OVERVIEW
Cityside welcome’s back Rev Charles to give a talk on our September theme – Healing.
TRANSCRIPTION
The transcription is automated. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors.
Uh, good morning. I’m so grateful to be with you. I have to start, uh, in case my daughter’s watching from Palm Springs. Daddy loves you, my sweetest, perfect pigeon. And, uh, also always with Amy, because every time I get a text from you or am in your presence, um, I’m continued to be reminded of what the real deal is and looks like and how important it is for any minister to stay in their heart. And that’s the only place in God does business is in one’s heart. And so, uh, it’s not easy and we deal with everything we deal with is ministers. And, uh, so I just continued. Thanks for welcoming me back. I don’t speak anywhere else. No one else invites me <laugh> and I’m such a big shot.
I really am right in my own head. I’m such a big shot in, I am such a big shot of my own head and, uh, Rob this morning, right? When you prayed that, that, uh, I pray that Reverend char has dealt with himself, that Reverend Charles has dealt with himself in such a way that he can be of service. And I just said a, I, I, I was hoping I heard that, right? That, that I have dealt with myself in such a way that I can be of service. I don’t know if what you said after that, but that’s what I’m gonna say. That I have dealt with myself in such a way that I can be of service to you. That’s what I, that’s all I want, um, is to be of service to you and that somehow, collectively, individually, and as a collective, each one of us, our lives are a little or a lot better because of our gathering this morning.
That’s it somehow. Um, so I’m constantly seeking to deal with myself. I think that actually summarizes healing in the most simple way that could possibly thank you for blessing me this morning with your blessing. That’s the simplest way I could see say anything about healing. Is that for me, it’s dealing with myself. <laugh>, I mean, there’s a lot of self to deal with right here, man. It is a chore to deal with this self every day. I, I pray for God’s grace every day that I can deal with myself in such a way that I can just stand myself, let alone be of service. And I’m not kidding. I mean, all the BS and the stuff and the crud and the crap that I’ve accumulated over the course of this life is it’s a lot.
So I pray every day that I could, that I, that I can deal with myself in such a way that my life is better today than it was yesterday and tomorrow than it was today. If I make it to tomorrow, guaranteed nothing. I was watching a football game yesterday. Um, cuz that’s what I do in football season is watch football. And there’s a, a guy from the university of Oregon who, who won on the team that died from a, in a rock climbing accident. And the, the team had all sorts of wonderful tributes to, to this guy. He was, he wore number four. So on a football field at the four yard line, if that means anything to you, they colored the hash mark there a different color and honor of the number four, there were, they wore, you know, four on the uniforms and things like that. And there was all sorts of honoring and the announcers said, uh, one said to the other, you just never know, do you? And the other one said, no, you don’t. You would just, none of us, we could have a wonderful service together. I think the likelihood of anybody getting taken out right here during, and the next hour’s pretty small, but once we get out there on the streets and make our way home, we just don’t know. So what a better motivation for me to deal with myself
So that my life can be worth something when I die that somehow it made a difference of service in service. And I, you know, I’m such a big shot. I’m gonna talk about myself a little bit today, cuz I think that I’ve walked a pretty cool path of healing. So I could tell you a story about other people, but <laugh> I wanna talk about myself.
<laugh>
Right. I mean I’m, I, I, one of the things that I’ve done in my life and actually there’s so there’s this idea. I mean, I know the speak, I know the lingo, I know the, the, the, what are the things, the cliches, all the stuff that come along with the path of being in centers for spiritual living for my whole life, I’ve been an ordained minister for a long time. I’ve been a minister since my early twenties. And you know, it’s one of the things we say there is nothing to heal. Only wholeness to be revealed. There’s nothing to heal only God to be revealed. That actually takes a tremendous amount of maturity to understand that a maturity and not, not that it’s good. I mean, there’s a place for immaturity. You know, when I’m, when I, my, my nine year old daughter is in a place of immaturity, just the way it is.
