By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

Another senseless act of terrorism has the media in an uproar this morning. What we know at this moment is that twelve are dead and there are four additional victims of apparently two shooters with automatic weapons in a Paris magazine office. Those are the horrible facts of an unfolding story. Yet with hours of air time to fill the pundits are rolling out every shade of speculation, comparison and party line talking point they can exhume.

These are “news” programs so it is necessary for them to report the facts and they are commentators so it is expected they would provide some background and comparison. What is important is that we as viewers recognize the immediacy of the reporting and the total lack of contextual information available at the scene. In a few minutes of viewing the same several seconds of footage have been run repeatedly as the commentators voiced their speculations. Finally, breaking news, they now had an audio clip where gunfire could be heard in the distance.

Time to change the channel. Do we really need to hear a recording of the gunfire? Do we need to experience the terror of the victims to get the point of the futility of the act? Is it really breaking news that this extra layer of experience is now available to us? Change the channel and redirect our thinking to know that Spirit is fully present in the medical workers tending the victims, in the police as they work their process and especially for the families of the fallen as they come to grips with this unexpected turn in their lives.

This is the news today, but it reflects the news of our daily lives. How often do we react armed with just a handful of facts and buckets of speculation? How often do we tell our stories making the fish bigger and bigger with each reiteration? How often do we fill in the lack of information with beliefs that have not been vetted or even appropriate to the occurrence?

Our heads are filled with pundits. Our parents, families, co-workers and friends are happy to share their opinions and influence our beliefs. “Ain’t it awful” is easy to fuel and popular in every social setting. We seek out the gory details and compete to escalate the horror.

Research indicates that likeminded people reinforce their opinions in the direction of their extremes pulling factions of reason farther and farther apart. Change the channel. If an extreme position is your fate, then surround yourself with loving people. Shun the company of speculation, suspicion and fear. We can equip ourselves with an air of empowerment that allows us to experience the effects of the world without losing our connection to our spiritual selves.

We can walk among the disenfranchised, the fearful and lost souls of our communities and be a beacon of Truth. “Onward Christian Soldiers” speaks to this truth in the form of song reminding us that our Christ nature is not defined by our crucifixions, but by our resurrections. Be aware, be engaged, and most important be brave enough to change the channel.

Learn more about your spiritual truth, spiritual empowerment and your Christ nature at a Center For Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org or CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

The Supreme Court case brought on behalf of Peggy Young who sued United Parcel Service because it would not assign her to light duty when she was pregnant opens a wider question regarding employee – employer relations. Whether UPS did anything legally wrong is yet to be decided, but common practices lends support to their position and a ruling in Ms. Young’s favor will send a noticeable ripple through corporate board rooms.

In the early days of the Industrial Revolution there were no rules in the workplace beyond those established by employers. Show up on time, stay until you are told you can leave and never forget you can be replaced in a heartbeat. Contrary to human nature, human beings were the least valuable component of the industrial machine.

In the agrarian cultures that preceded the rise of the machines beasts of burden were highly prized and well cared for. It was not only humane, but practical. A sick or injured animal could not pull its load and was not easily replaced. Human employees on the farm or ranch often enjoyed a family type environment with its wide range of relationships and usually with their dignity honored. (The notable exception of human bondage notwithstanding)

Perhaps the birth of industrial societies occurring in Great Britain where a hierarchal class system was already entrenched lent direction to how employee – employer relationships developed. The cascade of events that brought more and more people into cities eventually created a critical mass of people unaccustomed to what was in effect several generations of evolution crammed into a few decades. The parallel development of vast colonial empires crushing indigenous populations against the explosion of industrial might fueled an upheaval of humanity and an unnatural distortion of human nature.

In our natural evolution competition for resources always played an important role. Controlling a water way meant having water. Ruling over fertile farm lands or abundant game lands meant having food. Being physically attractive or capable expanded ones choices of family expansions. As we evolved into urbanized societies political power and influence grew in importance. In the Industrial Revolution, the factory hierarchies encompassed all of these features pitting worker against worker to achieve recognition and reward within the artificial environment called “the company.”

The company became God and quickly it was lost to many that God had a Board of Directors and that Board answered to investors ̶ all of whom are human. All decisions deferred to the well-being of the company and the human beings at all levels of the matrix forgot their humanity. The intervening history between then and now has been the story of our return to the truth.

