When I lived in Taos last year, I lived in a place where magpies lived.  I arrived and found two pair of magpies who loved to hang out on the patio off my bedroom.  Over the nine months that I lived there, they taught me about what happens when we accept Spirit’s invitation of hospitality.

One morning they decided to greet me loudly from the patio wall.  I awoke to their shouts and felt this request for breakfast.  Being me, I went and found some nuts and fed them.  Well, that did it.  They soon had me trained to feed them breakfast! ​

When I would go out for a walk, they would be hanging out in the trees.  They would call out to me like, “Hey human have a good walk.”  I would greet them back and head out for my walk.  As I returned they would greet me, “Hey human welcome back.”  I would return the greeting.

Our friendships grew.  One couple decided to nest outside my kitchen window.  We worked out what they needed to feel safe and secure.  I hung cloth to give them privacy from the activity of a kitchen.  The dining room patio became their room.  I would go out and check on them.  They were patient, watching me as I checked on their babies.  It was beautiful to watch them grow.

I found myself caring for the magpies on the road.  I provided nourishment for them.  I laughed with them.  Chatted and hung out with them.  Encouraged their hilarity and zest for life.  Protected them as much as I could.  My place became a safe haven for magpie.

When I left, I had 26 magpie coming to breakfast every morning.  Word got around about this safe haven on Blueberry Hill.

Here is what they taught me.   Hospitality is a huge part of growth, especially church growth.  If my place was not welcoming and nourishing they would not have come.

But because I offered a place that was safe, welcoming, nourishing the numbers continued to grow.  It was like the magpie were telling and bringing their friends to this human who took care of them.  It was an awesome and sometimes overwhelming experiencing.

When we answer Spirit’s call to care for God’s people, growth is organic.  Word gets out.  Hey, check out that congregation that is totally welcoming.  I heard about this church down the road where you are completely safe and welcome to be fully who you are.  They take care of you!

As we are preparing our vision for the new St Paul’s, hospitality is key.  As we prepare our strategic plan and action items, each needs to reflect the depth of the spiritual discipline of hospitality.

How is our worship offering hospitality?
How is our spiritual formation offerings caring for those who are seeking a deeper connection with Spirit?
How is our mission and justice work creating a safe nurturing place for people, caring for their needs?

In all that we do, Spirit continues to invite us to steep our ministry in hospitality.

How are you providing hospitality this week? on Sundays? to your neighbors?

This is the moment.  You have accepted Spirit's invitation and knocked on the door to enter deep into Spirit's dwelling.  Spirit offered you deep hospitality and accepted the invitation to help you -- to co-create.  As Spirit prepare the co-creation, you were invited deep into inner healing and growth work.  Once Spirit feels you are ready,  She creates the portal for you to step through.  You are invited to step through and embody your co-creation.

Today we stand at the opened portal.
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Are you ready?
You are not going through empty handed.  Spirit provides the tools and skills you need, teaching and instilling them within your heart.  As Thor prepares to step through the portal Dr Strange reminds him, "Don't forget your umbrella."

A bit about Thor's umbrella/hammer:  It is a tool Oden, Thor's father, gave him to harness, focus and use Thor's power as God of Thunder.  It is not his power.  Thor's Power is embodied in his whole being.  Thor learns that throughout the film Ragnarok.

Tools for Co-Creating
Spirit offers us the tools we need to harness, focus and use our Power to manifest our co-creation.  These tools are not our power.  Our Power is found in how we embody the Light of God, how we emanate Compassion and Mercy in the world.  The tools (our umbrella/hammer) helps us reflect and radiate our embodied Compassion and Light.

I define myself as a spiritual healer in the world.  I seek to radiate the Sacred's Love and Light fully in the world.

In my personal healing business, Weaving Sacred Spaces, I use the tools of High Desert Essences, crystals, drum healing, Reiki Sacred Light healing, mentoring, spiritual direction and more.  These are tools and skills that help me emanate and radiate my medicine to those who are seeking healing.  These tools help me reflect the Sacred's Love and Light.

In my role as pastor, I use the tools of prayer, worship, sermons, blogs, protests and rallys and more to proclaim God's unconditional Love and Justice.  There are tools that reflect and radiate God's Love and Justice.

You are Spirit's tool
I am experience myself as the pillar between heaven and earth through which Spirit's healing Light flows.  Standing in my Power as a co-creator with Spirit means I fully embody Spirit's Love, Light, Justice.  It means I stand strong as a pillar and open myself to letting Spirit flow in and through me.

Stepping through the portal is deciding to stand in your Power intentionally and to allow yourself to be Spirit's tool of healing and justice in this world.
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What do you think?  Ready to step through and join me?

Knowing who we are, our identity, is key to our creating abilities.  All our identities, not just the one at the core of our being.  Each identity we express out into the world holds beliefs that can, and often times does, affect how our co-creations are manifested in the world.

Thor:Ragnarok
When Thor meets Dr Strange, with a voice of amusement, he says, “So Earth has wizards now.”

Dr Strange’s response, “We prefer Master of the Mystical Arts.”

Thor continues to play with, or more accurately, accidentally breaks an object on the table.  Then we turns to Dr Strange and says, “Alright wizard, who are you and why should I care?”

True confession right here and right now:  Sometimes this is my inner response to Spirit, especially when I do not recognize Spirit as the one standing before me.

This is a demanding question from Thor — one that goes deep.

Who are you?  How do you define yourself?
When we co-create with Spirit we need to know this — who we are.

How do you define yourself?  Who are you at the core of your being?  What are the beliefs that you hold about your identity?  These are all important questions for us to reflect upon so that as we co-create and stuff (obstacles, negative thought patterns, blocks, limiting beliefs) arises in our hearts and minds, we are prepared to deal with them.  If we have no idea of who we are and what beliefs govern our identities, we will stumble and fall, we will be stopped in our creating tracks.

Why should you care who you are?
As we create, who we are reflects out into the Universe.  If we are hiding dark damaging secrets those are reflected out into the Universe as aspects of our creations.  For example, remember my post on Odin and his secret daughter who basically destroyed Asgard after his death?  Odin did not face the who he is.  He hid his history, his ambitiousness, that time period when he went conquering.  He painted it over.  Instead of teaching about that time in Asgard’s history, he let it fall out of memory.  No one remembered then.  No one knew Hela, the goddess of death.  So, by not fully owning who he was, Odin destroyed his very own creation.

We must do our work to know who we are so that we do not accidentally destroy, corrupt, side-track, derail what we are working at creating.  When we know who we are, we are able to heal our wounds so that they do not unconsciously pop-up out of nowhere and negatively affect our creations.

Why should you care?
We have seen what happens when the one creating does not care.  Look at how our country is falling apart.  We have leaders in Congress, Senate, the White House who care only for themselves and their friends.  We are watching this type of creation bring about a moral and ethical vacuum that is destroying the very fabrics of who we are as a country, as a people.

I know that whatever I create, I want it to be for the benefit of the highest good for all.  I want my creations to be forces of good in the world — empowering and healing those who come in contact with it.  So I am very aware that I need to care deeply about how my creation is experienced and perceived in the world.

So when someone asks me who I am? I will answer.  Ironically right before I sat down to write this, I sat next to a woman in Starbucks reading a book by Parker Palmer.  We were talking and she asked me who are you?  If you had to say who God is in one sentence how would you say it?  These two questions led to a fabulous conversation, which I am sure I was meant to have.  Seeds were planted.  Now Spirit will continue growing them.

How would you answer the question?

Who are you?
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Why should you care?