Reflections by Rev. Vaughan Amaré

“Abundance Starts with Gratitude: 11-17-24

Today my teachers offered me practical guidance for recognizing and enjoying more good things in my life.

The one teacher invited me to journal by giving thanks in three areas: where I see abundance; specific gifts in my life; and all the ways where abundance could show up. In addition to journaling, I might take time to write thank you notes—handwritten or e-cards. I might practice active listening—giving space in my life, opening room for others. I might engage in random acts of kindness without expectation for any return beyond deliberately sending goodness into the world around me. I might take time daily to reflect on and put attention on sources of gratitude rather than sources of complaint. I might commit to holding a grateful mindset.

Past messages from me have referred to the character Pollyanna. Currently, we’ve mistakenly associated her with the practice of holding unwarranted optimism. However, a look at her shows how she made choices to look for good developed with practice. She had disappointments, and she did not dwell on them, revel in them, nor worship them. Pollyanna looked for and found bigger pictures with possibilities. Her character modeled how to stop looking from limited perspectives of our own current conditions.

Gratitude serves like a tuning fork. I can put my attention on good things right here and I can also remain open to positive possibilities. With gratitude, abundance become how we attune ourselves to the things in our lives rather than mere acquisition of an increasing number of things.

Choose moments of gratitude rather than simply mindlessly following so much hustle and bustle in our lives. Consider the next time we’re stuck in traffic. Choose to feel gratitude for the vehicle, for the road, for the landscape in view, for the destination. The Vietnamese monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh wrote about letting the ring of the phone serve as a song to become present to the moment. Instead of running or racing to answer, we can see ourselves in a wonderful moment that will never happen again.

The more we practice gratitude, we embody a particular kind of abundance. We’ve heard the saying, “Practice makes perfect.” Let’s practice for the copious plentiful life of our dreams.

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

Thanks? Give thanks anyway 11-10-24

Today my teacher spoke up about the elephant in the room and the naked emperor. Election results at the top of our ballots have left about half of the voters in our country in various states of anger, fear, disappointment, and anxiety. This aligns with my personal text to my sister admitting my sadness that obviously more than half of the voters either feel undisturbed or supportive of blame, racism, misogyny, ableism, and threats to fellow people. Obviously, I live in a world where it seems that more than half of the people who share it with me see the world in completely different ways than I do.
My teacher offered some discrete actions for me to practice.
First, I can use this time to simply feel my feelings. I can honor and acknowledge those aspects of myself that don’t customarily receive loving kindness. I can watch ways that I try to anesthetize myself from pain–sinking into hopelessness or pretending, “It’s all good. This simply opens me up to better things to come.”
Second, weeks ago, my teacher had invited me to dive into my curiosity rather than the easier and more commonly traveled road of judgment. Instead of bemoaning circumstances and responding to blame with blame, I can reframe my automatic question, “What’s wrong with you/me?” and replace it with “What happened to you/me that led you/me to this place?”
Third, I can build my capacity for speaking up. Rather than simply accepting the number of ways that blame, racism, misogyny, ableism, threats and harm happen, I can choose to enlist my courage and challenge them. I can wrestle with the process of speaking with kindness and compassion to people who elicit my own negativity. I’ve seen the texts to women, “Your body, my choice.” I’ve seen texts to black and brown people telling them to report to the cotton field. Other people may dismiss those “jokes,” and I can assert how I value a different style of humor that uplifts rather than generates harm against recipients of those jokes.
Finally, I can give thanks anyway. Folks may have familiarity with practices of giving thanks for good things that have happened to and for us. Similarly, we may feel the ease of finding any small things happening right here and right now that feed us and sustain us. Thanking anyway opens us to unseen prospects for good happening in the future. The poem-turned-into-book Anyway offers different kinds of choices available to us. We can find power in our choices.
Wishing you ease and peace regardless of what’s happening in the world around usRespectfullyRev Vaughan

“Abundance Around, Worthiness Within” 11-03-2024

Today my teachers reminded me that all around us we can see many ways abundance shows up. For example, look at the falling leaves or stars in the sky. This abundance refers to many different domains of our lives including physical well-being, safety, belonging, and self-esteem. Let’s consider three things.

First, we live in an abundant universe. Bountiful resources and natural beauty surround us and inspire us to see ourselves as parts of those resources and beauty. However, sometimes we can find ourselves with an abundance of loneliness or crises. Fortunately, we can choose our relationship with our feelings. Start most simply by noticing limiting beliefs, thoughts and feelings. Then move on to question their truth. We might replace fear with surprise or doubt with wonder. In place of our reactions like withdrawal or argument, we might listen to ourselves or others. We might find ourselves drawing closer. We might try practicing generous sharing.

Second, we might play with the premise that our thoughts and beliefs shape our lives. We think many thoughts each day and we can see our reactions. What positive mindsets might we adopt? Where do we go when we focus on possibilities and opportunities (rather than dwelling on limitations or scarcity)? Building on the idea that we live in an abundant world and we have abundant worth already within us, we may deliberately choose to think there is always enough to go around. We might experiment with empowering thoughts focusing on opportunities, solutions, and the abundance that surrounds us. (See below for inspirational mantras.)

Finally, our attitudes of gratitude guide our recognition of abundance within and around us. People with an abundance mindset regularly express gratitude for the simple pleasures, relationships, opportunities, and resources they have. If we want to foster a sense of contentment and fulfillment, we can look at life with gratitude, savoring our experiences.
Wishing that abundance flows around us and in us.Rev. Vaughan

Mantras up for adoption:

“Today I recognize the abundance of life…. I remember only the good. I accept only the good. I expect only the good…. I give thanks that this good is flowing in ever-increasing volume.” Ernest Holmes, 365 Day of Richer Living, September 27

“In everything give thanks.” Ernest Holmes,The Science of Mind Textbook, page 426 (ebook)

“We should expect so much good that we should conceive of it as being more than we even have time to enjoy. We should feel the presence of this good and appreciate its meaning and give thanks for its manifestation. There should be the combination of gratitude, expectancy, and joy….” Ernest Holmes, Living the Science of Mind, page 344

“The fastest way to bring more wonderful examples of abundance into your personal experience is to take constant notice of the wonderful things that are already there.” ~ Esther Hicks

“Maybe if we spent just a little time saying thank you for what we do have, we won’t have so much time to dwell on what we lack. Gratitude, praise, and thanksgiving activate the laws of abundance.” -Iyanla Vanzant, Acts of Faith, October 2

Radical Power. 10-27-24

Today my teacher reminded me of my power responding to anything that comes into my life. My teacher illustrated this with her story about finding an

encouraging place where she grew more fully into her own true identity. She could stop “toning down,” her truest self. However, in that very same place, she and others who stepped into leadership there, found betrayals of getting “fired”. They had experienced separation, division and the repetition of not being enough or being too much. This contributed to them feeling entitled to protecting themselves and staying away. A celebration of that place gave her an opportunity to fulfill a deliberate, informed intention to close that life chapter. However, instead of simple closure, the celebration challenged my teacher to declare restoration of oneness and connection. She learned about the power to declare a changed, new story. We may have learned the idea of “radical,” as extreme or even dangerous; and radical can mean a thorough or complete change.

Consider three ways to embody radical change.First, we can catch ourselves asking, “What’s wrong with you (or with me)? We can replace the question with “What happened to you (or to me)?) This question lets us step away from the logic many of us learned thinking in binary terms. When I say “right,” you may automatically think “wrong,” or “left.” I say “day,” you may think, “night.” This binary thinking simplifies the world. When we shift to the question, “What happened?” we open to the larger, more complex, more complete stories than we previously imagined.Second, we can choose to accept ourselves and other people as we are. Instead of dedicating our time and energy trapped in negative judgments and expectations, we may find freedom to live in bigger possibilities. Currently, the two, most advertised and visible presidential candidates have spent time and words to convince us we have only one right and best choice. What if we choose to spend our time and energy imagining futures of kindness, generosity, and compassion. What if we use those imaginations to bring more kindness, generosity, and compassion into the world?

Finally, with our choices and actions of kindness, generosity and compassion, we make love our practice. What small steps do we take today? Maybe we tell someone we love them. Maybe we show love with our expressions. Maybe we make difficult choices. Maybe what we give leads to lasting changes. Please revel in the love that you convey and the radical power of your choices.RespectfullyRev. Vaughan

Collaborative Power. 10-20-24

My teachers asked me to look beyond myself and observe what happens when power expresses through collaboration and cooperation. Patriarchal, white, western culture has pushed the ideas, values and practices of solitary individualism. However, we’ve seen and heard about wider visions beyond this perspective. How many teams inspire us with their concerted efforts leading to outcomes and successes bigger than any one person could possibly attain? Remember some project that found you as a participant. Now think of the process or product that you helped create. Could you have done that alone? Three elements help us understand collaboration.First, when we work with others we come together to achieve some purpose. This purpose inspires, encourages, and excites us. We envision a future and we co-create what we need to bring it into existence. We each have unique ways to contribute to this “something greater”. Margeret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Second, an underlying reason for joining with others involves those gifts of our diversity. We have unique skills and other people have capacities that complement and complete us. How many of us have heard the expression, “opposites attract”? We live in a time where some political leaders try to use our diverse opinions and experiences to divide us and make us fear each other. But haven’t we found that other perspectives widen our viewpoint and let us understand with new eyes? Finally, our power can contribute to empowerment of both ourselves and others. Many of us may have experiences where others’ power encouraged us to feel small or insignificant. That came with the sense that some limited quantity of good exists in the world. However, rather than limiting ourselves and our imaginations, what happens when we allow greater good to happen now? We might release negative judgments (since they don’t show us about bigger possibilities) and seize hold of positive possibilities. Together we empower each other for the greater good.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Our Personal Power: Creating lives we want to live. 10-13-24

Today my teachers invited me to ask for anything that brings more life and harms no one. When I accept that invitation, it leads me to consider how to use my power to bring more life. This calls me to pause to make choices rather than simply leaping into reactions. Consider these three powerful choices.

1. First, Let’s Use Our Power for Good. We can look into every relationship and opportunity and see the possibilities for sharing more good. By aligning our actions and values, we steep our power with meaning. In every interaction, every decision, and every endeavor, we hold the key to channeling our power for positive growth, change, and development. By rooting our expressions of power in such values as love and compassion, we may grow harmony, understanding, and healing.

2) Second, teacher don Miguel Ruiz wrote about the power of our words with the first of his four agreements. Let’s Recognize How We Make Conscious Choices and Agreements. When we wake in the morning,what do we tell ourselves about ourselves and our days? The teacher Emma Curtis Hopkins taught that the ways we think and move through the world leads us to make agreements. In making these agreements, we align ourselves with some value.

Haven’t we all found ourselves experiencing others’ agreements as impositions or controls on us? Have we taken those lessons so that we try to manipulate or force ourselves or others? What if we choose agreements deliberately naming what we want and believing that we can achieve or receive those desires.

3) Third, Everyone Can Make a Difference. Believing in our own power, we might choose to release and reject the idea that “I’m one person and cannot make a difference.” I can stop diminishing myself and giving myself reasons to not act.

Here are examples for how to make a difference. Remember the story of the sandy oceanside filled with starfish washed up on shore. One child ran along that beach picking up starfish after starfish and throwing each one back into the water even as the waves brought some of them back on shore. An adult scoffed at the seeming inefficiency asking, what difference can you make here? And the child answered, “I made a difference for that starfish just now.”

Remember Rosa Parks on her way home from work. When the bus driver shifted and limited the rows on the bus for black riders, expecting them to simply give up their seats for white riders, Rosa refused to leave her seat. She put her tired feelings to use. Later she described how her fatigue had not come from her long day of labor; it came from her witness to and consciousness of generations of oppression and injustice that she and other people of color had suffered. Rosa took her place within a larger context to advance the Civil Rights Movement in America.

Delight in every opportunity to use your power for good. Will you speak a word of support to yourself or someone else? Will you simply be present for someone? Did you give a favor, expecting nothing in return (in the style of “paying it forward”)? Every small action can make a big difference.

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day!

Rev. Vaughan

Power Begins Within. 10-06-24

Today my teachers invited me to consider stepping into my power along with practical steps for doing that. We may find it helpful to think of power as a topical cousin of money, sex and politics–something that people hesitate to discuss for fear of conflict and disagreement. However, consigning power to a realm of taboo actually divorces us from our power. To step into power, we must acknowledge it. Let’s go within and explore questions including what are our experiences of power, what does power mean to us, and what does our own power look and feel like? Perhaps we’ve experienced power as oppressive. It took me a long time to trust the idea of power after getting hurt as a child and getting threatened to remain silent about what happened. What in your life has shaped your experiences, beliefs and feelings about power?What if we consider the possibilities that power can be larger than our experiences of it? Things opened up for me when I learned about power as neutral and even positive. The size of my heart grew beyond my wildest imagination upon learning the stories of power enacted by Harriet Tubman, Anne Frank, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ghandi. Mistreatment and abuse served to let them step into heroism. Here are five steps my teachers offered for awakening and reclaiming power:First, be authentic, living as our truest selves.Second, judge less and work to heal the habit of judging ourselves and others. Third, consider how being alive, partaking in life’s energy conveys power.Fourth, service to and for others who do not have power clarifies our own power.Finally, shine. How much have we kept the dimmers that others put on us? How much have we kept our light hidden under a bushel? When we shine with our authenticity and power, we bring new light to ourselves and others. Enjoy finding power within that supports us beyond our past conditioning and opens us to new possibilities (or even forgotten dreams).

Observing the changing fall season as a process for experiencing peace. 9-29-24

Today my teachers invited me to take time in the world–sitting by the sound or walking on the ground. We can launch this fall season with the three considerations of embracing the changes in and around us, letting go of whatever no longer serves us, and finding beauty in impermanence.
First, despite the fantasies we may create about consistency, the only constant thing IS change. The color we may begin to see on the leaves around us existed within those leaves, but the green chlorophyll masked it. As we age, things we might have seen in our parents may start to show up in our own reflections we see in the mirror. How many of us have fantasized about going back to some satisfying experience? Yet when we’ve gone back, we find we can’t rekindle that original experience. This fall season may remind us to embrace what is instead of looking back to fond memories or looking forward to imagined possibilities. How? Look for resilience; look for surprising strengths. Engage in self-care rituals and routines. Celebrate growth and pat ourselves on the back.
Second, in the same way that leaves fall from trees, we can release what no longer serves us. What if we stop clinging to beliefs, relationships and behaviors that no longer serve us? According to “MindValley” Instruction, people have 80,000 thoughts a day with 80% of those being negative. Knowledge of that can allow us the step beyond the overwhelming familiarity of focusing on and getting stuck on negative thoughts and feelings. However, instead of that we can practice three things. a) Identify and declare words that light us up and break the spell of negativity. I’m playing with the words, “Life works for me.” b) Declutter. This can involve things around us, as well as thoughts or feelings. c) Set limits on our pity parties or the times we let ourselves get caught in the emotional pull of struggle.
Third, find beauty in the impermanence of life. Consider how the magnificence of how a particular tree’s leaves fill us with awe. The limits of those glowing moments in the autumn sun and moonlight let those moments stop us. What message does beauty have for us? Take this moment we have now and savor all the reasons for gratitude. My teacher’s father suffered from dementia before he died; this leads my teacher to celebrate each day letting her dress, feed herself and make 80,0000 choices about her thoughts. What do we appreciate?
What a wonderful world can we find for ourselves?

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Imagine World Peace: If you want peace work for justice. 9-22-24

Do you ever hope for peace on earth? Today my teachers reminded me how I can imagine, envision and work for justice, to contribute to a peaceful world that works for all.

Imagining Peace Peace on Earth may sound outrageous and impossible with all the dissension, wars, violence, anger, and fear all around us.

However, we can never find what we do want by focusing on what we don’t want. Therefore to move towards the peace we DO want we might imagine world peace. What does it look like, feel like, sound like? What experiences happening to us now might reveal peace on earth? Consider taking some time to imagine peace, feel peace, see peace. and be Peace

Envision Possibilities Ernest Holmes used this tagline for his 1949 Radio Show:”There is a Power in the Universe Greater than you are . . . And you can use It! There is no big or small for the universe–the life within every breath, the life of everyday wonder, the life spinning the earth to bring sunrises and sunsets. This universe loved itself so much that it thought it needed each of us with all our possibilities and gifts.

One of my communities envisions these possibilities. Perhaps one will resonate with you:

people discover their own personal power to create individual lives working within a world working for everyone;
each and every person has enough food, a home, and belonging;
people value, care for, grow and generously share resources;
people forgive errors, injustices, and debts;
our world has renewed its emphasis on beauty, nature, and love through the resurgence of creativity, art, and aesthetics.

Embodying Passions to Bring Justice John Lennon wrote, “Peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.” What things do you do so that you lose track of time in sheer pleasure of that activity? What enthralls you so much that you feel like you must share about it?

Here’s wishing you the encounters with peace and justice as you engage your imagination, visions, and passions.

Respectfully

Rev Vaughan

Leaning into the Light 9-15-24

Today my teachers reminded me of ways to look at the different pieces from our lives that we can reconnect to bring Peace. In the face of choices between positive and negative, other times and now, diminishing and uplifting, possibilities and lost opportunities do we have a natural tendency or leaning?

My teacher recounted how a wise woman told her about how she danced between light and dark and brought the dark into the light. She remembered how a friend returned from a leave and doubted her words of welcome. Having witnessed her cynicism for previous situations at work, he expected her to apply her cynicism to him. This reaction inspired a desire to change a practice that had gone on unconsciously, and she could change it through conscious choice

We can broaden our capacities and receptivity for light and goodness with four practices.

First, remember the power of gratitude. Even in face of situations that leave us unsettled and unhappy, we can ask ourselves, “Did we wake up today? Did we eat? Do we have clothing and shelter?” When we look, we may see more light than what we have admitted and remembered as existing.

Second, “Illegitimi non carborundum,” conveying “Don’t let the b@st@rds get you down.” Watch how much power we lend to other people’s ideas about us, to others’ assertions about the world, and to our own limited expectations for ourselves. We can take back control of our thoughts.

Third, we can “keep our eyes on the prize.” And to do that we have to know what we prize. We can take time to recognize our passions. Where do we spend our time? How do we spend our money? What connects us to other people? What do we want to learn and improve? What do we want to show off? How might we spread the word about the wonder of our passion?

Finally, declare “Ready, set, jump.” To get where we want to go and get what we want, we have to move from where we are. We may feel afraid, yet that sensation bears a remarkable resemblance to the experience of excitement. Instead of carrying a story of failure, it carries a story of possibility. We may stop ourselves believing we leap without support. What if we believe that life itself longs to find greater expression through us?

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Obstacles to Feeling Connected-Rev. Vaughan 9-8-24

Today my teachers invited me to wrestle with an area that challenges me. While I may want to believe in lofty-sounding ideas and ideals of oneness and unity, my mind screams against that kind of relationship with people who uphold ideas and practices that I perceive as harming others. The one teacher did start the lesson with his reflection about how much separation and division he sees in the world. However, later, other teachers pressed the point that current awareness of division only shows consciousness of separation that has gone on for centuries.

Stepping away from social-political issues, consider relating with people in daily encounters. Haven’t you ever met someone with whom you felt an instant connection? And haven’t you ever met someone who inspired automatic alienation? Everyone we meet comes to us on their best and their worst days. In the midst of our own daily lives bringing joys and sadness, we present ourselves on our best and worst days.

We have stories of heroes and villains, the Mother Theresas and the Adolph Hitlers. We create safety for ourselves by putting others into those kinds of boxes–but that risks putting ourselves into those same boxes.

What might we do to face the worst in ourselves and the worst in others?

In response to exposures to anger, rage, hatred, fear and defensiveness, we can remember forgiveness.

We may consider telling ourselves loving messages. Here are a couple for consideration.

1) My teacher inspired this today: “Life in me, sees life in you; love in me sees love in you.”

2) An ancient Buddhist prayer offers: ‘May I be happy; may I be well; may I be safe; may I be peaceful and at ease.” After that feels like something I can hear without too much resistance, I can switch the pronoun to “you” and declare: “May you be happy; may you be well; may you be safe; may you be peaceful and at ease.” I can imagine the first “you” as someone that I love or admire. When that becomes easy, I can have my next “you” refer to someone about whom I hold entirely neutral feelings (take residents of Greenland as an example). As that becomes easy, I can apply the words to someone who challenges me. Finally, I may change the prayer to one of the greatest inclusion: “May everyone be happy; may everyone be well; may everyone be safe; may everyone be peaceful and at ease.”

May you find easy paths to connection

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Moving from pieces to Peace 9-1-24

In an attempt to send wishes before the day ends, please know my gratitude for all the laborers whose work gave us this holiday and the reasons for this holiday. History reveals that individuals had gotten moved around like pieces on a gameboard. Labor movements realized the power of bringing those pieces into coordinated union. How many times have we found ourselves feeling like we or our worlds have fallen to pieces? This weekend my teachers taught me how those very moments might lead us to peace. Consider three things

First, in the experience of “seeing only pieces, but not peace,” we may wake up with a longing for inner Peace. We had previously accepted the beliefs and feelings of being separate from everything and everyone. Let’s be honest, we had gotten a lot of reinforcement to see ourselves as isolated victims, with life happening to us. We let ourselves get triggered, lounging in hurt, angry, overwhelmed, out of control feelings. Yet aren’t those very feelings almost universal. We can use those very feelings to draw close to other people in new ways beyond comiseration.

Second, we may choose to turn our attention to our desire for peace.

“Peace… does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.” –Author Unknown

Peace involves an “inner calm so complete that nothing can disturb it. The Peace which comes only from the knowledge that It is All.”–Ernest Holmes, Science of Mind Text

Third, access peace with three simple actions of Stop, Drop, and Say:

Stop whatever we are doing. Without judgment, notice how we do not feel peace and turn away from the situation.

Drop from our heads into our hearts. We can let go of anxious thoughts and focus on our breath. Let yourself calmly go within yourself.

Say what we DO want to happen. Declare Peace. We can envision only good and greater good unfolding in our world.

Here are easy messages we say to ourselves:

“I am surrounded by peace. I am immersed in peace. There is nothing but peace.” —Ernest Holmes, This Thing Called You

“Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.” —Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step

Powerful, Bold, Joy 6-23-24

Today my teachers guided us to explore the bold pathways to joy. The story Wizard of Oz can offer some keys to remembering these. In the song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” we get the reminder to keep our eyes lifted upwards, imagining possibilities even if they do not appear immediately before us. Rainbows happen in that mix of sun and rain, imbuing us with beauty and worlds carried in raindrops. Nowadays people have become accustomed to immediate gratification, like the people of Oz where the wizard hid behind curtains. Joy lives as close as our choice to breathe in this moment and revel in the lives that we actually have rather than a series of fleeting, fleeing desires. Dorothy always had power, she simply hadn’t realized or understood it.

What attitude or outlook do we carry? Dorothy had an attitude of hope in the face of difficulties. She had an outlook of helping and finding help all the ways along her journey. We do well when we remember how we choose our attitudes and outlooks. Have we ever complained and whined and later realized how much better it felt when we passed over those shortcuts to soothing ourselves? Victimhood does not help us find our powers and capacities. The simple solution to leaving our whiny, complaint-filled victimization comes from the simple direction, “Stop it.”

Willingness reflects what Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tinman, and Cowardly Lion embraced when they took steps into their journeys. They engaged with the unknown, the unfamiliar, the road less-traveled. The simple choice to bring our willingness opens us to previously unknown joys.

