We walked over the root structure with reverence and went up to the tree.  I gently placed my hands on its trunk and looked closely at the twists and turns of the bark.  It felt dry to the touch outside, but it had so much life inside and green leaves covered the branches declaring it so.

What this tree has seen.  Generations and generations of people in war time, in peace time, in building time, in tearing down time, in living and in dying.  Over and over around this old tree, the human drama swirled.  And there it sits, still being what it is, doing what it does without concern for what else has changed.

It is a wonderful symbol of Life itself.  Always present, always creating, always knowing itself.  If this old tree found its way to keep living its Truth what would living mine look like?  If I have the courage to be as I am and lean into the Life Principle that gives me breath, trusting that it is the only Reality, how would I be?

I accept 1700 years as a good amount of time to practice!

See you around.

In researching the topic of mystics both modern and ancient, I ran across a set of books offered in six volumes.  The books were first published in 1924, a prolific time for teachers of spiritual lessons, which included Pramahansa Yogananda, Dr. Ernest Holmes, Robert Collier and many more.

The writer, Baird T. Spalding, while not a household name today “became a legend in metaphysical and truth circles during the first half of the 20th century.”  Mr. Spalding was appreciated for bringing knowledge of ‘Masters’ who are available for guidance, to the Western world.

In Volume I, we are introduced to a party of eleven men who with Mr. Spalding constituted a research party to seek out and learn from what were called “The Great Masters of the Himalayas”.  Spalding and his research team had heard tales of people who understood and demonstrated spiritual laws, including transforming matter from non-matter and transporting the body without regard to space and time as we know it.

From the beginning the author acknowledges that what is written here as the account of their experiences would be accepted by some and rejected by others.  I found the book both stimulating and inspiring.  I am on to volume II to continue expanding my idea of the possible.

Throughout the experience the travelers visited villages and temples that were recorded as being in existence for thousands of years.  The masters they met included from their accounts both John the Baptist and Jesus himself.  While as I write this I can imagine it sounds wild and crazy, the books were reverent, serious and fascinating.

One of the teachers in the book, renamed Emil, spoke about the promise and possibility of the United States as a culture that could have great positive impact on all of society… “Great mistakes have been made by your nation in the ongoing because you have not realized your spiritual import…could all have known the truth as Jesus did…that the Christ is in every man and that all are one..what wonders would stand revealed today. ”

Whatever you think of their story, the lessons from the masters they quote, are timeless and touch a deep place in our search for truth.  These men seemed to ‘seek the truth with love’ as they journeyed for several years outside the comforts of home and their current understanding of life.

The lessons I most appreciated align with the Universalist and Unitarian traditions.  The first about the importance of service.  ”To serve gives purpose to vision; ;it releases love in life… the will to be served turns the life current against self.  The will to serve keeps the life current flowing through self and keeps the self in radiation”
The second lesson I appreciated was the reminder of our unity in multiplicity. In one of the final lessons of the first volume we are reminded of the five kingdoms, the mineral, vegetable, animal, man and God.  The reminder is that every part of every thing contains the One Life and that all is from one Source and Substance and that when we recognize the truth of the words ‘e pluribus unum’ we will serve life in a way that can create a new world.

Challenged by the limitation of my own ideas, I plunge on with fascination and curiosity to Volume II.

I am so grateful and I appreciate the opportunity to be in paradise both in my mind and in my body.  My life was a completely different scene just a few days ago.

I arrived in California to a full schedule of meetings day and night and I was front of room most of the time.  I  facilitated a meeting of  executives for two and a half days, attended a gala and spent time with friends in between.

Leaving this work, I headed to a meeting with a dear client and friend which turned out to be important and emotional for me.  From there I accepted a spontaneous invitation from a friend whom I love dearly but who I don’t see often and we needed to connect and support each other.  Waking to a sweet breakfast visit with these friends and my wife who finally arrived after delayed flights at 145 a.m. we left to another friends home for a dinner which was preceded by my writing of notes for clients and from the meetings I’d attended earlier.

