“You’re not the boss of me.” My granddaughter used to say this to us when she was little. It was her way of letting us know that she could do what she wanted to when she was away from her mom and dad. They were the boss, not us. Of course, we quickly let her know that if she was in our care, yes, we were the boss of her.

As spiritual beings, we are free. We have volition or choice. I was brought up in the Catholic faith, which taught volition, but let me know that If I didn’t choose what the church taught, I would be condemned. I better get to confession and get absolved before it was too late.

At the age of 16, I sat at the top of a hill meditating on the idea of going to confession. Something did not feel right. I couldn’t reconcile my life as a sinner. I was at a crossroad as to what I believed. I didn’t know. I remember at that moment being very earnest about this and feeling very lost. A voice within me welled up. The words were clear. “There is more for you than this.”  A feeling of peace came over me. I didn’t know what was next, but that was the day I walked away from the Catholic Church.  It was a mental separation. I was still in parochial school until the age of 18. What this mental separation meant was that I would make up my own rules. I would no longer have an authority telling me what was right and what was wrong.

Since that time, through trial and error and a lot of experience over a 50 year period, I have learned what it truly means to be in charge of one’s destiny, to be totally free to choose how I will live. It is not an easy path to guide oneself.

So, here I am, a minister of New Thought, guiding others not by telling them what to do, like I was raised, but allowing them to understand they have choice, volition, and that they are the cause and decider of their own destiny. Again, it’s not an easy path and many reject it.

This idea of having choice is not just about deciding what we will do at any given point in our life. It is more than that. It is about deciding how we will think and what we will think about any given experience in our lives. It is about the freedom to choose our thoughts and even more deeply to choose and change our beliefs.

What does this mean today? I get to decide how I am going to invest my mental energy. I get to decide in every moment what I will focus on and what I will let go of. I get to choose and more importantly I understand that I get to experience the consequences of those choices. As Ernest Holmes wrote, “There is not sin, but only a mistake.” A mistake is merely missing the mark of right thinking or spiritual thinking – loving thinking.

There are spiritual laws and there are laws made by man. The man-made laws have their place and assist us in living in the world of form. However, the spiritual laws are as reliable as gravity. We cannot break them. We can only break ourselves upon them. “We are spiritual beings living in a spiritual Universe, governed by our use of the Law of Cause and Effect.” Cause and effect are not two things. They are one thing. The clearer I get on this concept, the closer I get to Unity – oneness. “As above, so below. As within so without.” These are the rewards and punishments of choice.

No one is the boss of me. I am my own boss and so are you. I get to choose my path and as long as it is one of love and does not hurt another, it is bound for success. I love being at choice.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita