Prayer of the Heart Part III

Last week I mentioned the Prayer of the Heart booklet that Rev Toni Boehme wrote. It is no longer being printed. Her website is here to check out and see her other books: Toniboehme.com and you can put Toni Boehme books in google search and they all appear on the page.

To conclude this series, I am sharing the poem by James Dillet Freeman, Unity minister and poetry Nobel laureate. It remains very powerful for me. I didn’t realize that this poem was taken to the moon by James Irwin on Apollo 15. It is stored there in a microfilm file for future space explorations.

I had the privilege of hearing James read it out loud at Unity Village in Missouri in 1994. After he read it, we had a break in the class and as I walked outside, I could hear it echoing as it continued to resonate in my heart. At that time, I had gone through some significant events in my life, wherein it provided a healing lifeline for me.

This might be considered his prayer of the heart because of the circumstances taking place in his life when it came through. For the whole story you can go here: https://www.unity.org/article/story-i-am-there-james-dillet-freeman   In 1947, he was at the bedside of his wife, Katherine, who had just had surgery for cancer. He prayed out loud asking God if he was there. He remembered hearing a voice speaking to him and naturally, looked around and there was no one else in the room with him. The words he heard were: “Do you need me? I am there.”

I AM THERE

Do you need Me?
I am there.

You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.
You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.
You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.
I am at work, though you do not understand My works.
I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.

Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me
as I AM, and then but as a feeling and a faith.

Yet I am here. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.
When you need ME, I am there.
Even if you deny Me, I am there.
Even when you feel most alone, I am there.
Even in your fears, I am there.
Even in your pain, I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.
I am in you, and you are in Me.
Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me, for
only in your mind are the mists of “yours” and “mine”.
Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.

Empty your heart of empty fears.
When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.
You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.
And I AM in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, for
I am there. I am there because I have to be, because I AM.

Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of ME does the world go forward.
I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.

I am the love that is the law’s fulfilling. I am assurance.
I am peace. I am oneness. I am the law that you can live by.
I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance.
I am your peace. I am ONE with you. I am.

Though you fail to find ME, I do not fail you.
Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never
wavers, because I know you, because I love you.

Beloved, I AM there.

— James Dillet Freeman

Until we connect again on this blog,

Rev Airin

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Prayer of the Heart

Part II

In part one last week I gave you one of the ways that Carol Knox connected with God. There are other ways, too, with the primary one being meditation. Spending time in the silence and listening for a message from God, Spirit, or your higher self. One of my mentors said to have a particular chair in the house, that is the only place you commune with your higher power. Whenever you sit in that chair, you and your body know, almost like muscle memory, that it is time to meditate. Some people don’t sit still well, so walking in nature as a meditation works for those individuals.

You might have a question that you need an answer to, so say it at the beginning of meditating after you have centered. If you don’t receive it at that time, know that it could happen anywhere, anytime. You will know that it is from God because it will resonate deep in your soul. It will also be the highest and best for all concerned. Often, I will receive 3-to-6-word answers, with clear and distinct words.

When I was just beginning to develop a relationship with God, I would sometimes use the needle drop method with the Bible. I would have a question and ask it. I would randomly open the Bible and put my finger on the page where it opened. Then I would read the verse that it landed on as well as the verses before and after it to give it context. Sometimes this was helpful. Since Unity teaches the metaphysical interpretation of the Bible, using this method makes it fun, too. Metaphysical interpretation is looking at the meaning beyond the words as opposed to reading the Bible literally.

There is another fun way to connect with God. A mentor taught me about saying “Good morning Holy Spirit” and good night daily. She told me that eventually it would answer back, and it did happen. It was a neat experience.

The ultimate goal is to pray without ceasing and these methods bring us back to the Prayer of the Heart that another mentor, Rev Toni Boehm, wrote as a published booklet. I am in the process of getting a link and will add it in Part III.

“The Prayer of the Heart is an ongoing prayer held in the heart, directing your life towards God. Are you ready for a shift in your life experience? Are you ready to move higher and deeper?”