All work place rules and by extension civil laws are enacted in response to some occurrence or perceived possible occurrence that is harmful to the enacting society. Some are logical and make good sense surviving the tests of time. “No Smoking” in the gun powder factory still holds up, and “check your weapons” makes good sense although admittedly argumentative in some circles today.

The pell-mell race to industrial riches threatened to trample human nature, but that nature is a tough bird and the excesses soon enough proved to be too much. Work place accidents, poorly built products and simply the growing pains of technology triggered human responses to the robber baron attitudes that drove the evolution. There are no heroes without a few villains and the growth of industrial ineptitude awoke a new spiritual awareness in the human family.

Reclaiming their humanity laborers joined together in labor unions and through often violent strikes and bitter court battles curbed the arrogant demigods of industrialization. Demonstrating an irony only humans can manifest, the unions too forgot their mission and strayed into excesses that triggered their own demise. However with both sides of the coin having peaked in turn, a somewhat tempestuous middle ground has risen and tempered the extremes.

Corporations have proven to be false gods with scores crumbling into dust as so many statues of fabricated divinity have through time. Rules that restrict whom can work, once commonplace, get little support today. Time off is still culturally regulated with Western Europe seemingly much more human valued than typical American corporate thinking, and here is where we can begin to realign ourselves citing precedent.

American workers still labor under the delusion that everyone can rise to the ranks of the Rockefellers and foolishly shun regulations that might block their ascension. They are fighting the last war, something every generation falls prey to. The great do not become great by copying what others have done. Greatness is bestowed upon those who surpass the norm in spite of its challenges.

The great of today carve success out of a well if sometimes burdensomely regulated environment. Ben and Jerry created the best ice cream in the world using ingredients that are safe to consume and equipment that is safe to work with. Costco enjoys land office business with a workforce that enjoys being part of the customer’s experience and knows the company appreciates the employee’s contribution to the success.

The railroads of old did not embrace the Westinghouse air brake because it was safer; they did so because it reduced losses and lawsuits and boosted profits, but it is safer and we all benefit from it. Safety regulations provide a cushion between innovation and investors providing the impetus to invest until the market proves itself. The auto industry did not adopt seat belts because they had to or because they saved lives; they did so because they boosted sales. Safety innovation continues to drive auto advancements more than cosmetic changes ever did.

Successful corporations today recognize the value of their human assets. Our European counterparts have pioneered worker rights and set a high bar for their American and developing world cousins to match. If corporations want the rights of personhood they face the responsibility of personal relations. The “Golden Rule” applies. Treat others as you would have them treat you! Rules that protect people are good for the company. Rules that demean people demean the company. Short term profits have long term consequences to both the bottom line and the eternal soul.

Rules that empower ineffectual supervisors serve only to reinforce incompetence. Awakening spirituality erases incompetence because it cannot exist in a spiritually empowered environment. Corporations who empower their human assets thrive on their empowerment. UPS like most companies has developed and adopted many good and reasonable rules and policies to protect itself and its investors. Perhaps they will be forced by a court decision to reexamine their motivations and recognize the future includes evolution. Perhaps they will come to that realization on their own. Either way, evolution is inevitable and the winners will adapt.

Learn more about Spiritual empowerment at a Center For Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org or CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

Ferguson is burning tonight and the nation looks for answers. Two sides are emerging on the outer edges of the question with most of us as usual somewhere in-between. One extreme stands in the name of law and order and their arguments seem reasonable from their perspective. On the other extreme lie unanswered questions and a craving for justice. The questions too seem reasonable from that perspective and most of us slide back and forth hoping the status quo will reassert itself and normalcy will re-emerge.

About 2500 years ago Plato recorded the thoughts of his teacher Socrates including his allegory of the cave that offers an interesting look at perspective and our social environment’s impact on its development. The cave was home to several persons who for purposes of the illustration were restricted to observing shadows of objects and people upon the cave wall without ever knowing the source of the shadows or that they even were shadows. In their minds the shadows were the real world.

All of us have our own version of the cave in our story. The opinions of our elders, siblings and extended families helped shape our own world view. Our tribe was always right and those folks on the other side of the hill have always been misguided. How easy our lives could be if those views were flawless and capable of holding up to the light of truth. Like the shadows on the cave wall however, those misinformed beliefs we are often willing to die for evaporate without a trace when illuminated by the truth.

In the allegory of the cave one person is released and brought to the surface into the light of day. Socrates describes how that person’s vision would adjust to the new reality seeing less at first and gradually able to understand more and more of their new world. Our Spiritual awakening follows a similar route for most of us. At first the light of knowledge may be so blinding we are unable to see anything of our surroundings, but slowly we see shapes in the brilliance and reflections of things in pools of water or panes of glass.

Spiritually we begin to understand that those “others” are more like us than not. They need food and water, shelter and a reason to be. They seek the same answers we seek. They cry when sad and laugh and dance when happy. They are us in all but name and the name is self-chosen not imposed by any god. They may have emerged from a different cave where the shadows were given different names and different stories but they were still shadows and no more real than the shadows of our own past.

The light we walk into is the same light. Our truth is their truth. Our shadows are no more real than their shadows. As we explore this new understanding of truth together a new experience arises for each of us; one that releases the shadows of our past and embraces the new truth being revealed to us both.

In Ferguson the establishment of law and governance draws on generations of privilege and a mindset that leans toward interpretations of social rules as they understand them. They have fallen into the trap or cave where the story has become the rules exist to protect the enforcers of the rules. Government in their view serves the government first and begrudgingly serves the populace only as a means of maintaining the status quo. Protect people sure, but only so the people will continue to ignore the government and demand little of it. Provide services too, but only enough to remove cause for the people to demand more. Build a bridge for everyone’s convenience, but only if it improves commerce and profits. Maintaining the bridge is an expense less easily sold, because no one is inconvenienced and commerce is not impeded.

From the other cave comes the view that building a bridge should be undertaken an act of love that benefits everyone and that bridges should be maintained because not doing so is irresponsible, even hateful. The expense of bridge maintenance is both less than building a new bridge and the jobs created are permanent to the community bolstering its economy and self-image as the home of a well maintained bridge and not a run-down unsafe derelict of times past.

Privilege serves to protect privilege. In Ferguson reports indicate that promises were made and broken. The forces of privilege seem to have been numb to the effect of breaking those promises and responded to the predictable outcome with more rigidity standing on the rule of law rather than admitting responsibility and seeking an inclusive solution.

From the other perspective came that predictable outcome where once again it was proven the side of privilege cannot be trusted to comply with the simplest of concessions. The injection of violence and destruction in the face of pleas to remain peaceful only served to fuel demands for more rigidity and enforcement perpetuating the spiral of distrust.

There have been valiant efforts in Ferguson to break the cycle. These seldom make the headlines and should. The solutions lie in the field where our commonality brings us together and that is the headline. The field where past misconceptions, false stereotypes and erroneous common consciousness is heaped onto a bonfire to be burned out of our foundations freeing them to support the natural way of love. The field where we stand for peace, respect and understanding, and we celebrate that news as the path into the future.

When privilege understands its inherent responsibility to serve all mankind and those who see privilege as the problem understand their own power to create change; a shift of consciousness is inevitable. There is no one sided solution. Building a bridge requires designers, bankers, community leaders and laborers common and skilled. Remove any element and the bridge remains only an idea without form or worse; a shadow of a bridge doomed to fail when the light of truth illuminates it.

When those of us in the middle sliding back and forth realize that the status quo is shattered forever, that normal is in constant flux, and that change is the natural order of life; then we too grow our understanding, identify our commonalities outside our tribe and naturally accept the expansion of our community to include others once thought foreign and strange. Free of active suppression, the good from all our caves rises into the light of truth where we all see with common vision.

Human curiosity empties our caves one by one as those left behind wonder why the pathfinders have not returned, overcome their fear and follow into the light. Those unwilling to try eventually perish in their prisons and their fears and misconceptions die with them. Tonight Ferguson is burning, tomorrow it rebuilds as something between a fortress of fear and an inclusive community and a new normal emerges awaiting its next evolutionally push.

Learn more about your cave and the light beyond it at a Center For Spiritual Living near you or online starting at CSL.org or CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

Lust for revenge is embedded in our “common consciousness,” that collective memory or manual of human behavior we find so much support for in popular literature, myth and religion. Even traditional Spiritual teachings often find exceptions to their core curriculum in matters of “justice.”

