With the holiday season arriving, we are beginning to hear complaints (though not too seriously) about the foods available.  In Canada, Christmas baking is BIG – shortbread, cookies, fudge, fruit cake, butter tarts, mincemeat tarts, homemade truffles, lots of chocolates of all kinds …. Anyone besides me drooling yet?  Oh – and eggnog – yumm! Some of us women joke that we might as well glue it to our hips since we feel that’s where it will show up anyway.  Last year I heard myself saying “All I have to do is look at the holiday goodies and I gain weight.”  And the Universe said “Yes, my darling,” and so I did.

Magazines are now coming out with articles about weight programs for the holidays.   Indeed weight loss is one of the biggest money making ventures around.  Open any magazine, or go to your local bookstore and see how many different ideas there are about weight loss for both women and men.

Yes, at the bottom of all of our concerns about our bodies are ideas – ideas we’ve accepted according to where we live and what’s in style.  Ideas that are based in fear – fear that we won’t be pretty or handsome enough, fear that we won’t be acceptable in society - plain old fear of not being enough!

Nithya Shanti, a spiritual teacher in India, wrote as his status line on Facebook one day:  “Our bodies are magnificent. They are condensed Divinity. There is nothing in them at all to despise or be embarrassed about. Any cultural or religious ideas to the contrary can safely be abandoned at once.” 

The Ancient Hawaiians believed the bigger you were the more mana you had (mana = spiritual power).     Our bodies are condensed Divinity – or we could say thick thought.  How does this idea change the way you will see yourself the next time you look in the mirror?   

Looking at my body from this perspective erases the guilt of holiday eating.  I will be conscious about what I’m eating and I will allow myself the pleasure of experiencing this once-a-year feasting.

Together, let’s abandon the fears of not being enough because of what we look like.  Let’s enjoy being in a body.  It’s an amazing self-repairing earth suit, designed by us, with abilities to experience the world we’re creating through our senses!  It is God coalesced into form for our adventure here called Life.

SPIRITUAL MIND TREATMENT

There is only One Life – God’s Life.  I am an expression of this One Life, living in a body I have created with my thoughts to be here now.

How grateful I am for every cell of this body.  I have eyes that see, ears that hear, a nose that smells, a tongue that tastes, and hands that touch—and these things that allow me to experience through my senses are only a tiny part of the wonderful organism that I am. I am grateful for my skeletal structure, my muscles, and tendons. I am grateful for all the organs that are within me and the work they do for me automatically.  I am grateful for the blood that moves through my body, bringing oxygen and removing that which is no longer necessary.  I am grateful for my brain and all the electrochemical activities that run the body. 

I now let go of any negative thinking I have been doing about my body.  I choose to see it as the condensed Divinity It is.  I am grateful that I now realize that this body is truly the Temple of the Most High.

The I AM that I am loves and nourishes and uses this body with great respect.  I see this reflected in the way I treat my body.  It is God in form.

I release these words into the Law of Mind, knowing they are planted deep within my subjective mind, becoming a builder of my universe, and this is good, very good.   And so it is.

Whoo Hoo!  Friday the 13^th!   Started out with huge hail storm and a tree falling over in my neighbours back yard.  Now, if I was superstitious, which I’m not (well, most of the time) or living in ancient times – these two experiences together could possibly be a disastrous omen.  

It’s that ole fear of the unknown and constant search for meaning. 

Rev. Shelly Downs of the Tree of Life Center in La Crescenta, California, posted this on her FB status: 

“F.E.A.R.  Many have heard this is an acronym for "False Evidence Appears Real"..... I have changed the focus a bit to be "Feeling Excited And Ready". For truly, what do we have to fear, when we are One with God?”  

I love this!!   We are so used to the feeling of fear that I’ll bet we mistake excitement for fear many times over.   For instance – you’re getting ready to go on stage – you know your lines – you love acting – yet there’s that feeling in the pit of your stomach.  Your mind says “Stage Fright” and you might flub a line.  What if it was really excitement?

Or – You’ve been asked to go out with a new person for the first time – again you have that feeling in your stomach.  Your mind says “What if he/she isn’t right for you?” and follows it up with the litany of sorrows from past dates or relationships.  You might not go and miss something wonderful!! What if it was really excitement?

Or – you’ve applied for a new job, and you feel that feeling again.  Your mind interprets it as “what if I don’t get it” and gives a multitude of reasons why.  What if it is really excitement!

What if we had identified the feeling we were feeling in these examples as “Feeling Excited And Ready?!”   How would that change the course of events?     

Ernest Holmes writes:   “In principle and in potential we are immersed in good for we are in the Mind of God. But we have freedom, or volition, to create in our own experience, out of the possibilities of life with which we have been endowed, the prerogative of heaven or hell. So we need to shake ourselves loose from the tyranny of fear and superstition and isolation and the emotional traditions.”  

The Science of Mind (and many other faith traditions) teach:  All there is, is God. When we truly embody this, we know there is nothing to be afraid of.   Next time you feeling those feelings ask yourself “Am I really afraid, or am I Feeling Excited and Ready for all the good I am attracting into my life?”  I choose excited and ready!!     

SPIRITUAL MIND TREATMENT

Gratefully I allow myself to breathe deeply and go to the center of my being.  Here is where the fountain of all good begins – the Source of me.  This Source is infinitely intelligent and unconditionally loving.  It is everywhere I am, because in Truth, It is all there is.

Resting in this sacred space - I feel all fear I have about anything drain away.  In its place I find peace – a Divine Peace I now realize was there all along.  This Divine Peace moves through me, realigning everything unlike Its perfect pattern in every area of my life – my body, my work, my finances, my relationships.  I feel a deep sense of harmony as I recognize how connected I am with The All.

