A while back, I heard an African American man named Curtis talk about his Aunt Minerva. Every morning when he was a very young boy, she would wake him by saying, “Curtis, rise up and meet your great.” I loved this beautiful affirmation and I have used it many times since I heard it. “Rise up, and meet your great, Rita.” 

What if every morning we were to give ourselves this greeting as a reminder of who and what we are. The only thing that holds us back from expressing our greatness is our inability to recognize it. The first step of Spiritual Mind Treatment is Recognition that God/Power/Source is all there is through and in everything. The second step is Unification or what I now call “Identification.” Did you know that this was the original name that Ernest Holmes gave the second step of Treatment? Identification means that we identify ourselves as it. We are identifying ourselves with our Source, our Power, our Divinity, our Magnificence, our GREAT.

It is not conceited to know and claim who you are. In fact, it is our way as Humanity to glorify the Divinity in all of creation. It is the way of worship and honor to recognize our identification with First Cause, with Light, with Truth. When we do this, we greet the day with a whole new set of rules. Nothing is impossible. We are capable of miracles.

Ernest Holmes wrote about demonstrating the magnificent life, “Try to sense the Infinite Life around and within you. This Life is already fully expressed and complete. This Life is your life now and the life of all that you do, say, or think. Meditate upon this Life until your whole being flows into It and becomes one with It.” Modern day spiritual scientists would call this creating a “new state of being.”

This is a mental act, a spiritual act. It takes practice. It takes repetition. It takes allowing. It takes bringing it into our day. I believe it to be the way to live life to the fullest, to meet my challenges, to express more and more liberty every day.

I am at choice to recognize or deny this, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is. The trees still blossom, the wind still blows, the tides still go in and out even when I do not witness them. However, when I take the time to witness, to incorporate, to embody, then what is becomes what I am.

I invite you to rise up, and meet your Great today and everyday.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita