The Inescapable Network of Mutuality | Rev. John Riley

Good morning. Well good morning and welcome. I’m Reverend John Riley. Thank you for being here today. As we begin this day, this is the day before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I wanted to take a moment for us to really honor and celebrate the life of a man who created such an impact in our world and who still creates an impact through his Ministry of Love Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.

And I would like to read a quote to you that I found that just really touches my heart and brings this idea, for me, to life. He said, “It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” So, as we take that in, let’s just take a moment of silence as we hold this man and his mission of creating a life that works for all the world that works for all in our hearts, in a moment of silence. And so it is. Amen.

Well, here we are. We are in the — I’m having trouble with that word. What was the word he used? Inescapably — We are in an inescapable network of mutuality, an inescapable network of mutuality and we are, we are together oneness. We are woven together like the fabric of our lives, like the fabric of our experience. And sometimes we don’t always feel that connection with each other. You may be feeling a little bit lonely right now. You may be feeling like, “Where’s the light at the end of the tunnel? Here we are in this experience and when is it going to end?” You may be feeling a little bit of frustration, a little bit of angst not being able to get back to your normal day, your normal life.

In this time what I want to do is really talk about and have a discussion about our foundation, really shore up our foundation of spiritual principle, so that we are standing on solid ground as we continue to move forward.

God Is

So today, we’re going to discuss two principles, the principle of “God is” and “I AM”, two fundamental principles in Unity that help anchor us in that present moment and in this spiritual experience.

I think all of us have this definition, some definition of God that we grew up with. Perhaps it’s the God of our childhood. Each of us, as we were growing up, had some definition that we came to know as we were kids. Maybe it was a definition that came out of a storybook, a picture book, and it fit neatly in a box, nice and tidy, easy for parents and teachers to explain, easy for us to just set aside.

But as time goes on, we necessarily, we need to expand our understanding of this idea. For some even, that idea, that word God, has a meaning to it. It might give you a little bit of indigestion. It might be a little challenging for you. For me growing up, I had kind of both ends of the spectrum. On one side our neighbors, our very good neighbors that we would go out fishing with them and camping with and things, they had a very fundamentalist kind of fire and brimstone view of God. On the other hand, our family, we had very much that Unity principle of God is everywhere present and God is within you. God is within you. That felt comfortable for me. That made sense to me, that God is not some being out there in the sky, but God is within me and all around me. That, in and of itself, was a nice, tidy, little definition of God placed in a box with a bow on it. Even as I went on, I needed a deeper understanding of it.

And I think that’s one of our key purposes here is to really understand and connect with that idea, that principle, that unchanging law of spirituality, of isness, of whatever you want to call it, of divine mind, the universe, Spirit. I think each of us has a word for it and maybe it’s the same word and the shortcut word is God, but that also has that baggage with us. So are we able to set aside our own baggage in order for us to have a greater and seek a greater and expanded understanding?

In Unity, one of my favourite sayings, and the way I like to refer to God, is quoted by Eric Butterworth. He said God is in you but is not hidden in you. It’s not buried somewhere deep in you like the story goes. But it’s all there. It’s in you like the ocean is in a wave. If God is everywhere present, and all around us then each atom in the universe, each molecule in my body, each cell contains the infinite potential that is God. If God is everywhere present and created this universe, this universe got created out of that divine expression, that transcendent God that’s out there, how can we not be part of it? If God is good, how can we not innately be good in ourselves? Sometimes it takes a little effort to bring that out, to draw that out, to find that path, to find our bearings, in this time especially, when things start getting tough.

So, when we look at our definition of God — and we’ve talked about this before; at least I have – this idea of whether you want to call it God or Spirit or divine mind, or divine love, simply the universe, that universal presence, that loving presence, the essence of life. I like the word allness, the allness of life, love and wisdom.

Just take a moment to think about what word resonates with you and hold on to that word for now. We’ll get back to the others later. But hold on to that word now and if you can, if I slip and say a word that doesn’t resonate with you, just translate it for yourself. The reason we want to do that is so that we can open our hearts to a greater understanding, open our minds to a greater understanding because so often when we hear something that we don’t like, we just turn off. We throw the baby out with the bath water, as they say. “All done, see ya. That Riley is great except he is a little cuckoo when he talks about God. Just say Spirit then I’m okay.” So whatever word it is for you, just hold on to that for a moment.

