toddweir1

Rooted in God’s Unconditional Love

June 5, 2023 by toddweir1

Ephesians 3:17-18 June 4, 2023

A noise awakened me in the night. I was a teenager on an Iowa farm. The sound was likely a squeal from a spooked pig, but I knew I would not sleep unless I checked to see what was happening. I was grumpy. Was there a dog bothering them? Did a piglet get out? I was greeted at the back door by a cloud of fog drifting down and filtering the moonlight. I felt drawn to walk into the pasture and be in the mist. The urge was as strong as a voice speaking, so I went. The fog drifted in clouds floating around me, through me, and carrying me in wonder. For a moment, I was outside myself, or not even myself, lost in wonder. The fog and the night filled me we a sense of well-being. It felt like love, like a consciousness saying, “Welcome. You belong!” I had not earned this love. I hadn’t sought it; I stumbled into its arms and was held briefly.

Since that time, I experienced failure and success, joy and loss, hope and despair. Occasionally, I have felt the same welcome. It is a love that has never let me go, even as I drift and forget. The phrase “unconditional love” is one way to describe the experience. It is more than what any human can offer. It is given not as a reward or obligation but simply as a gift.

Being rooted in God’s unconditional love is more than a belief. Paul says in Ephesians,

So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

I preached a sermon on Jesus a few weeks ago, asking Peter if he loved him. Jesus asked in Greek, “Do you agape me?” Agape is altruistic, self-giving love, seeking nothing in return. Agape is desiring and acting for the good of another life. It may be related to the love of friendship or lovers’ passion, but the word describes a unique aspect of love. The closest phrase to agape in English may be “unconditional love.”

Psychologists began speaking about unconditional love in the mid-20^th century. Carl Rogers revolutionized psychotherapy with the idea that demonstrating an unconditional positive regard for the client is a pre-condition for healing and growth. A social psychologist and philosopher, Erich Fromm, wrote “The Art of Loving” (1956), exploring unconditional love as a transformative force. He suggests unconditional love requires genuine care, respect, and understanding for the other person without expecting anything in return. Fromm emphasizes the dynamic nature of unconditional love, stating:

“Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a ‘standing in,’ not a ‘falling for.’ In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.” (Fromm, E. The Art of Loving, p. 6)

Therefore, unconditional love requires character development, self-awareness, and the ability to overcome our limitations. Embodying unconditional love is a lifelong process of personal growth. By starting our Mission Statement with “Being rooted in God’s unconditional love,” we commit to being a community that fills us with this capacity.

We need to talk about what unconditional love is not. Love does not give up our personal boundaries or force us into continued harmful situations. Love does not mean putting up with abuse. Just as you would not let a child run into a busy street because you respect their autonomy, nor do you want to enable any destructive behavior. You can respectfully tell someone no. It can be an act of love to say where we stand and what our boundaries are. Tough love is not incompatible with unconditional love. That idea probably deserves an entire sermon. Our goal here is to remember as we navigate these challenging situations, we are rooted in God’s unconditional love for us.

The strength to love, especially when people are frustrating, indifferent, or even hostile to love, takes more than what we can offer alone. We need the deep roots of God’s love to hold us firmly, nourish us and heal us to persevere. Christian mystics understood this long before psychology came along.

Meister Eckhart said, “If someone were to ask me what God is, I would say that God is a lover. And so, God has given all creatures a little seed of love, and this is all they need.” (Meister Eckhart, Sermon 16). This quote illustrates the fundamental nature of Christian spirituality. We love because God first loves us. God loves us before we can even care for ourselves when we might be baptized as infants. We don’t achieve love; we receive it from the Divine Spirit

We take in a lot through our minds in church, listening to scripture readings, sermons, and prayers. Faith is also formed in the heart and even in all five senses of the body. Through guided meditation, I want to invite you into a mind, body, and heart experience of being rooted in love. This meditation will characterize the three things that roots do for a tree. First, roots draw water and nutrients to nurture the tree’s life. Second, roots provide the strength and stability to stand in a storm. Third, like a tree producing oxygen as a gift back to the world, love helps us participate in the life cycle and God’s work in the world.

Imagine your favorite tree. Allow a picture of its shape and branches to become more apparent in your mind. Your tree may have broad leaves like maple or evergreen pine needles. It’s your tree, so it can have pink spring blossoms or fall fruit hanging from its branches. Let those feelings of wonder, comfort, and even love sink into your heart.