This booklet contains a ‘How To’ process on creating a prayer of the heart that you repeat over and over. It is a short prayer or affirmation that will come to your lips when you need it the most. This continues to be a powerful experience in my life. The one I chose is “Christ Heals and Reveals, I am Silently Trusting.” It is an acronym for Christ that was written by an instructor from Unity.

Last night the prayer came right into my mind and was comforting when I was thinking about a situation in my life. If I am unsure of the outcome and need to trust it will come to me. Do any of you have a prayer or affirmation that you use that may bring you peace and comfort during turmoil? I also will use the Prayer for Protection, by Unity minister James Dillet Freeman. It doesn’t come to me as fast as the prayer of my heart does, however.

Stay tuned for Part III.

Rev Airin

A Transcendent Easter Practice

A month ago, we had a speaker, Fred Brancato, who wrote the book, “Mystery and Manifestation: Reflections on Life Experience Beyond Ideology, Theology, and Belief Systems.” who spoke about having a transcendent experience and some ways he believes one can achieve it. (See
revairin.wordpress.com/2023/03/27/god-incidences-and-divine-timing/  Meditation is the overarching key to creating it. A meditation practice builds that relationship with the Universe, or Love, or God, or what ever your name is for the one power and one presence. We all know that Jesus spent a lot of time in meditation and prayer.

Recently I listened to a talk by Eric Butterworth, who is a well-known Unity Minister. It is called The Easter Perspective in April of 1979, found here: https://www.truthunity.net/ebup/the-easter-perspective . Some of the ideas I will share here are from his talk. It amazed me that the same problems that he referred to in the world such as energy use, oil and Saudi Arabia, fires, etc. are still ongoing today.

The main question that he asks is how is celebrating Easter helpful for our challenges today in the world and in our personal lives. Mankind has been on a quest learning about himself from the search for the Holy Grail to now. Jesus was no different when he came into the world. He was a man on a quest who went through the temptations in the desert and always worked to rise above his challenges.

How was Jesus able to do that? As mentioned earlier, he had a meditation and prayer life that help him develop a relationship with God. He may have had other daily practices. A foundational one was pausing, lifting his eyes, and seeing beyond the appearance or problem, which was transcending the situation and seeing it from a higher perspective, naturally listening to God’s guidance in that moment.

Jesus told us that we have the same abilities that he had. Everyone can develop a relationship with God, listening for him in meditation and prayer without going to a priest and asking them to intercede for you. Jesus demonstrated that it was possible to have transcendent (God) experiences. Rev Eric Butterworth calls being in the tomb with our challenges such as accidents or firing from a job, “Tomb of Limitations” *. Many of us may work very hard to set things right and we are blocked with questions that we can’t answer.

“The need is not to set things right but to see it right and get it” * on a higher level of consciousness. We don’t need to know the how or why it happened, which is the natural path we take, “trying to know all the ins and outs of it.” * We want to see it rightly.

Butterworth pointed out that if you notice in the New Testament wherever Jesus performed a healing or multiplying the loaves and fishes, that he lifted his eyes up. He was seeing things from a higher perspective or consciousness and calling on God of course, having a transcendent view of things.

The Transcendent practice that rolls the stone away from the tomb of limitation can happen in this way. We are confronted with a problem that may have felt like a crucifixion (not all of them do). We pause and go within, lift our eyes, seeing from a higher perspective, affirming the new view that we are seeing with the eyes of God.

“Fundamentally, Jesus demonstrated for you and for me and for all persons who have eyes to see and ears to hear, that if we lift our eyes and look out the right window, we can see allness in illness, we can see all sufficiency in insufficiency, we can see full potentialities even in limitations, and we find the key to overcoming and the key to a victorious, transcendent life. This is what it’s all about.” *

This can be an everyday practice to become a Master of it like Jesus.

