Save Our Planet, Save Ourselves

News flash: Saving our Planet is our greatest spiritual journey. And to do so, we must awaken. The good news is the awakening process has begun in each of us! Join Rev Skip for a dharma talk to identify ways to save our planet so we can save humanity. Transformation is a choice, and you can choose today.

Transcript

You know what,

This month is a very special month.

Not only we are welcoming in this new time of summer and I'm feeling the heat and feeling really good,

But this is the month that we've been talking about healing the planet,

Healing ourselves.

We've been talking about how can we evolve as a global community and we're using an incredible book.

And I know I say this every month,

But this book is a book that really helped me to evolve.

You know,

A New Earth,

Eckhart Tolle invited us to look at when we're living from the ego versus living from the spirit.

There is a difference.

This is also the book that invited us to evolve as a global community.

Because it's not going to just take you by yourself,

It's going to take all of us.

And the first week we talked about the urgency of transformation and in this book Eckhart Tolle says that we're either going to evolve or we're going to die.

What I love about what we do on a Monday,

We get to come together with our dream team and we get to discuss what happened on a Sunday and how we can tell a better story.

And one thing that was brought into light that,

You know,

We've been talking about some really hard things.

Sometimes we got to get a little bit of spiritual smack so we can wake up,

So we can shake up.

So today you might squirm a little bit in your seat.

Good.

That means you're listening.

That means you're willing to take on the transformation.

It's a powerful truth,

Y'all.

Sometimes you got to be faced with the truth so we can wake up.

Eckhart Tolle says in this book,

An essential part of the awakening is the recognition of the unwakened you.

The ego as it thinks,

Speaks,

And acts.

As well as the recognition of the collective conditioning mental processes that perpetrates the unwakened state.

See,

Here's what we're doing.

We are perpetrating the unwakening state when we think it's okay to continue to use plastics.

When we think it's okay to continue to run the water when we should be shutting it off.

See,

We're perpetrating this unwakened state.

But I'm here to be your wake-up call.

Will you let me be your wake-up call today,

Y'all?

All right,

Let's do it.

Let's get down.

First wake-up call,

Number one.

Our greatest spiritual practice is the saving of this planet.

Because if we don't save this planet,

We're not going to have any place to live out our core values.

We're not going to have a place where to live out these things that we deem to be important to us.

See,

I want Lori and KJ's little girls have a place to bring up their kids and to experience equality.

But if we don't wake up and take care of this planet,

There will not be a place for us to be.

Wake-up call.

We are one organism.

So everything that is happening to us is happening to Mother Earth.

Everything that's happening to Mother Earth is happening to us.

But here's a big wake-up call.

Mother Earth does not need us to stay on this planet,

Y'all.

She can shake us off anytime.

She gets tired.

And we saw it happen,

A.

K.

A.

The pandemic.

Wake-up call,

Y'all.

We are interconnected.

There's only one of us here.

And that means beyond just us,

We are one with the trees,

With the ocean,

With the beaches,

With everything.

There's only one of us here.

This is our wake-up call.

We are not just living with nature.

We are nature itself.

And when we begin to see our true place in this world,

In this universe,

We will learn to take care of it.

See,

Here's what I do know.

The number one reason why we don't take care of Mother Earth the way we should is because we don't know.

We don't understand.

So I'm going to give you a couple of facts.

Did you know that 71% of the surface of the Earth is water?

Why are we taking care of our oceans?

Did you know the majority of life is aquatic?

We come from aquatic living.

The ocean holds 96% of the water on this planet.

And guess what?

70% of our oxygen comes from the ocean.

We need our oceans to breathe.

Why are we not taking care of our oceans?

Less than 5% of the ocean has been explored.

So there is so much that's going on.

We don't know what we're polluting.

We don't know what we're doing.

These are hard wake-up calls.

One thing I learned from watching an incredible documentary called Seaspiracy.

It just blew me away.

I saw it a couple of years ago and I re-watched it again.

Did you know that whales observe 32,

Excuse me,

33 tons of carbon?

