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

Giving Thanks

What are the treasures in your life now? Do they include a special person that you can share with? Someone who accepts you just as you are? Is there a child, young or grown, who brings that special warmth to your heart when you think of them? Do you remember being touched by the smile of a stranger or that special glow in your heart when you were enjoying being with good friends—their laughter, their thoughts, their presence? Are there quiet moments of serenity that your heart treasures?

I was recently filled with joy at smelling wood smoke from a neighbor’s chimney. It awakened memories of hauling firewood, fireplaces on snowy days and cozy evenings with the delicious smells of family meals. I looked in at a gathering of people in our Center and saw their joy as they were eagerly learning of the great wisdom spread through the world’s religions. What a delight to see the richness of their understandings. I listened to our musicians as they shared their gifts with us last Sunday and treasured both the beauty of their talent and the joy it gave them.We are so richly blessed. There is so much to appreciate in our lives each day. As we treasure the amazing quality and beauty of the simple things that fill our lives, we open the door for God to pour ever greater goodness into our receptive hearts. Thanksgiving isn’t just a day—it’s the only way to really live.

—Reverend 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

Choosing Love

What Is Our Center About?

Several years ago, I was walking down a narrow street in a city far away. I was a stranger there on business and there was a palpable tension. It was a city where recently there had been violence and everyone there knew from the frequent presence of soldiers and police that this was not a peaceful place. Even though I wanted to enjoy my time there, I couldn’t help glancing nervously around, keeping defensive vigilance and feeling concern as I walked.

I was passing two women talking, one an older woman looked beyond her friend and looked directly at me. She smiled at me. It wasn’t that polite “I’m a nice non-threatening person” smile. It was a smile of someone who sends out love—powerful, delighted, and personal. It was for me and meant for me. From twenty-five feet away I felt impacted and changed. I felt that love from an old woman I did not know, a person I have never spoken a word to.

I became aware that I was no longer afraid. I was walking in a world where love existed. I felt my heart open, grateful, full. I was at peace. I no longer looked at the people around me as possible threats, but rather as people. We were all just people there, with our concerns, our schedules and our destinations. The difference was, I suddenly was not absorbed in my fear, my safety, protecting my world from them. I was no longer contributing fear and separation to the world that existed around me as I walked down that street. I was contributing peace. My mind was at peace with the world I was in. I was aware of the presence of Divine Love around me. I found I cared about those around me and enjoyed the vibrancy of their presence.

This is true, and it was just that simple. An old woman made a choice to send love, and changed me at depth. I became a presence of peace because I chose to accept the love she reminded me of. Love freed me from fear. It is simple. In our world where fear seems so strong, we can choose to love and become the presence of peace. The choice is ours.

I believe this is what our Center is about. At this time of tension and fear in our community, our nation and our world, where separation and mistrust is the norm, we are here to choose love, choice after choice, moment after moment. We know how to find the power of love that creates peace and our world hungers both for that knowledge and even more so for people who will live that choice.

~ Choosing love, creating peace, one heart at a time ~

—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