There is something beautiful about our spiritual community.
At Unity Village Chapel, our small groups, gatherings, and sacred experiences do not come from hierarchy or expertise alone. They emerge from the creativity, prayer life, curiosity, and devotion of the community itself. They arise from hearts listening.
Rev. Erin McCabe began this week by acknowledging that truth:
“We are spiritual beings exploring the spiritual path together.”
Unity has never been about one voice telling others what to believe. It has always been about awakening the divine spark within each person — and discovering what emerges when we listen collectively.
And in these interesting times — in our hearts, in our nation, in the world — that collective listening feels more important than ever.
When “I” Becomes “We”
Rev. Erin offered a powerful reminder: the separate “I” is dissolving.
When we affirm, “I receive. I deserve. I believe in unlimited good,” we are no longer speaking as isolated individuals. We are speaking on behalf of humanity.
“The idea of I as a separate being has expired. I now means we.”
Mystics throughout time have taught that there is one field of life. We are not separate from it — we are expressions of it. Each of us is an inlet and an outlet of divine substance.
And that field leaves no one out.
This understanding shifts everything. We are not here to rearrange outer circumstances to fit our spiritual needs. We are here to awaken inwardly — and from that awakening, create a world that reflects Spirit.
Lent: Live and Embody a New Thought
As we enter the Lenten season, Rev. Erin invited us to approach these 40 days not as ritual alone, but as mystical practice.
She offered a new acronym for LENT:
L – Live and
E – Embody a
N – New
T – Thought
Lent becomes an invitation to transformation — not self-denial, but spiritual identity work.
In biblical tradition, this was the season in which Jesus walked directly into what appeared insurmountable. But he did not rearrange the outer world. He aligned inwardly.
When he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” he was not pointing to personality. He was revealing consciousness — oneness with the Divine.
And that consciousness is not limited to religion. It is written on our hearts.
“When the world in the outer is not showing the way, the calling is to become the way.”
The Birthing Process
Drawing from Eric Butterworth’s teachings on spiritual economics, Rev. Erin spoke of a “new world vision” — first articulated by Charles Fillmore.
Butterworth writes:
“Wherever you may be, you are an unborn possibility of limitless life, limitless intelligence, limitless substance — and yours is the privilege and responsibility of giving birth to it.”
As Rev. Erin reframed it for our collective:
“We are an unborn possibility of limitless life, limitless intelligence, limitless substance — and ours is the privilege and responsibility of giving birth to it.”
Birth is not tidy. It is not always comfortable. It involves discomfort, uncertainty, deep breathing, and surrender.
And yet, something miraculous unfolds.
There are moments in life — personally and collectively — when we cannot conceive of the “how.” We cannot see the full path forward. And yet something is quickening.
“These are no small times. Something is emerging.”
The human mind may call it falling apart.
But the mystic within us — the inner midwife — knows something deeper is being born.
Soul Permission vs. Social Permission
Rev. Erin referenced the wisdom often attributed to Henry David Thoreau: we can live with social permission, or we can live with soul permission.
Social permission conforms to the mold of the world around us.
Soul permission listens for a deeper drumbeat.
“If a person does not keep step with others, perhaps it is because they hear a different drummer.”
Each of us carries that drummer within. Each of us carries the capacity to awaken — instantly, profoundly.
No one is permanently asleep. And no one is permanently awakened. Behind each state lies the possibility of the other.
The question is: will we give ourselves permission to listen?
A Renaissance of Faith
Butterworth spoke of a “new worldwide epidemic of faith” — the conviction that there is no need for poverty or lack anywhere.
Not merely financial poverty, but poverty of creativity, imagination, compassion, and courage.
Prosperity, in spiritual economics, is not accumulation. It is resource. It is access to divine intelligence. It is creativity flowing.
“Believe that you are always in the presence of limitless substance which you form and shape and release through your faith.”
Wherever you are, you are an inlet and an outlet.
The Collective Birth
Rev. Erin invited us into a profound contemplation:
What if what is happening in our individual lives mirrors what is happening collectively?
What if the personal and the global are not separate processes — but resonant expressions of one unfolding?
Something is evolving. Something is shifting.
And rather than gripping in fear, we are invited to breathe like midwives — steady, grounded, trusting.
“We are the ones. The time is now.”
The universe is not withholding support. The grand design is not absent.
We are supported — individually and together — in becoming the way.
Namaste.
Weekly Practice: Giving Birth to What Is Emerging
Set aside 10 quiet minutes this week.
Take a slow breath. Let your body soften.
Reflect gently:
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What is being born in me right now?
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Where am I seeking social permission instead of soul permission?
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Where am I being invited to live and embody a new thought?
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What might it look like to trust that I am part of a larger unfolding?
Place one hand on your heart and affirm:
I am an unborn possibility of limitless life.
I am an inlet and an outlet of divine substance.
I give birth to what is mine to bring forth.
And then listen.
The way is within you.