Click HERE to view Rev. Richard Rogers’ guided meditation during the service.
Okay; you ready for tonight?
What’s the most difficult conversation that you’ve ever had with someone? Can you think back over the course of your life with some difficult conversations? Conversations that you knew your heart and your soul was calling you to have with someone? And yet, your ego probably said, “Don’t do it!”? Nobody? LIke, I’m the only one that has these conversations? Really, nobody? Not one person?
What I want us to see today is that I believe that, as we are awakening spiritually, there is a demand for a higher level of conversations. See, if you’re having a conversation with somebody and you believe that you’re profoundly broken, that impacts the whole conversation. It impacts the words you use; it impacts your body language; it impacts everything!
And for many of us, we have believed in limitations about ourselves. We’ve accepted those limitations. And it has colored the conversations that we are having. But as we begin to awaken spiritually, the words — the conversation — is transformed as we claim our right to be. Not just be here, but to be created in the fullness and in the image and likeness of God.
So we’ve been using this book as a kind of a road map for the last couple of weeks: Think Again. Adam Grant is the author. He’s a smart guy, Harvard-educated. And he invites to look at the process of rethinking.
Because for many of us, rethinking takes more mental activity. It’s actually easier to stay in your belief system and to play out your whole life in whatever belief system you have, and not disrupt the cart. Not turn things over. At least that’s what our ego tells us. There’s not a high level of freedom in that, but it looks like it’s easier if we don’t rethink it; if we don’t upset; if we don’t challenge some of those old, dark beliefs; or those limiting beliefs; or those fearful beliefs. If we don’t challenge those, it looks like it’s easier to just play it out to the end.
But the activity of Spirit right now is really calling us to awaken. The whole planet is being invited to awaken. And that changes, not only the conversations we have internally, but it changes the conversations that we have with each other. And yet, there still seems to be that ego place in us that just says, “Don’t upset anybody. Don’t tell them your whole truth. Don’t tell them what you really think. Don’t tell them what’s really important to you. Just be still.” Right?
And yet, until we give them the whole truth — until we tell them what’s really in our heart and our mind and our soul — there’s really no opportunity to come to a higher synthesis, to a greater possibility. To have a true healing. And many of us have just allowed situations to go on and on and on, because we weren’t willing to speak about them. So the limitations and the problems: they just move forward, because we don’t say, “That doesn’t work for me. It’s not right. It’s not good. It doesn’t celebrate who I am.”
So one of the stories he tells in this book that I’m going to share with you, because I think it’s so powerful, is about Daryl Davis.
“One afternoon in Maryland in 1983 Daryl Davis arrived in a lounge to play the piano for a country music gig. It wasn’t the first time he was the only black man in the room, and before that night was over, it would be the first conversation he ever had with a white supremacist.”
I’m not sure that’s true, right? But it’s the first time he became aware that the person was a white supremacist.
“After the show an older man in the audience walked up to Daryl and told him that he was astonished to see a black musician playing like Jerry Lee Lewis. And Daryl replied that he and Lewis were, in fact, friends, and that Lewis himself had acknowledged that his style was influenced by black musicians. Although the man was skeptical, he invited Daryl to sit down for a drink.
Soon the man was admitting that he’d never had a drink with a black man before and eventually explained to Daryl why: that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacy hate group that had murdered African Americans over the century and, in fact, lynched a man two years earlier.
If you found yourself sitting down with someone who hated you and all people who shared your skin color, would you instinctively opt out to flight, fright or freeze? And rightfully so! Daryl had a different reaction. He burst out laughing. When the man pulled out his KKK membership card to show him that he wasn’t joking, Daryl returned the question that had been on his mind since he was 10 years old.
In the late 1960s he was marching in a Cub Scout parade when white spectators began throwing cans, rocks and bottles at him. It was the first time that he can remember facing overt racism. Although he could have been justifiable in getting angry, he was more bewildered. ‘How could you hate me when you don’t even know me?’
At the end of the conversation, the Klansman handed Daryl his card and phone number and asked if he would call him whenever he was playing locally, and Daryl followed up in the next month. The man showed up with a bunch of his friends to see Daryl perform. Over time, a friendship grew. And the man ended up leaving the KKK.
That was a turning point for Daryl’s life, too. It wasn’t long before Daryl was sitting down with the Imperial wizards and grand dragons of the Klan, their highest offices, and asking them the question. Since then Daryl has convinced many white supremacists to leave the KKK and abandon their hatred.
One day Daryl was driving his car with a chief officer of the KKK chapter, whose official title was the exalted cyclops. Before long, the cyclops was sharing his stereotype of black people: that they were inferior. He said they had smaller brains, which made them unintelligent and genetically predisposed toward violence. When Daryl pointed out that he was black, but he’d never shot anyone or stolen anyone’s car, the cyclops told him that his criminal gene must be latent, and it just hadn’t come out yet.
So Daryl decided to beat the cyclops at his own game. And he challenged him to name three black serial killers. When the cyclops couldn’t any, Daryl started rattling off a list of well-known white serial killers, and told the cyclops that he must be one of them. When the cyclops protested that he had never killed anybody, Daryl turned his own argument against him and said, “Well, you’re a serial killer, but it’s just a latent gene.”
The cyclops, frustrated, said, “Well, that’s stupid.” And Daryl said, “Duh! You’re right! What I said about you was stupid, but no more stupid than what you said about me.” The cyclops got quiet and changed the subject.
Several months later he told Daryl that he’s still thinking about their conversation. That Daryl had planted a seed of doubt that made him curious about all of his own beliefs. The cyclops ended up quitting the KKK and giving his hood and his robe to Daryl.
Daryl doesn’t do this by preaching or prosecuting; when he begins a dialogue with a white supremacist, many are initially surprised by his thoughtfulness. As they start to see him as an individual and spend more time with him, they often tap into a common identity around shared interests and topics like music. Over time, he helps them see that they join these hate groups for reasons that weren’t their own: it was a family tradition dating back multiple generations, or someone had told them that their jobs would be taken away. As they realized how little was actually true about these groups, and how shallow the stereotypes were, they started to think again.
After getting to know Daryl, one Imperial wizard didn’t stop at leaving the KKK; he shut his chapter down. And years later, he asked Daryl to be his daughter’s godfather.”
I believe in many ways that we are at a crossroads right now. That there’s a part of us in all of us that just wants to keep going the way we’ve always gone: the way our families have gone for generations; the way culture has gone; the way the world has gone. There’s a part of us that just wants to keep going the way the world has always gone. And it looks easier. It looks easier just to keep riding the time out — just kicking the can down the road and playing this out to the end.
But where we find ourselves in this time is: it’s time for the whole planet to awaken. And when you go from seeing yourself as broken or seeing as broken, one of the fundamental requirements is to have a new conversation: to have a higher conversation; to begin to be willing to say out loud what you know to be true in your heart.
And in my experience, there’s always that part of our ego that says, “Shut up! Just don’t say it! Don’t put yourself out that far; don’t go that far. Just let them believe whatever they want to believe, and you just live your life, and it will out work out.” But the reality is: for the whole planet to awaken, we all have to be in a higher conversation. And those higher conversations are initially scary. Like, “Don’t say it! Just don’t say it! Shhhhh.” But that’s what just keeps us stuck year after year after year.
And I think about all the tough conversations I’ve had in my life. And usually what happens for me after a tough conversation is: I go into a tough conversation not, at some level, wanting to do it. But my spirit — my soul — refuses to be quiet one more day. And after I have that tough conversation, there’s more room; there’s more room to be who I am, who I’ve always been. There’s just more room.
And so tonight I want us to check and to really ask ourselves: Is there a conversation that you’ve been running away from? Maybe not dramatically running away from, but just slightly turning the other way? And you feel like it’s time for you to have that bigger, higher conversation.
Judy Ringers is an Aikido master. And she, in her work life, teaches conflict resolution and how to be. And she’s taken the principles of Aikido and she applied them into questions and higher conversations. And she has a couple of things that I want to share with you, because I think it’s helpful. And she has these seven things to ask yourself before you go into a difficult conversation.
And the first one is, of course: What is the purpose of having this conversation? What do you hope to accomplish? What is your ideal outcome? What is your hidden agenda? What do you think are the honorable goals? And what do you want out of it?
The second one she says: What assumptions are you making about the other person’s intent or who they are or what they think or what they feel? We may feel intimidated, belittled, ignored … but how much of that is you projecting that on them?
Three: What “buttons” of yours are being pushed? Are you being more emotional than the situation warrants? To look at the backstory and to ask yourself: What’s in it for you?
Four: How is your attitude toward this conversation influencing your perception of it? If you think it’s going to be horribly difficult, it probably will be more difficult than you think. But if you actually have the conversation, you might find that it’s going to be much easier.
And the fifth one she said is: Are you looking at the other person as an opponent? As an object?
Six: What are your needs and fears?
And seven: How have you contributed to your problem?
And I think those are really helpful to kind of give us the space to kind of clear ourselves out so, when we have these conversations, we can be our higher self, not our wounded, angry self.
And she says there are four steps to a successful outcome. And the majority of work in conflict conversations is about and has to do with yourself. No matter how well the conversation begins, you need to stay in charge of yourself, your purpose and your emotional energy. Breathe; stay centered; continually notice when you feel off-centered. Choose to return again and again. And this is where your power lies: by choosing the calm, centered state will help you to be more centered and to have a greater outcome.
She says centering is not a step in this process; centering is this process.
So she has four steps.
The first one: INQUIRY. Cultivate an attitude of discover and curiosity Pretend you don’t have anything to defend. Try to learn as much as possible. And she says: Pretend the other person is a visitor from another planet. And your job is to get to know as much about them as possible. Let your partner talk until he or she is finished; don’t interrupt except to acknowledge what you hear. Don’t take it personally. And it’s not really about you.
The second one is: ACKNOWLEDGE. Acknowledgment means to show them that they’ve been heard or understood. To try to understand the other person as deeply as you can. Try to give feedback about what you hear; what you see; what you feel. There are no guarantees, but the more you can acknowledge them, the more it calls them out.
