October 29, 2006

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Meditation

Reading

Message

 

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

October 29, 2006

JACK-O-LANTERN CARVINGS

First, I want to thank all of you who brought these delightful or distressful Jack-o-lanterns. My talk this morning is entitled Jack-O-Lantern Carvings.

Don’t you just love Halloween. Did you know it’s the second most popular holiday in the US? The Halloween industry now makes over 6 billion dollars in revenues a year. But what is it exactly that we’re celebrating?

This is such an exciting time in our history, because we get to recreate, redefine this holiday. This is an incredible opportunity for us.

Because we’re in a time in history like in those first few hundred years when the Christian church was taking form, and they were incorporating the pagan and other existing holidays with their new beliefs. So Christmas, for instance, became the birth date of Jesus, even though he was actually born in the spring, in place of the winter solstice celebration of the Greek god Zeus.

Halloween was the New Years’ Eve celebration of the Celts. November 1st was the beginning of their new year, and was believed to be the day when the veil between the worlds was thinnest, particularly at midnight. And so they dressed up to scare off the spirits and ghosts who they believed would come back to haunt them. Thus we have all the references to death and the dead.

The Christians later turned Halloween into Holy or Hallowed Evening (hallo e’en) and made it a time to honor those saints who had died, originally particularly by persecution. Then when the persecutions stopped, they changed it to include all saints, and then later all Catholics who had died.

So here we are in the 21st Century, still going through the motions of Halloween and obviously loving it, but really without any foundation, without any real meaning for us today. At least or especially for those of us in New Thought, which is really ancient thought. So what a wonderful opportunity to renew, restore, this holiday to something we can celebrate in a meaningful way and pass that along to our children, and grandchildren, and to our culture—create a new myth that can work . . . for a while anyway.

Since the subject of death has been carried throughout the centuries at Halloween, and with all the symbols of death that have remained so popular–the skeletons, the ghosts, the skulls, and just the whole scarey aspect and so forth, could this not be a perfect time to look at the thing that is most scarey to us, that frightens us the most?
And what is it that is our biggest fear? Most people would say death. And given the all the ways in our culture we avoid thinking about it, or taking any action to prepare for it, and certainly avoid talking about it, I might be inclined to agree.

But our founder, Dr. Ernest Holmes, says this: “There is . . . another fear which is at least as great as the fear of death, and that is the fear of life . . .” (A Holmes Reader on Change, p. 11) And in The Science of Mind he wrote, “Someone has said that the entire world is suffering from one big fear. . . the fear that God will not answer our prayers.” (p. 156:3)

I think he’s right. Think about it. Can you remember a time in your life when you were facing something that felt so big, maybe so painful or stressful, or when you felt so sick that you just wanted to die? Most of us have had that experience at least once, if not many times in our lives. Sometimes we would rather die than live. It’s why suicide happens. Living becomes more frightening than dying.

So what is it about living that’s so scarey? Why are we afraid of life? I think it’s because we are fooled, tricked, by evil. Now when I say evil, I’m talking about negative, contrary, adverse, naysaying, disallowing, nullifying, counteractive, counterproductive, invalidating, cynical, pessimistic, unenthusiastic, uninterested, gloomy, morose, destructive thinking. Now that’s what I mean when I say evil. Did you notice how you felt as I was saying those words? Evil is negative thinking and everything that that thinking creates. Sin actually translates missing the mark.
We’re tricked by evil, by negative thinking, because we believe it. Now if I tell you a lie and you don’t know any better, you’ll probably believe me, right? But if tell you a lie, and you KNOW it’s not true, it has no reality for you, no effect on you, right? Do you see what I mean? If I tell you the moon is made of blue cheese, you’re just going to say, “Yeah, right.” And it has no power for you whatsoever. But if I say to you, especially if I’m someone you think of as an authority, say, a doctor, if I say to you, “you have an incurable disease,” you’re probably going to believe it, and what power is that belief going to have over you?

We’re tricked by evil, by false beliefs, negative suggestions, because we believe them. Now I don’t mean to say that doctors are evil. They’re only looking at their own system, and in their system there are incurable diseases because they don’t know how to cure or heal them. But we know they can be healed and are healed.

You see, the spooks and goblins in our lives are not dead people coming back to haunt us. They are the lies, the negative thoughts and suggestions that have been told to us or that we’ve made up ourselves and that we believe. And we think we just have to put up with them or live with them because we think there’s nothing we can do about it.

So what are the skeletons in our closets holding us back? What fearful monsters lurk under the bed? What demons hide behind the door? What ghosts live in the attic that keep us from life, scare the daylights out of us, that keep us from living fully? Keep us from asking and having it done unto us?
I think Halloween is a perfect time to look at the ways we’ve made up, dressed up, and acted out, the negative thoughts and ideas, the spooks in our thinking, and to decide whether we’ll be tricked by them, or if we’ll treat them, treat our thoughts with Truth, with prayers of truth, with spiritual mind treatments. Be tricked or treat, it’s up to us. We carve our own lives. Will they be delightful? Or will they be distressful?

It’s a perfect opportunity to let all the symbols we decorate with be reminders to clean out the cobwebs of our thinking. We should be able to laugh at the dark side, to dress up in costumes, to have parties, and see the humor of negative thinking pretending it’s real. That’s what we do–we pretend it’s real. Because there is That Within Us which does know there is only good.

