Fresh Thinking, Inspiration, and Vision on the Process of Spiritual Transformation

Good morning. Here we are this morning, gathered together for a particular purpose. Gatherings of people come together for different purposes each day. What is our purpose this morning, but to allow there to be a radiant pulse of something true to the truth of Being that goes out from this place, in blessing?

We’ve been exploring in recent weeks the theme of being and building a sun. It turns out, if I recall from my science days, that the sun is quite a large fusion reactor. The gravity of the sun, as well as its heat, causes atoms that were separate to fuse. And the result of that coming together in oneness of something that was separate releases quite an enormous amount of energy, particularly compared to the size of the atom. The fusion of that small group of atoms releases what to most of our minds would be inconceivable amounts of power.

Related to our time this morning and our living together week by week, that speaks of the potential of what we do together. We have about eighty living here. In a world of 6.4-ish billion people, that sounds like a pretty small group. Does that mean that the radiation and influence that goes out from this place is whatever eighty is compared to 6.4 billion? Does that mean that’s the limit of our power and creative influence in this world? I don’t think so. But the requirement for that amount of power to be released is fusion.

As David Karchere has explored with us in recent times, the precursor to fusion is friction. Sometimes a jeweler—and I’m not the expert on that; I know Shareen Ewing is quite expert in the gem field—but apparently a jeweler may put some unpolished stones in a bag and shake them up vigorously. They smash against each other and polish each other up and smooth each other’s rough edges. Sounds like a spiritual community! But that’s not the last step, is it? The last step is not banged-around stones that get polished. The point is fusion.

Fusion depends on oneness. Fusion is the experience of oneness, isn’t it? Many years ago, Martin Exeter defined love as oneness; one way to look at love is as oneness. So here we are in this seemingly small community, with an unimaginably large potential for a radiant release of power, dependent on fusion.

Our friend Diana Durham wrote a book entitled The Return of King Arthur, which relates to this. We could look at any creative container, starting with oneself, as a vessel, a chalice perhaps—what was spoken of in the Arthurian legends as the Grail. Ultimately the Grail is a fused vessel. It’s not broken up in pieces—it’s one thing. And when it’s together, there’s quite a radiant release of something. As a vessel, it’s designed to carry something, to hold something. That “something” has been referred to in many different ways, but we could speak of it as the Holy Spirit, the outpouring of the expression of being, cosmic being, expressed in any context. In our case, through human form. Both Uranda and A Course in Miracles say that the Holy Spirit is the expression of the Spirit of God, and the Christ is the specific radiation of that in and through an individual.

Diana quotes from John: “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14) A well of water springing up into everlasting life. The well is a vessel, isn’t it? And its purpose is not just to hold something but to deliver something, to release something—in this case truth, the water of truth.

From Psalm 23: “My cup runneth over.” My cup runneth over—there is maybe the initial experience of the cup being filled, but the purpose of the cup is to run over. The purpose of the Grail, the vessel, is for the Spirit that we are to be available in the world.

Diana goes on to say:

“The meaning of both the quotation from Psalm 23, ‘My cup runneth over,’ and the famous Beatitude ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,’ is further clarified by this diagram [of the chalice]. If the heart is ‘pure,’ has been purified by going on the quest, and if polarity has been returned to the inner realm, then the inner dimensions of love, truth, and life, which are the characteristics of the Holy Trinity, of God male and female, can spill or ‘run’ over into experience in the other levels. Equally, one begins to ‘see’ God, to perceive and experience the nature of the divine, which is one’s own nature: ‘made in the image and likeness of God.’ When the heart realm is clouded over with fear it forms a veil between the worlds. Perceval’s name could be broken down to mean ‘pierce the veil’: to clear the connection between God and man, heaven and earth.

