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What Love Builds: The Spiritual Power of Divine Love
Power comes first, our internal spiritual power. Practice comes second, putting that power into action, and then celebrating. Celebrating the good that we are creating in our life, celebrating that change, celebrating that growth, that opportunity for us to move into that, and we celebrated with UPA Day.
Now raise your hand if you were here for UPA Day. All right. Now by a show of your clapping, how was UPA Day?
If you’re online, you know, put in the chat, “I was at UPA Day.” That experience of coming together and celebrating our spiritual community. But what’s interesting is that spiritual practice or that spiritual experience that we had last Sunday didn’t just happen. Love built it.
Love built it through the energy of many people’s hands, through the energy of many people’s thoughts and ideas, through the energy of us coming together and being a part of that, and we’re gonna talk about that in just a little bit.
But what we experienced, we experienced the decorations, the food. Yes? Yes. The music, the games, the sharing of community. We celebrated each other, the people. We celebrated the experience of being a spiritual community. And beneath everything, beneath everything we could see, countless acts of love were occurring.
Countless acts of love that we could see and not see.
Love Is a Creative Spiritual Power
Love builds. Love is a creative force and energy that builds within us. It is the energy that we use to shape substance with our faith.
Love builds relationships. Love preserved this spiritual home that we have here today.
Love welcomes new people. Love carried this community through a number of changes over the last 10 years. And love fills the room for what is emerging.
Love goes before you in everything that you’re doing. As you’re moving into some new experience, it’s love that’s showing you, that’s lighting the way.
Your faith is what’s saying, “Yes, I’m gonna move even though I can’t see the edges.” Your spiritual strength and your will move every step, every foot. And love is that energy that guides us, that paves the way or smooths the way in front of us.
What Unity Teaches About Divine Love
Now, in Unity we believe that love is not limited to affection or emotion.
Yeah, love is a divine capacity within us. I often refer to God as divine love. That is one of my favorite ideas about God. This, the Allness of life expressing as divine love.
Love is the capacity within us to express that harmony, to express that kindness and compassion, to be a part of that joy, to say yes to that celebration and show up for it in whatever way it shows up.
And that power draws together, it harmonizes, it unifies, and it creates this idea of connection.
It creates this condition for community.
“Above all, clothe yourself with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
Colossians 3:14
Clothe yourself in love. Get up in the morning and put on that coat of love. Because the first thing you need to do is love yourself, is allow that love in your heart to come in for you, to be that presence, to be that power within you, for you to say, “I’m worthy, I’m welcome.”
Love Does Not Require Agreement
Affection is something we may feel, and agreement is something that we may share, but love is a spiritual capacity that we choose to express.
That capacity is always present and always available, and we can choose to express it in our daily life. We don’t have to agree with everyone in order to express that love.
We don’t even have to feel warm affection for everyone in order to express that love. We can simply be present to that love within us, that harmony within us, and that love begins with our willingness, our willingness to recognize the divine life in another person, our willingness to recognize even though we may not agree, even though we may not have any affection, recognize that there is a presence greater than that person, that there is a presence.
And you may call it the Christ consciousness, you may call it the higher self, you may call it that divine essence. Even if you can’t see it in someone else, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
If we don’t get worried about that, we can still have that idea of love for ourselves, that presence for ourselves, and allow ourselves to come and be present.
Love Sees Connection Where We See Separation
Because love sees connection where the human need sees only separation. Our human mind sees only separation between us and them, but love sees a connection, a possibility.
And we recognize that when we can recognize that divine potential within each one of us.
So when we come from that experience, when we come from that idea of love, love asks the question, what can be healed?
What can be healed in me?
What can be healed in me that I need to let go of, or I need to give myself a little bit of love? How can I lift myself up?
What can be healed in the relationship, in the interaction? What can be healed in our planet? What can be better understood?
How can I understand somebody a little bit better, and look at them, and hear what they’re saying so that I can have a greater understanding for who they are, maybe have a little bit more compassion for them?
What can be brought together?
Because not everything can be brought together. We’re all one, but in our human experience, there are some things like two ends, polar ends of a magnet, they just won’t go together.
Have you noticed that? Have you noticed anything in your life that’s just, like, going like that every time you’re trying to connect?
There’s that experience because we are outside of love. We’re not allowing that energy to flow, and sometimes it’s okay.
Sometimes it’s time for us to move to a different experience in life.
What Is Seeking to Emerge Through You?
What can be brought together? What is seeking to emerge through us? What is seeking to emerge through us?
As Margo was saying this morning, “I’m ready for my change.” How many of us are ready for change? A lot of us. How many of you love change? A lot of us love change, yeah.
And yet we’re still grounded in our cement boots in the past, sometimes.
When we’re ready for a change, love says what is seeking to emerge through us.
And when we look at that, we have the ability to draw that forward and to bring that forward.
Love Builds Trust, Safety, Belonging and Possibility
Love does not merely comfort, and sometimes that’s what we think. “Well, someone loves me, therefore I’m comforted. I feel discomfort if someone doesn’t love me, or if I don’t have love coming to me from somewhere else out there, I’m not comforted.”
