Spiritual Solutions

If you haven’t done so already, soon you will be taking down the Christmas tree and putting away the lights and Christmas decorations for another year. The nativity scene has been put away. But will you also be putting away the Christ for another year?

So now what? At Christmas we affirmed the birth of the Christ within us. So what happens now? Where do we go from here?

We often go back to the same old routine, the same patterns and beliefs, the same mistakes we have made before. We forget that we have affirmed a truth of our being, of the presence of God born into our awareness in a whole new way.

I was reminded of this recently when talking to a man who was telling me about his dog. He said, “We have a wonderful little dog in our family, but he does some stupid things. He likes chocolate, and chocolate is poison to dogs. A few weeks ago somebody brought a chocolate cake over. They had put it on the

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Here’s another great blog post from Karl Moore at www.karlblog.com

Are you battling with a problem that you cannot do anything about?

If so, let it go!

It may not be the answer you want to hear, but once you let go, life lightens up for you.

You see, there are some things you can change and there are some things you can’t change.

Learning to accept what is will help your life flow without stress or turmoil.

Knowing what you can or can’t change is the key.

For example, you book a camping holiday but accept that you can’t do anything to book nice weather. So, if it blows a gale and throws down enough rain to fill a lake, you just have to accept that’s the way it is.

You then have choices …accept the way it is and moan or accept the way it is and have fun.

Accepting what is allows you to bring out your better qualities.

When you stop dwelling on the things you can’t change, you avoid anxiety and all those pesky emotions that make you feel frustrated and depressed.

You start to flow with life.

So, if you’re in a situation that is causing you some stress, first ask yourself … Can I change this?

If you can, then do so!

If it’s something that you really can’t change, then ask yourself …

Can I accept this?

Acceptance can be challenging because the ego fights it.

It’s in our nature to try and control and shape a situation to suit us. When we can’t, our ego cries, shouts and makes as much noise as possible.

Realize that it’s just your ego that holds you back, and gently accept. 

T.S. Eliot once said…

“Only by acceptance of the past, can you alter it.”

Life will flow more freely when you accept what is.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

PS. I would like to recommend Karl’s blog to you. You’ll notice I’ve shared quite a few of his blog posts in the past; they are most often inspiring and insightful. It’s free to join his mailing list to receive blog posts in your email; just go to www.karlblog.com and you can subscribe in the box at the top right-hand corner of his blog pages. Meanwhile, enjoy a Christmas card from Karl.

Click here to view it - http://www.karlchristmas.com/

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at Spiritual Solutions. Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

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

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Let me tell you a story about a young boy. The man who told me this, it was his story; we’ll say his name was Bill. I’ll try to tell it just as he told it to me.

As a young boy he was with his younger brother on a bus, traveling from Cincinnati to Canton, Ohio, on Christmas Eve. They didn’t have their parents with them because, he said, “My parents had to go to Pittsburgh, so they couldn’t be with us. So they left us with a best friend of my mother’s who then put us on the bus.

“We’re on the bus, and I’m looking through the window and seeing the snow beginning, light snow flakes are falling as I’m watching. My brother is sleeping next to me. As I watch the snow begins to get stronger, and snow flakes begin to rush past the window as the bus is going along. So I woke my brother up, because he always felt he wanted to have an adventure wherever we went and it usually seemed to pass us by. I thought maybe this would be the opportunity, that we’d run into a snow bank or something and maybe boarded by bandits, so I thought I’d wake him up.

“So I woke him up and I let him sit in my place by the window because our mother always said that we needed to exchange places and not fight over it, so we always did it even though my mother wasn’t there. We exchanged places and he pressed his face against the glass and watched. He kept saying to me, ‘More snow, more snow, more snow.’ And indeed, the snow kept coming and coming, and soon the bus was slowed to a crawl; it went slower and slower, and we felt it pull into a gas station. I’d heard the bus driver talking on his radio asking what he should do; he must have been told to pull into this gas station and he did. There was a restaurant there in the form of an old railroad car.

