Unity Spiritual Life Center Blog

With Halloween so close, we seem to have our minds on goblins! And that led us to think about the goblins in our Consciousness - those negative error thoughts that separate us from the Truth of who we are. We want to send those goblins on the run! But, we want to do it the right way, or we will just wind up creating more problems for ourselves.

Hence, the second part of our title, Google comes into play. Whenever we really need to know something, we turn to Google!

As an aside, did you know that Google is a play on the word “GOOGOL” which refers to the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google coined the word to reflect their mission to organize the immense, seemingly infinite amount of information available via the web.

Google is our favorite search engine ~ but even with Google, you can only find so much. Just imagine the infinite amount of Divine Ideas and Guidance we have at our disposal when we Google God!

Just for fun, we did Google God, and came up with 510,000,000 hits in just .09 seconds! And you can bet, those hits were all over the place, from God’s homepage, to the official God FAQ (which we do  not recommend), to God’s Yellow Pages! But that is a drop in the bucket compared to what we get when we really Google God - through Meditation and Prayer. Rather than sit at the computer, try sitting in the Silence, quieting your mind, and becoming open to receive the Divine outpouring of ideas and guidance that are at your constant disposal.

And here’s the best part. When we identify our goblins, then Google God through mediation and prayer, we can live in a state of constant giggles! We can experience the pure delight of knowing that we are never alone, and nothing has any power over us. We can say with confidence: My consciousness is greater than any goblin my mind can imagine!

Research has now proven that complex humor (riddles, puns, funny stories) not only strengthens our immune system, it actually can improve memory and recalibrate our intuition! We can also approach problems with more flexibility, opening the channels to creative Divine ideas. We call it the Giggle State of Consciousness.

When we live in the Giggle State of Consciousness, we operate from a state of pure joy and gratitude. Here’s a great quote we discovered about gratitude, by Melody Beatty:

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, and confusion into clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

Were you aware that there is an actual meditation practice called Centered Silliness? Because the physical act of laughter is one of the few actions that involves the body, emotions, and soul, it makes it possible for us to transcend physical and mental stresses. It has even been proven to improve the immune system.

There are 3 stages to mindful laughter, each taking 5-20 minutes:

• Stretching like a cat and breathing deeply. Exercise the muscles in your face by yawning and making lots of funny faces.

• Pure laughter. Fall on the floor if you want, and continue laughing as long as you can. You may feel like you are forcing it at first, but we invite you to give it a try. Just laugh out loud!

Here are some funny stories to get you laughing:

We loved this announcement from a church bulletin: “Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person(s) you want remembered.”

Or this: Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door. (That’ll really boost that esteem!)

And how about this slogan: The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: “I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours.”?

A woman went to the Post Office to purchase stamps for her Christmas cards. “What Denomination?” asked the clerk. “Oh, good grief! Have we come to this?” responded the woman. “Just give me 50 Baptist and 50 Catholic ones.”

• And the final step: Sit in silence with your eyes closed, and become aware of your breath.

We believe Jesus had a wonderful sense of humor, and understood the power of joy. He used hyperbole, paradox, and exaggeration to make a point. In John 15:11, He said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and [that] your joy might be full.”

Lowell Fillmore (Charles & Myrtle’s son) said, in his book, The Prayer Way to Health, Wealth, & Happiness: “Unity believes that when joy is put back into religion, there will be more religion in the world.”  A friend of Lowell’s said that back when they lived together at Unity Farm, young Lowell would take off his shoes and socks, and run barefoot in the winter snow-just out of exhilaration, out of the joy of being alive!

We’d like to end this week’s article with a poem we enjoy. But take note: we added an extra verse to share a Unity perspective!

Sit on the Lid and Laugh (by Bertha Adams Backus)

Build for yourself a strong box
Fashion each part with care;
When it’s strong as your hand can make it
Put all your “goblins” there.
Hide there all thought of your failures,
Every real or imagined gaffe;
Lock all your heartaches within it
Then sit on the lid and laugh.

Tell no one else its contents
Never its secrets share,
When you’ve dropped in your care and worry
Keep them forever there;
Hide them from sight so completely
That the world will never dream half
Fasten the strong box securely
Then sit on the lid and laugh!

(Our added verse):

You have within you this strongbox
At Headquarters you’ll find it’s true -
Go there to empty your worries
Your problems, your fears - heartaches, too.
The goblins that seem to consume you
The burdens that tear you in half -
Can be Googled away in this strongbox ~
And you can sit on the lid and laugh!

So when the goblins come out to frighten you away from your Divinity, just Google God by going into the Silence, with the assurance that you can live in a continuous state of Divine Giggles and Joy, knowing that wherever you are, God is - and all is well!

Drs. Bil & Cher Holton are Spiritual Leaders at Unity Spiritual Life Center in Durham, NC, where they practice positive, practical, progressive Christianity. Visit their website at Unity Spiritual Life Center and sign up to receive a complimentary 4-week e-course.

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A 12-pound hawksbill turtle crawled up to die on a wind torn beach. An autopsy revealed that half of its weight was from man made products. Its stomach and intestines were filled with multi-colored beads, part of a comb, two golf tees, a toy wheel, rope, balloon, part of a plastic bottle, a plastic toothpaste cap, the top of a plastic medical syringe, baggies, and a plastic flower.* Its contents were carb-free, but had no nutritional value. (As referenced by Paul Varo Martinson in World Religions: The Problem of Imaging Christ, Imaging Christ: Politics, Art, Spirituality, ed. Francis A. Eigo, Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1991, 111).

Apart from the environmental and ecological fallout associated with the turtle’s poor dietary choices, this unfortunate incident speaks to the message we have been sharing with you.

It is a message which says: Until we are open to individual and spiritual transformation and to the transformational conversation which goes along with it, we risk having our spirit clogged with the plastic half-truths of conventional thinking and embedded theology which can clutter half, or all, of our thinking.

We invite you to ‘get over’ carrying around plastic thoughts and attitudes like the plastic mush in the turtle’s stomach before it sends you crawling up on beaches of convention instead of soaring up mountains of enlightenment.

This ‘Get Over It’ message is based on the book by the same title. It is designed to help you move from plastic to platinum in your thinking - from blind obedience to conventional thinking to the unlimited openness and joy of transformational thinking.

The phrases we’re encouraging you to ‘get over’ in this article usually come as a pair. They are: “Birds of a feather stick together” and “opposites attract.”

We’re going to give you a bird’s eye view of these worn out beliefs which we believe are flying out of formation. These two phrases, we think you’ll agree, have been winging it for some time.

The “birds of a feather stick together” phrase has been around a long time. It has been in use since at least the mid 16th century. It initially appeared in 1545 in William Turner’s rendition of his papist satire The Rescuing of Romish Fox: “Byrdes of one kynde and color flok and flye allwayes together.”

No such origin can be found for “opposites attract.” However its origin may be closer than we think. It is actually a social psychology concept called “common belief factor.”

It springs from the word “heterocentrism.” “Hetero” is the Greek word for “different.”Centre” is Greek for “centered on” or “drawn toward.” To use a similar analogy, a “heliocentric” plant, like a sunflower, is one that grows toward or is drawn to the sun.

It reminds us why we are no longer total, absolute vegans. It seemed that whenever we sat in a chair near the window we started leaning toward the light.

So, something which is “heterocentric” involves two or more UNLIKE things that are magnetized towards each other.

Do opposites attract? Do birds of a feather flock together? What does the latest research literature have to say about that? In one of the most widely attempted studies ever undertaken on these questions, researchers at the University of Iowa found

Before we divulge their findings if you are looking for the perfect soulmate or business colleague you may want to read this very carefully. Researchers at the University of Iowa found that we tend to hang around others who are similar in attitudes, interests, philosophy, religion, and values.

