I was thinking about why this time of year is so full of stories that are deeply heart-felt.  Part of it is that, it seems, the whole world is involved in creating a special time of the year full of expectations and "shoulds".   We should be happy.  We should be surrounded by family.  We should feel loved and be kind and send forth peace.  Christmas means these people should be together, eating this food, with these decorations, singing these songs, and saying these things, etc. etc. etc.   {Please don't expect me to have any thing other than an angel on the top of my tree.}

All of that is wonderful.  Or, it's not.

If everything works out as it 'should', then great; but for most of us that doesn't happen totally.  Learning to deal with the variations that happen, moves us from being in a reactive mode to things vs. being a creator of our lives.   It is the stories we tell ourselves around all of this that are important. 

On Sunday, we told stories.  Most were funny and warm and heart-inspiring.  And some (perhaps unsaid) were sad and nostalgic and brought a tear.

The spiritual truth in all of this is that we are our memories.  This is what makes us individuals.  

On a Sunday morning after all of us gather for a service, we each leave with a different memory of the past hour even though we all had the same 'experience'.   We interpret based on our past memories ( because what we have experienced is the filter through which all new experiences pass.).  The really cool thing is that we can rewrite our memories.

Oh yes we can!

a burning bowl ritual.  On January 5, we will have a meditative service and honor the different religions and expressions of Truth in the world.  One part of the service will be a world peace meditation.

I look forward to sharing this journey into the New Year with as many of you as possible in person, and with all of you in Spirit.  I anticipate with great joy creating memories with my LCSL family.

Much love and great glee! 

Rev.  Carolyn

P. S.  Thank you for supporting Tracy and I in creating a memory of playing cello and piano together to create a moment of sharing.  Playing for others is exciting, scary, terrifying and fun all at once.

I will be driving to Norcross, GA when this comes out.  I am going to a Minister'/Practitioner conference that is being held for two days before the four day general conference- The Circle of Love Gathering- begins on Tuesday . This conference or a version of it has been happening for a number of years in Georgia.   For a while, it was called the Eastern Conference.   I am hoping that it will be a wonderful substitute or alternative to the Asilomar Conference.  I'm sure I will have lots to say about it when I get back on Sunday October 20. 

While I am out on Sunday the 13th, James Stone will be doing the talk.  He gave me a couple of hints as to what he will be sharing; I think folks will really be able to relate and as always enjoy his humor.  I personally love the concept of "Spiritual narcolepsy."    It is a very visual idea for something, I think we all experience.   If you can't be with us, remember that you can listen to our Sunday talks on our website.

I want to throw in another plug for your gratitude quotes and affirmations.  In the month of November we will explore different ways to express gratitude and share the experience of keeping a gratitude journal.   

Have a great week and I will see some of you on October 20. 

Shalom = Peace, wholeness and well-being, for you and yours.
   

Much love,

Rev.  Carolyn

Our visioning meeting on Saturday was really great.  Dinah Smiley does a great job of pulling together information from a business/marketing point of view. Then we had great sharing in our visioning process.  My grateful thanks to all who attended and to those who couldn't be here personally, but supported us with positive energy and prayers.  We have a new volunteer to help us with getting our word out on the social media sites (this is the way marketing is done nowadays and an area that many of us just don't know how to use).  So we are very excited!

We love, love, love all of our volunteers.  They are how we grow and express as the vibrant community we are.

I am looking forward to our Member Sunday.  I fall into thinking that everyone knows what I know and that is simply not true.  So, on Sunday, I will share everything I know... OK, maybe not everything, but lots of stuff about our Center, what we offer and what we believe.  Hope to see us scramble to add more chairs to accommodate the crowd.  Trust me, it will be fun!

It seemed a natural thing to follow our discussions on "What We Talk About When We Talk About God" with "What does God Want."   These two books came across my desk at the same time.  In the second, Neale Donald Walsh tells us that God doesn't want anything.  Want indicates need and the Infinite, which is the All in All, has no needs.

Desires are different.  They are based on preferences, but not need and Neale lists three that he thinks the Infinite does have: 
1.  To know and experience Itself, in all Its glory.  Science of Mind and many other traditions teach " In the beginning, God...".  God contemplated, and out of this contemplation all that we see came about  for the Infinite to express Itself in a huge variety of ways.  Since there was only God substance in the beginning all we see, feel, comprehend, know, explore, etc., is God Substance.   Our existence allows the Infinite to experience the finite. 
2.  That we shall know and experience Who We Really Are, through the Power to create and experience ourselves in any way we choose.   This is what in another book God is quoting as saying, "Life - isn't it delicious?"  It certainly offers a huge variety of experiences.
3.  For the whole life process to be an experience of constant joy, continuous creation and never-ending expression and total fulfillment in each moment of now.  For this is the natural state the Infinite exists in. 