Or we put our idea of comfort from love coming out there.
But love is an internal comfort. Love comes from the inside out.
But love isn’t merely comfort, it’s also constructive. It builds, it creates. It builds trust and safety, belonging, and possibility, and it builds our future.
So as we are in that idea of love, that idea of the divine power that draws us together, if we’re in that idea, then we’re more open and receptive to what is.
We’re more open and receptive to what is emerging within us, what is emerging outside of us. And we’re working more in harmony with that.
Four Things That Block the Expression of Love
So if love is the divine power that draws us together, then it’s important to become aware of what pulls us apart, right?
Anybody agree with that? They’re like, “Oh, man.” What blocks the expression of love?
So I have four blocks for us, and then I have four remedies for us. What blocks love? That divine energy that’s always flowing, that’s always there, but in my consciousness I’m blocking it.
1. Fear
The first block is fear.
Now, take a nice deep cleansing breath, and the reason I say that is because sometimes that word gets us a little tense, so that cleansing breath will allow us to relax.
Fear is often misunderstood. You may have heard it said that fear is but an illusion and a choice. But fear is also a messenger.
Most of us stop at the feeling. I’m feeling fear, that’s as far as I wanna go. I’m making fear the enemy and I’m pushing fear away.
Why?
I’m stuffing fear down because it’s uncomfortable. Because fear prevents me from being seen. Fear prevents me from taking risks, making choices, of being out there.
Fear also protects me. It protects me from actual danger, and in those cases, whenever that occurs, it’s important to have fear.
The fear initiates our sympathetic nervous system, our fight, flight, freeze, or please mode comes into play so that we can be safe, so that we can react in a way that’s gonna keep us safe.
But most of the time, the danger isn’t real. Most of the time, the danger is imagined. It’s being generated in the mind from a belief.
What lies behind the fear is a belief that we’re holding onto.
All of those beliefs that we’re holding onto we can meet, as Jho talked about in The Daily Word. We can bring out to the light and meet it and see where is this belief at, and is this belief true?
The belief then creates stories. We create stories around it. The stories create more fear, and we’re in that loop.
Anybody experienced that before? That crazy fear loop.
And in that sense, it is 100% an illusion because that fear is created in our own mind and in our own belief. It’s an illusion that comes from that belief, belief like I’m not enough, there will never be enough, I don’t belong, I’m going to lose something, I will not be heard, I will not be valued.
It contracts our awareness. Our fear contracts our awareness. It makes us draw inward and stay focused on that one thing, that story.
It puts us in that mode where we resist change. We’re not ready for it, we’re resisting it. We’re withholding generosity. We’re assuming the worst.
We’re getting defensive. We’re throwing a little lob back. We’re calling out somebody for saying there’s only five principles when there are only five core principles. That’s fear, and that’s what I was experiencing.
When we’re in the fear, when we’re allowing the stories and the beliefs to drive us, the message of fear is lost.
Fear does not make us bad. It shows us where love is asking to heal something within us. Fear is showing us something inside of us that needs to be healed.
What a great message to receive.
Fear builds walls around what it believes must be protected. Love opens the door and asks, “What is possible? What can be healed in this moment so that we can move beyond the stories and move beyond our fear?”
2. Unhealed Hurt
That’s block number one.
Block number two, unhealed hurt. Past disappointment can become a filter through which we interpret the present.
We may no longer be responding to what is in the moment. We’re not really responding to that, but rather we’re responding to what happened a year ago in another relationship, in another situation, in another community, in another season of life.
And when an old wound is making the decisions, love has very little room to speak.
Our mind is so caught up in that story that we can’t hear love coming in at all.
3. The Need to Control
Block number three, the need to control.
Control says that people, circumstances, the future must conform to your expectations in the current moment. Everything that’s happening must conform to what I want it to be.
And that’s where the need for control comes into play. I need to control it before I can feel safe.
Love has direction and discernment. So as we’re looking at what we’re seeing out there and wanting to control something, love actually opens us up to new possibilities, opens us up to saying, “Okay, what is true here? How can I look at this a little bit differently?”
But it doesn’t demand that everything remain familiar. It doesn’t demand that everything be my way.
It allows for things to be as they are and gives me the opportunity to move forward in a new way, in a kind way, in a constructive way, in a productive way, rather than in a defensive way.
Sometimes we love what a community has been so deeply that we struggle what love is trying to become.
Sometimes we love what a relationship has been so deeply that we struggle to what love is trying to become in that relationship.
Sometimes we love an experience so deeply from the past that we struggle to live in the present moment and experience something new or different.
4. Judgment
The fourth block is judgment.
Judgment is especially powerful because it can disguise itself as wisdom. It can disguise itself as discernment, as righteousness, as right thinking, as, “You know, I’m just telling the truth. These are just the facts.”
Are they the facts or am I adding judgment to them?
Judgment reduces a whole person to one behavior. Judgment reduces a whole person to one opinion, to one mistake, to one category.
