Reverend David McArthur

How beautiful it is to grow in a world governed by spiritual laws!
However, GOO so often comes before GOOD. Not good as opposed to bad, but the good that is the very nature of God, the very nature of the universe, the very nature of being. Not the good of an omnipresent being, but of omnipresence, the nature of all life. Not that of an omnipotent being, but of omnipotence – the all-power that moves through you and all life. Of omniscience – not a being which is omnipotent, but the all-knowing that is you. That is the goodness and there is nothing outside of it. Remember that when you are in your “goo”. You get the choice of how much you let in when you are in your “goo”. We got to let in a little more God. Even a child knows that more love eases the way.
And we are so impatient. We want to to change our “goo” now. A middle school boy in Miami did. When he was facing another boy to fight, he remembered that he was taught that he could change things. He felt that in his heart. He spoke to that and there was no fight. He and the other boy worked it out and became friends.
Lao Tsu, in the Tao te Ching said, “She who is centered in the Tao can go where she wishes without danger.  She perceives the universal harmony even amid great pain because she has found peace in her heart.”  Only good is real. Only God is real. Only love is real. Touch that – there is nothing else. The middle school boy was centered in his heart. He “touched the Tao” and change was immediate. He transformed the physical body, and the emotional stuff was transformed from conflict to harmony – a higher state of intelligence. He transformed his state of being and changed the result.
He knew what to do, but perhaps not how it’s done or why. It is love. We paint people as “wrong”. Love transforms the perceptions we have. Love transforms reality. The way is the feeling of love. He touched that love – the Divine Presence – and got out of the “goo”.
The heart is the place where the Power and the Presence moves through and transforms your being. Some ideas we have of love aren’t really love. Learn how to love when you don’t want to. Spiritual transformation is stepping to where you are connected to the Divine Intelligence.
Then life really gets fun!

Reverend David McArthur

The archetypal patterns of our spiritual journey are found in our ancient tales, like “Rapunzel”. In the beginning the woman who will become Rapunzel’s mother wants a beautiful garden flower very badly, thinking, “if I get that, I’ll be just fine.” But there is a cost for relying on the outer world for fulfillment. It will not fulfill who you are. It does not have that power.
Losing control of Rapunzel, the witch puts her in the tower. Her hair represents the long-focused thought or out-pouring of the brain. But our brains focus on fear. When we’re in fear we don’t connect with the whole of life. Rapunzel herself represents the feminine in all of us, the feelings of beauty and harmony (for which the men in our society get no support). Our growing spirituality – feelings of the Presence – are isolated in lots of us, as is Rapunzel so isolated in the tower. So she sang, her beautiful voice symbolizing attunement gained through meditation in silence. Her beautiful singing attracts the prince, who symbolizes thought, mind, knowledge. He lives with the King (God) and so the prince knows he a child of God. I’m a child of God. Rapunzel learns from the prince that she’s a child of God. I’m a spiritual being, living in a spiritual world, governed by spiritual laws. We come to awareness through focusing on spiritual things. We awaken to the power of choice.
The witch cut Rapunzel’s hair and sent her to the desert. The desert is depression. So Rapunzel no longer had choice or the support of her knowing. There is no stimulus in the desert.
The prince again climbed up the braid of hair only to find the witch, not Rapunzel. He does not choose to be with fear and so he leaps out the window. He falls in the thorny bushes below. He feels pain. He goes blind. When we run into pain we go blind – not seeing the divine, not seeing the truth. We say, “Why did God do this?” “How come I have to go through this?” It is painful. Giving up fear means you have to give up the drama. That is painful for many of us.
We must move from knowing to being. Rapunzel returns to singing, to being in harmony, to attunement. So the beauty she is comes back into her life. The prince hears her. When she sees the pain and blindness of the prince she responds with tears of compassion. Compassion heals pain. You find healing. Vision is restored. We’re able to know and understand. The power comes from within, not from anything without. Choose a greater state of being. Experience a new state of consciousness and live happily ever after.

Reverend David McArthur

We live the dream we hold. If it isn’t big enough, we don’t live as fully as we are capable. Dream a higher dream. Say yes to the dream in your heart. We won’t live in a world of harmony until we decide to live in harmony with those around us in our lives. We won’t have justice or forgiveness until we live with justice and forgiveness in our own lives. The time has come to make a commitment to the dream. Say, “This is the quality of life I want.” This year, like never before.
This year is a time we’re being asked to step into our dream, a time when the power to do so will rise to levels previously hard to even hope for. Rumi: “There is a candle in your heart waiting to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?”
Say “no” to what no longer serves. Say no to what is no longer a part of your higher dream. No is a commitment to have only that in your life which supports the life you are committed to. “To be uncommitted is to be full of hesitancy, ready to go back, ineffectiveness.” Saying no to what doesn’t work is committing to what does. That is the point where your commitments become most real. Let go of that which doesn’t work and no longer serves.
There is no holding back on the part of the Divine. From Lao Tzu: “The Tao gives birth to all beings …creating without possessing, acting without expecting, guiding without interfering. That is why love of the the Tao is in the very nature of things.” Everything you need is provided by that Infinite Intelligence which guides you when you say “yes” to the big dream. “The moment one commits oneself, Providence moves.” All sorts of things begin to occur in support of the dream. Open up to assistance you couldn’t have imagined before. Once you commit to a dream that’s big enough to fill what your soul is about, you are letting that amazing spiritual being you are live who you are. You know it because you can feel it. Feel the candle be kindled. Feel the void be filled. It’s the dream. The time has come. When you commit, when you say yes, the fun begins! Kindle that candle in your heart!