Local pastor's book gives directions for interpreting your life
Human beings are evolving, not just physically, but spiritually. Our spiritual evolution, the Rev. Carole Lunde believes, is the result of our own choices.
“I believe that our Creator/Sustainer intended our spiritual growth and development, and that we direct our own spiritual evolution,” she says in her recent book, “The Divine Design: How to Spiritually Interpret Your Life” (iUniverse, $15.95).
Lunde, the pastor of Lincoln’s Christ Unity Church, said she was inspired to write the book after meeting a woman at a kibbutz in Israel who asked her to describe the “oral tradition” of the Unity movement.
“I told her that our oral tradition was to speak spiritual truth into our own lives and to metaphysically interpret the events and experiences of our lives in spiritual terms.” The book, which was published last fall, is a guide and workbook to help people do that.
“This book is about living now, in a larger world than we now see,” she writes.
“It is about being involved in a celestial tapestry of our own choosing and yet of God.”
For practitioners of Unity, God is not an anthropomorphic being who metes out rewards and punishments, but “a spiritual principle that is always working through us, and we use it to create our own lives,” Lunde said in an interview.
“God is universal intelligence. God is all wisdom,” she said. “When we make a decision, we open ourselves to the wisdom of God which comes through us, and when we make a choice, it’s aligned with that wisdom.”
In the book, she asks readers to write or tell their own life story, then expand it into a “cosmic story” that explains how the universe came into existence and how each person has a place in the “divine design.”
She reviews 12 “spiritual threads,” which she links to each of Jesus’ disciples, that may be used to “weave a tapestry” of an individual’s life. They include such qualities as wisdom, strength, love, imagination and will.
Lunde said she’s not talking about willpower, but willingness to allow good things, such as healing and wholeness, to happen in our lives.
God has promised us that “what you choose, you will get,” Lunde said, noting such quotes from Jesus as “Seek and ye shall find,” and “Knock and it shall be opened unto you.”
But when people have negative thoughts or low expectations for themselves and others, that’s what they find, she said. “If we choose something that is not for our highest good, we learn from that and we stop,” she said.
Spiritual interpretation, she said, means looking at the Bible or any other source of truth from the viewpoint of divine wisdom. “Spiritual interpretation is finding the presence of the Creator and your connecting to it, your spirituality,” she writes. “I believe God is ‘in here’ within us as us. We are not all of what God is, but God is all of what we are. We are separated from God only when we believe we are, but we can never be separated from God in spirituality.”
In the last half of the book, Lunde offers a number of different exercises for gaining a spiritual perspective. They include such things as role-playing, keeping a journal and praying with affirmations that focus on positive goals and outcomes.
For example, when praying about money, rather than focusing on not having enough, she says to focus on abundance. “Realize that God is the source of your supply, infinite and ready to respond to your thinking,” Lunde said. “If you don’t have a dime in your wallet, you start counting the blades of grass, you get your mind into that attitude of seeing abundance everywhere.”
When praying about health, she said, don’t focus on illness but visualize yourself in perfect health. If you feel pressed for time or stressed out, in your prayer say, “God gives me all the time I need.”
Such affirmations can help people overcome addictions, depression and self-defeating thoughts of all kinds, Lunde believes.
Many of the exercises in the book came out of a class she taught in a church in California. The personal and cosmic stories, and questions students raised, are included to help readers better understand the material.
The book also gets into the topic of heaven, which Lunde doesn’t envision as a place of harps and pearly gates, but a life here and now, lived in tune with “our own Christ nature.”
“Heaven is the state of mind in which we can see our divinity in all facets of our living,” she writes. “Not just in the intellect, but in our experiences, our interactions and our daily labors.”
Everything in the book, she said, is in line with the teachings of Unity, a Christian movement that began in the late 1880s.
Lunde said her book can be used as a text for classes in spiritual growth or for individual study.
She has recently completed another book, “You Are in the Bible: Metaphysical Bible Interpretation for Your Life,” to be published soon by iUniverse. Its 51 chapters focus on specific topics in Scripture, such as courage, strength, health and prosperity.
Unity doesn’t advocate a strictly literal interpretation of Scripture, but an allegorical approach that seeks the spiritual meaning of every text, Lunde said.
She once met a fundamentalist Christian who said, “I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.” Lunde responded: “We do too — we just have a problem with the errancy of people reading it.”
Lunde also has another book in the works, titled “Stories from Martha’s House.” It’s a compilation of dramas based on biblical stories, bringing the Bible to life.
