Angels Among Us

The Christmas story in the Bible is filled with images of angels. The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to announce that she would give birth to Jesus. An angel came to Joseph in a dream to tell him to trust Mary and to take her as his wife. While the shepherds were abiding in the field keeping watch over their flocks by night, an angel appeared to them proclaiming the good news that Jesus had been born in Bethlehem.

Many religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam accept that angels are supernatural beings who reveal themselves to humans as messengers of God. Angels are often depicted in art with flowing garments, glowing auras, and frequently with wings. Many people report having had personal experiences with angels who have appeared to them when they were in need. Additionally, the belief in guardian angels is common.

The most recent issue of Unity Magazine contains an article about Sunny Dawn Johnston who, at the age of 13, saw an angel above her bed in the middle of the night. At the time, she did not know what it was. She reports experiencing a sense of unconditional love and oneness unlike anything she had previously known. When she asked her mother about it, she told her that the previous night she had prayed that God would send angels to watch over her. Her mother was sure that this being was her guardian angel who appeared in answer to a mother’s prayer. Over the ensuing years, Sunny has had many experiences with angels and has developed her ability to communicate with the spiritual realm. She uses her ability to assist others.

I recall that as a child I would often see swirling colors on the ceiling of my room. I never talked about it to anyone. I was sure that no one would believe me and would most likely tell me that I was dreaming or making it up. At the time, I didn’t have the idea that these images might be angels or spiritual beings there to watch over or help me in some way. As I reflect on it now, I am sure that those images of light were, indeed, messengers of the spiritual realm, the realm that we all have access to.

As Sunny is quoted in the Unity Magazine article,

“That ability is like a muscle that you can develop. You just have to start paying attention and being present. The more present you are, the more tapped in you are to the energy all around you.”

All too often, we believe that we are separate from the energies that exist beyond the physical realm. We may have been told that only those with special gifts have access to the spiritual realm. The truth is that we exist within the spiritual realm. We just happen to be focused through a physical body. Our physical senses are attuned to perceive frequencies that vibrate at a certain level. We all have spiritual senses that allow us to connect with frequencies beyond the physical. We must first understand that it is possible, then set an intention to connect and remain open to receive.

Some fear this ability and associate it with the “occult,” thinking that it is of the “devil” or of a lower vibration. I, however, believe that when we set a clear intention to only be in alignment and attract higher vibration, that is what we attune to. I encourage us to be open to messengers of God. They are all around us.

In addition, angels often show up in physical form. In Hebrews 13:2, Paul says “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (NRSV) Paul is saying that we never know when we might receive a message from God. We can never be sure where or from whom the message will come. It is important for us to be open, to be aware, and to be present. When something or someone shows up with a message, don’t pass it off as coincidence. It just may be the answer to prayer.

Finally, I believe that we are here to be angels for each other. As I reflect on my life, I know that many angles have shown up for me when I needed them most. When I have been at my darkest hours, someone has shown up to give me just what I needed most in that moment. It may have been a kind word, a smile, a hug, or a word of advice. I am grateful for all those angels who have shined the light of love on me. I hope that, in some way, I have been an angel in someone else’s life, as well.

At Christmas, we often see images of angels, whether on greeting cards, in decorations, depictions of the nativity, and many other forms. This Christmas, I encourage us all to look for the angels among us. Seek out their messages of hope, peace and love.

In addition to seeking them, I encourage us to look for ways that we can be an angel in someone's life. It may be sending a greeting card, making a phone call, writing a letter of gratitude, participating in an angel tree gifting opportunity, or simply being present.

Angels appear in both physical and nonphysical forms. Never doubt that there are angels among us. 

Heart-to-Heart, Not Head-to-Head

Over the past several weeks, I have had multiple opportunities to experience first-hand interpersonal conflicts, as well as participate in helping to reconcile conflicts between others. It has, at times, been emotionally and physically draining.

I have to admit that I have never handled conflict well. In fact, I have spent most of life trying to avoid conflict. I am certain that it stems from early childhood experiences of witnessing conflict between the adults in my life and feeling the energetic effects of it. As I shared in an earlier post, I have spent a great deal of time and energy attempting to create safety, security and predictability for myself. Unfortunately, often at the expense of authentic connection with myself and others.

While this recent period has not been easy or comfortable at times, it has promoted me to reconnect with spiritual truth, recall information I have learned, and consciously engage in spiritual practices that have been helpful.

