Allow for Grace

This week Lola Wright continues our May series, Show & Prove, with the message, “Allow For Grace.”

Transcription

Notes

Opening:

SLIDE: Board Retreat Photo

14 community members gathered from Thursday to Saturday of this weekend – we began over dinner and healthy conversation involving unions, Uber, the Chicago Public School system, capitalism and the environment. The next morning we sat in stillness together and began to imagine the possibilities and opportunities Bodhi has as a center for consciousness studies. We envisioned a new home, we envisioned space for small groups gatherings, for larger celebrations, for healing arts, for urban agriculture, for cooking and eating, for public art – an intergenerational community space was felt. We imagined. We dreamed. We talked about our community and what it wants and needs. We talked about our city and what it wants and needs. We talked about our world and what it wants and needs. And you could feel it – there was a palpable energy and a shared commitment to supporting our community and our work as a center for consciousness – a center that serves the secular and spiritual interests, a center that serves the soul…a community center that is a balm of creativity and compassion.

Grace was present. We caught a vision and without words there was a knowing that a divine activity was upon us.

The weekend was filled with laughter, dancing, cooking, tears, and sharing.

The presence of Love was felt. It was stirred. It was remembered.

SLIDE: The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members – a heart of grace and a soul generated by love. – Coretta Scott King

Taking sin and me out of the center of the world and putting Love in the center of the world. – POWERFUL METAPHYSICAL MESSAGE

Archbishop of Canterbury

Love with a purpose – not a sentimental love

Love with a purpose – to change the world.

There is power in Love.

Bishop Michael Curry – When Love Is The Way

Objectives:

• Invite curiosity
• Orient yourself around the affirmative
• Accept the paradox in practice
• Allow for Grace to support you

Keywords/Stories/Points:

• • Cast a vision for yourself and the world. Show & Prove, demonstrate the generosity of Grace and the fire of Love.
    • SLIDE: To speak directly to Principle (Source/Cause) with nothing between thee and Principle is to carry abundant evidence of your Spiritual power everywhere. – Emma Curtis Hopkins
  • Align yourself with the qualities of that which you desire rather than fixating on the form of that which you desire. You will cause/create a most powerful elixir that paradoxically you will drawn unto yourself the longings of your soul.
• SLIDE: The one who knows they have enough is rich. – Lao Tzu
• YOU don’t have to force it. You don’t have to grip it. You don’t have to make it – in fact PLEASE DON’T force it. That being said, you DO have to invoke It, ask for It – call It forward.

Allow for Grace.

• SLIDE: The Spirit is never weary. God does not have to sleep. Let the one who is depleted in vitality call upon the vital force within; it is life energy. “Perfect life, complete life within me” (not somewhere else), “let that within me which is life, force, power, vitality, come forth.” Sense it; listen to it. Receive it. Expect it. Take it. – Can We Talk To God? by Ernest Holmes

• There is a presence working on and for your behalf. It is the creative life force of all that is. It is nearer than your breath and indwelling your body and soul. It is a gentle and mighty presence. It is of you. It is in you.
• SLIDE: God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. – Psalm 46.1

Summary:

• There is a distinction between feelings your feelings, honoring the dissonance in you and deepening in despair and dwelling in drama – know which experience you’re choosing.
• “Show & Prove” is not an opportunity to inflate the ego, in fact it is a deep practice of faith, conviction and trust
• Allow for Grace to do the heavy lifting – Be still and know.

Closing:

Prayer & Meditation