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Thank you for entrusting me with the office of Bishop and Pastor of our Temple, thus by accepting this title, your servant …
On this occasion, it feels fitting to deliver a sermon about this office as it feels it could best be served …
It would be well to take a few moments to settle into ourselves : to meditate, to contemplate, to intro- and/or outro-spect, or to pray – to actualise our connexion to the Force and to come together in the spirit of our unity …
***
May the Force be with you …
This ministry may strike some as a little strange. I don't have a bold vital mission. I don't champion any 'particular' cause. I'm not out to 'right-the-wrongs' or 'change the world'. I cannot show anyone 'the Way'. I am by no means a spiritual 'authority'. And I'll never have all the answers. You will hear/see me say quite often : “I don't know.”
I can accompany. I can guide in times of difficulties or uncertainty. I can help look for you when you feel 'lost' and can get the hell out of your way when you're not. I can serve as friend, as a confident – and when necessary a sounding board (we all have to bitch from time to time) and even as a scape-goat (I don't mind it looking like it is my 'fault', if that helps … ).
I am no 'stead-fast rock' to cling to : one may find me as confused as confusing …
I may on occasion be sad ...
or angry …
or affectionate …
or afraid ...
or exited and giddy ...
or just plain stupid …
One may find this ministry lofty and impractical. Well, maybe … I'm quite an idealist and not ashamed of it in the slightest. I would wager that with a smidgen of soundly looking inside of oneself, of really feeling it out – without regard to self-image – , this non-sense makes perfect sense.
I cannot promise the 'point' or the 'purpose' … they are what they are.
This ministry then is founded upon only three things : simplicity, patience & compassion.
When one finds centre in the Force, ambition and advancement lose much of their 'seeming' importance ; it appears to others as if one has 'abandoned' success. Yet, it is quite the contrary.
It is by allowing the natural states of simplicity, patience and compassion to determine one's state of being, that one may feel the flow of the Force most vividly.
Simplicity in action and thought : "Silence is the warrior's art--and meditation is his sword. It is the central weapon you'll use to cut through your illusions.” (D. Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, p. 50) As susceptible as one is to dualities (good/bad &c), one may believe one's behaviours 'simple', yet there are dimensions of complexity and non-acceptance that one does not admit …
One must fundamentally accept the 'as such' (which has nothing to do with liking or disliking it – one may recognise these feelings without giving them control) to be thereby present in the source, that vital empty centre from which all possibilities can come.
Regardless of how one may feel about the 'way things are', through the exercise of patience, one may be sure that each manifestation of the Force has its own evolution from its emergence to its return. All things are dynamic processes ; all things change.
Patience does not necessarily imply 'waiting' for that change. It is humbly accepting the 'way it is' and thereby permitting the 'come what may' to arise according to Its nature.
Compassion, toward others but toward oneself as well, embraces the other two (simplicity and patience).
We too, each and all of us, are dynamic processes, always growing, always changing. We all have hopes and fears, successes and failures – as human beings we live in a world that we have agreed to and been conditioned by whether we know it or not ; we are all creating this reality. We are all responsible for it ...
Through compassion for all things, we may help to ease the suffering bred in perceived separation – ergo, the very embodiment of the Jedi Creed, which I ask you to repeat with me hereafter :
I am a Jedi, an instrument of peace ;
Where there is hatred I shall bring love ;
Where there is injury, pardon ;
Where there is doubt, faith ;
Where there is despair, hope ;
Where there is darkness, light ;
And where there is sadness, joy.
I am a Jedi.
I shall never seek so much to be consoled as to console ;
To be understood as to understand ;
To be loved as to love ;
For it is in giving that we receive ;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned ;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
The Force is with me always, for I am a Jedi.
May the Force be with you all …
