This recording features the Sunday Talk portion of the service. For the full service watch here.
A World That Values All Of Who We Are – Rev. Darrell Jones
DESCRIPTION
How do we create a world that works for everyone and all of creation? To create a world that works for everyone and all of creation we must create a world that values all of who we are. This may sound simple, but it’s not easy. We live in a world that seems full of division and strife, yet we have the tools to work toward a more inclusive, just, equitable world where everyone has a place to belong.
SUMMARY
This talk explores how to create “a world that values all of who we are” by cultivating courage, embracing discomfort, and recognizing change as a sacred, creative force in life. Drawing on Prentice Hemphill’s framing of courage as a practicable skill that leads to authenticity, purpose, and genuine connection, the speaker emphasizes that courage is an internal will to act despite pressure and risk, and that each courageous act transforms who we are and who we are becoming. The sermon challenges listeners to value the full humanity of themselves and others—including those they dislike or perceive as enemies—rejecting shame, dehumanization, and the labeling of others as “evil,” which makes violence and exclusion more acceptable.
Central to this vision is learning to disassociate discomfort from threat, recognizing that intimacy, connection, and what we most desire often lie just beyond our comfort zones. The talk affirms Ernest Holmes’s idea of life as a “creative urge” and Octavia Butler’s teaching that “God is change,” presenting change as the engine of vitality and growth rather than something to fear. To build a world that works for all, the speaker calls for training our individual and collective nervous systems not to treat change as a threat, and for practicing unconditional acceptance without coercion, manipulation, or shaming.
Contrasting “force” with “power” through David Hawkins’ *Power vs. Force*, the talk argues that force is depleting and oppositional, while true power is complete, non-demanding, and generative. The speaker envisions an emerging “age of power” that will replace the “age of force,” urging listeners to stand in their own power, honor the power of others, and recognize that shared power expands exponentially. Practically, this means becoming “bridges” everywhere we go—bridging humanity and spirituality, generations, and political and social divides—through daily courageous choices that help usher in a more inclusive, just, and equitable world.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Darrell Jones:
Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. Thank you. Put your hand together one more time for Greg and Paige. My name is Reverend Darrell Jones. My pronouns are he/him. And I bet you didn’t know that John Legend was a metaphysician. I don’t know if he knows he’s a metaphysician, but I like these lyrics and want to metaphysically welcome the energy of them into our talk today. A pop song on the radio. All of me, all of me, not all of me, not that all of me. All of me takes all of you. The talk title today is a world that values all of who we are. And I immediately thought of this song to love one another with all of our imperfections. The cards are on the table and we’re both showing hearts. So earlier this week, I had a meeting with some sacred activists in the larger movement of Centers for Spiritual Living.
And at the beginning of the meeting, we always try to have an opener to kind of get us in the room. We’re not in the room because it’s a Zoom meeting. People are from California and from the South and from the central part of the US. And the question was, what corny thing do you really love?
And I love metaphysical sappiness. I love this song. I tried to actually not ask Paige to do this song, but I was like, “You got to do it.” This month, we’ve been focusing on whole no matter what. That’s a really powerful statement. And that is, I think, what our teaching, what this movement is all about. Can we accept ourselves as whole no matter what? Can you accept someone else as whole no matter what? Intellectually, we can go, yes, everyone’s whole, perfect and complete. But I guarantee you walk out and go down the street and you will immediately start putting people outside of your circle of acceptance. Whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, that’s just kind of how our nervous system works.
So this week, a world that values all of who we are. How do we create a world that values all of who we are? To create a world that works for everyone and all of creation, we must create a world that values capital A-L-L, all of who we are. Now, this is a simple and direct statement, but it is not necessarily easy to practice or employ. We live in a world that seems so full of division and strife, yet we have tools. We have tools to work towards a more inclusive, a more just and a more equitable world where everyone has a place to belong.
Do you know what the tool is? One of the most powerful tools that all of you were born with? What’s that? Forgiveness. Forgiveness. That’s one of them. We have so many tools that help us work on us. But today I want to focus on one that’s probably not the easiest tool to use or we tell ourselves it’s not easy to use. Courage. Oh, I got an O. Which brings me to today’s quote from Prentice Hemphills, what it takes to heal. Courage can be thought of as a skill that can be practiced. Let’s stop there for a minute. How often do you practice being courageous?
