New Thought spiritual communities like ours this Sunday, July 3, are celebrating Interdependence Day,  a day dedicated to expanding our hearts and therefore our capacity to be in Compassionate Service.   As spiritually aware people, we have come to know that because we are one, giving is receiving.   It feels so sweet to know I have made a difference in someone’s life by my presence.  You may feel this way too.   

This summer, as an active part of Association for Global New Thought’s Season for Humane Service, we are placing our focus on being in service to our friends, family, neighbors, and our extended human family.
Join us this Sunday as we celebrate INTERDEPENDENCE DAY.  Our guest speaker and musician is New Thought professional singer songwriter Elaine Silver RScP who is touring this part of the country.  I have known Elaine for many years and know you will appreciate her warm and engaging presence and her enormous gift for taking you to spiritual heights through music.
 

I have been witnessing something heart-warming and uplifting that I want to share with you.   All around me things are popping.  I am seeing and hearing about a great number of demonstrations of the Great Good of God working in my life, my prayer partner’s life, and in the life of our students and congregation.  I recognize the Oneness of Life, Life is God, the All in All.   God is the Source, Substance, Supply, and Creation as well.  And that Life is an ever-giving presence, pure Unconditional Love.  We are originally blessed.

We save ourselves by being receptive to that Good by allowing it to flow and work through us. The creative process is ever operating in our lives.  Our part is to wake up to this Truth and to create consciously directing our attention to the highest vision for our life that we can glean (and stop focusing on what we don’t like or don’t want).  Our classes are powerful birthing fields for the Universal Human.   

This Sunday we are celebrating our students who have just completed another course of study.   You may have personally witnessed their transformation as result from studying and applying the Spiritual Principles and Practices that we teach in our classes.  What you may have not understood completely is that what happens in our classes is not only personal transformation, there is a deeper sense of connection with the Indwelling Presence of God, powerful new friendships and group support, a deeper sense of community, an greater awareness of Oneness/Interconnection with all life and compassion and desire to be in service to the greater good.  Classes are the fast track to becoming and developing as a Universal Human.    

Join us this Sunday and feel the Spirit!

One of the qualities that I deeply admire in others is generosity.  So I have no doubt that it is in my inherent nature and, guess what, I long to continue to expand into greater and greater levels of Generosity in all its forms of expression.  My desire to express more generosity, I know, has been sparked by the generous people who are in my life.  Have you noticed…generosity abounds in our spiritual community. 

My gift to you is a practice that will surely alter your life.  It is called present moment gratitude.  It is not being grateful for something in your past or that has not manifested yet.  It is being grateful for all the gifts of the present moment.  I recommend that you do this with a friend or family member giving each person 5 minutes.  Notice how you feel before you start and then how you feel after. “I am so happy and grateful for the air I am breathing, for all the functions that my body is silently doing to maintain itself, for the beauty that is surrounding me….”  This will raise your vibration to an all time high!  It will support you in being a vibrational match to the next version of your life.

Gratitude is  way under-rated in its power to shift consciousness and change lives.

Somehow, miraculously, a tiny seed becomes a tree.  It is truly miraculous.  Yes there is a science to it and a Law of Growth and yet I sit in awe and wonder. Combine the intelligence in a seed with air, water, soil, and sun and it becomes roots, a trunk, branches, leaves, and fruit.  The same is true with ideas that we receive.  They are start off as something that is invisible that turns into a visible thing or an experience.    We can take ideas for granted and maybe even ignore them but they are products of the Infinite Invisible Intelligence. It is amazing to me how I pose questions and then ideas come to me. The potential for receiving ideas is endless.  We are surrounded by what Wallace Wattles called “Thinking Substance that fills the inter-spaces of the mind”.   Imagine and feel this Substance.   This thinking substance is the stuff the fills the mold of the thoughts.  A Law of Mind silently turns invisible thoughts into that which becomes our reality.  Amazing! My intention is to support you in mastering the Universal Principles involved that turn dreams into visible, tangible experience.

One morning recently, on the way to my 6 am yoga class, I was pulled over and ticketed by a policeman for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign.  This whole pattern is really a smile – rushing to yoga so I can undo the stress from the drive getting there.  The message: SLOW DOWN and TRUST.  I can see now that an overarching paradigm called “hurrying” had come to the light to be released. Somehow, I had come to believe that I have to rush to accomplish all I desire since after all I am not getting any younger.  My newly emerging more expansive self knows better.  The creative process works better in the atmosphere of patience, trust, and knowing all is working together for my highest good.  My new attitude: ease and grace.

