Martin
Luther King, Jr., in being asked to publish some of his sermons,
wrote in the preface to his book, “. . . a sermon is directed
toward the listening ear rather than the reading eye. . . I
offer these discourses in the hope that a message may come
to life for readers of the printed words.” This
is my hope for you, dear reader. - Rev Linda
April
30, 2006
You
can listen to parts of our April 30 service also (MP3
format) »»»» |
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THE
BLOOMIN’ YOU:
BOBBIN’ WITH THE ROBIN
I assume you all have checked the Joyous Reunion
scramble this week. And it is . . . copious amounts of joy.
Are you getting
excited? Have you invited a friend? This will be a great time
to bring someone. It’s going to be an incredible service.
With LIVE music!
So this
morning to end our Bloomin’ You series, we’re
Bobbin’ with the Robin. Are you ready for the dance with
Spirit?
Have you ever felt like there was something in you that wanted
to express? Something bigger than you think you are that wants
to happen through you? Is Spirit wanting to dance with you,
but you’re afraid you don’t know how to dance?
It’s scarey, isn’t it? Because it doesn’t always
make sense to us. Something in you says, “Paint.” And
you’ve never even picked up a brush! We have the best dance
partner in the world and all we have to do is follow. But we’re
too afraid to do it, to really dance, where we let go and
let Spirit REALLY take over and move us.
Why is that?
Do you think it could be because we, as Religious Scientists,
prefer to stay in our heads. We feel more secure
and comfortable discussing and reasoning and examining
and considering and talking about ideas than we do moving down
to that heart-space
and just feeling and letting those feelings and emotions
emerge, and then actually follow them. Because what are
those
feelings
going to do when they emerge? Where are they going to take
us? It’s a little scary, isn’t it? It’s unpredictable.
It’s out of our control. And what would that look like?
Might we look foolish?
And yet our founder Dr. Ernest Holmes says in Living the
Science of Mind, “There is nothing cold or unfeeling about the
philosophy of Religious Science and the practice of the Science
of Mind. To be effective, it must pulsate with deep feeling.” (p.
253.4) And in The Philosophy of Ernest Holmes he says, “.
. . the intellect is absolutely necessary: Rationality, logic–all
are necessary. But back of them all, and flowing through them
all, there is something beyond them all—a feeling, an intuition.
That is what religion is; that is what revelation is.” (p.
92.3)
But all
those fears come up, don’t they? And yet, why are
we here at this celebration service? Are we clear that there’s
a reason we’re here this morning? Do we understand that
it’s no accident that we find ourselves here in this place
with this group of people? That something brought us here? That
there’s something in us that wants to reach deeper
into that heart space, that is wanting to experience
that feeling
level?
There’s
an invitation for us to do something very strange and different
here this morning, and that is to get out of our
heads, to release any reservations or fears, or inhibitions
we have about that, and just for this one hour, less than an
hour
now, break the rules and move into our hearts. Can
we do that? Because there is an opportunity here for all of
us to experience
something greater, something deeper, something more
indescribable than any thought our heads could ever imagine.
When we
reach down and touch the heart and really listen, something
happens. We’re quickened by the Spirit, our feelings come
gushing out. We’re no longer in tight control.
We let go and let God have Its way with us, dance
in us. And that can mean
tears of joy; it can mean spontaneous outbursts of
praise, adoration, agreement, awe. It can mean letting
our whole beings, mind, spirit
and body, be moved, moved from reading the map into
the real journey.
The Presence
of God in us wants to radiate Its brilliance, Its glory through
us, do great things through us,
but we will never
know this God-Presence in us in this way until
we are willing to surrender to that Spirit and let It
move
through us
and touch us so deeply we are transformed as never
before. There
is something
in every one of us that wants to express in a greater
way, be more than what we’ve ever allowed
ourselves to be.
There is
something that happens when we hear Spirit
clearly directing us. There’s a knowing that takes place that’s beyond
words to describe. But somehow we know what we’re being
called to do, the dance of life is calling us to movement.
Several years ago Bill and I were sitting in
a restaurant having dinner. It was no special
thing,
just an ordinary
restaurant,
an ordinary dinner. But as we sat there talking
about ordinary things, suddenly something happened
to me.
A peaceful euphoric
sensation came over me. There really are no words
to describe it. It was as if I was “coated” with
a knowing. I knew I was going to take practitioner
training.
Now this
made no sense to me at all. I had never had a thought about
being a practitioner, never
had any
desire to be one
or to take the training. Bill and I at that
time were traveling
around the country for his work. We were never
in a place for very long, sometimes as short
as a couple
months.
Practitioner training is 2 years. And even
if we were
in a place long
enough
for me to take the training, how could I possibly
have a practice, moving around the country
like we were.
It made
no sense to
me
at all. And yet I knew I was being called and
was going to take practitioner training.
And I said to Bill, “Oh, my god! I’m going to take
practitioner training.”
And then I very quickly added, “But it’s just for
my own spiritual growth.”
The next thing I knew we were making plans
to move to Portland, Oregon, for two years
so I
could take
the training
at the
church there. Now Bill didn’t have a
job there. We had to go on total faith. But
we went, and very soon he had a job, and I
was
enrolled.
I had had
a numinous experience. Now a numinous experience, as it is
known in psychological
terms, is a deeply
spiritual, religious,
mystical happening, also called by some “baptism of the
Holy Spirit.” Ernest Holmes in The Science of Mind says
baptism is “. . . the realization that we are in the One
Spirit.” (p. 493:5)
Now for
an experience to be truly numinous, it must be life-transforming.
In other words,
it’s not just a feel-good experience
of the moment. And this experience did
change my life.
But my question
is, is there anything we can do to invite this numinous experience,
this
baptism of
the Holy Spirit?
That
was the question I had on my mind when
I called my Uncle Harry.
Uncle Harry
was a teenager when I was a little kid, and he teased us relentlessly,
he broke
all the rules.
He
was my
favorite uncle.
And he’s also, these days, a Pentecostal minister. So I
asked him first about people raising their hands in church, because
I wanted to know how that happens? Does something grab your hand
and raise it up? And I loved his answer. He said, “No.
When I raise my hand, I am yielding to Spirit. It’s an
invitation for the Holy Spirit to descend on me. But it is always
my choice. I have to say ‘yes.’”
And isn’t this what Ernest Holmes taught us? In Creative
Mind he says, “[We are] made to be a companion of the Infinite;
but to arrive at this exalted plane of being, [we] must have
[our] freedom, and be let alone to discover [our] own nature;
to return love to [our] Creator only when [we choose] to do so.” (p.
7:1)
Now the invitation he was talking
about, Uncle Harry that is, not Uncle
Ernest,
is the invitation
for
the baptism
of the
Holy Spirit, that numinous experience.
So I asked him about dancing
in the Spirit. As you probably know
Pentecosts are mystics who, like
the Sufis, the
Hindu mystics, dance,
literally
dance, in
the Spirit. I wanted to know if Spirit
just takes over. And again he said, “Spirit never takes over. I surrender to Spirit,
and I dance because I just feel like dancing, I feel so much
joy. It’s ecstacy. Joy and such peace.” And
I heard that joy in his voice. And
then he shared two numinous experiences
he has had of the Oneness, including
a near-death experience.
I want that
joy, that ecstacy, that peace. I want to feel that more often,
don’t you? I want to be the ecstacy church.
Maybe that’s what all our visioning is about. Maybe we’re
opening ourselves to something so big, we’re
inviting the baptism of the Holy
Spirit through our visioning.
Can we invoke
it? We know our thinking is powerful. The Jewish prophet
Jesus of Nazareth
said, “Believe and it shall be
done unto you.” But we cannot get truth—our own truth,
without an experience of it. Otherwise, we’re just taking
someone else’s word for it. And remember, their word is
not their experience, but an impossible attempt at description
of an experience. I think that’s one of the reasons why
when Ernest Holmes had his mystical experience at the church
in Whittier he said, “I shall speak no more” and
sat down. There were no words
to describe it.
I want to
go deeper, I want to
dance, don’t you? But the
thing is, for the seed to grow deep roots, it must split apart.
It must break open that outer shell and expose itself to the
soil. And that’s what we must do. If we want to be renewed
by the Spirit, we must yield to the breaking away of that outer
shell, stand naked, remove the masks, every false belief we’ve
covered ourselves with, and
let the Life within us burst
forth and dance.
Are we willing
to do that? Are we willing to be that transformed?
Are
we willing
this morning
to
revive
that spark in us,
that passion? Are we willing
to open our hearts and let
Spirit
within us touch us in a way
we’ve never been touched before? All
we have to do is say, “Yes.” Spirit
is knocking on the door of
our hearts, calling us to
do great things, waiting
to take us higher and deeper
to show us our wings, to
reveal to us the beauty and
the magnificence that we
are.
Ernest Holmes
said, “Don’t be afraid of being spiritual.” This
Thing Called Life, p. 27
Don’t be afraid to be a mystic. Don’t be afraid of
the divinity within you. Don’t be afraid to listen to your
heart and be all you can be. Don’t be afraid to come to
full bloom.
May we feel God's Spirit
dance in us! Let’s be bobbin’ with
the Robin.
