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.