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A Celebration of Spiritual Community — Transcript

From Belonging to Celebration

Two weeks ago we talked about this idea that joy in our hearts beginning with belonging, that idea of can I be myself, and can I allow myself to receive belonging, to be seen, to be supported, to be loved?

And then we talked about the practice of becoming community, of taking that power of belonging, that power of love, that power of support, and then giving that to someone else. Can I be the presence of belonging for someone else? And today, the third step, we celebrate. We take a moment to pause and celebrate this spiritual community.

Now we’re celebrating not because we are perfect. We’re celebrating not because every dream that we’ve ever had has been fulfilled or there’s nothing left to become, but rather we’re celebrating because Spirit is here. We’re celebrating because Love is here. The harmonizing, healing energy of Spirit that moves in, through, and as each one of us is here, is moving, is present.

And we’re celebrating because we have developed and we are expressing a deep prayer consciousness here, a deep oneness with that Presence and Power. And we’re celebrating because these wonderful people are here. And we’re celebrating because transformation is happening. That is our purpose.

We’re here to inspire people to spiritually transform their lives and to make a positive difference in the world, and that is happening, yes? Yes. So today, we bless what is here as we become what is next. Celebration is not just a party, although we’re gonna party today. Uh-oh.

Thank you for coming to UPA Day, our second annual, celebration of our spiritual community. There’s gonna be a lot of fun after the service. If you’re new here, we’ve got a barbecue, we’ve got, music, we have karaoke, we have games, we have a raffle, we have, a paint, throwing exhibition where we’re all gonna come together as a spiritual community to create a wonderful piece of art out in the courtyard.

There are just so many ways in which we’re celebrating our spiritual community today. Celebration is a form of gratitude. Celebration is an active form in which we are saying, “I see the good, I bless the good, and I give thanks for the good.” In Unity, we have only five core principles and a, a whole bunch of spiritual practices that help us realize those principles in our life.

And one of those practices is looking for the good in whatever situation you are in, looking for the good in the moment. And it’s not ignoring what’s going on. It’s not being in denial or bypassing anything, but rather it’s a spiritual practice and it’s a spiritual discipline that we can create, that we can develop within us.

When we celebrate, we train our consciousness to perceive the presence of God. We train our consciousness to perceive the movement of spirit in our life already happening, the expression of love that’s moving in, through, and as us. We train ourselves to experience and see that. To focus on what is missing, the missing becomes larger in our awareness.

Have you noticed that? When you focus on what’s not going right in your life, that becomes your world. That becomes the lens through which you see, your bias through which you enter in every other experience in life. So to focus on the good, we’re acknowledging that stuff happens ’cause it’s life, yeah? In life, stuff happens, right?

And in that stuff, there is some good. So our practice is to focus on the good, and celebration is that gratitude made visible. It’s bringing that gratitude into the open to say, “Yes, here I am. I’m accepting this good, I’m focusing on this good, and I’m celebrating that good.” The Psalmist says, “This is the day that the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Celebration is that gladness being put into action and being brought forward and displayed and experienced in life. Now, spiritual community matters because we’re not designed to live in isolation.

Our nervous system is built around connection, and something in us begins to settle when we feel safe, when we feel welcomed, when we feel seen, when we feel like, we are a part of something that’s bigger than our own individual concerns, that there’s a greater presence and power and greater movement in the universe, and I’m a part of that.

And that’s really what UPA Day is all about. When we gather to share, when we gather to celebrate in shared joy, when we gather to celebrate in that gratitude, celebrate with music and prayer and food, and feeling that joyfulness being expressed as Deborah sang about. Joy, joy, joy being expressed in every aspect of our life.

Shared Joy and the Experience of Oneness

When we’re celebrating, we’ve given ourself an embodied experience of the Truth that we teach, an embodied experience of Oneness. In Unity, as Jho said, we teach that there’s only One Presence and One Power active in our lives and in all the universe. There’s only One Presence moving in, through, and as us, around us.

That’s God, the Good, Omnipotence. Whether you call it God or the Universe or Divine Mind or Allness or the Force or the Isness, whatever that is that you call that, that essence is all that where there is and we are one with that. There’s no separation. Spiritual community gives us a place to feel and experience that Truth.

It’s not just a phrase that we think about and we say and we believe in it, and then we go off during the week and we pretend none of that exists when we go to work or when we’re driving in cars or when we’re connecting with people, right? We forget about it. But the reality is it is still present.