In the story obstacles came up. In our lives we find our paths blocked and what we hoped would happen did not. Despite those, we can persist and persevere. Counting failure as proof of progress lets us remember each small step forward. Simply take the next possible step, then the step after that, and the step after that. Keeping on and recovering captures the characteristic of resilience.

Maybe we have fears, but rather than claiming the name Cowardly Lion, we can call ourselves courageous. We face our fears and move forward. We may deliberately envision our daily good coming to us. In the story, the Wizard sent Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tinman and Courageous Lion on the task to defeat the Wicked Witch of the West. It was Dorothy who overcame what the Great and Powerful Oz could not defeat. She did not act to harm the witch, but to protect her friend.

Listening to our own inner wisdom, following our own path lets us discover ourselves as Great and Powerful.

May you delight in your powerful, bold joy.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Celebrating the Masculine 6-16-24

Today my teachers acknowledged Father’s Day. One had written, “Here’s to fathers, to those who waited anxiously while we were being born, to those who indulged in some distant fling and didn’t even know they were fathers. Here’s to them all anyway. Whether or not they were good and thoughtful parents, they made it possible for us to come into life, and for that alone they deserve some credit.”

Consider the stories of fathers and our own fathers. We have our ideals, our ideas, our wishes and our disappointments. For example, my father far surpassed the actions and examples of his own father, dedicating himself to times with me and my sister. Yet, his skills as a husband took many years beyond his marriage to my mother to evolve into a man of fidelity and faithfulness.

We might look at masculinity in context with femininity. Both make us whole. With the masculine, we may find action, endurance, rationality, confidence, and boundaries. Excesses that have emerged with toxic patriarchy do not need to trap and imprison us. Who inspires the best in us to breakthrough to new possibilities?

My teacher shared seven qualities:

1) Leadership that guides us.

2) Resilience that uncovers strength through adversity.

3) Reason that brings light.

4) Protection that upholds others’ safety and well-being.

5) Emotional strength that gives space for vulnerability.

6) Purposeful direction and intent that takes responsibility for all impacts.

7) Accountability that has us owning our actions.

I wish you the best as you honor the masculine within yourself and within others. I praise your love in action, in all that you say and do

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

What Lights You Up and Sets You on Fire 6-9-24

Creation offers us lives with gusto and verve. In this month of Juneteenth we take the inspiration of Harriet Tubman who made a way out of her extreme circumstances and experiences. Things become possible, including the seemingly impossible with attitudes, outlooks, willingness, perseverance, persistence, and resilience.

Today my teachers asked “What things have set our hearts on fire? Where does that fire come from?” They suggested that our inner knowledge connects us to Life, Power, Wisdom, Beauty, Truth. This knowledge leads and guides us to illuminating intuitive insights, firing us up and comforting us through the appearance of darkness, doubt and confusion.

Consider four points with the acronym F-I-R-E:

Fire in the Belly represents a purpose that drives our actions forward towards specific goals, visions, clear paths and directions. How do we find our own fire in the belly?” We simply have to know who we are, whose we are, and what’s available to us. With affirmations, having fire in the belly inspires our knowledge of affirmations as successful and complete right now.

Inspiration thrills and uplifts us. It focuses our feelings, letting us direct them to advance our hearts’ desires.

“(Fired Up,) Ready to Go!” conveys Edith Childs’s chant that President Obama adopted in his 2012 campaign. Obama said, “One voice can change the room. If you can change the room, you can change a city. If you can change a city, you can change a state. If you can change a state, you can change a nation. If you can change a nation, you can change the world.” When we change the world, we can make it a better place for all. When we lean into the possibilities of anything, we ready ourselves to go into whatever life brings us. We stay fired up, ready, willing, and able to do what we need to do.

Exposing our vulnerabilitylets usengage in personal evolution and development. When we own our vulnerability, humility, and openness, we can heal and learn. We find new perspectives and access to other people formerly kept at a distance. Exposing our hearts allows the truth to sink in quietly while lighting the flame of life gently within.

Let’s enjoy ourselves as we find the inner fire in the belly to push through anything that might deter, slow, or stop us. Inspiration for a new vision can guide us to move through or around roadblocks or obstacles. When we fire up and make ourselves ready to go, we naturally step beyond our comfort zones trying new or different ways out of no way. Exposing our vulnerabilities lets us draw support we may not have imagined to keep the fire within burning and light others’ fires.

Affirmation: I live fired up and fully ready to go.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Celebrate Living Boldly and Audaciously 6-2-24

Happy Pride and Juneteenth Month! My teacher spoke about how we anticipate the coming season by living with gusto, verve and creativity. He talked about the inspiration of Harriet Tubman whose vitality delivered her and 70 family members and friends into freedom. Her bold leadership changed her life and the lives of so many other people.

While none of us have found ourselves enslaved like Ms. Tubman, how many of us unwittingly choose slavery to ideas, feelings, and habits? How many of us worry about what others think about us and how many of us have forsaken our hearts’ desires? How much have we let fear separate ourselves from the unique and marvelous creativity destined to emerge from each of us alone?

Please believe that these questions do not come from a place of any judgment, but from the experience of denying my own identity. Good grief, I got married to a woman wanting to believe that my disinterest in “physical closeness,” with her reflected my adherence to my religious heritage–a crazed notion in the context when many Catholic families had many children proving a pronounced interest in “physical closeness.”

Some acts of boldness like introducing myself to strangers, traveling in other countries, or parachuting from 14,000 feet came more easily than accepting my queer, nonbinary self. And yet, those practice steps had let me become increasingly authentic. This is a lifelong practice.

The teacher, Earnest Holmes taught, “Change your thinking, change your life.” His students expanded his ideas by founding centers and proposing heart-centered practices of “creating a world that works for everyone.”

What if we become increasingly conscious of our thoughts?

What thoughts might we want to change?

What if we do what we don’t think we can do?

What if we cultivate trust that life can express itself through us?

What happens if we state what we want and meditate on it.

What do we become if we take our worn-out negative stories and shift them?

I celebrate your bold, courageous bravery.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Empowering Vision 5-26-24

Today my teachers discussed how we can use vision to set our path. For example, following the civil war, families of survivors envisioned celebrating the people who died in the war. It took a vision greater than loss to celebrate lives. This new way to look at the world inspired a communal movement from Good to Great to Grand. We have carried it forward with each Memorial day.

After George Floyd’s murder four years ago, Stephanie Dillon posed these visionary questions to those who want to end oppression.“How do I treat others? Do my practices align with my values? How am I holding others accountable?” Perhaps, most importantly, “Who am I when no one is looking?” Consider these three practices:

First, taking alone-time lets us see ourselves, our thoughts, beliefs, and actions when no one else is looking. In such times, we tap into our inner wisdom. We can accept our own enormity and magnificence. By releasing our needs for external validation, we can begin to recognize how our vision impacts the interwoven threads of humanity. When we consciously align our internal and external landscapes, we shape both our own individual and our collective shared lives.

Second, creating spaces both within and around usfrees us and others to explore our own and others’ authentic selves. This calls us to cultivate empathy, compassion, and deep respect for others’ individuality. Embracing this created space not only empowers others to bloom into their fullest expression but also contributes to the collective bouquet of our lives. Audre Lourde had written, “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” We may always have fear, but that doesn’t mean that we have to let it control us.

Finally, by embracing our authenticity we extend ourselves beyond words to active demonstrations of support and acceptance. We act to create inclusive and nurturing environments where individuals freely explore their authentic selves. We expand beyond the boundaries of mere tolerance when we accept and celebrate. Our actions make us change-catalysts who dismantle societal barriers and empower others’ unapologetic pursuit of passions and aspirations. With our acts of encouragement, support, and celebration, we foster a culture of acceptance and empowerment. “Let your vision be world embracing rather than confined to your own self.” – Bahá’u’lláh

If you make time for yourself what do you discover in the practices of empathy, compassion, and acceptance towards yourself and others? Having searched for your own freedom, what societal barriers and limitations will you dismantle? How do you feel allowing and cultivating environments where more and more individuals feel seen, heard, and celebrated?

I acknowledge and affirm how we create spaces for authentic self expression in ourselves and others

Alignment, intention, and activation Inbox + Reading 5-19-24

Reading: https://www.streetdirectory.com/etoday/-ejaejj.html#

Today’s talk on YouTube will come out as soon as I can download it. Like other things today, I am having issues.

How often do we hear the idea that this new day opens us to limitless opportunities? Today my teacher addressed some life challenges confronting her as a woman of color. A former boss had sent her on a retreat for folks like her who have found circumstances constraining them. Our (racist, misogynistic) society proposes that nebulous dreamscapes exist, available to all. However, in fact, society continues throwing obstacles in the way of that promised land. Consider that the promised land represents a place where we would actually arrive, where goals would get met. The retreat helped my teacher strip away that mythic conclusion. As we live and meet goals, new goals naturally arise. Even if we become still, our bodies continue to have the movement of breath and heartbeat. From a distance we may imagine stillness, but up close, the movement of life vibrates.

Rather than setting our hearts on others’ dreams, each day may allow us to explore our own personal beliefs and values. My teacher has chosen to pursue her call as an artist–leading her to spend time in studios and classes. She has chosen to speak up about the good in her life rather than shutting up to maintain or advance the comfort of others.

She offered these questions:

How familiar am I with my own values and beliefs?

What is driving me?

What do I want?

What do I want to create?

What’s important to me?

What do I choose to do right here and right now?

What’s unclear?

How is my ego (e.g., need to be right) contributing to this lack of clarity?

What do I fear most in this situation and why?

What would my mentor/teacher/guide/inspiring person do right now?

While answering these questions, consider this claim: “We don’t learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on our experience.”

Therefore, my dear friends, let’s know ourselves, stay conscious and awake to our identities, and make the connections to live in integrity among our intentions, our actions and our impacts

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Living our Values 5-12-24

Today, my teachers addressed the two topics of celebrating mothers on Mother’s Day and knowing our values to guide our deliberate life choices.

If you are a mother, please take a breath this moment and feel thanks and encouragement for how you’ve opened spaces in your life to nurture and love. This has shaped the past, present and future. If you have a mother living in this world with us, this moment may invite you to reach out wishing them a happy day and expressing gratitude for how your life brings you goodness and joy with their presence. If your mother has passed on, consider how her example may continue to offer guidance and direction.

Here are six ways to love our mothers: 1) unconditionally; 2) affectionately; 3) sympathetically; 4) attentively; 5) cheerfully; and 6) gratefully. Whatever feelings, thoughts and stories we carry about our mothers, can we grow our feelings, thoughts, and stories looking to our own growing changing lives as guides that things can change?

Many of us may carry our values that we learned from our mothers. For example, one daughter delighted in how her mother always made a point of including and welcoming friends and possible friends.

We can recognize our values when we consider our attention, our passion and our beliefs. Where do we focus? What do we perceive and what do we prioritize? What stirs us, excites us, and lights us up? What puts the fire in our bellies. What seems as the undeniable, unquestionable truth to us? What central assumptions serve as the foundation for our feelings, thoughts, and stories?

Paying attention to our values allows us to leap beyond mere words into authentic, passionate actions.

Thank you for all the ways you nurture and inspire me!

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan

Our Inner Life–Getting Better All the Time 5-5-24

This month my teachers are offering guidance about going from Good to Great to Grand. We can arrive at our better selves by asking: 1 Where are we? 2 What do we value?, 3) How can we live those values? Today my teachers proposed three actions for knowing ourselves: observing, getting curious, and discovering

First, observing ourselves without judgment lets us cultivate self-awareness and deepen understanding of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Observation lets us uncover hidden beliefs, fears, and desires shaping our lives. Observation empowers us to detach from limiting stories, to embrace our true potential, and to act and choose consciously and authentically. Observing the cosmos expands our perspectives so we can view all of life’s interconnectedness–the essential idea of “the Force,” introduced with the Star Wars’ phenomena. On May Fourth, some people declare the wish, “May the Force Be With You!” May all the power of the universe belong to you.

Second, the process of getting curious catalyzes our growth and expansion. Curiosity can push us beyond the boundaries of our comfort zones. Curiosity lets us welcome new ideas, perspectives, meanings, and experiences. Willingness to stay curious opens the doors to wisdom, insights, and profound truths which had seemed unreachable.

Finally, discovering ourselves connects us to our strengths, values, desires, and passions. Self-discovery buildsself-awareness. Self-discovery reveals the basis of our beliefs. Ernest Holmes wrote “The road to self-discovery often calls for the clearing away of the underbrush of ignorance, fear, superstition, and a sense of isolation which makes us feel unworthy, unheld, and lost. In the … providence of good… we merely discover… (what) needs to be found.” Self-discovery cultivates a deeper connection with ourselves and the world around us, fostering compassion, love, and a profound sense of interconnectedness. Discovery lets us address the mysteries of the universe.

I invite us to observe, get curious, and discover so we can welcome rejuvenated lives, and our fascinating, mysterious universe.

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

What if We Live in a Gentle Cosmos? 4-28-24

Today my teachers reminded me of Carl Sagan’s quote, “Cosmos is a Greek word for the order of the universe. It is, in a way, the opposite of Chaos. It implies the deep interconnectedness of all things.” This contradicts the belief in the universe as “dog-eat-dog,” inherently separate and dangerous.

Maybe danger and discord shows up because of thoughts we consciously or unconsciously hold. My teachers don’t try to pretend that struggles and suffering don’t happen, but that we can navigate our ways through them by remembering that life may come to us as opportunities for enjoyment, celebrating wins, and living as fully as possible. What happens when we focus on our connections, seeing our differences as stretching and expanding out perceptions?

Our own connection to the cosmos may shape our lives in the cosmos. If we consider that possibility, here are three ways to increase our trust in the universe:

First we can recognize how the very cosmo exists within us. The cells and molecules of our bodies come from stardust. The universe is not merely an external force, but our most internal essence. We may realize that we can trust the universe as much as we learn to trust ourselves.

Second, we can choose to let go of what has prevented us from stepping up. We can practice approaching our fears, limiting beliefs, and old habits and we can come out of hiding.

Finally, we can acknowledge that the universe will serve us, without necessarily pleasing us. Sometimes our unanswered desires may perfectly fulfill our needs.

May your trust in yourself and the universe surprise you and give you new opportunities for joy and celebration

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Community, Attention and Praise 4-21-24

My teachers asked “What if love exists anywhere and everywhere as the basis of our very essence and identity?” When we turn our focus to love through our daily habits and actions, we may shine love into the world and perceive more love in our lives. Consider these three ways to express gentle love with the acronym “C.A.P.”

First, “C” stands for COMMUNITY. Gentleness guides us in our relationships with ourselves and with others. If we wake up in the morning, our community starts by looking at ourselves in the mirror and appreciating us. Cultivating gentleness makes us more aware of who we are and who we want to be. Also by growing self-compassion and love, we forgive ourselves when we fall short of our own standards. When we know and appreciate ourselves more, we are willing to change our perceptions and we take things less personally. We move in our communities with greater awareness and deeper love. Community offers places of belonging. We understand what philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson suggested that great people come to us, so that even greater people arise from within us.

Second, “A” gives us the beginning of “ATTENTION.“Gentleness guides our attention and perceptions. What we focus on we get more of. So we get to be aware of what we watch, read, and pay attention to. Social media platforms operate on this law of mind with algorithms feeding us. Do we use our accounts to connect with people, to support one another, to celebrate successes and milestones. Do we celebrate or recoil from the diversity of ideas and people on our social media accounts? Do we remember that everyone in our feed has a right to their own opinions even if we disagree with them. And with gentleness we consider whether our time on social media is quality time or wasted time. Lisa Nichols asked, “How much sense does it make for us to give the problem all the energy as opposed to focusing on trust, loving, … peace.”

The final letter “P,” launches PRAISE. Gentleness guides us to act rather than react. Mystic, Emma Curtis Hopkins wrote, “If I were to be asked directly as to the quickest way for a Scientist to get their healing power going, I would probably say ‘Praise, everything and everyone in your mind, and as far as your mental convictions will demonstrate promptly, speak these praises aloud.’”

You might ask, “How can I praise annoyances?” However, this reveals a misunderstanding of Curtis Hopkins’s proposal. She had not suggested that we praise the events of life, but praise life itself, our health, our abundance, and even our enemies by looking beyond their actions to their identities. Consider the child who made a mess and whose teacher scolded her, “You are a mess!” The child retorted, “I may have made a mess, but I AM NOT A MESS.”

Praising everything shifts our attention to the Good we may experience, instead of focusing on what we consider as wrong. Emma wrote, “Complaining and whining are only exhibitions of great dessert spots in your character. You must fill up deserts with rain and fertilizer. So, you must transform your moments of complaining by praise and descriptions of the Good in the Universe. …”

What might happen if we look for the good in every experience so we can praise everyone and everything. This does not mean masking our feelings, but respecting and looking beneath them for their cause. Be gentle and forgiving to ourselves for everything. We are works in progress, constantly revealing the greater self in every part of our journeys.

I breathe loving kindness and gentleness into every aspect of my life. Please join me in that breath.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Becoming and Being Gentle 4-14-24

Today, my teacher shared a series of stories to help me understand gentleness. She recounted how her mentor responded to a rude, impatient server at a restaurant. He asked her if she was alright and if she needed something. She curtly responded that nothing was wrong with her. He proceeded to ask her if she customarily treated customers the way she had treated them. That brought her to pause and then shift how she spoke for the remainder of the meal. The mentor responded to mistreatment with curiosity instead of escalating hostility.

Who among us has not encountered conflicts and folks who seem to thrive on conflict? Who has missed out on someone looking for and perhaps even finding our emotional buttons and triggers? My teacher described how her father customarily has engaged through conflict. She has spent decades offering him other ways to consider situations. However, recently, she found that refraining from saying anything let her move to other topics and take their conversations in new directions.

The founder of my teachings, Ernest Holmes said, “Compassion is the most gentle of all human virtues.” Compassion allows us to see all of life through a different lens–beyond what the Sufi poet Rumi described as the field beyond right and wrong. My teacher had disagreed with a co-worker about everything imaginable. Encounters with him left her feeling exhausted. However, she had a dream where he turned into a baby who needed her care. In the dream she began to care for him. After she woke, she saw him in a new way, more open to his potential needs. What are our own challenging situations and circumstances teaching us? What might we learn from them? How might they enable us to grow? When we feel overwhelmed and believe in the only possible outcomes of shame, guilt, or regret, we may lose ourselves and our capacities for compassion and gentleness. However, my teacher offered four steps to steer ourselves towards compassion and gentleness.

First examine ourselves for what we are thinking. Do we really need to respond defensively?

Second, when we do respond we can speak gently as modeled by the aforementioned mentor. For example, we might ask, “How are you? Is something going on?”

Third, be open and be authentic. If something has hurt us, we can claim that without turning ourselves into helpless, hapless victims.

Finally, we can “stand our ground,” and stop hedging. Sometimes we may need to leave the situation to regain our composure, and recognize our inner strength to return and see our way through the situation.

I wish you joy as you come to recognize how your own gentleness may be a hitherto untried superpower

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

New, Now, Next 3-24-24

My teachers invited me to consider how we can step into the Truth of greatness beyond our imaginations. What do we think and feel, seeing ourselves as Life’s own experience and expression of Itself in, through, and as us? Consider the three phases of new, now and next.

First, with a NEW way of living we advance from merely “surviving” to “thriving.” Survival has locked into habits of pre-judgement, fear, and separation. Yet, releasing fear lets us move beyond separation and division. The natural world with life all around us provides lessons in inclusion and connection. Thriving fruit trees exchange carbon dioxide with oxygen giving creatures breath. Bees pollinate tree blooms that feed the bees. The resulting fruit nourishes birds and animals. They scatter seeds that grow into new trees. How might we more consciously practice that kind of connection with each other and all life?

Second, our newness leads us to NOW. Big ideas and experiences such as wholeness, love, and abundance are not only available to us, they represent who and what we are! Truth that big cannot simply sit inside us; we must express it outward into the world. What Emerson termed “divine discontent” pushes us into inner commitment and outer action. We evolve from “getting,” to “having,” to “being.” We can ask our inner wisdom, “What is ours to do?” Then we may choose to act upon its answer! Will Rogers said, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

Finally, this brings us to NEXT. “Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.” Our tasks don’t change, but the consciousness we bring changes. The inner Truth of who and what we are – wholeness, love, and abundance expressing and experiencing as us remains.

Thank you for reflecting to me wholeness, love, and abundance.

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

Diving Deep Into Our Good 3-17-24

Today my teacher told a story about the kinds of first-world troubles that unsettle our moods. On a planned trip, she arrived at her hotel finding no one there to check her in. When the concierge finally emerged, she couldn’t find the reservation and offered the wrong size room. The elevator didn’t work, requiring a climb up 56 steps with luggage weighing them down. Key did not work and the concierge couldn’t offer any advice wanting to rely on the manager who could not be found. Climbs up and down the 56 steps eventually led to finding the manager who eventually used oil on the lock to open the door.

However, how did my teacher choose to face the challenges? She resisted temptations to lean into frustration and chose to simply wait and let things work out. “I let go of being in the way of things working out.”

In our lives, we take countless things for granted. Did we have food, water, shelter, rest, and opportunities for activities today? Do we have people in our lives who will offer us guidance and support in the face of struggles and questions?

My teacher also recounted how a person longed to find a livelihood that kept them inspired and prospered. They found a class with the target of supporting dreams. Yet while classmates found their dreams, the person remained empty handed. The class instructor questioned if the person was looking too far ahead and might be better served by answering the question, “What do I love now?”

How often do we find ourselves working too hard to figure things out?

Consider this proposition that teachers Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker offered, “Ideas are coming to me at every instant and they offer me a greater portion of life than I have now. I accept them and increase my good.”

What do we feel when we pose questions starting, “What if?”

I believe that the world around me has intelligence and wisdom within it and that same level of intelligence and wisdom lives in me.

I celebrate and give thanks for how much your intelligence and wisdom brings to my life.

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

Up Until Now 3-10-24

Who hasn’t heard the expression, the good, the bad, the ugly? We all have pasts filled with sources of pride and shame. Those pasts can serve as markers or guides for new choices and new ways to go forward. When we catch ourselves starting a story, “I’ve always…” that cues us to the fact that we have become comfortable with our discomfort and that we may not see how to acknowledge and move beyond our pasts.

My teacher proposed four ways to acknowledge and grow from our past.

First, we can see ourselves as bigger than our pasts. We can see what has fallen behind us and we can choose to select which lessons deserve to come forward. We can choose the baggage that we carry and what we might be able to release.

Second, we can recognize that we got to this moment by coming through our pasts. Our histories can challenge us to learn skills, while giving us pause to celebrate all the sources of support we have received.

Third, our pasts can show us how to change our present and our future. How often do we find ourselves stuck in old stories or future worries? Catching those moments lets us learn where and how we can go. We can stop being stuck and come back to the moment.

Finally, we can focus on what encourages us to grow and become more. What works of imagination and inspiration might support us in our growth? What would we tell younger versions of ourselves so they could have made better choices? When do we limit ourselves and try to convince ourselves we’re too much ____ or too little ___ ?

While we may not have done certain things before, we live in a universe filled with possibilities. We can replace, “I’ve never…” with “Up until now…” We can make and take the time to carry lessons from our past to become bigger than what our imaginations considered as possible.

Enjoy every opportunity to release the past and claim higher and happier experiences.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Seize Each Brand New Day 3-3-24

Myteachers invited me to remember the gift of each new day, asking about my feelings and thoughts upon waking. Did I choose gratitude for the fresh start offered with the new day? Or did I rail against the weights of regrets or anxieties? My teachers have believed in life as an ever unfolding pattern with opportunities to grow from expanding, unfolding viewpoints. This leads me to take three steps.

