Click HERE to view Rev. Stacy Macris Ros’ guided meditation during the service.
LYRICS TO ‘WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS’:
I look at you all, see the love there that’s sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don’t know why nobody told you
How to unfold your love
I don’t know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you
I look at the world and I notice it’s turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
Well… I don’t know how you were diverted
You were perverted too
I don’t know how you were inverted
No one alerted you
I look at you all, see the love there that’s sleeping
I look from the wings at the play you are staging.
While my guitar gently weeps
Look at you all
As I’m sitting here doing nothing but aging
Still my guitar gently weeps …
MESSAGE:
So if you could start your life over again, how many people absolutely know you could do more, be more, achieve more, and have an even better life than you have at this moment? How many people would agree with that? How many people believe that whatever age or stage you are in your life that there is still potential for greater love, peace, happiness, and success? How many people know that? And how many people have ever had a moment or two, or knew somebody who felt like they just weren’t living up to their potential? Anybody ever have that experience?
You know, with all the amazing gifts that we’ve been given, the power of our mind and our thoughts, the power of our intention, our attitudes, our vision, our imagination, our creativity, our effort, our determination, our faith, our persistence, our prayer, and the power of love, human beings have a pretty unlimited potential of possibilities of goodness that we could do in this world.
It’s interesting; I read an article. And it’s entitled, “Why You Should Stop Living Up to Your Potential.” [Congregants laugh] It was by Gabriel Gonsalves, and he said that when we get posed that question – “Are you living up to your potential?” – a lot of people feel anxiety and create self-judgment about, “Maybe I’m not doing enough. Maybe I’m not achieving enough.”
And he said that the meaning of living up to your potential has fallen into what he calls “a culture of achievement.” That we don’t consider living up our potential unless we’ve gained a certain level of status, a certain level of success, a certain level of financial wealth. And when we’ve achieved it, we think, “Well, I’ve fulfilled my potential.” And If we haven’t, we feel, “I have not fulfilled my potential.”
But our potential — and fulfilling it — is much deeper and much more meaningful than just those measures. It is about living authentically. It is about following our inner calling. You know, having our lives have a feeling of meaning and purpose. It’s about trying and putting our whole heart and soul into what we do, regardless of what the outcome might be. And it’s about being true to who we are.
So I ask you the question: Are you living up to your potential?
So, we are in Week #4 of our five-week series on the “Songs of Life,” where I take a famous song and extract from it a spiritual message: a life lesson and teaching to help us on our spiritual path. And we are looking at the 1968 song that was on the White Album of the Beatles — but it was written by George Harrison: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
It was actually inspired when he read the Chinese book “I Ching,” which is the Book of Changes, that has a message that everything is meant to be. That everything is connected. Everything has a reason and a purpose. George Harrison said, “’While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ was just a simple study: an experiment based on the theory that everything has a purpose for being there at that given time. I was thinking that anything I see when I open the book, I am going to write a song about. So I opened this book, and I saw the words, ‘gently weeps.’ I shut the book, and then I started the tune.”
And he saw two things. The first one – that related to making him feel “gently weeping” – is that he looked at the disharmony in the world. He looked at how much conflict and hatred; how much injustice and violence there is in this world … and how sad that made him feel. Because we have so much potential for so much good, and so many incredible possibilities for everyone.
And then the second thing he looked at was the disharmony and the lack of camaraderie in the Beatles, and how kind of sad that was for him to feel that lack of connection and support. The disconnection was so strong, the rest of the band was pretty apathetic about playing George’s song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” So, he called in a friend of his, Eric Clapton, to contribute to the recording. And Clapton overdubbed one of the other guitar leads. And he actually never got proper credit for it. He did it for George; he was his friend.
The words “gently weeps” really trigger a sense of sadness and dismay and even disappointment for the unrealized potential for universal love. You know, for all of us working together in peace and harmony to create even better lives for each other and for our world. This song expresses a sadness of a world that forgets love. You know, and the longing of the soul that remembers.