I want to be able to laugh right in the face of negativity. Have you ever watched those soap operas on TV? When I was a young mother and my kids were napping in the afternoon, I started watching them. But it didn’t take me long to notice that no matter how good life was for one of the characters, you knew that any day something tragic was going to happen. And after a while it just got so ridiculous that it became absurdly humorous to me. How much bad, negativity, could they possibly pour into this show? It became so absurd that I couldn’t buy into it. And then it had no effect on me anymore. And then it became funny. And I lost all desire to watch it anymore.

That’s how I want to be able to be when negativity, spooks and goblins come knocking on my door. Don’t you? I want to be like that Jack-0-lantern over there, just wearing a big grin all the time. To immediately get out my bag of treats and give those goblins one. And I’m not talking about candy bars here. But to say to that negative thought, “Get thee behind me Satan.” And of course, Satan in another name for evil or sin or negative thinking or missing the mark.

Halloween is a great opportunity to clean out those cobwebs of past beliefs that no longer serve us, to exterminate those skeletons and monsters of unforgiveness and grudges we carry around, to shake out those demons and ghosts that are preventing us from living fully. And especially to put to rest that fear that when we speak our word it won’t be acted upon by the Law.

I have for us this morning a little ceremony that can help us put a little more of the sacred into Halloween as well. And what I’d like you to do right now is to take a moment to become quiet. So just allow your eyes to fall closed, and go within. Take a deep breath, relax, and let your mind settle on something in your life that keeps you in fear of living fully, of being who you really are, of living the life you’d really like to live, of having what you truly desire to have.

It might be a fear of failure, or embarrassment, of looking foolish if you failed. Maybe it’s a lack of approval of someone or of yourself. What fears are coming up? Fear of success? Power? What would people think? Afraid you wouldn’t be able to come up with all the resources you’d need? To sustain the momentum? Responsibility? Commitment? What is it in life you’re afraid of? Standing in your own truth? What fear has you chained up?
Now imagine for a moment what your life would look like if you didn’t have that fear? What would the possibilities be? If you were really living your perfect life, what would that be like? What would you be expressing that you’ve been hiding? What if you really knew that every time you speak your word with authority it is done unto you? Let yourself imagine what that could be like for you. How would you be more fully expressing who you are? Good. Thank you. So now just gently let your eyes come open.
And let’s take that fear that’s been holding you hostage and put it in your hands (illustrate) like this (at stomach level), and get ready to release it out into the universe with that ghostly sound – whooooooo.
Ready? Take a deep breath. And release. Whooooo.

Good!

Now in releasing those fears we’ve created a void that needs to be filled. So here’s your opportunity to put these principles to the test. Is it really true that . . . It’s just a belief and I can change it!? Is that really true? Now you can’t say it is just because I say so. It’s only my truth if I prove it. And it’s your truth only if you prove it. And the way to prove it is to try it.

So in a moment you’ll have an opportunity to prove it for yourself. But first I just want to warn you that I’m not going to accept any sentiment from anyone that you don’t know what you want or that there’s nothing you want. Because if you didn’t want anything you wouldn’t be here on this planet, in this realm of material creation. You wouldn’t have come here this morning. We’re here to express Spirit through creation, through evolution. Oh, you want things alright. That’s just a copout to say we don’t have desires. It’s the fear that God won’t answer our prayers, that if we ask, it won’t be given.

Do you see that? What if I ask and it doesn’t happen? What does that mean? See, if I never ask, if I never try to prove that my thoughts are creative, then I can go on hoping it’s true. But if I put my word out there and nothing happens, then. . . what if there really isn’t any Law that takes my word and acts upon it? Then where am I?
But there is. And It does. Yes, sometimes it takes a little practice to get our thoughts and our beliefs in alignment, our vibrations lined up with the frequency of what it is we want to manifest, but the Law does manifest after the impress of our thought. So what are we really thinking?

A week ago Thursday in our Foundations class we did a treatment for my son and daughter-in-law, Todd and Theresa, who needed to have a pad constructed to put a mobile home on, and the person who had told them he would do the work two months ago hadn’t shown up, and it’s getting cold up north where they are. So we treated to have the pad completed before Theresa left for Colorado the next Thursday. Now that was a pretty specific treatment. But we were putting these principles to the test.

The next day, a lady came into the store where Todd works and as he was waiting on her, she happened to pay with a check instead of cash or debit card which she usually did, and Todd noticed it said Cook Construction on the check. He told her of their need to have the pad done, and she said she’d have her husband call him that night—which he did.

They came to do the pad at 8:00 in the morning, the next Thursday, and Theresa left for Colorado that afternoon. When we speak our word with authority, in absolute faith knowing that the Law always acts upon it, we have nothing to fear.

So what do you want to put into the Law? What is it you want to show up in your life? It doesn’t matter to the Law what you want. There’s no big or little, nothing harder or easier in God. Whatever it is, I invite you now to put it firmly in your mind as we again settle into the silence. Allow yourself to bring to mind what you are willing to accept in your life. Let it be something you can measure, so you’ll know when it’s been manifested. And you’ll know it’s a direct result of your having spoken your word. Prove it to yourself. God always, always, always, always, always answers our prayers when we know that is so.

So take a few moments now to affirm that you now have your desire filled in mind, and so it is manifesting into your world, and see that happening for you, feel it right now.

And now ask your Self, you Higher Self, you God Self, how can I more deliberately, more consciously apply the things I’ve heard today in my life so that I experience more peace, more prosperity, more love, more joy in my life. And then open to your Guidance.