Clarity & Inspiration from The Rev. Series: Live In Joy and Pleasure

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1 PAGE PAGE 1 # Creative Connections May 2010 Clarity & Inspiration from The Rev Series: Live In Joy and Pleasure As Spring advances into summer I can feel my readiness to be joyful, how about you? Imagine yourself here and now in a place of complete joy and celebration of life. This spontaneous feeling comes when we love life and out of gratitude express our God given gifts back to life. We have been created to give to life and be joy filled on a daily basis. This desire is built within our very natures. We know we are doing this successfully when we are filled with a spontaneous feeling of joy. Have you noticed having that soul satisfying feeling that all is well? I am sure there is much that we can do to bring about this wonderful experience. We can embrace life as the gift that it truly is, we declare now we are joy-filled. There is always enough for us to be filled with joy and ecstasy when we are in the space that Rabindranath Tagore was in when he wrote: Joy is the realization of the truth of one-ness, the oneness of our soul with the supreme love. There is always enough to be joy filled as we accept this supreme love as our very birth-right, we declare, now we are joy-filled. Come and celebrate with us at the Center. And may we all be joy-filled and take flight, Rev Liz Happenings at The Center Page 2 Birthdays & Eco news Page 3 Member to Member/Ads Page 4 Abundance In Action Page 6 Practitioners Corner Page 7 Treatment for May Page 8 Board Highlights Page 5 Mission: Creating a new world through the discovery of our Spiritual Magnificence.

2 CREATIVE CONNECTIONS PAGE 2 HAPPENINGS AT THE CENTER Visit the Calendar page on our website! CLASSES New Comer s Class is a special class facilitated by Rev. Elizabeth and is offered to those of you who would like to become more familiar with our teachings. This class is a prerequisite for membership. You now have an opportunity to decide when this class will be offered, for as soon as there are 10 individuals committed to participating there will be a class offered. Sign up in the lobby and as soon as we have 10 people we will call you and inform you of the date. The class is always from 12:00 noon-2:00 pm on a Sunday. Then, for the next 2 Sundays at the same time, Practitioners will guide you in using Spiritual Mind Treatment. The next class is scheduled for May 2. Principles of Successful Living SOM 104 runs from Apr. 20 to June 8 every Tuesday from 6:30-9:00 pm. See the website for details. GROUPS Peace Meditation is every Wednesday at 6:00 pm. Come join us in raising a consciousness of peace! Master Mind is every Wednesday at 6:30 pm. If you are interested in joining a small, affirmative prayer group, please join us. Drum Circle meets May 31 at 7:00 pm, the last Monday of each month. It is now being held at Holmes Place (801 Holmes Blvd.) Everyone is welcome to bring their own drum. Call Dolph Kiser at for more information. The CSL Singers meet every Wednesday at 6:30 pm and Sundays 11:30-12:30. If you love to sing, please join this musical group. Abundance In Action is a committee dedicated to the new land and building and meets the first Wednesday of each month. The next meeting is May 5 at 5:00 pm. See page 7. Unity & Peace Festival Meeting meets every other week at 5:30 pm. Be a part of designing this incredible festival that will be at the St Augustine Pier in October. Call James Short for more information at EVENTS 1st Quarter Financial Meeting, Sunday, May 2 at 11:30 am. Open to all. The Shift, Metaphysical Movie Night, Saturday, May 15, 7:00pm. Cost: Donation. See the website for details. CREATIVE CONNECTIONS Publisher - Kathe O Donnelly Advertising and Article submissions need to be in by the 15th of the month for the upcoming Newsletter. Please all submissions to Production@CSLstaugustine.org. Ad placements are $25 per issue and graphics should be in JPEG format. Article submissions should be in a Microsoft Word document. All submissions are subject to approval by Rev. Elizabeth Claire.

3 Charlotte Martin 5/1 Laura Minton 5/3 Jan Clements 5/7 Marian Thompson 5/9 Deborah Hanna 5/11 Clare Beaumont 5/12 Nadia Ramoutar 5/12 Pat Barton 5/14 Bobbie Thomas 5/17 Suzy Horton 5/22 CREATIVE CONNECTIONS PAGE 3 HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Joe Leigh 5/25 Patricia Juhasz 5/29 Sharon Lieberman 5/30 ECO NEWS WATER FOOTPRINT Water-it s not just for drinking. It s used to process your morning coffee as well as brew it: it s in your beef as well as your beefsteak tomato; it s used to make pants as well as paper. And just as we all have a carbon footprint, we also have a water footprint. To find out what your water footprint is and how you can reduce it, go to The average Chinese uses about 185,000 gallons of water per year. The average Saudi uses less than 343,400 gallons of water per year. The average American uses almost 660,400 gallons of water per year. Of all food ready for harvest in the United States will never be eaten. Excerpts from World Ark Magazine, Heifer International.

4 CREATIVE CONNECTIONS Member To Member PAGE 4 We are starting a new ask and you shall receive program where members can list items here in the newsletter that they no longer need and would like to pass on to those members who would like them. What a great way to support each other! We re calling it The Giving Tree The first item on our list: A Computer Monitor: Call Sue Phillips at To list an item, please production@cslstaugustine.org with the item name, your name and telephone# and we will include it in the next issue of the Creative Connections Newsletter. READERS ALERT Remember the Bookstore gives all CSL Members a 20% discount on all books, (except on sale items) the first Sunday of every month and all other Sundays members get 10% off. It Pays To Work With Peggy Your Personal Real Estate Consultant for Life 2200 N. Ponce de Leon Blvd., Ste.8 St. Augustine, FL Peggy Medick, GRI HomesStAugustine.com Stephen Dascoli, MCSE, CNE stephen@us1computerworks.com

5 CREATIVE CONNECTIONS PAGE 5 NOTES FROM THE BOARD Greetings! The Board met twice this month; a special meeting was held Monday, April 12 th and the regular meeting scheduled Monday, April 26 th. Building Project A group of Board Members met with the Hardy Group to review the updated changes to the proposed building site and floor plans. There was a good discussion and additional changes were requested Budget In light of recent events, the Board is being proactive and taking another look at the budget. Once adjustments have been finalized we will schedule the Quarterly Financial meeting with the congregation to share these changes. Activities & Events Board Highlights The Drumming Circle at Holmes Place was well attended and Rev. Liz is excited that it is going to start meeting regularly on the last Monday of the month. The Social Committee will be offering another Limelight Theatre social in May stay tuned! We are looking forward to the movie The Shift, screening May 15 th, and have put into mind that it will be as successful as the Oh My God? documentary film. Your task is not to seek for love, but to find the barriers in yourself that you have built against it A Course in Miracles Yours in gratitude, Laura Warnock

6 PAGE PAGE 6 # Abundance In Action A quote from the noted architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, states The good building is not one that hurts the landscape but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built and that is the goal of the Board of Trustees and everyone involved with the building to be eventually placed on our site at Holmes Blvd. At the April meeting Abundance in Action members and Planning Group Leaders were invited to see the site plan as approved by the Board of Trustees. A number of changes had been implemented: 1. As many trees as possible were saved by moving the building back a bit and making it a narrower building and by making one drain field into two (this is subject to approval by the county). 2. A walk was sketched out to Holmes Blvd. as mandated by the county. 3. A turnaround for a fire engine was put in at the end of the parking area. 4. Only the number of parking spaces mandated by the county were included. 5. A deck was included to allow communing with the Lake. 6. And a big change instead of building a temporary sanctuary the sanctuary will remain where it starts out, but it will be enlarged during Phase Two. This means walls built in Phase One will be easily removed during Phase Two. Because current plans do not allow for the retention of the small pond it has been recommended that we consider developing the small pond that is on the boundary line be developed to use as a meditation area. By the time you read this we hope a new colored site plan will be up in the alcove at the end of the foyer. As you look at it imagine driving up the winding drive with the Lake on the right and the sanctuary behind it. It s a beautiful thought!

7 Practitioner Corner Ernest Holmes quote: If we wish to enter into a less limited experience, we must sacrifice our limitations. From "The Essential Ernest Holmes, page 204 PAGE 7 # FROM FEAR TO FAITH In her message a few Sundays ago, Reverend Liz said, "It is absolutely essential to move from fear to Faith". Margaret Stortz called it "raw belief energy" in her daily message on March 12, 2010 in the SOM magazine. Oh how true these statements are. There are times in our physical world when things (facts) look hopeless, even devastating. As we intellectualize these facts it is easy to think why me? This should not have happened, this is just not fair and on and on. In this place our thoughts can, and do go spiraling down. This is the time, when our thoughts are focusing on facts, facts that are always changing, to consciously change our thinking. This is the time when, as all seems to be falling apart in our world, we consciously move from fear to Faith, the raw belief energy that is ALWAYS there. This is the time to release it to the Infinite! When facts are devastating it can be difficult to release it all to the Infinite, but that is the exact right time to do it! This is the time to remember our spiritual innocence, to become as the little child, and in pure faith, raw faith, free from all fear, we believe, we trust, remembering that facts are always changing but the Truth is steadfast and unwavering, always the same, always supportive, always loving unconditionally. Yes, we are the presence and power of God! We believe that. It is the TRUTH! Jan Clements

8 Treatment: In this place of total recognition of the Infinite Love, the limitless love of God, I now rejoice knowing that I am always one with It. What peace and joy knowing that this is always exactly where I am, one with the infinite Spirit of my Creator. In this place where absolutely all things are possible I rejoice in knowing that as I allow God to work through me I am expressing myself as God in me as me. Wow! This is big! I am a limitless being! I am expressing God through me as me! The sky is the limit! In this place I release and let go of all limited thinking, knowing that God is the true source of all my supply and God is constantly opening new and amazing channels of supply to me know...from expected and unexpected places! I put my faith in this limitless source, the source that is always there, never changing. In total gratitude and appreciation for this Truth I can easily release this treatment to the Infinite knowing that it is done. And so it is. Jan Clements - Licensed Practitioner