Please bear with me a little bit this morning as we are having to navigate using different technologies.
So, welcome welcome, welcome to our Sunday Soul Connection and as always, I like to applaud you for taking the next 45 minutes or so out of your busy Sundays as we consciously come into community to deepen in our connection not only with each other but to God Source of all that is, the Core, the Essence that is at the centre of our being.
The quote that I shared with you yesterday, by Zora Neale Hurston struck me when I came across it because it spoke so eloquently to what I had just recently experienced.
She says “Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear, and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom.”
I guess a little bit more added to explain why fear is the beginning of the wisdom and the stones of altars. I recognise as I had experienced, dealing with my own fears that they truly were the altar of deepening in our faith.
I was absent last week because I went away for a friend's daughter’s wedding down in Cornwall somewhere I haven't been to at least 50 plus plus years; and certainly I wasn't driving at the time as I was at school.
It was fascinating. I'm used to driving round London, a little countryside but those lanes and roads of Cornwall was a whole nother level of experience which tested my 45 plus years of driving.
Driving down the narrow lanes with the grass brushing each side of the car; then roads that were so narrow that you wondered how you were going to manage when another car was coming towards you. Then on top of that the dealing with the steep gradients where you felt like the car would roll backwards.
I recognise the fear that was rising within me as I don't do heights and especially when I went to St. Michael's mount, and it was a steep cobble steps, not the usual cobbles but cobble steps that were sometimes 10/12 inches high or more.
I tool my time going up there very very slowly whilst whilst I reached the top and it was a spectacular view the journey up there was not so spectacular. As I navigated my fears climbing the cobble as well as my fears of being so high up, my fears of stumbling and falling.
It was this realisation as she says so eloquently, are the fears that become the stones that build our altars. We're familiar with the story of Jacob after he had disinherited his brother and ran off and then was returning home and was frightened as to how his brother would see and receive Him after he had cheated him.
We know that he spent the night at this particular place where he wrestled with an angel or an expression of God the divine, and he wouldn't let the angel go until the angel blessed him and they wrestled throughout the night. When he woke up the next morning he realised that truly he’d seen the face of God and built an altar there.
I recognise that as we build that altar, that recognition of Something Great, Something Divine that has happened to us, that connection that communication, that awareness of Spirit we truly get to experience our faith growing.
He was then emboldened to go forth and meet his brother. After all the years they've been separated, after all that he had done in cheating him out of his birthright.
I believe that as we look and face our fears and speak to them we grow; because I found myself having conversations when I was fearful in these particular instances that I found myself. Exactly what are you afraid of? You're not afraid of dying? What are you afraid of? What exactly do you think? Do you think God is not here? Do you think God is somewhere far from you? You know, that's not the truth.
So I would affirm as I was driving down and it was early in the morning because I wanted to beat the traffic and I was just feeling tired, or at least the concentration was making me tired. I would be affirm I'm awake, aware and alert. I'm awake. aware and alert; and then when I found myself in this narrow lanes and unprecedented steep hills, I would affirm: I'm calm, courageous and careful. I'm calm, courageous and careful. I would find whatever it was that I was fearful of address and speak to it.
I recognise too often, we don't speak to whatever it is that is niggling at us. Whatever is driving our attention away from our union with the Divine into our union with the ego.
We know that the ego is not a good or bad thing. It simply is. It's a part of who we are, a part of our nature that exists. It exists to allow us to grow, to become more aware, to become more conscious.
It is important that we recognise whether we are plugged into our ego or plugged into our true self so as to know whether we are operating from faith or fear.
I have often said that my journey is no different from yours. I face the same situations. It's just it looks slightly different. But we're dealing with the Divine, the Sacred, we're dealing with God who doesn't know size, doesn't know numbers, doesn't know zeros. It simply knows whether we are operating from faith or fear.
In truth, we know that when we're operating from fear, it's simply that we're having faith in the thing that we don't want to experience. The thing that we are most wanting not to happen. So fear is just faith in the very thing we don't want.
So I believe that as we speak to whatever it is and we address it and are not trying to hide from it, or try and deny it. We move from being reluctant to being un-reluctant and the journey of being faith filled expressions of the Divine Being; un-reluctant to deal with whatever life throws at us, to being un-reluctant to face our challenges to be un-reluctant to not acknowledge the things that hold us down and hold us back, to be un-reluctant to acknowledging we may have messed up.
I believe as the author says that as we look at the things that causes the pain, that causes the suffering, that causes us to fear, they are all invitations to deepening our communion and connection with God in us as us.
When things were fun, loving and happy as it was a wonderful wedding and a wonderful occasion. Yes, I took time to acknowledge and thank God for this opportunity to be in such a wonderful place; but more often or not it was when the things that were most challenging, the steep hills, the narrow lane, the big cobble steps up a steep hill that I realised I needed God the most.
It is in those moments that I realised how much more I need God than in that happy times and the times that I'm dancing and laughing and enjoying. We need God all the time. But more so when we are challenged. When we are conscious that that is the most important time that we need the divine.
Then we can pull out of the egoic trip that we may be on, or that our ego is leading us deepening in our fear and our worry, in our angst and our troubles and bring our attention to God and hand over whatever it is we are wrestling with. We know that God is in that place like Jacob.