George’s disappointment and deep emotions about this are expressed through the guitar: the sadness, and that the guitar gently weeps, crying and yearning for us to wake up to love. This song seems like a sad song. But I would say, if you look a little deeper, there’s a powerful spiritual message that it is a song of hope. It is a song of the potential awakening in all of us to love — and have compassion and acceptance and learning to be a better version of ourselves so we can contribute to a better world for everyone.
So, we’re going to look at three spiritual life lessons that are inspired by lines right in three of the verses of the song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
And the first one is from the first line:
I look at you all, see the love there that’s sleeping
And he’s saying he looks at the world and all the people in it and realize that love is sleeping. Love — the very thing we want and need and seek; the very thing in which we are made in the image and likeness of; the very purpose that we’re here; and the commandment that we are told to follow … that love in us is sleeping. It doesn’t say that it’s not there. It’s just saying that it is dormant; that it is sleeping. That, instead of treating people with love and compassion and acceptance, that we choose to sometimes treat people with coldness, contempt and even cruelty.
I mean, we sometimes say and do things to people that mean. We will sometimes do and say things to people that seems like they just don’t really matter. You know, this is a magnificent, beautiful world with the potential to enjoy and share and create even greater things than we’re enjoying. And yet, we are sleeping to love. We are letting the love that is in us lay dormant: unshared, or at least not as fully shared as we could be sharing it.
Again, the greatest commandment is to love God and love others as we love ourselves. Jesus said, “Love one another.”
So, with all that potential for love, when you look at the state of our country and our world, what do you see? And where in your life is love sleeping? Where in your life is love dormant and closed towards someone? And it could be an ex-spouse or partner; it could be a family member; it could be your boss; it could be a politician. I mean, whoever it may be: Where is the love in your heart sleeping?
“The guitar weeps” is really saying that our hearts are saddened. You know, our hearts are grieving and disappointed. So where is your heart being called to be opened? And where is your heart being called to heal?
Could you imagine if we all awoke to the potential of love within us? Could you imagine if we all had a realization of awakening to the spiritual power in us — to the connection and the unlimited possibilities — how good life could be? I mean, we have so much potential of great possibilities, and yet we choose to live in fear. We choose to live in conflict. We choose to live in division and separation.
And it’s sad, because again: the love is there! We’re just choosing not to use it. Choosing not to share it. It’s like we forget love! It’s like we don’t remember that that love is in us.
In the Book of James, Chapter 1, Verse 23-24, it says, “A person who merely listens to God’s Word, but does not act on it is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror and, upon walking away, forgets what he looks like.”
And he’s singing of a song of a collective forgetfulness of humanity of the love that is within us. We forget that we’re children of God. We forget that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. We forget we are all the temple of the living God. We forget that we are all the light of the world. We forget when Jesus said, “You shall do the things that I’ve done and even greater things than these.” And he is saying you have an amazing potential in you: spiritual power and genius and greatness, and especially the potential for divine love.
When we remember this, we’ll connect with these words and this awareness: that “All that God is, I am. All that God is, I am.”
That is the absolute truth when we remember it.
“All that God is, I am.”
Together: [with congregants] “All that God is I am.” Take a deep breath into that truth.
“God is love and I am love.”
Together: [with congregants] “God is love and I am love.” Take a deep breath into that.
“God is peace and I am peace.”
Together: [with congregants] “God is peace and I am peace.”
“God is joy and I am joy.”
Together: [with congregants] “God is joy and I am joy.” Deep breath.
And finally: “All that God is, I am.”
Together: [with congregants] “All that God is, I am.”
Another important way for us to awaken the love that is sleeping in us is just found in the first two words of The Lord’s Prayer. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the first two words of The Lord’s Prayer make up a complete system of theology. Because to say “Our Father” is of the mindset and the awareness that we are connected to God, the Source: the source from which all good is provided and moves through us. And we are connected to each other: that we awaken to the love when we awaken to the awareness of our connection with the oneness with the Source.
And this prayer, as Jesus said, is how you should pray: in the consciousness of oneness and our connection with each other. And it was not about the exact words; that it was actually about the consciousness in which you pray.
The Lord’s Prayer was not intended to be the prayer to end all prayers. It was actually intended to be the prayer to begin all prayers: that we should begin our prayer in a conscious awareness of our oneness with God, with the Source.