That the stuff that we don't want in our bodies to get out,

It's absorbed by the whales.

Yeah,

We need to take care of our oceans.

The trees,

They give us oxygen as well.

We need to take care of our trees.

They reduce the amount of storm water that causes erosion and flooding.

And guess what we had this year?

And everyone's calling it the Great Fort Lauderdale Flood.

That's not the Great Fort Lauderdale Flood,

Y'all.

Y'all haven't seen it yet.

It's new to us,

But I gotta tell you,

There was moments where I was driving through the parking lot,

Coming in to make sure the flood wasn't coming into our center.

We were blessed.

But not so much everyone else in Florida was not as blessed as we are.

It's happening.

You know what the trees does?

The trees is our natural purification.

It purifies the pollution.

So we cut down the trees and we keep cutting down the trees,

This whole entire world will continue to be even more polluted.

And we look at the species and the birds and the mammals that live in the trees.

So if we say the oneness is who we are,

We're oneness with the animals.

We're oneness with the birds.

So are we cutting down their homes?

We have to understand that here in Florida,

We feel the heat all the time.

If we cut down the trees,

This heat out there will be 25% hotter.

Who wants more heat in Florida?

Raise your hand.

I don't see nobody raising their hands.

See,

We need the trees.

We need them.

And what do we do when a tree starts messing with our home?

What do we do?

We cut it down.

When we think we need more paper,

What do we do?

We go to the Amazon.

We cut it down.

Our convenience is killing us.

But we can make a difference.

So I'm not here to debate climate change.

I'm here to tell you some facts.

Here's a wake-up call.

Global temperatures are rising.

Ocean temperatures are rising.

Ice caps are lowering down.

Water levels are rising.

The extreme events of nature is happening,

Y'all.

It's in front of us.

So we need to make a shift.

And the great thing is we have the power to make a change.

We have the power to make a change.

I want to give you five principles,

Ways that we can shift right away.

And listen,

Here's what I truly believe.

When we rise up in our own consciousness and we begin to live differently,

People will get the message,

Not by what we say,

But how we live.

So I'm going to invite you all to listen to different ways we can live with a more conscious awakening to our Mother Earth.

So number one,

I believe consciousness creates form.

And that is CSL,

That is Science of Mind 101.

Consciousness creates a form.

So we want to change this planet.

We have to begin in our spiritual practices of prayer,

Meditation,

Affirmations,

Visioning,

Study.

We have to approach this from a spiritual place,

From love.

We get to wake up in the morning.

We get to pray for Mother Earth.

We get to pray for the people on Mother Earth.

We get to pray for this awakening of our oneness coming together as a global community.

We get to meditate.

I believe it is our spiritual principles that will change this planet.

So I found this incredible prayer by our indigenous brothers and sisters.

It's called Wisdom to Care for the Earth.

And this is a prayer.

So you can keep your eyes open.

You can close and listen to this prayer.

Lord,

Grant us the wisdom to care for the earth and till it.

Help us to act now from the good of fortune of generations and all your creatures.

Help us to become instruments of a new creation founded on the covenant of your love.

See,

The shift is going to happen from a place of love.

What I love about this idea,

And one of my heroes is George Washington Carver.

And George Washington Carver said that if you love something,

It will tell you its secrets.

See,

George Washington Carver loved this earth.

He loved getting into the fields,

And he loved farming,

And he loved tilling the field,

Meaning taking care of it and planting seeds and watching it grow in prosperity.

George Washington Carver gave us many,

Many,

Over 800 ways we can use peanuts and the yam.

George Washington Carver was the greatest adventure that we have.

And some of the things you have in your house right now,

You need to be teaching.

You need to be thanking Brother George Washington Carver.

So from that place of love,

Are you loving the planet?

Are you loving the place that we live?

Are you praying for this healing of the oceans,

Of the fishes,

Of the dolphins?

Are you praying?

Are you meditating?

Number two,

In yoga we teach Sanskrit.

In Sanskrit,

There is a word that we say,

Ahimsa.

Ahimsa means to do no harm.

And when we're in yoga,

We talk about we don't harm our body,

We heal our body.

We don't harm anyone else.

We don't harm ourselves.

But are we using the principle of ahimsa to Mother Earth?

We have to ask that question,

What I am doing isn't harming the Earth.

Like,

Go back and get your bags.

You know you have them in your trunk when you go to Publix.

Go back and get your bags.

It is not okay for us to continue to perpetrate this idea it's okay to use plastics.

It's just not.

One of my dreams is that one day it's not easy and it's not convenient.

We stop using plastics in this place.

See,

When we choose to live a conscious life,

It's not the easy way,

But it's the fulfilling way.

Are we using way too much water?

Can we turn the water off?

Can we wash dishes in a more mindful way?

Ahimsa,

Am I harming the planet?

You know,

One of the things that I'm not here to tell you to eat more plant-based food,

But I'm here to say plant-based is dope.

It is so dope.

So are we farming animals in a way that's harming the planet?

On your wake-up call today,

You said yes,

So let's wake up together.

Number three,

We must look to the future,

Y'all.

We must look to the future,

Seven generations ahead.

On our wall,

There's a manifesto that says what I say,

What I do matters to the generations,

The next generations,

The next generations,

Seven generations.

What we do right now is going to matter.

We get to look to the future.

We get to look to the future.

Number four,

You got to study Mother Earth.

You got to get into nature.

You got to read about it.

You got to study it.

See,

It's easier for us to watch Queen Charlotte than it is conspiracy.

Queen Charlotte,

Listen,

I love me some Queen Charlotte.

I'm getting down with some Bridgerton,

Yo.

But sometimes we got to look at these documentaries that we don't want to watch because this is hard stuff.

It's easy to check out than to do what's right.

We're here to wake up and evolve.

So here's the hard stuff.

It is time for us to make a change.

When we study nature,

We understand that it is getting into nature.

A lot of us have been stuck in the house way too long.

Get out to the beach this week.

Go on a long hike this week.

Do a meditation in nature this week.

Listen to the birds.

See,

Here's the story.

This is what Eckhart Tolle says in this book.

He says,

Nature can bring you to stillness,

And that it's gift to you.

So if you take time in nature,

It will bring you to a place of,

Oh,

My God.

This is why I'm alive.

Get into nature.

Know nature.

Meditate.

Here's the last principle.

We must learn to embody.

Not just think about our core value of oneness.

What does it mean to embody oneness?

And JC has that great shirt on,

That oneness shirt.

I love it.

You might not get out of here alive with that shirt.

Just kidding.

But I love that shirt.

It reminds me that oneness is where we are here to live.

And we can live in oneness,

And we can really embody what it means to be in a place of oneness.

We will ship this planet.

We will grow.

We will find a place that gives us meaning and purpose.

So the embodiment of oneness means this.

I am not my brother's keeper.

I am not my sister's keeper.

I am my brother.

I am my sister.

There's only one of us here.

Let's ship that.

I am Mother Earth.

Mother Earth is me.

I am the animals.

I am the birds.

I am the trees.

I am everything,

And everything is me.

That is what the embodiment,

You got to know it.

Then when you go out to live it,

Your life will change,

And you will invite other people to change as well.

This is our wake-up call,

Y'all.

I truly believe that we must get out of here what we get on a Sunday and go and live it out into the world.

This is our calling.

This is our month of healing,

Mother Earth.

This is why we're here.

Are you with me,

CSL?

Then my job is done,

And so it is.

Reviews

Thank you!

Thank you! We are One! Save Mother Earth! Thank you beautiful Soul! Please listen to this message! I have been praying hard for years, asking what I can do to help Save our planet! share this with everyone you know!

Preach! I listen to a lot of different people, but you are the first pastor I’ve heard bring this message to church! It IS a spiritual responsibility to care for the planet. Thank you and bravo!!!

Thank you for powerful teaching. Sending love and gratitude! ♥️🙏

Thank you so much for all the good you bring into this world. Bringing light into darkness in order to help Mother Earth 🌺