When fear is stimulated for me by something that someone says or does, my conditioned response is to withdraw inside, shut down emotionally and verbally, walk away, or all three. Others may react by fighting back either verbally, physically, or both. Still others may be so stunned by the conflict that they have no idea how to react. These are the most common human reactions to fear – flight, fight, or freeze.

Neuroscience confirms that when we perceive something or someone as a threat, our amygdala, the part of the limbic system in the brain, is stimulated. The amygdala is thought to store images and memories of past pain and fear, and for many, trauma. When we experience conflict which appears as a threat, our reaction is automatically informed by the amygdala. We react as if our survival depends upon it.

Thanks to the evolutionary process, our brains are also equipped with a neocortex which enables us to process, reason and rationalize information. When conflict arises, we can use this knowledge to know what is happening in the amygdala and consciously engage the neocortex. Instead of reacting to the fear, we can stop, breathe and ask ourselves questions, such as, “What am I thinking?” “What am I feeling?” “What memory is being triggered?” We can employ what we know about the functioning of the human brain to soothe ourselves and move from conditioned reactions to conscious responses.

Another tool that I find helpful is the Quick Coherence Technique from HeartMath Institute. It is a simple process of focusing attention and awareness in the heart, breathing in the heart and generating a feeling of appreciation. You may access the audio guide on their website here. There are also many YouTube videos available that will guide you through the process.

It is also helpful for me to remember that conflicts, whether interpersonal or internal, arise at the level of thinking. The mind’s job is to keep us safe and help us navigate the world we live in. It is continually evaluating and assessing the data it takes in through the senses. It is expert at dualistic thinking – good/bad, right/wrong, etc. It is important to our survival. It serves us well, except when it comes to connecting with ourselves or others beyond our past conditioning. Unity cofounder Charles Fillmore said,

We all have the thinking faculty located in the head, from which we send forth thoughts, good, bad, and indifferent. If we are educated and molded after the ordinary pattern of the human family, we may live an average lifetime and never have an original thought. The thinking faculty in the head is supplied with the secondhand beliefs of our ancestors, the dominant beliefs of the race, or the threadbare stock of the ordinary social whirl. – Keep a True Lent

And, William Shakespeare said,

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

To that I would add, no one is good or bad, right or wrong except according to the mind’s evaluation, criticism or condemnation. Our opportunity is to move beyond the mind and into the heart.

As I said, when conflicts arise my first reaction is to retreat. I have accepted that. I am no longer trying to change it. I have, however, worked to change my response following my initial reaction.

Knowing that my amygdala has been stimulated, as soon as possible I take time to sit alone in a quiet space. I breathe deeply and connect with my body. I silently ask myself, “What am I feeling?” “Where do I feel it in my body?” I allow myself to completely feel my feelings without judgement or evaluation. Once I feel complete, I then breathe light and love into that area of my body. This helps to soothe me.

I then focus my attention and awareness in my heart and connect with the truth of my being as a perfect beloved child of God. I remain focused there until my mind and my body are filled with Light.

I am then more available to resolve any internal conflict as my mind and heart are open to hear the voice of Spirit and receive guidance. If the conflict is interpersonal, I am also more open to relate to the other heart-to-heart, rather than head-to-head. From a heart-centered space, I am more ready, willing and able to see the other as an innocent, beloved child of God. I can extend to them the knowing that, like me, they are walking this human journey doing the best they can in every moment. We all have memories of past hurt and pain. Some of us have experienced trauma. Our amygdalae get stimulated, and we all react from our conditioning.

My opportunity, to the best of my ability in any moment, is to be aware when I am triggered. I then do what I need to do to center myself in my heart, know my Truth, and soothe myself, so that I can be a calming presence for others and respond from love.

These tools are especially important to remember this time of year. Thanksgiving is next week and Christmas is just a month away. It’s time for gathering with family to share meals and celebrate the season. For some of us those family gatherings can be at best challenging and at worst horrifying. It is one of the few times we willingly enter situations with people we care about deeply, but with whom we often share very little in common when it comes to our spiritual or political beliefs. Our families are often the best at “pushing our buttons” and triggering our amygdala. I have heard it said that our families know where our buttons are because they installed them. This may well be true.

As our lives get even busier than they already are, as we gather with friends and family, as we experience all that the holiday season offers, I encourage us to take time to breathe, center, connect, listen and remain open for the heart-to-heart connections we all desire. When conflict arises, remember and practice the truth that you know.