First, I continually grow and change; I might as well do it consciously. Growing up, how many habits did I adopt and how many beliefs did I simply accept as truths? Growing consciously simply means I can look at my habits and beliefs. I may conclude that my life calls me to stretch into bigger ideas, feelings and ways of being. For example, I never heard anything about “nonbinary,” but as a child I never felt like the divisions between boys and girls made sense. This subjected me to a fair share of bullying and reactive strategizing for how to avoid others’ scrutiny. Turning on curiosity and interest in others often shut down others from looking too closely at me.

Second, I practice seeing myself as a gift life gives Itself. My experience of life, my unique expression in the world serves as one of countless ways that life itself expresses itself. No one else brings my unique perspective, gifts and experiences to creation. When I entertain the idea of myself as a gift, it empowers me to move with greater confidence and joy.

Third, I decide and choose each new day. I can re-choosemy thoughts and feelings about myself and our world. What old stories do I carry forward? What new perspectives might I adopt? Making changes (suddenly or gradually) serves like a treasure hunt finding both courage and curiosity to embrace new ways of showing up for life. I can choose to release old patterns and self-imposed limitations and experience fresh possibilities. With kindness, I remind myself that my old habits and ideas which look “wrong,” represent my best (if limited) efforts at previous times with the perspectives available to me back then.

Affirmation: I seize this day and embrace its unlimited possibilities

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Finding Resilience With Our Pain 2-25-24

Over the past two weeks, my teachers presented me with ways to use my thoughts, feelings and beliefs to let pain support change and movement in my life rather than functioning as obstacles and obstructions. Pain can push me forward, while hope for something different can pull me forward.

We may imagine ourselves as people embracing change and growth; how often might this involve a certain amount of storytelling. Unfortunately, when we find ourselves in the midst of suffering, how frequently do we find ourselves wishing for some better past times and experiences?

Consider these pieces of advice.

“Learn to step so far beyond your comfort zone that you forget how to come back.”

“I’m not telling you it will be easy, but it will be worth it.”

While our discomfort may contribute to feeling powerless or lost, it may, in fact, empower us to move into deeper self-knowledge and understanding of the human condition. We can face the source of discomfort and seek to learn how we have some responsibility for our experience. If we spend time considering our parts in something and we cannot recognize any ways we contributed to the events, then we may look to humanity’s collective unconscious. We can shine light on what we have accepted as truth or as “the way it is.”

How do we breathe through our pain and call on new capacities, choosing to work and take actions, seeking and making meaning? Our capacities to call forth creativity, resourcefulness, flexibility let us challenge negative thoughts, feelings and judgements. We can believe in our abilities to hold growth mindsets. We can affirm ourselves for what we bring to the world with our kindness, intelligence and importance. We can catch ourselves when we compare ourselves with others and we can stop ourselves. We can look at our discomfort as proving grounds for our capacities.

Whatever pain we face, I join with you to celebrate your resilience and evolving capacities

Respectfully

Rev Vaughan

Where Comfort Ends, Transformation Begins 2-11-24

My teachers shared how once upon a time, in the small town of Nutbush, Tennessee, Zelma Currie and Floyd Bullock welcomed the third daughter to their family, Anna Mae Bullock. She discovered her passion for music, chased her dreams, joined a local church choir, honed her vocal talents and sang with her sisters in St. Louis nightclubs. Getting the microphone from a bands’ drummer during intermission, Anna Mae’s singing captured the band leader’s attention. So much raw talent and charismatic stage presence impressed Ike Turner who offered her a place in his band.

Anna Mae, re-christened as “Tina,” (a name rhyming with Sheena [of the Jungle]) partnered with Ike on and off stage. However, Ike treated her in the same way her father had treated her mother, imposing physical and emotional control, abuse, and violence. After years of pain and fear, Anna Mae found the courage to leave the abusive relationship and everything else but her stage name. Tina faced rejection, financial struggles, and personal battles. Yet she never let those challenges define her. Instead, Tina channeled her pain into her music, conveying her heart and soul in every performance. Therefore, in the early 1980s, Tina soared to unprecedented heights with her electrifying performances, powerful vocals, and unwavering spirit. Her hits “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” “Private Dancer,” and “Simply the Best,” dominated the charts.

Tina Turner’s story portrays more than overcoming personal hardships with her resilience, triumph, and empowerment. By fearlessly sharing her experiences and overcoming adversity, she inspired countless individuals. Beyond her musical achievements, Tina’s legacy extends to her unwavering advocacy against domestic violence, using her platform and her own experiences to raise awareness and support for victims of abuse, becoming a beacon of hope for those trapped in similar circumstances.

Consider Tina Turner’s example as backdrop to three choices we can make:

First, we can explore how our familiar, routine comfort zones serve as windows on our fears and resistances. In the midst of safe and secure feelings, how much do we stagnate? To Confront Fear and Resistance look for the places where we fight, flee, or freeze. Engage failure as learning and growing opportunities. Ernest Holmes proposed, “Fear brings limitation and lack in its wake … (Life) is more completely expressed through the person who lives largely than through the one who lives meagerly” ~ The Science of Mind Textbook, (p. 404.2 print version)

Second, we can Overcome Limiting Beliefs and Self-Imposed Boundaries by cultivating mindfulness (using meditation, affirmations, visualization, journaling and self-reflection). We can seek guidance from mentors to support us. Eighteenth century philosopher and judge Thomas Troward proposed, “Belief in limitation is the one and only thing that causes limitation.” Let’s ask ourselves what limiting beliefs could be holding us back and keeping us small. We can accept Annette White’s advice, “Each time you try something for the first time you will grow – a little piece of the fear of the unknown is removed and replaced with a sense of empowerment.”

Finally, we can Expand Boundaries and Embrace New Experiences. We have the story of Tina Turner. How about Rev. Michael King who found inspiration and changed his and his son’s names to Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King, Jr.? How about prisoner Little who had a teacher tell him black men couldn’t become educated leaders, yet he became Malcolm X? Stretching beyond familiar boundaries allows for personal transformation, expanded awareness, and realization of our potential. Celebrate every victory. Take inspired actions with clear intentions. Identify specific activities that evoke hesitancy or discomfort, and make a conscious effort to engage with them. Let’s start small, gradually accepting challenges that let us build confidence and resilience.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Taking Charge of Our Discomfort 2-4-24

Today my teachers encouraged me to look at the discomforts occurring in my life as calls towards creativity and expansion.

Consider Carter G. Woodson who initiated Negro History Week back in 1926, drawing on established Black communities’ celebrations that honored the times between President Lincoln’s and Frederick Douglass’ birthdays. While countless Black community members had contributed to civilization’s advancement, historical focus on individual heroes had long eclipsed that truth. Today, book bans have disproportionately targeted Black authors and stories. How naturally this creates discomfort.

What other factors contribute to our current discomforts?

How easy to recognize physical challenges with lacks of water, sleep, food, or healthy functioning. How often might we respond with anger or resentment rather than finding thanks for past and possible future physical wellbeing?
Our emotional stress occurs consciously or unconsciously. Fear, worry, and anger all arise. Rumi had written, “This being human is a guest house, Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honorably.”
We invariably confront unfamiliar environments and settings. Our unique characteristics (such as racial, sexual, or political) land us in those environments with different privileges and capacities.

We have three ways to navigate our discomforts. First, conscious awareness of ourselves and our reactions lets us observe our thoughts, feelings, patterns and habits.

Second, by seeing our thoughts, feelings and beliefs we can release what fails to serve us. We have choices that can serve us.

Finally with our consciousness, we can embrace our power to change, to join with the ever-changing universe. Sometimes our response may involve resistance; however, when we finally recognize the futility of resistance we might move forward with ease.

We might tell ourselves: I expand beyond my comfort zone and trust the goodness in the universe to support me through and beyond every discomfort.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Feeling Good 1-28-24

My teachers proposed that I choose each day as an opportunity for feeling good. During this best year of my life, each new dawn, new day, new life and new me happens when I find and become my authentic self. As children, many of us learned to become what others expect. We may have believed that only by pleasing and satisfying others would we survive in the world. However, that process and those habits often cut us off from ourselves. In The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote, ”Facing the truth liberates us to build the society we wish to be.”

Performer Lil Nas X described how he spent some time performing during his 23rd year seeking a new version of himself to fulfill his desire to become even more alive. His song “Where Do We Go Now” addresses how we may open doors that have shut us inside and kept us small. Feeling good means we can take the hero’s and “shero’s” journeys to overcome our smallness, fears, and limitations.

Take a moment to consider the heroic folks who have inspired and uplifted you. How many of us have learned that others’ heroics attract us because they reflect our own strengths and capacities? How often do we express thanks to our heroes and “sheroes”? How will our days start when we bother to acknowledge our own heroics? The teacher Ernest Holmes proposed, “Find me one person who is for something and against nothing, who is redeemed enough not to condemn others … and I will find … an exalted human being. Find me one person who no longer has any fear of the universe … or of anything else and you will have brought to me someone in whose presence we may sit and fear shall vanish as clouds before the sunlight…. Find me someone who has given all that they have in love, …and I will have found the lover of my soul.”

As heroes and “sheroes” we have the power to create and contribute to worlds that work for everyone and everything! We can step up and be our true authentic selves, building an authentic society that overcomes past failures with future possibilities.

In Gratitude,

Rev. Vaughan

Every New Day Renewed With Our Thoughts and Words 1-21-24

In Gratitude,

Rev. Vaughan

Every New Day Renewed With Our Thoughts and Words 1-21-23

We don’t necessarily give much thought about each new morning. We may even find ourselves struggling from things like lack of sleep or not enough coffee to wake us. Yet even the notion of struggle reflects beliefs in how the world does and should operate. How many of us think that struggle and pain is simply a natural part of life? We’ve accepted how good and bad come as a logical package, like kindness and cruelty, plenty and lack, found and lost.

What other stories might we tell ourselves?

We can start the day with this simple direction: “Remember to be kind to myself.” This would encourage us to watch our thoughts and self-talk. Humans emerged from a past filled with dangers and that meant the habit of a negativity bias served as a kind of protection. However, the extent of those dangers and risks have changed when our thinking habits have not.

We can powerfully live the lives we want to live by paying attention to the longings of our hearts and minds. What greatness might life express if our longings come into form?

If we want improved relationships, perhaps that means that more love or peace comes into the world. If we want better health and well-being, perhaps that gives expression for a more and fuller life. If we want to know more about our world, perhaps this is more truth or wisdom.

Remember the power of thinking as demonstrated when Dr, Biasiotto created three groups and observed their performance for basketball free throws. The first group practiced physically every day for an hour, The second group visualized making the throws. The third group did nothing. Testing 30 days later revealed a 24% improvement in the first group, a 23% improvement in the second group, and no improvement in the third group.

We can look to our hearts’ longings so that we can focus our thoughts and feelings. Giving it a try costs nothing apart from a little dedicated time.

Let’s tell ourselves, “We know our words have power. We use them wisely.”

Have a great new day!

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day 1-14-24

On days when we commemorate and celebrate people, we may review how their work has shifted the world. We might also look at how the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. calls us to live a fuller, more powerful life. He gives us an invitation to change ourselves and our world that goes so much farther than a single day of remembering.

Sunday my teacher invited me to follow Dr. MLK by pushing against the social strictures of racism and sexism, to keep evolving beyond comfort zones, to remain open to growth and expansion. What unconscious biases have blinded and bound me? When I find myself feeling passionate about issues, what actions am I willing to take?

With each new day, how much do I fall into unconscious routines, busily sustaining tired, old ways of doing things. My level of excitement and passion about my life cues me into that? My relationships, my work, my health may all serve as sources of tremendous energy and enthusiasm.

We may not feel refreshed with each new day, yet our lives keep giving us new days. Perhaps past failures have led us to keeping our heads down, working to avoid future opportunities to fail. Maybe we’ve let ourselves put inordinate focus on regrets in our past and fears about our future. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. showed us how to live tirelessly, pushing through failures and fears. If we imagine he did not face insurmountable odds, then we’ve shut down our imaginations.

Dr. MLK worked within how many different communities, inspiring others and drawing inspiration from others. What are our communities, our inspirations? Who can support us? To what extent are we valuing ourselves enough to care for ourselves?

Consider repeating after me: With each new day, I believe that anything is possible. I will keep giving effort and holding onto hope.

Gratefully,

Rev Vaughan Amare’

Wishing You a “Grand Rising” 1-7-24

As we rise into this new year, we might shake off yesterday’s dust to co-create a world that works for ourselves and others. My teachers shared this story of youths at a homeless shelter. To navigate their challenges, they leaned on daily practices like posting vision boards, seeking wisdom, and using affirmations. One of them discovered the “Grand Rising,” greeting popular among black community members on TikTok. The youths explained to shelter staff that rather than beginning days with a good morning (reminding them of their mournful, disappointing lives), they wanted to experience a Grand Rising. They created a large poster for their room, greeting everyone with a “Grand Rising”.

What might we experience if we replaced our unconsidered, merely “Good Mornings,” with the more expansive “Grand Rising?” How would our days and the rest of our lives unfold, simply by leaning into the beauty and grandeur of each new day? These questions lead to three considerations.

First, we can access the power of our intentions. The concept of New Years’ resolutions frequently involves changing habits in our lives, practices that fade from most people’s lives within weeks. By contrast, we can understand intentions like seeds that we plant to cultivate the lives we desire. With each grand rising, we can incorporate a daily practice of identifying intentions. Caroline Webb, author of “How to Have a Good Day” proposed these step and questions:

Aim: What matters most today, and how does that help me set my priorities?

Attitude: What concerns dominate my thoughts or my mood? Do they help me with my priorities–and if not, can I choose to set them aside for now?

Assumptions: What negative expectations do I carry? How might I challenge those expectations? What counter evidence might I seek out?

Attention: Where do I most want to direct my attention? What might I notice and look for?”

Second, everyday we can start anew. We might look at the day ahead and feel our responsibilities and “to-do,” lists overwhelming us. Alternatively, we might remember how each new day may arrive providing us with new strength and new opportunities. How do we choose to face the new day with our very best?

Finally, we might recognize that just as we get renewed each day, the whole world renews. The global pandemic has forever changed our way of life. In the midst of these times, people have seen and raised challenges to oppressive social structures. Yet, other people have fought to uphold those structures, rallying against better lives for people they have dismissed and held in contempt. What kind of world do we want to create? We can start with a single moment and a single action. William Blake invited us years ago, “… see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

Proposed Affirmation: I start each day with a Grand Rising, embodying my powerful, creative intentions!

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Happy New Year 12-31-23

In this holiday season and time of fresh starts, my teachers have offered guidance and encouragement. Sharing about these ideas has proven difficult as these times hold emotional triggers for me. Back in 1996, a person lost their life in such a way that allowed me to receive transplanted organs from them. My mom who has since passed away happened to travel in the same plane that carried the new organs to me. While the new life granted me serves as the greatest possible gift, there’s a level of responsibility to live my life for myself and for the person and their family members who made the choice to keep me alive.

One of my teachers reminded me that this holiday season brings us both our hopes and our needs. We also use this time to respond to the hopes and needs of others.

Another teacher focused on how we respond to the longest nights of the year (at least in the northern hemisphere), by seeking light. Light on the physical level dispels the darkness and shadows. Metaphysically, light informs, inspires and uplifts. Jewish and Christian sacred texts identify light as the very first thing created.

The final teacher this week invited us to affirm 2024 as our greatest year ever. We allow our authentic, incredible and powerful selves to shine. She proposed eight steps so that we can arrive at our heart’s desire for 12/31/24.

Face and tame our fears.
Let go of limiting beliefs
Replace “should’s” with practical actions.
Find our strengths and amplify them.
Live from a growth mindset.
Consider expectations put on us and throw away outdated ones.
Be willing to shed old identities.
Remain positive in the face of obstacles.

Here are wishes for our best year ever!

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

All of You 12-3-23

This month my teachers plan to explore the concepts and experiences of wholeness. Therefore, today, my teacher explored how we live in our wholeness–all the facets of ourselves.

We make the mistake of equating wholeness with perfection. This allows us to embrace all of ourselves even those qualities that we and others may see as our brokenness.

Consider these three elements or approaches to engaging with our wholeness.

First, how do we see ourselves? As whole persons, we accept our excellence, our talents, our needs and our limitations. We use feedback–both from our relationships with others and from times of self reflection. This lets us bring light and consciousness to our blind spots. Consider how we respond to compliments and to criticisms? To what extent do they lead us to expand or contract? And when we know that, what do we want to experience–expansion or contraction?

Second, what do we do after we’ve seen ourselves? Sometimes, we may feel like resting in who and where we are. Other times we may see opportunities to make improvements, seeking growth for ourselves and for others. How much do we celebrate our mistakes? In US culture, the use of sticky notes covers many surfaces. Those sticky notes came out a mistake with an attempt at creating an adhesive. When do we allow our mistakes to emerge as features of brilliance and opportunity?

Finally, what do we do when we find ourselves going backwards? Contrary to myths about how success shows up, our lives move in many different directions. We may mistakenly think we should be going forward. Yet returning to our past can illuminate our present and guide our future. It’s not our circumstances that make us whole. Regardless of where we find ourselves, sometimes our hearts may feel down. Seasonally in the northern hemisphere, deciduous trees are losing or have already lost their leaves. Only living trees let go of their leaves. We may look at our own pasts as both radiantly colorful and empty.

How do we want to embrace our whole selves this week?

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

“Get in the Boat” 11-26-23

Today my teacher encouraged me to get back in the boat after I’ve fallen into the water. She conveyed this lesson she heard after singing jazz at Bethany Church earlier this month. She explained how the preacher at the church re-acquainted her with the biblical passage of Jesus walking on water. His disciple Peter saw his teacher doing yet another miraculous thing and it inspired him to walk on water. Peter did start walking on the stormy waters, but after starting, he lost his faith with the storm and fell into the water.

How often do we have the faith to get started, but we lose our faith?

We may not put much stock in our faith, yet we rely on it for so much. We listen to people around us and we believe them. We take actions because we believe that our actions will make a difference.

My teacher described her own faith journey where she knew she wanted to travel, seeing other countries. Based on that desire, she applied for jobs with the two international airlines and she became a flight attendant with one of those companies. She believed in her own desire and it unfolded in ways beyond her imagination.

What desires have we imagined and how have they unfolded?

My teacher reminded me that both external circumstances and our own internal voices engender doubts. To what extent do we give space for our doubts and our fears? She used to imagine the worst outcome in her life of becoming a bag lady and living under the viaduct. Well, the geography of our city won’t let that worst fear happen because we no longer have a viaduct. What if the universe containing our lives wants our successes more than it wants our worst outcomes? Each day we can wake up and evolve in new ways. We have callings to look at what we might be and what we might become. Will we let more light shine through our lives? Will we let more love happen through us and our choices?

The story of Jesus walking on water ends with him and Peter getting back into the boat. The next miracle may be simply getting out of the water, getting dried off, and safe from the storm.

What might you believe about yourself and your life? When might you get into a boat of faith, fearlessness, and grace no matter what circumstances come before you?

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Happy Thanksgiving 11-19-23

With the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday coming this week, my teachers reminded me to consider things I may tend to overlook. This week ushers in a time of year when families gather and we’re supposed to enjoy familial and friendly love. And those “loving” gatherings do not always feel the way that movies and books suggest that they should. We can laugh at the elements of those gatherings that don’t work for us, or we can find how we want to tell our stories.

How do we find gratitude when our feelings and experiences appear unrelated to our understanding of gratitude? We make the best and most positive use of our present moments that fall far from perfect by choosing gratitude. Consider these instances that may appear like obstacles to thanksgiving and see them as actual doorways.

Our lives are filled with “Difficult People.” Folks surround us, people we may never have chosen to accompany us in our lives. When we remove our expectations of others—especially those we experience as difficult—we can avoid letting others disappoint us. Those people: 1) give us ways to practice improving our patience, our communication, and our expectations; 2) help us (albiet inadvertently) grow stronger; and 3) remind us of how not to be.

We live in times when many people experience feeling overwhelmed and anxious. And one teacher told me that it’s nearly impossible to hold both anxiety and curiosity at the same time. The more familiar we become with amazing situations or relationships in our lives, the more we get to the point where we take them for granted. We can challenge ourselves to flip our perspective in moments of overwhelm, with the storytelling practice of listing what overwhelms us and concluding those lists with the words “… AND I LOVE IT!” Additionally, we can pause and breathe.

How might we feel grateful in response to health problems? Well, remember health problems ONLY occur for living people. Gratitude for being alive can mediate our pain. During my year receiving dialysis with two large needles sticking in my arm and all my blood getting cleansed through the dialysis machine, one of the people at the center with the same schedule as mine let me meet a Buddha. This man had many more complications than me. His transplant surgeons had transplanted his kidney incorrectly causing it to die. When he had an infection in the port for his dialysis, he suffered third-degree burns. He could have been a poster child for a law firm suing for wrongful actions, but he always forgave mistakes as simple mishaps. He showed loving kindness. He embodied having a life worth living, from moment to precious moment.

What about feeling thanks when Someone We Love Dies? This feels fresh for me with the anniversary of my deceased mother’s birthday on 11/15. My heart felt broken wide open once again. Yet rather than only considering the great things about my mother, it seemed more respectful to think of her as a whole person. She loved me and she drove me crazy. Her whole being that I knew helped create me in my own complexity and craziness. Remembering her whole story ultimately expands her, and that, in turn, expands me. The ending of death reveals our absolute limits. Our times of beauty, joy, grief, and sorrow open us to reinvention of experiencing our lives in new, unseen ways and places. Death may call us to celebrate others’ lives, and find gratitude for all that they showed us.

Finally, can we remember the last time we caught ourselves Complaining? When our lives veer away from our wishes and preferences, how often do we join in the race to tell the most compelling stories about our sufferings. And do these stories ever make us feel better? These serve as moments to catch our storytelling. What if we seek to see the smallest reason for gratitude? I’m not advising us to sugarcoat everything, but to follow the discipline and the work to focus on something good. What we focus on increases. What’s something little we’re truly grateful for, that we often seem to forget to appreciate when our lives get hectic?

Happy Thanksgiving this week!

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Expressing Gratitude by Giving 11-12-23

Today my teacher reminded me about finding gratitude with our own willingness to give. Start by taking a breath. After that inhalation, we have to exhale. We have to give back, release our breath back into the air around us. One of the things that can happen with giving is that we focus or fixate on what we give rather than remembering why we give.

Take a moment and consider the difference between giving to live up to expectations (the show of giving) versus giving to bring greater good into the world. One holy book tells the story of a widow dropping her last coin to make her offering. She gave with her whole heart. Each of us has something to give when we bring our best.

My teacher detailed the different people to whom we can give our gifts.

He recounted the story of an indigenous couple’s wedding when they had filled their blanket with gifts for all the guests who had come to bless their union. Sharing their possessions brought the blessing of their union full circle.

We have people who challenge us. We can give them our capacities to listen without falling into the distraction of creating rebuttals. We can appreciate how they introduce us to another point of view that contrasts from our customary stances.

People all around us serve us. We can give thanks for what they’ve done for us. We can say what we noticed about them, acknowledging them as individuals who bring their unique gifts.

Remember the people who work with us. We can lighten their workloads. We can make ourselves available to listen to them in struggles they experience–giving them space to figure out their own solutions rather than falling into the trap of believing that they need to be fixed.

Finally, take this moment to consider how we might give to ourselves. What passion have we not made time to satisfy? How might we make time now? What experiences of greater joy might we admit into our lives?

Enjoy the blessing you are with all the giving that you can convey.

