Michael Beckwith, Live

A friend invited me to an event in Sf where Michael Beckwith, the minister of Agape Church, and one of the people featured in the DVD, "The Secret", is speaking today. He is a truly inspiring speaker, who spouts great, memorable on-liners about every 30 seconds. He preaches spirituality, as opposed to religion, in the excitable, sliding cadences of the black church. He never mentions any religious dogma, and it takes a while before he even gets around to using the word, "God". It makes me think of Jesus, who was also preaching spirituality, not dogma. And I guess the 'good news' that you are a part of God is inspiring all by itself.

He talks about reincarnation as if it is a fact (which it pretty well is, if you read the works of Ian Stevenson, M.D.). He does some of his preaching with his eyes closed, and I do wonder if he was channeling some of what he said.

I had planned to Twitter from the session, but since I couldn't get onto the hotel's network, here are a few gems from this morning (though my poor notes don't really capture his talk very well):

• "The facts of matter are not the truth of spirit" - What you see is the congelaing of ideas, some of which are lies.
  
• "A lie is law, until it is neutralized" - We are taught to believe in scarcity, lack, limitation, poverty, war, etc. as if they are a fact of human existence. They are NOT. It is up to us to change out paradigm. There is plenty, there is enough.
  
• "We are taught to worship fear" - on the nightly news, set to music.
• "God speaks through inspiration, revelation, insight."
• "God can only count to one." [my personal favority]
  
• "Quantity is only in the mind of man, not of God."
• "There are no delays in the mind of God." [ Well, of course, if time isn't real, how can delays be? HP]
  
• "God is seeking to become more itself through each individual."
• "You WILL evolve; your only choice is to do it through pain or joy." [Like the affirmation gave me years ago: learn through awareness and joy. HP]
• "Everything is speaking itself into expression through you -- the Universe is saying, "Tag, you're it!"
  
• "I went to bed and fell awake." Followed by a great story of experiencing being God, as expressed through different individuals.

As a trainer, I got some great insights, too, about having people breathe together to increase their unity. He also has each half of the audience appreciate the other half with a standing ovation -- a concretization of "God don't make no trash", as a friend once said to me, or "You have value just because you exist", as my guides put it. Really wonderful! And that was just the morning!