Not knowing, or what some call the mystery, can be both friend and foe. It can create intense fear and uncertainty. It can also be the beginning of transformation, creativity, and growth.
[00:00:00] The following talk was given at Mile Hi Church in Lakewood, Colorado. Please visit our website at MileHiChurch.org We all make the commitment just to reach out to five of our fellow congregants. Just to say hi, say how we're doing my emails, J Reeves at MileHiChurch.org.
[00:00:38] I'd love to hear from you any of us ministers. You just put the first letter of their name, their last name at MileHiChurch.org and let's stay connected. And we can't wait to all come together again.
[00:00:49] And so grateful to share the stage tonight with Reverend Jackie Harris who's going to be providing our message tonight. And Reverend Samira, Jazwierska, I'm going back to the week of March 10th. It seems like decades ago now.
[00:01:04] And that upcoming Sunday, we were so looking forward to officially announcing you both as ministers here at MileHiChurch. Your long-time mile hires and you've worked so hard to get here. And we were going to officially announce you.
[00:01:17] And so this is still an unofficial announcement today, but we're so grateful to have you here. Reverend Jackie, now leading our Ministry of Service. And Reverend Samira working with our small groups and all sorts of different areas are so glad to have you here with MileHiChurch.
[00:01:33] And to have you here with us tonight. And one of the things I know, because I know both of you, is that both of you have had to deal with this coronavirus crisis in your own unique ways and in your own families.
[00:01:47] And so I just want to ask you tonight how you've found your way through this spiritually and just maybe begin with you. Samira. Yeah, well thank you Josh and thank you for that introduction.
[00:01:59] It is absolutely a blessing to be here and to be part of the MileHi family for such a long time. During this time it has been, it's had its ups and downs as I'm sure it has for all of you.
[00:02:13] But some of the blessings that have come up for my family and I is that we were able to bring back an old fashioned custom of having dinner.
[00:02:23] And that's really something that was so hard to do with teenagers and with all the activities that all of us are involved in all the time.
[00:02:33] It had been a long time since we had had a consistent dinner every night where we sat down and we connected and laughed and cooked together. That's a real blessing. That's been a blessing.
[00:02:47] Yeah, but it's so important you have to find those little things and those little joy. And those little joy is for sure.
[00:02:54] Yeah, some of the more challenging parts of this stay in place is that both Todd and I, my partner Todd and I we have seniors in high school.
[00:03:05] And there were several moments of disillusionment when they finally found out that we weren't going to be celebrating in the way that was expected. And so we've had to become creative you know in our ways of celebrating them and in creating different rights of passages.
[00:03:25] And spiritually I have to say that time for contemplation has been a blessing and it has been a consistency that even all throughout schooling and throughout all of our busy lives.
[00:03:39] I always just yearned for that time that uninterrupted time to kind of fall in and that has been another thing that has kind of been the saving grace of this time.
[00:03:50] So it's a part of what I'm hearing is that the blessings are found especially with those of us who have full houses and creating conscious sacred time together, but also making sure you get that sacred time alone. That's lovely. Yes. Good balance. Absolutely. Yes. Very well put.
[00:04:08] Congratulations to both of those graduates. Thank you. How about for you, Jackie? It's been an interesting time for me. First of all I would agree with Zamera. Thank you very much.
[00:04:19] It's it's an honor to be part of the mile high family. I've all we've been a part of the mile high family for a long time but to be a minister and feel like I can really do even more to help with our community.
[00:04:32] I will say that the first part we live in the foothills. So the beauty of it is we've had gorgeous weather for the most part since this coronavirus started and my husband and I take three to four mile walks during that time and we're unencumbered because we're more in the foothills where you don't run into so many people.
[00:04:56] So that has been a real blessing. There has been sadness during this time. My mother went through her transition two weeks ago and I had not been able to contact her because they had closed the facility. She's in she was in a care facility where they of course is so many of them are.
[00:05:20] They didn't allow visitors and because she got to a place that she couldn't actually communicate it's I feel like I never was able to say goodbye.
[00:05:31] So the beauty of this teaching it to me is that I know I know that her soul is in a such a beautiful place right now and I know that it is a blessing in the long run.
[00:05:48] But it is interesting how death kind of pushes a family and then when you're in this it creates all kinds of new and interesting ways of being as human beings. So it's been a time of a lot of contemplation and I'm thankful for that.
[00:06:07] I'm tearing up a little bit not just hearing your story but we think about all of those individuals right now who have people that they love who maybe passing and they can't get that physical goodbye.
[00:06:21] Maybe they get to do a virtual connection or something like that but they don't get that physical goodbye which is so important to us.
[00:06:30] And you know yet what I'm hearing you saying is even going through the hell kind of of that experience there's still grace to be found and you know we talk about this spiritual stuff and we affirm it and yet you know there are those times that we have to put it into practice and and I'm so glad you know what you know because that's what I know about you and your mother is that you're always connected in that these connections never and like it or not sometimes.