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”                                                                                                          Albert Einstein

Rev Airin

*Direct Quotes from Rev Butterworth’s talk

Spiritual Tools for Lent

Unity has what I call spiritual tools that are ‘hands on’ or kinesthetic that are easy to use. Our cofounders Charles and Myrtle Fillmore used them. Two of them are using denials and affirmations.  Both are forms of prayer. Hypatia Hasbrouck, a Unity Minister and a former Dean of the Unity ministerial education program, wrote a book on forms of prayer called Handbook of Positive Prayer. In it are tools for cleaning your conscience and visualizing with it. There are copies in the bookstore and online of course.

The word conscience is a noun that cues you on what is right, wrong, or a shade of gray sometimes. Consciousness is also a noun that is a state of awareness. “The true temple in the “body” of Christ is a state of consciousness. In the inmost center of every man the indwelling Christ resides.” Charles Fillmore, pg. 11 from Keep a True Lent. The awareness of Christ with in, therefore is how one has the Christ consciousness and being one with the Christ.In reading any of his books, it is rare not to find consciousness on every page. Spiritual consciousness was all important to him. Again, being at one with the Holy Spirit.

Naturally there is more to having a Christ or Spiritual consciousness than just being ‘aware’ of that fact or believing it to be true. Using tools to cleanse one’s consciousness of things no longer serving us is one way and then moving into meditation for time in the presence with and as the Christ communing and listening. In Hypatia’s book, she teaches how to use the denials and affirmations to do it. Our consciousness includes the subconscious which has been like a sponge absorbing every experience, idea and residual feelings and emotions and storing it in the mind. Depending how long we have been alive, there can be a lot in there. When there is a lot going through your mind in a particular moment, it can be difficult to “Be still and know that I am God” Psalm 46:10.

So, when one is cleansing the consciousness of the mind, it is the subconscious that is being cleaned which creates a faster and faster connection when you are in meditation and prayer. The subconscious mind also contains the intuitive faculty, which is the direct connection with other human minds (race mind) and the superconscious phase of mind (the mind of God in us).

A denial is a statement that withdraws the hold or power that a belief or habit has on you that you would like to eliminate. You only say it once because you don’t want to keep declaring it over and over. An affirmation is a statement of what you would like to be experiencing instead which replaces that belief or habit. You want to repeat this statement several times because you are establishing a new habit or belief. For example, years ago, I realized that I was afraid of driving in the bad weather. Denial: I am no longer afraid of driving in bad weather. Affirmation: I drive safely with God as my pilot. I didn’t include any words in the affirmation that I didn’t want to keep experiencing like, afraid. Feel how you would feel as though it were already taking place in your life. There is a lot more to this, but I gave you the cliff notes version to get you started if you are interested.

In the name and through the power of Jesus Christ, It is Done!

Have fun with the tools, too.

Rev Airin

God Incidences and Divine Timing

This past week when I was working the evening shift at the hospital, I was asked to take a family up to the chapel so that they could pray for their loved one. As we were leaving the unit, they asked if I would be able to perform last rites for the patient. I said I wasn’t a priest, but that I could call him and as we were heading to the elevators, there was Father Paul. He had just been visiting his sister.

The timing was perfect and the Unity teachings would call that Divine Order. Father Paul, said, “I call those ‘God incidents’, not coincidences.” Synchronicity is another way of describing the way things will seamlessly come together. See the blog I wrote on Synchronicity and Coincidence: https://wordpress.com/post/revairin.wordpress.com/418

Divine timing may be another way of thinking about a God incidence. There is a fair amount of information on the term God incident on the internet, including other bloggers that have written about it. For example, Christian philosopher Max Baker-Hytch, writes in his article, ‘When do coincidences become ‘God-incidences?’, about another term that has been coined for them.^{1 “}Strikingly Juxtaposed Events, or SJEs for short, one that neither affirms nor denies that God is behind such things.”

I think timing of anything is key. A couple weeks ago we had a speaker, Fred Brancato, who wrote the book, “Mystery and Manifestation: Reflections on Life Experience Beyond Ideology, Theology, and Belief Systems.” One of the things he said was, “Nothing exists independent of anything else. Our very being is the being of the Divine. There is only one being and everything is a manifestation of that one being.”