When I arrived in Hawaii, I was at a retreat and when it was time for dinner, I didn’t join them nor did I join them for the introductions and beginning meditations.  I said to my wife… ” I just don’t have any more words, I need to stay here”.  I rested and never left the room until the next morning when I was ready to greet both the sun and the people.

When I tell people I”m an introvert, they laugh sometimes, because they just saw me front of the room or speaking all day.  What happens to an introvert when she heads into facilitating after having been in a play and leading worship as a guest minister on the same day?….knowing she’ll be heading to Californina early in the morning….She feels drained. In a good way, but drained nonetheless.  I get my energy and my rejuvination from spending time inside my own heart and mind.  As an introvert, I require silence and freedom from the requirement to speak.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t love everyone I love or that I am doing the wrong kind of work.  It just means I’m introverted and today, I accept that.

Rev. Christie Hardwick

2/5/2012-Sermon delivered at the UU Meeting House, Provincetown

Hymns:  “Guide my feet”, and “Blessing to the world”

Opening words:

Sit comfortably with your feet on the floor, close your eyes and take a deep breath while listening to these words from author and teacher, Louise Hay:

Deep at the center of my being there is an infinite well of Love. I now allow this Love to flow to the surface.  It fills my heart, my body, my mind, my consciousness, my very being, and radiates out from me in all directions and returns to me multiplied.  The more Love I use and give, the more I have to give, the supply is endless.  The use of love makes ME FEEL GOOD; it is an expression of my inner joy.  I love myself– therefore; I take loving care of my body.  I lovingly feed it nourishing foods and beverages, I lovingly groom it and dress it, and my body lovingly responds to me with vibrant health and energy.

An excerpt from the day’s reading taken from “Spiritual Fitness” by Caroline Reynolds

“Self love is also doing what makes you happy…for instance; remember what makes you laugh and make sure it features strongly in your life.  …build your self love and inner strength by starting with the small things.  For example, in the past I would sometimes find myself eating food at home that was a little past its sell-by date… vegetables that looked a bit rotten here or there… would I present this kind of food to someone I really loved?  And the answer was no…After this I started to feed myself only the best food that I had available to me.  This process… gave me a subtle but strong message that I was also worthy of the love I found it so easy to give others… And gradually I experienced this spilling over into the rest of my life…I was more able to stand up for myself, refuse anything that didn’t feel right for me and meet my true needs.”

The Sermon:

As many of you know there is a fitness challenge going on in our town.  The challenge is supported by a team of dedicated experts led by Denise Gaylord the founder and inspiration.  It involves 100 people committing to challenge their patterns of exercise and eating and breakthrough to something new.  Something new, being fitness, at a new level for each individual… fitness described in many ways by many different philosophical stances but by Denise… “That flow state of feeling strong and comfortable in my skin as well as healthy and aware.”

Another way of thinking of it is ‘responsible’ I am able to respond to life’s opportunities and challenges and respond to the dreams that are calling me forward into life… response– able.  For every person the expression of fitness and health are different, but each person can always move closer to their own highest expression of flow or responsiveness.

I imagine our highest expression involves more than our bodies, but involves a combination of our mental, emotional and spiritual capacities as well.  And I have experienced that a great place to start is with our spiritual or, inner life.

Master teachers have pointed to the idea that the perfect pattern of health resides within us…It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, “Get your bloated nothingness out of the way of the divine circuits.”  Ernest Holmes echoes Emerson: “We must get ourselves and our limited human thinking out of the way so that the Divine pattern of perfection can fully express itself in us.  For who can make his own heart beat?  What doctor can cause the blood to circulate?”

This idea that the body itself is run by an intelligence that knows what to do and how to do it is evidenced by the complexity and beauty of this human form… We know that there are millions of things that happen each moment to make this body work and Emerson and Holmes ask us to consider how our limited ideas -our limited efforts can actually be an obstacle to our health if we don’t allow the natural flow of life within us.

Allowing the flow is physical but it is also a mental, emotional and spiritual exercise.  We get firm in our belief about the source of our life, we immerse ourselves in the emotion of gratitude, we dwell in our breath and we act out of the silence of our truth… our ideas/beliefs drive our actions so that if we work at the level of thought/belief remembering that there is a greater intelligence operating in, as and through us …the result will be a greater experience of health.

This mind body connection has been well documented.  The relationship between our thoughts, emotions, and a connection with something greater than ourselves, is known to contribute to our experience of well being.

We see the connection between mind and body in our language… We use the terms ‘food for thought’,  ‘food of the gods’  ‘food for the heart and soul’  and even ‘spiritual nourishment’.  So while we are on this path to improve our bodies; our minds, emotions and spirits will be made more aligned with health too.  Facts and faith do not contradict, metaphysics and physics do not contradict… attitude plus action matters to the results we see in our lives.

Does anyone else think “eat, drink and be merry” is a prescription for health? I do.  This aspect of fitness, the idea of how we use our emotions to flood our cells with energy is scientifically grounded in the book “The biology of belief “The author, Bruce Lipton, found that our constructive and life affirming ideas, literally raise the energy level or vibration in our individual cells, the membrane takes the messages in and moves….according to the message….responding to the type of information it receives. Positive messages have more energy or more vibration to keep our cells moving and living.

In his essay on Self Reliance, Emerson says  “Trust thyself …every heart vibrates to that iron string”….he refers to that place in you that knows, the intelligence in your heart, not just your mind, the still small voice that sometimes gets drowned out by the noise of the world… this is where your health and fitness begin…inside… rooted in the source of your life, like the tree receiving its nourishment and direction from its nature to reach for the sun and dig deep for the waters.

You also act from your inner knowing, spiritual fitness is not what you do but who you are being everyday. It is a deeper awareness to understand your life.  This relates to what Denise describes as the flow that allows you to be aware… Caroline Reynolds in her book “spiritual fitness”… reminds us like physical fitness spiritual fitness requires discipline, desire and dedication.

Reynolds says “Adapt your outer environment to bring out your natural inner joy and peace” your outer environment includes your body, the type of thinking you are exposed to and the emotional environment of your relationships….

So these are the four levels of fitness–mental (think), emotional (feel), physical (do) and spiritual (be)…..Do be do be do…. (sung J)

I am one of the people who has taken this challenge and this is my story.  At different times in my life I had different measures of what fitness looked like and what mattered. When I was very young I never gave it a thought, my body and my life just was and I moved through my days expecting things to work.

When I was 17 and found I had to leave home in order for my life to work, this idea of being fit began to expand.  My youthful body changed even at 19 when my twins were born and I started to have to work to stay slim.  So I never ate a thing after 7 p.m. and ran myself ragged taking care of the kids and working.

At some point I thought to take care of my emotional fitness, I wasn’t happy and I thought that it was possible to be happy, so I went on a quest to feel better. My quest led me to body workers, breath work, Native American sweats, pole climbing, fire walking and many intensive workshops.  Tears, epiphanies, lots of journaling and every type of therapy later, I moved the needle and I found a new emotional health. Once I surrendered to the idea of breath work, I learned to take deep connected breaths and when I allowed it energy surges would happen.  I felt my whole body vibrate and I was afraid I’d lift off the table I was on…”It’s just your own life force you are feeling, that’s all” my teacher comforted….I remember leaving that breath work session vibrating so high that I ate food to bring me down. I wasn’t yet comfortable feeling such expansion, but I was feeling better.

Then there was my own middle passage where I was a slave to success and climbing and striving to be good enough and never believing that I was, I began searching for more mental health, better ways to think about life and myself.  I learned NLP, and positive self talk.  I had my power word and my power move and I was successful in the eyes of the world.  Money, possessions, position, at that time what I thought of as the perfect family, my three children and my husband.  Still I was not feeling right, not fit, not ready to respond, response able or in the flow…    So I went on a search for my own soul.  And this was not a seeking of experiences, or more books or more learning but it was a seeking for how to see the universe, life itself and how it operates.  Who I was and why I was here… small questions like that…. it wasn’t that I’d never asked them before but I never made it a priority to seek the answers.  And I continue on that journey today….