Intentionally. Most of the time, courage arises in the moment when we need it, but what would it be if we practiced it as a skill that can be broadened? She goes on to say, “We can develop our ability to reach for courage in fearful moments. Courage is a state that we can learn to seek out. Eventually, we can almost crave it over comfort and certainty, knowing that courage gets us closer to authenticity, purpose, and genuine connection. Courage is the internal will to act despite pressure and risk. And when we take it on, when we are courageous, it changes us from who we were into who we will be. I want to pick out a couple of phrases because it’s a long quote, but it had a lot of juice in it. The first is, courage gets us closer to authenticity, purpose, and genuine connection. Who does not want authenticity, purpose, and genuine connection?
You don’t want it? Okay. Okay. Just checking. I just came from teen camp a couple of weeks ago and one of the morning activities we did was spirit says instead of Simon says. And it’s funny how people just don’t listen and they put. Anyway. Questions early in the morning. Yay. Get your coffee.
But who does not want authenticity? Who does not want purpose and genuine connection? I think that when we’re faced with a moment requiring courage, if we could only remind ourselves that that’s what’s on the other side of that courageous choice, ah, this is about to get me closer to authenticity, to connection. If we could remember that, we may actually become more courageous as a planet, as a people. The challenge is fear. Fear has been the motivator historically of how we make change happen. How we keep people in alignment, how we do things right. I see some perpexed places in the room, but it is true. We have agreed as a society to fear more than love. If you want to talk to me about that after service, we can do so. I’ll keep going. The second phrase that I want to lift out of the quote is courage is the internal will to act despite pressure and risk.
People can see our courage, but it originates from within. It is an invisible force that we often say it looks like a certain behavior, but let’s really embrace what courage is. The significance of it. It doesn’t look a certain way. And it’s something that only starts within you. It’s not based upon an external condition happening. I’ll be courageous if and when. And it actually isn’t something that you have to be ready for. It’s just in the moment you choose to be courageous. That’s it. But it stems from within you. You are the one that can be courageous and bring about a world where everyone is valued. Not them, you.
All right. The third phrase, when we are courageous, it changes us from who we were into who we will be. Now, I know some people in this new thought movement don’t like to use future speak, or they don’t like to almost seemingly poo-poo who we were. But just think about this for a minute. Once you have done a courageous thing, when you put your hand up and say, “That’s not nice,” and you draw attention to it. When you say no when it’s really hard, or when you say yes and it’s really difficult, maybe you speak up in that meeting that you normally don’t speak up in. Once you do that, all of a sudden, who you are from that moment on changes. Do you feel that? When you do the courageous thing, it’s not that who you were up to that point is bad, but all of a sudden, energetically, I would dare even say biochemically, neurologically for sure, we are all shifting and changing into something new.
So let that be some inspiration for you today. When we are courageous, it changes us from who we were into who we are and then who we will be. We have that experience. We have that data. We have that wisdom that we can call upon. And we’ve flexed the muscle. We’ve worked out in the gym of life. So now it’s a little bit easier to step into that courageous moment when it calls on us again. So here was a question that when I first read this quote that came up for me. Do we really want genuine connection and authenticity from ourselves and others? Do you really want it? Think about that for a minute. Be careful before you answer. Do you really want genuine connection and total authenticity from yourself and to think the same of others?
Think about that annoying person. You know who I’m talking about, right? The person that always just rubs you the wrong way, all they got to do is breathe in the room and there’s friction. You don’t like the way they say things? Maybe you’re just like, “I don’t like the way you show up on the planet.” You know that person? Maybe there’s more than one of them in your life. Well, what if they are just being their authentic selves? I’ll go back to my question. Do you really want genuine connection and authenticity for everyone on the planet?
How about you? You know that aspect of yourself that you always kind of like push off to the side. You try to hide it. You say, “Oh, that’s not who I am.” Maybe you let it out and only certain people are allowed to see that portion of you. A world that values all of who we are is just that. A world that values all of who we are is just that. But I don’t know if we collectively are willing to value all of everyone. We shame ourselves and one another into hiding every single day. On our media, whether it’s social or formal, in our families, in our schools, in our religious organizations, in our businesses, in our communities, in our political systems, we shame ourselves into hiding every single day. And I’m tired of it. It doesn’t work. Now, this doesn’t mean that we can’t have opinions.
We’re not here to walk around going, “Yeah, everything’s fine.” Which some people do that, and it’s not true.
You can have value for someone and actually not like them. I’m practicing this so hard right now, but it’s true. You can value someone and not like them. One of the most dangerous things that is happening on our planet and has been happening for a while, but for whatever reason it’s being vilified and celebrated, is that we somehow make someone evil and we use that language. They are evil. As soon as we make someone evil, they are okay to kill. Whether you want to admit it or not, there’s some math that happens in our nervous system and in humanity that says when someone is evil, they’re not worth it. They are not valuable.
