Midweek Faith Lift
August 28, 2024
Claiming Your Divine Identity-II
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
August 19, 2024
A shop owner posted a sign in his window: “Puppies For Sale.” Soon, a boy came into the store. “How much are the puppies?” he asked. The owner replied, “Anywhere from $30 to $50.” The little boy pulled out some change from his pocket. “I have $2.37,” he said. “Can I please look at them?” The shop owner smiled, whistled, and out of the kennel came Lady, who ran down the aisle followed by five tiny balls of fur. One puppy was lagging considerably behind. Immediately the little boy singled out the limping puppy and asked, “What’s wrong with this one?” The shop owner explained that the little puppy was born without a hip socket and it would always be lame. The little boy became excited. “That's the puppy that I want to buy.” The shop owner said, “If you really want him, I’ll just give him to you.” The little boy scowled and said, “I don’t want you to give him to me. That little dog is worth as much as the others and I’ll pay full price. I’ll give you $2.37 now, and 50 cents a month until I have him paid for.” The shop owner countered, “But he is never going to be able to run and jump and play with you like the other puppies.” At that, the boy pulled up his pant leg to reveal a crippled left leg supported by a metal brace. “I don’t run so well myself, but this puppy and I will run together.”
"Wherever you may be along the way of your unfoldment, the whole of you is always present even within your partial expression of it. There is an Allness within your illness, an all-sufficiency within your insufficiency. It is the radiant self of you, the whole person you are and have always been." - Eric Butterworth, The Creative Life
Affirmative Prayer for today: Living, loving Presence of God open my eyes to see my own God-ness and illuminate the path by which I may express it fully. May I remember that I am a mature, spiritual being able to internalize and express all that I can imagine God to be.
It is fitting that we honor physically differently-abled folks in our opening story today because starting this week, in Paris, the Special Olympians will be holding their competitions as well. We saw these athletes in commercials during the first two weeks of the Olympics, which allowed us to see their strength, courage and skills. In our spiritual Olympian unfolding, as we claim our Divinity and live into our God-ness, I can more readily relate to the Special Olympians, for sure. If I were to compare it to golf, I definitely have a huge handicap! I haven’t golfed much, but after one attempt, someone got me a wind-up ball that just walked to the hole. You get the picture!
As we consider our Divine identity, it takes us right into an exploration of the evolution of consciousness, which is identified in New Thought whereby four levels of consciousness are described. The whole journey of affirmative prayer is one of empowerment whereby we stand in our spiritual authority. This is not unlike the Special Olympians, because the first level of consciousness that we move through is victim consciousness, whereby everything is happening to me. They have clearly moved through this one if they are competing in Paris! When we are lamenting, “Why me, God?!” we are expressing victim consciousness and a sense of helplessness. That is very much a part of our human experience and we have all been there. It is not a happy place, nor a place to settle or even camp!
When we begin to wake up and mature emotionally and spiritually, we begin to move to victor consciousness where by we are empowered to make choices that are beneficial for us with positive outcomes. This is the energy of manifesting our dreams and when we begin to see things unfold positively, it is reinforcing and rewarding. We begin to feel empowered, although it is often a very human sense of empowerment, not a spiritual empowerment. What’s the difference? Well, in our human sense of empowerment, we are very much attached to the outcome, to being victorious, to having things work out exactly the way we wanted. We pray for Divine Order, and order is a spiritual power, but what we really want is Deb’s order, and when it doesn’t happen that way, we resignedly say, “must not be God’s will, then.”
This is not a spiritual understanding of either the power of Order or Will. Why? Because it is still very much driven by fear. When we claim and pray for Divine order with attachment to outcome, we are attempting to exert control so that the things we fear most will not happen. We want to be victorious and use affirmations to manifest our will, not necessarily God’s will. To move beyond this, we are called to move beyond ego, to a place of truly letting go. Some Unity folks will attempt to do this by adding this statement to their affirmative prayer, “This or something better, God!” which really does not solve the attachment to outcome issue because we still see things in terms of “by me” which reflects our human power.
When we truly step into surrender we step into channel/vessel consciousness, or through me as our understanding of the activity, power and presence of God. When we pray from this consciousness, we are aware that this is not about our personality, our particular needs or wants but something much bigger. This requires us to step into faith, because we do not know the outcome, we are just aware that God is moving in and through us. In this consciousness, we are open and willing to learn and to grow through, or into whatever is before us. We are in a faith walk, trusting that all things are working together for good and that we will know and have everything we need when we need it. Lots of us, including me, hang out in this vessel or channel consciousness, open and receptive to our highest good willing to lean into our lessons thereby experiencing more of our God-ness.
Channel or vessel conscious is powerful in that we allow God energy to show up and work through us. However, in this consciousness, there is still a sense of separation from God. When we speak of the Christ within, or God within, it is more like a raisin in a bun, as Eric Butterworth says. In this consciousness, we may say things like, “It is not I, but the Christ within that does the work.” That affirmation is in a lot of Unity literature which recognizes the energy of the Christ present in and acting through us. It is a very powerful prayer consciousness as we are putting our ego in service to God or our God-ness.
The next level of consciousness is that of Beingness/Christ/ I AM or Verity Consciousness which is As Me. This is like that of the mystics who experience complete Oneness with God and no sense of separation. This is a sense of limitless consciousness in which the sense of self drops away as it is no longer needed. This is the ultimate energy of claiming our Divine Identity, our I AM, which we may at times fully experience and at others we only glimpse this level of spiritual awareness.
These levels of consciousness are not linear, they are more like Russian dolls, nested inside each other. When we are under stress, we may very well revert to victim consciousness because our human self feels unsafe and unsettled. Frankly, as I noted last week, this lengthy illness of walking pneumonia has really been a spiritual growth opportunity for me! Our intention with the affirmative prayer flow is to integrate the human self into the Divine Self. As Rev. Linda says “ Conscious min and conscious awareness, an intact human identity, is an essential basis for spiritual understanding…..The human self in service to the spiritual self, or divine human, sits in the seat of spiritual power.” (Discover Your Divinity, p. 76) My ego is in service to the Divine, that is how we integrate the human in the Divine and how we realize that Oneness Consciousness here and now.
We are like the little boy in the opening story who wants a puppy. What is so powerful about this boy is that he is very clear about his human limitations and he is not lamenting or fighting that reality. When that is the truth of him, he is then able to truly resonate with and identify which puppy is the right and perfect one for him, the one with the gimpy leg! His imperfection empowers him to see the perfection in his puppy and to recognize their bond immediately.
What takes this story up a notch is that he values this puppy and insists on paying the full price for it. Clearly imperfections as defined by our human consciousness are not able to diminish the verity, or Truth of the wholeness, beauty and worthiness of any living creature, either the boy or his puppy. There may be those who would see this boy and his puppy and feel pity or sorry for them, but to do so would be to miss the complete spiritual power of this story. The boy and his puppy demonstrate an incredibly beautiful and powerful aspect of God, that of love.
And that is the question we must all engage when we have a challenge or a prayer need. We must ask ourselves, “What do I want to know about the nature of God related to this situation?” When we sit with that question, we are open and receptive to incredible spiritual power and insight, wisdom and growth in consciousness. The truth is that when we get just a glimpse of the beauty and joy that is God, we have in some way grasped ALL of that beauty and joy even if we can’t take it all in. So what do we do? We love our puppy and we keep learning in every human experience we have. May it be so!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb