From Scared To Sacred

By Beki Howlett

First, I want to acknowledge that Rev. Steffany Barton was originally slated to speak today. As we were figuring out what to do at the news of her passing, Cindy asked me, “Becky do you want to speak?”

And although I was scared I said yes. Because it felt like I was being called. So this is me answering the call. Thank you Rev. Stephanie for this gentle nudge forward. I hope she will be with me and I can channel even a modicum of her wisdom and grace today. 

Now before we begin, I’d like to do a quick experiment. On your screen is a Rorschach or ink blot test. Let’s take just a couple moments and shout out what you see. Keep in mind, there are no right or wrong answers!

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Perception is reality?” Isn’t that interesting that we all see, we all experience, we all perceive the exact same picture differently. Personally, I see a bat’s face—some people are very afraid of bats, whereas I find them very sweet and endearing.

So today I really want to focus on the power of our thoughts, the power of our perspective—to create our own reality. I want to start out by telling a story. By way of background, I started going to Unity in late 2019. I actually sang in the Christmas program that year. Then the pandemic hit. And I was actually married at the time (long story) and many of you know, the pandemic was “make or break” for many relationships. And mine finally broke. During that time, I moved to Kansas City. So I stopped coming to Unity.

Fast forward, a couple years later, after my divorce and a couple other romantic relationships that weren’t serving my highest and best self, I moved back to Lawrence. This move happened very suddenly–there was turmoil in my romantic relationship of the time—surprise, surprise. So I moved back on a Friday and on Sunday came to Unity.

It just so happened (haha) that a new member class was starting that day. Coincidence? I think not. I don’t believe in coincidences.

And before I go further, I want to share some background about how I found myself back in Lawrence this time around. Admittedly, I had been bouncing around–I lived in KC, Omaha, back to Lawrence, back to KC. I had just paid off my car—I had a 2018 Subaru Forester—the ultimate queer lady car, very on brand. I was coming home from a performance of Sister Act at Starlight Theatre and someone ran a red light in front of me. So to avoid t-boning this SUV Chevy Suburban, I had to swerve off the road. SCREAM!

Well in doing so, my car was totalled. The other driver did not stop, but others did to make sure I was OK. [As an aside, I most assuredly had guardian angels with me because despite hitting a curb this high, I perfectly drove between several polls and came to rest in some brambles. My airbags didn’t even deploy. I was unharmed.]

Well as I said, I had just paid off the car only a few months before. I easily could have been very distraught by this life development. Indeed, I initially prayed—please Universe, don’t let it be totalled! Please let insurance fix it…got the call after a few weeks—it’s totalled.

Now typically, cars depreciate in value. The longer you drive them, the less valuable they become. Well as it turned out, the car market was out of control at that time. So when I got the insurance check back, it was–I kid you not—only $500 less than I’d paid for the car, new.

Ultimately, that infusion of money gave me the funds I needed to get out of my then unhealthy living situation when I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford it. My car getting totaled, was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

So in that new member class on my first Sunday back at Unity, several things happened. First, I met some of my dearest and closest friends. People whose presence has uplifted my life in countless ways and have helped me get through some pretty dark nights of the soul and celebrate some of the brightest moments as well.

Many of us in that new member class were there because of discontent or challenges in our own lives. Some of us were in dark places. And someone had shared, “I need a miracle!”

And when they said it, it was almost as if they were focused externally—like I need some external force, some power outside myself—GOD—to come to their aid. 

So that really got me thinking about what is a miracle. And I’m a word nerd so of course I consulted my favorite book–the dictionary!

So not long after this class I was driving in my “new” car—I was rolling in my 20-year-old car that I drove in high school—which, trust me, I was soooo grateful for. And I heard a program on KKFI, community “Radio for the People” and the guest said, “A miracle is a change in perspective.”

I swear, I almost wrecked that car! OMG! It’s a miracle! “A miracle is a change in perspective.” And I immediately thought of that new member class and the person saying, “I need a miracle.” 

And it was this moment of clarity—I thought of the Principle 3, that “We are co-creators with God.” We don’t need some external force, some outside power to “grant” us a miracle. We can create the miracle in our own lives, by shifting our perspectives, by changing how we are viewing our present circumstances. 

And isn’t that amazing, that a tiny shift, one small change can completely change the meaning. Just like our talk title, it’s all the same letters—we haven’t added anything new. But if we make a subtle shift—just one tiny change, suddenly those letters, those words, those circumstances, take on a whole new meaning.

And if you want to start making MAJOR changes, significant shifts in your life–start flipping words completely. For example, STRESSED backwards turns into DESSERTS.

“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the world in letters too large for some of us to see.” - C.S. Lewis

To me, this offers a critical lesson for our lives as co-creators with God. We have everything we need right here, right now. Instead of being in a state of fear, being SCARED, of the present moment, of the unknown, we have the power to shift ourselves into a different experience of the same reality.

Rumi tells us, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.”

If those of us in the new member class hadn’t been experiencing hardships in our lives, would we have found our way here? To our spiritual home. And I realize this is a potentially controversial “hot take”--that those challenges, those hardships in your life, those are the very times that can afford us the most significant moments of growth. But it’s a choice.

From Chapter 3 of The Five Principles, Ellen Debenport shares, “Consider that there is a gift in it for you, some soul lesson or deeper understanding you could not have had otherwise…What I find empowering about this idea is that it moves me from victim to creator. It shifts the question, ‘Why did this happen to me?’ to ‘Why did this happen for me? Where is the gift?”

We have the opportunity to take whatever circumstances life has given us and look for the blessings. We can choose to be thankful, to be in a state of gratitude for whatever life is throwing our way at the moment. We have the power to transform our suffering, our state of fear—being scared—into a sacred gift that we share with others.

I hope that no matter what circumstances you may be presently experiencing in your life, that you make the conscious choice to look for the good in those inevitable moments of fear, to acknowledge the blessings that have flowed to your life because of those challenges. And I hope you’ll remember that you don’t need things to be different, to be happy—all it takes is a tiny shift in how we look at things and everything is transformed. Thank you.

All Rights Reserved. This speech was originally written for and delivered live by Beki Howlett on Aug. 18, 2024 at Unity of Lawrence.