You don’t have to like everything in order to see its value. A world that values all of who we are is a world that values humanity and all of humans’ experiences. All of the human experiences. Not just the ones we like or the ones that we understand. A world that values all of who we are values the humanity of a perceived enemy or an opponent. A world that values all of who we are is a planet consumed by a willingness to be uncomfortable. Are you willing to be uncomfortable? That’s what it takes. A world that values all of who we are is willing to practice disassociating discomfort as threat.
Prentice Hemphill goes on to say, “It turns out just outside of our comfort zones, an odd but familiar intimacy with everyone is available to us.” There’s a power too that you can feel a buzzing. It’s visceral of what can happen when we commit to something together. But that first sentence, it turns out that just outside of our comfort zones and odd but familiar intimacy with everyone is available to us. Everyone. Have you ever gone on a retreat, taken a class, maybe a workshop? Maybe it’s happened here. I hope I’ve been part of this here where things just got a little uncomfortable, maybe even a little weird. And you’re like, “I don’t know where this is going.” Or maybe you didn’t like where things were headed, but as a result of the experience, whatever it was, the people that you went through that experience with, all of a sudden you’re bonded.
You might’ve been like, “Dude, what just happened? That was weird. Oh no.” But you all of a sudden have connection. You’ve had a life experience. If we could realize that our time together here on the planet, no matter where we go, no matter where we go, whether we go to Amsterdam, have a safe trip, whether we go to teen camp, whether we just go to the coffee shop down the street, we are stepping out of our comfort zones everywhere we go. And if we could admit that and honor it, I think we have a lot more peace on the planet.
Just outside of our comfort zones is actually everything we want. Think about what you want that you don’t have right now, whether it’s a thing, it’s a person, it’s a state of being. If your current comfortable life afforded that, it would be here. You’ve got to do something to change and get a little uncomfortable, stretch in a way that you haven’t before. And just on the other side of that courage and willingness to do so is a new level of authenticity and experience and success and health and romance and friendship and family and partnership and everything that you want. Now we have things that make us comfortable, that give us comfortable living, but everything we want and yearn and desire for in our life actually lives and dwells in the land of discomfort.
Just outside is the love, is the wisdom, is the forgiveness, is the whatever it is that we seek. And I think this is one of the things that Ernest Holmes attempts to depict over and over again in his writings and teachings. Life is creative urge. I’m falling back in love with this thing called you. And that’s in one of the opening sentences. Life is creative urge. Whether it is what we’re yearning for personally or it being blazing hot today when it was cool. Life is an urge. There is something in nature that is seeking change. And it’s that change that brings about the seasons, that brings about growth, that brings about all the things, the vitality that life seeks.
Vitality is found in movement, not in stagnation, sameness and comfort. What could be available on the planet if we could train our collective nervous system to not associate change with threat or wrongness? I’m going to say that again. Nervous system. Think about your nervous system. You’re an animal. Something right there. Some of you just had a total reaction. Your nervous system goes, “What the F was that?” And then you realize, “Oh, is Darryl clapping his hands to make a point?” And all of a sudden things start to calm down. But for some of us right now, there may still be a little bit of an increased heart rate and higher blood pressure.
That’s okay. That’s the default tendency when things are all of a sudden out of our understanding. So that happens with us individually. What if as a planet we could train and practice our collective nervous system to not freak out when change happens? Because right now something changes and we freak out. We lose our minds every single day. All you got to do is turn on the news. The world is losing its head. How much more sustainable peace could be experienced if we realize we literally can’t keep things just the way they are? How many want things to just be easy for a minute and stay the way that they are? Sorry. That’s not what you’re here for.
That doesn’t happen anywhere. Watch a squirrel. Although there is this one squirrel that kind of chills on a branch or outside of my kitchen window. It’s kind of cute. For whatever reason, he feels safe to nap there for a minute, but he rests for maybe two minutes and then he’s off looking for some more food, getting ready for winter. There’s another lovely, lovely poem that Prentice Hemphill quotes in her book from Octavia Butler, if you’re familiar with her, from her parable of the sower. It’s a short poem. And it reads, “All that you touch, you change. All that you change changes you.” The only lasting truth is change. God is change.
Can someone say, “Come on now. All that you touch, you change.” Change, you are touching. Let’s get consent here. Is everyone okay if someone touches your shoulder in the room? You can practice online if you want. Even touching yourself on the shoulder changes things. Touch the person next to you. All that you change changes you. All that you touch, you change. Something just changed. That’s happening all the time. That is God in action. That is spirit alive, awake and aware and enthusiastically expressing as the urge of life. We aren’t here to live sameness. We are here to live change. So to create and live in a world that works for all means that we live in a world that has the capacity to handle change. That’s it. But right now we don’t do it very well. Would you agree?