“The bus driver stood up and said, ‘We all need to go into the restaurant. So bundle up.’ So we bundled up, pulled our hats over our ears and put on our mittens or gloves and we all made our way into the restaurant. Once in the restaurant we didn’t know what was going to happen, and the bus driver said, ‘It looks like we might have to stay here tonight until the roads are clear, until the snow ploughs are out and clear the snow away.’ And I got frightened and my brother started to cry. He said, ‘I want to go to Aunt Alice’s.’

“That’s where we were on there way toward, our uncle and aunt in Canton, Ohio, and we would meet with our parents there. We were worried, and all the people were worried. They didn’t want to stay with strangers on Christmas Eve, of all times. So they were all upset. But pretty soon they began to settle down and some of the adults started drinking coffee or eating chicken salad sandwiches, and some just sat staring at their hands.

“Then this strange woman came up to my brother and me and said, ‘You’re too young to be traveling alone on that bus.’ Then she said, ‘I want to buy you some hot chocolate.’ So she took us to the counter and bought hot chocolate. And we had hot chocolate. But my brother kept crying and crying; he was really unhappy. He said, ‘I want to go to Aunt Alice’s and sing the manger song and eat cookies and have presents. I want to go. . . .’ He burst into tears again. I didn’t know how to placate him and settle him down.

“But a strange thing happened just about that time; all the people began to talk to each other. I noticed that little groups started forming; they were laughing and joking with one another and telling each other about their families, where they’d come from and where they were going and where they were spending Christmas.

“Pretty soon there was a lot of excitement going on; I thought this would cheer up my little brother, but it didn’t. He kept saying, ‘I want to go to my aunties, I want to sing the manger song, and I want to eat cookies, and . . .’ He just started crying all over again.

“The strange lady who had introduced herself as Mrs. Margaret Mills and who had told me that her husband was dead – I don’t know why she told me that, but she said her husband was dead – came up to us again and said, ‘Why don’t you go and sit down in the booth?’ So we went and sat in the booth and she kept looking at us. Finally she came over to us and said, ‘I’d like to join you. Do you mind?’ And she sat down, and she took up a lot of room because she was a big lady.

“She kept looking at my brother. And then the strangest thing that I’d ever seen happened. Her face, which was kind of ugly and scared me a little bit because she had a big nose and a huge neck, began to soften as she looked at my brother. She looked at him, and she began to sing softly, ‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed . . .’ And she went on singing like that, just to us. My brother looked up; he was startled at first, and then he reached out his hand to this woman’s hand and they both started singing together, ‘The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay . . .’ They sang loud and everybody started to join in and a young man unpacked a guitar, and the bus driver took out a harmonica, and they began to sing carols. They sang so many carols that anyone had ever heard.

“And that’s how we spent Christmas Eve together. Then we all settled down.

“I had a card in my pocket with my uncle’s telephone number on it; my mother had pinned it inside my pocket. And the bus driver came and asked me, did I have a phone number for the people who were going to meet us? So I gave him that card. My mother had pinned it there because I was always losing stuff. And the bus driver went off to call my aunt. I didn’t hear from him for a while, but then he called my name. I was just thinking that I’d love to talk to my Aunt Alice and he called me; he said, ‘Your Aunt Alice is on the phone.’ So I went to the phone and Aunt Alice was so calm, and she said, ‘You know, your parents are out right now; they’re at church with your cousins. But they’ll be back and they’ll come to get you in the morning, so you stay where you are right now and everything’s going to be all right and they’ll be there to get you once the snow ploughs have been.’

“I felt pretty good after that, I wasn’t too worried; my brother was a little bit upset but feeling better with all the carol singing. So we snuggled down together like everybody else did, leaning against each other or on the floor or up against the counter, on tables, and we all slept that night of Christmas Eve.

“ next morning, I knew my parents were coming to get us so we started saying goodbye to everybody because they started boarding the bus. It was about 11 o’clock and the snow ploughs had gone through. They were boarding the bus, and the last one to go was Mrs. Mills. She came up to us and looked at us. She said, ‘Boys, I’ll never forget you at this Christmastime; you’ve been my Christmas present and I will always remember you like that.’ She kissed us both on the forehead and she boarded the bus and I never saw her again.

