Midweek Faith Lift
April 3, 2019
All Obstacles Removed….Here They Come!
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
We are at Week 5, the week of actually inviting our friends to Unity of Ames for next Sunday, April 7. This is the week we send or deliver the postcard invitations in person to our friends and neighbors. It is the week for us to visualize how it will be when all of those invited say yes and join us next Sunday, April 7. It will be a joyful day of celebration and good food at our favorite recipe potluck! We have been preparing for many weeks, so let’s take a moment and breathe into this image or vision of sharing our spiritual community with our friends. Close your eyes and just imagine our sanctuary filled with the energy of people who said yes, people who are curious and willing to risk coming to church with a friend. We asked and they said yes….feel the positive energy, the gratitude and hold that image all this week so that we make it real next Sunday. What a great image!
Today, on our last Sunday of preparation, we are going to focus on all obstacles being removed so that nothing is in the way of our asking or their responding with a resounding yes!! The removal of obstacles to our human endeavors is a universal petition in most all religions and spiritual practices. What does it take to remove an obstacle? There were three that came to me this week as I was thinking about this last week of planning, holding the space and inviting our friends: Ganesha, from the Hindu tradition, Ho’oponopono from the Hawaiian tradition and the stories of Jesus about forgiveness.
The first one came to me in a song, which I am going to share with you and invite you to sing with me. I learned this as a Dance from my participation in Dances of Universal Peace in Des Moines. We often do this one in the Spring, as it is a time of new beginnings and growth. It is about the Hindu god, Ganesha, the Remover of Obstacles. Here is one depiction of how the Hindus see Ganesha. He is a god with an elephant head, many arms and quite portly as he likes sweets! My kind of god, right!
According to Mark Cartwright, from the Ancient History Encylopedia, March 25, 2012,
Ganesha is highly recognisable with his elephant head and human body, representing the soul (atman) and the physical (maya) respectively. He is also the patron of writers, travellers, students, commerce, and new projects (for which he removes obstacles from one's path) and is rather fond of sweets, to the slight detriment of his figure.
Ganesha’s figure represents Divine/human energy embodied in one being. There are many stories about how Ganesha came to look like he does, most of them having to do with overcoming challenges, outwitting enemies and outsmarting adversaries. It is even said that he ate too many sacrificial cakes, and then he took a ride on his pet rat who was startled by a snake. Ganesha fell on his belly and it split open, but he did not get upset! Again, according to Mark Cartwright, Ancient History Encyclopedia,March 25, 2019:
The cakes from his stomach rolled left, right and centre but Ganesha, unperturbed, carefully gathered them in, stuffed them all back into his belly and wound the snake around his midriff to keep it closed. Symbolic of Ganesha’s ability to overcome all obstacles, the snake, the cause of the accident in the first place, therefore provided the remedy for the damage it had caused.
If that wasn’t such a Hindu story, I would call it a Unity story of the power of Divine Order whereby we experience obstacles becoming stepping stones in our spiritual unfoldment! When I participate in the Ganesha dance, that is the image the I hold….it is kind of like the Unity prayer we used in Silent Unity….when there seems to be no way, God always opens a way!
The next practice for removing obstacles is one I shared awhile back, that of Ho’oponopono, a Hawaiian forgiveness and healing practice. It is specific forgiveness practice, which results in healing of mind, body and spirit. It is like Ganesha, it removes obstacles and opens the way for the Presence of Spirit, the Presence of Love to manifest in the situations of our lives. My source of information is a beautiful little book, Ho’oponopono by Ulrich E. Dupree which explores the many aspects of this forgiveness practice.
The underlying assumption of the Ho’oponopono practice is to imagine that you have two big stones, one in each hand. If I want to give you some money right now, you must first put the stones aside. Ho’oponopono is a practice of letting go to be free to receive all that the Universe has to give to you. It is a forgiveness ritual that is love in action, a bit like wiping away all the clutter on your hard drive that makes your life slow and cumbersome. Now in Unity, we do have a releasing practice with the Burning Bowl, and our prayer practice of Denial is also a prayer practice of letting go of the beliefs that no longer serve you. These are powerful prayer practices; what I love about Ho’oponopono is that the focus is on forgiveness, which is bit different than just our Affirmation and Denial practices.
The Ho’oponopono practice is grounded in several basic assumptions one of them being that we are willing to take 100% responsibility for our own life. When we experience disharmony within ourselves, or we recognize a conflict or a problem, we do the following, as described by Dupree on page 16 & 17:
- We ask to reach a place of recognition, courage, power, intelligence and peace.
- We describe the problem and then search our heart for our share in it. This share may be, for example be a judgment we have made, or a specific action or a memory that requires healing.
- We forgive unconditionally and speak the four magic sentences: I am sorry; Please forgive me; I love you; Thank you.
- We give thanks, express trust and let go.
Asking to reach a place of recognition, courage, power, intelligence and peace is a huge first step and requires us to be open-minded, open-hearted and to have an open will. It is only when we can do this that we see the path to unconditional love. We see that holding on to our grudge, our sense of being wronged keeps us stuck in the place of unforgiveness, in the place of conditional love, waiting to be happy. God offers us unconditional love that we do not earn; we are a part of that kind of God-Love because we are part of God. Forgiveness brings us back into our wholeness, into integrity.
When we can see our part in keeping a conflict going, whether we are doing it intentionally or unconsciously, then we can see a clearer path to healing, to wholeness and to experiencing the reality of that unconditional God Love. Ultimately, we don’t practice forgiveness for the sake of others, we practice it for ourselves, because it heals us. It means we let go of resentment, self-hate, fear, condemnation consciousness, victim status even if we have been injured, collecting injustices and self-righteousness or the need to be right.
The bottom line is, would you rather be right or be happy? It is no surprise that the Hawaiian definition of love is “to be happy with.” Not to be happy when, but to be happy with. If I regularly practice Ho’oponopono, I greatly increase my opportunity to be happy with, no matter the what, when, where or who.
Now we are followers of Jesus, so what did he have to say about forgiveness? Well, quite a lot, but one of the primary instructions is to not judge, which keeps you out of trouble in the first place.
Matthew 7:1-5
Judging Others
7 “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. (NRSV)
And in answer to how often we should forgive, here is what Jesus said!
Matthew 18:21-25
21 Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to
seventy times seven. (NKJV)
I remember sharing this one Sunday, a number of years ago in a Children’s lesson and one of the kids came up to me after church and had done the math. She said, somewhat overwhelmed, “That’s 490 times! THAT’S A LOT!” Out of the mouths of babes…..yes it is a lot, so we better get right on it! Jesus made it pretty clear that if we want to live in the “Kingdom of God” consciousness, then we really have to let go of judgment and have a pretty robust forgiveness practice!
So the task before us this week of invitation is to hold space for all obstacles to dissipate, to make room for our joyful celebration next week. When we do, we can truly see the full abundance of God’s great Kingdom….as we end with this celebration video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WHr0rR2wO8
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb