Spiritual Solutions

It happens to all of us. Perhaps you may be looking forward to attaining some goal or moving toward something you want to accomplish and things don’t go just as you planned; obstacles come up, you have setbacks, you have discouragements, you have disappointments.

We have to know how to meet those things.

When obstacles come into our lives there are two end results: either it defeats us or it strengthens us. We want any obstacles that come into our lives to strengthen us, and the best way to have those obstacles strengthen us instead of defeat us is to be prepared for them from the very beginning.

Sometimes we bring obstacles into our experience because we don’t do any planning. When we plan we are able to control the obstacles that come into our lives instead of having them control us.

Obstacles come to us from two directions: From the results of our own thoughts and actions, from within, or from outside in our environment.

It’s really a matter of how we look at things; it’s a matter of our viewpoint and our attitude.

The first major obstacle that we face in any situation is to eliminate the negative beliefs that we bring to our current needs. We want to attain something, but we bring those old negative beliefs with us which block us from attaining something new. So we have to identify them and eliminate them.

We must remember that the inner thoughts always condition our outer world. And if we want to change our outer world we have to start with our inner thoughts. We have to eliminate the negative thoughts and bring in the positive thoughts to move toward the goals we want to achieve. Even in the most difficult of challenges we have to do this.

Even a cancer patient has to participate in his or her healing by growing as a person.

Dr. Bernie Segal, who is a cancer surgeon and is founder of the Exceptional Cancer Patients Inc. in New Haven, Connecticut, said that “When a person grows, the cancer doesn’t.” In other words, we have to learn to love ourselves, to recognize ourselves as being valuable and important and in control of our lives.

One of Dr. Segal’s patients, after her cancer went in remission, had this to say: “I realized that I lacked love; it was like emptiness or a space within me, and what happened was that I grew something to fill that space. It was only after I realized this that the cancer went into remission.” She realized that she was able to begin to love herself.

We all have to love ourselves as God loves us. We are expressions of God at the point of His creation, so we are valuable, we are unique, we are wonderful, and we are filled with His presence. But we have to see that. Another patient said, “I was not able to help in bringing about my healing until I realized how negative I was about myself.”

If you’re having difficulty identifying the feelings or beliefs that you have, beliefs that you need to change or beliefs that you need to have, think in terms of yourself at this stage as the perfect you. What would you be like if you had already attained that which you want to attain? What would you be like if you were already that perfect you? Take a typical day. How would you act on that day? What kind of thoughts would you have on that day? What kind of interactions with people would you have? How would you feel about yourself on that day? Then compare the thoughts that you would likely have if you were your perfect you with the thoughts you’re having now. And if there is something to change, then you know where the change needs to take place.

Several years ago our daughter Bonnie attended a seminar on how best to discipline children. The instructor was an ex-nun who had seven children of her own and had to find a way to deal with them. Her basic philosophy consisted of three basic beliefs which she taught the children. But she also taught the adults who were in the seminar to adopt these beliefs for themselves and then to teach them to their children. The beliefs were simply these:

1. I like myself.

2. I have the ability to think for myself.

3. There is a solution to every problem.

If we would adapt those things to our own lives we can face any challenge and we can come through successfully.

I like myself. That’s our basic teaching, to realize that we are children of God, that we are unique and wonderful beings, that we inherit all the good of the kingdom, that we are worthy. When we like ourselves we can survive anything, we can move through any challenge.

I have the ability to think for myself. We don’t need to have others think for us. We can make our own decisions about things. If we have a healing challenge and people are treating us like sick people, we don’t need to accept ourselves as a sick person. We don’t need to be victims of our world. We can see ourselves in a different way; we can think things through for ourselves.

There is a solution for every problem. The constant attribute found among geniuses in a study that was done at Harvard University some years ago on genius and problem-solving was that every one of them looked at every problem as though it had a logical, workable solution. If we approach every problem in that way, we’ll find that solution. The solution is always there, waiting for us to find it.

But in all things, no matter what we’re facing, if we would know that we need to put our faith in God instead of putting our faith in the obstacle then we can face any challenge. We can move through it successfully, we can know that God is in charge and God will see us through. Just know for yourself, “God will see me through.” Take your attention off the problem and onto the solution.