“That night, we were settled comfortably at Aunt Alice’s. We were around the fire and we were going to start singing carols, and I told my Dad the whole story. I said to him, ‘I wonder what she meant by that being her Christmas present? We really didn’t give her anything. What could she have meant by that?’ He said, ‘Son, I don’t really know, but it could be that somehow you brought her a gift that she would treasure always, something that we don’t always know about. You see, a true gift, we don’t always know what a true gift is from the outside. But from the inside it’s something really special, it carries more value than the apparent substance of the gift. So,’ he said, ‘it may have been your cute faces together that she saw or it may have been that you were not afraid of her, or that you liked her and you sang with her; any of those things. But just know that the gift you gave her was precious and I want you to hold that gift in your heart and make that your gift to me also.’

“Then they all gathered around the piano, and I joined them but I was thinking about Mrs. Margaret Mills and how much I missed her and what a lovely, lovely voice came out of that strange body. And I was thinking, wherever she is I hope that she’s with someone who likes her singing as much as I did.”

You know, Christmas is an inner story, isn’t it? The Christmas experience is an inner experience, where it’s the Christmas of your life and not just the Christmas of everybody’s but a Christmas of your life. It can be that. We’ve all had different experiences of Christmas but may this be for you the Christmas of your life, where you recognize and feel and experience the Christ born in you this Christmas. Feel that, and know that. The Christ will, literally, be born into your awareness and will become a part of your consciousness and a vital part of your humanity from this time on.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Merry Christmas!

Rev. Alan a. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at Spiritual Solutions. Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

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

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The Eastern concept of karma can be loosely translated as “destiny” or “fate”; man is what he is, in respect to his fortunes and his place in life, because of his karma. Karma fixes the consequences of one’s actions; all mistakes, failures and sins must be atoned for in some way, and they become a karmic debt that ultimately, from lifetime to lifetime, must be paid.

Karma explains everything in one’s world: suffering, blessings, sorrow, and joy. According to karma, nothing one does is ever lost; nothing is unaccounted for; nothing is forgotten, discarded, or irrelevant. On the surface, it would appear to be the equivalent of the Western concept of “Whatsoever a man sow, that shall he also reap.” So the law of karma is seen to be simply a statement of the fundamental law of the Universe, one of absolute integrity.

However, the Eastern concept centers its attention chiefly on man’s past and ultimate destiny; there is little hope or promise of freedom today. The individual, in effect, is chained to a relentlessly moving wheel by the accumulated effects of past lives. He is a weary traveler from birth to death and from death to birth.

Jesus accepted the karmic law, but he taught that sequence and consequences, cause and effect, are law for matter and mind only, not law for the Spirit. There is no law of retribution in God. Remember, we are told, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” And the great dynamic of Jesus’ teaching is found in the words, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

This insight shows us the way to freedom from karma. Through the Christ indwelling, you can be free. Your debts can be absolved; you can be healed. Remember, Paul said: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” This simply means that Moses was dealing with earthbound man, but Jesus made the great breakthrough into the realm of Spirit, and became a way-shower.

Some years ago I was speaking in Syracuse, NY. After leaving there I stopped at Colgate University and spent a couple of days in retreat at Chapel House. I was talking to one of the students there who had attended a lecture series at the University called “Human Bondage and Divine Grace.”

I thought what a beautiful title that is. It reminds me that bondage, human bondage, all comes out of a sense of separation from the presence of God in our lives. And divine grace is the lifting action of God’s love.  I’d like to expand upon that a little bit, and say to you, “Divine grace is the searching, finding, and rejoicing action of God as well as that which lifts you up in your rejoicing.”

The word “grace” has been the source of a great deal of confusion, and has been surrounded by an air of mystery. We need to demystify it, to understand a vital aspect of God and of our relation to the whole. It is important to remember that God’s will for you is the ceaseless longing of the Creator to perfect himself in and through that which He has created.

God’s will for you is so intense, so continuous, and so great, that it even filters through our willfully closed minds. It is true that as you sow, so do you reap. And yet, God’s desire in you to express completely through you is so great that you never reap the full harvest of error, and you always reap more good than you sow. In other words, there is a bias on the side of life – of health, of guidance, of protection.

