Sacred Celebrations

When we engage in spiritual practice,

Our life has this little thing called presence.

And many of us find ourselves at times living a life without presence,

Living a life without God,

Living a life without reverence,

Living a life that doesn't resonate with our heart and our soul.

The first symptom that I find when I'm living a life without presence is that time seems to be wishing bye.

I have seemed to lose track of it.

Everything is all over the place and everyone's growing up and I can't seem to locate myself in it.

And the question I've learned to ask myself is not where has the time gone,

But where have I been?

Where have I been?

And too often it's because I've been too tethered to the past,

Too tethered to the future,

Or I prioritized things that aren't as important as that which I love.

Meetings,

Other encounters,

Things that keep me too busy to be present in appreciation of the presence and coherence of my life.

Another symptom is that I don't feel connected with my life.

I look in the mirror and I may not like who I see or even understand who I see.

And the question I've learned to ask myself during these times is not why do I feel disconnected from life,

But why too frequently am I being not who I really am?

Socrates tells us that the unexamined life is not worth living.

And so I begin to feel disconnected from my life when I'm not paying attention to my thinking,

When I'm not doing the hard work of feeling my feelings,

When I'm not doing the inner mining of calling forth epiphanies and realizations,

When my life is no longer about a commitment to growth.

A third symptom of the life lived without presence is that even though you may accomplish many things and pass many thresholds in your life,

You don't integrate the proper rites of passage or rituals,

These things that help us embody those accomplishments.

That's the question I'll often ask myself is if I have accomplished it but not recognized my accomplishment,

Am I really embodying it?

Am I really embodying it?

Some other symptoms of a life lived without presence,

We've got a slide for you today.

Choosing media over connection.

Anyone ever get caught up in that?

There was an old 90s song by the Lemonheads called The Outdoor Type and there's a line that I always liked.

He said,

I can't go with you on a rock climbing weekend.

What if something's on TV and it's never shown again?

But you ever know that when you may choose your phone instead of that connection where you're hurrying away from a gathering to lurk on Facebook as opposed to nurture and grow in relationships?

Losing touch with good friends.

Ditching morning rituals.

That rush to get out of the door takes the place of building that coherence and meditation and silence.

Mementos stay in boxes.

All these things that reflect your spirit are buried in the garage.

And pat answers to inquiries.

How are you?

Fine,

Thanks.

How are you?

How are you?

Pretty good,

Thanks.

How are you?

That same answer.

We don't even stop and pause to say,

How am I really?

How is my life?

The longer we live a life without presence,

The more our life feels accidental and random.

When it's lived with presence,

Things feel like they're in divine appointment.

Life has coherence and richness.

I love a quote from Ernest Holmes.

I share it at memorials,

But should share it at baptisms and weddings,

Too.

And it's always an aim of mine to get into the consciousness of what he's sharing here.

Holmes says,

In this peace that holds me so gently,

I find strength and protection from all fear or anxiety.

It is the peace of God in which I feel the love of a holy presence.

I am so conscious of this love,

This protection,

That every sense of fear slips away from me as mist fades in the morning light.

I see good in everything.

God personified in all people.

Life manifest in every event.

I want my presence back.

I want to be aware of myself in relationship with a power greater than I am.

I want to feel that each day of my life matters and is significant.

And I want to feel that I am not wasting my time pretending to be someone that I am not,

But I'm showing up authentically and transparently as who I am.

That life of presence is available to each and every one of us.

Here's a list of some examples of what life is like when we live it with capital P presence.

Your whole life is here and now.

It's not scattered about,

But you own it.

You embody it.

You're living it.

Your thoughts,

Feelings,

And actions are in harmony as opposed to at war with one another.

You can turn the mundane into connection.

Whitman said that the truth is hidden in all things.

Every opportunity,

Every moment is an opportunity to reveal truth,

To make that connection,

To have that aha,

To welcome in a bit of grace.

Life lived with presence gives us a sense of flow and synchronicity.

