Unity Connections

  A spiritual community is one that shares a set of spiritual teachings/practices and creates a safe space for people to learn and grow into them together. Of course, having a safe space to gather is important but physical safely aside, let’s consider Rev. Jim Lockard’s definition of safe space in the context of a New Thought spiritual community:  " A space where one is free to be disturbed enough to look at one’s own beliefs, knowing that the community itself is supportive and caring. A safe space which guarantees no disturbance is not ideal for personal and spiritual growth” ( Being the Beloved Community, (2022), pg.11). Uncovering our core beliefs is a key element of Unity’s basic teachings. We teach that our thoughts, and beliefs along with their corresponding feelings shape our experience. As we begin to grow into the belief that the Divine (God) is the One, True source of all that is we first have to release some of our more childish beliefs about God as the good/...

As those in Lewiston Maine turn to find support within their community following the horrific loss of life they endured yesterday, let us join them in a heart connection that flows beyond the limits of that small town.   From a grounded place within ourselves, we can hold their pain and devastation. We can also hold them in the energy of safety, strength and love.   I do not know the details of what drove this man to act in this way.  I certainly do not condone his actions but I do believe that there had to be something deeply disturbed inside of him for him to act out in this way.  Challenging as it may feel at times, I believe that every act of misplaced anger, hatred, and violence is a call for us all to connect more deeply in love.   Our spiritual principles and practices support us in this. Knowing the Love that we are as God expressing on Earth is where we find the strength and courage to offer love to our hurting world, and ourselves. God as Love i...

"Blessed are they that are One with themselves. They will find the Kingdom .”  --Gospel of Thomas 49 To become one with all that we are is to turn toward all that we experience in life. Some aspects of our experience are more challenging than others and our human tendency to criticize ourselves when we are struggling is not helpful.  A growing body of evidence suggests that learning to replace relentless self-criticism with greater self- compassion and care supports us in meeting the fullness of our experience with greater ease. From a spiritual perspective, we know that we are forever supported in this process by the power and presence of Divine Love that resides within us, in Spirit.  Unity has long taught the power our thoughts have on our experience. Prayer and meditation are taught as the most accelerated use of that power as we purposely focus our mind/thoughts on that Divine Presence within and all around us.  Spending time in the Silence allows these ideas to...

  Meditation and concentration are techniques we use in prayer to help us attain the realization of God expressing as us. There are many types of meditation and concentration methods used in the various spiritual disciplines of the world. In Unity, the purpose of these techniques is primarily to focus the attention on the Source/God of our being. The divine life and light at the center of our being and all around us. Much of what we call prayer and meditation involves practices of working with our mind. Grounding in the breath and engaging the fullness of the senses can help steady and regulate our nervous system,  supporting our ability to respond to life from a more centered place, rather than simply reacting. Just taking a moment to pause—to check in—using the breath as a focal point, and then to notice the variety of physical sensations occurring in the moment. This alone can feel foreign at first because we are more accustomed to THINKING about experiences; we are no...

We are concluding our Summer of Awe series this Sunday with the grandeur of epiphany! Who doesn't love a good epiphany? Epiphanies are those big ‘aha’ moments whereby our current understanding of life gets rearranged in such a way that a whole new perspective suddenly becomes known. In his book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life , the author Dasher Keltner summarizes the experiences of epiphany from the participants in his study of awe as follows: “Around the world, people were awe struck by philosophical insights, scientific discoveries, metaphysical ideas, personal realizations, mathematical equations, and sudden disclosures that transform life in an instant. In each instance, the epiphany united facts, beliefs, values, intuitions, and images into a new system of understanding” (pg. 18). I have come to consider that we are in an experience of collective epiphany. Of course our individual experience of a new understanding depends on where w...