As we discussed last week, God is for us and we have been created to be choosers/creators.  Out of every moment we stand in the ability to choose.  We can be and respond as we did yesterday, or we can choose again.

For many of us this teaching is a new choice, a letting-go of past thinking and training and a stepping-into a place of blessing, creativity and joy.

Isn't...life...delicious?
 
Shalom - Peace, wholeness and well-being, for you and yours.    

Much love,

Rev.  Carolyn

On Sunday we talked about how God is for us and ahead of us.  The concept that The All-in-All is not about judging or finding fault, but is actually actively for us is one that will change our lives.

Having been raised in a faith that emphasized that I was being watched and when I did something 'bad' there would be punishment maybe even banishment to hell, the idea that God was actually for me, supporting me, sourcing me to fulfill my desires, blew my mind.   The knowing that Spirit is always with me and that I can't not end up with and live in Oneness with the Divine has changed my core beliefs and my life.   It took me a while to accept it, but since I have, life has been that great adventure others talk about instead of the fear laden movement to a possible really unhappy ending.

Rob Bell shared a definition of blessing I had not heard before but like a lot. Blessing actually means, "God is for you."  God is for me, oh yes!

Spirit is also ahead of me.  That next great idea that takes me further on the journey to living my highest and best is Spirit calling me forward.  Rob shared several stories from the Bible to show that Yahweh was meeting the people where they were at the moment and calling them forward. 

One was a scripture that others quote as being barbaric.  It talks about the spoils of war, especially women.  The scripture is telling how they must be treated as people and taken into the household after they have had a time of mourning to have the status of wife.  At the time, a woman taken as part of the spoils of war was slave/property with no standing, no rights and no hope.  This was calling for the humane treatment of all people.  In other words, this was a call to see the Oneness, the value, the proper treatment in and for all.

We as individuals and as communities and nations are ever being given new ideas of how to live our lives with more awareness and expression of the Oneness of All.   Spirit is ahead of us calling us to More.   We know that we must first be the change we want to see.   So, what new idea is percolating within you?  What must you release, embrace, become for the full expression of your highest and best?

The above questions are taken from the Visioning process.  We will be doing that and talking about the Louisville Center for Spiritual Living on Saturday from 9 AM to Noon here in Jeffersonville, come join us. 

Shalom - Peace, wholeness and well-being, for you and yours.
  

Much love,

Rev.  Carolyn 

Thank you!  The Board on the behalf of the Center sent a fruit and cheese basket to let me and my family know of your love and support.  Bob and I were in Angleton, Texas, to be with my son, Jim, and handle the service celebrating the life of my daughter-in-law, Kelly, last week.   She made her transition in early August after several months of dealing with the effects of liver disease.  Your continued prayers for Jim and all of us are deeply appreciated.   Loss is not easy even when we know her life continues in growth, expansion and love.  We will miss her.

On Sunday, our topic was Spirit with us.  Of course, that was the perfect subject for me at this time.  Knowing that I am never alone no matter how it looks or feels brings me great comfort.  I got to and I encouraged others to think of a moment or many moments when we felt the Presence, the moments when our hearts are open and we feel connection and rightness.  It is hard to explain what those moments are and how they feel. 

I love how Spirit unfolds in my life.  That morning I was practicing with the LCSL music ensemble and had one of those moments.  All of a sudden my heart filled with love for those in the room, for ky's music, for my ability to join in, for the words and melody of the new song we were learning and the tears flowed.  And I thought, how do you explain moments like these.  As best I can knowing that words fail me.  And even more important, how do I stay in the feeling for as long as I can and revisit it often?  By just breathing and being.

On September 28, we will have our annual meeting at which we vision for LCSL and talk about where we are and where we are choosing to go.  We will meet here in my home from 9 - 12 and encourage everyone who can to come and join us and give us their input.  We will talk about things that our minds tell us and we will vision/listen to hear what Spirit is revealing through our hearts. 

Visioning is a form of meditation designed to help us listen in a focused way.   We talked about it and experienced a taste of it on Sunday during our meditation time and will do so again next Sunday.  There will be pencils and paper for folks to write down what they are feeling and thinking.  We know that many will not be able to join us on Saturday and we want to capture as much input as possible from everyone.   I encourage you to spend some quiet time listening to the answer(s) you receive to the question, "What is the highest and best expression of LCSL?"  What you get may be words, or colors, or images, or feelings, or whatever.  Don't edit, just share with us.

