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“Collecting Thoughts That Work”
Presenter: Dick Stetler – June 2021 During my years as a Pastor, there were a number of
people who had influenced my spiritual pilgrimage. During the moments
when their influence was taking place, I was completely unaware that any
energy exchange was happening. However, as I look back over the years
when my inner world was still in its infancy, I recognize that what I
had started doing was collecting and using bits of wisdom that worked.
I thought I would discuss how
that process unfolded. After being in Bermuda for a decade, Lois and I
returned with an agenda of cleaning the house of items we knew were not
going to be needed in our future. It was time to donate to the
Goodwill and give away the majority of my books to a local Lutheran
church that had been advertising their desire to collect books and
bicycles for a fall sale. During this process, I unearthed old letters that
had been written to me during my seminary days. I received one that was
offering a bit of wisdom that Henry had found useful in his own life as
a pastor: The Christian ministry is the easiest job to get by
in and the hardest vocation to be effective.
Gather all the
courageous energy you can muster, and teach yourself to resist using the
sermons and prayers of others. Learn to write your own material that you
wish to share.
Find the
spirit that is yours even though you may believe that such a search is
taking too much time during its early stages of its development. Do
not pay any attention to that fear.
You will find that it will be the best investment you could ever
make. Your spirit will serve you well for the rest of your life. Henry’s
words resonated with me and his wisdom became the foundation on which I
constructed my future sermons and prayers.
The hardest thing for me to overcome was the feeling that the
sermons and prayers of the pros were far superior to
anything that I could create.
Sticking to Henry’s wisdom, was why I received a C on my
senior sermon. All the members in the senior class were required
to speak to the rest of the student body as a requirement for
graduation. Why the
C? My topic was the
influence of the Holy Spirit on people and events in the world.
During my delivery, I referred to the Holy Spirit as It.
To this day, God’s spirit for me is a genderless It. My professor
wanted the pronoun He as a reference to God’s spirit.
Yes, I was on my way to finding my own voice. This was
the first in a series of intentional acts that gave me the courage not
to follow the tried-and-true training I received during my
Theological education. The
process of spiritual awakening continued.
When I was being ordained, the class of future pastors had to
answer as a group a series of questions being asked by our bishop.
I answered only three of them.
Why, did I do that? I could not bring myself to believe all of
the teachings of the Church. I had
already become a universalist in my understanding.
Responding with loving energy was possible for all human beings
regardless of their chosen spiritual orientation.
The concept of needing a path to
personal Salvation was ridiculous to me.
It still is.
Even to this day I chaff every time I hear someone proudly
announcing, “I am a born-again Christian!” Another
key moment that influenced my spiritual growth came from my relationship
with a Unity pastor. She
was an amazingly, informed woman.
We often went to lunch together and we found our minds were in
the same channel or tuned in to the same frequency. I said to her on one
occasion, “You know, I would not feel comfortable being with you for
lunch as often as we go out together if you were 38 years old.”
She snapped back, “And why not?” My response was, “Let’s just
say, I like the fact that you are as old as my mother and that puts me
back into my comfort zone.” Amalie
remained unabashed in making her collected wisdom very clear. One of her
practices that really struck me was the role she gave to her
invisible friends in the next realm of reality. Her response was
shocking. She continued by saying: Don’t
bother praying to God.
God is a term we use to describe the Creator of the BIG picture, not
an ATM for our childish needs that are forever asking God to intervene
or provide guidance with challenging experiences that confront us.
Talk, to
your angels. They
are the beings who can help you. If you doubt what they can do, ask them
to demonstrate their presence. They can inspire you and offer you
obvious guidance that may help you to make a course-correction.
Too often people have tunnel vision when they pray.
They want only one solution when there are dozens. Many prayers
are a waste of time because often the words are coming from a selfish
need. Check it out. With these
words, Amalie gave me a lesson in possibility thinking that had
never occurred to me. However, such thinking has been worth its weight
in gold during my ministry.
I have cultivated an enormously warm and gracious relationship with my
angels. They have
given to me an out-of-this-world platform that works.
Amalie
taught me how to do my homework by learning how to tie my own shoes
rather than seeking the help of the Creator to do my homework for
me. Further, she asked me: Who came
up with the idea that we are in this world to please God?
Did you grow up needing to please your parents?
I wanted my children to stand on their own two feet and figure
out life for themselves. God doesn’t care what we do with our lives.
This may sound shocking to you, Dick, but it nevertheless is
true. What we do with our choices is our call.
If God intervened every time we asked, we would bypass our need
to do our own homework. Our mistake is assuming that God has
human emotions. That
assumption clouds everyone’s thinking. Such
possibilities were never covered in seminary. From there, insights and
guidance began to pour into my consciousness from reading A Course in
Miracles, Walsch’s first book, Conversations with God, and
listening to cassette tapes by Joseph Campbell, Marianne Williamson,
Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and others. There have been scores of
contributors who introduced me to metaphysics and the human need
for spiritual nourishment and development. All of
this was happening while the world continued to accelerate in all
directions the way it has done for thousands of years. The world creates
distractions that have a magnetic ability to pull us into taking
numerous detours. We
need to understand that all the distractions are necessary for our
learning. Rough patches
become opportunities to respond with displays of loving energy. Being able
to do this depends on the strength of our resolve and intensions.
Without being connected to one’s
inner world, people find themselves starving to death spiritually.
They are at a loss to understand what is happening to them. Do
not be mistaken, we are alone in this world but loneliness is a fear
that we create. When
loving energy becomes dominant in our lives, we find that ability to
detach ourselves from the distractions of this world.
We can even develop gratitude
for all the craziness of the world.
Without the craziness, we may never discover our potential
to express peace, kindness, forgiveness, mercy, generosity, helpfulness,
and self-control. The worst
that can be said about human beings is that we are all angels who
have been seduced by the attractiveness of the classroom.
Jesus taught people to choose spiritual growth over matters that
pertained only to the material world.
No spiritual teacher has been able to get people to pay attention
to their teachings. Many
angels prove to themselves over and over again that they are not ready
to become beings who can create. They continue to choose the shadow
as though it had substance. Their hungry spirits cause them to
desire power and recognition in this world rather than the power that is
truly useful. When the drama of living is over, all of us will
return to the realm of our origin with much to consider. As Kahlil Gibran once described the farewell in his book, The Prophet, “A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.” Once again, if we choose, we will reenter the fantasyland that God created for us to either play or to grow up spiritually. |