It’s part of growth. It’s part of maturation. If you wanna call it that, it’s part of the, the process of changing and evolving. I mean, I think I’m only starting to really mature spiritually over the past year or so. I mean, I said all this stuff, I’ve said that too. I there’s nothing to heal only God to reveal. You know, it’s like if I, I was texting with Rob for a minute, you know, about what’s the reading gonna be? And you know, if I break my bone, the bone needs to heal. Does it not? I would, I would offer that if the bone’s broken, I need to acknowledge that it’s broken there. I gotta slide in the talk title for this morning. Acknowledge it’s broken. My bone is broken. If I don’t acknowledge it, I’m gonna try and do things as if it wasn’t broken. And I bet we can all agree. That’s not gonna go very well. Yeah. It’s gonna hurt like, hell, I’m not gonna be able to walk. You know, the bone’s broken. If your heart’s broken, we don’t just paint it with. Oh, it’s all good.
Don’t worry about it in the moment. It sucks. Anybody had their heart broken. It sucks. Doesn’t it. You might use a different word. I’m gonna say it sucks. It doesn’t feel good. It hurts. You’re lost. I’m lost. I don’t know what’s up from down. I’ll never be loved again. Cetera, cetera, cetera, cetera, cetera. The heart’s broken. We’ll go around. Talking about it. Broke my heart. That broke my heart. It broke my heart. It’s broke my heart for some reason, in my immaturity, as I’ve walked through the spiritual path, I didn’t want to acknowledge things were broken. It’s all. God, it’s all good. Nothing wrong. Never was BS. Something is wrong here. We’re killing each other in the streets. Something is wrong.
Human beings are killing each other in the world. Something’s wrong, something’s broken. It’s all good. Let’s just pray and meditate from the mountain top. And I know I sound like kind of an ass right now. I get into this kind of holier than now, but I’m a big shot. Remember, let’s go to the me, let’s go to the mountaintop and just meditate and make it all better. You know? No it’s broken. We need to meet on the street corners and talk about healing and making it better. We need to meet in places that matter and talk and heal and make it better. Was talking to a guy this week. Who’s a, who’s a minister. And he is like, you know, and, and so I’ve got, you know, I, I, I run a caddy program up at a, at a very swanky club on the north shore darling.
And you know, it’s very swanky and they’ve got, you know, it’s members and, and, and a bunch of caddies who, the members and one of the caddies. So I manage about 90 caddies. And, you know, they carry the bags for the members, right. That one of the caddies is a Mormon. And just a little bit about Mormonism. You know, Joseph Smith got some tablets revealed to him somewhere in the forest or in a meadow or something like that. And the angel of God made himself aware, uh, you know, a parent to Joseph Smith got some tablets who else got some tablets, Moses. Oh, but Moses is the only one that got the tablets. Joseph Smith couldn’t possibly have gotten tablets. Moses is the only one that got the tablets. How do you know? Because it’s in the Bible, you know? And then it’s just like, I’m on it. You know, like this guy was just on it, about it. And how many times in life have I been on it about it countless times, right. Something there to me is fundamentally broken in me. Why do I need to prove something so much to somebody else? What is it within me? That’s broken that so needs to prove myself, right?
We go through life doing that over and over again, everywhere. I do forgive me. I do cuz I’m a big shot. So these two are like going at it. Right. And I get on it too. Like how do you know Moses was the only one that got tablets, Joseph Smith did. I don’t care about Mormonism. I don’t care about fundamental Christianity. I really don’t. I don’t really care. I care about dealing with myself and being kind and loving. That’s really what it boils down to, to, and what I’ve figured out, all this other organized religion stuff, eh, whatever. I don’t wanna hurt myself. I don’t wanna hurt another. I wanna be kind and loving and I want to walk a little bit softer every day in the world to help heal it, to help heal. And I can only do that by what, dealing with myself, I call it reconciling myself.
But some people go, well, what does reconciling even mean? Like, yeah. I don’t know. I just know. It sounds kind of cool. And you reconcile now I’m gonna start say deal. <laugh> not deal with myself. So simple and lovely. Where was I? So these two are going at it. Joseph Smith and once a little more timid docile of a personality, he just, you know, live and let live Joseph Smith for him, got the tablets and it’s Mormonism. And here we go. And this guy’s oh, no. The only one that got him was Moses. I’m like, why are you so on it, dude? And so I’m just there, like, first of all, I get mixed up in it. Like you don’t know the Bible in town context and all this crap I know intellectually. Right. And I even said to him at one point <laugh>, I said, I know too much to believe in your Jesus. <laugh>. I said it I’m a big shy. Isn’t that bad and good. All at the same time, it’s such a mixture of bad and good. I said, I know too much to believe your Jesus, what it ask
<laugh> swear. Isn’t that good?
