Is It Possible to Win in Life? | Rev. John Riley

What a joy it is to be with you here today, during these times of change. Has anybody noticed? Nah. It’s normal, right? It’s normal. This last month we’ve been focusing on how we can navigate through all of this change, through all of the concerns, the crises, the change, the challenges, the circumstances that come up, all of those things that are bubbling up in our lives. We’ve been navigating through that.

Living Through the Challenges in Life

And this month, what’s come to me is going beyond that activity of doing and navigating and, rather, get into the sense of being. So, what do we need to be? How can we be in this time during the circumstances that will come and go, because they are temporary, yes? Three of you agree. The rest of you, you are in the right place. They are all temporary. All of these circumstances are temporary as we move through these challenges in life. The whole question is, how do we live through them? What must we be? And today we are going to focus on being present. 

Now, raise your hand if you have ever won something in your life. Almost everybody. Yeah, I remember when I was in — this would have been in Anaheim, down in southern California. I think I was in third grade when, during October, we would have a whole celebration at school. They would set up — all of you remember those ping pong ball tosses — and you’d win stuff. I won a goldfish. You laugh at my goldfish. I don’t understand. This was a prized possession in third grade. This was like yes, I got my goldfish. I tried for three more and my mom was like, oh thank goodness I only won one. 

But this is how I felt. Have you ever felt that way? It’s funny because somebody sent me this photo after the service last Sunday. I guess they had taken a picture while they were watching online and I’m like, whoa, I remember feeling that way last week. I remember feeling that way when I won that goldfish. I remember feeling that exuberance, that excitement, that being present, that being available in that moment. It’s like I want to be that way all the time. Anybody want to be that way all the time? Well, let me tell you, it gets a little tiring. It’s a lot of energy being spent there. That is what I discovered. 

But what I also discovered is, there are times in these challenges when I am not feeling that way and I am wishing that I could feel that way. How many times do we find ourselves struggling in life? We find ourselves thinking about a story, something that happened in the past or some situation, some circumstance that happened in the past and then all of a sudden, we realize we are just ruminating on it. We are reliving it; we are telling the story in our minds. It’s like 3D. How many times have we sat there and thought about the future and said, “Oh my gosh how the heck am I going to get through this? When am I going to get my third shot? When am I going to be done with masks? When am I going to get back to being normal? When is my life going to be different?” Have you ever experienced that? 

At some point in your life, we have had this idea that we are so tied up in the past and we are so tied up in the future but it’s all unconscious. It’s just, things pop up and all of a sudden, we are struggling with the past. We are reliving the past and we know from science that is exactly what happens; when we go into that story mode, we are actually reliving whatever the trauma was. We are reliving the challenges. We are bringing it back up for us in our body physically and in our mind just as if we are there at that moment. 

Then when we are worried about the future – “What’s going to happen to our future? Are my kids going to be able to go to school? Are they going to be okay? Is Ethan going to be okay playing football? Is Megan going to be okay dancing? What’s going to happen with my job in the future? Am I going to stay home? Am I going to go back? Do I have a job? What is going to happen in my retirement? I’ve been stuck, stuck in this house all the time. When am I going to be able to get out and travel and feel comfortable with it?” All of those concerns, all of those energies — that is us bringing to mind all that trauma and drama in the present moment. It’s like I’m living the experience of the past and projecting it onto the future. Then when I move into the future, it’s like, “Well, we can’t do that. That’s too hard; can’t do that. COVID.” So, we are conditioning ourselves for the future. 

Living in the Present Moment

So, the idea is to live in the present moment. And we know that. We have heard that. Anybody not heard that? Okay, we have all heard that. We have to live in the present moment. What does this really mean? I love this quote from Mother Theresa, where she says, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not come. We only have today. Let us begin.” 

Let us begin. The challenges aren’t that we are living so much in the past. The challenge is that we are doing it unconsciously. 

There are some benefits to looking at the past. Have you ever heard the phrase, “if we don’t remember the past or know the past, we are doomed to repeat it”? So, there is some benefit in knowing the past. There is some benefit about looking at the future. There is some benefit if we are actually going to go take that trip to Hawaii. What do we want to do? Let’s get the kids to figure out what they want to do. That makes it easier on the adults. What are we going to do for that project? How are we going to start planning for what’s to come, whether I am going to come back to work or not? How are we going to handle our employees? How are we going to handle and manage our boss? That is a bigger challenge. 

