Spring Resilient Week Two: Faith in Discernment with Josh Reeves

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Mile Hi Church Podcast. We're so happy to have you here and we invite

[00:00:05] you to join us for upcoming Easter services on Sunday, March 31st. Reverend Josh will be speaking

[00:00:12] about the resurrection of humanity and we've got great music being provided by Tom Litch and Jennifer

[00:00:19] Burnett and Dak Singleton and our Mile Hi Band. It's going to be wonderful. Please join us.

[00:00:26] One of my favorite spiritual teachers is the great Nasrudin Sufi teacher who is kind of like a

[00:00:33] spiritual idiot, which for some reason has great personal resonance for me. And there was once

[00:00:41] a kingdom and the king declared that only truth could be spoken in the kingdom. And Nasrudin

[00:00:47] arrived there one day and the king had a guard and their gallows set up so if you tell the truth

[00:00:54] you can get in but if you lie you get hung. And so Nasrudin arrives and the soldier there asks him

[00:01:00] what his purpose is for entering the city and Nasrudin says I'm here to be hanged.

[00:01:08] And the guard answers him well we're only hanging people who lie. Well then hang me anyways but

[00:01:14] that would mean the soldier said that you were telling the truth. Your truth Nasrudin

[00:01:19] replied. Not a very funny story but in some ways of thinking all these different versions

[00:01:25] of truth that kind of reminds me a little bit of what it's like to live in the United States in 2024.

[00:01:32] Do you notice how fuzzy it can seem sometimes that the truth has become so much that many

[00:01:38] of us fear that we may lose it all together. So many layers and misunderstandings and versions

[00:01:44] of the truth. And indeed there are many layers of the church of the truth. My merit has taught

[00:01:51] me for example that sometimes in an argument even though I'm right I'm wrong. Even though I might be

[00:01:59] right about the point or remembering something that happened in a particular way if I'm not listening,

[00:02:06] if I'm not compassionate I've lost the truth. It's a reminder that in our relationships who wins

[00:02:14] in an argument isn't who's right it's who gets back to love first just like the beautiful song

[00:02:20] that was shared with us. One of the most important spiritual understandings there is

[00:02:27] is that my truth and the truth are two different things. My truth and the truth are two different

[00:02:36] things it's great when they intersect together but they're two different things. My truth is made

[00:02:45] up of my experiences, my thoughts and beliefs, my feelings and emotions, my hopes and aspirations,

[00:02:55] my neuroses and my bias. And I wouldn't say it's fiction but it's certainly not non-fiction.

[00:03:05] Let's put it that way. And when my truth for me is all that there is it's an isolating

[00:03:13] lonely place to be. I have to remember that even though I may not know every aspect of what it is

[00:03:20] that the truth is something real, it's symbolic of spirit itself and the heart of all spiritual

[00:03:27] practice in so many ways is that willingness to put the my truth aside so that I can engage

[00:03:34] and open my heart with discerning faith to allow a greater truth in. In the truth we may say

[00:03:43] there are some divine conclusions we can come to. In my truth there is attachment to outcome.

[00:03:50] In the truth there is a commitment to the highest and best.

[00:03:57] In the truth in my truth there is my perception of reality. In the truth there is comfort

[00:04:03] that can come in embracing the mystery. In my truth I isolate myself in arrogance when I

[00:04:10] think it's all that is. In the truth I enter with humility. All are welcome.

[00:04:18] The truth informs my truth and it grows. In spiritual practice when I'm meditating only in a place

[00:04:27] of my truth, I'm not really meditating I'm just processing all my thoughts, all my feelings,

[00:04:34] all my memories, all my worries but when I open up to the truth I'm informed not by the life that

[00:04:42] I'm living but by that divine life that's living me. I come present and I'm relieved of my stories.

[00:04:51] I'm relieved of my judgments and I'm informed at a deep heart level by what's really real.

[00:05:01] When I'm practicing affirmative prayer just from my truth it's all about trying to manipulate and bend

[00:05:09] the laws of nature to demonstrate what I want. It's my wishes and my hopes it's not a bad thing

[00:05:16] but when I practice prayer and awareness of the truth I am ready to pray for the highest

[00:05:24] and best good. I am willing to accept the life that the divine has in mind for me.