You can’t make this stuff up. So anyway, <laugh> I had to clean that one up. So I, you know, I just like, cuz I, I really don’t care, but I just get caught up in the drama of it. Like I’m I, I know so much, I’m gonna prove you wrong or right. Or whatever I’m gonna do. But at the end of the day in my head, I’m gonna maintain my structure of Charles wholeness. When all of it is just an illusion, it’s all just my brokenness truly. So we, you know, whatever, I, then I started playing peacemaker when I realized I was being an ass and just like, come on can’t we just, you know, you got your Christian thing over here, you got your Mormon thing over here. Let’s pick up a couple bags and go caddy for the members. All right. Let’s go. Let’s move on.
But that’s healing. I mean, and there was another opportunity for me in that moment to deal with myself. I mean, I know too much to believe in your Jesus. I mean, why, you know what I’m saying? <laugh> like, it can’t I was doing the same thing and I love it when I catch myself doing that. Cuz oftentimes when I get on it and I get right and we see it at this level right here, and then we see it in interpersonal relationships and we see it in community relationships. Then we see it in global relationships. There’s some brokenness out there, man, woman otherness. You’re right. I’m wrong. And you know what? It’s so I’m so right. And you’re so wrong. Cause I’m gonna pick up a gun with a bullet in it that shoots however many hundred miles an hour and try and take you out.
Is that not psychotic? That is psychosis. How many people died just in Chicago last week from psychosis. Now there’s a long line of conversation we can have about source of it. But what psychosis am I living in today that I need to heal? But it starts by acknowledging that there’s something broken. It’s not, not spiritual. The spiritual path doesn’t have to do. I probably say this every time I’m here. It doesn’t have anything to do with, uh, a rejection of your humanity to become more spiritual. I don’t even know what that means anymore. To embrace our spirituality means to embrace this human path. We become more human. We become more sane.
We see that. I’m crazy. And you’re crazy too. So let’s have our crazies dance together a little bit more, more, and start talking about some things, meet on the street corners and have conversations. This is how I view this. This is how you view this. Oh, okay. Let’s meet somewhere. Just talk a little bit more. That’s healing. But I have to deal with myself every day, first, over and over and over again for me to stand here and say I’m broken. Isn’t some blasphemous statement that goes against the principles of religious science and the centers for spiritual living. And even if you’re gonna come look me in my face and tell me that I’m whatever you know, I know who I am now more than ever. I know where I’m broken.
I know what led me to alcoholism. I know exactly what led me there. A lack of acknowledgement of where I’m broken. But I also know what led me to sobriety is that acknowledgement of where I’m broken and a welcoming of all of that into who I am. My story. When we cut ourselves off, we thwart ourselves. We retard ourselves. There’s a retardant happening in all of our ugliness. Before we put the makeup on, before we do the hair, before we get all pretty and walk out of the house, we still look at ourselves in the mirror and recognize there is a whole person there. And part of that wholeness is all of it. That’s maturity. That’s spiritual maturity.
Not to just pretend everything’s okay because that’s what the principles say or that’s how I interpret Ernest Holmes or Joel Goldsmith or whoever it was. They had their own walk as a human being. I can promise you, here’s my big shot at this coming out a little bit more. I’ve walked enough with the spiritual folk. Everybody gets pissed off. Everybody gets pissed off the guy whose book you’re reading. I’ve sat with him. I got, he got pissed off at some point. It’s not just, oh, I’ve elevated my consciousness to such a level where I am completely unbothered P doesn’t exist telling you right now. Let’s all give ourselves a break. Acknowledge where I’m othering, where I’m making myself wrong, where I’m telling myself I’m bad. There’s so much of this that has to do with worth man worth like fundamentally. There’s so many of us that aren’t attached that aren’t connected.
