On Sunday, Rev. Lola Wright continued our December series, “Illuminate,” with her message, “Loving Through The Dark.”
Opening:
Love & Law – last week focused on Law – using one’s power for good. This week we expand on the idea of “putting on the Christ” – Christ Consciousness or Perfect Love
SLIDE: Love points the way and Law makes the way possible. – Ernest Holmes
SLIDE: Love is our highest word and the synonym for God. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love is our holiest invitation and practice. The dark is the richest and most fertile time in our spiritual maturation…it is the time of the unknown and the mysterious. The dark requires faith.
Loving one another back to a remembering of our true nature. Surrender to Love…free yourself from condemnation, from fear.
SLIDE: Love – a cosmic force whose sweep is irresistible; free from condemnation, free from fear; the pure essence of Being that binds together the whole human family
Objectives:
Inviting a personal relationship with the God of your being to form in the dark
Loving the parts of you and others that you deem most unlovable
Discerning fear from love and being free to love
Keywords/Stories/Points:
Free will – and the distinction of love and law. We have been given freedom and yet we must remember we are spiritual beings.
SLIDE: My little children, for whom I am in travail again until Christ be a reality in you, I wish I could be with you now and could change the tone of my voice, because I am deeply concerned about you. – Galatians 4:19 – 20
SLIDE: For, my brethren, you have been called to liberty; only do not use your liberty for an occasion to the things of the flesh, but by love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one saying, that is, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Galatians 5:13 – 14
To love one’s neighbor as oneself is to understand karmic law
When chaos and uncertainty predominate you must turn to faith and activate in the cosmic force of LOVE whose sweep is irresistible.
SLIDE: There is no fear in love, and there is no liberation from fear without love. – Ernest Holmes
There is not fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear…(for) God is love. I John 4:18, 16
Loving Through The Dark is the time when faith is built and a personal relationship with the God of your being is developed – you will not have evidence. It is the time when you gain the greatest strength – trusting in the deep and mysterious realm of all that is holy. How will you access the God of your being in these times? How will you hear the sound of that which is holy?
Summary:
Release judgement, release condemnation, release resentment not because you have lost your ability to discern love from fear but because you are freed up when you are lead by love…invite the cosmic force of LOVE and ask that it have its way with you
SLIDE: A Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness
If I have harmed anyone in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through my own confusions
I ask their forgiveness.
If anyone has harmed me in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through their own confusions
I forgive them.
And if there is a situation
I am not yet ready to forgive
I forgive myself for that.
For all the ways that I harm myself,
negate, doubt, belittle myself,
judge or be unkind to myself
through my own confusions
I forgive myself.
Closing:
Prayer & Meditation