However, it is the complementary nature of our make-up that seems to be more important in creating enduring and happy relationships. Those similarities include character traits like: assertiveness, introversion and extroversion, compassion, even-temperedness, sense of humor, and so on. (The findings appear in the February issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 88, No., 2, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Other than that nothing is definitive. The concepts of ‘birds of a feather flocking together’ or ‘opposites attracting’ seem to come down to one thing: the power of choice.

There is no automatic, incontrovertible, mindless magnetism that pulls people together. If that sounds like fowl language we invite you to consider the fact that in order for these two sayings to be absolute truths they would have to be true in all circumstances.

People who are the same don’t always hang out with each other. Opposites aren’t always attracted to each other. We decide with whom we flock, herd, swim, swarm, or hibernate.

We like to hang around with Unitics and other truth seekers. We also like to flock with: dancers, people who love the performing arts, open-minded people, high energy people, philosophers and metaphysicians, possibility-thinkers, healers, and frozen custard lovers, good conversationalists, movie goers, people who love to travel, people who have a good sense of humor, and banana pudding lovers, to name a few.

With whom do you flock! In what ways are important people in your life opposite from you?

Drs. Bil & Cher Holton are Spiritual Leaders at Unity Spiritual Life Center in Durham, NC, where they practice positive, practical, progressive Christianity. Visit their website at Unity Spiritual Life Center and sign up to receive a complimentary 4-week e-course.

The co-founders of Unity, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, wanted a place where they could combine all of the ministries of their growing movement under one roof. They wanted a church home. It was 1902 and Charles felt it was time to appoint a building committee. The Unity enterprise had just gotten started and many people, including some of the Trustee members, considered the building committee was premature.

At one of the early meetings, Charles introduced the idea of more space. One of the Board members started the building fund by jokingly giving a penny. Everyone laughed good-naturedly, finding his token donation amusing - everyone, that is, except Charles.

His own trusted Board had ridiculed his idea. Have you ever received similar treatment for an idea you had? When was the last time you were taken lightly, made fun of, or even ridiculed for an idea you had? What impact did the slight have on you? Charles Fillmore could have responded in any number of ways. But he was centered in his faith.  He took the penny, thanked the member for his seed money, and blessed it.

To him the building fund was symbolically and literally on its way. Several months later, in February of 1903 in Unity Magazine, Charles offered subscribers “the opportunity of contributing any amount of money from 10 to one thousand dollars or more” towards the purchase of a site and the construction of a building. Incredibly, by the end of 1903 the building fund had grown to 25! That brings to mind the story of the Unity minister who addressed her congregation and said: “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is we’ve got plenty of money to pay all of our bills and take care of all our expenses. The bad news is it’s still in your wallets.

By 1905, several years later, the penny which started the building fund had grown to merely $601. In spite of their disappointment the Fillmore’s remained committed to the building campaign. The building committee had found an eight-room house for sale at 913 Tracy Avenue, but the money they had available was insufficient to even think about buying the property.

The Fillmore’s had prayed over this matter and believed that their prayers would be answered. They prayed to start each day and they prayed out of each day. They visualized. They affirmed. They prayed, believing manifestation would follow. Sound familiar? They prayed when they were inspired. And they prayed when they were tired. Charles and Myrtle Fillmore had PhD’s in prayer.

At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Unity Society of Practical Christianity a few months later, a few people offered a few hundred dollars apiece toward the purchase of the building. Their pledges were accepted thankfully but the Fillmore’s seemed to be the only ones enthusiastic about the building fund.

Then one evening one of the Board members visited the Fillmore’s and said quietly that he had decided to mortgage his house in order to give Unity with the necessary funds. He wasn’t a wealthy man and he had a wife and four children to provide for. But he had been around the Fillmore’s and had seen their generosity and commitment. He believed in their ministry and wanted to see the ministry grow.

His business associates discouraged him from taking such a drastic step. To them, Unity was not a good risk. They believed he was being brainwashed by this strange religious group and reminded him he had a family to support. Even some of the Trustee members in Unity thought he was giving way too much. But he would not be dissuaded.

Because of his faith and enormous generosity, Unity purchased the lot on Tracy Avenue, and the rest, as they say, is history. Also his daughter, May Rowland, became the Director of Silent Unity and served for over 50 years. Her book, Dare to Believe, is a Unity classic.

Unity Village was built on the faith of Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, the faith of their sons, and on the faith of their friends and colleagues throughout the years. The Unity Spiritual Life Center in Durham, N.C. is built on faith too - the faith of its Board and the faith of its members. Cher and I have faith in USLC too!

We feel that the point where our collective consciousness, commitment, and ability meet the needs of people is where God wants the Unity Spiritual Life Center to be! And if we are where God wants us to be, there is nothing that can detract from the good that we can accomplish. And the same thing goes for each and every one of us: The point where your consciousness, commitment, and talent meets the needs of the world is where God wants you to be. And if you are where God wants you to be there is nothing that can separate you from your good or the good you can do.

Let us put the concept of NOTHING in perspective. It is critical to your understanding of how close you are to Spirit. The powerful concepts of Omnipresence, Omnipotence, and Omniscience have a couple of incredible things in common. They all start with the prefix “OM”.  OM stands for the Christ within us, the I AM Presence. It signifies our connection to Spirit. They also have the “ni” in common. Ni is short for nil or nihil which signify nothing. So you see, there is nothing under heaven or on earth that can separate you from the all knowing, everywhere present, all powerful nature of God expressing in, through, and as you!

When you believe that, and if you truly know that within your heart, your life will be transformed forever! You will walk more confidently sleep more peacefully and live more fully. There is NOTHING that can separate you from the life you want. Not your past. Not your childhood experiences. Not your bad experiences. Not your most ingrained habits. Not your lost opportunities. Not the old tapes running through your head. Nothing can separate you from your good except your disbelief in truth principles and your doubts of your unworthiness. Any separation caused by these false assumptions and your feelings of unworthiness is only a perceived separation.

You are an idea in the mind of God expressing as you. The Unity Spiritual Life Center is an idea in the mind of Almighty God expressing as a community of believers. And each of us has a part to play in its unfoldment. “We live in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.” Those are the words of Dr. Martin Luther King. And they apply to us as members of this church, as visitors in this spiritual community, as citizens of this country, and members of humankind. We live in an “inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.”

Every time we pledge our time, our talents, and our money to this church we are going back to the future. Back to the pioneering contributors who made Unity Village a reality. The penny that began what we know as Unity Village made it possible for us to meet there today because this church is an extension of that mustard seed of faith.

The Unity Spiritual Life Center is here by divine right! We open these doors because Charles and Myrtle Fillmore opened doors. We pray to the God of our understanding because our co-founders prayed to the God of their understanding. We let our light shine because the Fillmore’s let their light shine. We have the privilege and responsibility of helping people understand that the Kingdom of God is within. The Fillmore’s believed it, and they believed it because Jesus the Christ taught it. And He taught it because it is true.

Inscribed on today’s pennies are the words: “In God We Trust” and trusting in God is a fundamental aspect of our truth walks. Whether it’s common sense or our sixth sense, it just makes perfect sense to trust the Omnipresence, Omnipotence, and Omniscience of a loving God. That insight will keep us on the right path.

Drs. Bil & Cher Holton are Spiritual Leaders at Unity Spiritual Life Center in Durham, NC, where they practice positive, practical, progressive Christianity. Visit their website at Unity Spiritual Life Center and sign up to receive a complimentary 4-week e-course.

Each swept floor prompts another sweep. Every child bathed invites another washing. Every lawn mowed requires another mowing. Every breath taken requires another breath.

