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

February 26,2006

LOVE - WHO NEEDS IT?
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

This morning we conclude our series Love - Who Needs It? We got snowed out of one of our Celebration Services this month, so I’m going to touch on both of the ideas left to be covered in this series, Engaged in Love and Home Is Where the Heart Is.

Home is where the heart is
No matter where the heart lives
Inside your heart where love is
That’s where you’ve got to make yourself
At home. —from Home Is Where the Heart Is, sung by Peter, Paul & Mary

So what is home? The other day I was doing an Om meditation, and I realized that Om sounds very much like home. So I started chanting home instead of Om, and it just came alive for me. So I realized there’s something very sacred about home.

I’ve always loved the line from the movie, “ET phone home.” There’s something about it that has stuck in my mind since the first time I heard it. That sacred sound of Om. And home adds the breath. . . hhhhome.
That made me curious, so I checked on the definition of home—“one’s place of residence” the dictionary says. So home is where we live, where we reside, where we spend most of our time. We could even say it’s the thoughts we live in and experience. Because we know all that we see in this material world is a mirror of our thoughts. Where are our thoughts residing? In the attic or in the cellar? In the light or in the dark?

Anyone here who doesn’t really feel at home with yourself? We’ve been talking a lot this month about the importance of loving yourself—your Self. Wayne Dyer in his book 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace says that one of the secrets is that you can’t give away what you don’t have. We can’t love or give peace to someone else if we’re not experiencing it for ourselves, within ourselves. And neither can the others in our lives give us what they don’t have.
Home is where the heart is. Where’s your heart? What’s in your heart? That’s what you’re giving away. Giving to everyone you live with, everyone you meet.

When we’re with another person, we’re tuning in to each other’s channels, our stations, like we tune in to a particular radio station or TV channel. We line up the frequencies so they’re on the same wave length.
So what’s it like when you’re with a very negative person? You start feeling down, heavy, depressed, right? Or with a joyous, positive person? You feel happy and light, right? Uplifted. You’ve tuned in to, lined up your vibrational frequency with theirs, and they with yours. So wherever that frequency is in you, it will match up with wherever it is in the other and come to the surface and vibrate.

So if we’re with a person who’s angry, that vibrational frequency lines up with the anger in us. Now maybe we’ve converted your anger to pain because we think we’re not supposed to be angry. So we identify anger with pain and express it that way. But however it’s felt, the frequencies will line up, tune in, lock in, and we’ll feel it. And then we react to those feelings.

UNLESS we’re aware of what’s happening, and we can keep from turning our dial to that station, to that low frequency station, and instead, in compassion, in infinite patience, remain in peace, poise and calm, and thus dissipate those low frequencies. If we don’t align with them, they can’t affect us. Or if we refuse to broadcast those frequencies, then others can’t be affected by any negativity in us.

We can’t expect to give others what we don’t have. We can only give what we do have. If we have a lot of anger stored up inside, anger will be our gift. If we want to give love or joy, we must cultivate the love and joy within us and live in that heart space, that home. This is being engaged in love.

Wayne Dyer says, “If you want to move into the realm of purpose by giving and serving others, ask yourself, ‘What do I have inside?’ and ‘Why have I chosen to store these kinds of energies in me to give to others?’” (p. 44)
No matter what we’re doing, we can do it in the spirit of serving others in some way. If we’re loving what we’re doing—even if it’s washing dishes—we’re bringing love to the world. We’re releasing it, radiating it out from us.

In Greek Orthodoxy there is something called kenosis, which says the self-emptying of our God-Self goes forth in service and comes back to us. Our home, our residence of thought, is always spilling out to those we’re with, and out into race consciousness, the collective consciousness as Jung called it.

Another definition I found was that home is a “familiar or usual setting.” I’ve often heard people say the first time they attended a Religious Science spiritual center or church, they had a feeling they describe as being home or coming home. There’s something that touches them in some deep place within that feels familiar, and they feel at home at last. Something in them was awakened. A vibration of truth.

The dictionary also says it’s “the focus of one’s domestic attention.” Thus, home is where the heart is. As I contemplated that, the words of our founder Dr. Ernest Homes came to me. “If we abide in the [Spirit] and [the Spirit] abides in us, in harmony, in power, in peace, in wisdom; and our thought is friendly, happy, confident and open, our Kingdom of Heaven is a good place in which to live.” (Science of Mind, p. 598)

Our home is then our castle, our heaven, a good place to live and focus our attention. However, we don’t want to become too attached to the material house, as opposed to the spiritual home. Another of Wayne Dyer’s secrets for success and inner peace is to “Have a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing.”

