Generosity Expresses The Presence Of God  From Rev. David McArthur (edited by Mike McGuire, not reviewed by the speaker)

Kimeli, a young Maasai African, lived in a rural village that did not even have roads. He had no father, and was considered a lower human. But Kimeli admired the generosity of doctors, and wanted to be a generous doctor. And there is always the next step. So Kimeli ran away to a town that had a school, and the headmaster allowed him to attend. From there he applied to colleges in America. The University of Oregon offered a scholarship. Grants from a benefactor in Florida let him attend. Subsequently he got his masters from Stanford! If he can do it without resources...

What's impossible doesn't bother God. There is a flow of abundance that is completely inconsistent with what we “know”. But it tells us there is more to this consciousness. What this is, is when you say “yes”, that's your purpose. It constantly unfolds in our lives. And in this time of powerful human consciousness, you can always go deeper! We are on purpose! The universe opens up and provides. It is “fulfillment”. The whole universe is wired to fulfill your purpose!

On 9/11 Kimeli wanted to respond to the pain he saw in Americans. Now held in honor, he went to his tribe at “storytime”. (Without technology, they communicate through their stories.) Kimeli went and told how the generous people in America were hurting. The Maasai couldn't even conceive of a place like New York City. But he asked for permission from the elders to give his cow to the Americans. In Kenya, a person's cow is their most important possession. Having one is comfort, it is security, it is life. The Maasai were very touched by his story and decided to give 14 cows! They asked the American ambassador to receive their gift. At the ceremony a thousand Maasai in full warrior dress sang the Star Spangled Banner with their hands over their hearts!

Kimeli's response had been one of compassion and generosity. All along the way he had a consciousness of generosity. Jesus taught, as you give you will receive. Abundance comes not to us or for us, but through us. “...for God so loved the world that he gave his only son. For who so ever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.” This quote is mostly used in other ways, but here are the words love and give. What is given is the Son—the divine pattern, the Christ, the Atman, the Buddha Mind, the I Am. Out of love. Jesus showed us the pattern and it is in everyone of us. God doesn't give because we ask, but because it is the very nature of the divine. God can't reject. Yes, we can reject, but it is not in God's nature. Life always flows abundantly.

And there is always the next step. This week look for the opportunity to be more generous, every day, with your time, understanding, compassion. Listen. “Divine generosity flows freely through me.” This is when it gets to be fun! It's ok to give away the cow!

Journey Into Oneness

From Rev. David McArthur (edited by Mike McGuire, not reviewed by the speaker)

We are one.  We really are one. It doesn't look that way. It appears that you are separate from me. Emilie Cady said, “Man, who is at first living in the selfish animal part of himself, will grow up ...to the divine or spiritual understanding wherein he knows that he is one with the Father...” The Father is the part of the divine that loves and cares for us, and is within us, yet is infinite.

You are one with that other political candidate, and more troubling, all those people you just don't get who support that candidate. When watching the debate, I first felt condescension for them. It was an experience of separation, viewing them as less than. It was uncomfortable. I thought maybe I should try something different. I stepped back and I saw that all the people really cared. A sense of connection took place. I stepped farther back and saw all the country experiencing a polarization which hurt, and I felt compassion. How difficult it is to work with those hugely complex issues! And I saw that the polarity blocks clarity, and our fears are surfacing. When we fail to see that the One Power cares for us all, we instead empower our fears. We see ourselves as separate and different. We fail to see our oneness unfolding in the most important vote, which is for care.

All you see you are.  This world can't see beyond its opposites, or see our oneness. That comes from within us. Jean Houston: “I was no longer just Jean Houston, age 6. I had awakened to a consciousness that spanned centuries. Everything was important. It was as if I knew everything, was connected to everything. I was an infinite being.” She said, “It's your true self.” Alfred Lord Tennyson told that from boyhood he frequently had a “waking trance” in which it was as if individuality was gone and he was part of the “boundless pure being”. Vedanta teaches “Thou art that. All you see you are. Thou art one with the Universal Being. Every soul is your soul. Every body is your body. The Universe is my body.” We journey to consciously touch and know that.

This beautiful connection teaches us our oneness. We sense the presence, the power, the oneness. We touch that beautiful wisdom moving through life, and see that God is good all the time! God is good all the time! All the time God is good! Practice this chance to vote for love!

