SpiritPath Counseling

One year ago, just a few hundred yards from where I now sit, I sat before three ministers who were to have the final say as to whether or not I had the consciousness to be honored with the title of Reverend, and represent this organization – United Centers for Spiritual Living – in that capacity.

They concluded that I did. A year later, my first anniversary as a minister, I hold on to their learned conclusion as my own conclusions and ideas about who and what I am as a minister continue to expand, reconfigure and realign themselves, recreating me once again.

This has been an amazing year. My intention for this first year of ministry was to allow for expansion, to go beyond my comfort zones, try new things, to challenge myself. This kind of thinking used to scare me. Truth be told, it still does. But what I am finding is that whenever I step into a role or into shoes that feel way too big for me, I find grow into those bigger shoes. The fear is still present, but there is a growing sense that this path of mine is not mine alone, but that the consciousness that is the ground of all being is doing something through and as me far beyond what I could have planned, or, for that matter, had I known, would have agreed to.

This year has been, and continues to be, an opportunity to redefine the word “challenge”. By its nature, challenge of any kind will involve some degree of thinking and feelings other than comfort and peace. We say that God is peace. I say, not all the time. Nor do I think it is supposed to be always peaceful. It is in the discomfort of the challenge that we have the opportunity to grow and expand. Were we never to challenge ourselves, nothing would change, and since change is the nature of the manifest Universe, we have little choice but to get used to that.

Saying yes to something like the ministry, however, is like saying yes to change, on crack. I thought that I knew what I was stepping into, but I don’t think anyone can really know, nor can anyone else prepare you, for something like this. It is a path, like so many, that must be experienced firsthand to be truly understood and appreciated.

I am seeing and experiencing levels of my own consciousness – not just in mind, but in heart and soul as well – that are taking me deeper into self than ever before. Beliefs, positions, opinions, defenses, coping mechanisms, even definitions of ideas and words and concepts are all presenting themselves, again, for my consideration and reconsideration. The invitation seems to be to surrender, again and again, what I thought I knew to be so, in order to create space for a greater knowing to emerge.

This process can be rather disorienting at times. Ok, extremely disorienting. When our familiar points of reference shift in a big way, there is a default reaction to try to grab on to what has been, to what we have known, and reinforce that position. The ego hates that fact that a position that it developed and maintained for most of our life may be wrong, or that we may have outgrown some of these positions that are long and dearly held.

But the fact is that we have stepped into a way of thinking that makes it literally impossible to stay the same. It is the nature of God to expand and to express and experience Itself through and as us as big as we will allow it to. Saying yes to this path is like telling God, “Permission granted. Have at it.” To be that place of expansiveness, some of the old has got to go. In order for something new to be born, something old must be allowed to die. It starts, first, in consciousness, and then it begins to outpicture as our life experience.

I am being invited to surrender old beliefs, positions, fears and defenses to a whole new level. I am being called to a more authentic, awake, conscious awareness than ever before. This is demanding of me a degree of openness and vulnerability that very much goes against our societal agreement that a man, a minister to boot, is strong and together and self-contained, all of the time. I recognize that as an antiquated belief, one that I have clearly outgrown, and at the same time am finding that surrendering that position means that I have to completely reconsider my position in in community, and in the world.

I am touching again on a level of sensitivity at the core of my humanity that I have spent most of my life reconfiguring and keeping at arms length in order to fulfill my role as a man in the world. Oh it’s always been there, and I have allowed myself limited access to it before now. But that well-constructed persona has, in the last few months, broken open, and, like a caterpillar in its cocoon, feels very much like an undefined mess that is reconfiguring itself into something new, something that, just maybe, could come out as beautiful and as graceful as the butterfly.

Whatever I am, caterpillar or dung beetle larvae, I am gaining a whole new level of appreciation for the courage of the that critter to go through what it goes through. And I am grateful, on its behalf, that it doesn’t have my brain, one part of which desperately wants to manage this process of metamorphosis, while another clearly recognizes that the Universe has been doing this since the beginning, and probably has a much better idea about what’s going on and how to facilitate it than I do.