I know who you are, I know what you did, I know what’s wrong with you, I know who belongs and who does not, I know how to fix you.
Judgment vs. Spiritual Discernment
Discernment allows us to evaluate what is a healthy, appropriate, and aligned experience, what is an aligned thought.
Judgment assigns diminished value to the person, where discernment and love opens us up beyond what we’re seeing, beyond appearances, so that we can see something greater.
Discernment says this behavior is harmful, but judgment says this person is the problem.
Discernment creates healthy and wise boundaries, while judgment creates separation. A boundary isn’t a separation, a boundary is a healthy experience.
Judgment cannot build belonging because judgment is always deciding who is worthy of belonging.
The moment I reduce you to my judgment of you, I stop encountering the fullness of who you are.
This doesn’t mean we tolerate harmful behavior, abandoning boundaries, or pretending differences don’t matter.
Love can be clear. Love can say no. Love can be a boundary and hold people accountable, hold myself accountable.
But love refuses to deny another person’s spiritual identity.
And those are the hard parts, and I believe that all three of those, the last three, all relate to fear, back to fear of not being enough, not being worthy, not being welcome, and that creates all of these other blocks to love.
Four Spiritual Practices for Clearing the Blocks to Love
1. Practice Awareness
So clearing block, how do we clear it? Here’s step number one.
The first step is awareness. Notice what’s active within you.
Am I responding from love or kindness or compassion, or am I responding from fear?
Am I reacting to this moment from an old wound?
Am I discerning a behavior or condemning a person?
Which one am I doing? How am I being with somebody? What story am I telling about them? And is that story actually true?
2. Return to Your Spiritual Identity
Number two, return to your own spiritual identity. Return to yourself. Return to the love within you. Return to that sense of safety and security, that divine essence that’s within you.
Before trying to change another person, remember who you are.
I’m an expression of divine love, and I have the capacity to meet this moment with a higher consciousness.
Then extend that same spiritual recognition to the other person.
You are an expression of divine love, even if I don’t agree with you, even if we’re throwing rocks at each other.
If I can get out of that cycle, then I can see that divine love, create a healthy boundary, and move forward.
I have the capacity to meet this moment from a higher consciousness and then extend that same spiritual recognition to the other person.
Divine life in me beholds divine life in you.
And sometimes that’s all that’s needed for forgiveness, just that idea.
You know, I don’t agree with you. I’m not gonna put myself in the situation. Here’s my healthy boundary, and divine life in me beholds the divine life with you, and so it is.
Divine love heals.
3. Replace Judgment With Curiosity
Number three, become curious.
Judgment closes the conversation. Curiosity is an opening.
Replace what is wrong with them, what is wrong with the situation, to what might I not understand?
What might they be carrying?
What is this moment asking of me?
And what would love be here?
What would love build here?
4. Choose One Act That Builds
The fourth is choose one act that builds. So this is our assignment this week.
Love becomes real through expression.
It could be as simple as making that phone call, offering an apology, releasing a story, welcoming someone new, listening without preparing a response, expressing appreciation, serving, giving, forgiving, setting a loving boundary and participating in building a future.
Every act of love becomes building material for us.
Every act of love becomes the energy through which we can build a new world.
“The love we need is not absent. It’s waiting to be awakened within us.”
Myrtle Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement
And we awaken it through our awareness, we awaken it through our acceptance, accepting it and experiencing it and then expressing it.
Look What Love Built at Unity Palo Alto
Now in a few moments we’re gonna look back at UPA Day. So I want you to watch, we have a little video, and I want you to look beyond the activities that you’re seeing and look for the expressions of love.
This is UPA Day.
Look what love built. Look what we all built together, yes? Yes.
Let us thank everyone who, and bless everyone who came together to create this experience, from the food to the music.
If you’re a part of Unity Palo Alto, and serving as a volunteer, please stand up so we can recognize you.
If you were part of the welcome team, please stand up, and the hospitality team, please stand up. And keep standing.
If you were part of people dancing and singing to create Unity Palo Alto today, please stand up.
If you were blowing bubbles, please stand up.
If you were sharing a meal, sharing a conversation, if you were a part of one with each other, please stand up.
If you were at Unity Palo Alto today, please stand up.
Let’s give each other a big round of applause.
And now let’s bless each other and bless all of these wonderful people who created this experience, and bless our spiritual community by saying:
I love you, I bless you, I appreciate you, and I behold the light in you.
And so it is.
This Is What Love Builds
This is what love builds.
“Let all that you do be done with love.”
1 Corinthians 16:14
Affirmation for Divine Love and Belonging
Let’s move to our affirmation. I’m gonna read our affirmation and then invite you to affirm it with me.
Divine love lives in me, clears every barrier, and builds my world of belonging.
Together:
Divine love lives in me, clears every barrier, and builds my world of belonging.
And so it is.
Let’s take that into our time of meditation and affirmative prayer.
With Rev. John Riley and music by Danielle Kane and Russell Norman on piano.
Full Sunday Service: