The other day I spoke with someone on the phone who called up very upset.……….He was quite distraught…..about the challenges our world is facing……………..and he began yelling at me abut how if the teachings of Unity are true… that is, that if God is present in all humans then why would humans be destroying the very home it needs to live on…………..

Before I go further with this, the presence of God within can be thought of as the nature of pure goodness, or Life, or LOVE or LIGHT. Unity does teach that the presence of God is within all of creation but what we call this Divine Presence is up to each person.

 

Now back to the story with this man I as speaking to on the phone.

I asked him what he thought first……..and he seemed to calm down a bit………..he thought I was going to give him some pat answer, throw a prayer at him( his words later) and be done with him…..

 

Long story short…he came to the conclusion that I would have told him but I knew it would be better for him to come to his own conclusion.

 

The conclusion:  to the degree that a human is aware of the presence of God within, to that degree, that human does things that are in accordance with blessing all of life………and the reverse is true.

To the degree that a human is unaware of God’s presence within, then that human will most likely be taking action that is not in alignment with the good of all…

 

 

As I was driving home that day, some words came to me that I had not thought about for a while.  These words however have stayed with me for the last 31 years…………..

 

Before I say the words, I would like to preface them with this:

 

Have you heard some words or a phrase that really resonated with you and you are not sure why……..they just do.

 

When I was a Psychology major at Indianan U. , I took a sensation and Perception class with Dr. B.B. Morris.

 

One day he started talking about Brightness Constancy………….

And being the more  right brained person that I am……….I went on a mental vacation and began saying that phrase over and over and bringing up images that it must be about.

 

 

Brightness Constancy……..isn’t that a nice sounding phrase and concept.

 

I am sure that some of you may know it’s actual meaning……

 

The dictionary defines it as

the tendency for a visual object to be perceived as having the same brightness under widely different conditions of illumination

 

 

 

I think the reason this phrase has stuck with me for so long is that though it is psychologically true, it is also metaphysically true

 

That is that we as creatures that are made in the image and likeness of the Divine…….will always have the same Divine Luminosity, somewhere inside of us no matter what we have been through, no matter what we have achieved, no matter if we are living on this earthly plane or not……………..

 

Sometimes our own brightness may stay hidden our entire life…………however it does not mean that it is not there.

 

And what is our brightness……….

I believe that it is the true nature of who we are……….it is our God self our higher self, our true self.

 

And so what are we supposed to do with this truth.

 

Jesus said it like this:

Some scripture on Light

 

Or Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven

 

 

 

 

Marianne Williamson said that we are more afraid of our light than our darkness or shadow,

 

 

 

 

Silent Unity, Unity’s 24 hour prayer ministry,  has a prayer that says

 

That the light of God within can wipe out all darkness.

 

Not some darkness but all darkness.

 

So the answer to our problems is to find this light first……………

 

The answer to the problems in the world is for each of us to seek our light………

 

One way we express our brightness is through the use of our own spiritual gifts.,

 

 

And the reason I am talking about this  as we get close to Memorial Day Weekend is because the gifts of those that have passed on can still be felt and even expressed through those of us that are still living.

 

Certainly, the gifts of honor, valor and commitment to one’s country that our soldiers gave to us can be experienced every day and so we honor them by expressing our own brightness by the sacrifice they gave to us so we could do this

 

 

And for our loved ones, it is important to think of what gifts they gave us and how we can express them..

 

Now for some, it is easy to see what gifts we received from those who passed on before us.

 

From my Dad, I received the gift of Health…….he was committed to health which include exercise, easting lots of fruit and vegetable and watching out for too much sun exposure way back in the early 60s

 

From my sister, I learned to bring lightness to everything……she had the gift of humor and gave it to the world……

 

In other cases, where it is hard to see what gift we literally rec’d …then we might look at the opposite, perhaps a loved one who has passed was not able to let their own light, their own brightness shine…….and it may seem that we did not receive much from them…….

In cases like this……..we must seek our own brightness first and then in that illumination, we may see that we are doing things at a higher standard because of what we experienced from them.