Relax in attunement and faith

Jesus said, “...My yoke is easy. My burden is light.” When we are connected with the Christ consciousness, there is a feeling of ease in the heart where struggle doesn't happen. There is an intuitive response, without the need of control, in which things flow.

We are so ready to ease others through any difficulty. Imagine what Divine Love will do for us, Its spiritual children! Life is the experience of Divine Love guiding and unfolding who we are with such grace and care and compassion that every moment It is there for you. Every moment It is in you. Every moment It would enfold and lift you in those things that are difficulties and obstacles. It is infinite intelligence and it knows how to move you through them successfully. That's what life really is. That's the truth. When we choose to see obstacles and complain, when we choose control, we are out of the heart, and it is uncomfortable. Ease is touching the feeling of that care flowing through you. There is a flow of such goodness and kindness, of such compassion and love here guiding you, responding to you, One with you.

When you are open to the Tao, open to that ease and amazing presence of life and energy and intelligence and power that we call Spirit that we are one with and that is moving in and through our lives, you are open to insight. You can use it. It is “hidden in the heart”, everywhere and in everything. You no longer feel separation and the need to control. You are guided. So flow. You are one with It, and everything will fall into place.

Breath ease and enjoy the flow!

from Mike McGuire, Prayer Team
Summary of Rev. David's sermon

Attunement changes perception

We express our beliefs, manifesting our lives, like light projects a holographic image. When our awareness (the light) changes, the manifestation changes. When we think God hasn't gotten things right, our problem isn't with God. Our problem is with our connection to God. Going outside ourselves to find someone as the source of our prosperity is not the answer.

Separation is an illusion. There's this goodness of God that flows in us and through us and we get to be a part of that consciousness; we aren't separate. Connect with that deep state of consciousness, with that flow of Love in the 4th dimension, with the Source-- God. God is wholeness. When we connect with That we change in our consciousness and go into the experience of wholeness. When we connect with Source, we are connected with the whole of the situation, not just the part we see as the answer. In that moment of connection, there is really nothing else. It's whole, it's complete, and it's beautiful. Feel the deep, deep peace. Feel it fill every level of your being. When you're that loved, you know things are taken care of. Consciousness has changed.

When our consciousness changes, our world changes. Although it's necessary, tending to detail after detail in our three dimensional world doesn't bring the change. Change comes when we choose to connect with that which takes us from an incomplete manifestation into a whole manifestation, because wholeness is the nature of God. It's all one; it's all God's anyhow. We know it's taken care of. There is only one power. You are not separate from that Source, you are one with It, and It's very nature is wholeness. Ground it into the 3rd dimension and do something. It's not just a wonderful feeling. Move forward, because “It's taken care of.”

Whatever the need, there is an answer. What do you do to take care of healing? The answer is God-- connect there. What do you do when you need finances? --harmony in your relationships? The answer is God. Affirm, “God is the Source. God is the answer.”

from Mike McGuire, Prayer Team
Summary of Rev. David's sermon

Choose to see wholeness

We perceive our three-dimensional life through the mind. The mind sees us as separate from everything out there and it defends us. We each have known pain. At such times we see a limit to or a loss of the goodness of God. Anger and hatred naturally protect us when the mind sees us as victims. This is not wrong or bad, but it is not the only perspective.

Our higher consciousness is a higher perspective from which we see things differently. We cannot love when we are in anger and hatred. That is a state which diminishes love and our loving. As spiritual beings, we respond from our truth that is always within us, that we are one with the beautiful Divine Presence. We pray,

“Beloved Presence, reveal that which needs to be revealed. Heal that which needs to be healed.”

And it is revealed that we have a choice. Just wanting to make a choice brings healing. Healing takes away the need for anger and hate. At this point of choosing we are free-- deeply, powerfully free.

There is so much love surrounding, enfolding and supporting us! When we ask it and allow it to take us, it lifts us. We see freedom, forgiveness, and wholeness. It has no other purpose. It is time to look at what you have not yet allowed to heal, what has not yet been transformed. You're not lost. It's not over. It's not the way it looks. The world has simply brought you to the question, “What is now, in this moment, the choice to make?” And it is that choice that transforms what you have journeyed into. This love flows through you, and in your choosing it over and over, it is blessing and lifting us all. We are in this together.

from Mike McGuire, Prayer Team
Summary of Rev. David's sermon

How to get out of hell

As we awaken, we go from experiencing life from the outside in, to experiencing life from the inside out. However, the more we experience the connectedness, the more painful our judgments. We are burdened with our “garbage”. This is “hell”. But we can leave whenever we want.

It is easy to get out of hell (the garbage). There is a way out. Since no one can be in two places at the same time, leave the garbage behind. It's a choice. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is within. We discover that which has real value-- that which fills us with pure radiant love. That is God. It is that place of divine connection, infinite love and goodness. We experience a goodness without limit-- “heaven”.

Our perceptions change. We begin to see amazing things drawn into our lives. “I'm getting healthy”; “I'm leaving this addiction”; “I feel uplifted and good”. We begin to see heaven in those amazing beings drawn into our lives. They take on parts of consciousness to transform it-- that's who is in heaven. It's here and now. Look around you. It's easy to get out of the garbage. Love one another. It's a choice. Pick someone and love. Welcome to heaven!

from Mike McGuire, Prayer Team
Summary of Rev. David's sermon

Know the truth of your being

Emily Cady wrote,

“It is time for us to awake to right thoughts, and know that we are not servants, but children, and if children then heirs. ...Heirs of all wisdom, ...to all love, ...of all strength, all life, all power, all good.”

  
The heir is the spiritual self, the spiritual being that you are. It is not this marvelous ego that has been developed for us to dance through the world. The ego guides this temporary persona that we have jumped into. It doesn't know how to be the heir. When you journeyed into life, it wasn't that you weren't to meet the experiences that were there, those of abundance and lack, of fear and joy, of peace and harmony and of conflict, because those are ideas within this realm that we journey. The ego is to be cared for by the spiritual self, which guides it into being an instrument to touch the world and know its goodness.

When Jesus said “the kingdom is at hand”, he meant that we can touch life and experience the presence of God. We can experience the goodness of the realm, its beauty, its wholeness, its abundance. We can know the Presence in every experience, and that is the kingdom of heaven, and it is here and now. Just as people from the court go ahead of their prince announcing his coming and making easy his way, know and affirm,

“Divine Love goes before me, making easy, joyous, and successful my way.” 

from Mike McGuire, Prayer Team
Summary of Rev. David's sermon

Experience the Now Moment

When we react to events, we project our past experience into the future. But there is a different potential that can be brought forth, another dimension in which we live, in which we access an amazing goodness and love. The doorway is through the heart. Go into the Silence. It is a place with the most amazing power to it, a place where we step through dimensions of consciousness.

Be present in the “now moment”, and add in appreciation. And for the power, add to the moment your awareness of the presence of God. Right now that amazing everywhere-present life force is flowing into you, filling you with life and illuminating your mind every single moment. It is there loving you. It has been in this eternal moment of now since you stepped forth into being. It folds you in infinite love. Even as you breathe, It breathes you. It is so unlimited that we literally cross dimensions of consciousness and activate higher levels of our soul purpose and bring forth higher creation. It is how we create with unlimited possibilities. In the now your higher purpose has nothing to stop its full expression as you bring it forth, and it has the power to transform whatever it is that's before you because it is not limited in the mind.  It is the unlimited presence of divine love moving in and through you. You are one with that. And when you open to that, when you say yes to this moment and this Presence in it, you are blessed ... There is no limit.

from Mike McGuire, Prayer Team
Summary of Rev. David's sermon

Invisible Reality

“Now... scientists have realized ...that the invisible, immaterial realm is far more important than the material realm... The new science ...shows that your thoughts, your attitudes, your beliefs, and the invisible environment, are more primary in shaping your life than anything in the physical world is.”


--Bruce Lipton, author and leading proponent of Epigenetics.

How lucky we are to live in these times in which science is actually proving our spirituality rather than treating it with disdain! And how lucky to know that we access our inner power and the “invisible environment” simply with the most basic of all life-giving steps-- our breathing.

“I become centered now... With each breath I take in... I affirm ... I am in the presence of God now and always. As I exhale, ... "Thank You, God!"... As I breathe in rhythm with God-life, I am renewed and energized.”

Daily Word — June 1, 2009

Let us this week remain aware of our inner, direct connection to the power that created and sustains the universe. Let us “breathe in rhythm with God-life”. 