Again, thank you for allowing me to serve as your minister.

Much love,

Rev.  Carolyn 

This Sunday was the second of two Practitioner Sundays where your practitioners gave the talks while Rev. Carolyn is at Asilomar.  ky li and I shared this opportunity this week. Last Sunday Dinah and James shared with us on the power of Choice and the profound influence that perspective and judgement have on our personal power of choice and how we use it.  

  

  

Following this lead, ky opened the presentation this Sunday clearly explaining the five steps of Spiritual Mind Treatment, or Affirmative Prayer. Treatment is a sure-fire way to apply making our choices in an atmosphere of  conviction spiritually. The Five Steps of Treatment are: Recognition, Unification, Realization, Thanksgiving and Release.

ky also explained a key difference between the way those of us who practice New Thought or Metaphysics pray and the way we may have been taught to pray in other religions, or spiritual groups. We do not ask for assistance or favors from a God who is outside of us or separate from ourselves. We pray from a place of knowing that God (Spirit, Source, etc.) is all there is, ever-present, ever-knowing, ever-powerful. Knowing this to be true, we, by definition, are one with this infinite Source.  From this place of Oneness, we speak the truth of our being, knowing it is done.

  

Vicky followed ky discussing the results of doing Treatment, which Ernest Holmes termed, "Demonstration." A demonstration is, very simply, what Science of Mind calls an answer to prayer. Ernest Holmes gave it this specific, distinctive word because outcomes from Treatment literally demonstrate for us The Way It Works. It is not a mistake that revealing the way something works is exactly what giving a demonstration of something is. So, I gave a little demonstration of how we cultivate our consciousness through Treatment; I used a three-ring notebook and notebook paper to shed light on it. Just like aligning the three holes in notebook paper to go onto the rings, clarity in Treatment calls us to bring into alignment what we are thinking about something, how we are feeling about it, and what we believe about it. When these three areas are in alignment, there is no resistance to embodying the demonstration of our desire into experience.

As our first Practitioner Sundays opportunity over these two weeks comes to this close, we hope we have offered a holistc view of how your perspectives form choices, and how choice is your ongoing vehicle for taking your life into the experiences of your dreams. Please do let us know any questions you may have, or if we may assist you in Affirmative Prayer.

  

  

Dinah Smiley, RSc.P, James Stone , RScP., ky li, RSc.P and Vicky Jeter, RSc.P

This Sunday was one of two Practitioner Sundays where your practitioners give the talks while Rev. Carolyn is at Asilomar.  James Stone and I shared this opportunity this week, while Vicky and ky will have the honor of sharing their wisdom with you next Sunday.  I'm sure James will agree, it's a blessing and an honor to perform these duties. 

  

  

Choice.  I talked about the challenges I have experienced studying our philosophy and preparing to become a practitioner.  The challenge I shared this week was reading, comprehending and interpreting the writings of Thomas Troward.  I could have chosen to read and reread Troward's work until I knew it verbatim.  But I was lead to, and chose to, sit with Troward's words until they morphed into a writing style more conducive to my simplified style.

  

  

I call my style Appalachian Metaphysics and I shared a story that I wrote while assisting Rev. Carolyn with "The Edinburgh Lectures," by Troward.  The story was about two separate vessels experiencing the life of their choosing.  One life led to many bumps, and and scrapes and cracks, on one vessel, while the other life resulted in a vessel ending her life of service in pristine physical condition.

  

  

I purposely omitted our human tendencies toward self- judgement, or comparison from my analogy.

  

  

James Stone delivered the second portion of the talk.  James focused on judgement.  The self-judgement he felt as he grew anxious about giving his portion of the talk and the way we learn our judgement habits at an early age.

  

  

He shared a story from his youth when he was taught by his parents to fear African Americans.  He lived with this fear until one day he found himself in the midst of a fight.  Before he came directly into harms way, six young African American men encircled and protected James from what he referred to "as the potential for the beating of my life."  This selfless act of compassion was a pivotal point in James' life where he chose to walk away from the fearful and prejudicial teachings of his childhood. 

  

  

Rather than living from a place of self-judgement and judgement of others, James lives from a place of evaluating and selecting actions that speak from the divine truth of his being.

  

  

May you feel the love and blessings that you give so freely to us,

Dinah Smiley and James Stone