August 25, 2013 – Compassion for our Cinderella

8/25/13 Rev. David McArthur
Compassion for our Cinderella

We bring into life that which is helpful within us.  All the beauty you see is a reflection of the beauty and harmony and power within the self.  All the junk out there—those problems that show up—that’s within you too!  Remember when you could blame other people?  But for every challenge you’ve got the wisdom and love flowing through you.

It’s the feelings.  Ask: what are the feelings that have been showing up?  Remember, the story of Cinderella deals with our feelings. She’s a symbol of when the soul enters the earth.  She has no parents.  She feels unwanted. We, too, let our feelings of powerlessness, hurt, and rejection keep us from what we want.  But in the present moment when we enter into the now we have the ability to see that amazing divine power that responds to that Cinderella part of us.

Yes, we are Cinderella in rags, but we are the Fairy Godmother, too!  Take the wand:  it’s the focus of your intention.  The Fairy Godmother doesn’t focus the wand on the step mother or the step sisters, but on the place where we feel helpless (our Cinderella).  She focuses it on the place of love.  That’s hard—to focus on love when we feel helpless and under attack.  Love them?  We don’t even like them!  It’s hard!

What can we do?  Change comes when I focus on the understanding of my Cinderella in rags.  I focus on those feelings with deep compassion that flows from the heart of the divine to the self which is carrying the pain.  We are one with this divine love.  Send it to that part within in pain.  Breathe the feeling of compassion, that tenderness, care, and understanding from your heart to the hurt one inside.  Notice you’re not trying to change that one inside, but loving that beloved child of God.  Tell it, “I love you just the way you are!”  “I love you just the way you are!”  “I love you just the way you are!”

Feel that beautiful flow of compassion from your heart.  In the days ahead, go back for just a moment to send that compassion to your Cinderella.  The rags of unworthiness disappear and you radiate the beauty that you are!  It’s the power of your love and compassion that makes the difference and the change.  You are the awesome Fairy Godmother!

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August 18, 2013 – Cinderella and the Now Moment

8/18/13 Rev. David McArthur
Cinderella and the Now Moment

                                           
Cinderella, in the story, reflects our feeling (a feminine) aspect and shows us our feelings in the unfoldment of our souls. An orphan, Cinderella doesn’t really know who she is, or see herself as loved, as having value. This is one of the great challenges of the soul—we see the world “out there” as having value, but not ourselves.

The invitation to the ball, to step into something wonderful, comes from the King (a God symbol). But she feels she can’t go until everyone else is served first. Do you seek your identity by constantly serving every one else? Finally she puts on the beautiful gown she had made for herself but her step mother and step sisters tear it to shreds. How we let our lack of self worth tear our dreams to shreds! She goes to the garden, an ancient symbol of the heart. She finds the Fairy Godmother (the feminine aspect of God), and finds love and acceptance.

The horses (the ability to move through space and time to the fulfillment of self) take Cinderella to abundance, to the banquet with the King. This experience illustrates the “now moment” , when we are able to experience both the feminine and masculine aspects of God (the Fairy Godmother and the King), and it ends for Cinderella at the last stroke of midnight. So too does our experience of the now moment have an end. But we still have the beauty, the knowledge, that we are magnificent spiritual beings. Affirm, “I am a magnificent spiritual being!” “I am a magnificent spiritual being!” “I am a magnificent spiritual being!”

Pat Grabow, in The Immortal Now, says, “The transcendence is in the now. It is always occurring in the now.” You can’t get there “someday”. And you can’t stay in the now. It’s not about staying but entering in, about accepting the magnificence as the real and beautiful knowledge of self, and more: of an illumination of the moment.

The Prince (the male, the thought, the mind), knows his identity, but cannot feel it. The now moment is not found in the head, but has to be entered through the heart and the feelings (Cinderella). The glass slipper (the understanding of who we are, feeling and thought, embracing and experiencing) lets Cinderella return to the palace, to her abundance.

You are the child of a loving God, a magnificent spiritual being. And when you know it you can return to your abundance, you can go to the ball!

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