Liveliness | Bonnie Barnard - Part 5

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God at the Jimmy Buffett Concert

Where have you witnessed The Eternal, Loving, Powerful Presence we call God today? This Presence is Everywhere; have you acknowledged It? Celebrated It? Spoken of It? In the midst of all of the crazy, ugly, violent media reports, have you stopped to see that your life is filled with a Presence so generous that you can smell Its Grace and can’t help but scream out “I saw God today?” My daughter surprised me with Jimmy Buffett tickets as an I love you mom gift. The two of us followed a sea of parrot and shark skin hats on grey and balding heads toward the concert’s location … The MGM Grand concert venue. As I watched groups of friends wearing matching themed shirts, couples holding hands, women dressed as mermaids and men as sharks, I felt a Joy well-up around me. Love was present. Love of music, love of shared memories, love of each other, love of playfulness. In line we overheard people recount the many Jimmy Buffet concerts they’d attended...

Resurrecting Today and Every Day

Next door to my condo complex is a Catholic church whose bells chime every hour on the hour. I have the opportunity to stop whatever I am doing throughout the day and breathe, pray, or give thanks. Today is Easter. I am aware the congregation is celebrating the highlight of the Christian/Catholic year. Today is the day that Jesus the Christ has risen from the dead. Literally, this is a fantastic story. A dead man returning to walk amongst the living. Metaphysically this is a powerful teaching. In the metaphysical story, we are all personalities or people in the Bible. We are Mary who gives birth to Jesus. We are Joseph, the father, who says yes to a vision in deep faith. We are Jesus, born man, who through devotion to that which is Invisible becomes born into Christ (the anointed one). We are the disciples who are in and on the spiritual marketing team. We are Judas who betrays our own inner divinity, and we are those who throw...

Are You REALLY Kind?

Kindness comes from the English and has two predominant meanings: 1. to be of the same — like these apples are the same kind 2. to be benevolent without the motive of profit Combined; these two definitions mean what I believe the Dalai Lama refers to when he says “My religion is kindness.” Meaning this — each of us humans share the same Source, we are the same kind. This means inferior and superior are off the playing field. We share Same. We share the experience of being human and at the same time in history. And, as kind … behaving generously without searching for a gain. Let this settle for a moment. How often do you come from a place of giving without any expectation whatsoever of receiving? Let me break this down a bit further. When giving, a thank you isn’t expected from the other; you simply give. A week doesn’t go by without me hearing the phrase “and they didn’t even say thank you!!!” as though...

Super Bowl (and a lot more) is In the Air

Helicopters above my condo woke me up this morning. The Super Bowl is in town changing the way the city and I both operate. Yesterday, my twenty minute drive to the hairdresser was 45 minutes long. Stopped at a light I saw thirty or forty Seahawk fans cross the street. My attention was on one Seahawk fan with this blue 12 t-shirt on signifying he is a fan; the 12th ingredient to the team’s success. Brown and grey speckled hair, slight belly pouch, surrounded by guy friends; he was carrying a blue and clear plastic purse. A man-bag. No longer metrosexual. Now, practical. I giggled. Once my body rolled from the bed and my feet hit the tiled floor, along with this memory, I hear John 3:16 in my head, “for God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whomever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Taken literally, this passage is saying God loves me so much he murdered his son so...

Let’s Talk Vision …

The Invisible Realm is so rich and as a culture we tend to value that which is tangible and seen over that which is not visible to the eye. Last week I spoke about the Invisible Realm for thirty minutes at Unity of Chandler’s Sunday service and I could have gone on for five to six more hours and still barely scraped the surface of the potency within the Invisible. Take just a moment to think about all of the activity that is in the ethers right now that goes unseen. Electricity, wi-fi-, radio waves, wind, temperature, internal feelings, emotions, states of being and ideas/thoughts. While preparing for the talk I kept hearing the phrase “show me the money” from the Jerry Maguire movie. I wondered what the movie and phrase had to do with the invisible realm; so I watched the movie, again. Jerry was a tough, big firm, sports agent — caring about money and not the people. It was “about the deal.” Until — he visited...

Looking at Self Esteem from a Different Angle

Sunday’s sermon I gave was less a talk about the idea of God and more an experience of connecting directly with The Presence. The congregation’s response was lively and hugs were generously flowing as I left the building. In the direct heat of a 100 degree plus morning I was met by an older, stunningly beautiful woman standing next to my car in tears. “I have prayed for thirty years”, she said, “to meet you.” She continued saying she had actively prayed for three decades to see the vitality of God in someone’s eyes and today was the day and my eyes were the eyes. Flattered and humbled simultaneously, I listened to her story. Partway through it she said, “like everyone else, I have problems with self esteem.” I have taken to seeing the world and listening to people talk much like reading a good college textbook. I begin to see and hear some things as though nuggets of wisdom and insight are flying off the page requiring a...