One Voice

by Suzanne Core, Joyce Krantz and Christina Pivarnik

Suzanne Core: Good morning, everyone; and good afternoon and maybe good evening. It is a joy to be together, to shine the light together, into our worlds.

Two weeks ago, Bill Isaacs talked about stature and also about humility. His words on humility caught my ear. I want to speak a bit about stature and humility. The first thing I did was look up the word humility in the Bible. There are a number of places where the word appears, but my favorite are these words of the Master: “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest…. For my yoke is easy” and I’m carrying the light!

“I am meek and lowly in heart.” I love that phrase. The word meek means gentle as well as humble. Humble and humility come from the Latin word humilis or humus which also means earth or soil. The word itself originally meant low, but it’s not low as in “oh, you’re lower than I am;” it’s not low, meaning less important; it’s low as earth, foundation, grounding, the ground under our feet, under our standing. Uranda, when he spoke of the meek in the Beatitudes said—”Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”—that meek meant nobility, strength of character, strength of purpose. Never weakness. “The meek shall inherit the earth,” as the meek and lowly of heart shall find rest. Clearly there’s a clue to strength of character and stature in humility of heart.

I want to tell you a story. We all look for examples of the light, don’t we? We look for where the light is shining through people and events. We look for that reflection of spirit and we find it. Among everything else that is going on, on this planet, we find it. I want to tell you about a man I found it in. I’ve been watching him now for a couple of years. Some of you are going to know of him and some probably not, but I’m a fan of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. His band leader is a man named Jon Batiste. Batiste is a young man who grew up in a jazz family in New Orleans. I think he’s probably a genius, musically. What I’ve noted is that every time Stephen Colbert throws him a line and gives him a minute to talk, he speaks of light, and he speaks of joy. And he is always smiling and calm. I have been so thrilled to listen to him when he speaks, as he shows a depth far beyond his music, although much of his music is full of light and joy as well.  

This year there’s been something different coming through him. There’s been another level that I’ve seen embodied by him. In February he married a beautiful woman he’d been with for about eight years. Also, in February he heard that he had been nominated for eleven Grammys, including best album of the year. This obviously had to be a high point in his life. It might be said he was at the top of the world or the top of his game—so much happiness and joy and success. No doubt his life was one of ease and comfort. To hear him talk, you wouldn’t know anything different than that. Yet the same month that he married the love of his life and was nominated for eleven Grammys, his bride’s leukemia returned with a vengeance. She immediately had a bone marrow transplant and she’s been fighting for her life. Meanwhile, he had to go to Hollywood to rehearse and perform in public at the Grammys. He won five of those Grammys, including best song and best album of the year. He spoke on stage at the awards ceremony, without notes, from his heart. I did not hear him myself, but apparently, he touched everyone with what he said. His wife could not be with him because she was home fighting for her life. Yet there was not a flicker from the calm demeanor of this man. You would never have known the other half of what was going on in his life. And when the two of them appeared together on television the only hint was that she is bald. Their joy, his calm demeanor, never changes.

When he was asked about this on CBS, he was very honest and straightforward about it, and very direct. He said, “There’s both light and darkness in the world, and there always is. But you always have a choice of which to choose. We choose joy in living. There’s a joy to living that’s always available to us.” To me, he and his wife embody humility, and stature, and are shining examples in their worlds.

They reminded me of an old poem from my childhood, If, by Rudyard Kipling. There is a couplet in the poem that makes me think of them: “If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.” It occurred to me that this is what Jon Batiste and his wife are doing in this very moment: they are meeting both triumph and disaster at the same time, while treating them just the same. They are choosing joy and spreading it and sharing it.

Here’s are a few more lines from that poem. I always thought this poem was too simplistic to be very significant but when I read it this week I thought, “No, it’s pretty good.” To me it speaks of, embodies ideas of, both stature and humility. I won’t read it all; it’s long.

It goes on a bit more and ends with this, “If you can do all that, if you can live that way, out of that stature, out of humility of heart, then yours is the earth and everything that’s in it.” That of course brings me back to thinking about who it is who inherits the earth; those with humility of heart. Those with humility of heart are the men and women of stature on the planet. They pop up everywhere in our world. Jon Batiste, to whatever degree he’s conscious of it, or just through his natural expression, is one example.

So I return to the Master’s instruction. “Learn from me. For I am meek and lowly of heart.” Be like me and bless your world. And our word to our worlds, through my words in this moment, is, “You always have a choice, world. Choose light. Know joy.”