[00:06:55] But but you think about all those people out there who don't have teachings like these right now who are suffering and having a challenging time and you know are there are there are the tips that we we have for them or suggestions or we just we are just heart goes out to them what do you think.
[00:07:12] Well absolutely our hearts go out to them but you know there is a power in the universe and we can use it and that's what I would say to everyone is just remember that there is a power so much greater than us.
[00:07:26] No matter what you choose to call it and that's what you can lean on in those moments.
[00:07:31] I mean we might even say that you know part of our own individual spiritual practices is learning to live in the exterior reality all around us but to also recognize that there's this interior reality and what's around me.
[00:07:47] You know things fall apart things go away things and but with a strong spiritual practice we begin to live in this inner reality as well that we can't see but is more real than than anything and for me you know that's where I truly want to meet my loved ones.
[00:08:04] I really want to meet my my spirit and I want to live in this exterior reality as long as I can but I know if I'm too attached to this and not nurturing this I'm maybe half myself sometimes too.
[00:08:19] The same is true for me I think what's really helped me and is knowing that we still maintain that sense of connection in the heart. And that's never that's never interrupted no matter the fact that we can't be together.
[00:08:33] And physically in the same place but that you know that we always are connected at that deeper level I have a daughter that lives in London and she was supposed to be arriving in a couple of days.
[00:08:47] And we're not able to be together but in some ways this has allowed us to kind of deepen in and not take for granted that connection that we do have that is no matter what it looks like we don't have to be together to be present with each other and we've really been able to celebrate that way that presence.
[00:09:09] Yeah, whether it stops or crumbles or whatever it is that's your experience going on those those who are watching right now.
[00:09:16] You know it's important to remember that there are always those opportunities to connect to keep creating those those daily rituals alone with people that you love to to consciously celebrate those sacred connections and even when it things seems like things are falling apart and maybe they are around us.
[00:09:33] There are those moments that remind us of that deep truth and you always think you know that there's that pop that they're saying keep calm and carry on that we see and you know hand bags and things today and that originated.
[00:09:45] You know back in British propaganda during World War II when they thought the Nazis were going to occupy their country they had several posters and one was this poster that said keep calm and carry on that everyone see around them and objective you go how is that going to help you but there's a spiritual tone to that that says.
[00:10:02] You know no matter what is going on around you hold to your center hold to your truth and keep walking and trust no matter what is going on that there are those moments of grace those moments of connection and that real life is something that can never really truly be taken away from us.
[00:10:22] So tonight that song is so perfect because my talk is the wisdom of not knowing.
[00:10:29] And as human beings that's a struggle we have the whole notion of the mystery of life we want to know the answers it's our it's our rational mind our figure it out mind wants to know what all the answers are and here we are in a situation right.
[00:10:51] Now in this world that we don't have an answer for and people are working on it and but we want an answer are figured out mind wants an answer.
[00:11:06] Well I'm going to give you some tools I hope this evening to to be able to move through the not knowing and be somewhat okay with it. But the first thing I want to do is I want to share a Zen story with you.
[00:11:25] A university professor wanted to learn about Zen so he approached a Japanese master, Nenin and said I'd like to learn about Zen and Nenin invited him to his home to come into his home and offer him tea.
[00:11:46] And as they're sitting there Nenin begins pouring the tea filling the tea cup and the tea cup begins to overflow and the professor sitting there and all of a sudden he goes stop.
[00:11:59] The cup is full in fact it's running over and then in looks at him and says yes just as your mind is too full of ideas and too much knowledge you must empty it before I can teach you Zen.
[00:12:18] I would tell us that that's the first step we must get rid of some of the ideas we have in our mind so that we can be open to what the possibilities are for ourselves now and for ourselves moving forward.
[00:12:37] One of the things I'm going to do tonight is I'm going to tell you a Bible story here we are in a mile high church and I'm going to talk to you about a story in the Old Testament.
[00:12:49] It's in Genesis 12 and it's the story of Abraham and Sarah but I'm not going to tell you the whole story but I have to tell you that it's a fascinating story.
[00:13:02] I almost like a soap opera if you were to read it straight through but I'm going to tell you the first part of it.
[00:13:09] First of all Abraham and Sarah started out as Abram and Sarah and it wasn't until they reached the promise land that God had sent them to that their names were changed because they changed.
[00:13:23] They were brought up in Err which is would have been near the Persian Gulf and what we now know of as Iraq. And they so what they knew in their life was worshiping the sun, worshiping the moon, worshiping astrology.
[00:13:41] There were all kinds of idols around and then God spoke to Abraham and said, I want you to go and by the way I'm paraphrasing God, I want you to go to the promise land and I will make of you a great nation.
[00:14:02] Alright folks now think of this. You've been worshiping idols, the sun, the moon, astrology and then this voice comes to you and tells you to do this.
[00:14:13] I don't know about you but it's to me somewhat amazing that Abraham he did the call of God and took Sarah and his nephew lot and they started for the promise land. So notice he's now going on a journey.
[00:14:33] And this is an outer journey that he's going on and it's not an easy journey. He doesn't know what he's going to run into as he moves across the desert.
[00:14:44] He doesn't have a GPS system. He doesn't have a map, he doesn't have an itinerary and God didn't tell him exactly where he was going.
[00:14:53] And yet he trusted enough to follow God and he followed God and even when he got to the promised land after all the other things that happened in between, he had to move away because it was a famine.
[00:15:12] The fascinating part about this story to me is that here they had an outer journey but the whole time they were also going on an inner journey which is what we need to do when we're looking at not knowing.
[00:15:29] Imagine these people did not know anything that was going to face them and yet they stepped out in faith. We each have an internal GPS of our own and I believe that of course Abraham and Sarah had that also.
[00:15:46] And we can listen to that GPS within us or not, and many times we choose not to listen to it. So what I'm going to do is share with you three things in addition to opening the mind remember that teacup.
[00:16:04] I think that will stay in your mind that overflowing teacup is that what our mind gets like sometimes. The first thing I'm going to bring up is staying in the present moment. You know we have a tendency to want to go back and think about the past.
[00:16:23] We can't do anything about the past folks it's done. Hopefully we've learned something in what we see in the past but certainly we don't want to spend our time hanging out in the past. And so then we say oh well how about the future?
[00:16:41] Well the future makes us anxious. Think about right now we don't know. We don't know what's the future going to look like. We don't know. So let's not hang out in the future. Let's hang out in the present moment.
[00:17:02] And the present moment is an interesting piece to try to stay in but it's the only place. The only place where nothing has ever gone wrong.
[00:17:16] And I'm going to tell you that Jesse Jennings says that in the next month's issue of science of mind and I love that. The present moment when we're in the spiritual practice. Now how do you get to the present moment?
[00:17:34] One way is through the breath we've been taught that. One way is through meditation using your breath in meditation because it makes you think of something. It just puts you right into that present moment.
[00:17:48] So spiritual practice will bring you to and keep you close to the present moment. Eckhart told me spoke a lot about the present moment and I wanted to share some thoughts he had.
[00:18:03] He says living in the present moment is the key to developing a sense of profound bliss, love and unity with everything in the universe. The key to staying present in the moment is to remember to come back to your state of heightened awareness.
[00:18:22] I always say that the act of becoming present is not difficult. The difficulty lies in our ability to practice it as we move through our daily lives. So dealing with not knowing we keep an open mind, we work to stay at the present moment and we have faith.
[00:18:51] Ernest Holmes says faith is a mental attitude.
[00:18:56] Now you think about faith and faith is, we have faith in a lot of things but the faith we're looking at is the faith that Abraham had that he was going to get from her to the promised land because God had promised him that.
[00:19:14] That's trust, that's faith. The Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzburg says about faith it's the willingness to take the next step. To see the unknown as an adventure to launch a journey with faith we move into the unknown openly meeting whatever the next moment brings.
[00:19:42] We can draw near to the truth of the present moment which is dissolving into the unknown even as we meet it. My angeloo, I was listening to a series of meditations and it was a quote that was used and I'm going to change a word. She used hope.
[00:20:04] I'm going to use the word faith. Faith and fear cannot exist in the same place and at the same time. It's up to you to choose one. Let one in, you decide. An earnest home said faith is thought moving consciously, definitely for a specific purpose.
[00:20:31] And if it is real faith, accepting the outcome of the purpose. With faith we seek to go beyond the obvious tangible level of reality to perceive the unknown invisible mystery.
[00:20:51] And that's the next point I'm going to take you to. So we've had keeping your mind open. Being in the present moment, having faith. No matter what it looks like and then using your imagination. That makes sound rather strange but imagination is a part of faith.
[00:21:11] Imagination takes us beyond what's visible and manifest. And it takes us way beyond what we understand in our limited ability to think. I can see some people going, oh, imagination. I don't have an imagination anymore but every one of us has imagination.
[00:21:36] If you think back to when you were a child or if you watch a child, the imagination is the spark of their creativity and their happiness. And to have that ability to grab on to that imagination now. Artists, musicians, mystics, scientists use their imagination.
[00:22:05] Right now our scientists are having to use certainly their knowledge of science but they're imagination to come up with a vaccine for the coronavirus. fantastic thing to think that they can use their imagination to create something that
[00:22:25] can be such a blessing and such a cure for our world. So I want everyone out there to work on that imagination. You've got time, you certainly have time to work on the
[00:22:39] imagination. I know I'm going to. So what I would say to you is you have those four things keep your mind open remembering the Tika. Go to the present moment as often as you can
[00:22:55] because that's where nothing has ever been wrong. Have faith and be sure to work on an engage your imagination because we don't know what the future is going to bring but we have the opportunity to make choices and to create a whole new world for everyone right now.
[00:23:19] Bless you all and thank you for being with us this evening and so it is. Thank you for listening to the Mylhycheurch podcast. This podcast is made possible by the generous contributions from listeners like you. If you'd like to make a donation, please visit us
[00:23:38] at Mylhycheurch.org. Have a fabulous day.