This is the factor that is missing in the classic concept of karma. Man is not a lonely pilgrim on the path, trying to reach something in God; he is a dynamic expression of God on the quest to know and to release something within himself. He may, and often does, inhibit the flow of good that is within him; but he can always know the Truth, and the Truth shall make him free.

God’s flow is constant; man’s experience of the flow fluctuates by his consciousness. God is always searching for us through any sense of being lost we may experience. Even though God often seems absent, God is never absent and is always trying to reach through our awareness.

Let me share with you from a classic called “The Hound of Heaven.” Francis Thompson talks about how he felt a sense of God following him, no matter what happened. No matter how much he fled from him, God followed him.

“I fled him, down the nights and down the days; I fled him, down the arches of the years; I fled him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped; and shot, precipitated, adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, from those strong Feet that followed, followed after.”

Now let me take you to the last stanza, where he has a realization of what is happening:

“Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest!”

The restlessness we feel and any sense of being lost we feel is really ourselves searching for God, searching for the one who would open his arms to embrace us.

The law of karma is a fixed law of sequence and consequence. But no person is ever bound to karma, any more than creatures of the earth are bound by gravity. Grace is that which works beyond and in addition to law. You don’t have to earn grace; it is yours by right of the fact that you are a spiritual being. The worst criminal is still loved by God and can find forgiveness through the activity of love that transcends man-made law. By grace, the action of Divine love, nothing is ever completely hopeless.

Help and healing and guidance and overcoming are always as near to us as our faith-filled awareness of Truth. Karma and human bondage is not your lot in life; Divine Grace is always at work on your behalf. Know the truth and the truth will make you free.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at Spiritual Solutions. Feel free to share this article in its entirety with a friend.

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

We talk a lot about actual thanks-giving, about giving thanks, but we don’t talk a lot about praise. We understand about giving thanks and we talk about building an attitude of gratitude, but there’s something about praise too that makes a difference in our lives.

In Psalms 34 it says this, “I will praise the Lord at all times. His praise shall be continually in my mouth.”

The word praise is mentioned over a hundred times in the psalms, and so praise is obviously very important. The Israelites used to praise with song and music and dancing, with instruments. You can picture them with their harps and lyres, probably tambourines and drums, and dancing and singing. They really rejoiced in their times of giving praise to God. They didn’t have a day of Thanksgiving, but certainly they sang praises to God.

Charles Fillmore, in his little book The Revealing Word, said this: “Praise is the quality of mind that eulogizes the good, one of the avenues through which spirituality expresses.”

Again, he said this; “Through an inherent law of mind action, we can increase what we praise. One can praise a weak body into strength, a fearful heart into peace and trust, shattered nerves into peace and power, a failing business into prosperity and success, want and insufficiency into supply and support.”

Why is this so? Well, praise helps us to focus on God’s good and it brings increase. When we praise the plant, the plant grows; when we praise our children, their true self begins to unfold. Anything we praise begins to increase in our lives.

When Myrtle Fillmore discovered she had tuberculosis and she heard the words of Dr. Weeks saying, “You’re a child of God and you do not inherit sickness,” she began to realize and to use that idea of praising, praising all the cells in her body. And she praised them into health. She became healthy again and lived many years after that time.

So the praising is important. Sometimes instead of praising, we put ourselves or others down, or we demean, or even curse. But if we’ll praise the good that we find, what happens? The good begins to increase. And the important thing is not only that the good increases, and when we praise other people they begin to blossom, don’t they? Everybody blossoms through praise.

That’s one thing that happens, but that’s only half the story because we get a blessing too. As we praise, we begin to see more good within ourselves and we begin to open the gateway of good within ourselves. We open the channels to receive more good as we give praise and blessings to others.

It says in the Psalms, “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, that I know very well.”

So why do we praise God? Does God need our praise? No, God doesn’t need our praise, but we do. It doesn’t affect God, but it affects us. When we praise God, it affects us. What does it increase? Does it increase God? No, but it increases our spiritual awareness of God’s good when we praise and give thanks to God. It opens the gateways of our soul so that the imprisoned splendor of our own being can escape; and the love that we are can move into our world.