Joyce Krantz: Thank you, Suzanne. I have also followed Jon Batiste’s story. In an interview he described how the music he creates doesn’t originate in him but flows through him—a beautiful awareness. 

I would also like to quote Bill Isaacs from his recent talk, Intimations of Stature. “It’s safe to say that things are not what they seem.” This read like a road sign to me. If I were to map out our journey to wakefulness this sign would be posted along the path with some frequency. Things are not what they seem. Suspend your judgments, let go, be still and know life has a plan. 

This journey to wakefulness for mankind has been going on for quite some time. Where we are in the process now is reaching a new threshold of change, a quickening. Bill described it well, “We are collectively being ‘tuned up.’ We are being brought collectively into one place, increasingly one pattern of shared awareness. This is truly completely unprecedented.” Why? “To restore stature and understanding and to let good orderly direction unfold—also known as God.” That is our true identity and where we are headed in terms of a conscious understanding and revelation of it.

If anyone needs convincing that there is good orderly direction in our world, one just need look up to the heavens and observe the precise orbits of the planets and placements of the stars around the sun. We are barely aware of the vast speed with which our planet earth is traveling through space. It’s 67,000 mph—try to wrap your mind around that one!  Or think about the 300 liters of blood pumping through our hearts every hour as we move through our days. We are wonderfully made! With all this motion one can observe that the natural world is quite silent. It doesn’t make a lot of fuss. We don’t hear our planet moving through space at those speeds and force. Compare that to the ever-busy noise of human activities at this time on earth.

Be still. 

Bill spoke of the liminal state which we are entering into, “a space in between, where things that seem to make sense or be understandable in a certain way stop making sense, or the understanding one once had, doesn’t seem to apply in the same way any longer.” I certainly observe that in myself. I could say the internal divine guidance system and coordinates haven’t changed but the external landscape around it is shifting. To use another metaphor: the house is undergoing a renovation or reordering, personally and collectively. What was, doesn’t seem to fit now in the same way. Traditions, beliefs, customs are all up for review, rightly so, because life is a continual flow. It’s not stagnant. It doesn’t stop and say, “Okay, this is it. This is how you’re going to think for the rest of your life.” It doesn’t work like that. The current of life is constantly moving, but if we hold on and identify ourselves with the things that are shifting, we’re going to go down with them. But if we step into the flow, dynamic things open up and expansion occurs.

If one has ever had a house under renovation, it can be an unsettling experience. It changes the familiar order we had before, whether that change is by necessity or choice. If it’s by choice, it may be viewed as a positive outworking. One sees the end goal and understands it’s worth the trouble. Or if by necessity, it may be seen as an imposition and met with resistance. Whichever the case, the project is unfolding towards completion and then…a new cycle begins. We can take heart that life moves from the known to the unknown. We are not asked to do the impossible. We are given everything we need to move forward.

As I describe this path forward, it can appear to consciousness that it is a linear movement to some future date in time where everything is going to happen. We’re going to hit that little tipping point and voilà—wakefulness! Maybe so, but the path is actually a vertical one into the present moment right now where I am. This is where it’s happening. This is where spirit is flowing and moving and finding order and direction and offering love and enfoldment and blessing to all in this moment through us if we allow it, if we are “tuned up,” as Bill described. 

I’m sure we’ve had the experience where we thought we were going into a circumstance for one reason and found out there was something completely different occurring. I’m finding that moving through my days. I don’t see things the same way anymore. I pause. I listen carefully. I look more deeply to what I perceive is going on and it’s usually in connection with people. To give you an example, I had a manicure the other day. I walked into the salon and saw they were running behind schedule. It was very busy. They sat me down in a chair and as I looked around, I figured I’d be there for a while. Okay, I told myself, let’s not watch the clock. As I observed what was going on around the room, I moved more deeply into perception of radiance and how I could use this opportunity to touch others. It happened that the young woman who was doing her best to accommodate many customers eventually came to me and sat down. There was a lovely sweetness and grace and fineness about her. She barely spoke English since she came from another country but in our silent exchange, I felt a deep connection move right into her world.

The illusion of our separateness is dissolving. How that reveals itself in form depends on our willingness to surrender beliefs and opinions and even our best intentions for mankind, to see what is truly seeking entry into our world through us now. There’s more than the surface appearance of things going on. The compulsion of life moves inexorably forward and we have the privilege of understanding something of that movement and our responsibility in helping others along by providing a way forward together. 