What I want to do is refer back to one of the co-founders of Unity, Myrtle Fillmore, and one of her books. Now Myrtle didn’t write books. She wrote letters. She was — back in the day, I guess that was the Facebook of the day, the Instagram of the day — they were actually letters that she wrote to people all over the world who wrote to her for questions and she wrote back to them and then they took those letters and they created books out of them, really powerful books. One of the things I love about Myrtle Fillmore is, for me, she’s the heart. When we talk about this transcendent God, this isness that’s everywhere present, the allness of all wisdom, it tends to get a little heavy. We tend to get lost in these big words. If we can bring it back to our heart — let’s see if she does this here. This is one of her definitions. She begins with the idea of quoting Jesus, because Jesus said, “God is Spirit.” God is not that being out there looking at us, but God is Spirit that’s among us, that energy that flows through each one of us, in between each of us. God is Spirit, that energy that moves through the universe. “Spirit then is responsible for all that is real.”

Then she says God is love, that harmonizing energy, that creative energy. “Love, then, is then the creator of all that is real.” That energy of love, that harmonizing energy that, that’s our creative power, that energy that flows through us and creates. Of course, hate destroys, but love creates. “That which is not love and by love is not real. God is the only substance. So, God is Spirit. Spirit is the only substance.” Now all that is — sorry she says, “Now all which is”—“Now that which is all must be omnipresent.” That which is all must be omnipresent. “That which is all can have no opposing force so it must be omnipotent. That which is all must contain all wisdom hence it must be omniscient. Allness sweeps to the great circle of eternity and clears of everything but itself. Each one of us is inseparably one with allness, the source and substance of life and wisdom and every good. Each one must draw upon the source for their own sustenance, for their own light, for their own power.” So, that transcendent God that we’re experiencing that’s everywhere present, we must draw upon. It’s not only transcendent; it’s also imminent.

As in Unity, we like to call that, that’s one of the spiritual paradoxes, right? God is transcendent and everywhere present, but God is also within us and present to us and available to us. So, when we go through life we may draw upon those different definitions that we had. Maybe as a child one of my favourite definitions that we had was that God is a loving presence. One of my favourite Unity Ministers, Dorothy Pearson, would always start her prayers with loving presence, that experience, that warmth, that like a warm blanket that covers us, like a being that’s there holding us. And, yes, it anthropomorphises it but sometimes that’s an experience, still an experience of it and sometimes that’s what we need.

So, God can be both transcendent for us as we look at it metaphysically. Metaphysics is simply the study of life, the study of consciousness and how we relate to this that is greater than us. Sometimes we relate to it as transcendent, as on the principle, that non-changing principle of omnipotence, the principle of omniscience, all wisdom. At the same time, we have a personal experience with it. We have a personal experience of asking and listening and being guided. And so, it’s a “both and” and at any given time if you want to look at it as this loving presence that’s comforting you, like the beautiful poems.

As I’m walking down the beach, there are two sets of footprints. When I was really struggling, there’s only one footprint. What happened? Did you leave me? The Lord said no, I was carrying you. Whether you want to anthropomorphise it and look at Jesus as that expression of God, that human being who was our way-shower, that’s okay if it’s helpful and useful for you. But the reason I want to continue to teach and to expand our understanding of it is that it opens more of this divine essence, more of this allness to us, in our daily lives.

So often we’ll hear a phrase and will say, “Nope that’s not it. It’s only this. This is what I’ve experienced therefore that’s the only thing that’s real.” Well, that may be true for you because that’s all you’ve experienced but if you open your horizons a little bit and look at it just a little bit, maybe you’re experiencing an even greater understanding, an even greater feeling of it.

I AM

That brings us to the I AM, the second principle, the foundation that not only God is everywhere present, and we may experience it as a loving presence. We may experience that allness of life. We may experience it as the sunset or the sunrise this morning. In the middle of the night, I woke up a little early. I woke up at four this morning and thinking, “How am I going to explain the allness and all that is. How am I going to do this?” So, I’m like, “All right, Spirit, how am I going to do this?” and right about that time I’m hearing this little tapping. We’ve got a couple cats and I’m wondering if it’s the cat. Nope. More tapping and all of a sudden it is raining. At four in the morning, I’m hearing the rain outside. I’m like, “Oh, yeah, thank you. This is a sign.” Just as I — all of a sudden, I realize I’m listening to my own thoughts go whirling around, and the rain stopped, just like that. I’m like “Wait. Come back, Spirit. You didn’t give me the answer.” So, where’s the answer? Does the answer come from out there or does it come from in here?

In Unity we teach the I am principle. That idea that within you is God. It comes from within you. It may come from outside of you. We think about, “Well, I have a question that I’m posing to the universe. How am I going to move forward?” Then all the sudden, the thing pops up over and over again, the answer. The universe is telling me. Well, the universe may have been telling me or maybe I knew the answer and now I’m seeing it in the universe.

