UMIIM’Arrcf r n ■ ■ ■ ■ James A. Decker, Editor * III! iiii ASSOCIATE EDITOR ART DIRECTOR !■■■ >i|| Fillmore McCarty ■ III •in d PRODUCTION MANAGER Claborn Brants CONTENTS JANUARY 1975 VOL. 155 NO. 1 A Message from Silent Unity 3 James DU let Freeman Your Year of Triumph 4 Catherine Ponder Experiences in Meditation (1) ' 12 Marjorie H. Russell Dear Reader 16 Mary Rowe Poise 18 Richard Lynch The Incessant Answer 25 Russell A. Kemp Patterns for Self-Unfoldment 31 Randolph and Leddy Schmelig Alive to the Moment 37 Charles Le/ly Prayer Power 38 Music ... A Bridge to Higher Consciousness 40 Dr. Irma Glen Christ Enthroned in Man (X) 45 Cora Fillmore A Metaphysical Alphabet 48 Lew H. Morse Questions on the Quest 50 Marcus Bach Wake Up and Dream 54 V. Stanford Hampson Watch Your Language! 56 Loren D. Flickinger Notes and Comments 61 Charles Fillmore Monthly Thoughts 63 Letters to the Editor 65 Book Mark 66 Hugh R. Horne When a new year comes, we think of beginnings, and when we think of beginnings, we think of children. In Unity when we think of children, we think of children of God. This is one of the great teachings of Unity—that we are all r children of God. We believe that when Jesus started His prayer with the words, “Our Father,” He meant just that. God is our Father, the Father of all o f us. We do not believe Jesus wanted anyone to feel left out and we certainly do not believe that God leaves anyone out. God is love. G o d ’s love finds room for us all. “I am a child of God.” It is such a simple statement of truth. What an easy thing to say! But think about its implications. If you are a child of God, then you have a divinity within you. You have a godlike potential, a potential for love, a potential for life, a potential for power. If we could really say once, “I am a child of God,” and believe it with all our heart and mind and soul, everything in our life would be changed; for think what it means to be a child of God! You are a child of God, and therefore you are meant to live and be strong and healthy. You are a child of God; you have only to claim your good, and whatever you need will be provided for you. You are a child of God; you have dominion over your own thoughts and feelings; you rule the house of your own mind. You are a child of God; you are meant to live a life worthy of a child of ■» God, a life of divine achievement. You are meant to express yourself in beautiful, creative ways. You are a child of God; you have courage and strength to meet everything that comes to you, and to encourage those around you to have the strength to meet life victoriously, too. You are a child of God; you have a loving spirit in you. You are meant to bless the world and all the people and things in it; whatever you touch will be blessed and made better by your touch. There is yet another reason I like to think of myself as a child of God. I fall short of my ideal expectation in so many ways that I would not want to have to *> think of myself as the mature man of God. But I do not think God expects us to be more than His child. To be His child—that is enough. May you always think of yourself as we in Silent Unity think of you: You are the child of God, beloved of your Father. To call for prayer help, phone (816) 524-5104. (If you have an urgent need and have no means of paying for a call, dial our toll-free number: 1-800-821-2935.) BY CATHERINE PONDER FOR MANY YEARS now at this season, when a fresh new year begins, I have found inspiration in Russell A. K em p’s poem, “This Is the Year!” It begins: “Wonderful, wonderful, fortunate you, This is the year that your dreams come true! This is the year that your ships come in.” This can be the year your dreams come true. Whether they do or not depends upon whether you believe they can, and then do something constructive to help make them come true. Many dreams never come true because people dismiss their desires as impossible of fulfillment. If you and I were mere human beings, it would be foolish to believe that our dreams can come true. But we are spiritual beings, endowed with the very power of God to help us achieve our great and good desires. God made man in “his own image,” and then gave man dominion over the earth and everything on the earth. In fact, God even gave spiritual man the power to “subdue” the earth. We are not puppets on the strings of time and fate. We have been endowed mand of our world. How else can we grow with the power of the universe with which progress, and achieve? How else can w to achieve our good. God expects us to use contribute to the good of mankind? this spiritual dominion and take com­ The late Mike Todd once said: “Life i EAR OF TRIUMPH ike the movies. We produce our own with the expectation of limitation, we ihow.” More than we may realize, we have produced that kind of “show” in our lives. produced our “own show” in the past. If Now let us send out great expectations of ve sent out our ships of thought laden unlimited good, knowing that we can produce that kind of “show” as well. How do you help to make your dreams Begin by telling yourself: “This is the come true? year! This is the year my dreams come You do it by first determining what true! This is the year my ships come in. " your master demonstration will be and Charles Fillmore described the spiritual then declaring that with G o d ’s help you dominion given to man: “Man can be can and will make it. Your very desire is what he determines to be. He can be but G o d ’s desire within you, trying to master or he can be serf. It rests with him assure you that you can have your good, whether he shall fill the high places in life urging you on to claim it. So stop fighting or the low, whether he shall serve or be the desire as an impossible dream and get served, lead or be led, or be sickly or busy helping it materialize. healthy. There is within every one an A woman heard a lecture on master inherent desire to be at the top, which demonstrations and from it she gained desire has its root deep down in our very this idea: “/ give thanks that with God's nature and is consequently legitimate. help, I make my master demonstration of That it is frequently misdirected and used good this year. Of myself I cannot do it, toward base ends is no reason why it but with God's help all things are possible, should be depreciated. We all desire to including the fulfillment o f this great and excel. This desire is the inspiration of good desire." She began to affirm this Spirit, which ever forces us up through daily. Every declaration of it increased her earth toward heaven, and it should be en­ faith, enthusiasm, and “great expecta­ couraged and cultivated in the right direc­ tions.” tion.” She visualized her master demonstra­ Once you have accepted the great gift tion as being free of a long-standing in­ of your spiritual dominion, you are ready debtedness against her farm. A number of for the next step in making your dreams years before, she had borrowed money, come true. Emmet Fox might have been and ever since then she had been trying to describing that next step when he ad­ repay the loan. Every year she managed to vised: “Most of you have had at least one pay small amounts but then had to renew or two very remarkable demonstrations, the note for another year. T or answers to prayer, but in most cases As she began to affirm her master they have happened only occasionally. d em on stration , an interesting thing Now begin to make them occur more and happened: The man who had been her more often, and determine also to make farm manager for many years resigned to your Master Demonstration this year. take another job, and a new manager took “By the Master Demonstration of your over. This new man had a number of life I mean demonstrating whatever is progressive ideas which he used, and the most important in your life; by far more woman was blessed with a much larger important than anything else whatever. year-end income than in the past. This When you succeed in that it will in itself gave her several thousand dollars toward naturally change your life infinitely for the payment of the debt. good, and apart from the actual demon­ Encouraged, she continued to affirn] stration you will find that you have taken that she would make her master demon­ an incalculable step forward on the spiri­ stration with G o d ’s help. During the last tual path.” month of the year, she was informed that How is it done? How do you make your she had inherited several thousand dollars master demonstration? How do you real­ from a relative.