So, this Thanksgiving, remember that praising God and praising others is really key to experiencing more good in your own life.

Praise opens the gateways of our soul and love escapes into our experience. Sometimes praise has a way of making tears form when you realize you are in touch with the Spirit of God, and in this you are truly alive.

God Bless You – and I give thanks for you.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham
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Mind is the Master-power that moulds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and, shaping what he wills,
Brings froth a thousand joys, a thousand ills –
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:
Environment is but his looking-glass.
(From As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen)

Attention is the key to life; you tend to become whatever you give your attention to. Rudyard Kipling wrote of a Newfoundland fisherman who seemed to have the appearance of a great codfish. We must look where we are going, because we will most certainly go in the direction in which we are looking.

When the Israelites of old looked toward God, they prospered; when they looked away from God, they came to know want. We are told, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength.” To love God is to give our attention to the transcendence in life. God has much in store for us, but He can give to us only when we give Him our attention.

Victor Hugo, speaking of the tremendous power of concentrated attention, wrote:

“There is neither fog nor problem in algebra which can
Withstand in the depths of the numbers or the skies
The calm and intense fixation of the eyes.”

When we grasp this idea, we feel as the child does when he discovers that a magnifying glass held to the rays of the sun will cause paper to burst into flame.

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1. My hands are small. Please don’t expect perfection whenever I make a bed, draw a picture or throw a ball. My legs are short. Please slow down so that I can keep up with you.

2. My eyes have not seen the world as yours have. Please let me explore safely. Don’t restrict me unnecessarily.

3. Housework will always be there. I’m only little for such a short time. Please take time to explain things to me about this wonderful world, and do so willingly.

4. My feelings are tender. Please be sensitive to my needs.

Don’t nag me all day long. (You wouldn’t want to be nagged for your inquisitiveness.) Treat me as you would like to be treated.

5. I am a special gift from God. Please treasure me, holding me accountable for my actions, giving me guidelines to live by and disciplining me in a loving manner.

6. I need your encouragement and your praise to grow. Please go easy on the criticism. Remember, you can criticize the things I do without criticizing me.

7. Please give me the freedom to make decisions concerning myself. Permit me to fail so that I can learn from my mistakes. Then someday, I’ll be prepared to make the kind of decisions life requires of me.

8. Please don’t do things over for me. Somehow that makes me feel that my efforts didn’t quite measure up to your expectations. I know it’s hard, but please don’t try to compare me with my brother or my sister.

9. Please don’t be afraid to leave for a weekend together.

Kids need vacations from parents, just as parents need vacations from kids. Besides, it’s a great way to show us kids that your marriage is very special.

10. Please take me to worship regularly, setting a good example for me to follow.

God is blessing you, right now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-five years, invites you to enjoy more articles and/or subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, “Spiritual Solutions,” at www.spiritualsolutionsblog.com

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When Samuel when he was very young and was in training with the priest Eli, the scriptures tell us that Samuel was asleep and he heard a voice calling him, “Samuel, Samuel!” He rose up and said, “Here I am, Lord.” He went to his teacher, his priest Eli, and said, “You called me?” Eli said, “No, I didn’t call you. Go lie down, go to sleep.”

So Samuel went back and lay down again. The voice came again, “Samuel, Samuel!” Samuel got up again and went to Eli, saying, “Here I am. You called me.” Eli said, “No, I didn’t call you. Go and lie down.”

So Samuel went back and lay down again, and the voice came again, “Samuel!” He jumped up again and went to Eli. This time Eli perceived that the Lord was calling Samuel, the voice of God was speaking to him. So he said, “I want you to go back and lie down, and if that call comes again, just say this: ‘Your servant hears. Speak, Lord.”

So Samuel went back, lay down, and the voice came again, “Samuel, Samuel!” He said, “Your servant hears, Lord. Speak.” And God showed him a vision of what his future was to be at that time.

When the prophet Isaiah was young, he had a vision and he heard a voice saying “Whom shall we send? Who will go for us?” And a voice within Isaiah prompted him and he said, “Here I am, send me!”

In other words, “Count me in, God, count me in!”

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