Prepared message given as part of Three Rivers worship on Zoom, 23 July 2026.
I feel connected to the earth. This spirit that I feel is part of me and extends deep into the earth through the sedimentary rocks, and when I wake up in the morning. I often hear birds singing outside and it grounds me in the world around me in this land that we share. My spirit self can shift a moment, and I'm on the other side of the lake just to the east where there's a grove of redwood trees.
This morning I heard mourning doves and the hawks are active and I can hear them crying. And I think about how they are the descendants of birds that were here when the first people of the land were here. The Ramaytush Ohlone people lived here in harmony with the animals and the birds. Before those redwood trees were planted, there was a great lake fed by a stream surrounded by dunes, as I'm here near the shores of the Pacific Ocean and my spirit self feels this land around me. And I feel the spirit reach out to each of you connected to the land where you sit upon and maybe you hear birds and maybe you know trees nearby to connect us across the ecosystems that touch each other and the spirit landscape that envelops us all.
There's this web that connects us of spirit where each of us is connected to the other. And often it feels a strong and flowing stream, threads that weave into a incredible rope that binds us together. And sometimes, there are places where it doesn't smoothly flow, where it feels a little tangled... stuck. And sometimes, many times, I must admit, I shy away from those places. I think we all do. It's natural. There are little hurts there.
More and more I'm finding that it's not that I lean into the hurt. It's that I lean into the spirit that wants to flow through there, and if I lean into spirit, then I can come to that place with a spirit of curiosity and wondering about what is this? What is this thing between us? Where is this place that isn't binding us together, but it's, it's like another thing. And I can get by whatever feelings that I might have that are stuck there and sometimes I can come to a place where I realize that I felt hurt, but maybe there was something that I said first that maybe needs some amends. Maybe I don't even really know what happened, and it's time for some questions, or time for expressing that I actually would like to connect.
I read somewhere recently that we have these stuck places between us, that there's a great potential energy there, that if we can unlock them, smooth them out, get spirit flowing, then it releases us... gives us power to use that energy for other explorations.
Sometimes when that stuck energy stays there, it kind of grows layers that I feel sink into the ground, like the sedimentary rock, and sometimes I can forget that it's there, but I might trip over it upon occasion, feeling that past hurt and it can disrupt things that are going on now.
So I think of the spirit like water that is soft and gentle. And a soft and gentle current can be stronger than the rocks in the water, and I can be a rock with cracks and rough places.
I want to share some images of water…
Here the water flows in a shallow trickle across the rocks, but it smoothed out the rocks and it creates a path.
A very slow, great river creates a path that we can't even see it making, but we know it's there, because we can see how it creates great changes in the land. And when I say land, I mean the spirit landscape amongst us, how we change each other through how spirit connects us, sometimes in very unexpected ways. And we can't see spirit, but we see the ways that it shapes the places around us and the people.
As you venture forth, I invite you to look with awe at the ways that spirit changes our lives and gives us opportunities.
With help from Welling Hall who couldn't be here today, but is holding us all in the light. I want to share some queries with you:
When, for you, has spirit felt like the water with the power to unstick things?
Sometimes we have been the rock and sometimes we have been the water, when have you felt spirit with you in one of these places?