Sacred Text
I sought the LORD, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Psalm 34:4
When anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought me joy. Psalm 94:19
It's this realisation, understanding and acceptance. We are never separate from God. The Creator of all that is sustainable, that is the provider of all that is, so for every need and for every concern we can choose to go to God or we can choose to wallow in whatever it is that is fighting for our attention and making us fearful. Ralph Waldo Emerson says it is fear that defeats more people more than anything else in the world.
I have seen I've seen people live life and living in a way that is uninspiring. They hide their dismay, their despair with drinking or doing drugs because the fear of trying something has held them back from doing and living expressing that which they were purposed for. They spend their lives telling me how they had this idea or they thought of doing that, but they never did.
My beloveds, my invitation to you this morning is to speak to your fears and be un-reluctant. Speak to whatever it is that is trying to vie for your attention and distract you from the remembrance of who you are and who’s you are.
Poem": Life doesn't frighten me at all by Maya Angelou
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don't frighten me at all
Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn't frighten me at all.
I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won't cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild
Life doesn't frighten me at all.
Tough guys fight
All alone at night
Life doesn't frighten me at all.
Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don't frighten me at all.
That new classroom where
Boys all pull my hair
(Kissy little girls
With their hair in curls)
They don't frighten me at all.
Don't show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I'm afraid at all
It's only in my dreams.
I've got a magic charm
That I keep up my sleeve
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all.
Story
Science of Mind Reading
All six of my children had been born naturally, in the comfort of our home. I knew the natural ways to induce labor—walking, evening primrose oil, a bowl of pineapple chunks, a warm bath. I was a pro at breathing rhythms and the most comfortable delivery position. By child number seven, I knew what I was doing. But after 35 hours of labor, my home-birth doctor sent me on to the hospital.
“You need advanced medical attention,” he said. “Your labor isn’t progressing.” I didn’t know if I was more disappointed or scared.
My husband, Michael, helped me to our old blue Mercedes van. We’d already made arrangements to deliver our baby at the hospital in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, if I had any complications. The eight-mile drive from our home in Teton Village should have been easy. But a blizzard was underway. As we inched down the winding Rocky Mountain road, the snowfall was so heavy we could hardly see. I had to roll my window down to help navigate just so we wouldn’t slide into a ditch. Meanwhile my contractions were lengthening, the pain more intense.
We pulled up at the hospital entrance just as I didn’t think I could sit in that passenger seat any longer. The staff escorted me to a bed and prepped me for delivery. The whole atmosphere was foreign to me, so sterile and severe. My other births were warm, loving, comfortable. Soothing herbal essential oils burned while Michael held my hand and I knew when the time was right to push. I felt like I was in charge.
Now I anxiously watched the white uniforms moving around and jumped when a nurse ran a cold stethoscope along my belly. Every 30 minutes I was given a shot to progress labor. I could feel the baby’s head pressing on my pelvis. Try to relax, I told myself. I was exhausted. Where to turn to for strength? Dear God, I’m out of my element. Are you here? Like you are in our home?
One of the senior doctors approached. I could tell he didn’t have good news. “You’ll need a C-section,” he said. “We can’t wait any longer.”
There was no time for questions. Nurses rushed me into the operating room. I lay there, helpless. I gripped the sides of the metal bed rail. The anesthesiologist leaned over me and put a mask on my face. I blinked slowly, then closed my eyes.
When I opened them again I was looking down. Below me was a panoramic view of the operating room. There was an awful lot of commotion—beeping machines, clanking metal tools, frantic activity. A woman lay unconscious on the table. She was bleeding badly. Who is this woman? I wondered. What happened to her? “You don’t need to see this.”
A figure moved in front of me, filling my vision. An angel—the most beautiful of angels, dressed in periwinkle garments with pearlescent wings and sea-blue eyes that held me in their gaze.
“Don’t take your eyes off of mine.”
I didn’t blink. I stared deep into those eyes and let peace wash over me like a wave. Then suddenly everything went dark.
I opened my eyes again—white ceiling, bright light . . . Of course, that was me in the hospital bed. I looked around for the angel, but only saw the medical personnel that had gathered in my room.
“Where’s my baby?” I asked. “Did my baby survive?”
Michael stepped toward me holding a bundle. “Meet Isaac Michael,” he said. “Our healthy baby boy.”
I took him in my arms while Michael explained what had happened. When the doctor made the incision for the C-section, he severed an artery. “You were dying right there on the table, Charlene,” Michael said. “It took four blood transfusions to save you.”
In fact, I saw what it took to save me. And I haven’t turned my eyes away since.
BODY MEDITATION
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SUNDAY SOUL CONNECTION PRAYER
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MOVEMENT PRAYER 1
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BUDDHIST REFLECTION
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RUMINATION
“Run from what's comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I'll be mad.” Rumi
Benediction
Mother Father God may we always remember that You walk beside us, each moment of each day. That You know us by name, see each joy and sorrow. You created within us a gentle capacity to love and nurture. You gave us understanding and patience in a troubled world. You laid upon us the responsibility to carry and care for new life. You released us to run and dance, to sing and create. You crafted in us sharp minds that are able to solve problems and see possibilities. You desire each of us to live life to the full, embracing your love for us and extending grace to others. You gave Your life so that we could walk free to build your kingdom on earth as in heaven. May we be fearless in laying our lives before you, trusting in your unfailing love.
We pray that you continue to Guide us, Heal us, Touch us, And lead us, To reflect more and more of your life within our own. Amen.