You have probably heard it said by Alfred Lord Tennyson,“Closer is He then breathing and nearer than hands and feet.” Also you may have heard that God knows what we need before we ask. Therefore we technically don’t need any proof; yet for the nonbelievers, we do need it.

So, a story from my personal life, I had been given a small bike for a two- to four-year-old and I dropped it off at the home of a friend who had a two and a 10 year old. Then I came across a Richard Scary book and dropped it off for his older brother to read to him. This was a hit, too and I texted their mother, saying that I bet I would make a great grandfather! She responded with, 1000%! This was around August 8, 2022. It was a heart felt wish and I didn’t give it much more thought. I had worked with kids most of my life and had been told by a parent that for someone who never had any of their own, I really understood them.

Right around that time I had found a dollhouse left at our recycling center. I couldn’t pass it by and knew that I could fix it up for a little girl. I stored it in my garage. Meanwhile, before and during covid my wife had stayed in touch with a woman who had adopted a baby girl. She was 4 and a half now. She, her mother, and another little girl would come over now and then on Fridays at our house while I was working at the hospital. I thought of repairing and renovating the dollhouse for her for Christmas and began working on it. It was so much fun, and I was looking forward to how she would respond to having it. By the time the two of them came over it was the first weekend in February. She really loved it! While they were looking at it, her mother said that they hadn’t asked us yet, but we had been adopted by them as her parents and grandparents for her daughter.

In the moment it hadn’t sunk in yet, that I had been wanting this more than since August when I put it into words, not thinking it was possible. Of course, I said sure, in response. The next day it had fully sunk in and I was feeling and understanding joy like I had never known it before. I was totally blissed out.

I think that this was an example of Divine order and Fred Brancato’s “Nothing exists independently of anything else” and God being closer than our very breath, knowing before we ask.

When was your last God incident or SJE Divinely orchestrated?

Rev Airin

¹ https://www.premierunbelievable.com/unbelievable/when-do-coincidences-become-god-incidences/13483.article

A Gotchaback God

What could that mean? It doesn’t mean a person surprised you back or got you back in ‘a tit for tat’ way. As you know, I promote positive perspectives in this blog. It means God’s got our back. This means that God’s got you, understands you unconditionally, no matter what. God is on our side, in our corner, and always looking out for us. This is even when we are unaware.

The phrase came to me when I was visiting a patient on Saturday. She hadn’t had any sleep for a week, worried about her baby that she was carrying, yet receiving care in the hospital. It wasn’t the normal pregnancy that she had expected and it was her first. Part of the spiritual conversation was regarding God wanting us to be happy and always being there for us. She has a strong faith and is currently in her denomination’s ministerial school to become a minister.

People sometimes use the phrase, gotcha, when they understand us. I also said, had she heard the phrase ‘let go and let God.’ She said yes. Then I said, let’s reverse that, first give your situation to God who is greater than all our problems, then let go. God will take care of it. We have a gotcha God, 24/7. She said she loved that and wrote it in her blank lined book. When you have truly let go, you may find you can fall asleep. It is my hope that she slept better that night.

The God I know, who Jesus called Abba, also loves us unconditionally, never judging us. In Unity, members strive to love unconditionally as demonstrated by Jesus. To refresh your memory, as a Unity truth student I worship God. Jesus is my brother and way shower. I do my best to follow his example and teachings, loving unconditionally and being aware if I am judging another person.

In the above picture it shows another being that loves unconditionally as well as playful, a dog. For me, life wouldn’t be the same without my four-legged child and friend, Bailey. There is a quote that I acquired that hangs on the wall of my living room by Anonymous.

It came to me that every time

I lose a dog they take a piece

Of my heart with them.

And every new dog who comes into my life

Gifts me with a piece of their heart.

If I live long enough all the components of my heart

Will be dog, and I will become as

 Generous and loving as they are.

Dogs are also a good unconditional judge of character. They also remember a person the first time they meet them. Dog happens to be God spelled backwards. They are definitely a presence in physical form just as God is in my life although I can’t see a physical form. There is plenty of evidence in my life that God exists and that is a topic for another blog.

