In sacred scripture, the creative field in which we live is sometimes referred to as a feast. The symbol of a feast is used for the way that we ourselves are nourished spiritually. Being nourished, we have the opportunity to serve others to allow the energy vortex that we are enjoying personally to include other people.

My own path has led me to know that the feast and all that that image represents is more important to me than the weirdness and the craziness of the world in which I live. And there is so much that is weird about the world in which we live at every level: weird things in family, community, weird things in our nation, weird things around the world. I am using that word weird to avoid using all kinds of other words we could use. There is so much that could distract us from enjoying the feast.

Forgiveness is an attitude that keeps us from trying to nourish ourselves from all that craziness. The distractions in the world around us don’t make a very good meal. Without forgiveness we are trying to nourish ourselves on all that fear and all that resentment and all of what’s happening in the elements of degenerating culture around us.

My life has been about making choices that keep me out of reaction to all that’s happening around me for the sake of the feast; for the sake of personally being a powerful creator in my world. I choose to be someone who is creating regenerative culture. And I believe that each one of us has this incredible potential for personal power. We have been exercising that power and finding out about it for ourselves in our life, to whatever degree.

As I find myself at this point in my life, what I say to myself is that I don’t want to come this far and not take it all the way. So I want to be all in with realizing the potential of my creative ability. I want to be all in and see how much impact I can have in my world. How much of a difference can I make, in the world at large, and also in my immediate world—with the people around me and in the spheres within which I move? How do I need to be to have that impact? How unmoved? Not in a stoic, rigid, statuesque kind of way. But unmoved in a kind and highly present way.

There are many representations of the feast in sacred scripture. We think of the Last Supper, the feast of Cana, and the feast given when the prodigal son returns home. I think also of what might be one of the oldest passages in the Bible, the 23^rd Psalm. It is one of those passages in the Bible that seems to be out of the context of everything else that is around it. And when you read it with an open heart and mind, it gives you the feeling that you have tapped into the root vibration of a human life. Of course, that vibration tends to be covered over by religious doctrine in the awareness of many, so the deeper meaning is often not felt by people.

Here is the passage from the 23^rd Psalm I am referring to:

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. 

That’s a reference to the feast. Let me say what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say, When I go up to a place way far away, high up in a mountain, and go into a cave, there is a feast there.

If we take some liberty with that word enemies, there is an implication that in the middle of the elements of degenerative culture in which we are living, which in so many ways are weird and crazy, in the middle of all that, there is a feast. So there has to be the kind of personal centering that says, I care a whole lot more about the feast than I do about the degenerative culture around me.

 I am totally into the feast. I not only believe, but I know from my own experience, that I am a powerful person when I am enjoying the feast. I worked in corporate America without any position that gave me power or authority. I worked in a department where I was just one of the worker bees, and I totally changed the department. I did it just because of the power of who I am and what I expressed there. I am not trying to convince you of the greatness of me. I am sharing what I know of myself and what I know of you—of any human being. We have tremendous power. We can be waiting for position; we can be waiting for permission. We can be waiting for someone to give us the OK. We can be waiting for someone to bless us, empower us, or direct us. We can be waiting for someone to give us a pat on the back, or say they are sorry. There are all kinds of waiting and all kinds of distractions within the culture around us. There can be all kinds of blame. We can look around and see all these powerful people, and then forget our own power.

What I believe about myself and about you is that we have tremendous personal power that we are only beginning to access. We can play so big in our world—in the immediate world and on out. I want to exercise that bigness. I want to find the limits of it. I don’t think we are anywhere near those limits.

There are so many potential distractions in a human life. There are distractions galore on the world scene and in our immediate world. How many potential distractions did you encounter today? It’s not that we should be ignoring what’s coming to us out of our world. It is important. But how do we receive it? Do we receive it with blame, retribution, reaction, fear or resentment? Or do we receive it with grace and kindness? And somewhere in the back of our mind has to be this thought: While my receiving of what is happening in my world is important, it is really important that the way I receive it doesn’t take me out of being who I am and creating what I am here to create.

We let the feast be created in our life and in our world. The feast is an energy vortex. It is the torus, and there is something coming back in that torus. We need to receive what is coming back, because if you cut that off you are cutting off the whole flow of Creation. There is something to come out from us into our world and there is something to receive that is coming back to us. But can we receive it with tranquility and deep spiritual centering, and remain present, and remain the expression of the power of the Being that we are?

Here is a memorable statement from Uranda that dates back to 1937:

Let love radiate without concern for results.

Don’t get distracted by what’s coming back. There is a table being prepared in the presence of all the weirdness. And when I am sitting at that table, and when I am taking in that food deeply, and I am serving the feast to my world, there is something different happening. I am a power.

There is something to do together in all that. But before we get to that, let me just say that the together part can be a distraction, because when it becomes a together thing, immediately I have an excuse if you are not doing it the way I think you should. And then I can give up my power because you did it wrong and I’m mad at you, or I’m disappointed with you. Or I give myself the excuse, Well, we really can’t do it because you didn’t act right. So there has to be something in this that is extremely personal. It could come off as cold, but at the root of things I think the attitude has to be: I don’t care what you do. This isn’t about you. This is about me, claiming my life, eating and serving the feast for myself, being who I am meant to be in my world, irrespective of what anyone else is doing. That is how it has to start. And when things get weird, it always has to go back to that. That’s the place where I go when things get weird. That’s where I have total choice and total authority.

And then, if I do that and you do that, we are in the torus together. We are enjoying the feast together and we are serving the feast together. And then, we can have creative conversations about how all that is going to go. How exciting! And when things gets weird, I go back to what is mine to do.

It is mine to serve the feast, and I want to be intelligent about that. When someone comes to Sunrise Ranch, we ask, Are you vegetarian? Vegan? Lactose intolerant? We don’t just serve up any old feast. We pay attention to the world around us and serve the feast that people are going to be able to receive and enjoy, and take part in.

I suppose we are all in a different place around these things. Perhaps we are at different junctures in our lives. For me, this isn’t a time in my life when I am waiting for someone to serve me the feast. I’m not hoping that someone comes along who is that person in whatever way. It is a time in my life when I know I have the feast to offer. And when I offer it, it is like when we cook dinner at my house. When we serve the dinner, it is not as if I am hanging out in the kitchen and I don’t get to eat it. I enjoy the feast. That’s how it goes. If we serve the feast, we enjoy the feast. We take part in it. We even share in the feast before it’s served to others, having a glass of wine in the kitchen and peeling the carrots. There is something special for those who are putting on the feast—a special enjoyment, a special privilege to put on the feast.

It’s not a life of denial when you are all about serving the feast. And when you serve it to others, you get to watch them enjoy it. Even at the level of a physical feast, I love it. I love serving people. I love cooking for people. At a spiritual level, I love it even more. Seeing someone who is healing, who is coming into their power, who is feeling the energy vortex in themselves, who is downloading a deep love that is melting and healing their heart, and letting it pour out, does life get any better than that? Is there any greater honor, privilege or joy?

I celebrate the supreme privilege we all have to enjoy the feast, and the opportunity we have to serve the feast together. Who is ready to serve the feast?