When my sister was raising her little boy, she would teach him The Lord’s Prayer, and they would do it every night. And then my little nephew, Joshua, once said, “Why do we have to say this every night? Can’t God remember this stuff?” [Congregants laugh]
And he brings up a very good point, which is: that this prayer of The Lord’s Prayer is a unifying prayer to help us remember. It’s to help us unify with the presence of God. It’s to help us realign with the peace and the love of God that it is always there. The prayers are to change us, awaken us, and open us to the truth that is always there — to the lover that’s always there.
So, this song is really inviting us to WAKE UP TO THE LOVE THAT IS SLEEPING BY UNIFYING OUR MINDS WITH THE MIND OF GOD. unifying our minds with the mind of God. It is saying to awaken from the love that is sleeping by remembering that we are one with God, which is that we are one with love. Love does not have to be sleeping in us; that we are here to awaken to it and to share it.
The second line I love is:
I don’t know why nobody told you
How to unfold your love
Nobody told you how to unfold your love. I’ll give you two ways to unfold your love. And you know what the best starting place is? Kindness. And the second powerful way is compassion. Compassion and kindness are the ways to unfold your love.
But sometimes we’re not always kind. And sometimes we’re not always compassionate. You know, there are a couple of reasons that we’re not always kind and compassionate. Sometimes we are so steeped and self-absorbed in our own fear and worry and pain and anxiety and difficulties that we can’t see beyond ourselves.
You know, in the lines it says:
I don’t know why you were diverted
You were perverted too
I don’t know why you were inverted
No one alerted you
I’m not sure what the alerted, perverted, diverted things has to do with anything, but what I do believe it’s saying is that since we’re so self-absorbed, it diverts us from the truth of knowing that we’re one. We think we’re separated, we’re isolated, we’re alone, and we don’t think of any others. And I think that’s one of the reasons we’re not always kind and compassionate; because we’re too absorbed in ourselves.
And then the second one, which was amazing … I saw this in an article. It said the reason that kids aren’t kind is because they’re not taught to be kind. And so, one of our responsibilities is to teach our kids to be kind; to teach our kids to be compassionate. Because, in teaching them to be kind, we remember to be kind. And we remember to be compassionate.
The Book of Ephesians, Chapter 4, Verse 32, says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another.” Compassion is a feeling of concern and care for others, whether you know them or not. It’s for the desire for the well-being of everyone. It’s a desire to help ease the suffering of any and everyone, and to also just help them to succeed in life. Compassion is about laying our concerns aside for a moment to allow our love and our attention and our care to be reached out and moved towards someone else.
The Dalai Lama said, “If your mind is troubled, change your attitude by cultivating a compassionate mindset, remembering that all people have the right and the desire to find happiness and avoid suffering.” He says when you come from that mindset, and live from that mindset, that is true compassion. To know that everyone’s struggling. Everyone is hurting. Everyone is on that path. Everyone wants to be happy. And to be able to lift up our eyes from our own lives and conditions and to reach out and care to someone is a powerful way to live.
The Dalai Lama actually says that the key to happiness is compassion — that when you have compassion in your heart, that you will be happy. In fact, he goes even further than that. He says compassionate people are happier, calmer, healthier, and they create a pleasant atmosphere in their families and community. Compassion is a powerful way to unfold your love.
And then kindness reminds me of a story of a young girl: a 4-year-old girl whose next-door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had just lost his wife. Upon seeing the man crying, the little girl went across into his yard, climbed up onto his lap and sat there. When the mother asked later what she had said to the neighbor, the little girl said, “Nothing. I just helped him cry.”
Isn’t it touching when you hear kindness? Your heart lightens. It elevates your mood just hearing about kindness. And isn’t it nice when someone’s kind to us? Even if it’s opening a door. Even if it’s letting us in in rush hour traffic or complimenting us on our new outfit.
So, I’ve got this friend who gives me cards for everything: Christmas cards, birthday cards, Easter cards. She goes even further. I get a Fourth of July card … [congregants laugh] A St. Patrick’s card. I’m not even Irish! She gives me a St. Patrick’s card! Last week, she gave me a Halloween card, and she wrote a note on it, and it said being my friend is not a trick; It’s a treat. [Congregants laugh] Is that not cool? I mean, how do you not feel a sense of joy with just a simple act of kindness?