[00:05:34] Emerson said of prayer that any prayer other than for the all good is vicious

[00:05:42] and I've learned that in my prayer practice if I can't wish it for everybody I don't pray for

[00:05:47] it for myself. I don't mean that in the sense that I pray that each and every one of you has

[00:05:51] a better relationship with my spouse but when I'm praying for love I want love for you. When I'm

[00:05:59] praying for abundance I want abundance for all people and there's something freeing and enlightening

[00:06:06] and uplifting about that. Isolated in my truth I'm in a sad arrogance but when I'm open to the

[00:06:18] truth it's then that I can interact with the other my truth out there your truth and there can be this

[00:06:25] space where my truth and your truth can meet in the truth together and we can deepen and grow

[00:06:32] the greatest sacrament in life there is coming together and understanding in spirit. So I'm

[00:06:41] sharing some of my own personal rules for spiritual discernment today and that's the first one that my

[00:06:49] truth for me is different than the truth and thank god for that. Socrates said that the beginning

[00:06:58] of wisdom isn't knowledge but it's not knowing it's admitting that we don't know.

[00:07:05] So Nru Suzuki said in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities in the expert's mind there are

[00:07:12] few. Gandhi said that his religion wasn't Hinduism but the truth. I think that's true of us religious

[00:07:23] scientists as well. Our religion is for the truth it's what we're committed to it's what we're

[00:07:29] dedicated towards even if it disappoints the my truth we're always focused on heading where that

[00:07:38] truth is leading us. Gandhi said I believe that we can all become messengers of god if we cease to

[00:07:45] fear others and seek only god's truth. I do not believe I am seeking only god's truth

[00:07:52] and have lost all fear of people. I do feel that god is with the movement of non-cooperation

[00:08:00] I have no special revelation of god's will my firm belief is that god reveals himself daily

[00:08:07] to every human being but we shut our ears to that still small voice. That's what opening up to

[00:08:15] a greater truth is. It's listening to the deeper layers within ourselves and this is what I mean

[00:08:22] today by faith and discernment. Faith and discernment for me isn't the kind of faith that's just in

[00:08:30] conviction of your beliefs it's about being open and committed to the truth wherever it leads us.

[00:08:37] It's not so much the faith of fake it till you make it but the faith of taking divine ideas

[00:08:45] and experimenting with them in your life to see what shows up. It's not the faith of act as if

[00:08:51] but doing our damnedest to be true to what is. I want to be true to what is and deal with whatever

[00:08:59] the consequences are of just that. I remember being 16 years old and reading the great Catholic

[00:09:07] mystic of the middle ages Meister Eckert and I remember coming upon the following line that

[00:09:13] really helped shape my spirituality. Eckert says what is truth? The truth is something so noble

[00:09:21] that if god could turn aside from it I could keep truth and let god go. Well mind bending isn't it?

[00:09:29] What is truth? The truth is something so noble that if god could turn aside from it I could

[00:09:35] keep truth and let god go. I had to think about that for days I still think about it these

[00:09:41] days. The idea being that god is truth and even if a perspective of god stands in the way of it

[00:09:48] we have to let it go. It's that idea that we can see so many people challenged with that if your

[00:09:55] religion is keeping you from god it's not religion. If your religion is keeping you from

[00:10:02] respecting humanity it's not religion. If your partisanship is keeping you from patriotism

[00:10:10] you're no patriot. If your participation in the diversity and equity and inclusion committee is

[00:10:18] keeping you from embracing diversity and being inclusive and supporting others it's not diversity,

[00:10:24] equity and inclusion. It's so easy to make that my truth mistake that we wind up betraying the

[00:10:33] very virtues and spirit that we're seeking to create and bring forth in our lives and that's why

[00:10:40] there's so much wonder in embracing the mystery and being willing to not know

[00:10:47] so that we can be greater informed and uplifted in our lives. A second rule of spiritual

[00:10:54] discernment for us this morning, this is important for us at Mile High because we're

[00:10:59] big tense spirituality here. Lots of different ideas, lots of different beliefs all united in our

[00:11:06] commitment to the truth and our tool here is affirmative prayer but you'll meet people

[00:11:11] here who consider themselves mediums or that work with a light or Reiki or that utilize

[00:11:17] terror or wisdom cards and we're open at the top here we love to explore all of that

[00:11:22] except I would suggest one rule for you that I use for myself and that is the moment anyone

[00:11:29] tells you that they have a power that you do not have within yourself or the ability to cultivate,

[00:11:35] walk away. Walk away. They can be talented, they can be gifted but every great spiritual teacher

[00:11:47] who was worth their own salt never pointed at themselves they always pointed to let you

[00:11:53] know that the truth is within you and you can utilize it and make it so in your life.

