SPIRAL-PATHWAYS.ORG
  • HOME
  • OUR FOUNDER
  • EJ's BLOG
  • OUR SPIRAL TEACHER
  • OUR BOARD
  • OUR STAFF / ADVISORS
  • EVENTS
  • RESOURCES
  • BOOKS/MEDIA REVIEW
  • STORE
  • CONTACT & DONATE TO US!

end of year rituals, 2014

12/29/2014

1 Comment

 
I awoke this morning thinking of end of the year rituals. In Unity the one’s I think of the most are the Christmas Candlelighting and the Burning Bowl. There was a time when we tended to dismiss them altogether or at most lessen their importance.

But to keep the Spiral healthy in our lives we need to go back and assess whether rituals can continue to serve us, and rituals are characteristics of healthy PURPLE consciousness. They tend to call to mind the things that served us well in our ongoing evolution.

I attended the Christmas Candlelight service and felt the power of collective observance It reminded me that divinity is inherent in each individual. It allowed me to also remember that we first become aware of that divinity as a birth and that we grow into our knowledge of it as we continue to grow and develop in our spiritual lives.

The newborn child does not immediately feel guilt because he or she is not already full grown but goes the process of becoming. We, too can honor the process within us that will allow us to focus on where we are now but reminding ourselves that there is “more” to come.

I am reminded of James Dillett Freeman’s poem “More.”
By looking at an acorn 
Small and hard and plain 
Could I conceive of oak trees 
By listening to the rain 

Could I imagine oceans 
Or could I understand the desert 
If I held a single grain of sand

Then let me never think 
That what I chance to see
This face, this frame, these thoughts 
That this is all of me

Yet more than ageless oaks 
Or seas that have no shore 
In me there also is yet more yet more.

 
1 Comment

Magnifying the lord

12/29/2014

0 Comments

 
 “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” These are the first words of what we call The Magnificat – a [poem or song of praise and Thanksgiving.  They were recited by Mary, the mother of Jesus, when her cousin Elizabeth met her at the door and confirmed that she knew of the coming birth of Mary’s child.

To magnify means to enlarge or make greater than the apparent size.  It also can mean to dramatize. When I use a magnifying glass I make things more readable. I place the magnifying glass over what I want to read and I am able to bring the desired passage into focus.  That doesn’t change the rest of the words on the page, it just brings what I want to see closer.

We have many things going on in our lives.  So many that it sometimes seems overwhelming.  But we can place our focus on one thing at a time. We choose what we want to magnify. We live in a universe of infinite possibilities. Every day we must choose which of those possibilities we want to magnify… which we want to see more clearly, which we want to dramatize.

Often in the past I have chosen to enlarge or dramatize those things that I did not want to focus on. Instead of the many, many things that are going right I had allowed myself to dwell on that which didn’t seem to be going right.   The result was that the things that were going right became the background.  The thing I didn’t want to increase I magnified. 

Metaphysically “The Lord” represents the spiritual dimension of us.  When we can remember to magnify, enlarge, even dramatize that spiritual part of ourselves our lives can become more productive and more joyful.

We all have within us the knowledge that we are made in the image of God.  We have access to all the wisdom, abundance and wholeness that is our true nature.  It is most important to focus on this during this season. By enlarging and dramatizing the knowledge of the reality of the Christ presence being born and reborn in us, we are “magnifying the Lord.” Let us make a conscious effort to affirm that reality in everything we thing, say and do.  And let us, as Mary and Elizabeth did, remind each other.   #

0 Comments

    Author

    Rev. E.J. Niles is the Founding Minister of Spiral Pathways.

    Archives

    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2019
    July 2018
    August 2017
    July 2017
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Spiral Pathways  (donations by check & communications)    
P.O. Box 1338                    
Bandon, OR 97411            


The contents of this website are copyrighted (c) 2014 by Spiral Pathways, a Non-Profit Corporation pursuant to IRS Code 501 (c)(3) and the Revised Statutes of Missouri.  For information contact the Webmaster.
Flag Counter