This isn’t the first time in my life that is has happened. I have “died” and been reborn before, in this lifetime. The difference this time is the awareness of it. I am not a victim, at the mercy of people and circumstance and forces beyond my control. I am not asleep, contributing nothing but confusion and fear to the process. No, this is very different. I signed up for this one. I said yes, in that room with those three ministers as my witness, to aligning myself with the nature of God, to the best of my ability, and as a result everything that is in any way out of alignment is presenting itself, in a big way, to be reconsidered, reconfigured, and perhaps discarded altogether.

The challenge is to go deeper, beneath and beyond what has been, in order to create space for what is to be. While this can be hugely uncomfortable, I also recognize the necessity of it, and the Divine nature of it.

But this process has not been confined to my mind alone. My heart and my soul are also very much going through a similar process.

In recent weeks and months, I have rediscovered a capacity and a desire for love that goes far beyond what has ever been. My Heartmath friends know that the heart has an intelligence all its own, and I am discovering that it, too, has accumulated quite a collection of beliefs and positions and defenses about how things are, or should be. It accumulated what almost feels like a film - a somewhat gritty, greasy film – that has distorted my experience of relating to others. That, too, is presenting itself for my reconsideration.

I made, shortly after that panel here at Asilomar, what I something think of as the dreadful mistake of choosing to study, as my first post-ministerial school topic of interest, relationship. Not just primary relationship, but relationship in general, how we relate to each other. I should have read the warning label: Place your attention on something, and your experience of it be blown open.

I picked up a book that spoke of giving attention to relationship, of allowing and accepting the different ways that people show up and relate to and with each other, and of coming to appreciate those differences, that diversity of Divine expression. I have been looking at how we express, what beliefs and fears mould individual expression. I have been considering how we experience others, the filters and belief systems and world-view through which we judge, and choose, and often create an experience of separation that need not, and ultimately does not exist.

As a result I am changing the way that I do relationship, again. I am attentive by choice, seeing past my own perceptions and, as a result, experiencing the Divinity of people in a different, bigger way. This has led me to uncover within myself an untapped capacity to love that is far more expansive than I have known up until now.

This process, too, has not always been fun. Accompanying this uncovering of what has not been accessed and fully utilized is regret at my ignorance of that untapped capacity. The walls that have defined, and as a result confined my love have been torn apart. The experience has been like living in a small room, and discovering upon stepping beyond that room a cavern to big that you can’t even see the walls or the ceiling. It’s breathtaking, and disorienting, and disappointing in way, to discover that I have been within this limitless place all along, yet to a large degree unaware or unable or unwilling to step into it.

So I get to process that regret, knowing that I cannot afford to stay there for long. There is much to be explored, expressed and experiences in this new, expansive place, and I do recognize clearly that it has been presented to be, at this time and in this way, for a reason, or perhaps many reasons. I have a sense of what one of those reasons is, but also that it is not limited to my current perspective. There is more to this breaking open, and I get to let my faith deepen in this more expansive, unknown and undefined place.

That’s another belief that I am being challenged to reconsider; that I need to figure things out, plan, manage, control or somehow tame this mystery into something that, by understanding it, I can then be comfortable with. This isn’t about comfort. This is about embracing mystery, dancing with the undefined, and coming to a greater realization and experience of the mind and the heart of God having a much more expansive idea for my life than my limited thinking can access from where I now sit. This is about reconfiguring my thinking about discomfort, and challenge, embracing them and allowing them to be unimpeded by any fears or ego-driven needs that my small self might have. This is about surrender, again.

And as my heart and mind wade through this swampy mire of ego-death and surrender, of release and expansion, of the discomfort of a deeper self-examination and awareness than ever before, my soul has begun to stir.

The possibility exists that I have gotten down to a level of soul access that I have never before had in this lifetime. Not that there haven’t been moments, even days and weeks of heightened awareness before. There have. This, though, is a different level of awareness, and of awakeness. It is a different state of consciousness. It’s not momentary, but rather is constant. I have somehow made space, or invited into my experience this awareness of something, some sense of purpose on a soul level that is bigger, deeper, something-er than it has been. To borrow and modify a line from a song by Jami Lula, something is calling me a lot deeper than it ever has before.