[00:11:59] It's that misuse of power, that manipulation, that tricking which has caused all of the negative

[00:12:08] stuff that comes out of religion and spirituality. If someone's not pointing back to the power and

[00:12:16] you walk away a third rule for spiritual discernment similar but a little different than the first

[00:12:22] for me is to recognize that perception is not reality. Perception is not reality. It can

[00:12:30] be part reality and it's interesting for us religious scientists because in a way we're

[00:12:35] responsible for this idea you know think it and get there and yet I think this belief if we look

[00:12:41] through social media and politics and news and everything going on in the world we buy into

[00:12:46] this idea that perception is reality and wind up surrendering our commitment to truth

[00:12:53] and in that sometimes we lose ourselves, sometimes we lose relationships. Some of

[00:12:59] a sphere that we may lose our country and our fellowship and good citizenship and care of

[00:13:06] one another from this idea that perception is reality. We're spiritually mature here

[00:13:14] in our teaching in the sense that we can recognize the difference between lowercase

[00:13:19] reality and uppercase reality, uppercase R reality. Lowercase reality is fluid. It's always

[00:13:27] changing. It's always transforming. It should always be challenging us to grow and evolve

[00:13:33] and expand that capital R reality which we refer to as the changeless reality also includes

[00:13:39] that those empirical truths, those unchanging facts of life and we get to live in both of them

[00:13:48] as we expand our understanding but don't sacrifice the greater truth to try and be right.

[00:13:56] Just try and stay in that one perspective. I love something our founder Ernest Holmes said.

[00:14:00] He said, our thinking doesn't change reality at all. Some people think it does but it never

[00:14:07] flattened the world when they thought it was flat. It only flattened their experience on a round

[00:14:12] one. When someone knew it was round they could navigate it. I apologize to any flat earthers

[00:14:20] out there and their habits. What this means to me and it's part of our calling as religious

[00:14:29] scientists and mile hires is that we always recognize even in the most dismal or challenging

[00:14:36] circumstances there's a greater truth. We edge towards love and peace. We embrace greater

[00:14:45] possibility. We believe in the inherent love, beauty and divine perfection in each individual

[00:14:54] and their ability to embody and bring it forth. It's hard sometimes. It can be damn hard work

[00:15:00] but that's what we're called to do. Some of you may have noticed we're in a presidential

[00:15:06] election year. Anyone notice that? And I was getting to share with our spiritual leaders at

[00:15:12] our sinister spiritual living conference in South Carolina a few weeks back and I'll share it with you

[00:15:18] as well that it's about that time when congregants are going to start coming to spiritual leaders

[00:15:23] pulling out their hair. Going a map, where do you think it's better to live? Canada or Mexico?

[00:15:29] There's that anxiety and it's understandable to have anxiety when you care about your

[00:15:34] country and what direction it's going to end. And as spiritual leaders this is for all of us

[00:15:39] we have to decide are we going to pull our hair out too? Are we going to say well that place looks

[00:15:43] pretty cool in Canada there. I wouldn't mind living there or are we going to respond

[00:15:50] not denying that we may be anxious but with that higher consciousness. It's something again

[00:15:57] so unique and powerful about our teaching is that we are an American spirituality

[00:16:04] not just in the sense that we were formed in America but our faith more than any other faith

[00:16:09] there is is aligned with the spirit of the Declaration of Independence which we embrace to

[00:16:15] mean that every individual on this planet has a divine right and a divine calling towards liberty

[00:16:25] towards freedom for justice for the pursuit of their happiness and their joy. We believe in

[00:16:31] that not just as the law of our land but as an article of our faith. On page one of the science of mind

[00:16:42] Holmes says that the divine plan is one of freedom, bondage is not God ordained.

[00:16:49] Freedom is the birthright of every living soul. What an opportunity for us

[00:16:55] in the midst of uncertainty in the midst of the election to hold that higher truth

[00:17:03] that our country is a divine idea in the mind of God and that we can give that energy and encourage

[00:17:09] others too to know a highest and best outcome is taking place. Not always easy but that's the calling

[00:17:18] another one for us is to bring a consciousness of wholeness to every circumstance. That doesn't

[00:17:27] mean we put on rose colored glasses that means that we include all of the my truths in our

[00:17:34] consciousness of our country. That's the one that recognizes that yes we love the declaration

[00:17:39] of independence and our founders didn't apply it to everybody at the time. We've only been

[00:17:44] practicing it for like 50 years seeking to. It's that ability to recognize and still hold all of

[00:17:51] our institutions as sacred even when we may be criticizing them to hold sacred our three