Reach Bob Reeves at 473-7212 or breeves@journalstar.com.
“I believe that our Creator/Sustainer intended our spiritual growth and development, and that we direct our own spiritual evolution,” she says in her recent book, “The Divine Design: How to Spiritually Interpret Your Life” (iUniverse, $15.95).
Lunde, the pastor of Lincoln’s Christ Unity Church, said she was inspired to write the book after meeting a woman at a kibbutz in Israel who asked her to describe the “oral tradition” of the Unity movement.
“I told her that our oral tradition was to speak spiritual truth into our own lives and to metaphysically interpret the events and experiences of our lives in spiritual terms.” The book, which was published last fall, is a guide and workbook to help people do that.
“This book is about living now, in a larger world than we now see,” she writes.
“It is about being involved in a celestial tapestry of our own choosing and yet of God.”
For practitioners of Unity, God is not an anthropomorphic being who metes out rewards and punishments, but “a spiritual principle that is always working through us, and we use it to create our own lives,” Lunde said in an interview.
“God is universal intelligence. God is all wisdom,” she said. “When we make a decision, we open ourselves to the wisdom of God which comes through us, and when we make a choice, it’s aligned with that wisdom.”
In the book, she asks readers to write or tell their own life story, then expand it into a “cosmic story” that explains how the universe came into existence and how each person has a place in the “divine design.”
She reviews 12 “spiritual threads,” which she links to each of Jesus’ disciples, that may be used to “weave a tapestry” of an individual’s life. They include such qualities as wisdom, strength, love, imagination and will.
Lunde said she’s not talking about willpower, but willingness to allow good things, such as healing and wholeness, to happen in our lives.
God has promised us that “what you choose, you will get,” Lunde said, noting such quotes from Jesus as “Seek and ye shall find,” and “Knock and it shall be opened unto you.”
But when people have negative thoughts or low expectations for themselves and others, that’s what they find, she said. “If we choose something that is not for our highest good, we learn from that and we stop,” she said.
Spiritual interpretation, she said, means looking at the Bible or any other source of truth from the viewpoint of divine wisdom. “Spiritual interpretation is finding the presence of the Creator and your connecting to it, your spirituality,” she writes. “I believe God is ‘in here’ within us as us. We are not all of what God is, but God is all of what we are. We are separated from God only when we believe we are, but we can never be separated from God in spirituality.”
In the last half of the book, Lunde offers a number of different exercises for gaining a spiritual perspective. They include such things as role-playing, keeping a journal and praying with affirmations that focus on positive goals and outcomes.
For example, when praying about money, rather than focusing on not having enough, she says to focus on abundance. “Realize that God is the source of your supply, infinite and ready to respond to your thinking,” Lunde said. “If you don’t have a dime in your wallet, you start counting the blades of grass, you get your mind into that attitude of seeing abundance everywhere.”
When praying about health, she said, don’t focus on illness but visualize yourself in perfect health. If you feel pressed for time or stressed out, in your prayer say, “God gives me all the time I need.”
Such affirmations can help people overcome addictions, depression and self-defeating thoughts of all kinds, Lunde believes.
Many of the exercises in the book came out of a class she taught in a church in California. The personal and cosmic stories, and questions students raised, are included to help readers better understand the material.
The book also gets into the topic of heaven, which Lunde doesn’t envision as a place of harps and pearly gates, but a life here and now, lived in tune with “our own Christ nature.”
“Heaven is the state of mind in which we can see our divinity in all facets of our living,” she writes. “Not just in the intellect, but in our experiences, our interactions and our daily labors.”
Everything in the book, she said, is in line with the teachings of Unity, a Christian movement that began in the late 1880s.
Lunde said her book can be used as a text for classes in spiritual growth or for individual study.
She has recently completed another book, “You Are in the Bible: Metaphysical Bible Interpretation for Your Life,” to be published soon by iUniverse. Its 51 chapters focus on specific topics in Scripture, such as courage, strength, health and prosperity.
Unity doesn’t advocate a strictly literal interpretation of Scripture, but an allegorical approach that seeks the spiritual meaning of every text, Lunde said.
She once met a fundamentalist Christian who said, “I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.” Lunde responded: “We do too — we just have a problem with the errancy of people reading it.”
Lunde also has another book in the works, titled “Stories from Martha’s House.” It’s a compilation of dramas based on biblical stories, bringing the Bible to life.
Reach Bob Reeves at 473-7212 or breeves@journalstar.com.
Copyright © 2002-2008 Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved.