Sunday Message for February 27, 2022

A LOVING HEART

Father, Mother, God; We now check in with our human tendencies but rely on our spiritual tendencies. We move from our brain into our heart and seek a balance between the two. We are aware that our brain thinks, but our heart knows. So I tell my head and my heart to be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am. Be still and know. Be still. Be. AMEN

We are going to talk about tapping the wisdom and healing power of our heart energy.

Blaise Pascal, a 17th Century French mathematician and philosopher wrote: "The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know."^a

And Charles Fillmore, in The Twelve Powers, wrote: "Love is the pure essence of Being that binds together the whole human family."^b

Last week you checked off the loving actions that you would experiment with during the week. I want to know how your experiment went. The list we used was
* I will affirm God is Love and I am loving.
* I will think twice before putting myself down or depreciating myself.
* I will realize I deserve good treatment and will ask for and feel comfortable with respect
* I won't let others use me or run over me, telling myself I'm being loving.
* I will practice listening to my self-talk, avoiding "poor me" and "I'm just chopped liver" expressions toward myself
* I will practice listening with my heart to others and say back to them what I hear them saying.
* I will give and receive more hugs.
* I will give it the "light touch" and be more playful.
* I will pray for others, especially those I am having trouble with, desiring only good to come to them.
* I will think globally and act locally in working for integrity, protection of the planet and all people and peace. So what were your results?

Jim Rosemergy wrote a piece called "If Love Led the Way" - "Imagine the world if love led the way - a world without war... swords pounded into plowshares ... families knowing nothing of famine. Life has been simplified; so family members can spend time together. The circle that is the family is joined, because the parents are no longer driven by "making ends meet." Prejudice is a past memory kept alive only so that it will not come again. The many races and cultures are blended together like wildflowers on a hill. Religions, if there are many, pray and worship with one another. Humankind has experienced a spiritual awakening that began when we opened our hearts to one another."^c

This is where we could be if we followed our spiritual tendencies instead of our human tendencies.

THE HEART IS MUCH MORE THAN A PUMP
This last century may be remembered as "The Century of the Brain," and now the present century could be "The Century of the Heart." Dramatic new discoveries are being made about our heart via heart transplant experiences. Dr. Paul Pearsall was speaking to an international group of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers about the psychology and spirituality of the heart. A psychiatrist came up to share about one of her patients. The psychiatrist sobbed as she related the case: An eight-year old girl had received a heart transplant from a murdered ten-year old girl. The patient was having nightmares about the man who had murdered the heart donor. She said she knew who he was. The mother and the doctor turned the description over to the police, and they found the murderer. Everything the girl with the "new" heart said checked out.

Many of the doctors in the audience openly cried, and Paul was moved to lead them in a prayer time. No one questioned the accuracy or significance of the information they received that day about the heart's cellular code and power. What had been considered only as a marvelous pump now could actually be demonstrated to be the meta-morphical or meta-physical organ we speak of when we say, "Have a heart," "change of heart," "heart warming," "big hearted," "good hearted," or "sweetheart."

The heart is our most powerful organ. It is the largest generator of electromagnetic energy in our body. Do our hearts actually communicate with each other? What happens to the energy impulses that travel through the body and show up outside the body on EKG (electrocardiogram) recordings? Do these pulsations stop at our skin, or do they continue on "out" to people, pets, plants, our surroundings, and the universe? Do they travel at the speed of light energy, 186,000 miles per second? Can our many hearts somehow actually combine their power to create a "nonlocal" field of energy that can influence people and events?

The recent ability to do transplants and the resulting transplant research of a number of different organs is supplying us with astounding phenomena and implications about how consciousness is carried in our bodies or how our bodies have or are consciousness. For a much fuller understanding of the physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects of how heart and love energy operates, see The Heart's Code by Paul Pearsall, PhD.

TAKING YOUR SPIRITUAL PULSE
Dr. Pearsall gives a H*E*A*R*T (Heart Energy Amplitude Recognition Test) to help people recognize how we are primarily living our life - from the brain approach or the heart approach. Some of the many questions are:
_____ Do you push elevator buttons that are already lit?
_____ Do you lose your temper while driving?
_____ Do you have family or marital conflicts and/or neglect your family?
_____ Do you react emotionally, defensively, and negatively to criticism?
_____ Would it be tense and stressful living and/or working with you?