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

Welcome to November-Reflections 11-5-23

This week, my teachers reminded me how thanksgiving goes far beyond a single day. A deliberate practice of gratitude can transform every aspect of our lives. Years ago, the singer, songwriter, Christine Lavin taught me how every moment can allow me to celebrate and thank the people that touch my life. People at school may have noticed my sign-off, “Gratefully.” A class this summer contributed to a newer daily practice of starting each day with a thank you letter for all I’ve received and all that I hope the day could bring me.

Each of the three teachers gave me a word to increase my understanding of gratitude. The first teacher called me to ACKNOWLEDGE both what I’ve received and who has given it to me. With acknowledging the good in my life, my focus on these good things increases and fills up the space that I might have wasted on lack or disappointment. Who and what might you acknowledge?

The second idea of ATTITUDE (associated with the rhyme, “attitude of gratitude”), lets me consider my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about my circumstances. I bet we can all think of a person that we could describe as a complainer. What feelings and thoughts arise in us in their presence and how do their complaints leave us feeling? Do we join in a competition to share the worst story? What choices might we make? What attitude do we want to carry?

Finally, consider joining me pursuing my teacher’s last suggestion: ACTION. John F. Kennedy wrote, “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” What can we do to enact thanks in our lives? What if we go beyond giving thanks? What if we contribute to the world so that others feel and experience gratitude? What unique gifts do we hold and how do we share them?

If you choose to embrace acknowledgement, deliberate attitudes, and actions, may they serve you well and fill you with more gratitude.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan

Navigating Paradoxes 10-29-23

My teacher invited me to consider my place in our infinite universe. We may (mistakenly) feel both overwhelmed and minimized seeing ourselves as the smallest point in that vastness. Yet we may also remember and claim our own greatness with our connection to the infinite. The infinite universe around us also fills us.

My teacher reminded me how we all possess genius and greatness–these represent our birthrights. With all of that, do we commit ourselves to leaving the places we enter better for our presence there?

Do we approach the infinite universe with curiosity, open to guidance, stepping out of our limited comfort zones? This kind of approach lets us stay in awe, dancing in the delights possible in every new moment.

What core values do we carry? My teacher has committed to uplifting and empowering children. Think of how to describe our own inspiration and reason for living.

What are we believing? Our beliefs guide our lives. Do we diminish ourselves as “not enough,” or do we revel in the magnificence of our presence in this infinite universe?

My choice of beliefs may let me shut out all the internal and external voices insisting “You can’t do that.” These choices let me develop daily habits or practices promoting my greatness. For example, my new commitment mirrors the practice of washing my face every morning. Each day I bathe in my own greatness, in all that I have to give to this infinite universe.

Steve Miraboli wrote, “You were put on this earth to achieve your greatest self, to live out your purpose and to do it everyday.”

Finally, my teacher encouraged me to enjoy my life, to have fun, to play, to use every challenge as a stepping stone to new destinations in our vast universe.

Try basking in your own greatness, remembering that our infinite universe expands outwardly beyond us and inwardly within us.

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

Magnificent in Our Humanity 10-22-23

Today my teacher opened his lesson with a song expressing the idea that we’re only human, carrying capacities to make mistakes and find ourselves subject to blame from both ourselves and others. The word human comes from the word “humus” for ground. Yet how many of us wonder if we are more than the ground from which we rise and to which we return? We carry so many experiences, thoughts, emotions, dreams, hopes, and memories. We create so many human stories.

What have we come to believe about our stories and our humanity? We can look at countries caught in battles with seemingly senseless acts of killing and harm. We can look at our own country filled with so much conflict, disagreement, disregard, and disavowal of each others’ humanity. This kind of review and consideration may make us want to withdraw and retreat in search of safety. Such interpretations of humanity may lead us to dismiss ourselves and seek greatness and magnificence in other places. You may find an example of this in this songwriter’s simple chant There’s So Much Magnificence.

My teacher invited me to look to see the majestic magnificence of life right here. He encouraged me to look, see, and celebrate the wonderful things I discount as merely ordinary. Majesty shows up in small acts of kindness, in offers of support, and in my willingness to accept new thoughts.

Can we look to the universe around us and see beauty?

Can we look to the universe around us and see creativity?

Can we look to the universe around us and see wonder?

It’s been proposed that our capacity to see things in the world around us happens because of our innate capacity to recognize what’s in the world as also existing within ourselves.

See beauty in the world around you and see it in yourself.

See creativity in the world around you and see it in yourself.

See wonder in the world around you and see it in yourself.

I’ll leave you with the reminder that my teacher gave me: It’s been said that we are here for the simple reason of walking each other home.

May you get closer to your home steeped in beauty, creativity and wonder.

Shaking up our worldview 10-15-23

Today my teachers guided me in more ways to use the paradoxes that show up in my life. The day started with an invitation to consider how to navigate my own conflicting feelings and thoughts (such as wanting to create changes in myself, while I also want to accept myself.) Four processes help me bridge my seeming conundrum–First opening myself to see other points of view and changing my beliefs and opinions. Second, catching myself before getting bogged down by extremes. Third, embracing change. And fourth, finding peace in the midst of my conflicting ideas and feelings.

To continue honing my skills with paradox, my teacher reminded me of the power of curiosity. My teacher recounted a tale of receiving mistreatment from a server at a restaurant. But rather than challenging the treatment, her companion asked what had happened that she engaged in that way with them that day? Empathy fueled the curiosity, opening an opportunity for connection rather than shutting down and closing off.

Finally, let myself find amazement in the power of letting myself become vulnerable. I may fear that harm will happen to me; I see it happening to people all around me. Yet that very fear and resistance may lock me into one way of being. And paradoxes let me see that many more possibilities exist beyond what fear and resistance show me.

Receive what my teachers gave to me: remember you have game, access to more resources than what you’ve believed before now.

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

Getting Comfortable With Discomfort 10-8-23

Today my teachers invited me to explore this paradoxical idea of getting comfortable with discomfort. We know that our bodies come equipped with nerve cells to convey information to help us survive. Physical discomforts serve as a warning to help us stay safe. For example, following a walk to school which left me uncharacteristically breathless, that feeling let me know the importance of getting to the emergency room where medical care prevented me from having a heart attack. Psychologically, we’ve developed habits of mind and heart that may also help us stay safe. We may all know some people who interact with us without wanting our best. We may choose to minimize those relationships. Consciously, we have capacities to keep evolving so that in response to discomfort we may create more options beyond freeze, flight and fight.

In the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, the central character, Evelyn has a life with so many parts that look like failure. She has never lived up to her father’s hopes for her. She has found her husband proposing divorce because they have stopped talking about anything real. Evelyn has grown increasingly distant from her daughter who did not call even though they shared a family phone plan. Finally, she faces a tax audit with an IRS agent who threatens to have her arrested and all her property seized. The movie presents the idea that Evelyn’s lifetime of so many failures led her husband from an alternate universe to visit her, believing in her as the one Evelyn that can save every universe from a growing, all-consuming threat. In the events that follow, Evelyn transforms from her “failure identity,” into an unlimited, limitless being.

My teacher used the story as a map for managing my own discomfort, fears and failures, proposing three considerations.

First, we can ask ourselves, “What does discomfort have to teach us?” We know that very little of what we do occurs without effort. There may be some things we do where we have a natural aptitude, but to live our lives fully, we seek to become more and we go through struggles and even hardship. Thomas Edison only invented his light bulb after many failures. Comedian Lucille Ball came to star in television shows and movies and grew into a studio owner and program developer after rejections. Discomfort may make us stronger. Evelyn learned how to connect with other versions of herself who startled her with their successes–she embodied their skills–first fighting to survive and later to push herself beyond fighting to love relentlessly.

Second, to connect with other versions of herself, Evelyn learned to do something unexpected. In the movie, Evelyn and others find that when they do something that seems completely unpredictable, they can connect with their counterparts from parallel universes with honed skills that will support them to encounter the challenges facing them. Unexpected actions have let me find myself and see myself with unexpected regard. Cultural norms from my childhood had not given me any maps for navigating my identity as a queer, nonbinary person. After the culturally expected actions had failed me, only my unexpected actions allowed me to step into my identity.

Third, discomfort may help us identify and express our values. Evelyn’s daughter told her mother, “We get only specks of time where anything makes sense… You could be anything anywhere.” Evelyn showed and told her daughter (Joy) about her choice to find new ways to express love for Joy, being with Joy out of all the places in all the universes where they could be. At twenty years of age my doctor’s prognosis for me having declining health (“You’ll be blind and on dialysis by the age of 25”) encouraged me to make the most of my limited time and work to bring my values into form. For example, how can I be sure to acknowledge and celebrate the inspiration that shows up in the people around me? How do I tell people all that they mean to me before the moment slips away?

To get comfortable with discomfort, here are additional questions to consider. Where have we settled into putting the value of comfort over our other values? To which values will we re-commit as ideals and as actions? Where do you need to find or express greater flexibility?

May you find your newfound comfort with discomfort brings you great good

Respectfully,

Rev Vaughan

Paradox 10-1-23

This month my teachers plan to review how our lives might become more expansive when we apply the concept of paradox to our thinking, feelings, and actions.

Greek and Latin languages both created words that evolved into our term paradox. The Greek word alluded to the idea of “contrary opinions”. The Latin word paradoxum meant “seemingly absurd, but really true.” Modern writer, Brene’ Brown defined paradox as “the appearance of contradiction between two related components.” Consider how we may think of light and dark as opposites, yet they derive their meanings in relation to each other. Einstein helped launch quantum theory where what exists alternates between matter and energy.

How can any of this apply to our daily lives? My teacher helped me realize that we gain a much broader understanding of our world and of ourselves when we expand beyond analytical, either/or thinking that constitutes so much of how people have wanted us to think. These are natural human ways to think, and there are additional ways where rather than making the either/or choice, we entertain both possibilities at once. We can hold and consider seemingly opposite viewpoints and ideas. This puts us in a position encouraging flexibility and creative tension.

The world we experience looks and feels flat. We build houses on land that we level. Yet the world is also round. Human beings saw this most readily with the launch of rockets into space. If we argue for only flatness or only roundness about the earth, we miss essential information.

My teacher spoke about his emotional experiences of this month—a celebratory time of births, meetings, and marriages and a grieving time for the deaths and losses of people who have moved on from this life. Genuinely experiences his feelings as they arise brings him both joy and grief. To imagine that people only have one feeling leaves us surrounded by people without depth and complicated lives.

What can we do with this information?

We can explore the places where we may have oversimplified our lives and ignored calls to something beyond what we have let ourselves think, feel and experience.

We can entertain trying something new, getting outside of the boxes that we have built for ourselves.

We can find another person who might join us on our journey to add “both/and” thinking, feeling and acting to the ways that we choose to live.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’,

Collaborate and Love 9-24-23

Today my teacher reminded me about the story of “Stone Soup,” to illustrate four easy ways to put love into action–namely recognizing, remembering, readying, and reveling.

Readers and listeners find the setting a place of hunger where neighbors jealously guard what they have. Responding with love may feel almost impossible in the midst of difficulties. A stranger arrives in the village, and in the face of hunger, she announces that the time has come to make her delicious Stone Soup. The stranger shows us to courageously acknowledge or recognize our circumstances. Rather than fleeing from problems, we can deny their permanence and see them as opportunities for healing, growth, and compassion.

Next, the stranger unpacks her kettle and magic stone. Then she adds water and heats the mixture. She remembers what she has. Like her, we carry our unique talents and developing skills. We can choose to unpack our tools to meet our challenges. We can see needs as invitations to search for love that resides behind them.

The stranger readies herself for her meal, tasting her soup, identifying its delicious flavor, and imagining how it could be better. She proposes, “If only I had an onion to add, it would be perfect. If someone had an onion, I would share my soup with them.” To what extent are we ready to receive from others? The stranger kept imagining that the soup would become increasingly flavorful so that townspeople contributed a small piece of meat, potato, carrot, cabbage Finally, the stranger savored the soup, smiled and exclaimed. “Now, it’s perfect. Let’s all share this meal together.”

The story concludes with two elements. First, everyone ate until they felt full–talking, laughing, and marveling at the powerful magic stone. Second, as the stranger prepared to leave, she tossed the stone to the children and whispered, “The stone isn’t magic. Without everyone giving a little, all that we would have had was a stone and hot water. The magic came from how we worked together.” The whole town and the stranger reveled in their feast and their collaboration. May our times recognizing, remembering, readying, and reveling let us all create and encounter more love

Go Ahead and Be a Bother 9-17-23

Today my teacher invited us to let go of the past directives of not being a bother. Our attempts to follow this practice reflect the values of independence and self-reliance. Yet in the process of upholding this, we may have overlearned how to overlook our own needs and wants.

My teacher shared the story of how her father had called a friend to report that he would miss a session of ukelele practice. This friend reported this news to my teacher based on this-far-cry-from-normal-circumstance. He has attended practices like clockwork. My teacher called her father to check on his well-being and he reassured her that everything was great. With nagging doubts, my teacher called her nieces to see their grandfather. She then called her dad back and told him to expect a visit; he said he would open the garage for them. However, when they got there, they found the door closed and their grandfather laying on the floor, unable to lift himself up from the floor where he had fallen.

This may sound like an exaggeration for the lengths that people take to avoid being a bother. Yet, take a moment and consider our own likelihood of seeking and accepting help from others. We may fear that others won’t come through for us. We may have seen other people take advantage of people and we want to avoid ever being like that. We may fear that needing help reflects some kind of failure. We may have convinced ourselves that we can get by without our needs or wants.

Will we take a dare and be a bother in pursuit of our needs and wants? Will we believe in our own worth to receive? Will we trust that looking for and accepting support may actually let support come to us? Will we actively love ourselves as part of how we express our love in the world?

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare

Love is Personal 9-10-23

Today my teacher led us to explore our own personal experiences of love. Families, communities, and cultures have never hesitated to give us directives about how our love should look. We have heard definitions of love and ways that people express love (such as affirmations, sharing quality time, giving gifts, serving others and physical touch). Maybe that reminds us of the coloring books and the directions to draw inside the lines. However, when we value our own authentic identities, our love communicates our beautiful, remarkably diverse expressions. Lady Gaga, in her song, Born this Way, invites us to accept and celebrate who we are. This includes how we love and what we love.

Our own personal experiences of love depend on the objects of our love. This means we may have one kind of love for the families that raised us, another kind for children, another kind for animals, another kind for nature, another kind for interests/hobbies, another kind for romantic loves, and another kind for ourselves. The expanding, seemingly unending universe is filled with so much that we can love. The way we loved yesterday evolves into something new and different today as the universe around us and within us changes.

Here are several actions we can try on.

When we wake up tomorrow morning and look in the mirror, we look into our eyes and tell ourself, “I am magnificent.”

In a journal or letter to ourselves answer the questions, “What is love? What does it mean to me?”

Approach people and things in our lives with loving kindness.

No matter what our circumstances, we seek to express joy and gratitude.

Thank you for the love you inspire and give me.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’

Loving Ourselves 9-3-23

This week my teachers reminded me that being loved and loving others includes loving ourselves. We can live as examples of how loving actions inspires love in the world. Celebrating our own effective self-love practices invites others to pursue their own practices. Consider these three features of love:

First, love occurs in RELATIONSHIPS. Love for ourselves readies us to see life filled with love everywhere we go. The more love we see in the world, the more the world shifts around us. Others become transformed by the love we give. In turn, they serve as examples of different ways that love can look. Our decision to commit to loving ourselves creates a ripple of love around us.

Second, love allows for more full SELF-EXPRESSION. We did not come into the world to fit in, but to stand up and stand out. Our unique identities let us contribute to more loving and healthy communities, bringing our full selves and calling forth others’ full selves.

Third, love touches our feelings and calls us to ACTION. “Whether we are engaged in a process of self-love or of loving others we must move beyond the realm of feeling to actualize love. This is why it is useful to see love as a practice.” (Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions) We may question how to love. Pausing to listen to our inner wisdom, our own intuition nudges us in the right directions. Consider that listening to our intuition and allowing it to guide us, lets us live in the flow of love.

Some years ago, singer and songwriter Lady Gaga encouraged us to remember we are perfect just the way we are. What practices might remind us of that? How do we demonstrate love for ourselves every day? Our self-care may vary from day to day such as self-forgiveness after apparent mistakes, listing what inspires gratitude, or giving our best!

What will we do today to love ourselves and create a more loving world?

Blessings,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’

Living Out Loud 8-27-23

Today my teacher reminded us that our passions and purposes invite our loud, bold enthusiasm. To live out loud, we fully embrace what poet Mary Oliver wrote, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.”

First, what do we do with our time? Every moment of our lives counts. Rather than fading into the background and letting the trance of routines silence us, we have opportunities to share and shine our lights, expanding the good in the world. We can answer the call to seize the day, acknowledging each moment’s power and valuing every possibility.

Second we ask, what talents stretch our lives? How do we turn our backs on habits that keep us small, safe, and acceptable in accord with family and community customs. We can celebrate our boldness and wildness. Making no such choice represents a choice we may not have previously recognized.

Third, we all have fears generating physical responses to fight, flight or freeze. Do we feel butterflies in our stomach? We can offer a new response, getting still and facing our fears so that we open new paths of freedom.

Finally, to live out loud, we choose to hold onto our own power. Others may give us their ideas and their directions, their outdated habits seeking to restrict others’ rights. We have power to celebrate the inherent power and magnificence in every life.

Delight in your wild, precious, bold, and loud lives.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’

Finding Our Joy, Awakening Our Passion 8-20-23

My teachers today helped me remember how we all have within us beautiful qualities of joy, wisdom and love that makes us unique in the world. As we renew our childlike enthusiasm for life, we reveal our passion. Each of us carries light, waiting to be removed from shadows blocking us. Here are three simple paths to our joy:

We can experience the childlike wonder of life when we answer “What made us laugh and what made our hearts sing?” When we catch ourselves caught up with disappointment and find ourselves whining, that’s the time to choose joy. Take a moment to listen to babies laughing or hearing our favorite song.

We come to our lives to create, Small children have no self-consciousness nor worries about what others think of their actions. They live with an innate spontaneity and freedom that flows through most of their activities. “Watch children at play. For them, a cardboard box becomes a castle, dolls become part of the family, and video games allow them to save the universe.” ~Ernest D. Chu, Soul Currency Pg. 53

If you’ve ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade you may get reminded that sometimes we take the risk to leap. When we follow our intuition, things that seemed impractical or impossible actually work. When we listen to the still small voice within, joy and possibilities rise up to meet us.

We may find our passion just a few “mind-less” moments away. Letting ourselves daydream and letting go of self-conscious thoughts, allows us to reconnect to our joy and our inner passion. Take a new path to work or walk a new route. Did you love to dance but felt worried about what others’ thought? Many give their power to the opinions of people they have never met; it is time to reclaim our inner joy and passion.

Affirmation: Life fills me with my unique joy and passion!

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

Passions Inform Our Purpose 8-13-23

My teacher asked me, “What makes your heart sing? What brings you excitement and what do you love doing?”

How many times do we judge ourselves and judge what we love? Have we come to believe that our personal purpose needs to impress others or that it needs to inspire others? If it doesn’t act like wave across the planet can we consider it worthy?”

Have you ever heard the story of Marie Callender? She worked as a single mother in a diner and the owner could read the indicators that his business had no chances but closure. Hoping to keep her job, Marie offered to bring one of her homemade pies to work. Not only did her pie sell out the next day, word of it attracted customers to the diner. They took pieces home and they wanted to take pies home. She became so busy cooking at home that she installed a commercial oven. The diner stopped serving anything but her pies. Nowadays, you’ll find Marie Callendar pies in many stores and you’ll find restaurants that continue to serve her recipes. Marie changed the world with pie.

Howard Thurman recommended, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do it.” Let’s consider taking time to consider what enlivens us, what we love, and where that love leads us. What dreams continue to arise from our hearts? What things do we see in the world that we want to change or that we want to increase?

Finally consider this: ultimately, our purpose has nothing to do with us, but rather our relationships with others, how we help, do, and serve.

Therefore I leave you with my teacher’s two questions:

What am I called to do? What action can I take today?

Revel in what you love and celebrate the purpose that brings good to others all around you.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’

Pursuing Our Passions and Purposes 8-6-23

This month my teacher has lessons about living powerfully from our passions and purposes. Today, the focus landed on passion, one of my teacher’s favorite topics. Passions often relate to our abilities, talents, and desires. We recognize them by asking ourselves:

What things give me joy?

What interests me and motivates me to learn more?

What puts me in the “zone,” where time falls away?

Armed with the answers to those questions consider the following practices.

Start small, trying new things in safe places where we can make mistakes.
Take an easy step forward. We often talk ourselves off the ledge succumbing to fears that we can’t be successful or we’ll have to face a life of criticism. Take that step gently. Be the one person who refuses to tell ourselves “no.”
Since we can always find naysayers, we can tell ourselves not to get down on ourselves and not let the “no’s” into our heads, hearts and souls. Find a positivity posse, folks that will support us.
Count on failures and mistakes as starting places and launching pads. Welcome failures and mistakes as teachers. Ask ourselves, “What did we learn to improve?”

Consider the prospect that the universe brought us into being to experience joy. Perhaps we’ve learned to defend ourselves and our experiences of loss and pain by convincing ourselves, “Oh, that’s just the way the world works. We all get suffering mixed in with joy.” While we may think we’re inoculating ourselves against disappointment by entertaining the lowest possible expectations for our lives, we don’t leave much room for ourselves to experience joy and passion.

Please receive these warm summer wishes for joy and delight in our passions making us feel vital and alive.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’,

Changing Our Minds, Changing Our Thinking 7-30-23

Today my teachers reminded me of ways to push past what may feel outdated or outgrown. One way to start involves thinking about where we find ourselves and where we want to be. Do we already have the best relationships possible? What more might we bring? If any relationship might improve, how do we usher in that change?

Consider these steps for changing our thinking:

Ask how things have become the way we have found them.
What comfort zones have we held onto and where might we step out to do different things?
When tempted to make excuses, seek solutions.
Whenever we perceive ourselves as victims entitled to sympathy, ask how this circumstance may help us to grow beyond what we had previously imagined.
Remember any love for play you may have had as a child? Find ways to bring play back into our lives.
Rather than focusing on future goals for happiness that can happen someday, take time today to find what inspires fun and joy.
We can wake up today envisioning the day as filled with joy. Choose happiness now.
Most powerfully, express gratitude. Can we breathe? Give thanks. Do we have an appetite? Give thanks. What if today becomes better than yesterday? Give thanks.

Thank you for your creativity, originality, and openness to new thoughts and feelings.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’,

Champions of Wisdom, Truth, and Power 7-23-23

Today my teachers guided me to consider how the term “champion,” applies to us. NLE Choppa’s video Champions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKiNpmkkVq0 shows many different champions and many ways to express championship. In a world that appears troubled, unpeaceful, and unwise with people jousting at every windmill they pass, our champions stay anchored in peace and poise. They focus on what they need to bring to their play, bringing their best. They recognize the joy in the game. Champions of wisdom, truth, and power keep focused on greatness and possibilities. Their presence changes the games.

In the games of our lives, we might all perceive things that need to change in the world. However, what if what we see “out there” also reflects what we find “inside here,” individually and collectively. Einstein described, “We can’t solve a problem at the level of consciousness that created the problem.” So, if we want to see change in the world, we might seek the inner power to change our thinking, consciousness, perspective, and being. Changing how we see the world, changes the world.

My teacher proposed three practices that champions use, that our own inner champions might adopt to play their games and lives: 1) contemplate, 2) celebrate, and 3) co-create.