All of those things can be beneficial if we do it from a state of conscious understanding that we are living in the present moment, conscious understanding that we are here right now and we are leveraging the past and we are leveraging the future to create our present moment. So here is an example. There are many times when we do meditation when we do what is a heart coherence. If you are familiar with heart math you will know it’s the idea of breathing into our heart space and bringing to mind and generating a feeling of appreciation for life, a feeling of gratitude for life. And sometimes what we do is we resource the past. We look back to past experiences that brought us great joy. In fact, we did it last week. We looked back to see when we have experienced that sense of I AM available and brought that to mind. That is called resourcing our past. When we are doing that consciously it can be very beneficial. 

When we find ourselves wrapped up in the story of the past, when we all of a sudden discover, oh my gosh, I am creating that drama all over again right in my mind, it’s that awakening when you say, “oh, I am in the past” that brings you back to the present moment. 

So now you can use whatever you were thinking about to create something different. When we are looking at the future and what we are planning on doing, we can remember what a great time we had the last time we went on that trip, what a great wonderful experience that we had as a family, and what it’s like to come together as a family. So, what might that look like as we go forward in the future? As we are looking at it from that perspective in this present moment, we are being present while planning or resourcing, and we are bringing all that consciously into our present experience. Consciously. 

So, what happens when you discover that you are having that experience in the past? Well, not only are we experiencing change and conflict and circumstances in the outer and in our inner mind, but it is also the opportunity for us to change our thinking about it. 

Now, that is the challenge because ego does not like change. Ask your ego, “Do you like change? Do you like it when I switch from, I don’t know, strawberry ice cream to chocolate ice cream?” or vice versa. Or, if you don’t eat ice cream, non-dairy desserts. There are things in life that we struggle with. The ego does not like change. 

Change Your Thinking

Father Richard Moore, in his book The Naked Now, wrote, “did anyone ever tell you that Jesus’ first message in the gospels, which is usually translated as ‘convert, repent or reform’ is actually from the Greek word, botonia, boton” — Oh gosh, I blew that one. I don’t speak Greek very well. Metanoia – the Greek word metanoia which literally means change your mind.” Change your mind. Jesus’ very first lesson to us was to change your thinking, to realize that as you change your thinking the world will open up to you. As you change your thinking about the world and what is happening, you will experience a greater sense of helpfulness and abundance. Change your thinking. 

So, when you discover that you are ruminating about the past – “I can’t believe that he or she said that to me today. I can’t believe that last week, they are still holding that against me. I can’t believe what that person said in the news today. I can’t believe what is going on here.” – when you find yourself all of a sudden circle swimming in that past, where the past is now driving you, that first awakening is like “oh, here I am”. 

So, one question could be, “what can I learn that I haven’t learned yet from this experience?” I have been practicing with these through the week and I’ve tried different things, so I want you to be very specific about what words you are using and then identify what is working for you and what is not. I started with, “what do I need to learn from this?” as if I have never learned anything yet. Instead, it is, “What more can I learn? I’ve learned a ton. It’s coming back. What else can I learn from it? How can I look at this a little differently?” The beauty of asking the question is that it automatically changes you from this victim mode to this curious mode. All of a sudden you become curious. What else is in it? What else can I use here? What is useful to me? 

Thinking About the Future

If you are thinking about the future, you might come up with questions. I wrote a few down here. You might come up with questions like how do I want to be during this experience of the future? If there is something out there that I am dreading, some interaction, some experience, something out there that I am not looking forward to, well, what do I want to be? How do I want to be in that experiences? It calls back to that idea of values. What spiritual values do I want to express, that we talked about last month. How will it show up? And then picture yourself expressing it, and showing up as love, showing up as faith, showing up as confidence, showing up as authentic. Really picture yourself and resource that skill so that you are projecting into the future that idea, that energy that you are here as a present being, you are the bringer of peace, you are confident, you are present to Spirit. You are expressing it. 

Can you see how that might be a little more useful? Just simply by asking that question and that shifts our consciousness. I realized, gosh when I was in it, even in the present moment. Let’s see if there is a present moment circumstance and I was getting frustrated. It’s like okay, I started with ideas like “what good can I find out of this?” So “good” was not the right word for me. Because “good” sets a level, has an expectation — it’s going to be happy, it’s going to be joyful, it’s going to be ooey-gooey, it’s going to be nice. Uhhh, yeah. That wasn’t possible in my consciousness at the time so “good” was off the list. “How can I get the best out of this situation?” Oh nope, that didn’t work because “best”, again, led to, “Oh I’m good. I’m worthy. I’m rich and wealthy”. I am whatever the situation is. So then what it became for me is “how can I get the most out of the situation?”, and for me that worked. 

One, it was the question. It shifted me out of the complaint. It shifted me literally. I could feel the energy. I’m frustrated and just getting “ugh”. It’s like, what can I get out of it? What can I get out of it? What is the most I can get out of this? All of a sudden, I shifted from that frustration immediately to curiosity, which led me into thinking of pulling out those resources – “What spiritual practice? What spiritual quality? What spiritual value? How do I want to be in this situation right now? What can I manage to get into?” Even just that shift to curiosity lifted me up, so that I can be present. 

You Must be Present 

You must be present in order to forgive. You must be present in order to feel that surge of Spirit through you. You must be present in order to receive the gift of knowledge, to receive the gift of inspiration, to receive the gift of here is your next step. But you must be in the present moment. 

If you are concerned or wrapped up in the past you will miss it. All of those things that we have been praying for and looking for and wanting to draw to us in our lives have come and gone because we were just not present. When you become present you begin to see the new wants in the world. When you become present you begin to feel the breeze on your face as you are standing in your backyard. Become present so you can see the changing of the colors on the leaves just right outside this room. Check it out when you leave. 

When you become present you can be with someone and really be with them and understand them and not be clouded by your unforgiveness, not be clouded by the past, not be clouded by your concerns about who is going to do the dishes tonight. Be present in this present moment. And as you are, the way opens up, the way shines upon you. 

It’s like that candle. It just comes to life and all of a sudden you see it and now you have the capacity to reach for it, to move in that direction. There are times — there is one more question I want to get out there –when I am so wrapped up in the past, I am so wrapped up in the story and I do this sometimes when I wake up with dreams that are just like whacko, I will do this with an idea and say “Okay, I’m done with this”. I set it aside. I’m just done with it. I’m finished. I just decide I am finished with it. Then I move on. 

It’s different from saying, “I never want to see this again. I never want to feel this again.” You crumple it up and stick it in your back pocket. Then we go to lunch and we are like, “what is in my back pocket?” Then we carry that throughout our day and our hips get out of joint and our back starts aching all because we are saving, we are holding on to those stories. We are not saying “I am finished”. When we say “I don’t ever want to see this again”, we are resisting it and what happens when we resist something? It persists, in my back pocket, over and over again. 

“I am just finished. I am done.” Can you sense a different sense of energy there? “I don’t want to feel this again” versus “Oh, I am done with this. That’s it.” It’s a brushing away of the cobwebs. I’m done with it. The idea pops up again. Oh, nope, I am still done with it. There it is. I am just letting it go. I am setting it aside. I am putting it in the finished pile so that I don’t have to pick it up again. 

As we let go of our hold on the stories that are playing about our past and our future, we come back to the present moment. And in this present moment is where we live and have our being. In this present moment is the only real thing that is. So, let’s be present to what is. 

Each Day a Change

I want to end with a poem from my mom’s book, Colour This Day Beautiful, which will be available in the bookstore at some point whenever our bookstore is open. We are thinking Oct. 31st maybe, Mary? Oh my gosh, there I said it. She gave us two thumbs up so it’s a go. 

Each Day a Change

What can I bring to this day that is good and true? 

What can I give of myself? What can I give to you? 

I will bring to this day an open heart, 

Acceptance and thanksgiving. 

And give to myself some time apart, 

for peace-filled inner living. 

I will bring to this day an open mind,

And a willingness to see 

That what I have to give to you

Is a warm and loving me. 

It’s only when we live from that present moment can we give that love. It’s only when we live from that present moment, from this present moment, can we experience that inner peace, can we express that infinite love, can we be at one. 

Our affirmation for today — pardon me as I get my clicker — our affirmation for today is on the screen. I am going to read it once and then invite you to affirm it with me. 

I AM joyfully present to the infinite flow of life, love, and wisdom in my life!

Would you affirm that with me? Together:

I AM joyfully present to the infinite flow of life, love, and wisdom in my life!

Prayer for Protection

And now our Prayer for Protection:

The Light of God surrounds us;

The Love of God enfolds us;

The Power of God protects us;

The Presence of God watches over us;

Wherever we are, God is!

And, all is well.

Love and blessings everyone. Have a wonderful week. Namaste.