Mike McGuire, Prayer Team
Summary of Rev. David's sermon

Greater Goodness is Calling

A greater goodness is calling all of us. The caterpillar that is in the transformation process does not know that it will emerge from the cocoon as the beautiful butterfly. Yet within it is the divine pattern that guides it through the process because the result, the greater expression of its true self, is calling it into the process of change. The divine pattern within each of us is calling us to a new state of consciousness. Change is happening in our personal lives and in the world. This change is not caused by the failure of old systems; rather it is because the greater expression of our true selves is being called into being.

How do we attune to that greater presence and wisdom that is calling us to our next level of living? We attune by turning to that indwelling light, love and goodness that is who we really are. Prayer and love are the timeless tools of transformation. Let them open each of us to the greater expression of God’s goodness that is calling us forth.

--Rev. David McArthur

A New Level of Consciousness

This year at Unity let us bring our focus to the potential that love holds for us individually and collectively to bring forth a new level of consciousness. It is time to develop fully within ourselves and within our world a true consciousness of peace.

As you stop to linger at the peace wall, look at the hope that is there. Look at the ideals that are captured in the symbols. Experience the desire, common to all our hearts that is enshrined in those words that keep appearing again and again—“Peace” and “Love.” It is time for us to go to our next step of bringing forth that vision. Let us find within ourselves the heart of nonviolence. If not us, who? If not now, when?

—Reverend David McArthur

Christmas - Clebrating a new birth of Consciousness

Christmas is celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus, the birth of a new consciousness and the birth of the joy that is hope eternal in our hearts. We bring out the symbols of our new birth—the bells of celebration, the cheery red Christmas ribbon, the gaiety of presents, the warmth of the fireside, and the abundance of family feasts and presents. In the dark of wintertime, we light the candles of our hope, symbolizing our faith that the light of goodness is responding to our common humanity. Our hearts awaken in our new birth and we reach out to the poor, those struggling or in need. We affirm our love for family and friends and we are reborn to the radiant love that fills our hearts. Celebrate that wonderful love, that miraculous birth this Christmas Eve with your Unity family.

Our children will warm your hearts at our 5:30 pm family service, and at the 8:00 pm service, the beauty of the candlelight will rekindle the sacred flame of divine love in your heart.

—Rev. David McArthur

Let There Be Peace on Earth

Let There Be Peace on Earth... and Let it Begin with Me

It is often a startling discovery that peace is not the result of being peaceful. It’s not that being peaceful isn’t helpful—it certainly is. However, the dissolution of the discord that removes our peace requires an even more powerful state of consciousness than peace. It requires love. Charles Fillmore called love the unifying, harmonizing power. That is because when we actively engage conflict with love, we release that which has the power to dissolve discord. Love actually creates a higher state of consciousness in which harmony and unity can exist.

Love has the power to transform those parts of ourselves that have not yet been brought into wholeness. In one of the translations of the Tao Te Ching, it is spoken of as the tiger having no place to put his claws. I understand this to mean, that the parts of me that would have sustained conflict have been transformed as I became the expression of Divine Love to those around me, regardless of their position or peacefulness.

We become involved in the pursuit of peace because our love compels us. It asks us to journey into that experience of connectedness in which another’s well being is crucial to our own. Love flows through us, creating harmony around us. The change of consciousness is not because we avoided conflict to be peaceful. Rather it is brought about because in the midst of conflict we let love flow from our hearts so that we were transformed and others uplifted.
­—Reverend David McArthur

A Stroke of Insight

On Sunday, April 20, in my talk on "Aladdin," I used a video clip many people were interested in pursuing further.

I invite you to view the full 18-minute video, in which Jill Bolte Taylor discusses the insights she gained about human consciousness during her own experience with a massive left brain stroke.

Shift the Consciousness

Every time you choose peace in response to conflict,
a greater consciousness of peace is created in the world.

Every time you choose hope in response to doubt,
a greater consciousness of hope is created in the world.

Every time you choose generosity in response to lack,
a greater consciousness of generosity is created in the world.

Every time you choose love in response to resistance,
a greater consciousness of love is created in the world.

Thank you for those choices. You are a blessing to us all.

—Rev. David McArthur

Happiness Choice

Make the "Happiness choice" -- regardless ouf your outer circumstances, choose to align your consciousness with the inner energy of God's ever present goodness.

I invite you to watch this video in which I explore the problems and suffering that arises when we pin our happiness on outer events. Instead, by cultivating a steady inner alignment with the creative energy of God within, we can achieve a reliable state of happiness regardless of outer challenges.