Enlightened people from all paths have recognized the value of letting go and moving on. Ernest Holmes writes in the Science of Mind, “There is nothing to forgive, only a Truth to be revealed.” To forgive, we are accepting that something is apart from Spiritual experience and that duality thinking denies our Spiritual Truth.

Revenge is a poison that quietly erodes the spirit of the person who carries it. The action hero in the movies is driven to defy all manner of physical if not civil laws in the pursuit of a perceived justice, but they do so in an altered state of reality and with the help of movie magic. Real people make poor decisions, often deepen their pain and fuel the fires of internal discord long after the natural course of mourning could have moved them back toward normalcy.

We are trained from birth to rain death and destruction down upon our enemies. We are cheered and encouraged to punch hard, fast and often to leave our trespassers bloody and dazed to prove we are a force to be reckoned with. We are told we must be strong, but strong is seldom defined and our assumptions are usually wrong.

One mistaken assumption is that bending others to our will is an indication of strength. It is an illusion. Others may appear to bend to our will, but they are internally strong and not really changed. Another mistaken assumption is that we are motivated in revenge by love. We are motivated by fear. The fear that we appear weak; that we appear to not care enough to act, that we appear to not be in control.

Our Spiritual nature is to love. Spirit is love. The love that gives us everything we want, or at least what we believe we want. We are expressions of Spirit and know this because Spirit is infinite meaning we cannot be separate from it. Our freedom of choice allows us to act in defiance of our true nature and we can be very defiant.

We create civil laws to ensure human evolution is driven by our best ideas rather than the force of might. Violence takes strength but it is not strength. Violence is surrender to our most primitive fight or flight instincts. Strength is demonstrated when we turn away from violence, when we find the courage to forgive and move on. To do otherwise traps us in our past with no path into our future.

Tragic events require justice and our system of laws provides a method for justice to be served with minimal impact on the individuals charged with its enforcement. The police patrolman, or detective is only involved as a result of their profession and can act dispassionately while still being passionate about justice and compassionate in exercising their vocation. The judge and prosecutor go home at night knowing they have done their part but not consumed by their participation.

An individual who sets themselves to bring justice outside our system of laws becomes rooted in the injustice that initiated the revenge. They erode their own harmony and weaken their ability to heal. Forgiveness can only be practiced by the strong. Forgiveness places us into alignment with our Spiritual source; opens us to the flow of infinite power. And forgiveness is an inside job. Remember what Holmes said, “. . . only a Truth to be revealed.” To forgive someone else implies we have the right to judge them in the first place. We may like or dislike an action, but the person is an expression of Spirit the same as us. We are judging ourselves and we must forgive ourselves.

We must forgive ourselves for not being fast enough, not knowing enough, not being home enough or not seeing the clues before us. We must get comfortable with the fact that life evolves in spurts of unexpected episodes and we must be strong enough to recognize that all our good intentions aside, sometimes we simply cannot do enough. Nor are we supposed to have done more.

What we can do is accept our fear of being judged and release any perceived need to judge others. With that burden lifted we can face our fear and turn it into our strength. The strength to see the face of God in everyone and in our mirrors; then forgive ourselves for ever thinking it was ever any different.

Learn more about Spirit, Spiritual nature and the power of love at Center for Spiritual Living in your community or online starting at CSL.org or CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

We seem to live linier lives. We are born, mature, age and die. If that were the sum total of it linier thinking would certainly be the logical extension of that picture. Oddly, we often use that template as though it were the nature way of things. A preponderance of evidence suggests otherwise.

The Moon circles the Earth and our planet orbits the Sun. The Sun flows along as its Milky Way galaxy spins through space. Our own blood flows through a circulatory system filled with oxygen that gets converted to carbon dioxide, filtered and refreshed countless times throughout our lives.

Even our seemingly linier lives are segments within a cycle. Along the way to our eventual physical demise the majority of us have children who carry forward biological and environmental characteristics influenced by the past, but shaped in their future. Over generations the human race is evolving toward a Spiritual purity known only to Spirit itself before the human experiment was proposed; returning to its starting point.

During our short segment of this evolutionary journey we tend to lose sight or are never aware of the bigger picture. We gravitate toward short term goals and fleeting rewards. More affluent societies consume beyond all proportion to their numbers. Relationships are often shallow and unable to endure the normal bumps we encounter from day to day.

The phrase “He who dies with the most toys, wins,” is taken to be true and deserving of pursuit. We acquire things at the cost of prudent planning or reasonable considerations. We go into debt for houses that are too large, cars that are too fast and accessories designed to be obsolete long before they warrant replacement.

In this bigger picture even our money is cyclical. In the smaller picture our consumerism is dead end spending. On the Spiritual level the time and money we give away expands its impact and returns to us in its natural cyclical nature. The few dollars we release toward charitable goals not only benefits the recipients, but in doing so, stimulates local and global economies. It also establishes a relationship with Spiritual flow.

When we acquire goods for our own enrichment the flow of prosperity is stifled. Funds released without conditions flow unrestricted. Likewise freely given time reaps benefits of unpredictable prosperity returning to the giver. It is said that nature abhors a vacuum so visualize a catastrophic release of pressure from a vessel and the resulting impact of inrushing material to fill the void as an illustration of the prosperity cycle. The more released the greater the return.

Hoarding begets trash, confusion, vermin and a visit from the Health Department. Keeping a clean house, giving away redundant belongings and unlocking our wallets to good causes opens our consciousness to more good flowing through us. Volunteering is a natural human instinct. Before there was commercialism there was a natural need to connect with our fellow humans, pitching in and getting things done for the common good. This is our Spiritual self shining through, our natural way.

We often approach giving as a requirement; that is our segmented self not seeing the full cycle. Giving is the way of Spirit, the force of the Universe that gives us everything we believe we can have. Spirit gives with unconditional love, never questioning or judging our choices. When we hold back we are empowering fear and a belief in limitation. We are greater than that. We are Spiritual beings privileged to be having a human experience and demonstrating our recognition and connection to our origin by kicking down the barriers to our prosperity and letting it flow through us unobstructed. The cycle completes only to start again.

Learn more about the natural flow of prosperity and your Spiritual self at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org and CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

Election Day is fast approaching and the rhetoric is ramping up. Every candidate and every issue being decided is flawed in some way. There has never been nor will there ever be a pure uncontaminated choice. Voters hoping to see a clear path illuminated by celestial beacons and a chorus of angles need to get comfortable with disappointment.

Politics is a reflection of our everyday lives. No issue stands alone isolated from the thousands of variables that factor into our decision processes. We want to conserve oil by driving less, but the soccer game ends at six and the kids need to get home to complete their science project so we drop them off only to drive back to the civic center for an important Council meeting. Our candidate of choice has a checkered past, but the opponent is a stuffed shirt for everything counter to our beliefs.

Do we stay home in frustration declaring the end of civilization is at hand or do we do the best we can with what we have to work with and stay alert for course corrections down range? Freedom includes not only the right but the responsibility to change our minds when new information emerges. Freedom cannot include the choice to remain unchanged, for that choice is self-imprisonment, the opposite of freedom.

Political choices become clearer when a few simple truths are observed. Listen to the arguments and ask: is this argument presenting verifiable facts that are pertinent to the question, or is it appealing to some perceived fear? If it is the former, how important are those facts to the big picture?

If a candidate for County Comptroller has been convicted of embezzlement; that might be important. If the same candidate has an issue with maintaining healthy body weight, it hardly bears the same significance unless your county’s taxes are paid in Twinkies. Fear is a powerful motivator and influencer of decisions, but seldom supported by facts.

Suggesting the candidate above lives a lavish lifestyle in spite of his company’s financial woes evokes a fear of dishonesty, but no facts. Has the company done well in the past allowing the principles to divest past compensation in wise investments? Does the company produce a product no longer in demand? Could the company be doing better or is it reflecting circumstances beyond its control? A case in point is the buggy whip manufacturer who invested in Ford Motor Company before closing his doors forever. The buggy whip employees may have been left out in the cold, but through no criminal act of their employer.

We frequently empower our fears when making life choices. It is a mistake. Fear is believing a false thing to be true. It is false because it has not happened, it is a projection of a possible future however unlikely. We accept a life partner because we are afraid we will die alone. Really? What are the odds that if we move on from our current arrangement that we will never find another circumstance with better experiences? It is a crowded planet, any soul unhappy alone has a target rich environment to explore for a solution.

Appealing to our fears is a proven campaign tool but one we all need to be wary of. There is no value to it. It builds walls that block the light of truth. It diverts our focus from the fear monger’s agenda. Look at the values the candidates support. Look past what they say they have done and look closely at what they have done.

Are their decisions helping to raise the tide or are they dragging an anchor? Are they claiming to help while stripping away rights and social safety nets? Are they moving human evolution forward or clinging desperately to an imagined “better time?” Are they building better prisons or setting free our souls to grow closer to our Spiritual Truth?

The barriers we erect for ourselves, the confines of our judgments are restrictions rather than protections. The outside always finds a way in. The walls only trap us inside and limit our maneuvering room.

It is the same in our lives as in politics. When we shut people out by our judgments we lose the value of their contributions, the lessons they bare. When we retard evolution by clinging to our past, our story, we deny ourselves the opportunity to create a better tomorrow. When we act to maintain our own power at the cost of other’s empowerment we deny both. When we succumb to fear we enable others to dictate our experiences and perpetuate stagnation.

In our lives there is a clear path illuminated by celestial beacons and lined by choirs of angles; it is revealed to us when we brush away the webs of lies and thickets of fear we build through our inattention to Truth. Politics may be a rougher row to hoe, but the same tools come into play.

If the path is unclear, change directions. If government is misdirected, realign it. If your values require force and fear to maintain, let them go. Spiritual values stand on their own without an army or police force to bolster them. Spiritual values are the natural state or existence, the light dispersing the shadow. Shatter the walls and let your light shine.

Learn more about Spiritual Truth and self-empowerment at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org or CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

In pre-European California the Yaqui people lived an agrarian lifestyle with limited crop cultivation and classic hunter gathering practices. Like most developing populations they had a wide range of survival skills and used the materials at their disposal to manufacture items that enhanced their lives. They made simple tools, weapons and shelters. They employed local plants as medicines and were talented basket weavers. They did not however possess the knowledge to create pottery capable of being placed on a fire for cooking.

The Yaqui observed that stones provided a method for transferring heat from a fire to a basket of ground acorns and water without burning the container. Needless to say it was a laborious process to heat and re-heat stone after stone, but the Yaqui prospered on the benefits of cooked meal included in their diet. The stones were an evolutionary change agent in the lives of the Yaqui.

In his latest book “Becoming a Spiritual Change Agent,” Mark Gilbert identifies some basic characteristics of a Spiritual Change Agent. They are persons who have the power to act, they are focused on a future of positive change, are actively engaged, consciously influence others toward that change and foster our collective relationship with the Divine. Gilbert further defines a Spiritual Change Agent as one who is aware of our relationship with the power and presence that crated us and recognizes the value of developing that relationship toward enhancing the possibilities of life’s expression for everyone. This dynamic “type A” definition is fitting and important to creating a more spiritually aligned world, but there too, is something to be said for the “cooking stones” among us.

Every week we see in our churches, seminars and meeting rooms’ people who come for the lesson and leave. Maybe they took a class once or twice, maybe a workshop, but generally they are not recognized as leaders nor do they fit Gilbert’s definition as Spiritual Change Agents. They are cooking stones.

These quite spiritualist hear the lessons, they recognize their power and practice in their own private ways. Their lives are changed, their outlooks improved. Like the Yaqui stones they just need to be reheated and set back into their lives to radiate Spiritual Truth.

Every day these cooking stones are placed throughout our communities. Corporate offices, schools, service providers and retail outlets are the baskets with co-workers and customers the meal. Their heat radiates outward fueling a constant evolution. They work without flash, or show and little recognition.

It is proof of our evolution that the environment is warming. Not in the sense of global warming, but an observation that humanity is moving glacially closer to its spiritual nirvana. We see coaches more concerned with the safety of their players, political conservatives recognizing the gender neutrality of human rights, and a general questioning of the militarization of local police forces.

We are shedding our fear and power based motivations. We are recognizing the power of love and permitting ourselves to be empathetic. We are expanding our comfort zones and crossing more easily into the unknown. And we are doing it more quickly with the trickle of revelations building to a cascade.

