Center for Spiritual Living Midtown

Fore! - Rev David Barrett

“Fore!”, is the exclamation golfers use when setting up tee. It comes from an old Australian war term when the soldiers would exclaim “Beware Before!” when artillery was going to be launched. So it is on the four year anniversary that we exclaim “Fore!”.  As Emerson said, “Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet”, so it is with us as we release the greater thoughts we Know about Life and ourselves.

When History Is Really A Mystery - Rev Paul Gonyea

"Too many people allow themselves to be defined by their past. Or even worse, they allow themselves to be defined by how others see their past. Dr. Raymond Charles Barker once said, 'Yesterday ended last night.' He was entirely correct. But another way of saying the same thing is, the present always has the power to overcome the past. What we call 'our history' only exists in our memory, and in the memory of others. But not all those memories are identical. In fact, some of them are mutually exclusive. That's why we need to focus on where we are now, and put our best and most spiritual energy into where we are going from here."

Creating a Sacred Relationship - Rev Paul Gonyea

“We have this strange idea that true love and friendship are supposed to make us happy; they’re supposed to make life easier. But that isn’t necessarily true. They aren’t supposed to make us happy, they’re supposed to help us GROW. BOTH of us! When we are in a really good relationship, we usually DO feel happier, and life frequently DOES get much easier, but that’s a by-product. It isn’t the most important thing in a healthy relationship.”

Can We Kiss for an Hour? - Rev David Barrett

It was Hafiz who asked if we can kiss for an hour…..It will be David to explain who is the kisser and who is the kissee! Oh, to kiss for an hour!

Having An Expanded Experience - Rev. David Barrett

 It was Raymond Charles Barker that said, “An expanded experience is ALWAYS preceded by an expanded consciousness.” So after hearing the Basic Series by Paul Gonyea the first four weeks of the year, come hear the practical application of the teaching so that you truly live the expanded experience in 2016.

Basics 4: The World on a String - Rev Paul Gonyea

We forget that this thing we call Life isn’t a finished product being handed to us; it’s raw material. It’s a work in progress. It’s a lump of clay, a block of marble, a blank canvas. We are sculptors and artists who have been given an infinite variety of shapes and colors and textures to choose from, and given all the tools we need to fashion our own life into something either beautiful and unique — or something rather average and boring.

That means as artists creating our own life, we should learn to ask ourselves, on a regular basis, honestly, quietly and without self-judgment, WHAT IS IT that I want to create?

Basics 3: There’s Always a Way - Rev Paul Gonyea

“In our life, our Mind, which is connected to the Source of all ideas, is what we use to make decisions. We do this constantly, thousands of times every day, with big decisions and little decisions. The Source of our ideas (which is God) never forces us to make the best decision. However, it does always present us with a number of excellent choices. But we still have to recognize and choose for ourselves. We can only grow by placing greater ideas into the Law. If our life is working, that’s what we’re doing. If it isn’t, we aren’t — and we need to make some changes.”

Basics 2: Made in the Image and Likeness - Rev Paul Gonyea

“A lot of the problems we run into in our lives are created, and aggravated, not only by our limited view of God , but by our limited view of ourselves and of the world. In fact, that’s a much more common problem. The average individual seems to see the universe as a triangle, with a distant God up there, with us down here, and with the rest of the world over there, all of it separate. To their way of thinking, everything that happens is a result of either random selection, or the activity of some supernatural power whose mysterious purposes we can never hope to understand. So when good things happen, it’s either good luck, or God was doing them a personal favor. When bad things happen, it’s either bad luck, the devil causing trouble, or God being angry. That’s what a lot of people believe.”

Basics 1: God, The One and Only - Rev Paul Gonyea

“We are not here on this planet, in this life experience, to please anybody or anything, and that includes God. To some people, that may sound like a blasphemous statement, but I assure you it is not. We believe in a God that doesn’t get upset by our opinions about It. Our idea of God is much bigger than that. We’re talking here about a Power that supports us the way only a perfectly intelligent and loving God could, which means with complete wisdom, with total love, with total givingness and forgivingness, with no conditions at all. That means all the time, no strings attached. It just doesn’t get any better than that.”

Just Another Year in Paradise - Rev Paul Gonyea

“When we look at our past experiences as something that the world imposed upon us, and we carry away the anger, the resentment, and the self-righteous indignation, it can really add up. On the other hand, if we take responsibility for the way we think about these experiences — not blaming ourselves, but simply accepting responsibility — and if we turn in the direction of Divine Intelligence and learn what we need to learn, then move forward in a positive, life-enhancing direction, we’ll begin to feel a sense of harmony with life that makes every other aspect of our life much more enjoyable. That’s paradise.”