Yes, my mind has broken open and pieces that are stale and no longer serve me are falling away like icebergs cleaving themselves from a glacier, to be set adrift and slowing reabsorbed back into the whole. Yes, my heart has broken open and defenses and beliefs and fears that have keep my experience confined to a small room of my own making have been blown down like the little piggys straw house. And yes, as a result, space is being created for my soul to stir, to stretch and begin to sense that there is something much greater to be experienced beyond the cocoon that has been my first year of ministry.

I still don’t have a clear sense of what is beginning to take shape inside of that cocoon. I don’t know that anything in nature really does at this point. How can we know something that doesn’t yet exist? But I do have a sense that there is an idea in the mind of God that is recreating itself, through and as me. It has invited me to re-examine all that I have defined and confined myself by until now. It has invited me to re-examine how I express in the world, and how I am choosing to experience the people and the circumstances in my life. It is invited me to die to the old, and allow myself to be reborn anew.

I have no illusion that somewhere in here there is an arrival point, a place where I find myself and can comfortably rest in that finding. There may be a plateau, a place where I can rest for a while, and be whatever it is that I am becoming. But I have made the mistake before of believing that I had things figured out, and could, then, settle in somehow. I have been lulled to sleep, and become complacent, in my consciousness, and I am knowing now that one of the greatest opportunities, one of the most valuable lessons that, no matter were this all leads, I can take with me, is that I must be always awake, always attentive, always mindful of what and how I am expressing and experiencing life. I must trust deeper than ever before that the mind and the heart of God, through and as me, knows absolutely what It’s doing, all of the time, even and perhaps especially when I don’t. I must remember that the mystery of God is greater than anything that I can imagine, or define, or control.

I must continue to surrender, constantly, that which I think I am, and you are, and life is, and let it do what it is seeking to do and knows how to do; expand It’s own expression and experience of Itself, in, through, and as me.

I am thrilled, and scared, and willing, and fascinated to experience what the second year of ministry will bring.

It's hard to know where to start. I can't believe I haven't written anything here since last fall, but I must tell you, this ministerial business does keep a person busy. In fact, I have about 5 minutes before I head out the door for another amazing day seeing amazing clients. Yup, I'll have to come back to this, and will, sooner than later. In the meantime know that all is well, that this adventure is truly a thrilling one, and that God is good, all the time!

I don't know about you, but the echos of the meadow have been almost a constant presence in my being since Asilomar. I've been getting regular reports on Sunbear, who remains in the hospital at Stanford Medical Center with serious complications. I hold him in my heart. I think of Jymme and Edee, holding them in love as well, and knowing somehow that their paths have taken one of those mysterious yet ultimately perfect turns that lead to something beyond the norm not discoverable or rememberable via any other route. I applaud their souls for having the strength to navigate those paths. I know that route, having wandered through that neighborhood. We know those paths, for it seems that we have all had to walk through our own version of hell to come to the place we now occupy. I've told more than one person, "The coursework wasn't so bad, but the decades of pre-requisites almost killed me."

I think, I feel, that something has shifted, in me, in us, and that things will never be the same as they were. How can they be, after the highs and the lows, the intensity of life and energy unleashed and lived in that week? How can we be, after all of the pre-requisites that we lived to bring us to the places we now occupy? How can we be, with a future stretching before us, both known and unknown, that holds such immense possibility? How can we be, after experiencing each other in such intimate ways, witnessing this amazing right of passage, and knowing first-hand what it takes to walk this path?

Emotion and feeling well up in me as this desire to express spills onto the page. I feel such love and such honor to be among you, each of you, all of you. I am so proud of us, not in an ego-based way, but from the depths of my soul, for there is a knowing within me that there is much more going on here than meets the eye. With all of our individuality and uniqueness, all of our quirks and oddities, all of our talents and our hopes and our dreams, we bring something essential. It's not about me, or even about us, really. It's about what and who we are as part of The Whole, as perhaps essential and certainly integral ingredients choosing to jump with both feet into the fray that is The Shift currently underway in human consciousness, perhaps even in the consciousness of God Itself. And we are it. We are the place where love shows up in the world as it can only through and as us. How amazing that is.

We stand at the threshold, and simply by saying yes, have opened the door to love and to wellness far beyond what we can imagine from where we now stand, each day an opportunity to love in bigger and greater ways. I still find it hard to believe that I stand among you, among you in whom I have such great respect and see such amazing possibility. It must be in me too. What a trip.