Clarity on Then and Now

Something has been nagging at me since I sat down after presenting my lesson this past Sunday at Unity Spiritual Center Denver. I said something that upon further reflection I feel may not have been helpful and in fact may have been hurtful. My intention is to only bring through messages of truth that are supportive and encouraging. I never want to say something that would damage or undermine anyone’s spiritual or human journey. Let me elaborate.

During my lesson this past Sunday, which you may listen to here, I said I believe that we, as humanity, have evolved to a place where we no longer need to process all of our past experiences, deal with our past pain or work through our history. I asserted that we only need to accept our Divinity, focus on our truth, and live from it.

I used the analogy of Moses encountering God in the burning bush on Mount Horeb. I stated that if, rather than doubting himself and questioning the voice he heard in the burning bush, he had instead listened, accepted and believed the voice, which metaphysically represented the inner knowing that we all have access to, he would not have had to wander in the desert for 40 years without ever entering the Promised Land. He could have entered the Promised Land in that instant and lived into his Divinity in doing what he was called to do.

I either said or strongly implied that Moses and the Hebrew people wandering in the desert for 40 years metaphorically represents our struggles to free ourselves from our past, sometimes circling back over and over again to the same issues and telling the same stories, rather than accepting the true Light of our Divinity and allowing that Light to be the source of our healing. Further, I said, while psychological counseling and therapy has its place, it is not necessary at our level of evolution.

These are the statements I have struggled with since Sunday. If I had the opportunity for a “do over,” I would chose to follow up with additional clarifying statements. I fully believe that in the Absolute realm there is only Light. Further, when we are willing and able to touch that realm and more fully embody that Consciousness as our consciousness, we will no longer need to explore our past because it will have no meaning for us. However, I fully recognize that we are all in process.

As Paul said in I Corinthians 13:12,

“For now we see as through a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know only in part. Then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

We all have life experiences that are painful. Some more intense and traumatic than others. These experiences can leave residue of heavy energy that may darken our minds and our hearts. Each of us is in the process of cleaning the glass through which we see ourselves, each other, and the world. We do that by bringing Light to the darkness. Sometimes we need help. That help may come in the form of a qualified professional counselor or therapist who helps us to shine the light on our past and work through it. I know from personal experience the value of that work. Alternately, help may come in the form of a spiritual teacher who shines the light of truth through the words that enlighten our minds. Additionally, help my come through energy workers, a prayer partner, or others who speak words of truth for us. It may come through our spiritual practices – prayer, meditation, yoga, Tai Chi or many other forms.

The point I intended to make on Sunday and the one I am attempting to clarify here is that the Light of God is the only power that can transmute and transcend the darkness. That Light is within us all. There is nothing and no one outside of us that can provide the Light. They may help us to remember the Light. They may help us to reclaim the Light. But, the source of Light is within. All good counselors, therapists, ministers, healers, energy workers and the like know this. They are simply vessels for Light to draw forth the innate Light within their clients, patients, or congregants. If they claim to be anything other, run!

Every moment is an opportunity for us to remember the Light that we are. With every breath we can stoke the flame of the Light that is burning within us. The Light of God that we are is perfect, whole and complete. It knows nothing of past pain and suffering. When we allow the Light that we are to fill our minds and hearts, lifting us from the heaviness of our past, we enter the consciousness of Oneness – The Kingdom of Heaven.

It may happen for us in an instant. There are those who have had miraculous instantaneous awakening experiences and healings. Up to now, however, those experiences have been the exception. Most of us grow in our awareness of our inner Light through various paths of exploration and discovery.

Whatever our path, the important thing is that we begin right where we are to intentionally and consciously awaken to the Light that we are. Invite the Light to fill our hearts and minds. Draw forth the Light in our DNA through the power of our imagination. See it. Feel it. Sense it. Visualize it igniting in every cell of our body. This is how we can know ourselves as we have been eternally known in the Mind and Heart of God.

Now is the moment that we may “see face to face” and “know as we are known.” There is no more “then;” there is only NOW.

God's Will Illumined

As a Unity minister, I hesitate to admit that I have grappled with the concept of God’s Will. Since beginning my exploration of New Thought teachings, I have presumed and taught that the only Will that God has for each of us is that we realize our innate divinity and live it. Having rejected the concept of an external deity, I resisted the idea that God, by whatever name or nature we know it to be, has a Higher Will for the way in which we express our divinity.