“So we begin to see that finding the Grail, opening up the portal of the heart to the higher frequencies of being, heals the wound of incompleteness—heals that fractured, fragile sense of self that has been so carefully constructed over the fear of nothingness. Finding the Grail therefore means making whole what was formerly a partial identity. Another way of saying that is that the finding of the Grail, the clearing of the heart realm, is the healing of duality. The vesica piscis shape formed by the overlapping of two circles symbolizes the place of union between all polarities: God and man, heaven and earth, male and female and—most important—the inner and outer dimensions of our own being.” (From The Return of King Arthur: Completing the Quest for Wholeness, Inner Strength, and Self-Knowledge, by Diana Durham)

That says something of our opportunity this morning. That says something of our opportunity of living day to day with each other, of being whole—of being whole ourselves. So there’s the question that I have for you this morning: Are you whole? And I include myself in this question as well. Are you whole? Are you whole? Now the question is not “Are you a person without challenges, personality traits, foibles perhaps, a unique individual expression of yourself?” That’s not the question. The question is: Are you whole, right now, right here, in this moment? If you or I answer that question “No,” then we’ve accepted for ourselves a false identity, an identity as something other than what God created.

I had the blessing of eleven years of Catholic school, four years of that in an all-boys high school. And on the wall outside the priests’ office was a sign: “God don’t make junk. You’re lovable.” It’s a starting point, I guess. But the point is that either we are as we are created by the Creator, or we imagine ourselves to be something else. In A Course in Miracles, the only lesson which is repeated is “I Am as God created me.”

So are you whole? ARE YOU WHOLE? If so, it simply means we’ve accepted ourselves as we were created: perfect, in the image and likeness of the Creator. What shall it be? The wholeness allows fusion to happen within ourselves, fusion with the truth of ourselves revealed through ourselves. And that is the basis for our collective Grail, our collective chalice.

Three Sundays ago in the Christian world was the celebration of Pentecost. In my ten years as a church musician, this was one of my favorite celebrations. Even though it didn’t go quite as well as it could have, it was quite a profound event. This is from Peter’s sermon, Acts 2:2:

“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.”

This was one of Martin’s Exeter’s favorite excerpts, of being with one accord in one place. And what follows was totally dependent on them being with one accord in one place. By the account, they were bickering and squabbling and bumping into each other—what we might call friction. But at the end of the day they got it together. They were with one accord in one place, fused, which allowed what followed to happen.

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.”

Do you feel a breeze here now?

“And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.”

Fire, of course, is the symbol of divine love. Because of their fusion, love put in an appearance in an expanded sense for them individually, and then collectively.

“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:1–4)

And then it goes on, in verse 16:

“But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh….” (Acts 2:16,17)

“It shall come to pass in the last days…I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.” To the separated human mind, this might seem like a giant vat in the sky that gets dumped on people. But I don’t know any other way that the Spirit gets poured out upon all flesh except through you and me. That is what we’re about here this morning, isn’t it? To pour the Spirit unto all flesh, to all those who would receive, wherever they may be, to receive the blessing of being, the Spirit of the Creator, because we are here, and we are here this morning. And we live and do this together each day.

So these are the last days, aren’t they? What are they the last days of? Some are praying for Jesus or whoever to come down and fix things up. That’s kind of the wimpy attitude: We just have to wait. It’s actually the last days of human nature being the guiding force in human experience. It’s the last days of the separated self, of imagining ourselves to be apart from the Source of Being. It’s the last days—it’s the last days of people being less than they were born to be. And that’s dependent entirely upon God pouring out “my Spirit upon all flesh.”

That requires a whole vessel. Individually we are whole. We are one in spirit with all those in this world who are whole and have accepted their identity as a whole being, as the manifestation of Spirit in this world, the representation of the truth of love in flesh. You bet that there’s quite a pouring out when that happens. And that is why we’re here. That’s the source of our fulfillment; it’s the source of our joy; it’s the fulfillment of our purpose and our destiny—to be the whole vessel, the Grail chalice, which is the means for the manifestation of the Creator in this world, the Spirit of God poured out upon all flesh. And that is how, as it says in Revelation, the tears are wiped from their eyes; there shall be no more pain, no more sorrow, no more crying, all the rest of it.

But that depends on you and me being whole in ourselves and being one reality together. We don’t lose our individuality; that’s where our individuality comes forth, as the prism differentiates white light.

It is good to consider these things this morning.

(Keith Hancock played his composition “Friction to Fusion” on the piano.)