It is still operational. And spiritual community gives us the ability to be together and to practice that principle, to practice that Oneness. Belonging is not just an idea that we hold in consciousness. It’s an experience that our whole body experiences. It’s something that our whole consciousness experiences when we open ourselves up to that idea of Oneness, to that idea of belonging in love, belonging in the Allness, belonging with one another.

Shared joy helps the body remember what the soul already knows. I’m not alone. I’m worthy. I’m welcome. I’m a blessed presence in the world. Your soul, your- your higher consciousness knows that, and sometimes we forget. Sometimes our little ego, our little mind takes over. Our little mind starts driving the bus.

Anybody have that experience of the little mind driving the bus over the cliff?

The little mind is meant to be a co-pilot. The little mind is meant to be the flight attendant going down the aisle way, making sure everyone is safe, making sure everyone is served. But that divine presence is the driver. That divine mind that’s within us, that expressing as us, is the pilot. And so the shared joy that we experience puts us in that state of gratitude and knowing that we’re one with the Allness of life.

The Psalmist says, “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity. The word unity for our spiritual movement was not picked randomly. It’s picked because of this idea, our unity with God, our unity with one another, our unity that we’re here to express that oneness.

Shared joy blesses us, and it blesses other people. Now, you know when you move into a room and there’s tension, you feel the tension, yes? Yes. You also know that when you move into the room and there’s joy, you feel that joy. Yes? Yes. So joy moves through a group. Joy is like electricity that just kind of filters through.

It spreads with a smile. It spreads with laughter. A laughter spreads, a smile spreads, laughter opens the room, music lifts the field of energy. Did you feel that today? Yes. Gratitude softens people. Celebration gives permission for the heart to open, to be present without any guardrails, without any walls being built up, just simply open, present, celebrating our Oneness.

We’ve all felt this at one point in time or another, and as we walk into that room, that joyful room, and we feel that presence, we feel that emotional field that is lifting us up, we realize at that point that community really does matter. That when we walk into that room and we feel uplifted by the energy around us, we realize that our nervous system is wired for that, that we’re here to lift ourselves up and be a part of that.

To not just receive in that belonging, but to give and create that belonging. That’s why the consciousness that we bring matters. Every prayer, every song, every welcome, every act of gratitude contributes to this shared field of energy. We matter because we are a part of that community system.

Forgiveness, Healing, and Belonging

So wherever we are, we’re in some community. Wherever we are, we’re in some system. Even if we’re home alone, we have a family community. You start to think about people when you’re alone. Has anybody… experience that when you’re sitting around alone, that people start popping into your head?

You’re in that system then. They are in part of your system, and so that’s the opportunity then to practice this idea of belonging, to practice this idea of forgiveness. So often those names pop into our mind from the standpoint of unforgiveness. They’re right at the top there because we’re holding some resentment, we’re holding some energy about it, and boom, they pop up.

And what comes right after that? The story I’m doing this intentionally. The story. Yeah. Right? The story that drives us crazy. It’s not actually happening, but we’re thinking about it, so it’s happening in here, it’s happening in our nervous system because we’re creating it. So that’s the opportunity to say, “Oh, I’m creating a story.

Let me take a step back. Let me set that story aside and let me practice this idea of forgiveness, this idea of oneness, this idea of sending love and holding someone in light, and holding myself in light, and holding myself in love, and feeling that love flow through me, as me, healing me,” ’cause that’s where the healing needs to happen.

That’s what forgiveness does, is it heals our own consciousness. It heals us of the belief system that we’ve been holding onto. It’s letting go and allowing ourselves to be present to that love. This is why the consciousness that we bring matters. Now, UPA Day is an opportunity for us to consciously lift the field together, doing it intentionally, doing it on purpose, going out into the courtyard after the service and celebrating.

When Deborah comes back up to sing, standing up and celebrating, feeling the energy in the room, and doing it intentionally, creating an experience of gratitude intentionally. Because when we do it intentionally, it has a much bigger effect on the whole of our being. When we’re consciously lifting ourselves up through gratitude, through celebration, we’re consciously opening our heart and allowing that love to flow through us, that healing energy that flows and protects and moves through and joins and unifies and harmonizes.

The joy I bring does not stop with me. The joy I bring blesses others. Joy is contagious because we’re connected as a community. Paul, in his letter to the Romans said, “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” Be present to one another. Be kind and compassionate and hold each other in that prayer consciousness, the consciousness of oneness, the consciousness of knowing the other person in their suffering that they’re still one with the Allness of life.