For example, I did not fully accept that it is God’s Will for me to be in ministry. Even though I have felt the inner nudge to be in ministry since I was 14 years old, I believed that, according to New Thought teaching, it was and continues to be my freewill choice.

I now have a different perspective on the concepts of “God’s Will” and “Free Will” in large part, but not solely, thanks to Dr. Jacob Israel Liberman. Since hearing him speak and attending his workshop on Sunday, October 27 (listen here), as well as reading his latest book, Luminous Life, I find that I am returning again and again to his teaching on Light. He and others from whom I am currently learning have opened my eyes to see in a new way.

I shared some thoughts on this in my post last week, and in my lesson this past Sunday. It continues to work on me and in me to reveal a depth of understanding for which I am extremely grateful. I am not attempting to summarize or comment on Dr. Liberman’s work, I am simply sharing my experience and what it has awakened in me.

God, the One Source of all that is, expressed the full potential and possibility for all creation as what we know as Light. Think of the “Big Bang” theory. Even though Light is invisible, it is the foundation, or substance (not matter), of all that is manifest, as well the potential for all that is unmanifest. Scientists have observed that Light exhibits the properties we assign to God – Omnipresence, Omnipotence, Omniscience. The One Light of God holds the code, the Divine DNA, for all creation and expresses aspects of Itself as the potentiality for all that is and is yet to be.

Charles Fillmore, the cofounder of Unity, asserted that God “ideated” the universe. In other words, everything we perceive in the physical world began as an idea in the One Mind of God and came into manifestation through the evolutionary process. The Earth as we know it did not just appear. It was a Divine Idea that gradually took shape over time. Likewise, the plants and animals were Divine Ideas that evolved over time. Additionally, humans were not created, but “ideated” by God and continue to evolve into expressions of the Divine Idea in the One Mind for each of us. Unity calls that Divine Idea for humankind the ‘Christ.’

The Divine Idea, the Christ, is encoded within the DNA of each of us. We are each a unique expression of the Light of Christ which we are here at this time and in this place to awaken to and express. Our uniqueness, encoded as Light within our DNA, is “God’s Will” for each of us. Our opportunity is to connect with that Light, nurture it, and allow it to break open and blossom forth as us and in the world.

Our power of “Free Will” lies in our capacity to resist the Light or align to it. My experience has shown me that when we resist it, we suffer. When I denied my Light as a teacher, writer, singer, and channel which are all gifts and talents I use in ministry, I was not happy or content. I was constantly longing for something more. When I embrace my gifts and talents, express and share them, I am being true to the Light of my soul, the seed code of my Divine DNA, and I feel much more alive and enthusiastic. That, I believe, is how I can know I am following God’s Will for me.

Using our Free Will to follow the path of God’s Will may lead us to places we never thought possible, but will always be enriching to our soul. Reflecting on my life to this point, I can clearly see that God’s Will for me has unfolded in ways that I could not have consciously imagined or expected. Becoming a Unity minister was not originally my plan, but I now can see that there was a higher plan. Further, moving to Denver was not something that I had ever considered. I thought it would be too cold and snowy. There was obviously a higher plan that brought me here.

I recall vividly when I announced to my congregation in Arlington, TX that I was moving to Denver, someone asked me why I chose Denver over them. I replied, quite honestly, "I believe Denver chose me."

In using my Free Will to say ‘yes’ to the invitation to become a Unity minister and to move to Denver, my choice was to follow the Light, not resist it. I could not have planned any of this. I believe it has unfolded and continues to do so because I have, to the best of my ability and understanding, aligned to God’s Will for my life in service to the world.

I do not mean to suggest that connecting with and following the Light of our Divine DNA is always a bed of roses. It can be challenging. It can be scary. It can be lonely. Look at Jesus, the Buddha, and other masters who have awakened to their Divine DNA and followed the Light. Their lives were anything but easy. However, I am choosing to trust, and I invite you to trust that we are given all that we need in every moment to support us in living as the Light, and in following God’s Will for our lives.

I’m grateful for the newly awakened awareness and understanding that I am not in charge. I can take charge, and have done so at times to my detriment. There is a Higher Mind. There is a Higher Will. There is a Higher Knowing. There is a Higher Plan. Our opportunity is to open our hearts and minds to the revelation of God’s Will for us, and to the best of our ability, with all the spiritual tools we can master, align with that Will and follow the Light using our Free Will to say ‘yes’ to it.

Follow where it leads. Celebrate each step along the way. We are ever unfolding as the Divine Idea that we are – the Christ – the Light of the world.