You have heard this from me before however, it bears repeating. I am so grateful to be living now and so curious to see what continues to unfold both in my life, the life of Unity Center for Spiritual Growth and in our world. Every day brings new awareness and an opportunity to awaken more to what it means to be a citizen of God’s Kingdom.
Yes, you read that correctly a citizen of God’s Kingdom. In God’s Kingdom is where love, compassion, peace and treating each other with kindness, respect, and dignity no matter the color of their skin, the religious affiliation, their gender, or the sexual preference is found.
Something else I want to say is that we have a strong, healthy congregation and I know that because we have some very generous givers. A recent book I picked up is called Twelve Keys to an Effective Church and there is a chapter on generous giving. It says: For many grassroots persons, leaders, and pastors, generous giving is a way of life. They experience the generosity of God’s grace in their lives. The way they live their life is the way they give. They do not “protect and preserve, conserve and hold their meager financial resources.” They know that God has not done that with them. They know of God’s generous grace with them. They are generous givers because God is the generous giver with them.
During the offering on Sunday Steph Plourde boldly stated that her life changed dramatically once she started attending Unity and that she realized that she had not been giving back in the same measure as she received and was making a statement that she was changing that in the future. I tell you this as a reminder that being a generous giver is not something we do out of a spirit of goodwill. Being generous is God’s gift to us. Here is a way to think about this and it excites me, being generous givers is not of our own doing, it is God’s gift to us. So, we are not losing anything when we give, we are opening for more of God in our life.
This past Sunday the talk was on making everything welcome…the core message of the book we are using What’s in the Way IS the Way is, “Life is set up, to bring up what has been bound up, so it can open up to be freed up, so we can show up for Life.”
The author Mary O’Malley says we are made up of three layers… the first layer is where the storyteller is narrating for us the world it sees. It is all about control…compulsion and resistance…here is where the clouds form and fill our heads.
The second layer is made up of the so-called unacceptable, unmet parts of ourselves. These are the parts we don’t want to acknowledge or don’t want others to see so the controlling, compulsive top layer buries them deep within us. These are the not good enough, not smart enough, the parts of us that are full of despair. They are influencing us from underneath our everyday awareness…
The third layer…or bottom layer is who we really are…it is the meadow of our being. We know we are there when there is a twinkle in our eye…an aliveness in our body…and we are radiating and vibrantly showing up. It is here that we are living in the meadow.
I am excited to say that Todd Glacy is back and will be sharing music with us this Sunday. The talk will be “Life Is for You.”
Also sign up for dinner on Friday evening from 5 to 6 p.m. with Dee. Email him or text him at 207-337-3953. Come and visit whether you decide to eat or not. It is an opportunity to visit with friends while social distancing outside wearing masks when not eating.
Have a fabulous week and spend as much time communing with nature as you can.
You are a blessing in my life,
Rev. Patricia Bessey
Labyrinths are ancient geometric figures. One leaves one’s worries and stress at the entrance and walks meditatively to the middle. As one walks to the center she/he becomes centered within her/himself, calmer, and more grounded. 