Now as I’ve gone through the five minute version of my life herstory or heroes journey you can relate it to yours, you too have had different areas of focus during different times of your life.  You have dealt with your own physical challenges, your own emotional, mental and spiritual challenges.  Maybe there are a few masters out there in the audience who have lived their life clear about being mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually fit, ready and able to respond to what life offers.  But if you are anything like me, you continue to do the work.

When I started my conscious spiritual journey, (I say conscious because I think we are all on a spiritual path but not always conscious of it) I was living a very prosperous life, I felt beautiful, and I was successful in my work.  Why would I think I needed spiritual fitness at a time when I was my most physically fit, most mentally sharp, was feeling pretty good emotionally?  Because I knew there was more to life than feeling pretty good.  When I am in nature I recognize that whatever created it and us has a bigger idea than just feeling pretty good… the sunsets I see here are beyond any mediocre offering of light, the water frozen at beech forest lakes sparkle without holding anything back, the whales that breach and thrive, the birds that alight on your hand, something more than pretty good… pretty extraordinary….

I wanted to access the extraordinary…How do we access the extraordinary?  Is it by getting physically fit?  Developing more emotional intelligence?  Sharpening our mental skills and thinking right? Or is it getting aligned with our own spirit, that part of us that knows we are more than our bodies, emotions and thoughts…?

I’ve asked myself:  What is the relationship of these things one to the other…?  I’ve learned they are all vehicles to access the wellspring of joy and health within you.  But don’t take my word for it… You have your own experience and all the master teachers of the ages…The Christ, “It is done unto you as you believe, as you believe it is done unto you”….master Eckhart,  “thought is creative”….Einstein, “you can’t solve problems at the level of thinking by which they were created”… The Buddha…  “Right thought right speech right action”….You may wonder as I have, how to choose right thought…. and how does it lead to right action?  One model says thoughts, produce feelings, feelings produce actions, and actions are followed by results or consequences….Yet I still wonder what is behind the thought? Fundamental beliefs, beliefs inform our thoughts. So what are you believing and what do thoughts have to do with being fit?

Let me go back to where I started.  I decided to do the challenge, not because I believed that this was the right food or exercise plan but because I believed I was worthy of the investment and I was led by the love and appreciation for my life to treat it differently, loving myself in demonstrative ways (like Louise Hay and Caroline Reynolds mention in our readings) I feel happier when what I think, say and do are in alignment with each other…

One of my most important thoughts is what I believe about my own life… if I believe that I did not create myself and that I was therefore created, I am thankful to that which brought me forth…so I say to myself what a wonderful world…and I appreciate my life and my privilege and my food options and my luxury of exercise for the sake of it and I go play with my fellow challengers and I can’t lose this, it’s not a contest, it is a testament… I testify to the grace of that which gives me life and breath and with my breath —I am caring for my life so that I can give from a more boundless reservoir of energy, vitality and love.

I am coming to the understanding  that by loving myself, by taking care of my body I have my actions in alignment with my beliefs and I am more joy made available to everyone in my life.. I think better and so I am more wisdom available to everyone in my life. And I am more energized so I am more giving to everyone in my life. And everyone includes me.

Am I suggesting that you start getting fit by meditation or prayer or new self talk?  You could but, It doesn’t matter where you start to get more fit… it doesn’t matter what condition your body is in now or what condition it is in 12 weeks later, what matters is what it does for your spirit, what it does with what you believe about yourself and the world and how that drives you forward to give.

If you become spiritually fit and align yourself with the highest ideals and act from that place what ever you can do you will do when it comes to your body… you will practice, practice… practice right thinking and you will find yourself experiencing more joy, peace, love and less anxiety, fear, judgement.   And when you are moved to do something that involves your body, it’s a bonus that it may be more respons-able… whether its being able run, walk, carry, or push your assisted device with more power or use your functioning limbs more powerfully… there is a level of fitness inside of you that cannot be taken away with age, circumstances or any other thing… when you are spiritually fit…your greater expression of health follows as your life.

