Growing God

Just the title, "Growing God", might make us queasy -- it's almost as if even listening to the words "Growing God" will cause the God of our childhood to smite us! When we think of God in the three omni's -- Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence -- we think there is nothing in which God is lacking, thus there is nowhere God can grow. To declare that God is growing, much less that we could have anything to do with that growth, is tantamount to saying that God is limited, an idea anathema to the Unity/New Thought student.


Sidebar: Have you ever noticed how the state of appreciation seems to be at least one of the desired outcomes of any experience we engage? Even if the outcome itself is undesirable, we strive to find something to appreciate about the experience and, if recognized, the experience "wasn't a total waste"? I think there is a clue to our relationship with the Divine that is hidden in that striving for appreciation in each experience.


We pick up from the first paragraph: If God is All Power, All Knowledge and Everywhere Presence, can there be anything that God is lacking, any deficiency for which God can grow to fill? Consider that God is ALL -- as we believe Her/Him to be. If He/She is One, then She/He lacks the experience of appreciation. Appreciation requires contrast, and contrast requires more than one: a subject (one to perceive) and at least one object to be perceived. But if God is One (the Subject), then where is the object to be perceived? Thus arose the motivation to cleave, born of the Divine Desire to experience appreciation, resulting in the two Expressions of the Divine -- God and God1. To convey God1's experience of appreciation to God, the two remain connected at a deep level, thus God1 shares its experiences of appreciation with God and is appropriately compensated (more on that in a bit). 


Yet God1 could only offer one perspective on God, so it was decided that God1 cleave again, resulting in God1 and God2, thus began what has become a Universe of different perspectives and experiences, the many expressions of God known as Fred, and Hilda, and Dorothy, and John.... each striving for the experience of appreciation regardless of the experience's outcome. Being connected to God, Fred conveys to God appreciation whenever it is experienced. As each experience of appreciation occurs, God benefits, adding to the store of appreciative experiences.


Have you ever noticed that when you experience appreciation, fully experience it, it feels like the experience of unconditional love? If not, then the next time you appreciate something, consider that you are adding to God that particular experience of appreciation. Rest in that awareness that you are growing God, adding to His/Her experience of appreciation. Then notice the unconditional love that flows back through your heart into your experience. It's like the 'read receipt request' you may sometimes place on an email to ensure the recipient has received the missive. That experience of unconditional love is your Divine Compensation for your deposit of appreciation in the God Bank.


Knowing you are an emissary of the Divine, on a mission to experience appreciation as much as possible so that you can contribute to God's experience of appreciation, does that change your desire to find appreciation in your every experience? And being duly paid each time by the return of unconditional love, is there any other compensation you demand?


Grow God, in joy.

Cultural Creatives: Our New Members?

The following is an adaptation of an article to be published in the June issue of Unity's Contact  magazine. This is, of course, similar to an earlier post but perhaps more adequately stated......

We are surrounded by a large and emerging group of people that share the values taught by Unity. These potential members of our spiritual community comprise a fourth to a third of the American population. According to several surveys of religious participation in America, nearly half of their respondents consider a “higher power” to be part of their lives but are religiously unaffiliated. If we could connect with a small fraction of this unaffiliated group that share our values, how large would our congregation be? What programs could we offer? What effect would our ministry have on the attitudes and conversations in your greater community? We estimate over 30,000 of these unaffiliated individuals who share our values reside in our five-mile service area. Our challenge, as with most Unity ministries, is “How do we connect with them?”

Described by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson in their book, Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World, the Cultural Creatives (CCs) have been identified by the Unity Identity Project as Unity’s most receptive potential audience. Arising from the activist movements of the 60’s and 70’s -- the human/civil rights, feminists and environmental movements and their associated groups – the CCs share a set of common values (see sidebar). While few CCs can claim to have been involved in those movements, most CCs trace the development of their values to the influence those movements had on them. Engaging the CCs in our ministries does not require we change who we are or what we teach. We just need to let them know we share their values!

Ray and Anderson emphasize the demographic profile of the CCs closely mirrors the US population, with the exception of education; CCs tend to be better educated than the population in general. Notice that the values shown in the sidebar match what most Unity ministers teach of personal empowerment and social responsibility.  We can certainly identify many people in our ministry that embody these values. Understanding the motivations and decision criteria used by the CCs will provide insight into what to offer and how to structure our programs. We enhance your programs for those of us already present and ease the introduction and integration of the CCs into our community.

