“Goal Structure”                                                                                          Vance L. Toivonen

READING                   Ephesians 5:8-14

For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light - for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

READING                   Neale Donald Walsch, What God Wants

Our opportunity now is to create the space of possibility for a New Spirituality to emerge upon the earth, a kind of spirituality that will not in any way hinder or destroy our…faith traditions, but will reinvigorate them, refresh them, enliven them, expand them, and allow them to flourish, bringing our world at last an…experience of the Divine in a unified form that makes no one wrong for the way in which they are approaching the God of their understanding, and that creates no condemnation or conflict in God’s name.

SERMON

It was Valentine’s Day Eve, and my Valentine was tucked in bed at home, while I roamed the aisles of Target to pick up some needed, and perhaps a few not so needed, items. I usually make my greeting cards on the computer, but since I had not yet done so, and since I was at the department store, I figured I might as well peruse the card aisle. An entire aisle on one side was dedicated to Valentine’s Day cards, and although they were kind of picked over, there were still an awful lot of them to look through.

As I looked through the cards I navigated around a young man engaging in the hunt. He seemed to agonize over the process. Finding the right card can be challenging, if not altogether impossible at times. Quite often we settle, in our searches, for something that will do. And then, every so often, we hit upon that card that is just right, that card that says what needs to be said, that card that fits. I found that card, and went off smiling, while the young man continued his search. He was there when I arrived, and he was there when I left. I know he eventually left too, but whether he found what he was looking for, or at least settled, I’ll never know. The Valentine’s Day cards have now given way to the holidays that are next on the list, the St. Pat’s, Easter, Passover, and Springtime cards that will soon be exchanged. Isn’t it wonderful?! Spring is coming! In fact, you can feel it in the air this morning.

Gift giving can also bring about this incessant head-scratching. It is difficult enough, sometimes, to know what we want, and that much harder to know what someone else wants. Have you ever noticed that many times the gifts others give us are things they like more than we do? That’s why. We begin with what we want. Our desires drive us toward our choice-making. It’s how we are wired. It is the same in life in general. We get what we want. So, what are some things that you want. Go ahead, speak them out loud.

I was looking at some Iraqi blogging sites. If we want to cut through the media, perhaps going directly to some voices of Iraqi people themselves might be the best way. There is a lot of talk about the way things were, and how things are now. Then, finally, I found what I was looking for, a simple summary of what an Iraqi wants in the midst of this conflict. Here is the quote:

I see everybody is dying...losing friends...losing hope...and I would lose myself if I stayed there...

We want to live…

We want to build our lives..

We want to build a future for our children..

Will they leave us do that?

And will others really help us?

We all want the same things. Americans and Iraqis want the same things. Cubans and Russians want the same things. Hilary, and Barak, and John McCain all want the same things. Democrats and Republicans and those pesky Greens all want the same things. Catholics and Protestants and Pentecostals and Evangelicals all want the same things. And the things that we all want are the things that God wants.

This is the core premise of Walsch’s book What God Wants: God wants nothing, because God is that unifying field humankind shares with one another. God knows that we can have everything we want, because we know we can have everything we want. We experience true joy when we find our deepest desires emerging into the reality of our lives. We want peace. We experience joy when we experience peace. What we want and what God wants have converged together. God is not a separate actor on the human stage; God is not the man behind the curtain pulling the levers; God is us when we are living out our core wants and desires. When we give ourselves peace, unconditional love, undivided attention through listening and caring, security through our commitment to one another, and so on, we are wanting what God and the universe wants. There is no difference at these junctures. And in that respect God is left wanting for nothing.

I know, that might be a bit confusing. Here is a quote from Walsch himself, although I think you’ll need to read the whole book to even begin to get what he is saying. He writes,

Life is a unified expression of the only thing there is: life itself – which may also be called God. Our constant yearning for union is the outward worldly expression of the innermost knowing of the soul: we are one with all things and with life itself, and we seek always to experience that. That’s what you’re doing day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment. You are doing this through the living of your life and the expression of the life within you and all the celebrations of life that bring joy.

Whenever you do anything magnificent, whenever you rise to an occasion, overcome an obstacle, love more than you thought you ever could, you feel joy. This is what you are looking for, this is what you are seeking always, because joy is love is life is God, and you sense this at the deepest level of your being. Neale Donald Walsch, What God Wants, p. 127)

So, if this is true, why don’t we do it? Why don’t we live in a world where everybody has their needs met? Why don’t we live in a world that is all justice and peace and unconditional love? If these are things we want, and we all want them, then why don’t we give them to ourselves? If God is woven into the fabric of our common humanity, why does it seem like God is so distant, so unconcerned, so indifferent?

In his letter to the Romans, the 7^th chapter, Paul takes on this conundrum. He writes, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate….I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” There is this great cosmic battle between good and evil that has been enunciated through story, myth and legend for millennia. It is the human condition to be at odds with ourselves in some way, shape, or form. I don’t know why this is. It just is. The first step is, I suppose, what Paul is doing in these verses, to become more aware of this struggle within ourselves, to recognize when our words, actions, thoughts, and choices run counter to the heart of God, to the core desires of humankind.

This spiritual process never ends. It is our goal structure to constantly examine and reexamine ourselves, and to choose light over dark, hope over despair, the good of the many over the good of the one, and unconditional love over self-serving love. Every moment of our lives is a test, of sorts. One minute I get it, and I am full of joy. The next minute I am slapping myself on the forehead asking myself why I did not make a different, and a better, choice. We live out this conundrum, and this conundrum exponentially projects itself onto the larger stage of the world to become all manner of pain and suffering blended together with all kinds of good stuff that brings us, and others, joy. This is life as we know it.

Whatever process we might choose to tip the scales just a bit toward the light, toward the hopes, dreams, and desires of our common humanity, that process is what I would call spirituality, and it is essential to the raising of our awareness. We need to listen to our deepest inner voice. That voice, and that voice alone, will tell us what God wants, what we all want. It is the core of humanity, and the primary connecting link that we have with one another.

How do we know if we are growing toward this goal structure. Since many people are reading it now, thanks to Oprah, I will give Eckhart Tolle the last word from his book titled A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. He writes,

If you are not spending all of your waking life in discontent, worry, anxiety, depression, despair, or consumed by other negative states; if you are able to enjoy simple things like listening to the sound of the rain or the wind; if you can see the beauty of clouds moving across the sky or be alone at times without feeling lonely or needing the mental stimulus of entertainment; if you find yourself treating a complete stranger with heartfelt kindness without wanting anything from him or her…it means that a space has been opened up, no matter how briefly, in the otherwise incessant stream of thinking that is the human mind. When this happens, there is a sense of well-being, of alive peace, even though it may be subtle…Be still. Look. Listen. Be present.

Let’s say those last words together. Repeat after me. “Be still” “Look” “Listen” “Be present” (3x). This is our goal structure.