Let me remind you again to focus upon faith in God as I share with you these words of a past Daily Word:

“I am faith-filled, fearless and free. I know that God is always with me, my help in every need. I am not afraid of any person, circumstance, or condition, for I know that God’s power undergirds me and is the one power over all. My faith enables me to triumph over negation and claim the spiritual victory that God has prepared for me.” The scripture is from Matthew 21:21, 22, “If you have faith and never doubt . . . even if you say to this mountain ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it will be done. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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 Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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In Psalm 37, three times we read “Fret not yourself . . .” followed by the admonitions to “Trust in the Lord . . . ,” to “Take delight in the Lord,” to “Commit your way to the Lord,” and to “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him” and the positive results of so doing.

Yet how often do we find ourselves fretting about the future, fretting over our loved ones, our work, our health, our prosperity or lack of it. Many people are fretting about politics, about the trend of government, the problem of our cities, the protests of our young people. Certainly we should be concerned, and we should exercise the options available to us to participate in the democratic process of change. But fretting about conditions never helps anyone.

To “Trust in the Lord,” “Take delight in the Lord,” “Commit your way to the Lord,” and to “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him,” means that we have to learn the cultivate the art of letting go. And most of us know this takes some doing when we are faced with certain conditions in our life. 

For myself, when asked about my wife, Kathryn, being recently in hospital and now in a rehab center, and then asking how I’m doing in all of this, I find myself saying all too often, “I’m hanging in there,” or “I’m holding on.” Most of the problems we fret about are bound to us by the hold we have on them. We have to let go and let God, or “trust in the Lord.” There is an answer to every problem and a right guidance for every turning of the way – and it exists within me even while I am facing the need.

Every person must determine for himself or herself whether he or she is going to go through life fretting over the challenges that come through change, or whether he or she is going to let the activity of the whole Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit) express through him or her. Letting go is a fine art, and like all fine arts it is achieved only through the discipline of practice. Fear tends to hold on, but faith lets go. Practice faith. Human love holds on, but Divine love lets go. Practice Divine love.

I love the ancient Taoist story about the old man and his son. Whenever you find yourself fretting over what the future holds for you, you might want to remind yourself of the story. It goes something like this:

There was once a farmer. He was a gentle and humble man. His wife had died a few years before, and he and his son lived near the border region in China. One day their horse ran away; they were dependent upon the horse. The neighbors came to console the man for the loss of his horse. He answered them, “Who knows what the future brings?”

Several months later their mare returned with a wild stallion. Everyone at the village marveled at the magnificent stallion and congratulated the man on his good fortune, saying, “You are wealthy now.” He answered them, “Who knows what the future brings?”

One day the son mounted the wild stallion but, not knowing the ways of the stallion, within a hundred meters he fell off the stallion and broke his leg. The leg healed but the boy limped. The villagers went to console the man. “What a terrible misfortune,” they said. “Now your only son is a cripple. Your living will be limited and, worse still, how will your son be able to care for you in your old age?” The simple man answered his neighbors, “Who knows what the future brings?”

“He’s a simpleton,” the neighbors said of the man.

A year later, a tribe from across the border was preparing for war. The army arrived in their village and every young man was drafted except the lame boy. He was of no use to the army. He stayed home.

It was a dreadful battle, and only a few of the boys drafted returned alive. The lame boy cared for is father until his father’s death.

“Who knows what the future brings”

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

—————————————————–             

 Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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When I was in ministerial school at Unity Village many years ago, a Unity minister from Germany, Peter Wenzel, told me a story of when he was a member of the West Berlin police force. That was way back, before the Berlin Wall, when there was a demilitarized zone between East and West Berlin.

One of Peter’s responsibilities was to patrol the demilitarized zone; and it was common knowledge that if someone got too far into the East Berlin side of the demilitarized zone they were subject to being shot. One day Peter found himself in that area by himself and, all of a sudden, he was confronted by a Russian soldier with a rifle pointed right at him.

Peter, remembering that moment said, “All of a sudden I felt the presence of God with me; I looked at the other soldier and I saw that he was about my own age, a very young man. I looked in his eyes and without realizing what I was saying I said, ‘You cannot shoot me; I am your brother.’ And the man put down his gun, turned and walked away.”

How wonderful to recognize that core of oneness and know that we are, indeed, all brothers and sisters. It’s when we focus on our differences that we sometimes get into conflict and into wars.

Myrtle Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, said, “Nations will forget to fight as long as we continue to remember that we’re all expressing the one life.” We’ll forget to fight one another. So we must come to that realization of oneness and connectedness.