How grateful I am to have this experience.  I choose to let this feeling permeate my subjective mind, and it feels so good.  I am feeling excited and ready to enjoy my life!  It is God’s Life and I have made It a good one!

I release these words, knowing they are so, and so it is.

I am leaving Canada the end of this year.  I have accepted the position of Senior Pastor of the Center for Spiritual Living in Baltimore, Maryland.

At lunch after our Gathering last Sunday, as I was answering some questions about my new position, one of our congregation said “You are so lucky.”  I heard myself replying “Luck had nothing to do with it!  I’ve been treating for this for the past 24 years!”

As I said this, I remembered another occasion.  A group of us had arrived in Egypt in the middle of the night, tired and hungry.  I went to bed as soon as I walked into the hotel room, and the next morning, opened the curtains to see the Great Pyramid in all its glory!  I sat in awe on the balcony watching the sunlight move up the face of the pyramid and thought “I am so lucky!”  and a voice inside my head said “Luck had nothing to do with it!  You’ve wanted to be here all your life.”

Spiritual Law works whether we are aware of it or not, and it works according to our receptivity.  Yes, I had wanted to go to Egypt since I was a child. I had pictures on my treasure map, and looked longingly airfares and tour companies.  One day I received a flyer about a conference in Egypt called “Personal and Planetary Spiritual Evolution,” but after looking at the price, threw the flyer away.  I couldn’t stop thinking about that trip though. Then the office phone rang and Terry Weiss of Power Places Tours told me I had been recommended as a speaker and would I like to participate?  I couldn’t imagine who had recommended me, but said YES!  After getting off the phone and doing my happy dance, I realized I was finally receptive to the idea of going, and the trip manifested in ways I could hardly imagine. 

Dr. Ernest Holmes wrote, "But even God cannot give us anything unless we are in a mental condition to receive the gift.  The Law cannot do anything for us unless It can do it through us.  We live in the midst of eternal good, but it can only be to us what we believe it to be.  We stand at the mouth of the river, but we must let down our own bucket if we wish it filled with the pure waters of Reality."

If you have a desire you’re waiting to manifest – don’t give up, no matter how long it takes.  Keep doing your spiritual work.  Check your level of receptivity.

And perhaps you might use this prayer by Dr. Kathianne Lewis of the Center for Spiritual Living, Seattle:

"Reveal to me the finished Kingdom though which I walk".

SPIRITUAL MIND TREATMENT

We live in an infinite Field of creative potentiality.  This Field is Source Energy – the beginning of all that is, including us.   This Field is impressed with our thoughts and feelings and becomes the 3D world we live in. 

Knowing this, I now declare I am ready to step into my greatness.  I let go of my little ideas about myself and release all doubts and fears.  I step up to the River of Reality and drink my fill.  I walk through a finished Kingdom and I recognize It!

Gratefully I release these words, knowing they are embodied deep within my subjective mind.  I know God is absolutely everywhere – and where ever God is – all is good.

And so it is.

 It made me think about all the other times I have gone on what I call “Grand Spiritual Adventures.”   There was always a letting go.  I believe it is this way for all of us.  We make sacrifices – and we do it consciously or unconsciously.

 When I first came to Canada in 2000, I had shipped my 1989 Mustang from Hawai’i.  I loved this car - - it had every bell and whistle you can imagine, and I looked really good in it.   But more than that – my husband had given me this car, which made it a treasure of the heart.

 One night after class, Brad, a student who has taught me so much over the past 9 years, was walking me to my car, and we were talking about attachments.  Having just sold everything, left a successful church in Hawaii, along with my husband and family of choice – I said “I don’t have any attachments.”  Brad said “Really?” and I responded “Well, my car. I really like my car – it’s the last thing I have from Hawai’i.”   A few weeks later, when I returned from the Asilomar Conference  in California, I discovered that my car, which had been parked on the street in front of my apartment, had been slammed into by a drunk driver, and totaled.   

 That’s when I learned that the root of the word ‘sacrifice’ is from the Latin meaning “to perform sacred functions.”   You see, I wailed and cried for a few days about the sacrifices I had made to come to Canada, as if Something Else was making me do them.   I was used to thinking of sacrifice as something awful – yet when I looked it up and discovered the words original meaning, I began to approach it with a sense of the sacred.  I realized letting go is an important spiritual practice. 

 Will we be sad?  Of course.  Grief is natural and wants to be expressed.  It is like a cleansing – a removal of another layer of dust to reveal the Diamond Within. We sacrifice something we have been - to be more – something more magnificent.

 Phoebe is going to a new family who has another Standard Poodle to play with and lots of acreage.  I am going home to the States, to a larger community and lots of possibilities.  The members and friends of Celebration Centre are stepping into a new Grand Spiritual Adventure themselves, collectively and individually.  And I declare it’s all going to be Good, very Good!

SPIRITUAL MIND TREATMENT

 God is the only Presence.  God is Love and Love is the only Power.   We all live, move and have our being in Love.  We are living the One Life of The Divine.

 Knowing this, I now declare that letting go is a sacred experience.  As we move through our Grand Spiritual Adventures, letting go so that we can be Revealed Truth in action, we know that only good is real.

  We acknowledge our feelings, and allow Nature to nurture us through them, and then cleansed, we turn, with eager anticipation, to the New Path we have chosen.

 As we let go, we let God fulfill our Souls Contract.  This Contract is about awakening more and more each day to our spiritual magnificence.  I declare that we claim it, feel it, and see it reflected in our world!  How wonderful it is!

 I release these words into the Law of Mind with a grateful heart.  And so it is.