Your perception of absolutely everything is influenced by your vibration.  And your vibration determines how beneficial you are in response to the suffering taking place following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  

We help the Japanese people most by keeping our vibration high which lifts  the collective vibration any time it is dropping. Joining in sorrow and despair lowers the collective vibration and helps no one.  

The mystical teachings and spiritual practices of New Thought Ancient Wisdom/Science of Mind inspire us to raise our vibrational set point and view life from a larger perspective.   “Bad” news is seen as a prayer request,  an opportunity to use the creative power of our thoughts and words to heal conditions and reveal heaven on earth.  As we pray, we move into compassion and service.   

 If I get into awfulizing, I am no earthly good.  So I remember the Spiritual Truth beyond the appearance. I remember that Spirit is all there is and I am a center of Divine operation.  The Power of God can do anything and works through you and me.  I see in my mind’s eye the whole world moving into loving response.  All manner of resources and help appears and Japanese communities are being cleaned up and restored. I know that Universal Mind responds to my word and vision and it is done.

 I encourage you to join me in seeing the highest possibility of God’s Love show up as us, the world, and as the Japanese people.

“What appears without is a reflection of the ‘world within’……Harmony in the ‘world within’ will be reflected in the world without by harmonious conditions, agreeable surroundings, the best of everything. It is the foundation of health and a necessary essential to all greatness, all power, all attainment, all achievement and all success.” – Charles Haanel,  The Master Key System

 This delightful little metaphysical book, The Master Key System, was hidden away for 70 years because the “church” banned it.  Reprinting began again in 2007.  It has been called one of the finest studies on higher consciousness ever written.   Almost every Silicon Valley entrepreneur including Bill Gates made a fortune studying this book.
 

So, my friend, where is your attention and focus?  What is your general mental tendency?  That is what will show up in your life experience because your thought creates your world.  And, you can change your world by changing your thinking one thought at a time.   When you do so, be gentle with yourself.  Gently guide your thoughts into the realm of better feeling thoughts, focusing as much as possible on what you want.  That means complaining, focusing on the problem and telling your story of woe is out.  Talking and thinking about your vision is in.   Experiment with this and see what happens.

Transformation of your life (our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors) requires being conscious.  Let me explain.  Your meditation practices help you to become a master at consciously witnessing your nonresourceful patterns of thought, emotions, and behavior.     Once you do the non-resourceful in conscious awareness, it falls away.

 There are many ways that we go unconsciousness – eating, drugs and alcohol, projection, blaming, spacing out, and distracting oneself in many other ways.  To become conscious, it is important to identify the ways you become unconscious.  As you witness the unconscious behaviors and the thoughts behind them, you will be able to exercise your ability to choose what is resourceful in thought, word, feeling, and deed.   Yes, you can do it!

Expanding in Consciousness,

Rev. Dr. Kathleen Johnson

By email request, I was asked by a friend today to pray for Nine Marines who were killed in Afghanistan.   As I read the names of these young men, all in their 20′s, my heart was touched by the impact this must have on their family and friends.   I was immediately reminded that prayer requests are brought to me so that I can see beyond the appearance to an underlying potential in the Mind of God that is seeking expression. In this case, a more peaceful world. I then dedicated my prayer time to knowing that God as Peace, Power, Wisdom, and Love is in the midst of this situation working to reveal the greater good as peaceful change, prosperity, and harmony among all people including Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Wisconsin, etc. 

 I am grateful for the change in consciousness attuned now to the greater vision of world peace and release my word to the all-powerful action of the Universal Law of Divine Mind. This is Spiritual Mind Treatment, the form of prayer taught in our classes and services.  It transforms consciousness, mine, and therefore all of humanity, because we are one.  As a result, our outer world changes. 

 I know that those young men in Truth cannot die. They are on an eternal journey as individualized expressions of God.  I also know that Gandhi, King, and Chavez, who used vision and non-violent methods, found a better way to bring about change. 

 Join me in using the enormous blessing of spiritual power to call forth peaceful change into being. 

 Peace, Poise, Power,

Rev. Dr. Kathleen

Spiritual Director