You say wholeness. I say worth that aren’t connected to our worth. Like I belong to, I belong here. Just how I am with all of my craziness. I belong right here. Right now. I belong here, but we make each other wrong. We put each other down. We make fun of each other on the, on the, on the, on the playgrounds of our schools, we bully each other. And then we start thinking that there’s something wrong with me. And then we start acting out and then we start acting weird. And then it’s just this whole thing that if we don’t catch it and just really have an environment where we can welcome ourselves into these places where we, we, we, we, we, we, we think we’re wrong, then it just, it just goes way. Some point for me, it went to just like, man, I was drinking a fifth of Jameson the day, you know? And I had pretty good esteem within the community. I don’t know if I hit it well or not. And I don’t really care right now anymore. Either. I’m happy.
I don’t, I don’t care. Who knows. I’m not ashamed of it, but I know what got me there. The fifth of Jameson, the day that’s poison, man, that’s wild plus some beer and then a little bit of weed on top of it at night. And then I’d pass out on the couch. It’s like I was broken, man. You can’t tell me I wasn’t. But look at me. I can sit and hear a piece of music and actually feel the depth of love and goodness in my heart and how moved I am by it. And then look at Paige and Tiffany in the eyes and see something spiritual, man, I’m free. That’s good. That’s healing.
It’s joyful. That’s healing for me. You know what I’m saying? It’s why I can so acknowledge you and just feel so in love with you, cuz I, I can deal with myself and why just a few words dealt with himself is that three word, three words could heal me again today, dealt with himself. So my prayer for each one of us is that just, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s just acknowledge that it’s broken. It’s not acknowledged that I’m wrong. That there’s something wrong with me. It’s just, there’s something. Maybe there’s something inside that it’s, it can be as objective as the, a broken leg, going to the doctor, acknowledging that it’s broken and then moving on the path of healing. Not trying to make the adjustments to the broken leg and put more weight on the right for the rest of my life. No, what am I gonna do?
I’m gonna have the leg set. I’m gonna make it immobile for a while. Right? If my heart’s broken, I’m likely not gonna just jump and do another relationship with somebody. I’m gonna probably immobilize the relationship aspect of my life for a little bit while there’s a cast around it while I heal. Yeah. And then eventually it heals and it grows back together and it gets stronger. And then I feel like I can go back out there again as a more integrated reconciled worthy individual. You follow me. Does any of this making sense just for one person cool. At least part of it. So that, that, that, that’s what I offer you this morning. And you know, the benefit of that is that we live our, that our, our, our, our path, our footsteps, our being is a little bit lighter each day. There’s still gonna be days where it’s all messed up, lot of them, but we can deal with it with a, with, with a thinking with a, a calmer heart, with a more expectant, you know, expectancy of good
And, and, and, and near, as I can tell at this point, that’s what life is about for me is I just, I wanna walk a little bit softer. I wanna be a little bit kinder and I wanna be able to see the beauty a little bit more. There’s a lightness of being in that. And I’m so grateful. I got to experience one of those moments this morning with that song. With that moment of prayer, I got all I need, I got all I need for a while. Man. My tank is full. I know I say man, a lot. And I just, it’s a habit. Forgive me. It’s less of an acknowledgement of sex and more an acknowledgement of something. I don’t know what, I don’t know what the word is, but anyway, I just wanted to say that, cause I’ve said it a lot. So let’s take a moment and pray. Shall we let’s take a moment and deal with ourselves. Greg. You wanna come on up, baby? Thank you. Would you guys, Tiffany, and would you, would you come up and do the, then Laura and do the, can, can you do that thing again?
That voodoo that you do so well, because I have the microphone and I can ask for what I want right now. Is that all right? Get the microphones gone. Yes. You and let’s just do that. Let’s can we do that thing? Like to share something? Of course Laura
Is actually Nora with an N
Lauren.
No,
Nora Nora. Oh, forgive me, Nora with an N. Okay. Yes. That’s okay. Just I love it. No, good. We wanna make sure our name is it’s an acknowledgement. Yeah. Nora,
Nora,
Take
My
Mind, take
My,
Like an empty bottle takes the,
He
Take my past and it takes
Three
<affirmative> and, um, the dirt.
Um,
And,
And
That is the sweet spot. I’m grateful for this time. I know it is already as blessed as it will ever be. We simply have eyes to see and ears to hear and a brain and a mind and a heart to recognize what is already so that something lovely is happening at this place for each of us, that we embrace it. We nurture it. We see it. We acknowledge it. We love on it. And then we let it go that all and more and more may be healed today as well. For all of this, I am grateful and I do call it good. And so it is amen.