike itself. And now from this place of awareness, let us invite another person with whom we may be at odds with  Let is invite them in and they come willingly   and let us take a moment and connect once again to that presence of love that is within and let us know that they are also doing the same and we can allow love to do its perfect work  Let us know that neither is right or wrong we are each made in the image and likeness of God and so we connect at this level. And we breathe into this holy connection and from this connection, with this other,  let us   know we are one….  let us take a moment in the silence and just be together in love Pause……..   ……….. as it was in the beginning is now and ever Shall be, world without end    I invite you now to deepen your breathing but retain an awareness of where this love is within your body  For we are made in the image and likeness of God and we are  heir to the kingdom of all good and so it is Amen

   Everyone says they want to be happy; however it is the rarest person who really wants to take the plunge into........................ Guess where the plunge must be taken in order to be truly happy? Answer: Into oneself! It is not complicated, and the steps to true and authentic happiness are not what one would normally think to take. Here are the three most important steps you can take to be on your journey of Happiness.  1. Connect with the Truth within yourself.  There is no place where there is more truth than anywhere else. Most people, however, do not take that journey, to look where they have not looked before-- Within. There are hundreds of stories about this but most people still do not take that journey because we live in a society that tells us to seek outside of ourselves for everything. Your truth is about YOUR history, your insights, your values, your passions, your gifts, your skills, your feelings, thoughts, beliefs and perceptions. In this life you only have one choice. If you make the correct choice, you then have opened yourself up to unlimited choices, unlimited options, and unlimited possibilities. The first and most important choice is to be connected to your own truth, your authentic self. If you would like I can send you a couple of paper and pencil exercises to do to identify some key aspects of your True self.  These are the Hero’s Exercise and the Value’s Exercise. 2. Deal with the really big losses in your life.Most people erroneously believe that if something painful happened in the past, the best thing to do is to leave it in the past. People mis-use age old wisdom teachings such as "BE IN THE MOMENT NOW", as a way of deluding themselves that they do not need to re-visit painful losses in the past. That wisdom adage, BE IN THE MOMENT NOW, means that we are able to fully present to our entire being right now in this moment. When we do this, we are willing to be aware of deep and painful losses with deep and painful feelings that are keeping us literally tied to the past. Another wisdom teaching tells us  the only way to deal with some painful issue is by going through it, not over it, not around it or not pretending it did not happen. Carl Jung, the famous Swiss Psychiatrist, talked about the Hero's Journey in the following way: the losses we have not dealt with are in our Shadow, a place of disowned parts of ourselves that surround our most authentic self.  Part and parcel of these disowned parts are the feelings which most people call negative, (mad, sad, and scared). When we embark upon our own Hero's Journey, we become willing to deal with these feelings and losses.   By being willing to be with our feelings, we discover which painful losses are keeping us stuck.Then, there are ways to heal these losses. In the process of healing them, we become even stronger and able to reach out into life and embrace our life in ways that we would never have thought possible before we went through the process of identifying and healing our losses.  If you would like a one page exercise on identifying losses you may not have dealt with, please contact me and I will send this to you. 3. Find your authentic purpose.  We hear about this nearly every day. Some may call it finding your passion, following your bliss or connecting to a Divine Purpose. Many books have been written about it.Our purpose need not be hard to discover, and our purpose will change periodically throughout our life. One's true purpose does have an aspect of helping others and it also has to do with a need in our lives that we have learned to meet and thereby can help others meet this need as well. For a one page exercise on discovering your purpose,  e-mail me and request the exercise:Clues to discovering your Authentic Purpose  Finally, one of the most important things you can do in this life time to find true happiness is to learn to love yourself by meeting your needs. If your parents were able to teach you to love yourself, they did it by teaching you that your needs are important, and they taught you how to meet your needs.If you would like a needs inventory, which is the best way to know what your needs are, please e-mail me and request the Needs Inventory 101.  If you begin to follow these three steps and also become 100 % willing to meet your needs in at least one of five areas, your life will change. You will have embarked on your authentic journey, the only real way to Happiness; the way to YOUR Happiness.