Spiritual Solutions

Just those four words, “Tell me a story!” were the hallmark of the relationship of TV producer Don Hewitt to his team of journalists on 60 minutes. Don Hewitt died recently after thirty-six years as the producer of the weekly TV program, 60 minutes. On Sunday evening the whole 60-minutes program was devoted to the memory of Don Hewitt and the journalistic responses to his passionate request for them to “Tell me a story!”

Those words rang a bell in my heart as being a powerful reminder of the tremendous impact that stories have on our lives. Jesus, of course, was the master story-teller and his parables and life story continue to inspire and bless our lives, as do the many, many stories found in both the “Old Testament” Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

I am mindful, too, that the stories of and about Jesus and the events surrounding him would most likely not have survived had they not been written down by the various writers. From the written word we also see different aspects of what may originally be the same event or situation but written from the perspective of the particular writer and for their different audiences. Thus we also receive the benefit of what was most meaningful to the individual writer and to those who have interpreted the stories in the years that followed.

Writing that just now triggers a memory of a dear minister friend who was an inveterate story-teller and who was fond of saying laughingly about himself, “Never let the facts spoil a good story!” He said that in fun, but he was also saying that though the facts about something may be important, the story built around the facts was far more important in reaching people with a truth principle he wanted to get across.

Where would we be without stories? I remember listening with rapt attention to stories when I was a child and later as I grew into adulthood, especially whenever my grandmother, or my mother and father, or my favorite aunt would relate stories from their own lives. I also loved reading stories as a child and reading has sustained me and nourished me throughout my life.

Not only have I loved hearing and reading stories but I’ve loved telling stories, especially in my thirty-eight years of ministry. I love to tell funny stories and personal stories too, stories which may be filled with love and happiness or filled with heartache. I have found that we are able to touch one another’s hearts in a deep, soul-searching embrace through the stories of our lives we share with one another.

Sometimes when I am speaking to a group in a church service or a class, I find myself sharing a story which I hadn’t had any intention of sharing. It’s as though Spirit just pulls it out of me in that particular moment, and I have often found out later that the story touched someone’s heart in a special way. Or I am reminded of how meaningful the story still is to me when it brings me close to tears as I relate it, and if the story is one of personal loss or heartache it might also bring me closer to my own personal healing.

As I have developed my blog, Spiritual Solutions, I have discovered that writing my stories is every bit as meaningful as the vocal telling of my stories. And I am reminded of the words of Chris Cade, the developer of the Inscribe Your Life program, when he says in his guidebook to the program, “Only a few short years ago, I had never written a story; now I am guiding thousands of people worldwide to discover amazing truths about themselves through story writing. It happened to me, and it can happen to you just as easily if you open yourself to the infinite possibilities of your experience and existence.”

When I first learned about the Inscribe Your Life program, I became excited about its spiritual implications and I not only subscribed to the program but also signed up to be an affiliate in order to effectively tell others about the program and the spiritual impact it can have on an individual’s life. The program filled up rather quickly and I was disappointed when Chris Cade closed the doors to it after a relatively short time frame, even though he made that decision so as to serve the subscribers more personally and effectively.

However, I talked to Chris just this past week and he assured me that he would be opening the doors again in three to four weeks, and that meanwhile anyone interested in joining the program can go to the “Coming Soon” page which has a video preview of the program and a place for you to sign up for early notification of the coming open door. He has a lot more plans and things he is working on for the upcoming months, so you might want to sign up for information in order to stay in the loop.

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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.

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