Try out letting God and then letting go. Give it over to God first and then let go of it into God’s care and keeping.

Remember, God’s A Gotchaback God!

Rev Airin

Magic and Miracles II

Part II

“Miracles have occurred, and will occur again, ‘out of the blue, ‘when seemingly one has done nothing to attract them. But an analysis will reveal that right conditions invariably were present, including a corresponding consciousness, self-image, and faith. p 143, Thank God for Prayer, Russell W. Lake, Unity School author

This is part II of a two-part series. I ended the first article with a story that was to be continued. I will print it again here:

There was one particular case with a woman who had Covid 19. This was in the first year of Covid. She was in the intensive care unit for over a month on a ventilator and wasn’t regaining consciousness as being in a coma. She had also chosen not to take vaccines. The outcome was not looking good. The medical team had a family meeting, but they said no to turning off life support. I had given her nurses ¹Unity’s, Prayer for Protection. The nurses who felt comfortable, would read it to her when they came in to give her medications. I had briefly spoken with this woman when she first came in and had brought her a Bible that she requested. -To be Continued in Part II

There was a unity minister who taught Unity seminarians how to approach visits at a hospital. If they couldn’t see the patient as whole and complete despite what they might see, they were not to enter the room. Metaphysically, to know the truth about any person is to recognize that we are all whole and perfect children of God, worthy and deserving of our good.

Continuing the story: This patient was a woman of faith, and her family and friends were praying for and with her. The doctors had said she wouldn’t survive. She also had other health challenges she was healing before covid. The family had released her belongings and were picking out her gravestone. Then, after 60 days of being in a coma, she woke up! It was a miracle to the family. She was asked if she remembered anyone talking to her when they visited. She said yes and that she just couldn’t respond. Her son told her that her visitors would tell her to keep fighting covid.

She knew that she wasn’t out of danger, but she was beginning to breathe on her own. Her plan was to get a Covid vaccination as soon as it was appropriate. Her son hadn’t gotten vaccinated either and from that happy day forward, he had begun to advocate for getting vaccinated.

Have any of you been in a hospital room of a person in a coma or any room in the intensive care unit? Except for the hum of the lifesaving machines, it can be ominously quiet. Unity author Clara Palmer on p154, in You can be Healed, said this about the silence: “The silence is the holy peace of God active at the heart of all creation. It is the holy peace of God enfolding you in the quietness and the security of His presence.”

I learned from one of the nurses that bad things happen fast, and good things happen slowly. Saying this will bring comfort to the families when it doesn’t seem like the patient is progressing. In the process of it all, healing is happening in the silence of their being. Our timing tends to be different from God’s timing.

Then there are different forms of healing. In the process of healing, death is also a form of it. Not what any of us usually prefer it to be the outcome. There are many deaths that I have been called to where the family is relieved for the patient because it is an end to their suffering on the earth plane.

And…to the twelve-year-old child within me, Miracles can seem Magical!

Rev Airin

¹ Prayer for Protection

The light of God surrounds me

The love of God enfolds me

The power of God protects me

The presence of God watches over me,

Wherever I am, God is; and all is well.

                                        Amen

Magic and Miracles I

Part I

“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

Last week I wrote about darkness and that generally it is uncomfortable to some of us. What got my attention is that we begin our lives in the darkness of the womb and that the birth of all life comes out of darkness. A few who don’t believe the birth of Jesus ever happened see the story as fictional and written to give hope to those in a dark time. When I was present for my God daughter’s birth, it was a miraculous moment for me and one that I will never forget.

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

The experience of the people in Ukraine could be considered a dark time. Over and over there are stories of hope and because they love their country and freedom, they seem to be resilient. One woman said,” Hope is what keeps me going.” Famous chefs have cooked over a million meals for refugees. There is heartache too, and that is what causes a dark time for them. Families that are separated, loved ones and homes destroyed.

Their beliefs are keeping them going. Thoughts comprise a belief that are made up of sentences that form it. This creates coming from a higher or lower perspective on surviving though the war.