Summer of Awe Series  I hope that you have been taking time to notice the plethora of opportunities for awe and wonder that life so freely affords us.   This Sunday we will consider the power and purpose of Mystical/Spiritual Awe. The term mystical here simply means a direct, personal experience of the Divine. There are a plethora of these opportunities to connect. As we discussed last week, many of us feel this powerful connection while “walking in the Cathedral of nature” as Dr. Lisa Miller puts it. In his book Awe , author Dasher Keltner explores how our spiritual life actually grows out of experiences of awe.   Keltner refers to mystical awe as “…the feelings of encountering what we call the Divine, {meaning} what we feel to be primary, true, good and omnipresent” (pg. 195). Such experiences draw us closer to the power and presence of the Divine within and all around us. They also fulfill a deep and fundamental human need. The awe-inspiring body of work rece...

  Wild Awe Last weekend while camping, I experienced firsthand the reprieve that time in nature  offers.  This was no doubt magnified by my concurrent reading of the book, Awe by Dacher Keltner. As the Universe would have it,I was literally reading the chapter on Wild Awe which speaks to the emerging science behind what so many of us have experienced in nature! Not surprisingly, a growing number of Americans report feeling the greatest connection with the Divine while in nature. I have long appreciated that experience myself without the need for scientific data, but it is truly awe inspiring to consider why that is and how it works. It seems to affirm the fullness of divine intelligence imbued in every aspect of life – including the energetic power of nature itself to calm our nervous systems and put us in touch with the majestic vastness of the cosmos, and our small, but powerful place within it. Keltner’s explanation for why he decided to embark on this s...

How can we live “the good life” has long been the perennial question. “Find awe,” was the simple answer that inspired UC Berkley psychology professor and author, Dacher Keltner to study the emotional state of awe. His book entitled, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life, offers inspirational stories and insights on the evolution of the experience, and the spiritual component that often imbues this emotion.  I can't think of anything more awe inspiring than realizing the depth of Spirit within us, as well as the basis of all of creation! That has absolutely been a source of good in my life, and I hope the same is true for you. Awe connects us with something larger than our self and expands what Philosopher Peter Singer called “the circle of care; the network of people we feel kindness toward” (Keltner, D. Awe , 2023, pg. 81). Expanding our circle of care is a key aspect of what ‘living the good life’ really means. It goes beyond the more self- s...

  Hi Friends! I am currently in the airport preparing to fly home from Kansas City after spending the week at my first Unity World Wide Ministries conference! "Back to the Future" is this year's theme, offering a nod to the confusion we feel in knowing which way to go in our rapidly changing world. The future is always before us and yet; we often find ourselves looking backward.  Our human nature seeks to find comfort in the seeming stability of what has been. Of course, there is always good to be found in what has been- in all that we have learned and experienced and celebrated along the way- in our personal lives, our Unity Ministries, and in our shared, collective human experience. Accompanying that good are also the limitations, misunderstandings and seeming failures along the way. We often label these as 'bad' but they are only really ''bad' if we don't learn and grow from them. We don't know what we don't know, until we do!  In my und...

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged…” Our lesson this week will consider the practical implications of that infamous saying offered in Matthew 7:1-2. Like most of us, I came to understand this to mean that as I judged others harshly, GOD would judge me harshly in return. This stems from the teaching of a literal ‘judgement day’ whereby our eternal future will be decided, for better or worse.. What many of us love about Unity is that it offers us access to be able to apply spiritual understanding in the here and now. Consider the metaphysical interpretation of the 'Last Judgement" as described in The Metaphysical Bible Dictionary by Unity Co-Founder, Charles Fillmore: “The description of the Last Judgment, as given in the Gospels, has been used to terrify men and women and thus compel them to unite with the church; but in this day of enlightenment people are not so easily led or driven by fear. They ask for understanding. Wh...

  Hi Friends,   I am getting back in the swing of things here after a wonderful time of vacation.  There is often a swift re-entry period upon returning to the build- up of work while you were away, but our wonderful staff really kept everything moving so I am really thankful to all of them. Nonetheless, I find myself behind here this week, so in lieu of a lesson overview, I am sharing a bit of my vacation experience.   It was a unique vacation that afforded me time for connection and reflection. The biggest takeaway for me was the reminder to slow down and be present in order to be able to savor life and the people I experience along the way. I had not quite realized how busy my mind had become—always on to the next thing to do – and not all that present to what was happening in the moment.   When I break out of my familiar routines, there is a natural slowing down in order to attune to the new surroundings.   It doesn’t always happen right away though....

