Hereafter - Shine Your Light
In W. Va. 25 years ago I was exposed to Rev. James Fowler’s book: “Stages of Faith” Fowler describes 6 stages and a developmental progression. First and Second stages are children’s stage - our faith is what we understand of the faiths of the people around us.
Third stage faith sees God as out there or up there - and the authority and wisdom and power - and the responsibility - are out there. [drop to knees - put hands up is supplicant prayer position to demonstrate]. So we plead and praise and beg.
Fourth stage we say ‘yeah, sure out there - but also in here’ -and we touch our chests to indicate that there is a part of the divine within each of us.
Since I learned the Fowler stages and studied at Unity I’ve thought of myself as fourth stage.
From W. Va I returned to Tucson briefly and visited St. Francis of the Foothills; a 4th stage Methodist church. I returned to Huntington and looked for a church like that one. We got a lot of house visits from ministers following up on our one visit to each church. All were third stage. We needed to chose a different path.
Now I picture myself on a ladder climbing toward the light - and usually I know and feel that the light is already glowing within me and I see my self and the people I do my spiritual practice with all climbing toward the light and we are all lit from within.
Just one thing - with that vision of the light within it is easy to develop an sense of ‘I am not third stage’ an arrogance or specialness.
For Fowler 5th stage is becoming aware there are many paths to experience the divinity within. [visual - many ladders grounded in many faiths and people on them are all climbing toward the great light and all are lit from within. Great visual]
and if you look at the bases of the ladders you see all the faiths represented.
And now we are ready to LIGHT THE CANDLES for all faiths.”
CANDLES
REFLECTION:
When I first came to Baltimore I went to a literacy conference. Famous Amos was a principal speaker. His message was: “Focus on what you want to have happen. Do not focus on what you do not want.” And here was the kicker in his keynote address: “What you resist, persists.” He said it a few times so it would really stick with each of us: “What you resist, persists. Focus on what your intent is; focus on your goals.”
Says a lot to me about our wars on drugs, on poverty, on terrorism. We resist; they persist.
Unfortunately, whining and complaining indicate our focus is on what is not wanted and resisted. The undesired circumstances seem to go on and on.
3] ‘Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy’ postulates a universe in which there is one planet world, Kricket, that always has a cloud covered sky. No stars. If those people could see the stars they would know there are other worlds. If they know there are other worlds they would want to destroy or dominate over every other society, over every other world. Kind of fanciful and strange.
We are more fortunate. From Earth we can see some stars most nights. We always know the star filled night sky is there. But imagine, if our sky was obscured and the stars only came out one night every thousand years, that one night would be such a night of awe and wonder that would create religions and spiritual practices that would last hundreds of generations. We would celebrate this long unseen event if the last occurrence were hundreds of years ago. Imagine for a moment we had these constant clouds and they rolled back for one night of stars in 1776 on the one night this nation celebrates as the 4th of July. If the stars had come out one night back then and not since, we would be people worshiping something not seen by any of us but only heard about in folklore and myth. An event like that leaves a incredible impression.
Still, the stars are pretty ordinary; they come out almost every night and some nights we get a pretty good look. But most of us are not looking, not allowing that experience of awe and joy and wonder. I am too often inside watching dancing with the stars.
4] When my son was 13 he and I drove from Phoenix to LA to attend a Re Evaluation Counseling weekend workshop. On the way home we drove on the not yet completed I 10 from LA to Phoenix. It was night and we were on this unopened and unused superhighway, a hundred miles from any large source of light. The moon had set. Where we were it was really dark. When I got tired of driving we stopped in the middle of nowhere and spread a blanket out on the desert next to the unused road and lay on our backs and looked at the stars. It was a sky like I had never seen. So full of stars and across it like a speckled belt the Milky Way,
Just totally amazing. As I looked I was so overwhelmed with the magnificence of the universe in which we are living.
When I sit in stillness sometimes I bid that memory come back and it brings with it the joy and wonder and awe of that singular night when the stars aligned all over again.
5] SONG: Standing on the brink in joy and wonder.
I will sing this once - then musicians join me to sing it a second time
6] When I think of the multiplicities of ladders and all of the kindred folks climbing from their often differing fundamental roots I re-experience that joy and wonder. Kind of like being out on the desert and seeing all the skies that long ago California night.
This [on knees praying up] does not do it for me. Those I have talked to in this self selected group leave me suspect it does not do it for you either. Still, we are a diverse bunch with diverse interests and diverse beliefs.
When I think of this group and group cohesion I think about Hereafter and my cousin Ellen. She was about 16, raised with a lot more religion and bible study than I was. She did not know this guy very well and they were on a date, kind of, in his car, parked overlooking the lake. He tried to pull her close to kiss her and she pulled away.
He was calm about this. After a little while, then said. “Let’s play ‘hereafter’
What is that?
“Hereafter? Well, it is like this - if you are not here after what I am here after you will be here after I am gone.”
7] So here is what I am here after: A community in which we share certain ideas and the practices to reinforce them.
Turn away from what you do not want.
Turn toward what you do want.
[show with body action out the drama and decision] “Not that - this”
And you may have to make this a conscious choice every few seconds - until it becomes every few minutes and then every few hours. Requires training the consciousness. And here is why: I believe
Your habitual mental content weaves the pattern of your destiny
I need to remind myself from time to time what De Chardin said: “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.”
THAT [whatever you might want] would be so good - but…….
BUT what steals your joy?
a] needing validation from out there. Validation is great to get. But essentially it needs to be an inside job.
Don’t ask me to fill you up when there’s no bottom in your bucket.
B] Looking at your identification as your job or the tasks you have assigned yourself.
You need to look beyond your job description. Know there is something more than that in the answer to the question “Who are you”?
C] internal argument and conflict about the choice of direction,
I used to teach a class called: “free to have fun.” It was not about here to find a good singles bar or where to go for the best ski slopes.
[tell story] “Job first. Not enjoy it anyway. It won’t be fun”
Get the chorus going. HAND OUT A BATON - APPOINT THE PERSON “CONDUCTOR OF YOUR ORCHESTRA”
Look up Joy in Webster. Says well being.
So what are some of the ways to get back to well being?
Prayer or prayer treatment. What is prayer treatment for? as one 4th grader in religious science put it: “Prayer is how we remember truth”
Faith. And remember - faith in something negative is just as influential, as powerful as faith in something positive.
We draw to us what we constantly think about.
As Duane Dyer says, “when you change the way you look at things ,the things you look at change.
Be still. Listen. Get to a place where the noise quiets down. One of my favorite passages: “Be still and know that I am god’
Realign. Do not get caught up in the drama.
8] Merrill and the ‘it’s not fair”……..
“you are waiting for me”
Do not be distracted by the drama. It is a real pull .
9] Do not be distracted by the shiny objects either.
There is a story of Mohammed offering he prayer shawl to the first one of his disciples who could get all the way thru evening prayers without ever loosing his focus and his spiritual connection. And when the call to prayer sounded they all started to do the ritualized prayers, which involve a lot of physical stuff, prostration on the floor and standing with the arms just so and prostration again. Mohammed watched as, one at a time, the students lost their focus for a moment, and he could tell because each time the man would look up at him for a moment and when their eyes met he know. And finally there was only one disciple who had not lost his focus and he was in the last few moments of the ritual and he startled and looked up and their eyes met. He finished the prayers but they both knew.
Mohammed asked him ‘you were almost completed. What happened?
And he responded ‘for a moment I thought ‘the prayer shawl will be mine’.
Realign. Bring yourself back. Do not align with the craziness. do not be distracted by the drama. And do not let yourselves be distracted by shiny objects.
10] KEEP IN YOUR MIND A POSITIVE VISION.
Dad sometimes said grace. As he aged he asked me ‘say grace’ more and more frequently. So when Jane and I and my stepkids were in Florida visiting them we were at lunch on the lanai and I was asked. I nodded to Jane and the two boys and we sang what we sometimes sang at home. We got to watch as my parents sat is stunned silence sitting with their own experience of this invocation to their own internal spiritual experience We had rehearsed this:
May the long time sun shine upon you
all love surround you
and the pure white light within you
guide your way on.
I will sing this once
then musicians join me for second time and the third time is for everyone
In W. Va. I wanted to do a short workshop piece for the Marshall U students. I had learned it in Scottsdale from the Rabbi who did our Gestalt training.
We will do the brief version of it in a minute.
I went to Marshall U’s Interfaith building and asked for a space to do this. The ministers who ran the place decided I was not born again enough to use any space in a public university interfaith building. So I went to the Newman center - the Catholic students house on campus and asked father Jim, the Newman house priest. He said sure.
So this is what I did with the students:
[DO IT. elevator ride to God guided meditation]
The students liked it well enough. I asked Father Jim to tell me what I had done. And he said: “You helped the students to get connected to their indwelling Christ.” I was so amazed. Such a few words, traditional words, to describe such a fourth stage experience.
So yes, I believe this understanding is everywhere.
And my question for us: How well represented is it here?
You may be asking about now: What is the point?
Can I summarize some point for all of these stories?
Cultivate an appreciation of the extraordinary light within you.
Train your mind to focus on the positive and the desired outcome
And while you are at it cultivate an appreciation of the extraordinary ordinary. Cultivate within yourself an awareness of that ordinary extraordinary presence of the divine within each person you encounter.
The summary, in one word, is this: Namaste.
Namaste means: that which in me is divine notices and recognizes and acknowledges that of you which is divine.
OR: I see and recognize and honor the light of the divine within each of us. Namaste.
Namaste. [Repeat]