And lastly,

And most importantly today,

Our topic is that it's filled with sacred celebration.

Sacred celebration.

I'd mentioned we have an initiative this year of rites of passage that's all about honoring our life transitions and changes with ritual,

With recognition.

The great philosopher Wittgenstein once said,

That which we fail to articulate,

We pass over in silence.

I would ask you today to consider if there's something that you're failing to articulate in your life.

A fondness or an admiration that you have for someone that you've yet to share.

A creative fire that burns in you that you have yet to animate and bring into form.

A significant accomplishment or growth in your life that you've yet to acknowledge or truly honor or truly ritualize.

Sacred celebrations,

And I know we all like to party.

Sacred celebration,

Honoring,

Acknowledging,

Ritualizing the most important aspects of our life and our change is fundamental to living a life with presence,

Living life with grace,

And creating a momentum that allows us to step into what's next and what will continue to move us forward.

We're going to do something a little bit different.

I'm going to get workshoppy on you.

I'm going to get workshoppy on you and I'm going to ask you,

Which means you're going to participate a little bit if you choose,

And I'm going to ask you to consider this morning,

What are three significant accomplishments that you have achieved in the last 12 months?

What are three significant accomplishments that you have achieved in the last 12 months?

I'll share what you think about it.

The first one for me is in the last 12 months I've gotten healthier.

I'm very grateful for that.

I make sure I run four days a week.

I started journaling again.

When I'm running,

I listen to therapeutic podcasts.

I realized that things that I thought I was doing,

Like relaxing,

Having a couple glasses of wine each night,

Were actually creating anxiety so I cut that out during the week and I'm proud that I'm healthier.

I have a long way to go in a lot of different areas,

But that was a significant accomplishment for me.

Another accomplishment is we had a successful move.

We went from one house we were renting and now we're renting a new house.

It's hard to move,

Especially when you've lived somewhere for a while.

It was great to make that move and get life moving forward again in that sense.

Lastly,

I finished a book.

I was really grateful for that.

I still need some proofreading and editing work,

But being a really busy person and being a dad,

Finding that 30 minutes a week to write over several years,

There's something done.

I was very grateful to have achieved that this year.

I'm going to walk around like Donahue here.

If you have just one accomplishment that you're willing to share with everyone,

If there's a story attached to it,

I'm sorry we can't hear that,

But I want to hear the accomplishment part.

Where's a brave soul?

Kelly.

I built a new deck on the front of my house by myself.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

I love it.

Rachel.

I have shifted from one business and have successfully moved into a new one.

Fantabulous.

Great.

I love it.

I'm coming around that way too.

Jana.

I supported someone who is really important to me.

Wonderful.

Awesome.

I was able to master self-love.

All right.

Well,

Sign me up for your workshop.

I love that.

I walked the Camino de Santiago.

Wonderful.

I just heard about that.

Well,

I'm getting that run in for today.

I climbed Machu Picchu.

Oh,

My goodness.

Sorry,

Sir.

Don't we have the most courageous congregation here?

They're amazing.

All right.

I see these three hands.

Juniper.

Well,

Juniper was born,

But I also became a prayer practitioner.

Yes,

You did.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

And I also became a prayer practitioner.

And we're grateful for it.

Miriam.

Okay.

One more.

We're going to go to Steve over here.

I have a feeling I might know what he's going to share.

Yes.

I asked this beautiful lady to marry me.

Oh,

Right.

I love it.

So did she say yes?

Yes,

She said yes.

Well,

Ron is from that school of you.

My wife and I were happy for 20 years,

And then we met.

I'm sorry.

Ronnie Dangerfield,

He gets no respect.

We love him.

Next question.

What did you do to celebrate those achievements,

Those accomplishments?

When it came to my health,

I did an everyday celebration that I wasn't intending at first,

And I just made a journal.

I started journaling,

And I just made a list,

And there's three things I ask myself every day.

I'm sharing this because I think it may be a good idea for you to do it,

Too.

And the first thing was,

What will I remember about today?

The next was,

What are three things I am grateful for today?

And the last one was,

What are three things I want to be grateful for tomorrow?

And it was cool in that little bit of gratitude to celebrate the wins of that day,

But it was especially cool the next day to look back at the three things I wanted to be grateful for and to see if they happened,

To either celebrate those or to refocus myself on achieving those items.

When we moved from our old house,

We did a good job.

This is the house our daughter was born in,

And so we went to each room and shared the key memory of that space.

And when we moved into the new place,

I finally dug out those boxes,

Those mementos,

And made altars and presentations.

And so I wasn't feeling at home before,

And there was something about doing that that blessed the house and blessed my life and who I was at that time.

The book I haven't celebrated,

And so I'm aware that perhaps that's why you're not holding it in your hands.

Is there some acknowledgment that needs to take place there?

I want to hear from you,

But this one's just screaming at me at the stage.

So what did you do to celebrate?

Anybody?

You don't really have to scream.

Christopher?

A book signing.

Excellent.

For your wonderful book.

Yes.

Anybody else?

Cake.

Let there be cake.

Yes.

You said yes.

Wonderful.

So last question.

Just a question to consider.

If you fail to celebrate something,

Do you really accomplish it?

If you fail to celebrate something,

Do you really accomplish it?

What I mean by that,

And I would argue that the answer is no,

Because if we don't acknowledge our achievements,

We don't fully embody them.

It's like the guy who gets married and continues to behave like a bachelor.

The person who enters middle age and keeps behaving like a teenager.

The person who gets the promotion at work and continues to do their old job.

Our lives are filled with rites of passage that call us to ritualize them with celebration.

And when we celebrate them,

Not only does it allow us to let go of what was,

But it builds the foundation in which we can co-create what is meant to be.

Cormac McCarthy,

The great novelist who was probably our greatest living author until he passed away last year,

He wrote in a book called Blood Meridian.

He says,

Even in this world,

More things exist without our knowledge than with it.

And the order and creation which you see is that which you have put there like a string in a maze so that you shall not lose your way.

For too many of us,

Those strings are our failures.

Those strings are our disappointments,

Our hard luck stories,

Our moments of self-rejection or judgment.

I encourage you today to build and create that string filled with your celebrations.

Those sacred celebrations that give meaning to your life,

That give you a spiritual narrative and spiritual biography of your growth,

That give you perspective on where you've been,

Where you are,

And where you're going.

These celebrations can give us the coherence and the meaning to live fulfilling and thriving lives.

So three calls for sacred celebration today.

The first is to make a big deal of the big deals.

Make a big deal of the big deals.

Now,

Celebration doesn't mean luxury.

I'm not encouraging you to empty out your bank account,

But to create powerful rituals that acknowledge your successes and your achievements.

Charles Vogel,

An author who wrote a book called The Art of Community,

Shares his birthday ritual that each year he sits down and he writes a letter to himself acknowledging his accomplishments and setting the pace for what he wants to accomplish in the coming year.

And then he makes a list of the individuals who have made an impact on his life that year.

And he takes the time on his birthday to call each of those individuals and to let them know the impact that they've had on him.

What a powerful birthday ritual.

Could you do that too?

We all could.

I invite you to look at the next 12 months of your life,

To think about some of the accomplishments or rites of passage that are coming your way,

And to consider how you can celebrate those with meaning,

With depth,

And with celebration.

This March,

Dr.

Michelle and I will have been lead ministers at Mile High Church for five years.

Oh my God,

Yes,

Right.

And although there are certainly a lot of things that we would wish were better and we wish there were more of you in the seats this morning,

I'm very proud of our working relationship and how we led the church through a leadership transition and through a pandemic and feel we've done a wonderful job of setting our church on a track for future growth and well-being.

And so we're going to have a sheet cake.

And knowing Michelle will probably be some tequila involved somewhere as well.

And celebration.

It's really important.