The sun ascends each morning and sets every evening. The moon shines each night. Tides ebb and flow every day. Birds sing wonderful songs today and sing them again tomorrow.

Oysters open their shells when the moon is high in the sky. The chambered nautilus forms a new chamber in its spiraled shell each lunar month.

When we breathe, we do not stop breathing because we have taken in all of the oxygen we will ever need. We stop because we have all the oxygen we need for that particular breath.

When we exhale we stop exhaling so we can prepare for the next inhalation. We will need to repeat the process; however, no matter how perfectly we have inhaled and exhaled.

What these scenarios are telling us is what is finished invites refinishing.

So what do we do after we become enlightened? We become more enlightened. Once we are aware that we are one with the Infinite Isness we are prone to think we are finished, that we are finished, that we have reached the pinnacle of our perfection.

But nothing can be further from the truth. There is a Zen saying which goes like this: Before enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. At the moment one is enlightened, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers cease to be rivers. After enlightenment, mountains are again mountains and rivers are once more rivers.

A current version of this Zen koan comes from Unity minister, Jim Rosemergy who reminds us: “Mystics do not turn from the world once they turn to God. They remain in the world but not of the world. Even mystics have bills to pay.”

Once we are enlightened, that is, once we positively, absolutely, unequivocally realize we are God expressing as us, we stay in the world, but not of the world to demonstrate to others the path of enlightenment.

That is our spiritual mission: to fully express our divinity and help others to do the same. It is the same commission expressed in Matthew 28:19-20.

We will share the New Revised Standard Version and then offer an ontological version from the New Metaphysical Version of Matthew to add spiritual depth.

After His resurrection Jesus announced to His disciples in verse 19:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Metaphysically Jesus was referring to three specific nations: our body, mind, and soul. Baptizing the nations signifies purifying our body, mind, and soul from unhealthy sense attachments.

We are to do this ‘in the ‘name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’ Name signifies ‘in the nature of.’ And, ontologically speaking Father, Son, and Holy Spirit represent the three aspects of Divine Order (Mind, Idea, and Expression).

So, we are to cleanse our body, mind, and soul by becoming one with the nature of the Christ Presence within us so we can divinely order our experience.

Matt. 20 says in the New Revised Standard Version: “Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you, remembering that I am with you always, even to the end of the world.”"

Metaphysically ‘teach them’ means to walk our talk with integrity. ‘I am with you always’ means we have an indivisible, unshakable, universal oneness with Spirit. To the ‘end of the world’ means moving from one level of spiritual awareness to another.

Matthew 20 means we are to walk our talk by letting our Christ Light shine as we achieve one level of enlightenment, one level of completion, to another.

So, what will we do after we are enlightened?

We stay in the world but not of the world. We live as monks and mystics in cities, towns, and communities.

We light up the world with our example. Like the enlightened beings who became enlightened before us we will teach others how to teach others.

We will appear as typical men and women, but our values and the manner in which we live, move, and have our being will show our surrender to our higher calling.

We might have human challenges, but we will not be subdued by them. We may wear glasses or contact lenses, hearing aids or artificial heart valves, but we will not be defined by them.

We may take medicine or require hospitalization, but we will not be incarcerated by them. We may experience a world that is not perfect, but we will not be limited by that imperfection.

We will be in the finishing and refinishing business. We will pot and repot ourselves daily. We will renew and keep renewing ourselves. We will tool and re-tool ourselves constantly.

We will continue to seek enlightenment because enlightenment is a verb, not a noun. It is a process, an unfolding, and a movement from one exhilarating level of consciousness to another.

Drs. Bil & Cher Holton are Spiritual Leaders at Unity Spiritual Life Center in Durham, NC, where they practice positive, practical, progressive Christianity. Visit their website at Unity Spiritual Life Center and sign up to receive a complimentary 4-week e-course.