We most often see ourselves as separate. We are separate in expression, but we are all connected at a level we call the “Christ” level. When we come to the level of the presence of God in us it is the same God, it is the same presence, and it is the same power – the one presence and one power active in and through our lives, God, the good.

That is our level of connectedness, the Christ within us.

To give you an illustration, if you think of the Hawaiian Islands you see that there are many islands and they are not connected on the surface. But if you were able to go below the surface, you would see that under the surface all of the islands are connected. They are all joined together.

Author Paul Tillich called that connectedness in us “the ground of our being.” From his book, The Shaking of the Foundations, we read, “The name of the infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God. That depth is what the word means and, if that word has meaning for you, translate it and speak of the depths of your life, of the source of your being, of your ultimate concern, of what you take seriously without reservation. For if you know that God means depth, then you know much about Him. He or she who knows about depth, knows about God.”

So depth is what we are seeking, a deeper understanding of ourselves. As we move deeper within ourselves, we also understand God in a greater way.

It was the poet Tennyson who said, “God is closer than breathing, closer than hands and feet.” God is as close to you as that. And that’s what we have to know, that there is no separation; we are one in God.

The apostle Paul talked about that also. We read I Corinthians 12: “For just as the body is one and has many members and all the members of the body though many are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body: Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit. Now you are the body of Christ and, individually, members of it.”

Sometimes we forget that we were made in the image and likeness of God; sometimes we forget that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.  We forget our connectedness. But the more we can remember our connectedness with God and with one another, the more individually and uniquely we can express the truth of our own being.

When we come from that deeper level of our life we will truly be ourselves. Charles Fillmore said, “The journey of life for each of us should be a journey of jubilance.” We should be enjoying life; it should be an expression of the highest and best of us.

We have to begin to be friendly toward ourselves because there is more to us than we have understood. It was Walt Whitman who said, “I have found that I am not only that which is between my hat and my boots.”

There is so much more to us. You are a living expression of the Most High God. You are like one of those islands that have popped up in the universe, just as the islands of Hawaii popped up in the Pacific Ocean. The universe needs you; the universe would not be complete without you. Literally, the universe is not complete without you.

We need to treat ourselves kindly. In fact, we need to celebrate ourselves; we need to validate ourselves as someone worthwhile.

As we begin to celebrate ourselves we are then able to celebrate others too, we’re able to recognize the truth of them, and we’re able to recognize the Christ within them. If we see the Christ in them, we will treat them as a Christlike being; we will treat them as a worthy person.

In the play, Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle is talking about Professor Higgins. She says, “Anybody can do the simple things like learning how to dress properly and learning how to speak properly, but the way a person behaves is not what determines whether she is a lady or a flower-girl. It’s how she’s treated that determines whether she’s a lady or a flower-girl. Professor Higgins always thinks of me as a flower-girl, and to him I’ll always be a flower-girl. But you, you treat me like a lady and for you I can always be a lady.”

How we see a person is how we treat a person. If we see a person as stupid, then we’ll treat them as being stupid. If we see a person as being a loser, then we treat that person as being a loser. So we need to begin to look at people in a kindly way, as we would also hope to look at ourselves.

In the fairy stories, we find there’s very often a kindly act where the princess kisses a frog and the frog becomes a prince. Well, all of us feel like a frog sometimes and we all need a person to come along and affirm us as a worthy being. You are that other person; you can affirm the truth about other people.

So I invite you today and this week to do some frog-kissing. When you notice that someone is feeling low and unsure of themselves, give them a hug, give them a blessing, and give them a kiss. Do some frog-kissing; recognize the truth of them. And the truth is that they are one with you.

It was Walt Whitman who said, “In all men I see myself, not one barleycorn more and not one barleycorn less, and the good or bad I say of them I say of myself.” So when we celebrate with someone else, we are celebrating ourselves also.

Remember these words of Jesus: “If you did it to the least of these, my brethren, you also do it unto me.” In other words, he was saying we are connected; we are one with one another. Let us recognize the truth of that and celebrate the Christ within, celebrate our God-connectedness, and celebrate our oneness.

