Each of us have a garden inside of us. It is a place where we can grow our idea of love. It is called, as Mr. Rogers put it, “the garden of the mind.” We can plant and grow inside of ourselves new ideas and new connections with God. We can create this all by changing our thoughts. Tom Chapin’s song “Pretty Planet,” which is the base of this talk today, tells us the story of what happens we start to create this place inside of us. Our pretty planet is a place inside of us. A place for us to discover ourselves and who we are. As we began this journey, there will a lot of emotions that come with this. It is normal to have these come. This journey is one of uprooting old idea and ways of thinking that create blocks in connection with the Divine.
The words of the song are:
This pretty planet spinning through space,
You're a garden, you're a harbor,
You're a holy place,
Golden sun going down,
Gentle blue giant spins us around.
All through the night, safe 'til the morning light.
Think of these words and let them soak in for a bit. We are going to take a few lines and talk about them, and then we are going to talk about how we can put this song to use in our lives.
We live on earth but inside of us there an inner garden it is our holy place. We are spinning though this planet on earth with many other people. That’s right: we live on this planet with other people. We are taught to love people in the church community We are told to love our neighbors.
We are also taught that we must love ourselves before we can love others. This may seem like a conduction, but it’s not. You have to love the Gift that God has given you before you can love the gifts others have. More on this idea a bit later, but back to the song. “You are a holy place”: that’s right, you are a holy place created by a Divine Creator who really loves you. He created you to do good and create you for a mission. What that mission is is for you to discover — I can’t tell you; that’s between you and your Divine.
You see, in this case you need to listen to your heart and let it do the talking. You can have a conversation with God. It happens inside of us. That’s where we find our gifts. The one we want to hide from others, but deep down we know we should not.
“You are harbor” in the sense that you can choose what you let into the harbor of yourself. Not all the ships will be allowed in your life. You chose your soul community. Don’t let those who want to go into darkness into your life. What I mean by this I that, for me, I can let in negative energy or positive energy. It’s my choice. For example, I have a new job. I could let the unknowns of the job get to me. How will they like me? How will the students get along? Etc. Or I can create a harbor where I allow a balance of the flow to come in, and I can enjoy the job for the unknown that it will bring me.
“Golden sun going down” means that sometimes we need lessons to happen to teach us about love. Sometimes those lessons are painful, and part of them may lead you to darkness and finding people who are not in your soul tribe. For this talk, I will call them your ‘twin flames’ — the people who show you things about yourself that you don’t like about yourself. They are teachers of what you don’t want in your planet, so they teach us. While they are in our lives, it may seem that the golden sun is gone, but it’s not true. I just believe that to be true. For me, this shows up in the ideas of my life where I feel a bit lost and not sure where to go, so I look at the golden sun in my life.
So, this planet is always spinning — I just do not always feel it. It is why change happens inside and outside. I can’t control the outside. I want to so badly, but the planet goes on without because God is in control. It will continue to still go on without us. The power of creation is that flow must go on.
The last line says that happens “safe till the morning light.” Think of the power of the statement that life goes on in our planet. We can just enjoy the flow of what is happening around us and listen to sounds around us. We can create a place in with us where we can abide our inner neighbor.
So, what can do to create this space? We can use prayer and meditation. We can sing the song above and image ourselves in this beautiful place.
We going to do a mediation on this. I want you to close your eyes if you feel safe with that. I want you to first take a deep breath and feel any heaviness in you. I want you feel this and embrace it. I want you to feel this feeling, and then I want you to sing the song above and begin to imagine what your garden looks like. What your planet looks. It differs for everyone. Mine has a mushroom that I sit on, and it has a pond and a garden. It is a healing place.
So: go to this sacred place and just sit there with all this feeling. It’s safe place to be. We must discover the pain and the sadness, and find our peace with it. We must find our peace with ourselves. Finding that balance it will take time, but you know over time what that place is. I want to imagine it over time. When things tough in the outer world, remember your connections to the Divine. The road led you to your inner self; it leads to your unconditional love. That best place to be in a new creation relationship with God and as both walk together to create this beautiful planet.
We truly follow the idea of heaven on earth and create a place that our soul community can be created, and we show our neighbors that love that flows from ourselves. That’s what that it means when I said earlier that we love ourselves in order to love others. We don’t have to judge others because it just a mirror of ourselves. It is just smoke and mirrors of ourselves. Think of the walls that would be destroyed if we let go of the ego and what we think is going on, and see the world in a rainbow light that shines on us in our garden and on our planet.
That is the gift of this song: it is saying to us that we can create this planet inside of us, and begin our journey to discovering our inner sunshine and creating our garden. Please leave here knowing that you are loved, and that the world was created to see love around us, and that everything is here on earth to teach us to love, and that we can as community come together and worship the power of God. Take the song in and enjoy the fact that inside of you there is garden growing, and that we are on this journey today. Each of us may be going on a different path but we are cheering each other on with our golden light. Each of us carry that point of light to help others on their path and journey. That love is in pure form when your love shines to others, and then the light passes to others. Pass your light on to others so they may know who you are. Think of the power of this idea. Our light of our planet garden can heal and be seen by other angels and others who follow our soul. That connection is what this church inside of us is teaching us.
We can create this planet inside of us, and then we see the garden of truth showing us how to love in different ways that we never thought imaginable.
Amen.
READINGS
Old Testament reading: Genesis 2:4-15
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.
New Testament reading: Matthew 13:24-32
Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ “‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ “‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
Reading from Emanuel Swedenborg’s Other Planets #2
In the other life it is common knowledge that there are many planets with people on them and consequently spirits and angels from them. If a love of truth and therefore some useful reason prompts people there to want to talk with spirits from other worlds, they are all allowed to do so. This assures them that there is indeed a plurality of worlds and informs them that humankind exists on not just one earth but countless planets. It teaches them also about the character and life of these people, and about their worship of God.
