This past Friday night, we held our Fall 2016 Path to Discovery Celebration Dinner. The event honors and celebrates graduates of the “Path Class,” most of whom we also welcome as new members of Unity Church of the Hills. Along with the new graduates, members of our Board, Staff and other church members gather together for fellowship, a good meal and heartfelt sharing. The dinner is always a highlight for all who participate, infusing each one of us with renewed energy and purpose as we hear story after story of coming home to UCOH.
This was my sixth Path dinner, including the dinner for my own graduating Path class. I am always struck by the common theme of healing from religious wounds shared by so many of the graduates. Many, if not most of us, who have found our way to Unity and New Thought have done so in some part to recover from old models of God, which fostered misunderstandings around the nature of our own being in relationship to the Divine. These old models generally emphasized separation, “not-enough-ness” and punishment.
For some, their religious wounds were mere scratches. Their childhood version of God was mostly a loving God—a father figure, sensible and wise. Yet, they were not encouraged to explore their own divinity in relationship to their “loving God.” Many of them find that healing lies in updating their internal view – to see and know themselves as The Christ, to know that they are more than their thoughts, feelings and doings. With an updated belief system, they are able to heal the sense of separation that stands between them and an intimate relationship with the Divine.
For others, the wounds run deeper. Many of these individuals have experienced an orientation where God is vengeful and angry. Some of them have viewed God as precarious or capricious, a God that could not be counted on. Even though they may view God as a fairly stable deity, they still experience God as being prone to occasional and unpredictable rage issues.
Regardless of where our own personal wounds fall on the spectrum, I believe we have all suffered some form of spiritual dissonance, either consciously or unconsciously. Something about these “old models” have never set well with us. Despite the dissonance, in our heart of hearts, we have still believed that a deeper truth was waiting to be revealed.
In many cases, this dissonance led us to live life devoid of church. I myself spent my 20s and 30s finding “church” in nature. I was connecting with the Presence of God in the trees and birds, but didn’t realize until much later that I was deeply missing connecting with that Presence in my fellow human travelers. Unity Church of the Hills gave me back that essential connection.
Some could argue that the perceived decline in church attendance across our nation is due to this unhealed dissonance. Even though more and more churches are teaching (or preaching) about a God of Love, for many, the religious wounds run too deep. They may fear cultivating a church life because they expect more dissonance. However, despite their wounds, each Path graduate I have experienced over time acknowledges and professes a deep desire to commune with the Divine, to heal the sense of separation and overcome their feelings of unworthiness. In short, they deeply desire to feel at home with God and experience their own divinity.
To me, being willing to update one’s spiritual belief system, despite past wounds, underscores the courage and devotion of each Path graduate. I even see this courage and devotion expressed in each and every person who attends UCOH. We show up, week after week, to not only heal our own wounds, but to hold the space for others in need of healing. Through our presence and our prayers, we fill each one of them with love, acceptance and new ideas around the nature of their own indwelling Christ. Ideas grounded in truth principles resonate within our hearts and fill our souls with divine power. In the presence of this divine power, all spiritual dissonance dissolves and we find that we are home.