[00:17:57] branches of government, our schools and our teachers, our churches and our ministers,

[00:18:02] our doctors and our nurses, our police people and our fire people. You can uphold the highest

[00:18:10] expectation of them and still seek to reform them. It's when we get on the fringes that we so distrust,

[00:18:18] that we weave that pessimism and when we get back to center we can have that consciousness

[00:18:24] of seeking to transform and uplift but we do it from a place of wholeness and love not spite

[00:18:32] and hate. We have that ability I love what James Baldwin once said he said I love America

[00:18:40] more than any other country in the world and exactly for this reason I insist on the right

[00:18:45] to criticize her perpetually. We can practice tough love with one another and yet we can hold a

[00:18:52] consciousness of wholeness for our lives in our country and for our well-being because I want you

[00:18:57] to have hair. I want you to have as much peace of mind as possible. Lastly something us religious

[00:19:06] scientists are so good at it's the it's the co-work curriculum of all of our talks and all

[00:19:11] of our classes and it's how to communicate with one another. We know how to listen,

[00:19:18] we know how to seek to understand where someone's coming from even when we don't agree.

[00:19:23] We seek to expand understanding not to limit understanding. I was listening to an interview

[00:19:31] with a republican congressperson from Pennsylvania and he said that he thought that the number one

[00:19:36] problem facing our country was lack of bipartisanship and I thought that was a profound thing to say in

[00:19:41] light of gun violence and reproductive rights and the economy and the deficit and immigration all

[00:19:48] these important things but it speaks to that idea that some of these issues may actually have

[00:19:52] pragmatic solutions but there's so much distrust. There's so much my truth is better than your

[00:20:00] truth that there's not that ability to listen, to build trust where it's lacking and to make those

[00:20:07] important decisions just like we do in our own individual life. And again it's not my intention

[00:20:14] to be political here but to recognize that all of us are affected by this in our day-to-day

[00:20:20] lives who are seeking to be good citizens and it's our sacred responsibility to use faith and

[00:20:27] discernment to seek that greater truth that we want for our children and for their children as well.

[00:20:35] Speaking of perception not being reality I always love watching everything that's happening in the

[00:20:41] social world and one of the big perception things that's coming up a lot has to do with age

[00:20:48] and ageism you notice that? I'm not here to apply it to the election in any way but it's so

[00:20:54] interesting that we live in this time where we no longer know what it means to be 80 or 70 or 50.

[00:21:03] It's kind of a wonderful thing but we have to stop and pause and say what does it mean?

[00:21:07] What does it mean now that I'm this age? I don't know you get to decide what it means.

[00:21:13] I love a gentleman, a doctor Howard Tucker he's 100 years old still a practicing doctor in Ohio

[00:21:20] and he shares the number of older practicing physicians has increased this is a tribute to the

[00:21:25] sophistication of modern medicine which allows doctors to live longer and to the fact that many

[00:21:30] physicians have forsaken smoking. I remember when doctors with a cigarette dangling between

[00:21:36] their lips would advise patients to smoke because it will curb your appetite and quiet your

[00:21:40] nerves. Dr. Tucker has been practicing medicine for 75 years and he shares that study shows

[00:21:47] that only about 30% of people over the age of 65 show or demonstrate cognitive decline which

[00:21:54] means 65% don't at all and as I know because many of my friends are in this congregation

[00:22:00] that the ageism out there is a real thing. Someone who as Carl Rogers said not growing

[00:22:07] older but older and growing is trying to get a new job and they're told you're too experienced.

[00:22:12] They go in to get some healthcare and they're spoken down to or treated like they're overly

[00:22:18] frail. We want to get that out of our consciousness. We want to get ageism out of our

[00:22:24] consciousness and judge each individual by themselves. If Dr. Tucker's exhibit A I'll

[00:22:32] give to you as well exhibit B the Rolling Stones. 80, 79 and 70% of the

[00:22:42] 80, 79 and 76 years old in my opinion put out the best album of the year in 2023. It's called

[00:22:51] Hackney Diamonds and if you like rock and roll it's wonderful but it's some of the best songwriting

[00:22:57] that I've ever experienced and it's so cool because they're not trying to be 20 or 40 or

[00:23:02] 60 or even 70. They're being who they are and they're able to write songs that a 20-year-old

[00:23:08] probably could never write sharing from the wisdom of their experience, their joy of life and in

[00:23:15] their elder wisdom. That's the sense of timelessness that only a song and really good music can bring