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

—————————————————–             

 Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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Your prayers are needed for my wife and fellow Unity minister, Kathryn. She fell a week ago last Friday and ended up in hospital – no broken bones, but greatly disoriented. After observation over the weekend she was discharged to a rehab center, where she is at present. This is the reason you didn’t receive a Spiritual Solutions newsletter last week – you might say I’ve been otherwise engaged, running back and forth. So your prayers are welcome for both of us in this time of need and challenge. Thank you!

Blessings,

Rev. Alan Rowbotham

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Listening to God is an important part of our spiritual practice, as is also the practice of really listening to others even beyond what they may be saying in words so that we can hear what they are not saying. Thinking about this led me to share with you today’s message:

A dear friend of ours, Charlie Finn, whom Kathryn and I knew in Roanoke, Virginia, when we had our ministry there, wrote a poem in 1966 just after he started teaching a boys’ high school class. He shared the poem with some of the students, close friends and family members. He never put his name on it, and, as the years went by, the poem kept coming back to him from other directions with the word “Anonymous” on it or “Author Unknown.” From 1968 to the present time it has been published in dozens of publications, it’s been recorded on record albums, and it’s been used in seminars and workshops. In fact, Charlie told of a time when he was attending a seminar on Humanistic Psychology and the first thing the person presenting did was to read his poem.

Charlie remarked how awesome it was to him that this poem had reached so many people, and it struck him not only with pride but with awe that he had been able to reach within himself and find some meaning that also touched the hearts and minds of other people. Here’s the poem:

 Please Hear What I’m Not Saying

                Don’t be fooled by me.

               Don’t be fooled by the face I wear

               for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,

               masks that I’m afraid to take off,

               and none of them is me.

               Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me,

               but don’t be fooled,

               for God’s sake don’t be fooled.

               I give you the impression that I’m secure,

               that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well

                    as without,

               that confidence is my name and coolness my game,

               that the water’s calm and I’m in command

               and that I need no one,

               but don’t believe me.

               My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,

               ever-varying and ever-concealing.

               Beneath lies no complacence.

               Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.

               But I hide this.  I don’t want anybody to know it.

               I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.

               That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,

               a nonchalant sophisticated facade,

               to help me pretend,

               to shield me from the glance that knows.

               But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,

               and I know it.

               That is, if it’s followed by acceptance,

               if it’s followed by love.

               It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself,

               from my own self-built prison walls,

               from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.

               It’s the only thing that will assure me

               of what I can’t assure myself,

               that I’m really worth something.

               But I don’t tell you this.  I don’t dare to, I’m afraid to.

               I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,

               will not be followed by love.

               I’m afraid you’ll think less of me,

               that you’ll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.

               I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing

               and that you will see this and reject me.

               So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,

               with a facade of assurance without

               and a trembling child within.

               So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,

               and my life becomes a front.

                I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.

               I tell you everything that’s really nothing,

               and nothing of what’s everything,

               of what’s crying within me.

               So when I’m going through my routine

               do not be fooled by what I’m saying.

               Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying,

               what I’d like to be able to say,

               what for survival I need to say,

               but what I can’t say.

               I don’t like hiding.

               I don’t like playing superficial phony games.

               I want to stop playing them.

               I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me

               but you’ve got to help me.

               You’ve got to hold out your hand

               even when that’s the last thing I seem to want.

               Only you can wipe away from my eyes

               the blank stare of the breathing dead.

               Only you can call me into aliveness.

               Each time you’re kind, and gentle, and encouraging,

               each time you try to understand because you really care,

               my heart begins to grow wings–

               very small wings,

               very feeble wings,

               but wings!

               With your power to touch me into feeling

               you can breathe life into me.

               I want you to know that.

               I want you to know how important you are to me,

               how you can be a creator–an honest-to-God creator–

               of the person that is me

               if you choose to.

               You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,

               you alone can remove my mask,

               you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,

               from my lonely prison,

               if you choose to.

               Please choose to.

               Do not pass me by.

               It will not be easy for you.

               A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.

               The nearer you approach to me

               the blinder I may strike back.

               It’s irrational, but despite what the books say about man

               often I am irrational.

               I fight against the very thing I cry out for.

               But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls

               and in this lies my hope.

               Please try to beat down those walls

               with firm hands but with gentle hands

               for a child is very sensitive.

               Who am I, you may wonder?

               I am someone you know very well.

               For I am every man you meet

               and I am every woman you meet.

                                                                     Charles C. Finn

                                                                     September 1966

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

—————————————————–             

 Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

 If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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