First, we will focus on the underground strength of your tree’s roots. Push both feet into the floor and be in touch with the ground. Spread your toes and imagine each one as a separate root pushing down into the earth, connecting you deeper below the surface. Hold your hands palms up in your lap. Spread your fingers as branches. Pause on each toe as a root and get in touch with your system below the surface. Sense the cool earth on your roots and the feeling of rich soil as you dig in with all your toe roots. Imagine as much of you being underground as above ground.

Roots bring energy and nutrients into the tree. Feel your roots drawing energy upward into your body. Imagine each root sipping from the earth like a small straw as the energy moves up your legs and torso and out to your arms. You can even raise your arms a bit as much as comfortable to feel them like limbs drawing energy upwards. If you are feeling energized your arms can go past your shoulders and over your head, or you can leave them a waist level. Take a moment and draw the energy of love up from the roots of your toes and all the way out to your arms and fingertips, like branches and leaves.

Roots also give a tree stability. Remember, half of you is underground. Sense how your roots are holding you in place. Imagine the wind picking up around you, and it blows you left to right, causing your torso trunk to rock gently. The wind blows a little harder and rocks you further over. As the wind increases, feel your trunk stabilizing you below. The wind is pushing hard enough to lean you over, but your roots have you. Even as your torso and arms sway, you are firm in your place. You are so deeply connected down into the ground that the earth holds you in love through any storm.

Now that you have nutrients from the soil and a taproot of stability, you are firmly rooted in love. You have love to give. You have taken in water and earth, and now you are sending out life-giving oxygen to the whole living world. Being rooted in love is a cycle of receiving and giving. Because of your roots, you have love to share. Send out your oxygen so everything can breathe and live more fully. Spend a moment receiving loving energy from your roots and sending it out around you. As you send love out, the people around you are doing the same thing. Take in this love with a deep breath, and return it with a long, slow exhale. Try a few cycles of giving and receiving love through these long breaths.

To draw to a close, hear Paul’s words from Ephesians again,

So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.

90 Days to Your Breakthrough!

June 1, 2018June 1, 2018 by toddweir1

Do any of these words describe you right now?

I have great ideas but can’t get organized to move forward.
I start projects with enthusiasm, but don’t get to the finish.
I’m stuck in a rut and need a change.
I’m doing good work, but need a something extra to do great work.

Imagine changing these tendencies over the next 90 days. What could you accomplish? I can help you clarify your vision, stay motivated, establish healthy habits for growth, and get past internal obstacles that block your progress.

You can live with greater confidence and trust in yourself!

You can bring your great ideas to life!

Contact me now for a free consult:

todd.weir1@gmail.com

This package includes:

6 individual hour long coaching sessions every two weeks.
Reflective exercises to clarify your vision, priorities, strengths and habits.
Review of your personality inventories to increase self-understanding and effectiveness.
Support and inspiration to keep you moving!

Cost: $599 for the full package.

**Refer friends to get a special discount rate. Ask me how.

Getting in the Right Gear

March 2, 2018March 2, 2018 by toddweir1

I learned to ride a bicycle in Iowa where everything is flat. I just put the bike in the highest gear and peddled till I got tired. My first big trip through the hill towns of Hampshire County in Western Massachusetts did not go well. I was stymied on my first steep ascent, leaving my gears too high, and I lost all my momentum, and came to a dead stop as I watched Jeanne pedal away from me. The second big hill, I shifted from a high gear to a low gear. My pedals ground and skipped and the chain fell off and I was stuck with a messy job, while once again watching Jeanne ride smoothly up the hill.

Getting in the right gear is almost as important in bike riding as being in shape. Recently while cruising up a steep hill, it dawned on me I wasn’t even thinking about gears anymore. I had the feel of what to do. As the road inclined I shifted down a notch at a time and I could decide if it was a middle-to-low gear hill or a low-low gear hill, or a peddle like a gorilla climb. Now I know the right gear is the one where I feel enough resistance that I am pressing smoothly but not slowing down. If I lose momentum I shift down, and if I am pedaling fast without resistance, I shift up the gear to maximize my energy into forward motion.