As for me I will continue to be led by grace of life, breath that is within me…. and accept help from the source of life and my fellow travelers to stay the course… stay the course toward more joy, peace and love brought out from within… and maybe a smaller waist in the process….guide my feet while I run this race for I don’t want to run this race in vain…. (sung)  Namaste

The invitation to lobby at our state capitol regardless of your experience or expertise was an invigorating dive into citizen lobbying.  On the first day of the conference after riding a bus from Baltimore to DC, I was sitting along side youth just out of college, some still in college, boomers like me, and non profit community leaders.

Together, in one morning we created a dialogue that said loud and clear: we are a community united for equality.  I left feeling I had done something good, met good people and made a difference with just a few hours invested.  I have been involved in lobbying before, but was so impressed with the organizations ability to do a two hour training and ready us to be effective in front of senators, congress members and staffers.  Seeing 300 people with their purple and pink badges descend from the buses and head up the capitol steps was a picture I won’t soon forget.

I learned how important our individual stories are to helping politicians have examples to support their positions when they agree with the policies we are proposing and how important our stories are to educate and potentially persuade those who can’t see the urgency of our requests. I learned about how the laws protecting women from violence were insensitive to same gender couples finding many turned away at the very shelters made for their safety.  I learned about how people in Washington are using states rights as an excuse for non intervention and deliniation on bullying in schools and how they use ‘putting burdens on business” to avoid signing on to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and the Fair Paycheck Act.  One staffer quoted his senator by saying ‘he doesn’t see why we need the Fair Paycheck Act when we have the equal pay amendment”.  We then pointed out that we’ve had that for decades and still women are paid 77c on the dollar to men with blacks at 70c and Latina’s trailing at 66c.  Clearly the equal pay act needs more teeth.

During the conference, we heard from members of the administration about the work they are doing in the Department of Health and Human Services, especially in the area of aging and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered peoples needs.  From the office of the Secretary of State we heard the reiteration of our country’s commitment to human rights around the world including those of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.  On a local level, we heard from the mayor of Baltimore about his personal commitment to seeing Transgender people safe and thriving in his city.

I attended workshops and experiences as diverse as relating the chakras to our personal development and the movement for equality, a trans denominational service and how to talk with family and friends about politics, sex and religion with effective compassion.

The most important and deeply alarming information I received at the conference, was that there are state laws that have been passed and more proposed, that will result in suppressing the vote of up to 5 million people.  These laws relate to new requirements for identification to register to  vote and to vote at the ballot box and these regulations affect those who are most likely to vote in a socially progressive way.  For example, in Florida when President Obama was elected there were 500,000 votes that were placed by those who had served prison time.  A new law in Florida would exempt these people who have paid their debt to society from participating as voters.  In another law that was passed in a southern state, an African American woman in her eighties was denied the right to vote after having done so faithfully for more than 50 years, because she could not produce an original version of her birth certificate! (It had burned in a fire some years earlier and was unavailable to her).  I am moved to learn more about these laws and do my part this election year to make sure they don’t meet their apparent purpose.

The message about voter suppression, and the recognition that our LGBT equality movement is not just about marriage but about immigration, jobs, housing, healthcare, poverty, homelessness, incarceration, adoption,social security and other long term spousal benefits— came from two sources.  The leader of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, who eloquently and fiercely called us to action and the leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  This historic unity, of two civil rights leaders, demonstrating engagement,  friendship, respect and passion for each others commitments and concerns was a shattering of segregation and a bringing in of the beloved community of which Dr. King spoke in a way I never imagined in my life time.

Immersed in an environment of thousands of people (a majority of them under 25),  I saw the leaders of leather nation, Indian nations, the state department, faith leaders, corporate leaders all under the same roof for the same reason. We were all present to gain more understanding and to clarify our personal and collective actions.  While there we experienced true, ‘radical’ inclusion. The meeting floors had entirely gender neutral restrooms, there were hospitality suites for different ethnicitys, religions, physical abilities and gender identity and expression.  There was a room for prayer and for meditation, a Shabbat service, a Muslim Friday prayer, the calling of the names of those we have lost… If any one wants to know what true inclusion looks like this is the place to be.