Three: ADVOCACY. When you sense them being an opponent … when your partner has expressed their energy on the topic, it’s your turn. And then you can share your deepest wants and needs.
And four: PROBLEM SOLVING. Now you begin to get to the solution. Brainstorm. Continually ask questions. And make sure that your wants, needs and desires are part of this discussion.
The other interesting thing I think about this is — and Grant talks about it in the book — is the idea to look at conflict: Is it a vision problem? Or is it a personal problem? And that sometimes, especially in working with people that you know and you respect, you can literally have two different visions that are creating a conflict. If you think you’re going to go this way, and they think you’re going to go this way, it creates a very different conversation.
And one of the things he suggested is: if you can get to agreement about where you’re going, everything is easier. Like, if you and I are going to go on a trip, and you think we’re going to LA, and I think we’re going to New York, we’re going to have some arguments. [Congregation laughs] Right? [Laughs] Right? But if you can agree on where you’re going, it makes everything easier.
But if the argument — if the conflict — reduces down to a discussion of each other’s personalities … If it becomes personal, then oftentimes we’re lost. If we can keep the conversation focused on your vision — what you want: your greatest needs and desires and wants — everything gets easier.
So you ready for your homework? “Yay, Richard! Please, can I have homework this week!” [Congregation laughs]
Alright. First thing I want: I want you to just listen to your heart. And I want you to ask yourself: Is there a conversation that I have been avoiding? With friends, family, work, wherever … Is there a conversation that I’ve been avoiding? Is there a part of me that I am pulling back off the table because I don’t want to have this conversation.
And I want you to see, over and over again, that many of us have a real high tolerance to not allowing ourselves to be fully expressed. Right? We’re willing to have partial expression. Or somewhat expression. But we’re not really willing to let ourselves be fully seen. And to be fully seen, oftentimes we have to be willing to talk about that. [Laughs] Yes! We have to be willing to share it with others!
So is there a place where you’ve settled for only revealing a portion of who you are? “Well, yes, Richard; in all my conversations! I don’t reveal all of who I am; they only get a portion.”
But what if, in the world today, there’s a need in this spiritual awakening that’s happening for more of you to be brought to the table? And what if that “more of you” only really happens through words?
Like, it would be so great if everyone was psychically in tune with you and they knew exactly what you wanted and needed before you did. Right? And that, not only were they psychically in tune with you, but they loved you so much that they were going to give you what you wanted and needed before you realized that you wanted and needed it. Wouldn’t that be fabulous? But it’s just not the way the world works, it seems to me. The way the world seems to work is that you have to ask for it!
Over 30 times Jesus said, “Ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask, ask.” That if we want to live in a bigger, greater, more abundant, more loving, more joyous world, we have to ask for it. And no one can keep that from us. But we have to practice saying it out loud. We have to practice speaking our desires, our needs, our wants in a bigger way. And allowing the world to hear us.
Because there’s something fabulous about hearing yourself say something that you didn’t even know you wanted. Have you ever had that experience? Where you hear yourself saying, “I really do want that. I just never let myself become conscious that I want it.” Or, “I never really believed it was possible to want it, so I never spoke about it.”
Tonight we’re going to create an opening: a bigger opening. An opening for a possibility for your life that maybe is bigger than you’ve ever known before. Where there’s room for you to be your most amazing self. And no matter how many times you tried to hush yourself — “Don’t say it; don’t want it; don’t ask for it; don’t rock the boat” — tonight I want to ask you to rock the boat. Not in a place of anger, but in a place of acknowledging that your soul came for a bigger life. That your soul came for more. And in you asking for it, is your acknowledgement to the Universe that you’re ready for it.
“I’m ready for a bigger life.”
Will you say that with me? [With congregation]: “I’m ready for a bigger life.”
One more time: [with congregation] “I’m ready for a bigger life.”
And see if there’s any place in you that kind of gets caught with that one. Right? That kind of says, “Shhhhhhh! Don’t say it out loud!” Right? “Let’s just be quiet. It’s okay to want it; it’s not okay to ask for it.”
But what if it is?
“I’m ready for a bigger life.”
Will you say that with me again? [With congregation]: “I’m ready for a bigger life.”
One more time: [with congregation] “I’m ready for a bigger life.”
Let’s bring our full voice into this: [with congregation] “I’m ready for a bigger life!”
Hear me, Spirit!
[With congregation]: “I’m ready for a bigger life!”
One more time, big voice: [with congregation] “I’m ready for a bigger life!”
Will you pray with me?
I invite you to open your mind, your heart, your soul to the activity of God. That today you’ve got to ask for it; you’ve got to speak up. You’ve got to claim who you are. You have to be your most amazing self. You have to be the man or woman God created you to be. It’s who you are. Really, truly; it’s who you are.
Let the words of my mouth express what I know myself to be. In the name and through the power of the Living Christ, we give thanks. And so it is. Amen.
Copyright 2022 Unity of Phoenix Spiritual Center/Rev. Richard Rogers