Pearsall believes that the brain and heart answer Albert Einstein's question differently: "Is the universe a friendly or unfriendly place?" The brain tries to figure, calculate, make it happen, stay on top of things, and to be "me" oriented. The heart tries to share, let it flow, feel, be gentle, and to be "us" oriented. We need the brain and heart to be balanced and to work together. The most important health and healing prescription: Have a change of heart!^d

Jesus said in John 15:17, "Love one another."^e

The Jewish law in Deut 6:5 says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."^f

Hindus likewise give allegiance to love: "Show love to all creatures and thou wilt be happy, for when thou lovest all things, thou lovest the Lord, for he is all in all."^g

And the Buddhists: "As a mother, even at the risk of her own life, protects her son, her only son, so let him cultivate love without measure toward all beings."^h

LOVE & SURVIVAL
In his book, Love & Survival, Dean Ornish, MD, a noted cardiologist, scientifically supports what folk and spiritual wisdom has long contended: "Our survival depends on the healing power of love, intimacy, and relationships. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. As individuals. As communities. As a country. As a culture. Perhaps even as a species."ⁱ

After many years of research and practice, Dr. Ornish is now convinced that all the other factors in our lives - diet, stress, smoking, lack of exercise, genetics, drugs, surgery - do not have as great an impact on our health and healing as love. However, ironically, most patients and doctors are fascinated with changing all the other factors and not giving attention to love as the healer. Dr. Ornish cites study after study that point to this conclusion (just as Larry Dossey, MD points to the many studies showing the power of prayer in healing).

If love (or prayer) was a new drug or high-tech procedure, they point out, doctors and patients would demand that such a well-proven help be used in all cases to promote health and healing.

There is a very interesting story that I want to tell you. A young boy's older brother was ill and needed a blood transfusion. Tests showed that the boys had the same blood type, so the doctor explained the transfusion procedure to the younger boy and, with the parents' help, asked if he would give his blood for the transfusion. The boy seemed startled, but he agreed.

On the day of the transfusion, both boys lay on adjacent tables, and the transfusion began. After a short time, the young lad said to the physician, "When am I going to die?" The doctor explained that he was not going to die and that he would be fine, but then the physician realized the implication of the question. The boy thought that by giving his blood for the transfusion, he was giving his life for his brother. This is love's greatest expression. Of this Jesus said, in John 15:13 "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."^j

Love is willing to do extraordinary things. It forgets itself and the soul's anguish and affirms the value of other people and their pain. Most of us will never have the opportunity to give our lives for others, but all of us have the opportunity to give up our anger and resentment. Loving with abandon is our spiritual tendency.

LIFE IN COMMUNITY - COMMON UNITY
The new research confirms again what mystics, prophets, seers, poets, and healers have long known and taught: Loneliness hurts and communion/community/unity heals. Studies prove that being a regular participant in a friendly, caring, nurturing community or group makes a vast difference in recovery, health, longevity, and healing - even in the presence of other high-risk factors. The beneficial experience of community may be in church, marriage, family, neighbors getting together, support groups, recovery groups, clubs, classes, even a bowling league.

Beyond all the high-tech, state-of-the-art methods are ancient, low-tech, low-cost interventions that are proven to be marvelously effective:
   * Rediscovering inner sources of peace, joy and well-being
   * Learning to communicate in ways that enhance intimacy with loved ones.
   * Creating a healthy community of friends and family
   * Developing more compassion and empathy for ourselves and others
   * Experiencing directly the transcendent interconnectedness of life
Where can you find all of these extremely beneficial ideas and life-affirming practices? Right where you are right now!!! We offer all these kinds of learning and loving community. Here we celebrate the power of love and life.

CHARLES FILLMORE WRITES
Charles Fillmore writes in his book, Dynamics for Living, "We may talk about the wisdom of God, but the love of God must be felt in the heart. It cannot be described, and one who has not felt it can have no concept of it from the descriptions of others. The more we talk about love, the stronger it grows in the consciousness. If we persist in thinking loving thoughts and speaking loving words, we are sure to bring into our experience the feeling of that great love that is beyond description - the very love of God."^k

While Charles Fillmore gives many great statements on the power of love in his book, The Twelve Powers, his chapters on "Regenerative Love" and "Generative Life" contain statements that sexual love is to be avoided, even in marriage. These opinions are not now part of Unity's teachings to our adults, teens, or children. Nor are they part of the Twelve Power program. Read the book New Thought for a New Millennium and the book, Twelve Powers In You for perspectives on sacred sexuality.

Opportunities to learn love's way are everywhere, but nowhere more frequently than in the family. I suspect that many of the world's problems continue because we have not accepted the opportunity to learn the mysteries of love in the family setting. In fact, the limitations and false premises we hold about love are often passed from one generation to the next.

I would like to close with Robert Browning, who refers to love as the "imprisoned splendor."

Paracelsus
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception - which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error; and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.^l