Dear Members and friends of Unity Temple,

Our beloved Minister, Rev. Linda made her transition on the morning of Feb 18th.  It was my great honor to have Linda as a dear friend, and to help support her in her final months with us.

Her zest for life, enthusiasm for all she did, and the genuinely friendly and engaging manner about her made all in contact with her feel loved and special.  Her unselfish gifts to our community cannot be counted: engaging, witty services, insightful classes during the week, an amazing Christmas play, a new prayer chaplaincy to serve our community with prayer, spiritual leadership and guidance for our board of trustees, just to name a few, and all were almost entirely given to our church by Linda as a volunteer.

She gave our community new life, and her gifts will stay with us as we move forward.

I know that Linda also felt incredibly grateful and honored to be allowed to answer her calling with us. In accepting her gifts, our community has given Linda a great gift in return.
Manifestations of Divine Order abound throughout her time with us.. She has brought me renewed faith and vigor, and I Am Grateful.

Thank you for your love and support for Unity Temple, you are all in my prayers.
Matt Young,
Vice President
Prayer Chaplain Coordinator

January is named after the god, Janus, the god of the doorway, the threshold. He faces both past and future and symbolizes change and transition, like growing up, moving from one condition to another, or one vision to another. What a wonderful month! As part of the process of any kind of change, we step out of the old and into the new, crossing over the threshold as we go. For the time betwixt and between the old and the new—the liminal–is a powerful time and it’s helpful to take advantage of the gifts of the threshold. If we try to leap into a different future too quickly, we might inadvertently land in a future that’s very similar to the past we want to leave. On the threshold, we let go of the past dreams, habits, patterns of thinking and behavior—completely let them go—so that we might be open and receptive to true Divine Guidance about the next step to take. Meditation and prayer help us to let the old ideas go; mindful walking helps; actions that demand your conscious attention, like singing and dancing, help. Only when we are empty of the old, can the truly new be invited into our consciousness. This is a New Year, a new time, a new opportunity for us to break out of old patterns and express some fresh and exciting ways of being. So let’s embrace the threshold until we’re sure of what we are becoming.

Love and blessings,

 Rev. Linda

Soul Food. If you find yourself somewhat stressed between the two big feast days–trying to get things bought, wrapped, or baked before the December 24^th deadline—you could be doing too much of the wrong things. In the same way that we can get physical indigestion after eating and drinking too much, we can get soul indigestion after an excess of striving after externals. We may have appropriated (eaten) too much negative, non-nutritious energy that causes us considerable discomfort and aggravation. If you ever find yourself wishing you could be somewhere else for Christmas, somewhere quiet and nurturing, because the season feels like it’s demanding too much from you, this is a good thing. Dissatisfaction is a great teacher. We can do things differently: it only takes a few moments of full awareness, of tuning in to the hungers of our souls. When choosing a gift, ask yourself if this gift will feed the person’s soul—perhaps sharing time with the person would be much more appreciated. When preparing food and drink, ask yourself if the foods feed the soul as well as the body. When greeting people, remember that shining your soul-light is without question the greatest gift you can give them—and yourself. And you are important this Christmas, your soul needs are important—don’t indulge your ego in getting stressed out, you’re not responsible for other people’s “merry Christmas.” Take some quiet moments for yourself in beautiful surroundings (without feeling guilty). Feed your own soul and those around you will also be fed. Have a wonderful month of Delight and a very happy Christmas!

With love and blessings,

 Rev. Linda

The soft overcomes the hard.
The slow overcomes the fast.
Let your workings remain a mystery. (Tao Te Ching)

There is a chill in the air now—a harbinger of fall moving into winter. When it gets colder, I find myself closing in on myself: it’s as if the cold were a psychic force that I needed to protect myself against—like an onslaught of something undesirable. And in this process of contraction, I wonder whether my heart is also contracting. Like the Grinch, whose heart was “two sizes too small,” is my heart getting a little crusty and protective of myself? I hope not, because being ‘protective’ is actually what the Ego does, the sacred heart has nothing to protect—it knows it’s invincible. So when I find myself thinking that others don’t appreciate me, that the world is slightly unfriendly, antagonistic—or even plum crazy—when I feel a bit supersensitive, I need to remember that I am in a loving, nurturing universe. My heart never really hurts, it’s only my Ego that gets a bit tense. I’ve found that keeping my heart and my thoughts ‘soft’ not only takes care of my wobbly Ego, but also allows me to love others, no matter what they seem to be doing—it actually brings me strength. As the apostle Paul puts it, “Christ’s strength is moving in on my weakness. . . And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become (2 Corinthians 12:6-8).”  Try opening your heart to greater softness, it’s a profound spiritual practice. With love and blessings, Rev. Linda

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“The Grinch—a Holiday Show.”  We will be rehearsing a new version of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, starting 7PM, Wednesday 26 October, and every Wednesday in November. There will be a few more rehearsals in December to prepare for the final production on Sunday, December 18. If you are interested in participating—either onstage or backstage—please come to the initial meeting this Wednesday 26. Call Rev. Linda for more information: 831-338-3451.

Change and Transformation are the buzz words of the decade. I searched for books on Amazon with Change or Transformation in the title and came up with 33,000 results. . .Rapid Transfor­mation, Whole Life Transformation, Becoming the Change your Church Needs, the Transforma­tion of Global Consciousness, Creating Change, and my favorite, The Change Monster. Most of us can talk blithely about change and the need for change: planetary changes, political changes, personal growth and transformation, however, can we really accept change when we’re not mak­ing the change ourselves?

We may be experiencing changes in our body, changes in relationships, changes in our jobs, changes in our neighborhood, and changes in the church. The “Change Monster” is constantly shifting things around: everything is moving, growing and changing, and it may make us un­happy and uncomfortable—it may feel like loss. The creaturely part of us wants to feel safe and secure, and probably doesn’t welcome many of the changes that are happening in our lives.
However, our souls love change because change gives us opportunities to stretch our wings, to develop new skills, to rely on our inner wisdom to create new and marvelous possibilities for ourselves that we couldn’t have envisioned before the change.

So, I invite you to embrace all the changes in your life that seem to be ‘happening’ to you and change your mind about them, change your feelings about them: see them as gifts that enable you to weave a new portion of your life’s tapestry. And, if you need to make changes, make them with wisdom and courage. As the Serenity Prayer says: Lord, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom the know the difference. God always helps with the wisdom, courage, and serenity parts!