It’s like, I remember when my wife was pregnant with our oldest son, Ethan. All of a sudden, it’s like half of the world is pregnant. You start seeing pregnant people all over the place. It’s like that yellow Volkswagen Bug that I talked about last week. All of a sudden you start seeing yellow cars. Now, whether it’s us attracting ourselves to the thing that we’re looking for for the answer that’s always coming from within, the key here is this. You have all of the power within you that you need. All of the wisdom is available to you if you just broaden your horizons and sit with it in a state of contemplation, and allow it to be. All of that is within you, that power of the universe, that infinite potential is within us. We necessarily limit it because we can’t all be infinite. So, we limit it so that we experience this presence, this being in the universe, in our world here today. “Here’s John Riley, that experience”, because I’ve limited that allness.

Any ideas that come to us necessarily come to us and we limit them based on our filters and then we bring them into presence. But within us lies the power and the access to the wisdom. In Unity we call that the Christ consciousness. We believe that that’s what Jesus really taught for he said that these things that I do you will do, and even greater things you will do.

So, tap into that divine essence within you, that spark, that allness within you, and sit with the allness all around you and see what happens. As you go through this day, I invite you to look around and see the proof of God, the proof of Spirit, the proof of allness all around you. I’m pretty sure what will happen. Like this morning, the sunrise was beautiful, spectacular when I came in this morning. Later on, it looks like right now; it’s just kind of a dull grey, not quite as spectacular. Is that still God? I might look at the trash in the gutters in the street and wonder, “Is that still God?” The wonderful thing about this is that in the I am we have freedom to express ourselves, freedom to expand our understanding so that we can live more fully into it.

So here are some questions that I’d like to invite you to take into a time of contemplation. First off, look at your definition of God, of Spirit, and what does it mean to you. Then look at some definitions that really, you know, don’t resonate with you and expand your understanding of why. Look at the times in your life when you’re really struggling and try to see what part of it is out there that’s creating some struggle and what part of it is in here that’s creating some struggle. See if you can identify the lesson or the message within, encoded within the struggle itself. We take time to do this every day when we intentionally go forward to see if we can see and experience more of God. What happens is that we begin to expand our own sense of self. We begin to have a greater sense of self-compassion, a compassion that goes beyond, you know, what we normally do and it’s actually, if you are able to hold compassion for someone else, it exceeds that even.

We are able to have a deeper knowing of that source of love, that harmonizing, creative power even in the midst of us having a meltdown. The turnaround is faster. You can be that loving presence in the middle of a conflict. And when you’re feeling lonely, when you’re feeling down, when you’re feeling alone during this experience, it enables you to draw from that well within. It enables you to bring forth that experience of love simply by practicing it everyday.

When we realize this experience, we start to begin to become the observer of ourselves. We begin to observe the actions and activities, those automatic behaviours and where we’re edging God out. I would use a different term but edging God out, EGO, ego, is a great acronym so I’m going back to that. Where am I edging God out? Where am I putting this harmonizing principle aside? Where am I putting this inescapable tapestry of oneness aside, that we are all interrelated, as Dr. King talked about. Where am I putting that aside and how is that affecting me?

When we become the observer of that, we can move beyond the static noise that anger creates within us. Those emotions, those negative emotions, create that static that prevents us from seeing that divine essence within the situation, within each other.

So, I invite you this week to really ground yourself in this idea that I am present, that I am present within God and God is present within me. Ground yourself in that idea that, whatever word, whatever experience that we that you’re experiencing at the moment, whether it’s a loving presence, whether it’s a guiding force, whether it’s messages coming to us or going from us, or simply being in awe of the world around us, having an intention to ground ourselves in these two principles as we continue down this path of life in this current life experience.

You can probably listen to this talk ten years from now and even though the current situation will be different, the general situation will still be there. That’s why these are fundamental principles with us. Each one of us must draw upon the source for their own sustenance, and for their own light, and for their own will power. It’s up to you to draw upon it. It’s always present and always available.

I’d like to move to our affirmation now. As we sink into this idea, I’m going to read the affirmation and then invite you to affirm it with me.

I build my foundation on my Oneness with the Allness of life, love and wisdom.

Allow that feeling to really sink in with you as we affirm it. Together:

I build my foundation on my Oneness with the Allness of life, love and wisdom.

And so it is.

I’d like to leave you with this quote from Dr. Martin Luther King when he said, essentially, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.” At the end of it all, love will win out.

So now is our opportunity to anchor ourselves in that idea of God as love, or divine love, as God as wisdom or divine wisdom, as God as Spirit in the allness of life.

Prayer for Protection

And now our Prayer for Protection. Together:

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. I look forward to seeing you soon. Bye-bye.