Minister's Letter for August, I Am The Place.jpg)
“I am the Place
I am the place that God shines through
For God and I are one not two
I need not fear, nor fret, nor plan
For God needs me right where I am
And if I am relaxed and free
God will do a mighty work through me!
My daughter, Shavonne taught me this prayer by an unknown author when she was 3 years old, after coming home from a children’s Sunday School class at Unity in Chicago. When she told it to me, I just thought, “Wow what an amazing powerful simple prayer that can get straight to the heart!” It reminds me that I walk, live, move and have my being immersed in the Divine and I can let go of all my concerns and look for the goodness! Something we can teach to our children to help them. Since that time, it has become a cornerstone of my life, a prayer I use in my daily life, whether I am enjoying the wonders of my garden or trying to figure out the updates and changes in the software on my computer or talking to a challenging sales person! Wherever we are we can pause, breathe in the breath of life, say this short prayer and become aware of Life Force, the Living Energy that is all around us and can guide our way in wonder and delight
This amazing, simple, centering pray is also a complete contradiction of what I was taught as a child! That God was a mean vindictive, all powerful punishing deity who I better comply with and do His Will, or I would suffer! When I prayed for “things” as a child, like to win a game or get a certain gift, seldom were my prayers answered! So I believed I had done something wrong and had to suffer the consequence, although I never quite figure out what I had done wrong. Add to that all the extreme injures I had as a child, I were believed I was in really in trouble. God’s Will wow what was I doing wrong!
Wondering about what God’s Will was something I let go of when I left high school and went to college, which allowed me to wander through the wonders of the Shenandoah Valley and the surrounding mountains. I didn’t go to “church” from that time on until I wandered into Unity in the mid 80’s. In immersing myself into Unity’s Spiritual Literature I realized, that walking in the wonders of the Shenandoah Valley and all of nature was God’s Will for us, that we live, move and have our being immersed in this Living Energy (God) and we are meant to experience Its wonders! Not all that crazy stuff our mortal minds and our personal will inflicts upon us! As I type these words the writing of a 4th century Celtic monk named Pelagius come to mind. He wrote about these shafts of Divine light shining down from on high piercing the veil that separates heaven from earth, it is in these shafts of Light that God can be glimpsed moving in life. Pelagius wrote, “Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells in them. Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the tiny insects crawling in the Grass: God’s Spirit dwells in them… When God pronounced that his creation was good, it was not only that his hands had fashioned every creature; it was that “his breath” had brought every creature to life... The presence of God’s Spirit is in all living things and is what makes them beautiful.”
I now believe it is God’s will that we all experience the Divine Light and Breath of life in all we do! To see and feel it in each person we meet, and allow “this wonder” to lift us up in our awareness as we go about each moment of each day. But to do this, we have to learn how our personal will and the will of the materialistic realm works and to let it go. We need to surrender the constant whining and complaining of our ego minds, so we can truly be here in this moment now to experience God’s Will and the wonders of life. Wow I am the place God shines through…
Namaste, I See the Light In You RevDoc Patrick
