Compassionate Awareness

​One of the things I love about being in Unity is the emphasis on compassion and turning our awareness back to God as Spirit and our eternal Source. These two reminders, for me, make up the key meaning of being alive in this body right now.

Another thing I love about Unity is its practicality – how do we do this? How do we stay open to compassion and keep our focus on God, remembering God is love (1.John 4:8)? How do we remember that God is the One Presence expressing through and as all of life, in its myriad forms on this planet, when there seems to be a lot that contradicts this?

Perhaps this is the challenge of being alive – where do I put my focus? On the problem, or the solution? All successful people are solution-based. Yet the solution is not in the world – it is not of the world. The solution is staying God-centred: God is Spirit as us, our eternal Source and supply, in you and me, connecting us together as One.

Grand words – powerful maybe … what do they inspire in you? Do they speak to you and lift your soul? Perhaps you have another response. Everything is valid. The question is … does it lead you to greater compassion and peace? Because for me, if I do not have these qualities in my life, there is no joy, no fulfilment, no meaning.

Unity follows the teachings of Jesus, and a more compassionate person we will struggle to find. Despite knowing that it would probably backfire on him, Jesus healed on the Sabbath – he reached out to those whom the rest of society ignored – it takes a great soul to do this. Especially as at that time, the Romans ruled the Jews and their way of life was so restricted. What courage Jesus had.

Today, it still takes courage for us to face, and love, that in us which seems impure, unloving, hurting, wounded. Yet compassion calls us to respond to ourselves, and each other, this way. Further, we have to give compassion to ourselves before we can share it with others and respond with compassion to all we see around us.

This is something I continually find myself having to practice! Ildiko Kudlik, our newest Unity minister in training, will dive into this at our online workshop this month, inviting us to explore and experience compassion together. Paul Mapletoft will be exploring ‘the flow’, our inexhaustible supply, as described by Eric Butterworth, and Nancy Sandoval will invite us to celebrate ourselves and the goodness we are, as encouraged by Eric Butterworth, one of our best loved Unity authors. Beth O’Connell will invite us to use music and movement to support us, in honour of our lovely Unity teacher, Isabel Compton, who passed away last year. I will open the day and close with the invitation to honour our humanity, which frees us to experience our divinity – the wholeness of ourselves.

We all learn when we come together with compassion, understanding, and a desire to remember who we are – beloved of God. This is the power of Spiritual Community. Together we support each other, so we can go beyond our minds into the great Heart.

Join our online workshop and share in a day of compassion, upliftment, and practical ways we can know for ourselves, we are enough!

Rev. Kimerie Mapletoft