You know, kindness, they say, has all kinds of blessings and benefits in doing it. That it actually elevates our moods, because it releases serotonin. Serotonin in the that gives, serotonin in the one who receives the kindness, and serotonin even in the one who even observes – even observes seeing someone kind, actually elevates our energies. Improves mental health; it reduces our stress, our blood pressure; it strengthens social bonds. When you’re kind to someone, it kind of drops the walls, and you feel a little closer and more connected. And even stronger, kindness in relationships can bring more love and more intimacy. Kindness in the workplace can create a wonderful environment that is joyful to work in. They say that kindness helps you live longer.
And kindness is contagious and it has a ripple effect. You know, they’ve done studies to say: if you spent some money on someone else instead of yourself, that it actually makes you feel good. Whether it’s buying someone a cup of coffee or buying someone some flowers. Last week, I was eating at the Taste of Thai across the street and a couple of congregants, Max and Naz, they came by and they said hi. And then they left, and then I asked for my check, and they said, “No, that gentleman paid for it for you.” I was so touched and moved. I was just happy to meet them and greet them! And there is something about kindness; it really elevates our spirits.
In the Bible, it says, “Kindness is a fruit of the spirit.” And in Corinthians, it says, “Love is patient and love is kind.” IF WE WANT TO UNFOLD OUR LOVE, THE BEST PLACE TO START IS WITH KINDNESS AND COMPASSION. That’ll wake up the love that’s been sleeping.
Okay, and the final one is the line:
With every mistake we must surely be learning
You know, the word “sin” means — it’s an archery term which means to miss the mark. Sometimes we just miss the mark. And the word “repent” means to rethink. So, if you miss the mark, you get to repent, rethink, and make another choice and a better choice.
And life has this amazing way of giving us feedback on the energy that we’re putting out there. And if we don’t like the energy that’s coming back, we have the opportunity to repent, rethink; to change, to adjust; to make a new action; have a new perspective, a new mindset, a new direction. Or infuse some new energy into a situation so we can learn and transform to something greater and better.
Gandhi said IF LIFE ISN’T GOING THE WAY YOU WANT, THEN BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD. You think there isn’t enough love? Be the love. You think there’s not joy? Be the joy. You think there’s not enough gratitude? Be the gratitude. Think there’s not enough generosity? Be generous. You think there are not enough smiles? Be the smiling one. If there’s not enough laughter, be someone who tells some really good jokes. [Congregants laugh]
Which reminds me … [congregants laugh] … of this painter who would thin his paint so it would go further and he’d make more money. And so, when the church decided to take care of some deferred maintenance, this guy sent in the lowest bid and he got the job. And, as always, he thinned the paint down with turpentine. And one day, he was on scaffolding. He was very close to being completely done and he heard a thunderous clap. And then the sky opened and rain came down. So much came down It washed off all the thin paint from the church, and it knocked him down. And he landed on the lawn among the gravestones with puddles with thin and worthless paint.
And he knew this was a sign from God! So, he got on his knees and prayed, “Oh, God! Forgive me! What should I do?”
The thunder struck again and a big voice said, “Repaint! Repaint and thin no more!” [Congregants laugh]
Life is about learning. And a question we all need to ask ourselves is: What is love trying to teach you right now? In a relationship where you might be struggling and things aren’t as harmonious, what is love trying to teach you and how to show up in that relationship? Is it trying to teach you to hold on? Is it trying to teach you to let go? Is it trying to teach you to give it to God and trust? Is it trying to teach you to speak up? Is it trying to teach you to stand firm and set a clear and strong boundary? Is it trying to teach you to be honest with that person you know you need to be honest with … and especially when that person is yourself?
You know, this song is about the sadness of the world that forgets love. And it is also about the potential of awakening to the love in us through expressing kindness and passion, and learning what love is trying to teach us. And love is trying to awaken us! Love is trying to teach us how to love one another! The question is: Are we willing to learn?
And that is truly the message from the song, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
God bless you all.