We have a lot of work to do, but if we could all get on the same page of just that change is the thing that’s happening and dare say that it’s holy, the lift wouldn’t be so hard. So how do we help the world grow into its courage and willingness to embrace change and difference and not make it a threat? How do we help the world value all of who we are? We stop waiting first and first and foremost for any condition to change. Nothing needs to change in order for us to start working on this. We stop waiting for the world to be ready and we start with ourselves and the next person we meet and the person after that.
Unconditional acceptance of what is no coercion, manipulation, or shaming. No forcing a thing. We stand in our power knowing spirit is all that there is. And spirit is change. There’s a great book that I have finally, I’m like 80% done. It’s taken me probably a decade to start and read and start over again. Power versus force by David Hawkins. There’s a quote in there. Power versus force. Hold these words in your mind. Force always moves against something. Whereas power doesn’t move against anything at all. Force is incomplete and therefore has to be fed energy constantly. Power is total incomplete in and of itself and requires nothing outside of it. It makes no demands. It has no needs because force has this unsatiable appetite. It constantly consumes. Power in contrast, energizes, gives forth supplies and supports.
My friends, the world needs your power. The world needs my power. The world needs our power. And we have been trying to force ourselves and one another to be a certain way for way too long. What if we instead stood in our power? Our own unique expression of it and realize that my power, it doesn’t threaten your power. In your power, it doesn’t threaten mine. And here’s the cool thing. When we bring our power together, it doesn’t double in capacity. It exponentially expands. And it gives power to where and when it is needed. So what does it take for us to have this world that values all of who we are? We stand in our power, but then we go stand next to someone else in their power.
In history, we’ve had different ages and epochs and eras that were like revolutionary, right? Where something changed and forevermore, the course of history was shifted. Think about when the wheel all of a sudden was used. Like before that, people were trying to roll squares. And then all of a sudden they smoothed it out. World changed. You’re able to forge metal and create nails and all sorts of things. That completely changed the world. The industrial revolution, exponential growth. I believe that we are ending the age of force. We’re at the very beginning of it, but we are ending the age of force and stepping into the age of power.
But this will require all of us to be bridges and create bridges wherever we go. Helping ourselves first to value all of who we are and then valuing the next person you meet and all of who they are. And then valuing yourself and your power in front of their power. And then the next person you meet, valuing their power and loving who they are, all of who they are as they are. Be a bridge. Be courageous. Be courageous enough to every day change from who you were the day before to who you are today to be the person you’re to become. Will you do that? Yeah. If we do that, I truly think we will be those that shepherd in this age of power. We may not see it fully before we pass out of this body, but I guarantee we are setting up our youth and the generations to come.
I’m almost done, but I got to say one thing. I was just at the CSL team camp and it’s one of the reasons why I like to do that work because I know the world that I envision in my mind, I don’t think I’m actually going to live in because we’re slow. We’re dense up here in our human experience. But when I work with a 13 year old, with an 18 year old and everything in between, and help them to see and know the very thing that we talk about and practice as adults, there’s only one life, that life is God’s life, that life is perfect, that life is my life now. And meet them in the midst of that uncertainty and get them to see it. Stand in their power, being courageous to be all of who they are amidst their peers. That is life changing.
That is creating a world where truly everyone is valued for all of who they are. Take a deep breath in. As you exhale, bring hands to heart.
And we’re just going to stay in an affirmation here. Three words, pretty easy to remember. I create bridges everywhere I go. I create bridges everywhere I go. I create bridges everywhere I go. Three more times. I create bridges everywhere I go. I create bridges Everywhere I go. I create bridges everywhere I go. We are the bridges that the world needs to connect the dots. We are the bridges that the world needs to connect our humanity to our spirituality and back again. We are the bridges to help these different generations and mindsets and ways of being in the world to come together and connect.
We are the bridges of the left and the right. We are the bridges of the up and the down. What I affirm and know is that there’s nothing that we need to become in order to be the bridge other than make the choice, be courageous. And I bless us this day as we become the bridge over the troubled waters of what we see today. May we be courageous to be the person that we are becoming, to value all of who we are, to meet a person whether we know them, whether we like them or not, but to value them as an expression of spirit. This is a catalysmic mindset that shifts, that moves, that opens, and creates a bridge into a world where we are all valued. May this be your day, may this be your week, may this be the rest of our lives.
I’m so grateful for the bridge that you are, for the bridge that we are, for the bridge that Cityside is, for the bridge that everything is. The opportunity to build and connect to living spirit is always here. And so it is. And so it shall be. Peace and blessings to you all.