Bill and I traveled around the country for his work for many years. We would be in any given place from 2 months to 2 years. And one of the things I had to learn was not to get too attached to any one place, any one house or the people or a job or the environment in any one place. I used to say often “Home is where I hang my hat.” That wasn’t easy for me, being a Cancer, a nester, a homebody by nature. I had to really be open to my home being wherever I was and not attached to the house I put it in.

Wayne Dyer says, “Your attachments are the source of all your problems.” So it’s always a good question to ask, “What is it I’m attached to now?” “The need to be right, to possess someone or something, to win at all costs, to be viewed by others as superior [and the list is endless]—these are all attachments.” (p. 14) Attachments do not bring us peace. Love is letting go.

One of the attachments we sometimes have about home is the family. As we look around today, in this 21st Century, we are truly having to redefine what family is. The old idea of a family being a man, a woman, a boy, and a girl is getting more and more rare. And personally, I think what’s happening is that we’re expanding our thinking about who we can love.

A couple of years ago, as I’m sure you all remember, there was quite a discussion, exchange of views, on the subject of family and exactly what constitutes marriage.

As a spiritual community United Church of Religious Science, or UCRS, does not take positions on political issues. However, our Global Heart Vision does ask of us to uphold equality of being, worth, opportunity and expression among all people.

And this morning’s topic presents a perfect opportunity to read to you excerpts from a letter written by our Community Spiritual Leader, Dr. Kathy Hearn. So in closing I share this with you.

August 25, 2004

Community Spiritual Leader Viewpoint - Same-Gender Marriage

Beloved Community Members,

As the elected Community Spiritual Leader of United Church of Religious Science, . . . According to the Design Model I am, among other things, “to serve as our spokesperson to the world. . . .” . . . . Having listened deeply and heard from many quarters, and based on the guiding principles articulated below, I issue this statement of support for same-gender marriage. . . .

. . . Science of Mind affirms the Absolute Reality of God, the unity and sacredness of all life, the divinity of individual being, the inherent wholeness and worth of each person, and right of each to the good of life. "What We Believe" asserts: "We believe in the incarnation of the Spirit in Us, and that all people are incarnations of the One Spirit. . . We believe in the eternal Goodness, the eternal Loving-kindness, and the eternal Givingness of Life to all."

. . . The Global Heart Vision states: " We see a world free ?? of separation and disenfranchisement?? We envision United Church of Religious Science as a bridge across the illness and illusion of separation thereby dynamically empowering the vision of Global Heart."

. . . The Preamble to the UCRS Bylaws affirms: "We believe that the Science of Mind Philosophy can transform the hearts and minds of humanity and contribute significantly to bringing love, harmony, peace and abundance to all people everywhere, without consideration of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, age or physical condition."

. . . [Again The Global Heart Vision states] "We believe the goal of life to be a complete emancipation from discord of every kind, and that this goal is sure to be attained by all." Science of Mind seeks to support people in that emancipation by awakening them to their spiritual nature and the creative power of thought. Our transformative emphasis on divine identity and "Change your thinking, change your life" are gifts that we offer to the world. A world that works for everyone includes a world that works for the gay and lesbian people of the world, as well as those who are members of our spiritual communities and who have been welcomed into our philosophy of acceptance -- becoming our leaders and teachers as well as our congregants. Beyond any question of activism, support for same-gender marriage is simply what is ours to do in bringing forth a greater revelation of God's Love, Peace and Freedom on earth.

Through the principles and guiding ideas of our Community, we have established ourselves as an organization that supports equality of being, worth, opportunity and expression among all people. Moreover, we have called each other and ourselves to living outwardly that which we hold as true in our hearts. To deny human rights to some people -- in particular, the right to legal marriage -- while those rights are guaranteed to others, is inconsistent with our teachings and our practice of congruence.

In loving service,

Dr. Kathy Hearn, Community Spiritual Leader

If you’d like a copy of the complete letter, they’re available on the A&E table.

The Global Heart Vision is a high ideal, a possibility, an opportunity for us to let go of our old, dark thinking, and rise up with Spirit to heavenly ways of being in this world, to unconditional love.

Love—Who Needs It? No one. Why? Because we already ARE love. God is Love. And God is all there is. So we MUST be Love. We are Love. But we do need to feel that love for ourselves, for God, and for everyone. And we need to express it in our lives, in our homes with our family—whatever that family might look like—and everywhere we go. Home is where we are at any given moment. Home is the kingdom of heaven within us—the Heart of God. Home is where the heart is. There’s no place like home.