1. Contemplate – as the champion you are, see yourself having won the game, having set the new record. Greek philosopher Plotinus declared, “Rather than arguing, I contemplate and let seeds of thought fall into the mirror of mind, which then becomes the mirror of matter.” While the people around us may have modeled and taught us to jump up and down, yell and scream, and communicate outrage over situations, these prove ineffective at creating real, lasting change. Change begins inside us before manifesting outside. Fighting outer circumstances empowers them. Experiment with the idea that only one power exists behind and within all circumstances. When we commit to seeing things differently, we create differently. Champions of wisdom, truth, and power take a step back and center themselves prior to entering any fray. This gives an opportunity to look past the appearance of things and see simultaneously true possibilities. Once we can see those possibilities, we can coax them forward and shift the situations. Instead of getting angry over situations, ask, “What do I want to see here instead? What is my life’s best idea here?” Then contemplate, instead of arguing.

2. Celebrate – In his book Yes, You Can Change the World, Aman Motwane invites us to see everyone’s intrinsic worth with three considerations: a) Make the most of our time with everyone. b) Consider the pain and potential within each person. c) Focus, not on what’s wrong with a person, but on what makes them right – look for any characteristic or quality that you can admire. That judgment we hold for others is the same, but often unspoken judgment we carry for ourselves. “The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who we are in order to become all that we can be.” Max DePree

3. Co-Create – As champions of wisdom, truth, and power we might recognize ourselves co-creators with life. Remember the old saying – “I stopped telling life about my big problems and started telling my problems how big my life is.” So, the process of change and creation does not involve becoming something we aren’t, rather, we un-become who we aren’t. And spreading that light that we really are, knowing that by sharing It, we will remind others of their light. “You are in the midst of a power which is saying to you, ‘Use me, direct me, express me. I am ready. Are you?’”~ Raymond Charles Barker, Treat Yourself to Life p. 58

Therefore, my dear friends receive this message as an invitation to take time contemplating, celebrating, and co-creating. Rediscover the intrinsic value of everyone you meet including yourself.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Oneness and Compassion 7-16-23

Today my teachers talked about oneness and compassion. We can experience oneness in the midst of consciously encountering beauty or joining in communities. Most of the major world religions have encouraged their members to engage in the “Golden Rule,” where we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. And yet despite this seemingly universal lesson of oneness, how many times do we feel separated from others?

Compassion with ourselves and others may be a tool or practice that we can use to overcome that sense of separation. My teacher reminisced about her time as a flight attendant traveling to places like Athens, Rome, and Bagdad; she described her sense of identity as a citizen of the world rather than simply a citizen of Seattle’s Capitol Hill 21^st Avenue neighborhood. After sending rockets into space, human beings had photograph of the earth as a single blue sphere. This enhanced our ability to recognize how we all share this one planet. How can we look to the other people with whom we share this planet with compassion and regard?

We can recognize what blocks us from compassion.

First, when another person tells us about something going on for them, we may find ourselves wanting to fix them or their circumstances. Yet this orientation puts us in a position of superiority over the other—lending our support to “fix” them. And, lets be honest here, how often do people really want us to fix them? How often do we enjoy it when people want to fix us?

Second, we may hear about a situation where things seem hopeless and despairingly, we may believe there’s nothing we can do.

Third, we may fear what the other person faces, hoping that we will never have to face it. Or we may feel quietly happy that we do not have to go through the experience.

My teacher reminded us that compassion pulls us beyond those options. It may be more than enough if we can simply stand with other people in the midst of what they’re going through. When has another person’s presence made all the difference for us?

Standing with others means that we may open our hearts to each other. We can imagine that behind everyone’s eyes they have experienced some disappointment or some times when they felt like they hadn’t measured up to others’ or their own expectations. We can put ourselves in others’ presence and hold them with our highest regards.

We can recognize ourselves of members of life on this living planet earth. We can start the day pausing to look ourselves in our own eyes to recognize and claim our own worthiness. We can move from that to looking in the eyes of other people and seeing their worth. The Hindu people have used the word “Namaste,” along with a gesture of bowing as a way to say hello and goodbye—the life in me acknowledges and celebrates the life within you.

Namaste,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’,

What Hypnotizes Us? 7-9-23

Today my teacher reminded me to consider how and when I choose to stay conscious. He described how he had tried various ways to overcome his habit of smoking cigarettes. Smoking represented one activity that had become an unconscious habit. However, the chosen, conscious application of hypnotic therapy let him redirect and unwind himself from the habit.

A fact to consider involves the circumstance that anything can hypnotize us or capture our complete attention. Consider things that do that. The Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi has studied and reported how people lose their sense of time’s passage when they participate in something that brings fulfillment. For some people this may be gardening, creating art, writing, dancing, performing athletically, listening to music, reading, cooking. What do you do that captures your attention so much that you lose track of time?

People commonly find that we may have lost track of certain details from the course of our days. We can go through a series of daily routines, while the pull of our attention on worries or anticipated events occupies our attention. Taking time to observe ourselves and our thoughts allows us to catch what we let fill our thoughts and feelings. To what extent would we judge ourselves as dwelling in negativity versus bliss?

We have heard dreams described as ways our unconscious minds communicate with us while we sleep to navigate the conscious and unconscious challenges that have arisen in our daily lives. What if dreams function as a snapshot of our larger lives? Moments from our past may feel like dreams. Sometimes we move through our lives in ways that may feel like passive, dreaming observers. We can keep dreaming our lives away. And we can choose to wake, bringing the solutions and hopes of dreams into our daily actions and choices.

Take the time to practice curious and compassionate listening. Ask yourselves questions and listen with an open heart to yourself.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan Amaré

Monsters Inc.–Making Friends Out of Monsters 7-2-23

How frequently might we find ourselves railing against monstrous circumstances? Do we “speak truth to those circumstances” or do we put our heads down and push through? At this phase of my life, I can lean into my many social privileges, but my identity now has emerged from a person who feared how speaking truth might have meant exclusion from the organ waitlist back in the 90’s with my first experience of kidney failure.

The story Monsters, Inc. presented the world of monsters going to work everyday like us, working to make ends meet. Power for their world came by collecting children’s fears–gathered in face of believed hazardous contact with infectious children. Only the bravest monsters faced such threats. The story advances to the point where the scariest of all monsters inadvertently brings a child into his world–but this danger reveals the startling discovery that the greatest source of power involves laughter rather than terror.

How much energy do we spend trying to quell our fear rather than actively seeking laughter and joy? To what extent do we “give away” our own power and let ourselves feel powerless? I feel a bit ashamed admitting how much I have allowed my fears to control me. My teacher Ernest Holmes wrote, “One, alone, in consciousness with the Infinite, constitutes a complete majority.” I can choose to see myself living in a friendly universe.

The teacher Mary O’Malley sharedin her book, What’s in the Way Is the Way

about the healing power of curiosity―our natural way to meet our lives without needing to change or judge anything. We can trust what happens even when we feel threatened, ashamed, or afraid

We may not know “how” to create a better world, but our curiosity and trust empower us to declare “what,” makes a better world. Every monstrous thing– people, organizations, and circumstances – constitutes a perspective. Can’t we look at it from another angle seeing the edges of fear that may have less power than we’ve already given them? When we get past our own and others’ seemingly insurmountable fears, we can find our own Power within. We speak Truth to circumstances. We and our monsters will transform.

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Max Planck (attributed; source unknown)

Happy Pride 6-25-23

Here in Seattle, people gathered in all kinds of costume to embody rainbows of celebration declaring that Magnificence shows up in ways far beyond the limited stories that used to convey what we should think of as “normal.” Pride gets marked on other dates in other places. Pride gets marked when we can look at groups of people and see all the shapes, sizes, colors, and expressions of family that form in the kaleidoscope of life.

How firmly do we hold onto particular stories, beliefs and thoughts? My teachers put that question to me today reintroducing me to Pink’s song Perfect and the directions “Change the voices in your head, make them like you instead.” Many stories of magic point to the power of our words and our choices. I CAN see that my own current encounter with my COVID-19 diagnosis can actually affirm health rather than illness. All the efforts to avoid illness have held the disease away and prepared me with vaccinations and healthy practices like taking time off and getting rest during days when general expectations encourage busy-ness and hectic engagement.

Here are several ways you can join me to overcome our habitual negative thinking:

We can embrace mindfulness to get quiet and still and see the ways to choose love over fear.
We can pause to address the inner critic, and ask if what it asserts is ever actually true.
We can become aware of our triggers, and see the paths away from truth.
We can take the time to declare affirmations and then choose to use them.

My affirmation today expresses as “My magnificence arises right here, right now.”

What affirmation will you declare today?

Gratefully and with pride,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’

Unlikely Wellness Coaches 6-18-23

This weekend, my spouse’s family members acted as my teachers. My lessons arrived from those people who have shifted from babies in my spouse’s memories and more recently in my own times as a member our family.

We had gathered to celebrate the final request of Linda, my sister-in-law who had asked that we scatter her remains in the ocean by La Push. To mark the occasion, family members put words and symbols on rocks that we threw into the water to accompany her physical existence in the ocean.

Linda inspired us with her fierce love and protectiveness for her siblings, children and grandchildren, her independence, self-sufficiency and readiness to speak her mind. She made her own cards and always had birthday and holiday greetings in the mail before anyone else—conveying her own unique combination of love and competition.

My niece, Ella shared how Linda had announce that she hadn’t liked Ella’s name and she thought of her as an unattractive baby whose appearance eventually improved so that one day, “Ella even became pretty.” Rather than casting aside those stories that could have been hurtful or painful, Ella claimed those tales that captured her experiences.

For me, wellness includes embracing ourselves as wholes. We can stop merely presenting what’s good and inspiring, kind and joyful.

This aligns with elements of this Juneteenth holiday. This country has prided itself on our leadership in the world as a so-called, “beacon of freedom”. Yet long after the end of our civil war, we let the institution of slavery continue. We let news of freedom stall. Furthermore, in reaction to newfound freedoms, our country’s citizens generated new bonds and limitations to replace and supplant the old bonds and limitations. Therefore, our whole history includes large doses of injustice and fear. Recognizing our whole history may free us from repeating ourselves and allow us to chart new paths forward.

Take this holiday and embrace stories of joy, laughter, pain and tears. From that place of acknowledging our whole past, let us usher in new possibilities.

Happy Juneteenth.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’

Self-Care of Declaring and Seeking Our Hearts’ Desires 6-11-23

Today my teachers reminded me of steps to follow to find and experience the fulfillment of our longings.

We begin by considering what situations we face. For example, what challenges stand before us? What delights seek us? Years ago the group Foreigner performed I Want to Know What Love Is. We might listen to that song to coax our hearts and minds to tell us what we want.

What happens if we consider our desires as messages from life to us? What if we might see that what we want actually allows life to come into fuller expression through us. For example, if we seek physical ease from pain, maybe we can see that as opening ourselves to greater wholeness. If we seek an end to conflict, then we become available to peace. If we want to have less limitations, maybe we find ourselves ready to become places where abundance, power, or beauty show up.

A ski instructor gave me the very simple instruction for staying upright rather than ended up on the ground: “Look where you want to go, rather than at your feet.” As long as I looked at my feet, I landed inelegantly on my face. When I looked at my desired destination, I got there much more easily. Therefore, focusing on the quality behind my heart’s desire helps me move toward my desire.

A teacher reminded me that the inspiration from other people inspires me because there’s a connection between that inspiration in them and that very quality in me. If my friend Mary inspires me with her kindness and love, she inspires those qualities that exist in me.

Now, rather than thinking of our desires as something distant, as something that will come true someday, how do we feel when we let ourselves imagine and see our desire waiting for us and already present?

And if our longing is already present, isn’t it easy to feel grateful? Have you ever heard your teachers recommend starting and ending the day naming the things for which we feel grateful? If you try that, notice how you feel after that?

Finally, my teachers have encouraged me to understand that my heart’s desires come to me when I let go of doubts, fears, questions, and second guesses. Seeds don’t grow if we keep digging them up. We can think of it like ending a sentence with a period, rather than writing a series of run-on sentences. We can allow ourselves to finish our conversation with life about our hearts’ desires by letting it go.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’

The Evolution of Self-Care 6-4-23

My teachers reviewed the history associated with practices of self-care. The formal term emerged in the 1950s with a focus on medical practices proposing that people recognize our worth so that we believe in the value of cultivating healthier habits. The scope of practices expanded alongside the growing consciousness of civil rights and pursuits of equity and equality. Nowadays, self-care may lead us to consider expenses and budgetary demands for our lives.

What if we consider the costs of habits that block us from self-care? Some of my teachers today reminded me that during their upbringings, they received clear messages to always prioritize their responsibilities to others over all other duties. This led to practices like getting their chores done first before taking any time for enjoyment. To what extent have these habits persisted?

What are our habits for physical care? What comes to mind when we think about our diets, exercise, sleep? Do we remember to listen to our bodies and care for them? When we look in the mirror to get ready for the day, to what extent do we look with positive appreciation and with negative judgment? I had the habit of criticizing myself for everything I could see, thinking that would prepare and protect me from anything that others might say. However, that level of judgment did not really serve me well.

How do we engage in emotional care? How deliberately do we distance ourselves from distractors and stressors? When we plan our day, how much do we put enjoyable activities into our schedules? When might we give ourselves pats on the back, acknowledging our own strengths and accomplishments?

What do we do for our social care? What skills have we developed to choose the people we keep close to us who build us up and to keep distance from people who drain us (emotional vampires)? What balance have we created to listen for inspiration and life-giving connections and to have others listen to what we say and what we don’t say?

Finally, what things support our sense of connection to life itself? What do we do to experience care from life? Some people commune with life through creativity and art. Other people spend time in nature finding beauty and letting it fill them. Some people celebrate the mystery of life at the core of their beings, knowing that they evolve and keep becoming more than what they were before.

Take this to heart: you are worth more than what can be measured. Everything you do to care for yourself makes the world a better place because you give others permission to live from the majesty of their own greatness.

Blessings

Rev. Vaughan

“Lights, Camera, Action” 5-28-23

My teacher declared, “Lights, Camera, Action!” to complete this month’s lessons for how to appreciate both light and dark. We’ve heard the invitation to let go of the teachings and tendency to think in either/or extremes like associating light with good and darkness with bad. We have choices every moment. Consider the choices that we can make with each of the three parts of the directors’ command.

1. First with “Lights,” we can shine our light and cast our shadow. With Nelson Mandela’s inaugural address Marianne Williamson challenged the idea of fearing inadequacy but fearing our majesty. People may have taught and encouraged us to subdue ourselves, remaining quiet, unseen, and hidden in the background. Nevertheless, each of us bring something never-before-seen-and-known to the world. The story of superman depicts Clark Kent, who tends to fade into the background and his alter ego Superman who finds himself compelled to move forward helping, serving, and saving. What if we become more deliberate about our choices to share our light (our talents), and stepping into the shadows when we need to do that? We can do both.

2. Second, with “Camera,” we can take center stage. We can choose how we want to present ourselves: sometimes consciously, authentically, and fully as ourselves. However, in the face of oppression and injustice we may need to shut down or withdraw. We may need time to grieve and release hopes that can’t seem to survive. Yet staying present to our grief can be part of the full picture of our lives. Can we draw on our unique capacities to rise above the situation and turn towards fortitude, resilience, courage, and internal strength to shine brightly?

3. Finally, with “Action,” we can change our thinking to change our lives. Mindful awareness and choice of our thoughts, feelings and actions can empower how we move through our lives. We can change our individual lives. We can contribute to the end of broader harmful, unconscious, outdated habits or “ISMs” like racism, sexism, or ablism. What if we recognize and use our privileges, positions, authority, and voices to expand the ways that people have thought and acted? What actions might we take in our lives to co-create a more equitable, just, and kind world?

Affirmation: I shine my light and cast my shadow from my life’s center stage.

Twinkle and Shine 5-21-23

My teacher drew part of today’s lesson from the reason that stars appear to twinkle. When starlight enters our atmosphere, winds with different air temperatures and densities act like prisms through which the light twinkles.

Similarly, we all shine our light through the darkness we encounter. Our light may pass through what we may think of as smudges and shadows that we’ve picked up along our lives. For example, consider how many times people have told us, “No.” Now consider how many of those “No’s” we have internalized to become our own naysayers. How many of those “No’s,” have become habits. We know about some of these, while others have gone forward without our conscious understanding.

Who has heard of the model for self-awareness called, “the Johari window?” My teacher learned directly from Joe Luft (the “Jo” part of Johari). Joe and Harry invited folks to consider experiences as two intersecting continuums: 1) self-knowledge ranging from known to unknown and 2) others’ knowledge of us also ranging from known to unknown. We may think we know ourselves, yet others see things about us that fall in our bind-spot.

My teacher has used the Johari window to guide her to expand what she knows about herself, and to reveal insights about her relationships. She described having a posse of folks. Do we have folks who see the truth of us, sharing it with love and compassion? Do we have individuals who cheer us when our truth and our mysteries may leave us feeling burdened or overwhelmed?

When people judge us, we can contract and avoid them and their judgements. Alternatively, we can share our truth, and consider that despite all the “No’s,” that can seem to command our attention, we live in a universe constantly whispering “Yes.” Be the artist treating your whole life as your canvas and listen to the whispering “Yes’s”.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’,

Embracing Our Shadows 5-14-23

In his lyrics to “Mother,” Michael Bublé acknowledged his mother’s generosity, selflessness, and hard work. He sang, “I know I made it tough. I know I caused you pain. You loved me like the angel, I’m not.”

To all the mothers, stepmothers, grandmothers, godmothers, aunties, and people who care for us, “Happy Mothers’ Day.” We celebrate this day for all the love we receive and all the undeserved affection and consideration that comes to us. For many of us, mothers inspire us to become better than we’ve been, to grow beyond who we are. For folks whose mothers may not have always understood how to meet our needs, maybe we can still learn how to listen to ourselves and move towards loving ourselves more than now.

Last week, my teachers presented encouragement to appreciate both light and shadow, letting go of the tendency to simplify life as a choice between either end of two opposites. This week my teachers invited me to learn from my shadow. This can happen with simple actions.

I can start by looking at who and what bothers me? Those things may trigger me because they hit so close to home. I may not see myself as terrible as THAT thing. Yet THAT thing may resonate with something that I’ve buried or hidden away with shame, disappointment, or fear of not being good enough.

Understand the distinction between letting our fears trap us and letting our fears teach us. Fear that we feel in this moment originated with the purpose of keeping us safe. It can let us know how to navigate our lives successfully, taking risks so that we grow beyond what the limitations that we’ve let contain us.

Consider this from Brene’ Brown, “Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” For eons, we’ve heard the advice to “know ourselves.” That takes work and deliberate effort. The best mothers know that we have potential that they imagined as they carried us into the world. Let’s celebrate the caring people in our lives and our own growing potential.

Exploring the Great Both/And 5-7-23

This month, my teachers will explore light within the shadows. They remind us how we may typically consider light and dark as distinct opposites with encouragement to embrace the light as “good,” and avoid darkness as “bad.” Yet light and dark co-exist together, a pair working in unison. Our lived human experience has us operating in both light and dark spaces simultaneously.

My teacher advised the value of flipping from customary either/or thinking where we have reduced our view of the world as simply pairs of opposites. This represents a traditionally white, western way thinking. Either/or thinking leads to oversimplification. When we only consider two options, we overlook other possibilities. Either/or thinking can also reinforce prejudices and stereotypes (accurate assumptions about people or groups of people).

“The earth is round & flat at the same time. This is obvious. That it is round appears indisputable; that it is flat is our common experience, also indisputable. The globe does not supersede the map; the map does not distort the globe.” — Jeanette Winterson

Opting in to “Both/And” Thinking:

Recognize the limits of either/or thinking by catching ourselves when we use it.
Ask what we want and change how we talk about it. For example, what if we replace, “I can’t do this,” with, “I can’t do this yet.”

Question our assumptions. We can start asking ourselves questions like “What if?” and “What’s another way I could think about this?”.
Reframe the situation. If we are considering two options and feel like we must choose only one, what stops us from believing in more possible outcomes.
Be more open-minded. Consider new ideas and ways of thinking. Be open to change.
Take action and do something we’ve feared or try something new.

As we walk through light and shadows, we can savor the experiences and grow from whatever they have to offer. We can appreciate the light and the dark, and allow our inner shadows to carry the light, as well as our light to hold the darkness.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Embracing our Vulnerability 4-23-23

Today my teacher spoke about one old, habitual way of facing vulnerability. He used to respond by trying to become invisible.

Consider: when people can’t see or notice us they may not see our embarrassment, stress, sadness, or need. Yet becoming invisible also stops us from showing our magnificent uniqueness. We may end up bullying, judging, or belittling ourselves. In the very process of avoiding threats from others, we may end up threatening and harming ourselves. My teacher believes, “Life is an inside job.”

What do we choose to see about ourselves? If we focus on our faults, doesn’t that train us to look through a lens of fault finding? What do we have to do to expand our vision to include our greatness? In Nelson Mandela’s inaugural address, the author proposed, “And as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Likewise, when we choose to see our own wholeness—expanded beyond a fixation on our faults—we become testaments to the wholeness that exists in everyone. When we allow ourselves to be ourselves, we give others permission to be themselves. Our lives may proceed with an interplay between expanding internal awareness and external practices. In the face of discomforts with ourselves, how might we deal with ourselves? What if we act as our own cheerleaders—waking in the morning, looking the mirror and celebrating who faces us.

Affirmation: I allow myself to see and be seen unconditionally.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’

Both Sides Now 4-2-23

Artist Joni Mitchell shared this song in 1967 having realized that the universe holds more than we can understand. We may think we “get” something, and, ultimately, we have to look beyond our initial assessments and beliefs. Today my teacher spoke about safety, vulnerability and becoming bigger than what we may have originally imagined.

Vulnerability holds our capacity for self-expression, for being seen as we truly are. How much more to us exists? We come to situations in our lives and we may have reasons to hold certain expectations. Yet haven’t we all heard stories about people and circumstances where the unexpected arises?

This week several religious traditions mark holidays with such stories. In Judaism, Passover calls to mind the story of the Israelites escaping from slavery and starting a journey to forge new identities. Some Christian traditions identify a day of welcome and celebration of a heroic leader; within the week, that hero gets charged with crimes that lead to an execution. In the midst of this year’s Ramadan, observant Muslims around the world engage in fasting when they can reflect, empathize and express gratitude.

These assorted traditions and stories may not make sense to some people. Yet what if we follow Joni Mitchell’s invitation to look from both sides—from what makes sense to us and what eludes us? Can we look at ourselves with patience and love? Rather than wishing to get rid of our baggage and the triggers that upset us, we can choose to respect ourselves and embrace these as places for growth, development and evolution. When we delight in our own inexplicable contradictions we become more inclusive, our own safe spaces.

Relish every opportunity to be ourselves, to listen and share, to give and receive.

Songwriter and singer David Duvall recommends “Be your own biggest fan. Fill each day with laughter. Whenever you mean it, say, ‘I love you.’”

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

You’ve Been Pre-Approved! 3-26-23

When we embrace our own worthiness, we stop seeking others’ approval. Human beings come into the world with one specific emotion that may appear to stand between us and that sense of worthiness. Shame arises when we believe we have something “wrong” with us. How many of us learned to cope with shame by working harder, changing ourselves, hiding from others and imagining futures of finally becoming enough?

What if understanding shame lets us recognize it and move through it? What if, instead of guiding us into a sinkhole of self-loathing, shame can become a spotlight or compass for us to the areas that we do not yet love and accept about ourselves?