My heart and mind are full and I have been made better by this experience.  Seeing the ‘angels of our better nature’ in over 3000 people is beyond inspiring, it is a shining light on what is possible for our future.  There is a final image I am left with: a young man receiving the youth leadership award even as he fears deportation says “ I accept this award but all I can think about is all those who wanted to be here but could not be here because they are undocumented and afraid, this is an equality movement issue, please don’t call us illegal, no human being is illegal. “ And he took his award and his standing ovation and went back to fighting for the rights of those who only want to be free.

I am diving into work projects, writing projects, making new contracts and contacts, revising my website and trying to decide how to re-launch it, singing every chance I get, participating in a fitness challenge and remembering to breathe.

Every year we have a tradition of making dream boards, some people call them vision maps, others intentions but the idea is the same.  You choose images and words from magazines that represent concepts and experiences you want to bring into this year.  It is fun and effective for learning what is really on your mind and heart.  I’ve been doing these boards for over 20 years and have loved seeing the changes in me as reflected in what I desire.

My first boards were full of material things in my twenties and gradually the material disappeared to make way for the experiences and circumstances of life.  Now you’ll find emotions, states of being and qualities on my board, the details have faded and I create a picture of health, joy, laughter, prosperity, giving and growing.  This year we will get to our group in California to late in the year to do this ritual with them so we’re going to invite some Ptown pals to join us and set up  a group skype with our west coast friends.  Should be fun, energizing and I’m curious what I’ll see on my brightly colored poster board this year.

Cheers to you!

Today I have nothing scheduled on my calendar.  Nothing at all and this is very rare.  I am staying in my PJs  because I can…sitting cross legged in bed typing on my new iPad looking out on the Provincetown bay .   I am enjoying a cup of my Gano Cafe made with both coffee and special mushroom extracts ~not that kind of special~.  This is a perfect time.

Brian Greene talks about how we are obsessed with time, past and future especially, rarely the present moment.  The way we came up with our concepts of time was by observation.  As human beings we noticed that the light changed during the day and the sun seemed to move in the sky.  At night we saw the same configuration of stars and began to notice the moon rising.  Eventually our science let us know that the earth was rotating and we could call a full rotation one day.  Then by the appearance of the sun we could call its position in the sky a particular time.

The thing was, since we were arbitrarily naming certain positions of the sun as noon or three in the afternoon or dawn or six am, we began to organize ourselves around it and instead of just rising when the sun rose and tucking in when it went down, we  began  putting ourselves on an arbitrary schedule.

The arbitrary schedule was different in different regions and when trains came along we had to set a  clock that everyone followed so they could know in one town to the next when to expect the train.  And so our modern lives tied to being on the right track at the right time with no care for the sun, the moon , the stars or the tides all of natures ‘clocks.”

The program went on to delve into time travel through worm holes and black holes and time folding in on itself.   Apparently the math equations don’t rule out that everything is happening in the same moment and theoretically we can experience past as present and future as present if we understood how to access it.

Instead of being curious about my past or my future, I find myself in this moment loving living in a place where low tide means on friday’s and sundays you can go out clamming near the breakwater.

Our lead is Irene Adler and she has quite a conversation with a committee in her own head which is funny and I can completely relate. She is a straight forward academic anthropologist who is bored with her less than inspiring students and her less than inspiring life so she takes an assignment to solve a mystery for her former professor and the location is Nepal.

I am an avid traveler and love to read about places before I go. I am intrigued by the sights, sounds and happenings of this mysterious part of the globe. In the main story you have Margo who was an academic but is now caught up in the religious practicies and civil disobedience of the more progressive society. She has lost her objectivity and Irene is concerned .. maybe even her mind, as she goes on a search for an ancient goddess and the trail of death that seems to surround her.

Have a good time with this book, its characters and the wonder of a place that is rich with the ancient, the modern and the wisdom of the Hindu and the Buddhist alike. I even appreciated the travel tips.. I will drink bottled water when I make it to Nepal!

Christie Hardwick