We are meditating more, listening to our inner voice; letting it calm our fears and empower bold engagements. We recognize our responsibility to define our experiences over letting our experiences define us. Each stone raises the energy of the meal because the meal is warmer already each time a stone is added.

Spiritual change agents lead the way and clear the path. Ministers, teachers and all manner of life coaches offer encouragement, inform and guide us regenerating our store of spiritual heat. Fire is a powerful tool, and spiritual evolutions can manifest suddenly and dramatically, but for slow steady cooking respect the power of a simple hot rock.

Learn more about Spiritual growth, personal empowerment and evolution of humankind at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org and CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

In her book “The Soul of Money,” Lynne Twist talks about seeing the world through the eyes of her children (237). She is pointing out that the world they are inheriting is vastly different than the one their parents have known. The technological advances our generation has witnessed and assumed are not new to our children, they simply are normal elements of life. She asks on page 238, “What might it mean to grow up in a world where sufficiency was assumed, where generosity and collaboration were the prevailing human conditions?”

Twist is suggesting the possibility that tomorrow can be different. We can move into the future unburdened by the beliefs that have carried us here. We can evolve our thinking beyond the mindset that created the misperceptions we have been accepting as true. Like our children we can just assume new solutions without having to explain away false beliefs.

Our minds renew with each passing moment. There is nothing in our past that we are required to carry forward. There is much that we desire to carry forward, pleasant memories, loving relationships and acquired knowledge and skills make us who we are; but false beliefs and ideas are free to drop away like autumn leaves.

The tree grows new leaves in the spring and we replace our mistaken beliefs with new ideas that fall into alignment with our Spiritual truth. Ideas of sufficiency, prosperity, creativity, love and harmony. The Truth that has always been there, but concealed in our belief of separation from our source.

Like past generations who believed there was scarcity and lack, them or us, good and evil; our belief in a God separate from us has been blocking our access to the Truth. Our children are free of our false beliefs and our only responsibility is to stay out of their way.

Moses could not enter the Promised Land nor any of those who walked out of Egypt with him. The Biblical journey of forty years represented the purging of a generation of doubters making way for the unsullied to start anew. Alas it seems those who did not know Egypt grew up on stories about Egypt and the fix was in.

Our children and our newly freed minds are pure and fresh. Aware of our Truth we can maintain our purity through our choices, our children need only be allowed to blossom into the powerful Spiritual beings they are without stories of Egypt to infect their journey.

Industries are devoted to the inflation of the falsehoods of the common consciousness, but generations of seekers have been chipping away at the lies. We stand at the threshold of a new consciousness. The progress of generations past has been incremental and unperceivable and now we are here. Our next step takes us into a future of our own making. Pry off the lid and step into a world where joy, love and harmony inform every decision and energize every experience.

Learn more about the metaphysical interpretation of “Egypt,” Spiritual Truth and how to realign the common consciousness at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org and CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

There is nothing new to the saying “Life hands us what we need, not what we want.” How we react to our gifts determines how often we continue to get what we need before we see what we want materialize.

We may be barefoot and soiled, feel hunger and want food, we may think we are poor and want wealth. We would like to have both the food and wealth delivered as soon as possible, now would be good. Instead we get a plate of mud. But it is okay, this is Life giving us this plate of mud and Life will continue to give us mud for as long as we need it.

If we see it as a plate of useless mud, we can pretty much count on there being an endless supply of it until at last we starve. If we see the mud as the raw material for making a brick, the supply is now tailored to our need for bricks. We can use the bricks to build an oven and only enough mud need be delivered for the oven’s construction.

Once we have a working oven, others will hear of it, including someone with grain but no way to bake bread. Spirit hooks people up like that, some would say nature abhors a vacuum and thus any need is fulfilled. The bread alone relieves the first issue of hunger, but now others hear of the bread and bring their wealth to trade. Some bring other food stuffs to be cooked, others bring trade goods of all types, coin of the realm changes hands, wealth circulates and grows.

We no longer hunger, we are acquiring wealth, and as a bonus, we now have a community of partners, customers, tradesmen and friends. Everything springing from a plate of mud; and our understanding that Life has given us what we need, including the wisdom to see beyond the plate before us.

