“Life happens!” How many times have we heard THAT line? And, it’s true!! What it misses is the most important part: our response to life “happening” is more important than the actual things that ARE happening! A popular song in Unity is entitled “Our Thoughts Are Prayers.” Our negative reactions to those things in life that go against our wishes become the prayers that attract more of the same! WE, and WE ALONE are responsible for our reactions to daily events!! Our reactions are prayers! WE CHOOSE those reactions, though we may not wish to admit it!! Our choices are prayers! This week we are invited to be conscious of that space between stimulus and response, wherein we MAKE those choices and consider the outcome!! We can choose anger, or we can choose faith! We can choose forgiveness! We can choose peace and harmony! However we choose, God ALWAYS says, “Yes!”

“Find a penny, pick it up and all day long you’ll have good luck!”  We remember this rhyme from childhood with an inner smile at our innocence as children. However, it is truer than we realize!! Unity’s Tracey Street church started with a single penny, given in jest. Charles Fillmore, however took it and blessed it!! He realized that the penny is but an inanimate object. Yet, the IDEA BEHIND it is one of dynamic power; that of unlimited prosperity, ever available to us by right of consciousness! We increase our prosperity through a number of ways, the first being faith—that is IS ours, as children of the Most High! We increase it through gratitude for that which is manifest in our lives, NOW. And, we increase it through SHARING, in which we become the inlet and the outlet of God’s divine idea; an idea which WILL MANIFEST according to our willingness to live and act in harmony with Spiritual LAW!!

Plato told us, “The beginning is the most important part of the work!” Unity Way Church’s annual White Stone Ceremony celebrates the fact that, in truth, we can ALWAYS, at any moment, start over. Biblically, the white stone signifies acquittal, setting us free and giving us a new name, (spiritually, a new identity/consciousness). As we start this New Year, we can do so renewed in mind and spirit, free from past errors and shortcomings, carrying inside the ability to triumph over whatever challenges we may face. Happy New Year!

OLD question: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” (In this case, the bridge!) There is but one answer to this question, and that is: To get to the other side! In this life, we will cross many bridges!! The type of bridge will determine the NATURE of what is ON the other side! There are bridges of anger, fear or resentment. They lead to entrapment, discontent, physical ills and worse! There is a better way!! There are also bridges of forgiveness, understanding and compassion all of which lead to FREEDOM, GROWTH AND PEACE! We are invited, this last Sunday of 2020, during our Burning Bowl Ceremony, to leave all this year’s challenges behind; to take with us only those lessons we learned from them. God uses everything for good. Let us be open to that good that we might see it! Happy New Year, one and all!