Chickens

Growing up, my best friend, Debbie's grandparents lived on a farm in Michigan.  During the summer, they would visit them, and I occassionally went also.  To my eight year old eyes they lived and worked a big farm.  It had a large vegetable garden, dozens of cats, dairy cows, pigs, dogs and chickens. 

Her grandfather, wore the blue denim uniform of a farmer and seemed to be endlessly working on a tractor.  Her grandmother was small and round and  seemed to spend her time going between the clothes line, baking, cooking and canning.  There always seemed to be a pie cooling on the window ledge, while she also stopped everything to take care of the cars that honked when they wanted service at her outside fruit and vegetable stand.

One morning, she gave us a basket and shooed us out of the kitchen, telling us to go to the chicken coop and bring back some eggs. Her grandpa told us to be quick about it though as those chickens were just plain nasty.  Excited and dizzy from the heady smells of the barn and the chicken coop in back we had the idea that one of us was to distract the chickens while the other snatched up the eggs.  Yes, they squacked and pecked, but I thought it really was because they were trying to protect their young.

Recently I read an article in Mark Nepo's book Finding Inner Courage, that chickens peck at each other when they don't get enough light.  For many years farmers thought that it was the "nature of chickens" to be nasty, as they were loners and couldn't mingle.  Come to find out, they are nasty when they are cooped up in small spaces and live without much light.

I think our nature is similar.  If we don't allow ourselves time to bathe in the light of love and to refresh ourselves with good food, sunshine, open air, exercise, and building relationships with one another, we start to peck; first at ourselves and then at each other. 
Blessings, Rev Janice

Fifteen Minutes

When I was a child travelling any distance, about an hour into the drive, I would ask the quasi whiny question, "How much longerrrr."   Likewise, when my children were young, they too became resteless  and board in the car and would ask:  "how much longerr?"  The answer was always the same, "just another fifteen minutes."  Then we would play another round of eye spy (this was before the i-pod, i-pad, and entertainment systems in cars).

 But what I didn't realize until later is that that this is a powerful Truth Principle. 

I've been using this fifteen minute tool when those inner thought people chirp "you don't know how to do this," or  "why bother, no one will like it."  and it puts me in the attitude of "nevertheless" I am willing.   I mean, it really helps us if we think we're only going to put fifteen minutes of our time into a project.  

What I've discovered though, is in those fifteen minutes I become engaged in the creative aspect of the job or chore and time is lost to me.  A sense of accomplishment and gratitude for doing this job replaces the whiny anticipatory woe.  

What I've discovered is: working in fifteen minute increments keeps me present to what I am doing, and I find I have so much more energy.  It's worrying about the future or regretting the past is what drains our energy.  Oprah spoke of this fifteen minute idea on on her last program on Wednesday.  She said something like there's nothing you can't endure for fifteen minutes. 

So we have taken the answer to the question "How much longer" and made it into a tool for successful living. "Fifteen minutes."  Fifteen minutes is all you need to do what you need to do to get done what you need to do.    
 Pick one thing and do that, for fifteen minutes, and I promise you will experience timelessness and that feels so good.
   

Devotion

What would it be like if you knew that gratitude, peace and serenity are not just for a chosen few who seem to have their lives all together, but that these qualities are available for everyone to experience!  And, what would you think if restlessness, anxiety or divine discontent are normal symptoms showing that you have tapped into an idea and the aggitation is the idea looking for an open and willing outlet.

There are tools we can use when we notice our thoughts are swinging back and forth from the branch of doubt to fear that will lift us into a spacousness of creative possibility.

Tending our inner garden clears away the debris that is strewn about inside us, so we can have an unconditined and direct experience with life.  Devotional chanting is one tool we can use to keep our energy field clear.  Chanting shifts our attention away from any limiting conversations, and into a communion with life/God/Spirit/Universal Love.  Connected with Source, we cultivate the courage to take the steps necessary to move forward with our dreams.
 
This Sunday, Unity of Fort Pierce will host Swami Ashram who will lead us in a devotional experience of  Lila-Kirtan.   Kirtan is an interactive  mantra meditation session, where we chant the many names of the Divine to musical accompaniment which fills us with a sense of ecstascy.

Join us and learn this tool of Self cultivation
   

Right where I Am, I Pray

When I was in Fort Myers, my friend, Dea, who has since passed, gave me a gift of a little plaque that reads, "prayer changes things."  Many people have a misunderstanding of prayer and believe that prayer changes our external reality, and so they pray for things exterally.  They pray for jobs, healing, relationships.  Then they look around and say, "where is it?" I'm praying, I'm asking and I'm still without the job, the healing, or the relationship. 

We look to scripture, and Jesus tells us "if you have faith and do not doubt...it will be done.  Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive."  (Matthew 21:21). 
Receive when?  Receive how?  Receive where? 

This passage is sharing with us a process.  There is One light, One life, One presence, One power and that is right where we are, right here, right now.  And so we turn within and commune.  We feel a sense of our true spiritual nature building and then we ask what is ours to do in preparing ourselves to receive creative work?  We ask how can I contribute to a healthy lifestyle?   We ask am I being the kind of person that I would like to meet? 

Praying for things, as Joel Goldsmith says, is praying amiss.  For it's practicing the absesnce of God.  Prayer, indeed changes things, because it clears the lens through which we are looking.
Right here, right now, right where I am, I pray!
Blessings, Rev Janice

Are you Listening?

I quit smoking about 30 years ago.  It was one of the most difficult and rewarding experiences of my life.  I thought: "if I can quit smoking, I can do anything."  I went to a support group called Smoke Enders, which put us through a process of noticing and changing our habitual patterns. 

One evening, the people went around sharing the reasons why it would be so difficult to quit.  One man said he would be able to quit if his job wasn't so stressful.  A teen said: "School was really challenging with all the papers," and a woman said: "If I had a job outside of the home and could get some help with from her husband, with the house and taking the kids everywhere it would be easier to quit."

The common theme that runs through these stories is they were listening to their monkey mind.  That part of the mind that swings from doubt to fear and wants to keep you in limitation, addicted to smoking, to drinking, to gambling, to anything that will distract you from listening to your Higher Self. 

Another name for the Higher Self is your Soul, which always wispers, I am with you,  you can do this, you are amazing, I love you.  Are you Listening?