My teacher, Ernest Holmes offered the idea that Life makes us out of Itself. This speaks to our inherent worth as living beings. Our very life comes from life itself, perfect, whole and complete. The shared Jewish, Christian and Islamic creation story ended each of the six days of creation with the Creator declaring its creation “Good”. It follows that when we arrived on the planet as newborns we were Good. And we lack nothing now.

This leads us to three considerations:

1. “When you know your worth, no one can make you feel worthless.” Our worth does not depend on what we have done, it revolves around what we know. Thoughts and feelings of unworthiness separate us from our Truth, our True Selves and others. We’ve learned to hide and silence our shame.

2. Brene Brown wrote, “Shame needs three things to grow out of control in our lives: secrecy, silence, and judgment…We need to share our experience; shame loses power when it is spoken. Bring light to our shadows. Taking an inventory of our triggers may help us to become familiar with them and choose alternative responses. We have spent so long running from our shameful feelings. What if we stop running and become familiar with them? What if we stop accepting those past judgements as true about ourselves, and begin to live from our whole selves?

3. Shame has caused us to question our worth; however, those questions challenging our worthiness aren’t the Truth. Join me with this affirmation: I am loveable, worthy, and more than enough.

Respectfully,

Rev. Vaughan

Beautiful Boundaries 3-19-23

Today my teacher spoke about the relationship between authenticity and personal boundaries. She describes a friend who regularly checked in with her to rag and complain. It took time for my teacher to realize how these complaint sessions with her friend felt like a black hole depleting her energy. However, rather than allowing this to continue, my teacher realized that she could set a boundary limiting the time listening to and receiving the complaints. While the friend did not love this adjustment to their custom, the shift let my teacher carry on with the relationship.

Without boundaries we may find ourselves getting used, misused, and abused and even feeling victimized. Managing boundaries requires our skill, self-knowledge and authenticity. We may think that people would naturally recognize our boundaries and that people who care for us would respect our boundaries. However, we have to assume responsibility to know our own boundaries and to share our knowledge.

My teacher had a friend who dreaded every dinner, because the friend’s husband used these meal times to berate her—no matter what else happened during his day. My teacher listened sympathetically to this recurrent circumstance until she finally proposed that her friend could choose to take her dinner in another room. The friend has done that ever since and she has enjoyed her meals independently.

To establish boundaries, consider these steps:

Believe in ourselves, that our feelings matter.

Give ourselves permission to have boundaries.

We can respect our own boundaries.

Accept that boundary-setting varies for the people we know. It may feel easiest with strangers and hardest with those closest to us.

Recognize that we can cultivate relationships that build our energy.

Finally, we have to realize that we cannot change others, we can only change ourselves.

Let’s embrace and enjoy our beautiful boundaries

Respectfully

Rev. Vaughan

Coming Face to Face With Ourselves 3-12-23

This month my teachers have put their focus on authenticity and being our true selves. Unfortunately, we have daily habits and practices that interfere with this.

Please consider two metaphors to illustrate this–number one, masks covering us and number two, bushels hiding our light.

With COVID 19, many people listened to public health recommendations and put on masks to minimize the spread of the virus. However, we have worn masks long before the pandemic impacted us. We may have worn masks for play. For example, some people disguise themselves on Halloween and for MardiGras. Actors have worn masks to play different characters.

Figuratively, we may wear masks in efforts to fit in, to fade in the background, and to keep people at a distance. Have you ever worn a smile as a mask that belied what you truly felt, like giving the pat answer, “I’m fine,” in response to the social question, “How are you?”

We may have believed we needed pretenses and masks to get through the situations facing us.

With so many good reasons to wear masks, what possible reasons would have us set them aside? A) Masks may have stopped us from being our “All” and reaching our fullest potential. B) Taking our masks off may “Bring,” relief, and let us take a fuller “Breath”. Finally, C) when we stop “Carving,” off pieces of ourselves to fit in our masks, we may finally heal.

We have covered our light with our masks and with baskets or bushels. Why should we let our light shine? This weekend in various parts of the country, we changed our clocks forward by an hour to experience more light during the times many people spend awake. There’s a pleasure that may come from being in the light. I truly believe that you shine light in my life. I want to thank you for that, celebrate your light, and let that inspire me to shine more brightly.

Not Being Anyone Else bBut Me 3-5-23

Today my teachers had me consider that living authentically calls me to cultivate three key things in my life: awareness of who I am; compassion for who I am; and courage to live vulnerably by showing who I am.

Authenticity empowers us to step into all areas of our lives as our real authentic selves. Brene Brown defines authenticity as “the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” (The Gifts of Imperfection, Pg. 50)

While developing within our mothers, their bodies met our every needs. This changed dramatically at birth when we learned about conditions that we had to fulfill so we could get those caring for us to respond to us. We learned to “be like this” or “don’t be like that,” letting us meet others’ expectations. Our authentic needs and wants became less important than practicing ways fit-in and get by.

Bangkok monastic artists built a golden Buddha statue in 1403, standing 9’8” tall and weighing 5.5 tons of gold. In 1757 a Burmese army began invading Thailand and monks covered their golden Buddha with plaster, painted it and inlaid it with bits of colored glass. This hid golden Buddha’s value from the invading army. 200 years later, a group of monks began relocating their monastery (this plaster Buddha’s home). While moving the old plaster statue, ropes on it broke. Their Buddha fell. Its clay cracked and revealed a golden light. With hammer and chisel, a monk chipped away the clay exterior until she revealed the statue within made of solid gold.

The temple of Apollo in Delphi reveals the inscription “Know Thyself.” This directs us towards

self-learning and self-inquiry, so we can know who we are instead of who we are “supposed” to be. We discover that we may have hidden our light behind erroneous beliefs and identities that we picked up along our lives. “Under the plaster of thoughts and beliefs that are not our truths – there lies our Authentic Selves – our own golden Buddhas.”

Processes of self-discovery call for self-compassion. We are more and less than what we thought. How do we embrace this familiar stranger? Consider the proposal that we are unique expressions of life. Embracing all of ourselves, the parts we like and the parts we have been told not to like, opens us. What if life does not ask us to be anything other than our selves. “People are made out of and from Life…. We did not create our nature; We cannot change its inherent reality; we are what we are and we use this nature for better or for worse.” – Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind (p. 107)

The choice to vulnerably show and be ourselves calls us to cultivate courage. Our courage does not eliminate fear; it equips us to stand in the face of fear and risks. Claiming our authentic selves brings us to the edge of our comfort zone. Courage keeps us moving to and through that edge.

Blessings

Rev. Vaughan

Giving and Receiving What’s Good 2-26-23

Today, my teacher reminded me about looking beyond obstacles and disappointments and seeing the goodness within our reach.

From the time mothers give birth to children, our lives start with cries for the overwhelming changes we encounter in our world. That makes it easy to see our connections with each other through the pains and disappointments we all encounter. There’s a weird appeal to complaints. We hear about something someone has suffered and we consider our own difficulties. Encouragement to look for “the good,” may strike us as dismissive and unsympathetic. What hurts is real.

And, we can choose to look for the good. One of my teachers gave me an easy way to do this called “3-2-1.” At any moment I can consider three things that I see. I can look for things that seem beautiful. Next, I can consider two things that I feel, like the smooth texture of my pants or the warmth of my socks protecting me from the cold. Finally, what’s one thing I can hear? Is it the voice of a loved one, the sound of children laughing, or a breeze bringing new air?

My teacher talks a lot about the power of journaling. What happens if I take the time and spend the energy to make a simple list of the good things I’ve encountered today? Did I wake up with various capacities? During the day did I taste or drink something delicious? Did I see or talk with someone who inspired, encouraged, uplifted, or cared for me? Did I contribute to anyone or anything in the world? Did my presence make anything better?

In spite of all the pain in the world, how many people have chosen to act in ways that leave the world better? When things fall short of our ideals we can choose to land in disappointment. We can also make other choices. Thomas Edison has some fame for how many times he kept pushing past failures. Harriet Tubman kept traveling between the south which had enslaved her and the north with prospects of freedom. She let an inner vision guide her and she continued on in the face of unrelenting dangers.

What simple ways today can I give time, attention, and service? What simple ways can I receive them? What good might I receive and what good might I give?

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’,

Ask the Toughest Questions 2-12-23

This weekend my teacher advised me to ask the toughest questions. Let’s start with “Why am I here?” Frequently, we imagine that the answer will emerge as a recitation of words or paragraphs. However, our most accurate answers will emerge as sensations from our hearts. We may find ourselves leaning towards some things and away from others. I’ve come to trust that what we are seeking is seeking us. We all have curiosity about our journey through this life and often seek the answers outside of ourselves. The answers lie within.

After listening to ourselves, we can ask, “How do I recognize my purpose?” We can consider what we do and notice that some things in the world light us up in a way where we lose track of where we are and the passage of time. Czech psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, discovered and named this, “the flow experience.” Take a moment now and consider our flow experiences. We come to the world with our own unique talents and gifts to enjoy and to give to others.

My teacher recognizes that living means we confront obstacles. How do we counter them? Civil rights leader, Representative John Lewis advised, “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” Nearly 179 years ago, Henry Highland Garnett identified resistance as the only path to freedom, justice, and equality; self-determination; and social transformation. Garnett shouted, “Let your motto be resistance! resistance! RESISTANCE!”

Here in the midst of Black History Month 2023 with the theme of Resistance remember how Black people have achieved triumphs, successes, and progress (ending chattel enslavement, dismantling the South’s Jim and Jane Crow segregation, increasing political representation at all government levels, desegregating educational institutions, passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opening DC’s Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and increasing diverse representation of Black experiences in media). Black resistance strategies have served as a model for every other social movement in this country. “What will we resist?”

Blessings

Rev. Vaughan

Our Superpower, Curiosity 2-5-23

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/communications-matter/202005/how-conquer-your-unconscious-fears

My teacher asked who hasn’t heard the expression, “Feel the fear and do it anyway?” Fear arises in us as an emotional experience to keep us alive. However, our human experiences have evolved more rapidly than our physiology. Fear spurs our body to engage in fight, flight, or freeze, but we can respond to the triggers to our fears in additional ways.

What kinds of things lead to modern fears? We can include vulnerability, rejection, criticism, failure, success, decision-making, responsibility, commitment, speaking-up, staying silent.

Curiosity about our fear stretches us beyond fight, flight, and freeze. When we face our fear, we can ask about what we face. For example, will vulnerability in a relationship really harm me without hope of recovery? What kind of failure could kill me?

What if we recognize fear and other unpleasant experiences as our companions rather than burdens we have to carry or obstacles we have to overcome? What if we entertain the possibility that life is for us? I’ve never known anyone who sees life as hostile and against them as someone who revels in peace or joy. Can’t we ask “Is this fear useful or not?” Can we welcome fear’s capacity to bring safety and growth?

Our questions and curiosity can transform our experiences. What do you want to ask and transform?

An Alternative Take on Surrender 1-29-23

Today my teacher offered me a crash course on “surrender.”

Let’s start by reviewing what is NOT surrender. First, let go of the association between surrender and stopping because we’ve lost. That concept only belongs to the Western patriarchy which divides the world into winners and losers. Second, surrender is distinct from giving up. Finally, surrender does not mean failure, doing something wrong, nor deserving punishment.

Surrendering and letting go does mean that we can consider that we live in a world where things will be well. We do not need to do anything. Our existence in the world in this moment opens new opportunities. If we get stuck thinking something is missing, then we can get unstuck by imagining we’ll experience it at the right time.

Letting go of our own inner wisdom allows us to engage in self-love and self-care. It opens us to freedom.

The obstacles to surrender include the quadruplets of fear, worry, doubt, and control. The feeling of fear evolved to protect us in a hostile, dangerous world. Fear continues to have a place in our lives, but not center stage. Worry emerges with our ability about to think about the world. However, our thoughts may become a whirlpool drawing us underwater. Doubt lets us stay in the stance of “freeze.” Finally, control tries to falsely convince us that we can single-handedly make everything all right. Consider for a moment that this universe has operated for eons without the contributions of our fears, worries, doubts, and control.

With this crash course in surrender, my teacher invited me to start the process of surrender by selecting one thing that I can release. When I’ve let that go, I can move on to the next thing. What might you consider surrendering?

Blessings,

Rev. Vaughan

Happy Lunar New Year 1-22-23

Today, the Chinese or Lunar New Year has us bidding farewell to the Year of the Tiger and welcoming the Year of the Rabbit—a symbol of grace, beauty, mercy, and good luck. Traditionally, these holiday honors deities and ancestors reminding celebrants of reunion and rebirth. People thoroughly clean their homes, sweeping away old ill fortune and making room for coming good luck.

What if we sweep away the blocks to gratefully accepting everything this new year has to offer? What possible benefits come from blaming, shaming, and complaining? Perhaps we have thought we deserve more than we have received. Perhaps we haven’t felt deserving enough or good enough. Perhaps our judgments of others have left us feeling angry or uncomfortable that others can move through the world as they do without any seeming consequences. We can overcome these obstacles by recognizing them and then choosing what to do next.

When it comes to gratitude, everything counts. Today in response to the shooting in Monterey Park CA, I chose to find gratitude for the police and hospital caregivers. Consider if we have tossed aside compliments as meaningless. “Oh, this old thing,” we’ve said, when someone compliments our outfit. Or maybe we quickly deferred by saying how much or little it cost. Either way, what we’ve done may have unintentionally disregarded or minimized the gift we received. Simple compliments deserve a simple “thank you” or a smile. We can turn our attention to the giver, and their attempt to create a connection.

One of my favorite teachers, 13^th and 14^th century Master Eckhart proposed, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” Our attitude of gratitude shifts our experience. Our grateful hearts and minds appreciate all the good that flows to and through us. That, in turn, opens us to even more good.

Affirmation: I feel grateful for all I have to share

Blessing

Rev. Vaughan

Remember to Listen 1-8-23

This week, my teacher reminded me of the age-old lesson of listening to ourselves. Generations ago a prophet received the message that wisdom would speak. The prophet listened through raging winds, earthquakes, and fires; finally, the prophet heard wisdom in its still, small voice.

In this era with so many people and circumstances shouting for attention, what if we practice the discipline of letting ourselves slow down and open to stillness? We can turn off our electronics. We can set our to-do lists aside. We can pause and follow our breath or pulse.

How many of us have learned how to stop trusting and listening to ourselves? This may have led us to seek external experts like gurus or guidance books.

What becomes available to us if we look inside our hearts and reestablish trust in ourselves? What becomes available if we entertain the idea that the very wisdom at the back of all creation can arise from with our own hearts and minds?

Try slowing down, listening to the silence, and trusting what emerges.

Rev. Vaughan

Our Communities Can Light us Up

Creating a community depends on who we acknowledge as belonging in our community.

Let’s start by considering people from our pasts. Worldwide Candle Lighting Day gets celebrated the second Sunday every December. Despite its occurrence during many holidays, it has nothing to do with them. This virtual 24-hour global candle lighting ceremony demonstrates compassionate support for families grieving the loss their children. Today, local churches, funeral homes, hospitals, hospices, schools, cemeteries, memorial gardens, and community centers support hundreds of Worldwide Candle Lighting Day gatherings. Now take a moment to light a candle for anyone you’ve ever lost. Everyone was someone’s child. Lift up them and all children who have died with gratitude for all they’ve brought to the world

This weekend the Seattle School District Department of Racial Equity used the theme of ubuntu—the collection of values and practices held by people of Africa or of African origin. Ubuntu encompasses our human interdependence while acknowledging our responsibility to our fellow humans and the world around us. Archbishop Desmond Tutu described ubuntu, “I am a human because I belong. I participate. I share.”

African intellectual historian Michael Onyebuchi Eze highlights four features of ubuntu:

First, our humanity represents a quality we owe to each other. We create each other and we need to sustain this creation of otherness. Anytime we feel different or alienated, we have stretched the established limits we’ve known. We make the universe larger.

Second, wealth and its distribution have new meaning when we remember that everyone has different skills and strengths. Through mutual support we can help each other to complete ourselves.

Third, we can let warmth guide our treatment of strangers and members of our communities. Nelson Mandela explained Ubuntu with this response to travelers through the country. When travelers stop at a village, the villagers need no request before giving food and attending to them. This warm generosity does not mean self-sacrifice. Warmth entails mutual care.

Finally, since everyone makes mistakes that can cause intentional and unintentional harm, we all depend on “redemption”. South Africa’s Interim Constitution encouraged, “There is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimization” The truth and reconciliation council believed in Ubuntu as the means to help reform and reconnect their broken country of South Africa. Who finds themselves living in an unbroken world?

Light a candle in thanks and blessing or choose to practice any feature of ubuntu.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ from 12-11-22 Service

Belonging

Today my teachers taught about belonging and its impacts on a healthy life.

Many of us may know that research has demonstrated how attachment and belonging in our earliest relationships form the foundation for how we move through our lives and how we form future relationships. Strong attachments create opportunities for health and well-being. Little ones that don’t form attachments with other people struggle in all sorts of ways—physically and emotionally.

The experiences of not belonging can lead us to create an-almost automatic response of excluding ourselves. Doesn’t it feel easier to reject others than to have others reject us?

Brene Brown encouraged her readers, “Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong because you will always find it. Stop walking through the world looking for evidence that you are not enough because you will always find it.”

We can choose to belong in spite of people and events and circumstances. We can start, most simply, by belonging to ourselves.

To build a sense of belonging, consider these questions. When did you or do you feel you most belonged? When did you or do you feel you haven’t or don’t belong? When you do belong, how does that change how you interact with others? If I start by belonging to myself, there are next steps, and additional ways that my sense of belonging can increase

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan from 11-04-22

Keys to our dream homes

Find the keys to our dream homes in our hearts and minds. Discover how to unlock the possibility and joy of being at home wherever we go.

First, consider our understanding of home as daily representations of our ideals. What brings us joy? How do we feel facing the notion that we come into our lives perfect, whole, and complete? What if our life journeys allow us to become our best possible selves?

Second, with Harry Chapin’s song Cats in the Cradle, we might see the opposite of ideals, our disappointments within our homes. The narrator of the song puts off sharing events with his son. “When you comin’ home dad? I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then. You know we’ll have a good time then.” Our lives invariably confront us with misfortunes, missed opportunities, and unfulfilled dreams. However, as breaks in bones form stronger bones, confronting and living through fears and disappointments transforms us.

Finally, we can choose home-making practices wherever we live, every day. Consider these “Rathers”. Rather than denying our circumstances, we deny their power over us and face challenges head-on. Rather than blaming, shaming, making excuses, and seeing ourselves as victims, we can assume full responsibility for our thoughts, feelings and actions and then act to remedy situations. Rather than holding onto what does not serve us, we can let it go.

We come into this human experience as a perfect, whole, and complete. By entertaining that idea and feeling, we can find a home wherever we go. We might so embody our ideals that others find themselves at home in our presence and in their own. Together, we can pass beyond disappointments, moving with power and compassion.

Rev. Vaughan from week 11-27-22

Preparing for this week

Today my teachers reminded me of the story about the shifting fortune of the farmer and his nosey neighbor. One day, the farmer’s horse escaped from his property. The neighbor offered sympathy, “Too bad about you losing your horse!” The farmer responded, “Maybe it is or maybe it isn’t.” And you may remember that the next day the horse returned, and a herd of wild mares came back with him. The neighbor jumped up and down with excitement, “What a great fortune!” Again, the farmer replied, “Maybe it is or maybe it isn’t.” The next day the farmer’s son tried to tame the herd, got thrown from the horses, and broke his leg. The neighbor quickly judged, “You can’t run your farm without your son. Your luck is terrible.” Of course, the farmer replied, “Maybe it is or maybe it isn’t.” The following day, the emperor passed conscription on all the healthy men in the kingdom. You can imagine the conversation

How many times do we play the role of the neighbor quickly judging things as good and bad? Have we navigated negative feelings with idealized images which end up creating more resentment? During this time as people prepare to gather for Thanksgiving dinners do we find ourselves poised between dread or delight? As we picture our futures around those meals, are we imagining past unsettled arguments, previous slights and grievances, regret for people we won’t see, or excitement and joyful anticipation?

My teachers reflected on the study of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s) and recounted how most people have had some adverse experiences. Questions that this raises: how much do I choose to use my experiences to “one-up” other people’s stories; how much do I hold onto those stories as cornerstones of my identity? We can look at our stories and re-write our roles in those stories. As we head into this holiday, consider if you might be ready to see your stories with less judgment and to feel genuine gratitude for how broken hearts, like broken bones, may become stronger. Happy Thanksgiving!

Rev. Vaughan from 11-20-22 Service

Whether or not home has met your needs and expectations

My teacher reminded me that we come from many different kinds of homes. Sometimes our families saw us and loved us in our full authenticity. On other occasions, our family members may not have had all the skills and insights to contribute to the fulfillment of our needs. No matter how our backgrounds have shaped us, we can choose to deliberately create homes and places of loving acceptance for everyone we encounter. In the movie Home Alone, the protagonist, Kevin, exchanges disregard and disrespect with members of his family. Yet, comically, he chooses to defend the home they share. His family returns seeing very little evidence of days of havoc; they can see new, unexpected capacities for responsibility (“You did the laundry!”)
We can look to our ideals of home. Take time with the still, small voice. What do we leave behind and what do we carry forward? How good can our visions and practices of home-making be?Consider this affirmation: My home brings out the best in me and others.

Rev. Vaughan from 11-13-22 Service

This month my teachers will focus on wisdom related to “home‘. Consider this poem by Starhawk:

“We are all longing to go home, to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.”

Joseph Campbell taught about heroic journeys which typically start and end at home. People may find themselves dismissing myths and fictions. However, we can let the truths they carry inspire and uplift. They teach us that “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

Heroic journeys consist of three phases. First, with departure the heroic person leaves their ordinary world, typically with guidance from a mentor. Second initiation involvesourdevelopment of strength through trials and tribulations, with the help of allies and friends. Finally, our challenges transform us before we return home.

Where are you in your heroic journey? Have you found home within your hearts, close as your breath?

Rev. Vaughan from 11-06-22 Service

“Rev. Vaughan’s Eight Prosperity Secrets”

Do you remember being a child and feeling the thrill of having a secret? My teacher today offered a series of secrets that can change my life.

First, we’ve heard money called “currency,” but what kind of thoughts have we given to the meaning of the word. Currents and currencies run and flow with energy. We know that moneys come to us and go from us. When we pay our bills, we can choose our feeling of woe with money going, or joy for what it brought us.

Second, we may choose to appreciate every fortune small or large. We can obsess over size or we can center ourselves in gratitude and let that expand everything that comes to us.

Third, prosperity/abundance/plenty may simply involve our mindset. Take a minute everyday and contemplate how much fills the universe around and within us. We cannot count the stars or the grains of sand or the molecules of water.

Fourth, we can believe in more than what we see. Good things may come to us, in ways beyond what we can imagine and hold in mind.

Fifth, consider our beliefs in and judgments of people who differ from us. Sticking with our beliefs and judgments blocks our flow and the flow of good to us.

Sixth, let’s honor and respect ourselves. Let’s say “yes,” to ourselves and say “no,” when the times come to receive care. Do we value ourselves? If not, how can we value other things?

Seventh, beyond respect, let’s treat ourselves and others to genuine generosity. This involves continually creating expansive hearts.

Finally, declutter our lives. Do we stuff wallets with receipts or cards? Do we stuff our homes with things we never use and don’t want (but think we should have)? Declutter our thoughts by replacing them with what contributes to feelings of gratitude.

Finally, my teacher recommended the deliberate practice of starting and ending every day with contemplations of gratitude. What feelings and possibilities might come to us?

Rev. Vaughan

From service on October 30, 2022

“Money…What is it Good For?”