Imagine for a moment, if I had decided that shifting gears was not my problem, but it was the bike. Then I would go get a new, more expensive bike, which might be lighter and have more gears, but what would happen? I would maybe get 20 feet further uphill before stopping, and my bank account would be smaller. Imagine if I decided the problem was me, I needed to be in better shape. So my solution would be to work out really hard and then attempt to pedal up the mountains in a high gear without shifting. Again, that would help to some extent, but in the end few human beings could accomplish this feat. Some problems cannot be solved by working harder. You need to learn to shift gears.

This seems obvious when the issue is riding a bike up the hill, but we do this all the time. How many situations do you feel like you are riding uphill in the wrong gear? We blame our equipment, we blame our circumstance or we blame ourselves, when we really need to shift, to shift our minds, our vision, our way of looking at things. “Be renewed by the transforming of your mind.” It is a part of being alive, and dealing with change. Shifts are built into our life cycles. a feel for how to use all that information, and know when to shift for ourselves.

Here is one of the biggest mind-shifts we all have to make. A shift is needed when who we were in the past gets in the way of who we are becoming. There is an old self from our past, that does not exist anymore, but it still lives in our heads, so it is real, and holds us back. This old self makes keeps us pedaling through life in a big gear, uphill, so we don’t have any momentum and we just stop and give up.

Are you in the right gear? What part of your life feels like it needs a shift? Don’t get trapped in trying the same thing only with more determination. Experiment with shifting into a different gear-find a way to look at your situation from a different point of view and experiment with another option.”G

These 2 Things Will Help You Keep Your New Years’ Resolutions

February 1, 2018March 2, 2018 by toddweir1

I read a Facebook post on New Years’ Day that said, “I’m opening a new gym called ‘New Years’ Resolutions.’ It will have workout equipment for two weeks, then turn into a bar.” The track record on New Years’ resolutions is abysmal. Within one week, 25% of resolutions are already off-track. Less than 10% of resolutions survive the year. I’m already feeling guilty and defeated just thinking about it. Why are we so bad at keeping to these annual good intentioned efforts at self-reform?

Psychologist David DeStano believes he has found a hopeful solution. He thinks the problem is focusing too much on will power. In a recent NY Times Op Ed, “The Only Way to Keep New Years’ Resolutions” DeStano writes:

In choosing to rely on rational analysis and willpower to stick to our goals, we’re disadvantaging ourselves. We’re using tools that aren’t only weak; they’re also potentially harmful. If using willpower to keep your nose to the grindstone feels like a struggle, that’s because it is. Your mind is fighting against itself. It’s trying to convince, cajole and, if that fails, suppress a desire for immediate pleasure.

What is a better solution to find the motivation for lasting change in our lives? DeStano’s research focuses on “social emotions” such as gratitude and compassion. When we cultivate these classic virtues, we are much more likely to be patient, purposeful and passionate.

This makes intuitive sense to me. I write better when I think about the people who may read or hear me speak. I have more courage and boldness when I am advocating for a person I care about, rather than an abstract principle. We are more likely press forward when we are on the receiving side of gratitude and compassion as well. Grit is simply not enough. Our goals find life and energy when they are connected to our hearts.

What really grabbed my attention were the hundreds of deep felt comments on the article. Hundreds of people shared how gratitude and compassion helped them through some of their biggest life challenges. A man from New Brunswick, ME said a gratitude journal, writing several things daily for which he was grateful, helped him get sober. “I found out that it is possible to be remarkably flawed, as I continue to be, without repeatedly escaping via self-destructive activity. For that I’m grateful.” 915 people clicked on the “like” button on his comment.

A woman from Paris wrote about the early death of her son, and in the midst of her bereavement she took heart in having more compassion for others who were suffering. The is a comfort in the solidarity of loss. Several people from all over the world reached out to her and expressed similar stories of loss and deeper compassion. 652 people “liked” her comment.

Other people wrote to say that they were still struggling to find gratitude and peace in the midst of their challenges, but they found the courage to keep trying from reading the article and other stories in the comments.

Whether our challenges are large challenges like health or financial problems, or smaller weekly goals of improvement, we can harness the power of our deeper positive emotions. Simply put, DeStano persuades us to stop treating our goals like a stone we must roll up the hill through our perserveareance and grit. Instead, cultivate gratitude and compassion and remember why you want to accomplish something in the first place. Let these social emotions pull your forward. You can read the full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/opinion/sunday/the-only-way-to-keep-your-resolutions.htmland also look for his new book out this January, “Emotional Success: The Power of Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride.”