Thinking of a book that changed my life...

Years ago, actually many years ago when I was 30 years old I went through what was (for me) a major psychological crisis.  The details are irrelevant but suffice it to say that I sought out a psychologist for help.  Indeed, he was good at directing my thinking, making me look at myself, and actually giving me "homework".  When I say "homework" I mean that he would give me an assignment for a week that would take me out of the box in which I had place myself.  Then, along the way, he introduced me to a book that changed my life.  The book is (I believe it is still in print) Dr. Wayne Dyer's Your Erroneous Zones.  The main theme of the book that I took away was that you cannot change what happens to you...but you are in charge of how you react to it.  Wow!  I found that so liberating.  If some event was awful to me...it was because I allowed it to be awful to me.  

Well, many years later my friends Rick and Dave introduced me to Unity.  At the time the church was meeting at the facility on Franklin Street in San Francisco.  All of a sudden I am spiritually at home!  Rev. Maureen was and is wonderful and she taught us lessons that were simple yet profound.  The one thing though was that the teachings were and are an enhancement that very basic tenet of Dr. Dyer's book.  Unity bills itself as "practical Christianity."  One realizes that what we call "God" is not an angry white man sitting on a throne but rather the gentle and loving intelligence of this Universe.  I believe that we truly do live in a magical Universe in which anything is possible.  Yes, I am over simplifying and I am not doing justice to what I've learned, believe, and am trying to say.

A minister from Unity...James Dillet Freemen...composed what I consider to be one of the most marvelous poems that I return to from time to time as needed...and I share it with you here:

I am There ~ 

 Do you need Me ? 

I am there.

You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by. 
You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice. 
You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work, though you do not understand My ways. 
I am at work, though you do not understand My works. 
I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.

Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me 
as I AM, and then but as a feeling and a faith.

Yet I am here. Yet I hear. Yet I answer. 
When you need ME, I am there. 
Even if you deny Me, I am there. 
Even when you feel most alone, I am there. 
Even in your fears, I am there. 
Even in your pain, I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray. 
I am in you, and you are in Me. 
Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me, for 
only in your mind are the mists of "yours" and "mine". 
Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.

Empty your heart of empty fears. 
When you get yourself out of the way, I am there. 
You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all. 
And I AM in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, for 
I am there. I am there because I have to be, because I AM.

Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of ME does the world go forward. 
I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.

I am the love that is the law's fulfilling. I am assurance. 
I am peace. I am oneness.  I am the law that you can live by. 
I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance. 
I am your peace. I am ONE with you. I am.

Though you fail to find ME, I do not fail you. 
Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never 
wavers, because I know you, because I love you.

Beloved, I AM there.

                                  James Dillet Freeman 
  
 

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