My teachers reacquainted me with ways to thrive and flourish in all areas of my life. They proposed that if our past thoughts and feelings contribute to what we have now, then we can change our thoughts and feelings today. In the next moment we can become magnets for more good things. Quantum physics shows us that observation affects what we observe.

Do we focus on what we have or what we don’t have? Have we accepted a lack-based mindset as second nature?

Are we impatient and demanding about what we want—fixated on what we want and where it is and when it will arrive?

Are we worried that what we want won’t come?

Do we feel we deserve what we want? Or have we set conditions about receiving—for example, when we lose weight, organize, or declutter?

Do we appreciate what we already have? Do we have a place to stay, clean water, food, companions who care about us?

Do we have negative beliefs about having what we need or more than what we need?

Do we carry grudges and resentments, feeling entitled to hold past insults and injuries?

Do we speak about high costs and how we can’t afford thigs?

Do the ways we think about having enough make us feel good or bad?

When we wake up, if we see challenges maybe that suggests we carry hidden beliefs that we have the capacities to address those challenges. Maybe we carry abundance we haven’t acknowledged. Maybe if we get out of the way, we can make ways where we saw no way.

In Loving Spirit

Rev Vaughan Amaré

From service on October 23, 2022

“Let it Go to Let it Flow”

Let’s suppose we live in an infinitely abundant Universe including love, health, financial freedom, creativity and more. However, conscious, and unconscious beliefs about lack and limitation have set rules guiding our lives. These rules choke the flow of the Infinite Good down to a mere trickle. Our work: let go and let the natural Abundance of the Universe flow in our lives.

1. The Universe is always saying, “yes.” Restrictions do not come from the Universal Flow; they happen within us in our lives and social interactions. Our thoughts, feelings and beliefs guide our lives. Do we believe in the goodness of everything including ourselves, our actions, our money? Do we believe we have value, worth and the entitlement to live well? Do we get rid of good things as soon as they come? Do we cling and hoard out of fear we will lose our good? Let’s let go of beliefs that have stopped serving us

2. Our experience of abundance comes from within us. Many people talk about the “Law of Attraction.” But “attraction” may suggest a belief that our good is “out there” away from us and we need to attract it to “here.” This mimics the thinking that the sun goes around the earth. While it seems that way as we look at the sun’s apparent movement across the sky, that is not what happens. Substitute the Law of Attraction with the Law of Expression – where what we express becomes our experience of Life. Let’s make that more conscious and deliberate.

3. Our heart’s desires guide us to what wants to be expressed through us. Too often, however, we shut them down, turn them off and stop listening. Why? We fixate on how to bring them about. The Universe will not desire through us without also providing the means to accomplish those desires. Let’s listen to our heart’s real desires. What is wanting to be expressed through us? Say “yes” even if we have no idea “how.”

Zen monks hear that to become enlightened, they have to eliminate all desire from their lives. They will go off and spend years working to release all desires. Finally, they return to their teachers and announce that they have succeeded. The teachers will nod and smile and ask, “Why did you do that?” They will come to the realization that they had a desire to be enlightened. So, sadly, they go off to release the desire to be enlightened, only to realize that they are still working in the field of desire. Eventually, they awaken to the realization that desire is the motivating energy of the universe, moving all forward. They release their desire to release their desires.

What if we replace dysfunctional beliefs with statements of Truth. Catherine Ponder offered this: I expect lavish abundance every day in every way in my life and affairs.

Rev. Vaughan

From service on October 9, 2022

“Consider Abundance”

Today my teacher reminded me how to escape from outdated beliefs about my wants and dreams. While it may be easy to consider what I want, getting it can seem impossible for it to happen.

What do I believe about my wants and dreams? Do I believe I deserve them? When considering my wants and desires, do I obsess on specific details and lose sight of possibilities that may be better than my imagination? Do I believe that they can come to me easily or must I struggle? Do I believe that others support me or stand in my way?

Based on my beliefs, what do I think and how do I act? Do I contribute to how others may meet their wants and needs? Do I fear that if someone gets what they want that blocks me from what can come to me?

Think about the universe of abundance all around us. Look to the sky at night and see more stars than you can count. Consider the deserts and seas and the grains of sand and drops of water. Think about every moment from the burst of the big bang. Reflect on the cells within our bodies, the miles of blood vessels. Remember the thoughts and words of the wise.

We may mistakenly focus on limitations, but we can turn that around. We can consider how the vast abundance of creation may kindle feelings of gratitude and hope.

Rev Vaughan Amaré

From service on October 2, 2022

“Dreamwork for Deamwork”

This month my teacher has reminded me how we can extend our passions for our world through our work. Work successes, measures, improvements, and efficiencies may either distract or remind us from our sense of meaning in our world. We can practice finding the good in our work by doing all the good that we can.

My work on the bargaining team inspired me to think about the many different teams that arise in our lives. Some teams simply happen in our lives. For example, living in families where we are born or adopted lets us gain an understanding that the world is bigger than each of us as individuals.

Sometimes we choose our teams. We try out, compete, apply and strive to join a wide array of groups. Working on these kinds of teams with others lets us reach bigger goals–set our sights higher. Such groups may lead us to ask, “Do we feel that we and our dreams are enough? If yes, how did that sense grow in us? If not, how can we reframe our sense of ourselves to be enough and accept who we are?

Sometimes, teams find us. We can discover that people we might never choose end up coming into our lives and playing roles we never imagined. These kinds of circumstances may evoke the question: Who in our lives needs their dreams affirmed? Who near us is taking a risk and needs reminding that others are watching with admiration and awe? Who needs help seeing that they are radiant?

Finally, let us consider the teams that we create when we allow ourselves to both ask for and receive help. So much of culture in the US praises independence and self-sufficiency. Yet in the actual process of living, don’t we find ourselves reliant on others. Rather than fight this, how do our lives shift when we embrace it?

Affirmation: Great dreams awaken through every team in my life!

“Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy.” ~ Buddha

“A Person’s true wealth is the good they do in this world.” ~ Muhammad

“What is essential is invisible to the eye. It is only with the heart that one sees rightly.”–Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Rev. Vaughan Amaré

From service on September 18, 2022

Loving Ourselves

This week, the lesson my teacher shared focused on loving our bodies.

How many of us imagine loving ourselves at some time in the future once we’ve achieved certain physical goals? We hold ourselves back thinking that “waiting” forms the basis for the discipline of losing these pounds, gaining this much muscle or this much capacity. We envision a certain level of health and anything that falls short of that should inspire us to future possibilities.

What if we let go of the future visions and embrace ourselves as we are right this moment? Over the next seven days, here are a series of actions we can take to practice self-love–moving back from the future and into the moment.

Monday, I name 5 things I love about my body.

Tuesday, I give myself 3 genuine compliments.

Wednesday, I wear something that brings me joy.

Thursday, I notice 3 things for which I feel grateful and I write them down.

Friday, I compare myself to who I was on Thursday, noting how I have improved.

Saturday, I name 1 amazing thing my body lets me do today.

Sunday, I write a sweet love note to myself.

Finally, as a general practice let’s try starting everyday by telling ourselves, “My amazing, awe-inspiring body lets life manifest through me.”

Let these final days of school uplift us and bring us unexpected joys.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ from Service on 6-12-22

Lessons From Pride

This month we remember queer pride, commemorating 53 years ago when people pushed to the edge fought back. They met prejudice and worn expectations with surprising force and fury. They ushered pathways that queer folk have continued to parade, promenade, and sashay.

What expectations do you want to release? What dreams do you hold? What do you imagine coming forth into existence that assumes conscious, new presence? What will you courageously embrace?

All such dreams and desires have place in our minds and hearts. We can choose and use our thoughts and feelings. We can negate our doubts and fears so that we open to new experiences where we live our desires.

We can start by simply recognizing life all around us.

When we really see life around us, we may become more aware of our own presence within that life. That life naturally includes each of us.

As part of life, the good, the dreams of our desires are taking form. This moment comes from the moment preceding it. What if we let ourselves imagine that life conspires on our behalf? Why shouldn’t our hearts desires be seeking us?

Naturally, the fulfillment of our dreams and desires engenders the most natural response of gratitude. Let ourselves feel thankful.

More good is always on its way, just like the breath that will follow the breath we have now. What if we accept that the same energy that set the stars in motion eons ago moves in our lives right now as the oncoming fulfillment of our dreams and desires?

Happy Pride, Happy Fulfillment, Happy Day!

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amaré from Service on 6-5-22

Memorial Day, Sadness and Love

Here’s hope that Memorial Day let you celebrate memories of people who fought and died for our country. This day could evoke feelings of sadness in the midst of pride and even happiness (possibly with the notion that we have arrived at what many folks consider the start of summertime).

This weekend, my teacher spoke about sorrow and how we live with and through it. Sadness may tinge many of our emotional experiences. For example, with the school shooting last week and the literal hunting of people of color in Buffalo from two weeks ago, I find myself steeped in both sadness and anger. How can we live in a time where the leading cause of death for children is shootings? How can politicians think the solution involves “hardened” doorways and armed teachers when trained police don’t respond successfully to school shootings?

Let our sadness speak to us and let us find our voices. Rather than trying to convince our sorrow to leave us, let’s respect ourselves enough to hear how our sadness can open us to growth. It may call us to love ourselves as we love people or circumstances gone from us. We can acknowledge and embrace our sadness. We may question the source of our sadness and own what the loss has to teach us

We might confront our sadness and move through it with meditation, yoga or even cries.

We might find something that uplifts us, letting laughter bring healing.

We might move our bodies with exercise–taking a walk in the sunshine or through the rain reflecting our mood. Spending time in nature may engage all of our senses.

We might reach out to our support person(s)–for people who can simply be with us and listen without judgment or desire to fix us.

We might practice reframing our thoughts. For example, if we see ourselves as the victim of some loss, as unworthy or unlovable, we might see ourselves as heroes in this moment, worthy and lovable.

I echo my teacher’s encouragement for each of us to select at least one way to love ourselves, making it a habit that becomes an automatic part of our lives.

This link provides 50 practical actions we might choose to take: https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/practices/features/view/28908/working-with-sadness

Gratefully,

Vaughan Amare’ from Service on 5-29-22

“Face Off With Our Anger”

This week my teacher invited us to explore the emotion of anger. Informationally, anger arises with our sympathetic nervous systems guiding our fight response (among our fight/flight/freeze responses to threats). While fight may activate actions, too many of our fight hormones can interfere with our memories and trigger physical disease. Therefore, we may wonder what we might we do to manage our anger.

For starters, we can employ a long, deep, diaphragmatic breath. In that space we have created, we can stop and think. In this moment, in this circumstance that we resist, we may ask ourselves how we are contributing to this moment, this circumstance. Do we see our thoughts as things? Do we see our choice to go along with what is happening or to interrupt it? Do we let ourselves sense the energy of our feelings and the energy of others’ feelings? Do we become deliberate and intentional about the impacts we are having?

Through our anger, we may choose to be our very best. This may mean that we pause before we respond. Will we give ourselves 24 hours before speaking or sending a message? Will we bring more to our conversation than our anger driven thoughts and ideas? No one likes getting “dissed” by others. We can say yes to practicing “diss”management. Rather than wallowing in our reactivity that life and people around us are not treating us the way we feel we are supposed to be treated, we can let ourselves choose good attitude, choose gratitude, choose honesty with ourselves. We can reach toward our next step in life, rather than holding on to what life has been.

Finally, my teacher inspired the idea that I can live in the space of pre-thanks or future thanks for what is on its way towards me. How much do I change the amount of space that anger can occupy by expecting that good is coming to me today and I will look for it. I can stop making even the most aggravating experiences worse with making it all about me and choosing to look for the highest and best for all people concerned.

Navigate your anger well. Let its energy serve you so that you serve yourself and all those around you!

Gratefully,

Vaughan Amare’ from Service on 5-22-22

It’s okay to let ourselves find happiness

“To enjoy health, bring happiness and peace, one must discipline one’s mind. Find the way to enlightenment and wisdom. What you think, you become.” The Buddha

“If we are not in contact with pain, we cannot know what real happiness is.” Thich Nhat Hahn, Anger

Two mass shootings happened over the weekend. War continues in places across the world. Prejudice and hatred keep vying for control. How can it be okay to feel okay, much less feel joy?

Our bodies are designed for a full range of feelings. Our intricately developed nervous systems can fight or flee or freeze. Happiness may arise as we choose to celebrate the majesty from the shooting victim who spent her life as a mother to the motherless. What if we choose to honor people and circumstances with smiles, laughter, dance and song?

We can let loss and suffering overwhelm us and we can also choose to respond by seeking joy–not as cover ups but as counteractions and responses of loving creativity. We might still feel good about living.

• Feel gratitude for the smallest miracles and blessings.

• Look to the unexpected.

• Turn attention to what we want rather than thinking about what we have to do.

• Give from the space of abundance and gratitude; loving acts of kindness brings the giver and receiver joy.

• Chasing happiness is like a cat chasing its tail, forgetting that it (the tail and happiness) naturally follows.

To experience joy, look within. Stop relying on others to make us happy; find it from within. Treasure hunt to discover our own sources of joy. Perhaps they’ve been hiding from us or we’ve prevented ourselves from exploring joy.

Explicitly declare joy like the children’s song If You’re Happy and You Know It declaring and affirming happiness. Acts of participating in song, dance, and movement can all inspire ourselves and others.

Have you ever heard or sung “Let There be Peace on Earth”? Its lyrics claim that peace begins with me. What if happiness and joy work the same way. Happiness takes commitment and choice. When we individually choose to live from happiness, peace, and joy we can also make a positive impact on others. When we do our part, happiness positively enhances our own lives while also enhancing others’ lives.

We can learn to flip our stories of drudgery, death and suffering by shifting our perspective. We see things as opportunities for learning and growth. Elie Wiesel inspired me with his story of finding beauty on the way to a death camp. He was entitled to bitterness, but he generated something else. We can learn to expect the unexpected, look for miracles at every turn. As we look less to others to bring us fulfillment and happiness and more to ourselves and the treasures within, we are more apt to realize that happiness DOES begin within us.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ from Service on 5-15-22

Friend or Foe

This weekend, my teacher turned my attention to the roles of fear in my life. Carrying forward the idea that all of my emotions and feelings exist for purposes, fear does serve me. That time I got burned, that time I got shocked—those sensations taught me about physical dangers and fear carries those memories forward to protect me. I wouldn’t have lasted long if I kept putting my fingers in boiling water or electrical sockets.

However, fear can also let me stay small if I let it hold me back needlessly. Rather than over-apply the old lessons of fear, I can lean into trust that capacities and abilities and courage will emerge. Susan Jeffers advised, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”

For an important birthday, my husband and friends decided they would go tandem jumping from a plane. I went along because it seemed important to witness the event. I had brought along my work computer and thought I could work on reports during the “slow parts” of his process—training, take-off of the plane, walking back from the field after he landed on the ground from the jump. Then I thought about myself sitting out and writing. What kind of person would it make me to stay so passive—to watch parts of his adventure while I filled my time with elaborating on test scores?

For both of us during that jump from the plane, we felt the moments of life in whole new ways. The chilling rush of the air, the weightlessness, the speed. Those moments falling from 16,000 feet allowed time to feel different without consideration of the past or the future, but a complete immersion in the present: the wonder of the sky and the earth, the plane and the expert with me who trained and trusted me to pull the parachute cord.

Fear may protect us. Fear may keep us small. Fear may call us to grow into something larger than we imagined. Fear may help us prepare and push ourselves. We may respond with choices of cowering in the back or pressing forward. We have choices in the face of fear. If we give ourselves permission to imagine the best outcomes rather than the worst ones, we can engage in three simple practices: get quiet; get still; and raise questions in that stillness. Explore what fear has to share by reflecting, accepting (acknowledging with is) and releasing.

We can love our fear and realize that we don’t have to live in it. Be well with your fears and see how magnificent you are.

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ From Sunday Service on 5-8-22

May Day Lesson

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you let them feel.” Maya Angelou

This weekend reminders came to me for how to navigate my emotions and feelings. The subtle difference between them involves the fact that emotions arise in our bodies from brain-based neurotransmitters in response to circumstances, while feelings represent our conscious experience of those emotions (the stories we tell). Taken together they help us learn more about ourselves, guiding reflection, exploration, and growth.

Obviously, I can’t speak about your experiences, but I can speak to mine. My family let me believe that some feelings were “good” and others “bad.” Furthermore, particular feelings belonged exclusively to specific people; so my dad owned anger and my mom owned sadness. This led me to berate myself when certain emotions occurred, contributing to beliefs that ultimately hid and sabotaged my heart’s desires. By facing our emotions and looking underneath them, we may learn how these hidden beliefs originated. We can do the necessary healing work to process them instead of hiding from or ignoring them.

Welcoming our emotions means looking them directly in the face and seeing what they have to say. I came to think of my emotional life as a banquet hall. I had tried to exclude some feelings, but they never left the room. Instead, they hid out under the table tying my feet to the table or chairs—leading me to trip and fall when I wanted to get up. Letting the full scope of my feelings into consciousness requires humility, courage, and strength. Practices can help with that such as journaling, meditating, or working with someone. Learning to listen more deeply let me explore areas in my emotional spectrum. What might you find?

We usually experience a variety of emotions simultaneously, since we have so many emotions in our emotional spice rack. For me, balancing all that is works far better than wishing and hoping some feelings simply go away. Exclusive focus on joy or sadness or fear makes me miss the full messages coming to me. Let all the feelings share their wisdom. Given the extreme local, national, and global events and circumstances over the past couple of years, many of us have lived on hyper drive emotionally. It takes ongoing efforts to work through these opportunities of emotional learning and healing.

Like anything in life, practice makes perfect in maintaining emotional health and balance in our lives. Start by staying aware of our emotions and feelings. Welcome them. Create balance by giving ourselves compassion and love.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ From Sunday Service on 5-01-22

Reminders to me:

This weekend acquainted me with a song by Peruquois called, “Be Yourself”. The first line directs: Be yourself, everyone else is taken.

We may hear encouragements to be ourselves; yet we also experience nearly countless directives to become something else. Think of the folks who line up to dictate what they think we should think and what we should do. How many times have we set aside our visions and dreams because they would not let us “pay the bills”?

Please accept the following questions as ways to get closer to our authentic selves.

What do I do because I love doing it?

What activities so fill me that I lose track of time?

What makes my heart sing?

Where am I most at home in my own skin?

We can find ways to listen to others and hold onto our perspectives, by stretching our perspectives to see the universe is larger than we have understood. Rather than fearing that our weaknesses and vulnerabilities reflect deficiencies, we can entertain them as our first steps on our journeys. What would happen if we blessed our obstacles rather than cursing them. What would happen if we recognized our capacity to rise majestically to challenges rather than seeing ourselves as the victims of our obstacles?

To be ourselves means to claim our majesty, to see our worth, to tap into the power of creation that lets each new moment unfold across both space and time.

I celebrate your awesome self!

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’, From Sunday Service on 4-24-22

Thoughts

Hoping this message finds you refreshed and delighted after the spring break!

This weekend marked the continuation of Ramadan, as well as the Jewish celebration of Passover and some Christian faiths’ identification of Easter. I would propose that common components involve renewal and freedom. That leads me to ask, “How might we choose to open lives more fully to renewal and freedom?”

My teacher gave me ideas about this. She used to work as a flight attendant. The airlines directed her and her colleagues to pack two bags before every job. The one bag included the physical things that would lead to comfort and safety such as a good pair of walking shoes and extra clothes. The second bag would hold worries and they received instruction to leave that bag behind.

Each day we get to embrace how we face the day and the series of new moments it offers. Do we carry old feelings of worry, anger, and the sense of ourselves as victim? To make shifts we can consider what we’ve learned from our mistakes. We can replace our identification of ourselves as victims and claim our part in situations. We can set intentions. Finally, we can give ourselves what we need to see our own greatness AND the greatness all around us.

Here’s a toast to your greatness, your freedom and your renewal.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ This is from Sunday Service 4-17-22

Good morning,

To what extent do I let the routines of my life let me lose sight of each wondrous new moment? This breath, the one that came in just now, brings me life right now. Yet, regularly I let this breath and this moment pass without pausing to give thanks for this breath and this moment. I did not do anything to make this breath and this moment happen–it came to me as a gift. Can I take more moments to give thanks? Every moment is different in time. Every morning is a new rebirth. With what decisions do I face this gift? How much do I carry old worries, resentments and fears forward, filling my life with what does not make it better? What is longing to be born? What may come forth in my life? Raymond Holliwell proposed, “When we exchange our thinking for the better, we change our lives for the better.” I can choose nourishing thoughts and feelings for my mind, body and soul. Gandhi had written, “Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. The next morning when I wake up, I’m reborn and made new.” What if I look to the springtime around me and choose to emerge green, tender and alive, pushing through the soil of my past and reaching towards the light?

Respectfully, Rev. Vaughan Amaré from 4-3-22 Service

Greetings,

White, western culture almost continually murmurs, “We prove our worth with what we accomplish. There’s no time to waste. We need to catch up, get ahead, do the most, and do the best.”

What if the truth about us gets drowned out in the rush of staying busy? In frenzy, we may hide from our difficult feelings, relationships, conversations, and self-reflection. Rest lets us truly see ourselves. Upon waking from rest, we might realize we are already enough. We might realize we have everything we need within us.*

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don’t allow our bodies… minds and hearts to heal. It is very important that we relearn the art of resting and relaxing. Not only does it prevent the onset of many illnesses that develop through chronic tension and worrying; it allows us to clear our minds, focus, and find creative solutions to problems.”

Brene Brown says, “It takes courage to say ‘Yes’ to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol.”

Our physical bodies need rest, bringing us balance and recharging us for new activities. Anyone with a pet knows that their pet has mastered practice of rest. Doctors tell us rest reduces stress and allows the body to heal. Sleep experts describe how dreams enhance creativity because new and old memories interact and network in ways we could not have imagined or designed. We find new solutions. Furthermore, during dreams we can re-experience our memories without the negative feelings embroiled with those memories.

Judaism’s Holy Book (the Torah) identified rest as the final action of creation—not as some need for restoration or reward for a job well-done, but as the delightful opportunity to celebrate creation’s beauty. Artists tell us that rest allows us to connect with our inner creativity and problem-solving capacities. Rest gives us time to dig into the delight and wonder of life – deep, lingering talks with good friends, sweet periods of meditation and self-reflection, time to be still and listen.

With all of this in mind, what if we deliberately, simply take time and make time to rest. This may be as simple as stopping to take a deliberate breath in and another breath out. Resist the urge to fill rest time with appointments, fun or not. Give yourself unscheduled time. When you try to rest, what thoughts come up for you? What distractions emerge, and how do you handle them? What tends to keep you from scheduling rest for yourself? What can you put into place to support and honor your intention to rest and relax? What commitments are you prepared to make to yourself?

* I’ve copied the link to a song by Fearless Soul that really helped me remember that I am more than the messages and stories that culture wants me to believe. I am so much more than what I do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFQ7qiqm6WA
Rev. Vaughan Amaré from 3-20-22 Service

Good morning,

We all know the recommendations for staying healthy. We should eat healthy foods in appropriate portions. We should get physical exercise. We should consider how to live a life balanced with time for work and for relationships and for play. We should consider the people we have in our lives. We know that some of our companions can witness us as we truly are and see beyond what we can see of ourselves. The “shoulds” in our lives can feel like burdens or heavy weights to carry.

What happens when we deliberately add laughter, humor and joy as daily elements? I grew up with newspapers. Whatever the headlines had to say, I could turn to the section of comics see the world through that humorous lens.