So, what does magic, and miracles have to do with this? I’m glad you asked. Magic and miracles stem from hope. Hope brings about the possibility of miracles that can at times seem magical.

I don’t think that there is any one of us that hasn’t heard someone say, “I am hoping for a miracle.” I know that I have said it. A key concern in the hospital, in the world of evidence-based practice, is not to give false hope to a patient or family member. Instead, giving realistic hope would be something to strive for as in better health and quality of life despite the dis-ease that might alter life somewhat or could be healed with time.

There was one particular case with a woman who had Covid 19. This was in the first year of Covid. She was in the intensive care unit for over a month on a ventilator and wasn’t regaining consciousness. She had also chosen not to take vaccines. The outcome was not looking good. The medical team had a family meeting, but they said no to turning off life support. I had given her nurses ¹Unity’s, Prayer for Protection. The nurses who felt comfortable, would read it to her when they came in to give her medications. I had briefly spoken with this woman when she first came in and had brought her a Bible that she requested. -To be Continued in Part II

What thoughts do you have daily? Ones that lift you up or bring you down? What kinds of dreams have you been having? Remember, our thoughts form our beliefs.

Please post your thoughts, if you are so inclined.

Rev Airin

¹ Prayer for Protection

The light of God surrounds me

The love of God enfolds me

The power of God protects me

The presence of God watches over me,

Wherever I am, God is; and all is well.

                                        Amen

Beyond the Unity

In every situation

there is a bond

that is beyond the unity

transcending time and space

In the midst of chaos

is the Grace that surpasses

all understanding

and eternally unites the universe

On this Thanksgiving Holiday, I leave a poem here, from my book, Eternal Thread. Happy Thanksgiving!

You can get it through here: https://www.airincwolfpoetry.com/ or https://www.amazon.com/Eternal-Thread-Inspired-poems-artwork/dp/150433938X/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2Y0FV5KDBRT76&keywords=Eternal+Thread&qid=1669169530&s=books&sprefix=eternal+thread%2Cstripbooks%2C85&sr=1-4

Rev Airin

Thanks in Advance

Gratitude is considered a spiritual practice along with forgiveness and prayer. When we practice it, we are happier and more positive and much more. In Unity, Jesus is considered our way shower and a brother as opposed to a God that we worship. We worship God as the one power and one presence in our lives.  Jesus, in the New Testament, Jesus was always giving thanks.

He would give thanks in advance before he performed a miracle. Always teaching by example, he gave thanks out loud to God in public. Rev Felicia Searcy writes in her book, Do Greater Things,” Giving thanks in advance primes us to receive what we desire, a desire that is already fulfilled in the invisible realm. It enables us to cultivate enough belief to make the seemingly impossible possible.”

Felicia says that Jesus “saw gratitude not as the effect, but as the cause.” In the well-known story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, he blesses the fish and the bread that only filled a small basket. He could see beyond the appearance of five fish and two loaves of bread that there was much more supply than that. He asked believing in the all sufficiency of God, giving thanks for what he had and then collected what was provided in abundance that fed 5000 people.

Felicia writes, “Blessing something with the power to confer goodness is another way of saying ‘thank you’ in advance. … As Jesus showed us, in order for our thanks to be effective, we must ask from a state of trust or belief that our requests will be fulfilled.”

Gregg Braden, who wrote the book, The Isaiah Effect, talks about how events can be altered in time using quantum physics. The moments in time are called choice points. “A choice point is like a bridge making it possible to begin one path and change course to experience the outcome of a new path…. we can alter a path and an outcome by changing our belief about a situation.”

I may have mentioned this before in that it all begins with our thoughts which of course form what we believe. Charles Fillmore, Unity’s co-founder, called his thoughts, thought people. He believed they had intelligence and life. By praising these thought people, it would get carried to all parts of our body and reflect into the world through our aura.

Like Jesus, through thanksgiving we can raise our thoughts, thought people, to the level of consciousness where things become manifested.

Giving thanks in advance, trusting and believing it can be so, knowing God, the source of all substance and supply will provide it.

And so it is,

Rev Airin