It seems all is good in our world and we might be happy for it to continue this way. We are however evolutionary creatures and the need to grow nags at us to push outward while our contentment argues for the status quo. Evolution wins and we are delivered additional plates of mud. Mud is what the status quo sees, for it is content and does not want to change, but our Spiritual wisdom sees an opportunity. We already have an oven, and with it we can make better bricks and those better bricks can make a better oven.

With this new oven we can shape steel and the word spreads and someone with iron ore and no way to process it hears about our new oven. We shape the steel into rails and boilers; girders and rivets; wheels and ships and all manner of things never before dreamt of. We are able to build bigger and stronger and move things around the country and around the world and people bring new things to trade, coin of the realm changes hands, wealth circulates and grows.

Some of us begin to believe that we have created this enormous wealth, that we have created these wonderful things from our own minds, forgetting the One Mind and become fearful that others less wise and inventive want to steal what we have wrought of what we now believe is our individual intelligence and hard work.

We turn our attention to building fortresses and weapons, hording our good and forsaking our brothers who we now see as rivals and threats to our good. The flow of wealth dries to a trickle and those others dependent on its continued flow grow fearful too and plot to free the wealth from its prisons forgetting it flows on demand, value given for value received; they employ deceit and cunning to steal that which was never theirs, and always theirs, forgetting that wealth is transitory in human hands but always at hand in Spirit.

We become stagnate and fearful, angry, ugly and mean. We are stuck in a mud of our own making; we are sinking with our boots being sucked down into the mire. Some fortunate few stop fighting the mud; they see the raw materials for bricks; they forsake their boots and pull themselves barefoot and soiled to solid ground; they build an oven and others come, coin of the realm changes hands, wealth circulates and grows.

Learn more about Spirit, the One Mind and Life’s unexpected gifts at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community or on line starting at CSL.org and CSLFTL.org.

By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking

If everything in your world today is absolutely perfect, if there is no more room for happiness, prosperity or creativity in your life; pray it never changes, and that prayer will be your greatest failure and a portal to certain disappointment. Change is coming; call it good, call it bad, but nothing stays the same and counting on it to do so sets us up for a mountain of trouble.

Believing that we can bend the rules with prayer is the first step into that mountain of trouble. Traditional western religions have unanimously fostered the mistaken belief that we simple humans are subject to the whims of a distant but nosy God. A god that keeps track of everything we do, noting when we are bad or good little boys and girls with the purpose of settling the score on judgment day. No coincidence that it sounds more like a line in a popular Christmas song where the fate of our holiday gifts hangs in the balance.

Believing we can plead, barter, or bargain with God sets us in the sights of the cosmic landslide. The proper use of prayer has nothing to do with pleasing anyone. There is no trade off, give and take or submissiveness to it. Prayer is an affirmation of our power, the power we must recognize as our own; the very nature of our being.

An affirmative prayer is the shovel we use to move the mountain. Every time we affirm our spiritual power we move a little bit of our troubles aside. We remind ourselves that we are faster than the landslide, bigger than the mountain.

Often it may appear that the mountain is bigger than us and our shovel is having little effect. It can be helpful in these times to have a partner in the work. Having someone else to pray with or for us lightens our individual load and is common practice in most religions.

Each shovel full reduces the mountain and as it shrinks each shovel full takes a bigger and bigger relative bite from the mountain. This is the power of our faith in our own spiritual nature growing stronger.

Our experience teaches us that all mountains can be reduced over time. In those moments where our faith is strong our shovel is large and powerful reducing any mountain in short order. With regular practice we notice our mountains are more easily recognized and reduced before they grow large.

When we have abandoned our faith or forgotten who we truly are our mountains grow tall and challenging. We can in desperation surrender to faith and find it waiting for our call or we can be inspired to claim our power and find it was never lost. Or we can keep throwing dirt onto our mountains and grow them bigger still.

Our affirmative prayer, our shovel, is an instrument for change. It changes our mountains of trouble into vistas of joy and harmony. It empowers us to step out of our comfort zones to experience the fullness of life.

When we deny our power we live afraid a vengeful God is waiting to pounce and strip away our meager comforts. When we claim our power fear evaporates because we know there is more being revealed with every step and we race to see what unfolds next. It may be another mountain, it may be disappointment, but we can handle it, we have a tool for that.

Learn more about affirmative prayer, prayer partners and your spiritual power at a Center for Spiritual Living in your community, or on line starting at CSL.org or CSLFTL.org