On Sunday, Rev. Lola Wright continued our month-long exploration of “Shining Brightly” with her message, “The Labor of Light.”
Talk Notes
Opening:
Let us assume YOU are an artist. Your art is allowing the light of your being to shine brightly. What then is required?
SLIDE: Art requires both pride and disobedience. The pride of creation and the disobedience of disturbing the status quo. – Seth Godin
Pride – an honoring of the self
Disobedience – failure to obey rules
What is “The Icarus Deception?”
SLIDE: Hubris means that you have the voice to challenge authority and the guts to stand up and speak out. It’s not surprising, then, that the only part of the Icarus story we’re left with is the warning about hubris. – Seth Godin
The Labor of Light is not easy.
Objectives:
The Icarus Deception – we are at greater risk of flying too low than of ever flying too high
Identify YOUR measuring stick for purpose/happiness and release the measuring stick you inherited
Lay down the delusion that discomfort is not good for you and trust that labor is holy and sacred
Embrace and celebrate your unique artistry
You are an artist of Love and the planet is crying for more artists of Love
Keywords/Stories:
What’s the payoff for me in playing small? In flying low? I don’t have to take responsibility.
The Labor of Light is not easy.
You must die to your old ways of playing small/of flying too low. They do not serve you.
SLIDE: Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die. – Tom Delaney
There will be those that don’t want you to fly high not because they don’t love you but because they are scared…do it anyway!
Micah Hayman – dad – please have this be your last major life choice (fear is contagious)
SLIDE: No one is going to pick you. Pick yourself. – Seth Godin
SLIDE: Never been a victim. I’m just a witness. – Saul Williams
No one promises it will be easy – The Labor of Light.
SLIDE: The resistance is the shadow of art. No art, no resistance. The resistance is a symptom that you’re on the right track. The resistance is not something to be avoided; it’s something to seek out. – Seth Godin
SLIDE: If the goal is to make an impact and to be valued for our contribution, the opportunity is to embrace those laborious tasks that are so easy to avoid. While it makes sense to seek shortcuts to improve our productivity, the emotional labor that needs to be done offers no shortcuts. You go to work to do your work, and your work is to confront the things that scare you. – Seth Godin
Summary:
The Labor of Light is not easy. Pain can exist. Suffering is optional.
You do you because when you don’t, you create suffering.
SLIDE: The criterion for any man as to what is right or wrong for him is not to be found in some other man’s judgement. The criterion is: Does the thing I wish to do express more life, more happiness, more peace to myself, and at the same time harm no one? Man does not exist for the purpose of making an impression upon his environment. He does exist to express himself in and through his environment. It is not necessary, if we should pass on tonight, that anyone should remember that we have ever lived. All that means anything is that while we live, WE LIVE, and wherever we go from here we shall keep on living. – The Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes
The self-consciousness of Spirit – to make something out of nothing
SLIDE: Art is a leap into the void, a chance to give birth to your genius and to make magic where there was no magic before. It’s entirely possible that there won’t be a standing ovation at the end of your journey. That’s okay. At least you lived. – Seth Godin
Closing:
What act of courage will I take this week in #ShiningBrightly?