My wife,

And I hope this is okay,

Is turning 40 this summer,

And that's a big accomplishment.

Here's an incredible woman who had her first child at 20 years old,

Single mom,

Went through her education and got her master's degree.

Here she is heading into this time of life with two beautiful children and hopefully a good husband sometimes.

And she's now stepping into this new path of sharing all of these gifts she's learned with children and parents in this really incredible way.

What an important shift and right of passage to acknowledge.

What is it for you?

What is it for the people that you love?

Make a big deal of the big deals.

Second,

And this may sound a little weird,

Celebrate your failures.

Celebrate your failures.

I've learned two really important things.

The first is when I fail to admit a mistake,

I continue to make it over and over and over.

And the second is best expressed in a quote from Marshall McLuhan,

The great media guru.

He says that nothing is inevitable as long as someone is willing to be conscious of what is happening.

Nothing is inevitable as long as one is willing to be conscious of what is happening.

And when we can acknowledge,

I know we're not going to party hardy from our failures,

But when we can acknowledge them,

We can stop making them and make a change in our lives.

I remember sitting on my birthday,

It was in November,

And sitting down and wanting to plot the next 12 months.

And I had to face some things that I was unhappy about in my life.

You know,

One of the key ones for me is I did not feel that I had a quality relationship with my son.

You know,

That was a hard thing to admit,

Even though we can use the teenage years as an excuse.

And so it was very important for me just to simply make the commitment to reach out to him once a week with an ask or a connect that didn't have to do with,

Why didn't you take out the trash?

Right?

And it was really powerful.

I wrote that intention,

And it was actually my son the following week that invited me to go to the movies.

There's something about that acknowledgement that can shift and change in our lives.

I had to acknowledge where I was taking care of myself,

But there were also areas in my life where I wasn't taking good care of myself.

There were also areas in my life where I wasn't doing a good job speaking my word or standing up for myself.

And that perhaps was the greatest birthday gift I could have given to myself,

To admit those places where I wasn't living up to who I knew I was meant to be and to start making those shifts.

But we can't make them until we recognize them.

I became a minister in 2006.

Here I am only 35 years old.

No,

I'm kidding.

I'm 43 years old,

But I was 25 when I came in.

So in two years,

I will have been a minister for 20 years.

I have to acknowledge that too.

And sorry,

I don't mean just to talk about myself all day up here,

But when I graduated ministerial school,

I started my own church.

I called it the Meaning Place,

And it was targeted at young adults and agnostics and atheists.

That's who we wanted there.

And we rented the Irvine Improv Comedy Club at the Irvine Spectrum Mall in Irvine,

California.

And it was a lot of fun,

And we had some people going,

And yet it was really expensive.

And a church business model based on atheists,

Agnostics,

And young adults,

Maybe not the smartest idea,

Looking back.

And so at one point,

We had to move.

We had to move to a community center,

And it just wasn't the same.

And I myself went broke,

And I had to learn that hard lesson of ministry that you can't teach other people to thrive if you yourself aren't thriving or committed to that thriving.

And I'll always remember having to stop our Sunday services,

And my friend John,

Who was a board member,

Came,

And he bought me a beer or three.

I'm trying to remember how many it was that night.

And at one point,

I was able to cheers him.

I was able to share,

Thank you,

John,

I couldn't have failed without you.

I couldn't have failed without you.

And yet,

The greatest thing that I did was acknowledge that failure because it helped me learn the lessons of my mistakes.

And if I hadn't learned those lessons,

I wouldn't be standing here talking to you today.

The only failure is not acknowledging them.

And when we can acknowledge even those places of our lives where there's disappointment,

We can bring forth that presence that inspires us,

That helps us to heal,

To regroup,

And to grow.

Another important failure ritual for me is on our anniversary every year.

We've been married for seven years,

And my wife and I,

We write each other letters.

And it's always great to talk about the great things that have happened,

But it's also always an opportunity to point out where we've fallen short,

What we need to do better,

And how we need to grow.

So make a big deal of the big deals.