For a synopsis of Unity-relevant characteristics of the CCs found in Ray and Anderson’s book, visit http://tinyurl.com/4sdjwyr. You may add your comments or relevant quotes from the book in this document. Please follow the instructions for updating and commenting at the beginning of this document so we all may be blessed by your insights.

Are You a Cultural Creative?

How many of these values do you share with the CCs?

q love of nature and deep caring about its preservation and natural balance.

q desire to see more action on the planet-wide issues of global warming, poverty and overpopulation

q active in supporting important causes

q willing to pay higher taxes or spend more money for goods if that money goes to improving the environment

q heavy emphasis on the importance of developing and maintaining relationships

q heavy emphasis on the importance of helping others and developing their unique gifts

q volunteer with one or more good causes

q intense interest in spiritual and psychological development

q see spirituality as an important aspect of life but worry about religious fundamentalism

q desire equity for women/men in business, life and politics

q concern for and support of the well-being and freedom of women and children

q want government to focus more attention and resources on education, community programs & environmental sustainability

q unhappy with the divisiveness of the political left and right

q optimistic about the future

q want to be involved in creating a new and better way of life

q concern for how big business generates profits by destroying the environment and exploiting poorer countries and disempowered individuals

q dislike the emphasis placed on consumerism and “making money”

According to Ray and Anderson, if you share ten or more of these values, you’re likely a Cultural Creative.

You have built a prison by your choice to not forgive – you are the only prisoner and you have the only key. Use it.

How often we think that our unforgiveness is somehow limiting the actions or the joy of the perpetrator of some perceived offense. Perhaps we think it somehow punishes the perpetrator. It doesn't -- it only limits our own joy and locks US in the prison. This is an easy lesson to learn if we only think it through.

Who defines "greatness"?

I was scanning my email a few minutes ago and happened upon an "invite" issued by a Facebook "friend" to attend an event by someone promoted to be a "North American master". I realized in that split second of reaction to the stated "credentials" that I do not place much credence in such monikers. The fellow may be very good at what he does, perhaps a master at his trade, and the moniker may even be something someone else pinned on him, but I wonder how effective such promotion really is...

Perhaps a relevant question is, "How much credence do YOU put on such promotional adjectives and why?"

I'm reading a book titled Branding Faith by Phil Cooke about this very topic. Maybe the reaction that I have to these reputed credentials is testament to my perception that these are not significant contributors to one's "brand" -- and if this is not contributing to the "brand" for this particular person, then why use it in a promotion? Or maybe it is an effective expression of this person's "brand" and I'm just an "odd case".

Whew!

It's been a while since I've posted. During that time I have been ruminating over a short piece that has been on my mind for the past 15 years. The book was started several years ago. Put on the shelf a number of times, taken down, dusted off, rewritten numerous times in the first several chapters but never getting to the end. I was grappling with the content of the book, not seeing what I had to say as deserving of a 250 page trade publication like so many authors were writing. Without that content length, I figured publishers would not want to waste their time.

Then along came Kindle. Obviously, Kindle has been around for several years but it recently came to my attention that it would be a great platform for shorter books. I noticed today that TED now has books published by its presenters on the Kindle platform in the genre called "Kindle Singles."

In any case, the awareness of the Kindle publishing channel gave me the motivation to finish the book. I wouldn't have to run the gauntlet of finding an agent, submitting the publication, waiting for an answer.... I could just finish the book, submit it for publishing and viola' -- a published author.

About 10 years ago I took a little workshop from Joe Sabah, a Denver-based proponent of professional speakers. He has a database of radio talk show hosts and suggests that authors get their works publicized through radio.  Apparently it is a "ready market" if you have something a bit out of the ordinary to talk about -- or at least a provocative way of saying ordinary things :).

Being published on the Kindle platform in a few days will give me the means of distributing the book without the upfront production costs of printing a book, make the distribution easy (via Amazon for the Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices), ease of modifying the book should I decide to add to it or change it after publication. Plus it can be priced in the $3 range to make it a easy to justify purchase.

The electronic publishing industry is going to revolutionize and democratize the authoring process!

So watch for it, "Joy: A Simple Choice" is coming soon!