Elevation Devotional: 9/12/08

2008-09-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

In my heart of hearts, I want to be a singer.

I have wanted to be a singer since I can remember. My most favorite compliment I have received as an adult was when a member of our congregation told me that my voice reminded them of Dolly Parton. When I was a kid, that’s whose music moved me the most. She inspired me and her voice moved me to places of peace, pain, sorrow and joy.

I think that is the power of music, whether it be in song or symphony: it moves us. Sometimes music expresses our feelings when we are at a loss for words, sometimes it illuminates a path we want to take but didn’t have the direction until we heard the melody.

That’s the thing about music, it has this power to transform the here and now into what might be; it has a way of expressing the pain in poetry that we might never be able to express.

I believe that is why music is so pleasing to the Lord. When we are carried into this transforming power of music, we come to God with our whole being in ways that are beyond ourselves. We have the power of the music carrying us closer to God, expressing more to God than we had thought possible. Songs we sing in praise, music we hear in notes – it all is a joy unto the Lord.

WORKING FROM THE HEART by Chris Culver

2008-09-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

by
Chris Culver, Director of Administration

I would like to share with you what has been attached to my computer hutch for many years and has deep meaning for me. I hope you will be inspired just as I was!

Many of us do not consider our work a personal form of worship. Work is worldly. Worship is withdrawing from the world to honor Spirit. But could there be a more beautiful way to honor the Great Creator than by contributing to the re-creation of the world through our gifts? This is what we’re called to do each day through our work. Yet it is very difficult to get even a glimmer of the holy when you are harassed, unappreciated, overwhelmed, frazzled, and burned out.

Marianne Williamson believes that the workplace is “but a front for a temple, a healing place where people can be lifted above the insanity of a frightened world.” Once, when she was working as a cocktail waitress—years before she answered her calling to become a spiritual guide and writer—she realized that people only thought they were coming to a bar for a drink. Really the bar was a church in disguise and she could minister to people with warmth, conversation, and compassion. “No matter what we do, we can make it our ministry,” she writes in her illuminating A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles. “No matter what form our job or activity takes, the content is the same as everyone else’s; we are here to minister to human hearts. If we talk to anyone, or see anyone, or even think of anyone, then we have the opportunity to bring more love into the universe. From a waitress to the head of a move studio, from an elevator operator to the president of a nation, there is no one whose job is unimportant to God.”

It’s easier to imagine that our work could be our worship if we could perceive the sacred in how we spend at least eight hours of the day. Perhaps the secret to coming to this awareness, no matter what our present circumstances, is to discover the work we would love to do. But until we do, we need to learn to love the work we’re presently doing.

Today you can begin to transform your workplace and your working style by considering how much you have to be grateful for. If you have a job, even one you dislike, it’s a safety net as you take a leap of faith toward your authenticity; if you’re out of work, the path already has been cleared for you to answer your authentic calling. Invoke Spirit as your personal career counselor. The mystical poet Kahlil Gibran tells us, “When you work you fulfill a part of earth’s fondest dream assigned to you when that dream is born.”

Fulfilling your part of the earth’s fondest dream occurs when you work from the heart.

May it be so!

Blogging the Journey

Elevation Devotional: 9/12/08

WORKING FROM THE HEART by Chris Culver