   In recognition of Memorial Day, we will hold our annual candle lighting ritual this Sunday. This will offer us an opportunity to honor those who have given their lives in service of our country, and to remember our loved ones who have passed. We will draw on the following two beatitudes given by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.  (Matthew 5: 4) Mourning is the outward expression of the inner process of grief. As we share the experience of our loss with others, we are supported in moving through our grief in a healthy way. We come together to hold the space for that process in community. This is the value expressed in memorial services. This is how we show up to comfort each other in the shared experience of loss and grief. Grief has a way of breaking us open.  When we lean into that process we feel the depth of our capacity to love, and of our emotional response to the loss of those that we love. Depen...

The power of our thoughts is a central component of Unity’s foundational teaching. We believe that the quality of our thoughts directly impacts our experience.  Ultimately, our goal is to grow in our ability to think empowering God (good) thoughts over the more commonly limited, negative or fear-based thoughts. If we truly believe that the nature of God is good- and that we are expressions of that good (God) then it follows that our thoughts should reflect that belief. This Sunday, we will resume our series looking at the teachings of Jesus as a means for transforming minds, using  Discover the Power Within You  by Eric Butterworth as our guide.  If effect, Jesus was asking his followers to actually live as if they believed their sacred texts and laws rather than simply reciting them. While many thought that Jesus had come to overthrow the Roman government, he clearly stated that he had come to fulfill the law, not to break it. He was speaking of the universal spiri...

This Sunday we will celebrate Mother’s Day by honoring our mother figures- those in our lives that who have loved us and nurtured our growth. Few of us had ‘perfect mother’ relationships. For those who have become Mothers, the reality of the experience often sheds light on the impossibility of perfection.  We do our best, and often run head first into our own limits and weaknesses. We do well to learn from our mistakes. Fortunately, we can always access the nurturing, loving feminine energy within us; offering  her healing balm to our own heart and enabling compassion for our own Mother. Regardless of our gender identity or parental status, we all innately possess aspects of both feminine and masculine energies. While most of us were socialized to express one over the other, we are healthiest when these energies are balanced within us. Our modern world has long bent toward the expression of the masculine energies. Yet, we can all benefit from developing a stronger connection w...

I thought that might get your attention! 😀 We continue our exploration of the teachings of Jesus by way of His Great Discovery : the Divinity within Humanity. No doubt this great discovery forever changed the concept of God among those that were present to hear the teachings of Jesus. For those who believed his message, God was brought out of the sky into the world as a Spiritual Presence, imbuing all of creation . Yet, this great discovery does not mean all that much if it is tied to the personhood of Jesus of Nazareth. The relevance of this discovery is that it remains accessible for all of us,as the path by which we can discover and claim this powerful connection within ourselves! Of course, a commitment is required; it is not the only path. Making the decision for Christ requires us to claim the faith of Jesus; to know, and to claim, for ourselves this Kingdom of God within. Let’s simplify this bejeweled term, the Kingdom of God to mean the place within our own awareness where ...

In preparing for our Easter service, I was reminded of my genuine love and appreciation for the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. I was also reminded of how that message has so often been misunderstood and misused in ways that have left many a bit leery of the Jesus centered theology known as Christianity. I certainly understand this response and have experienced it myself. Yet,the message itself offers a transformative path that deserves a deeper consideration. There are a growing number within the Christain faith that have sought to extract the message of Jesus from the religous constraints that formed around it. I have turned to the work of Father Richard Rohr, Bishop Shelby Spong and Marcus Borg for inspiration. The ways in which the message of Jesus has been confused and even corrupted in the name of religion is just another example of humanity’s propensity to operate from our limited egoic –centered mind; forever seeking power and protection. Our last series revealed how our own mi...