I want to thank you, for honoring me so, for whatever the cosmic conspiracy was or is that brought each of you into my life at this time and in this way. Thank you for gifting me with something that I will never forget, and that will always be a part of me. I learn from each of you. I love each of you. And again, I am so very humbled and honored to be among you.

One week from today are my oral panels, the last major hoop through which we hop into ministry. The good news is that they couldn't be at a more fabulous location, Asilomar, in Pacific Grove on the Monterrey peninsula. They panel new ministers there every year, and it's big doin's, as my mom would say. There is a lot of tradition and pomp, and everyone seems to have a good time... Of course I have never had the specific perspective on things that I have at this moment, being the panelee, as it were. It's a little nerve wracking to tell you the truth.

Now I know that as a good Religious Scientist that all is well in the world, that I have the perfect panel and that God has not brought me this far to drop me on my head. And... it's still a little nerve wracking...

The conference itself is a lovely affair, with workshops and services wherever you look, great speakers and music and old and new friends. I am sure that there will be some major bonding going on among the new ministers, and in general. In years past among my favorite outside activities has been kayaking Monterrey Bay, so I hope that Rev. Hannah (my angel ~ that's another story) will be facilitating that again this year. But other than that I don't plan on driving much for the whole week. Pretty much everything one needs is on-site. If you've never been there, google Asilomar conference grounds, and you'll see what I mean.

Ok, I think I am now going to e-mail every minister I have ever met and ask them for any last minute tips on these panels. You'd think that having paneled as many times as I have for other things over the years that this would be a cake walk. But... it's still a little nerve wracking...

What a trip. Today I receive a Masters Degree from the Holmes Institute, School of Consciousness Studies.

This last week it started shifting from a nice idea into a reality. I have to tell you though, it's still a little surreal. I mean, I'm still just me, sitting here drinking my tea in my raggy, comfortable sweatshirt and morning hair, drinking my tea. And in just a few hours I am going to be honored, myself and my five classmates, for what, in all modesty, is a huge accomplishment.

Suffice it to say that today is a day that I could not have imagined happening not all that many years ago.

Anyway, much to do today, but I do want to say thank you to all who made this possible. I cannot imagine reaching this point without the love and support, encouragement, patience and kindnesses that have been extended to me.

Winter term is just ending, Spring term beginning, but I have no classes left to take this term - WOOHOO!

I just finished Senior Exams (comprehensive) a week or so ago, and am SO relieved that those are done!

I have been offered a letter of call as a staff minister at CSLSR, and feel extremely blessed to be learning from the likes of Rev. Dr. Edward Viljoen, Rev. Dr. Kim Kaiser, Rev. Dr. Joyce Duffala and Rev. Marilyn Mooney, plus an amazing staff.

I am keeping busy, and have been asked to oversee, revamp and expand the Sunday Evening Services, which I am in the midst of (more to come on that).

I am also submitting proposals for workshops and retreats, teaching Science of Mind classes, and of course seeing my amazing clients, who ceaselessly inspire me with their growth and change for good.

And, the radar is on, both internally and externally, watching and listening for the next opportunity. I'll keep you posted!

I actually finished my coursework last term. I don't graduate until spring, however, and i still have Senior Exams to deal with, which are comprehensive exams of all classes, so we're not out of the woods yet.

Senior exams consists of six modules, six separate exams. Psychology, Philosophy, Science and Spirituality, Education, Religion, and Leadership. Each module addresses a handful of classes that we have taken that fall under that specific umbrella.

I still have a couple of internships to finish as well, and have to attend the Annual Gathering in Orange County in February '09, as well as the annual Asilomar Gathering in Monterey in August '09. Oral ministerial panels are there, at Asilomar, though I will graduate with my masters degree in spring, the second Saturday of June to be exact.

Next spring at this time, I'll have only a few short weeks until graduation. Hard to believe!

I have 2 full terms (quarters) left, and 3 very light terms of only one class, plus internships and retreats.

