We have been focusing this entire year on “We Choose Peace in 2016.”  For the last two Sunday’s I have shared Jesus the Master Teacher’s thoughts and beliefs on Love, Joy, and Peace.  Jesus encouraged us to find Love, Joy, and Peace first within our relationships with the living loving spirit of God.  God Is — I Am.  Second he encouraged us to Love One Another.  “One Another” did not mean we got to pick and choose; it did not leave anyone out.  Now as we flow into Palm Sunday  we get an up close and personal look into what happens when we are well aware of walking into a situation that may be filled with many emotions and situations other than Love or Joy or Peace.

A little history before Sunday:  Jesus and his disciples had been in Bethany, visiting the home of Lazarus.  Many people had come to speak to him because it was well known that he had raised Lazarus from the dead.  On the following Sunday (Palm Sunday) Jesus and his disciples began their journey into Jerusalem, metaphysically known as the city of peace.  Jesus realized that because of the energy around him and his teachings, that his ride into Jerusalem would create quite a stir.  There would be a possibility of negative emotions from the Jewish leaders as well as the government officials.  So have you ever wondered how he stayed so peaceful and full of love through all the events of the next week?

Join us on Sunday as we discuss the topic:  The Choice to Be Peace – the Beginning of Personal Transformation.  And joining methis Sunday  to spread the vibration of Love Joy and Peace is our own Michael Elley; singer, songwriter, producer, publisher and actor.  He will be singing songs that he shared as a Citizen-Diplomat Entertainer in the Soviet Union (1986-89).   Remember………..

Peace is the Way,

Rev. D

A study by W. Penn Handwerker, a professor of anthropology at the University of Connecticut linked depression, suicide, stress, heart disease, and aggression to a lifetime of hurtful words stored in the energy of the body.  Handwerker was interested in bullying that seemed to be on the rise in the late 90’s.  He specifically studied the Littleton, Colorado public school shootings better known as Columbine.  Handwerker found that the shooters had experienced years of hurtful words and emotional abuse.

The facts of bullying and emotional abuse experienced by the shooters do not lesson the effect of the loss of 13 lives on April 20, 1999.  What the fact does is clarify something that many of us know at a gut level.  Therapists who have worked with children or adults are well aware that abuse is not merely physical or sexual.  In fact, the effects of emotional, verbal or psychological abuse can many times be as demeaning and devastating and sometimes much harder to process.  It is much easier to say, this physical situation happened to me.  It is much more difficult to discuss emotional abuse, for the simple fact that it is emotional and many times we have stuffed it inside and chosen to not bring it to the surface again.

on Monday, or even what we did last weekend – our minds are like a virtual recording system when it comes to the spoken word.  And it seems that we tend to harbor all the ugly things people have said to us, effortlessly playing back the comments from years and years ago.  I can still remember a 3^rd 

You see I was probably born left handed, but my mother kept putting the pencil in my right hand, telling me “This is the hand you are supposed to write with.”  By the time I got to first grade, I was writing with my right hand but when cursive writing was introduced in third grade, I curved my hand on my paper and slanted my letters to the left instead of the right.  Zaner Bloser – the official handwriting course stated that “perfect and beautiful handwriting slanted to the right.”  The words spoken, “You should never write like this” translated in my 9 year old brain, “my handwriting is ugly.”  To this day I have never liked my handwriting.  As I got older, I wrote in print letters and still do except to sign my name.

Clearly words matter.  They are powerful.  And what matters most is how we use our words.  Do we use them like sticks and stones to tear down, to destruct, and destroy?  Do we use them to defend our position?  Or do we use them to build us?  Do we use them to create peace?  Jesus when speaking to his disciples stated, “My peace I give to you.”  Jesus the Master Teacher had practiced over and over the process of meditation and he was mindful of the reservoir of spirit freely available to us in any moment.  When his disciples were scared and fearful, he was able to offer them overflowing peace from the reservoir.

Sunday