Imagine that we can walk into a room of people arguing or a room of people laughing. Which room will we enter? Humor can lighten our burdens, connect us, ground us, make us more alert. Laughter changes the chemistry of our blood, changing how we feel and how our bodies can respond. We can choose to bless and even laugh at annoyances rather than curse them. We can speed through experiences of resentment. Humor can be fun, free and easy to use. We can be the room of laughter. The serious world remains in our midst, but we can meet it in new ways. It’s our choice. What if we let ourselves enjoy that choice?

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’, from 3-13-22 Service

“A Spoonful of Humor”

Good morning,

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amaré

Good Morning,

In the midst of suffering and loss (unprovoked war in the Ukraine, murders by police, fires leaving some people whole and others dead), we may find ourselves challenged to have any faith that things can turn around. One element in that challenge involves our expectation that life has an obligation to turn things around for us.

Try this experiment. Consider the possibility that joy surrounds us. In the midst of tragedy, joy remains accessible. However, we have to remain open to the presence of joy. It may present itself in the smallest details around us. We notice a fragrance. We see a bloom. We hear the laughter of children. A terrible joke or unexpected juxtaposition triggers an unexpected smile.

Moment by moment, we have the opportunity to choose where and how we set our attention. We can consciously choose to look for where joy may reside.

We may have told ourselves that holding onto a level-headed, serious orientation reflects how adulthood should operate. Music, dancing, artwork, and creativity surround us, filtering through and leaping over tragedy. We can be vaster than seriousness.

See joy as something up close and personal. Cultivate it by making space for play that lights us up. Let go of the message that play is frivolous. Return it to its centrality in our lives. As babies, our fingers and feet likely served as our first toys providing us with delight. No one needed to teach us how to feel pleasure or respond with laughter.

Therefore, try the experiment of seeking ways to play, giggle, and celebrate even the smallest moments of pleasure.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amaré from 3-06-22 service

Welcome back from break!

I hope you used your time away from school in ways that find you rested or energized or whatever way you imagined could happen.

Yesterday my teacher invited me to consider how fear and love fit together as parts of my life. Our bodies adjusted over time with fear as a response to the world as a way to protect us. Our ancestors wnt away from their home in search of food or other necessities and a wild animal crossed their path. Fear equipped their bodies for fight, flight, or freezing. Such outcomes of fear kept them safe. While society advanced, our bodies still have the fear response. Our exposure to daily danger has decreased for may of us, but our fear response remains poised and ready. A story can trigger us and guide us towards fear as fast as the animal across our ancestors’ paths.

What might we do? First, we can acknowledge what scares us. Second, we can consciously choose how to respond. Maybe we find a particular (and I dare suggest, a false belief) has gotten triggered. For example, are we falling back to believing something like “I’m not good enough”? We might live our lives like a science experiment where we choose to imagine and believe that goodness is always, everywhere present. Jim Carey encouraged people to consider, “Hope walks through fire, but faith leaps over it.” What if we choose to believe ideas that uplift and encourage ourselves.

We can choose to love ourselves. Do you remember the story of the indigenous grandfather speaking with his grandson? Grandfather said that two wolves live fighting inside us. One lives from our darkness (our jealousy, greed, anger, fear, misery, and anguish). The other lives from our light (our kindness, compassion, generosity, love, peace, grace, courage, and bliss). Grandson asked, “Which one will win?” Grandfather responded simply, “The one we feed is the one that wins.”

We may face fear during so many times in our lives. We may see those times as opportunities where we may love. This once in a lifetime moment (living in a pandemic, in a land war in Europe, in a climate where people praise cruelty and murderer) can call forward our capacity ground ourselves in the belief that our love can change us and that, in turn, can change the world.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amaré from 2-27-22 service

Happy Valentine’s Day

Wishing you a day to remember that love shows up in many different and delightful ways. Perhaps we’ve let advertisers convince us that we’re supposed to purchase jewelry or chocolates or other things as grand romantic gestures for our “one true love”. If we find ourselves in romantic relationships that may be fine, but if we don’t, then we may spend the day obsessing about how something is missing. Please consider that genuine love, like wisdom, beauty and joy, assumes limitless expressions. Therefore, romance only accounts for a fraction of how we can give and receive love.

As a little child, this day gave me the chance to share little notes with everyone in my class. That included boys and girls, people that liked me, tolerated me, avoided me and even teased or ridiculed me. This gave me a day to treat everyone with care no matter how they thought about me. Valentine’s day offered the first lesson that others’ opinions of me mattered less than typically occurred to me. This day let me choose to act with love and care and kindness—and that taught me something about me. I could and can express love no matter what I think or feel. Loving actions can arise with intentions for how to be in the world—how to contribute to the world.

Please accept this celebration of you as you contribute to the world, as your myriad ways of showing love bring greater good, joy, peace, kindness and wholeness to the world.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ from 2-14-22 Sunday Service

My teacher this weekend reminded me that many of us ask the questions, “Who am I? Why am I here?” He offered the simple response that we are the places where life shows up—we are the means through which life expresses itself. He went on to identify his own personal answer for why he is here: to love and to learn.

Think about what excites you and inspires your passions. Each of us finds that life offers thrilling majesty. Yet we can lose sight of this when we fall asleep in daily roles, routines, and parts we play. We give up our uniqueness when we cling to what others think we should be. We may let fear lead us to sabotage our efforts to feel the thrill that life naturally offers us.

In her song, I Am Light, India Aria declares the fundamental nature of her identity. You can watch her perform this piece in the link below. Pay attention to the simple affirmation “Worthy,” seen behind her as she sings. I join with her to invite you to celebrate your worthiness. Take a moment and envision all the people whose love has brought you into the world—your ancestors, your teachers, your family, your friends, those you teach. As you picture this crowd, imagine their love and a golden light streaming from them to you. Now you can choose. Do you put that light under a bushel or do you add to that light sending it forward in anticipation of a wondrous future?

Our thoughts, actions, and choices all let us declare who we are and what we are here to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zjMYdQD6yI

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’, from 2-06-22 Sunday Service

Hello!

Elements of looking anew at the world with wonder involve questions, curiosity and adventure.

Did you know that children typically ask 70-100 questions every day, while adults restrict themselves to 20? Furthermore, adult questions tend to refer to close-ended questions like “What’s for dinner?” or “What should we watch on tv?” The famous teacher, Jesus of Nazareth claimed how being child-like helps us enter the realm of heaven. Rather than interpreting that proposal as an instruction for how to receive a reward after we die, consider that heaven means a state of mind and being available to us. Our ability to keep asking questions of the world opens us to joyous possibilities as available as the pleasure that comes with taking a deep breath right now.

Our sense of curiosity may allow us to live in our questions and the spaces they open rather than the limits of closed, answered responses. We can choose to enjoy the mystery in our questions. Mary O’Malley wrote, “Asking a question signals to life that we are ready to live the answer, and then life lives it through us at the appropriate time.”

With questioning curiosity we step beyond what we know. We open to living life as an adventure. Consider telling yourself this statement through the days during this week: “I ask new questions and allow the answers to come.”

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’, from 1-23-22 Sunday Service

Better Late Than Never

When the message for Sunday came, the day for normally sharing it would have been Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day. However that deserved focused attention for us to hold our hearts and minds on how his brilliant words interplayed with actions to reshape how we can think, feel and move through our lives. Dr. King led, guided, fasted, marched, sang and spoke with others as a servant leader. Do we make space in our own lives to emulate and embody those practices?

With this new year starting, we have the opportunity to set intentions, like Dr. King and his followers could hold a new vision beyond the ugliness and cruelty of the world that faced them and still faces us all. What if we respond to injustice, intolerance, and ignorance with forgiveness and hearts bigger than the smallness of the world?

Forgiveness, an attitude and orientation of strength, pushes beyond the limits others tried to impose on us while it also pushes us beyond the very limits we have previously accepted. Nelson Mandala, after 27 years of imprisonment made the choice to leave both prison and bitterness behind him. Is there any imprisonment or bitterness worth re-tasting on a daily basis? Consider the freedom that comes with letting go our bitter righteousness.

Years ago someone proposed that it’s impossible to simultaneously love and be right. As soothing as being right is, does it bless and give like love.

I’m passing along the invitation to work toward being someone with whom other people enjoy being. I can ask, “What’s the highest and best I can be? What presence can I bring to this situation?” What might those questions do for you and your daily life this week?

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ from 1-16-22 Sunday Service

“What Wonder Offers”Today’s lesson offered me insights about how to rekindle wonder and why to live with wonder.
We get trained to seek safety, routines, and predictability. Risks have left us broken, and who wants to feel that way. If we let ourselves stay small, we come to believe we can stay safe and unharmed. Limiting our expectations protects us from disappointment. Imaging the worst makes us believe we have prepared ourselves for the worst.Perhaps as you read all that, you felt yourself contracting or you felt the walls closing in on you. That’s how it felt to write it. When we catch ourselves listening to the external and internal voices to stay small, we can tell ourselves to stop. We can watch negativity rather than giving it the driver’s seat in our lives. We can choose to put it in the backseat, in the trunk or out of the vehicle altogether. Wonder lives as close as our breath, our miraculous bodies, our wild hearts, our creative inquiring minds, our longing souls. The simplest reflection on our lives quickly reveals wonder. Listen to laughter. Let yourself drink in the beauty of the world around us. Revel in relationships we see and those we have. Live with gratitude.In the space of wonder, all the majesty in the universe around us counters any limitations we’ve let ourselves believe. Wonder restores our oneness, our curiosity, our capacity to learn. Wishing you surprising wonders!

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ from 1-09-22 Sunday Service

Happy 2022!

Some years ago, a teacher taught me about the power of setting intentions instead of making resolutions. Resolutions require ongoing willpower. They don’t have renowned for their success. By contrast, intentions contain their own inspiration. Ask yourself why you want what you want. For example, my intention of love lets me look at everything in my life through the lens of love. My spouse, holding the intention of wonder, chooses to see the world through the lens of wonder.

Rather than treating life as something to get through to go somewhere else (mere existence), entertain the notion of life as spectacular, rapturous right now. Life breathes us into each moment. Wake up each moment as the gorgeous, glorious being you already are. Living is a verb that invite our conscious, active, intentional participation.

Consider this message for yourself: I live, intentionally expressing everyday wonder.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amaré from 1-02-22 Sunday Service

Hello,

You may chuckle at that outlandish suggestion! We have so many things to do. We face deadlines, expanding to-do lists, and the seemingly endless hustle and bustle around us. In spite of that, we each have the power to make a quiet space.

Perhaps our inner critic has stopped us from pausing to listen. However, we have access to inner wisdom that can take on that most vocal critic. We can recognize the wisdom when we find ourselves either peacefully soothed or passionately electrified.

If we look back to past experiences, maybe we got quiet because of an injury or sickness. Rather than letting the universe hit us with that kind of two by four, we might choose quiet time. We might start a journal. We might dedicate two minutes of breathing in and out. We might catch ourselves the next time we think we have to figure out a solution to our circumstances. Let’s remember that we live in a vast universe, with people around us who do care about us. Despite all the encouragement to manage things on our own, we can give people the gift of giving to us.

Do we notice that we have things we do where we lose track of time? Those experiences uplift and inspire us. Those experiences show us the gifts we have to share with the world—our centers of quiet.

How often do we tell ourselves that some person, condition, or circumstance stresses us out? What if we start to recognize that we react with stress to those things? What if we step back and decide how to respond and proceed? What if we remember that we can get out of situations mentally, emotionally and physically?

In this holiday season when seven of the world’s major religions observe 29 holidays, we can remind ourselves of the blessings that we have and the blessings that we are.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’, from 12-12-21 Sunday Service

Good morning,

You’ve heard a number of reflections about gratitude. To keep our list going, consider three more.

Deliberately write down what we identify gratefully. Maybe we keep a journal by our bedside or a folder in our computer. We may form a daily list starting our day or write ideas as freeform poetry noticing what works well, what we seek, what we do for others, what choices we make (thoughtfully pausing or rousing our courage to speak truth rather than falling back into that cynical or sarcastic remark.)

Give future thanks to the universe for the good that is on its way to us. We can easily get bogged down with what at this moment troubles us. However, consider that Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King Jr. both faced their shares of difficulties. I use these well known figures as real stories for inspiration. Such stories can help us reset our hearts and souls—rather than overwhelm us with their magnitude.

Finally, play with the notion of unconditional gratitude. Rather than focusing on particular things, experiences, feelings, what if we open ourselves to indulging ourselves with the feeling of gratitude. What if we choose to keep forgiving ourselves and others because we make that choice rather than waiting for ourselves and others to step up and own the responsibilities we believe we should take? What if we dress ourselves with gratitude as we prepare to get up and go into the world?

Tonight will be the second night of Channukah. For someone unfamiliar with the story, a small group of Jewish people fought against overwhelming odds and won. But when they won they discovered that the enemy had desecrated their beloved temple. They looked around and found that they did not have what they needed to cleanse the temple. Nevertheless they started with the task of cleaning it. With their courage to start, a miracle occurred creating enough oil to light flames over and over for eight nights. We may think we don’t have the reserves or energy to feel gratitude. What if we take the Channukah story as a guide to simply get started no matter how limited we feel?

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’ from Sunday’s Service 11-28-21

Happy Thanksgiving

With the Thanksgiving holiday this week, several thoughts occurred to me. Join me to consider the origins of the celebration. Prepare for a secret source of inspiration. Realize how we can give thanks no matter what we find happening around us. Elevate gratitude with a simple, but powerful habit.First, our country tends to sell a romanticized view of pilgrims from England feasting with indigenous people. We don’t talk about the subsequent deaths of native people two years later nor the move and enslavement of indigenous men and the local enslavement of indigenous women and children. Remembering the truth, warts and all may invite us to make decisions about how to live more justly and with more kindness. Indigenous people have had practices of gratitude. Let us give thanks for what they model and practice. Second, please consider the story of my favorite movie Pollyanna–a secret I’ve kept about myself. The character’s name has turned into nickname for unduly optimistic people. However, if we pay attention to the actual story, the main character learned from her family how to see beyond disappointments. Her dad taught her to play the “Glad Game.” Rather than getting stuck on what saddens or distresses us, we can turn our focus elsewhere. She wanted a doll and got crutches. The glad game reminded her about the gift of her ability to walk without thought. Consider playing the “Glad Game” this week.Third, did you notice that you took in a breath, that your heart beats. Our bodies do so much to keep us alive without us giving any effort to making that happen. Did we have streets and sidewalks supporting us getting around? Did people open and operate stores for us so we could purchase what we need? We live in a world that continually gives to us. What happens if we commit to spending as much time grateful as we spend irritated, disappointed, worried, or unsettled?Finally, with my upbringing, this time of year leads to something called Advent. My family practiced it by sacrificing certain, chosen things. My dad gave up watermelon. My mom gave up desserts. For me with my diabetes, it bothered me to have to give up something additionally beyond what my healthy lifestyle already demanded. But I learned that rather than giving up material things, I can give up other things like self-pity, self-criticism, or judgment of others. Gratitude deepens when I release habits of heart and mind that no longer serve me. What might we consider releasing?Here are wishes for a joyous and fulfilling Thanksgiving!

Gratefully, Rev. Vaughan Amare’, from November 21, 2021 talk

Good morning,

Yesterday, I received the reminder for something which turns my life around in an instant. A teacher of mine told me, “When we turn our attention to what’s beautiful, everything else can fall away.” Here in the Pacific Northwest, the reason many of us live here includes the fact that nature looms so large in our lives. When we crest a hill as we walk or drive up, we may face mountains or views of water. Perhaps we choose to engage in activities like biking or hiking or running or walking or skiing. Consider the number of parks in the city. How many houses in this area have gardens or overgrown yards.

We may forget it, but just as suddenly we can remember: beauty is all around us. And there’s beauty the flavors of coffees and teas we sip, beauty in the songs we turn on. And you have to be expecting me to add this: there’s beauty in ourselves and the people all around us.

Beauty can be an ever present source of inspiration and source for coming back to feelings of gratitude. What if we make a point of pausing and deliberately tuning ourselves to beauty? How easy might we make our lives if we make that choice. Mary Poppins triggered a change in a household with the song, “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” Let’s imagine beauty as medicine for our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls. Feel the relief and invigoration.

Surround yourself with the beauty you are.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’, from November 14, 2021 service

Happy Fall Back

Good Morning,

Did you manage to get an extra hour of sleep or play or relaxation or joy? This weekend as I considered all of the ridiculous arguments and conflicts in the world, it occurred to me that perhaps rather than puzzle about seemingly crazy thoughts and feelings in the world out there, I’m better served reviewing the closer conflicts inside of me. I can’t make anybody change their minds and feelings—except for me.

To do that, here are three G’s I’m using.

Goals. We all have goals whether we’re conscious of them or not. Do infants deliberately decide to speak and crawl and stand and grow up? Families praise steps forward, no matter how small or large. Families and children set goals without ever consciously stating them. Now we may set a goal to “get through the day.” What if we deliberate on our goals and set them? Can we bring laughter or a smile to one person? Can we offer a word of cheer or encouragement—to others or even ourselves? What a breadth, depth, height and width of possibilities in our goals!
Gratitude. This month of November with the USA holiday of Thanksgiving may lead us to think more about gratitude. What if we take it really seriously. The settlers on the Mayflower did not survive through their goals, plans or genius. They received undeserved support from the indigenous people who chose to act with kindness and generosity. What if we let ourselves take a deep breath right now and give genuine gratitude for that breath. What if we look around us and come to appreciate something beautiful that we hear, see, taste, touch, smell? What if we come to see that each moment we have access to so much that inspires gratitude.
Going on. So many of the stories we heard as children ended with the line, “and they lived happily ever after.” It sets the notion that we could have definite endings. We set goals and we make them or not and we may think that we have finished. Take a breath here because I’m going to call out the elephant in the room and the naked emperor: Every ending is the place for a new beginning. The places where we arrive are our new starting points. We now have a broader and new perspective. We really can’t simply settle down. Relationships and living and working and loving all require ongoing effort and commitment and new contributions from us.

We’re achieving and setting goals. We’re remembering the simple and powerful practice of giving thanks. We choose to take the energy we find within or that we can borrow from others around us and we go on. Happy fall back!

Gratefully,

Vaughan Amaré from 11-07-21 service

Belated Happy Halloween

Hello,

As life returns to “normal,” and people in the US re-engaged in trick or treating, how did each of us mark the day? Did we dress-up? Did we watch scary movies? Did we turn out the lights and ignore knocks on the door? It lends to the broader question of how we respond to our fears. Our bodies adapted so that we would experience fear, yet to what extent do we engage with our fears? Do we pass through, hoping they end and simply go away? Do we ignore them? Or do we use them as energy to guide our steps forward consciously?

I learned that small dosages of fear offer specific benefits. For example, fear guides our bodies to release neurochemicals which in turn heighten our senses and let us burn more calories. With all the input coming from the barrage of electronically-based stimulation, many of us may find ourselves overstimulated and over-frightened. Perhaps we respond by working to numb ourselves and shut off our feelings. What if we choose to make space to sit in stillness, feeling what we feel and letting it teach us? What if we see the fear as a light guiding us to something new?

Eleanor Roosevelt suggested that we do something that scares us everyday as a way to remain fresh, vital and alive. I propose listening to that American icon, and following the suggestion. Finally, celebrate ourselves for what we allow to emerge! Maybe we do that by dressing up and treating those around us.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’, from 10-31-21 service

Good Morning,

Carrying forward the theme of moving forward in community, here’s a salve for contending with contentions that arise within and across communities. The genocide of the Indigenous Peoples should remind us that our perspectives about history and facts relies on who we empower to tell their stories. Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke boldly of a dream. That dream, like many other dreams arises despite pain, suffering, injury and harm.

Look towards our dreams to deliver inspiration, guidance and transformation. Whether the “dream” represents a bold, declared vision of possibilities and promises, or the much more private meanings delivered through our hearts and minds while we sleep, our dreams may inspire us. We may feel a new energy and excitement even in the face of personal and shared challenges.

Our dreams may guide us. Hebrew scripture conveys the dreams of a younger son named Joseph and a prophet named Elijah. For Joseph, he dared to share his bold dream of leadership to his brother. They responded by beating him and selling him into slavery (their compromise over simply killing him). Despite all of Joseph’s trials, he never gave up on seeing that dreams can hold messages. His skill with interpreting dreams led him to the Pharoah of Egypt, which in turn led him to manage the care of the Egyptian people and its surrounding communities (and ultimately his own siblings). The prophet Elijah learned from his dream that the power sustaining the world does not always show up as we would predict (like winds, earthquakes and fires), but as something far more subtle—whispered messages through the silence. Both characters learned to keep on their paths no matter the difficulties that presented themselves.

Finally dreams may transform us. Years ago, a dream recurred over and over, night after night—putting me in the backseat of a car with no driver. This dire situation showed me the need to figure out how to drive the car so it would stop crashing at the dream’s conclusion. It taught me about reclaiming my own personal power, to stop feeling helpless and to do whatever was possible. My dream let me see a choice that did not seem clear to me in my waking hours. That dream let me make slow, gradual changes in my daily actions, but dramatic instant transformation with my realization of a possible meaning within the dream.

Let our dreams move us so that we become agents of inspiration, guidance and transformation in the communities where we find ourselves.

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’, from 10-10-21 Service

Good Morning

Yesterday taught me more about the Zulu way of living called Ubuntu: “I am because we are.” This lets me release the belief in DesCartes’ notion: I think therefore I am.

What do I do when I let go of insistency to reflect on my thoughts as the basis of my existence and turn to my relationships in the world as my very foundation?

How might I spend more time and energy treasuring the generosity of people and the world around me? This breath in, it came freely. This breath out goes as easily as I might release it. Life breathes me without any demand beyond participating.

Perhaps my parents, family, friends, loved ones did not always treat me as a character in a fantasized, made-up story. Certainly, frustrations and obstacles came up before me. Do I focus my thoughts and feelings on my perceptions of how people failed me? How much bigger and brighter my world looks when my attention turns towards those who teamed with me, calling me to rise up, calling me to be grander than what felt possible?

Take this invitation to see our community—friends, family, loved ones, and even challenging one—as the foundation of our lives.

Gratefully,

Vaughan Amare’, from 10-17-21 Service

Good Morning!

This weekend, a friend and mentor taught me new ways to approach problems.

First, I have to see/name/admit the presence of the problem. How often do we just tell ourselves to push through, rise above, or ignore our problems? Denial proves an ineffective solution.

Second, I have to confront my fear(s). See/name/admit my fears. So much energy gets wasted on worry about the fear.

Third, remind myself that I have “got good.” For younger folk, there was an old ad campaign “Got Milk.” The good in the cosmos all around me is bigger than my problem, bigger than my fear. Do I attend to that good or let my problems and fears overwhelm me?

Fourth, I let myself and remind myself to envision the highest and best outcome for myself and everyone else involved. Yes, I know that sometimes my problem has limited my field of vision to something so small that imagining good for others feels difficult. Choose to push through the problems, difficulties and fears to entertain the highest and best vision for both myself and all others around me.

Fifth, I act “as if.” I keep leaning into imagination. This could be called “faking it till I make it.” The character Indiana Jones stepped out in faith, the Fool leaping into the unknown. Others have done it, what might I lose by acting “as if”?

Sixth, simply take action. At this point, it’s better to do something rather than holding back doing nothing.

Finally, feel gratitude for future good. Let ourselves gratefully embrace what is, what can be, what will be. Give thanks. (Even though the holiday of thanksgiving is a month away, there’s never any cost to feeling gratitude.)

Gratefully,

Rev. Vaughan Amare’, from 10-24-21 Service