Christina Pivarnik: Thank you, beautiful words, Joyce and Suzanne. We share such love together when we gather. The spirit of love is all-encompassing. It is who I Am. This is true for each of us. This is the place where I dwell, where I live my life. Here is heaven on earth with glorious spiritual substance permeating everything we touch and everyone we contact throughout our days. This is the place of stature Bill so eloquently articulated recently and the higher ground Sanford Baran addressed a few weeks back.

But there’s a very practical side to this, to our stature and how we live every day on higher ground, even in our home renovations, as Joyce mentioned. Our job is to maintain the clear, inner landscape where we abide, not allowing a ripple of human emotion to interfere. In other words, a sea of glass. This is maintained as our deepest love is for God—the spirit of love is the vibration of the Creator, a place of living magic.

We have the opportunity moment-by-moment to let these essences of heaven manifest in our daily lives. This is the blessing we’ve come into the world to offer, a blessing of remembering who I Am, a blessing of healing and welcome with a pure, clear heart.

That said, stuff pops up in our lives. Situations that pull at our emotions appear. So how do we handle those experiences? Maybe someone loses their temper with us, or a friend says something hurtful, in the human sense. You can think of your own examples, I’m sure. No matter what, our job is to stay in this realm of heaven, this clear space, where we see what’s going on, but it doesn’t yank at our emotions. We don’t have an opinion about the situation or have any judgment about someone. The person can carry on, or whatever, and it doesn’t pull us out of heaven or muddy our clear inner landscape.

Since this is the beginning of Easter Week, I’ve been thinking about the Master and the many remarkable examples He provided for us in His living. In an Easter service given by Martin Cecil on April 19, 1981, entitled, This is the Day of Resurrection, referencing events that led up to the crucifixion, he said, “He didn’t resist what was occurring. He let it work out the way it was going. He didn’t make any plea for His human rights, something which is very strongly in the minds of human beings these days. He didn’t resist. He didn’t even object. He simply let it happen. It seems to me that one of the comments He is supposed to have made was, ‘Resist not evil.’ So He was true to His own instruction.”

We all have this opportunity to offer a blessing into whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. This is our surround of the spirit of love. The Master came to set the example for all of us, that we too, can live our lives from this place of stature, of purity of heart.

Our job is to continually let love radiate in all our activities, in everything we do. We hold in our hearts, in consciousness, the consistent and constant knowing of clarity, of truly remembering I Am and why I’m here—my purpose on earth. There is simply no room in our lives for opinions, criticism, or interference in how things are working out. Fear and worry are the absence of love. And as we hold and generate this precious spiritual substance with constancy, we hold sacred space for healing to occur.

Healing happens in a multitude of ways, springing from the radiance generated when we’re acting from our highest vision, our highest stature. As this precious substance becomes finer there is radiation and sacred power, the holding of vibrational space to let what needs to heal, or work out, occur. Our inner landscape of heaven is clear, pure, unruffled.

I’d like to share an experience I had of holding vibrational space.

A few years ago, I was sitting in a board meeting with an influential group of intelligent, passionate people trying to develop a solution for a massive challenge facing our state. The ideas and opinions for answers to the conundrum got more heated as brilliant minds strongly debated their viewpoints one after the other. It began to escalate without an easy solution in sight. I let my heart still, my mind be void of opinions or taking sides, and began to share attunement with each one who spoke and then encompassed the entire group in love, in the magic of heavenly radiance. Gradually, emotions calmed, and someone voiced an idea that caught on with the others. They began to build upon that thinking, creating a new vision in the process. The intensity of earlier began to subside and ultimately dissipate. By the time everyone got up from the table, people were laughing and joking with one another. I silently gave thanks for the many blessings of spirit and the degree of openness in this group to the higher Presence that brought forth agreement.

We have opportunities like this all the time in our lives. Maybe it’s having lunch with a friend who’s troubled, and we hold sacred space for that person to rise up in themselves. Perhaps it’s a simple gesture of kindness that makes a difference to someone in the moment. We’re always awake and aware of whatever is needed in every single moment, including what moves through our thoughts.As we express the finest, noblest character in our living, we delight to be together in heaven, in clarity. Martin’s concluding remarks from 1981 are a perfect way to end my comments, too. “As we well know, the true character of God in expression through man reveals itself in thanksgiving and thankfulness, amongst other ways. Let us be thankful for this glorious way which is consciously open before our awareness. Let us give thanks for it and walk in that way.”

Concluding Music:
One Voice:     (composed by Ruth Moody and performed by The Wailin’ Jennys)

Download pdf