We are required to do a 40 hour internship each term. There are 15 competencies that all have to be addressed via internships somewhere in the course of school. In other words, we have 15 internships, covering such areas as Administration and Spiritual Leadership, Education Leadership, and Ecclesiastical Leadership. So we get to experience a bunch of different areas. Maybe I'll post the whole list soon, to give you a better idea of the work. Also we do retreats each spring and fall, spending a weekend with our classmates and some of the instructors off the beaten path in (hopefully) some lovely natural location. It's a good chance to interact, and most of the time the guest minister - who facilitates some process or another - contributes something good for us to consider.

This course addresses the multifaceted dimensions of mind/body healing and reviews the experimental data emerging from a variety of fields of study and research. The question which underscores the whole realm of mind/body medicine is, "Can consciousness heal the body of disease as claimed in all spiritual traditions and is this vindicated by the data?" New and old answers to this question are explored as well as recent discussions about quantum healing and science within the study of consciousness. The subjects of wellness and creativity of the body in promoting wellness are reviewed and integrated into this survey course

This course explores the idea of leadership grounded in spiritual principle. Emphasis is placed on transformative styles of leadership which create orderly and systematic governing practices that "work for everyone". Students will assess appropriate styles to use in various situations, with individuals and groups.

Co-taught by two of the most respected leaders in contemporary Religious Science, Dr. Edward Viljoen of UCRS and Rev. Candace Beckett of RSI: The course is designed to engage students in rigorous discussions of the relationship between the world of the 21st Century and Science of Mind principles. Through written and oral presentations, students will apply their love and mastery of the Science of Mind to everyday, contemporary situations.

plus Spring Retreat, and yet another internship (which I still have to determine!)

Since I started in Winter '06, rather than graduating this spring, it will be next spring. But, I am cutting through the coursework faster than I had originally anticipated.

I have just 2 full terms left, after this one, being Spring and Fall of this year. I have finished with the Summer curriculum, so actually will be off school - except for the required internship each term - this summer for the first time literally in years. Then I will have 2 very light terms, winter ('08-09) and spring '09.

MONEY: The challenge from where I sit at the moment is money. Though the Universe clearly supports this path for me, I would sure feel better if I was in better shape looking at registration next month for the spring term. Thank God for Chase Visa, but even they have a limit (which I'm pushing!).

I figure the 2 full time terms will cost between $1800. and $2,000. each. The 2 lighter terms will be around $750 each.

The last item is that I'm required to attend a UCSL Gathering before I graduate. Which means either this year - March - in Kansas City, or next year in Denver. This year looks like a good conference, and at the moment it's around $1500. bucks that I cant see where it would come from. I'm assuming it will be similar money next year, and Denver would be fun to see too, so I don't know. Need to make a decision though shortly if it's going to be this year. We'll see.

So I'm looking to manifest somewhere in the neighborhood of $6,500 to get me through this adventure. I need to get the plastic paid down too, and am working on that.

I am open to suggestions, and even contributions in this area. I know the money exists somewhere. I'm just so amazed that I've been able, more or less, to keep this up until now. Who'd have thunk it??

Of course then, my idea d' jour is to open a Western Regional Spiritual Retreat and Conference Center, and then we're talking some bucks! (and, I seem to have a different idea of what I'm going to do every term so, stay tuned : )

Only 4 classes this term, which is very nice compared to five, but I am to the point where I only need to take one distance class per term rather than 2, so that takes a little pressure off. So, this term one distance class, and 3 regional classes. Still keeps me busy!

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I just finished listening to the fifth lecture (or the 10 lecture series) and am enjoying the class so far. Since it's primarily about mysticism, a lot of the writing is in parable and poetry form. First conference call for this class is Oct. 2, so I'll know more after that!

Taught by one of the royalty of Religious Science, Rev. Dr. Margaret Stortz, this class has been a lot of fun ( and a LOT of work) so far. One of the assignments is to put together an outline for a five week, or five segment class, and I'm going to take the opportunity to play with the Quantum Physics workshop that's been living in my head for the past year or so. More on that soon perhaps as well!

PHI501 - A New Myth of God (I like philosophy classes, though they can be mind-benders)

PSY604 - Pastoral Guidance (companion to the pastoral care class I took in '95). This one is to be taught by Rev. Mary Murray-Shelton, so I'm looking forward to it as well.