[00:23:22] you that that sense of experiencing the beauty of life. So my truth is not the truth. If someone

[00:23:34] is telling me they have a power that I don't have within me I walk away. Perception is not

[00:23:39] reality although we it's what we have to discern reality but be humble about it. Hold a high consciousness

[00:23:47] and I have many more. I'm going to share one more. One of mine that I share with ministers is that if

[00:23:52] your talk is under 25 minutes it's about them. If it's over 25 minutes it's about you and I

[00:23:57] realize I'm right at that point. Here's the last one. Never hold yourself back from who you

[00:24:08] are becoming. Never hold yourself back from who you are becoming. The greatest obstacle between

[00:24:17] you and who you are becoming is yourself. That self-judgment those stories we tell about ourselves

[00:24:24] what we think we're not capable of so we're afraid to try that resistance that gets built up.

[00:24:30] Never hold yourself back from who you are becoming. I remember my first day of ministerial

[00:24:36] school it was the summer of 2002 and we had this retreat in Santa Barbara California and we're all

[00:24:43] getting our food. We're like first day of school nervous students and there is a great minister

[00:24:48] in our movement Dr. Lloyd Tupper is there to speak and he's chatting it up with the students

[00:24:54] and I was a part of the Hainton Beach Church and the senior minister there had just resigned

[00:24:59] and so he got to chatting with me and he asked me where I was from I said I was from the

[00:25:03] church in Hainton Beach and he said on purpose really loud are you going to be their next minister

[00:25:09] and I was kind of like a fifth grader who gets called out on their crush in front of their crush

[00:25:13] I just turned beat red no oh no that's not me I could never do that and I was a little mad at

[00:25:19] him and I kind of wrestled with it for a couple days and I figured out oh he did that on purpose.

[00:25:25] He knew I wasn't going to be the next senior minister of the Hainton Beach Church of Religious

[00:25:29] Science but he was testing and encouraging me to step into who I was becoming. It's so wonderful

[00:25:40] when we have those people in our lives who hold us to who we are becoming but the best spiritual

[00:25:45] thing we can do for ourselves is to hold ourselves there as well to overcome the resistance,

[00:25:51] the fear, the sense of not enoughness and to know that by stepping into who we are

[00:25:56] becoming it gives us all the tools that we need to live the grandest and best life possible.

[00:26:03] Who you are becoming is a real thing. It's not just a possibility it is an actuality

[00:26:10] in the mind of spirit and when we have enough courage to step into it, enough vulnerability,

[00:26:15] enough strength, enough discernment it is embodied in us and we become not just what

[00:26:23] we are meant to be but that who we really, really are. So taking that thought into prayer and

[00:26:29] inviting any of our prayer practitioners who choose to join me to stand and hold consciousness

[00:26:34] today and I also just want to take a moment to honor another life that transitioned this week

[00:26:43] my good friend Spencer Pickens made his transition last weekend deep voice big man

[00:26:50] beautiful man and I don't know if I've ever known anyone that had that ability at any time just to

[00:26:57] drop in to unconditional love you would look into this man's eyes and immediately feel the heart

[00:27:05] of the divine expressing through him and ask him and I know that that unconditional love is all

[00:27:11] that Spencer is now that he's been released from a form that could contain his spirit

[00:27:16] no longer and that love of who he is blesses those who are grieving his passing today.

[00:27:23] Again we hold Joanie, Greg their entire family in our hearts and I simply bless and affirm

[00:27:31] that the arms of the divine are around Michaela right now that she too is free from her suffering

[00:27:38] that she is uplifted in the light of grace and that she is able perhaps now in a clearer

[00:27:44] way to experience her divine that just how divinely loved she is and I know that her love continues

[00:27:51] on it continues to express itself it brings new epiphanies and understandings and may it bring peace

[00:27:58] to Joanie's heart and all of those who are grieving this loss today and for each and every one of us

[00:28:06] knowing there is a higher truth that lifts us up it will grab us it will uplift us if we just

[00:28:12] let it that truth that allows us to see our lives through the lens of spirit that reminds us that we

[00:28:19] are souls that can bring us healing that can bring us a new profound openness and trust

[00:28:28] of the heart within ourselves in the heart of all that is life may this divine truth

[00:28:35] comfort us challenge us in the greatest of ways and inspiring us moving forward

[00:28:41] to hold the highest life for us for our loved ones for our communities and for our country

[00:28:47] allowing this truth to be we are it's becoming and so it is

[00:28:54] thanks for listening to the mile high church podcast this podcast is made possible by the

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