They’re still spiritually whole even though the rest of their life may not be manifesting or be showing that in their life. They may not be seeing that, but the truth is they’re still one with the Allness of life.

Blessing What Is Here

So many communities get caught up with two energies.

Two energies walk into a bar. One says, “Everything was better before.” The other one says, “We will be better when we have more.” It’s a good thing they’re in a bar. Spiritual community, on the other hand, asks us to look at things from a different perspective.

It asks us to develop a consciousness of knowing our oneness, and therefore knowing our wholeness, and therefore knowing that we are one with source. Allness in life. We are the expression of abundance. We can bless what is here and now. It’s not resignation. It’s not being in denial or complacency or spiritually bypassing anything.

It is expressing things as faith. That’s what faith is about. When we’re having these troubles and these challenges, when we think the past was better and we don’t have enough and we need more, and I’m in a space of not enough, faith is what moves us through that. That power of faith that allows us to then create our good in the world.

That power of faith that allows us to shape substance, to bring that substance forth, to move in that direction even if we can’t see the path. That’s the power of faith.

Gratitude does not mean stopping to dream. It does not mean that there’s nothing to fix. It doesn’t mean that we stop growing or we pretend there’s no needs or no challenges or no changes or no steps to take.

But rather, gratitude means we refuse to make lack the center of our Story

We choose to let blessing be the ground from which our future grows And so today, we begin by honoring the past. We honor the people who helped build this community, who helped create this environment

And so today we’re going to give thanks to everyone who helped make this spiritual community what it is today. We’re gonna thank all of the ministers, all the teachers, all the musicians, all the board members, all the prayer chaplains, all the volunteers, all the donors, all the families, all the seekers, all the Truth students who came before us in these last seventy-three years.

We’re going to celebrate that because their love is part of the foundation that we stand on. We honor the past by allowing that love that they built, this community, to keep expressing in new ways, in fresh ways, in different ways because we’re always growing.

And so we honor those people today. We honor the past when we let that love become new through us We don’t become attached to what was. We honor it by allowing that love to move through, in, and as us anew, fresh. So let’s honor those folks by saying our blessing to them. we honor all of those people who brought us to this point by saying we love you, we bless you, we appreciate you, and we behold the light in you as you.

Celebrating the People Who Are Here

Today we also celebrate the people who are here. Unity Palo Alto is not a building. Unity Palo Alto is not a budget. Unity Palo Alto is not a calendar or events. Unity Palo Alto is a field of love that is created when real people bring their real lives together into spiritual practice together, into the prayer field together, into the celebration together.

And so today we celebrate that. We celebrate the person who came for the first time who took that brave step to walk in these doors. We celebrate the longtime member who’s held the prayer field, that prayer consciousness here for so many years. We celebrate the volunteers who quietly do the things that need doing around the campus, the musicians who open our hearts, the prayer chaplains who listen, the board members who serve, the donor who gives with love, the person grieving quietly.

We celebrate the person rediscovering faith. We just celebrate the person who has outgrown their religion of their childhood and has found room to breathe, and we celebrate the child, the parent, the elder, the newcomer, the returner, the seeker, the skeptic, the mystic, the Truth student that is here because we are Unity Palo Alto, because we are that spiritual community and so we celebrate the present.

Let’s go back to the blessing and let’s bless each other. Let’s do it like we’re gonna do after the service. Everyone stand. Turn to the center aisle. Warm up your hands. And we bless each other by saying I love you, I bless you, I appreciate you, and I behold the light in you. And so it is.

We Are a Field of Love

Ah, you may be seated. You may be seated online. a spiritual community is not an organization that we attend, but rather it is this field of love that we create together. And so today we honor that. Today we bless that. And in this blessing, we prepare ourselves for what’s next. We allow that love to flow, that energy to flow, and we hold onto that experience for that will lead us to whatever is next with love, with appreciation, with joy, with kindness and compassion, with belonging and, with community Let’s move to our affirmation, Ethan.

Affirmation

I’m gonna read our affirmation and then invite you to affirm it with me. Today we bless this spiritual community with gratitude, love, and joyful expectations. Spirit is here. Love is here. We are one, and we say yes. Together. Today we bless this spiritual community with gratitude, love, and joyful expectations.

Spirit is here. Love is here. And we are one, and we say yes. And so it is