Celebrate even your failures.

And don't forget the little things.

Make celebration part of your daily spiritual practice.

Last year,

I promoted quite a bit a book called Tiny Habits by B.

J.

Fogg,

Which is a simple practice of identifying small new habits that you want to build in your life and anchoring them to everyday things you already do,

Like brushing your teeth,

Putting your feet on the ground in the morning,

Putting your head on the pillow at night.

And the third key he calls celebration.

And Fogg shares,

Celebration will one day be ranked alongside mindfulness and gratitude as daily practices that contribute most to our overall happiness and well-being.

If you learn just one thing from my entire book,

I hope it's this.

Celebrate your tiny successes.

Celebrate your tiny successes.

Because celebration embodies what you've accomplished and gives you the momentum to do the little things and those big things that you've been procrastinating about and may feel overwhelmed by.

Celebration begets celebration.

Gratitude begets more to be grateful for.

Acknowledging our blessings creates more blessings in our lives.

Finding those moments,

Whether it's a yee-haw or just a deep breath,

Allows you to realize that you are more capable than perhaps you've given yourself credit for and gives you that momentum to carry forward.

I'm going to keep my journal practice,

But because of this topic today,

I'm going to add a fourth line.

So it's what will I remember about today?

What are three things that I'm grateful for today?

What are three things I want to be grateful for tomorrow?

And what am I proud of myself for?

What am I proud of myself for?

What I really,

Really want to say to you today is,

Well actually what I really want to do is acknowledge you.

I want to acknowledge each and every one of you,

And I mean this,

For how hard you work.

I want to acknowledge you for your commitment to growth.

I want to acknowledge you for your commitment to your practice,

Even when things get overly busy or seem to have gone awry.

I acknowledge your heart,

And I encourage you to acknowledge your own heart,

To celebrate who you are and your commitment to living a whole life.

Fogg adds,

Success leads to success.

But here's something that may surprise you.

The size of the success doesn't seem to matter very much.

When you feel successful at something,

Even if it's tiny,

Your confidence grows quickly and your motivation increases to do that habit again and perform related behaviors.

Get into that habit of being the best yourself.

Get into the habit of accepting your wholeness right where you are,

Even in the midst of a broken experience.

Get into the habit of celebrating yourself so that you can shine and bring forth the gifts that you were brought here to give.

I close today with kind of a celebratory message.

It's a celebratory prayer of sorts.

I'm going to say it out loud,

But you may want to say it silently to yourself,

And it speaks to that power and acknowledging our efforts.

I celebrate me for how hard I work,

Even when I stumble.

It is but a demonstration of how hard I try.

I celebrate me for going places in me or around me that I was afraid to before.

Even when I hesitate,

It is but a demonstration of my desire for courage.

I celebrate me for how much I pray,

Even when I doubt.

It is but a sign that my faith is growing.

I celebrate me for who I am,

For even when I pause,

It is a sign that I am whole as I am.

And as we move into this time of prayer,

I invite any of our prayer practitioners to stand and join me and know that these prayer partners will be in front of our stage after the service today.

And if there is something that you've accomplished that you have yet to celebrate,

I invite you to share it with these incredible practitioners so that they can acknowledge you and speak a blessing for what you've embodied and what you're moving on from.

So in this pause,

I know there is a space to allow wholeness to reveal itself.

In this pause,

There's a place for presence to make itself known in every nook and cranny of our lives.

In this pause,

There is love.

There is activity.

There is creation.

There is that rhythm that calls our heart into harmony with the life we are meant to live.

And I know that as we do just this,

The byproduct of it is greater success,

Greater healing,

Greater well-being,

Greater prosperity,

A greater of all of what is yet to be.

In the wholeness of this moment,

Accepting the truth of who we are,

I know that it unfolds and produces such good,

Such strength,

Such growth,

Such resonance and coherence that it allows us to live a transformative life that uplifts us and everyone around us.

We give thanks for this blessing.

We let it be and become.

And so it is.