The Power of "YES" and the Theory of You (or U)

Dear Friends: Yesterday many of us witnessed a rare sacramental celebration in Vancouver: the Sacrament of Marriage, between two very dear friends, Constance Lucky and Ralph Danyluk. It was Dec. 21st, the winter soltice, and the weather had cooperated in providing a fairy tale-like setting. It had snowed the day before. The local mountains looked like they had been sprinkled with powdered sugar. The local evergreen boughs looked as if someone had painstakingly painted each one silvery white. The roads were good by the morning of the wedding, the bride and groom were delivered safely. The last wedding in our church took place in 2001. We are very fortunate now that a member of our congregation is licensed to conduct weddings and can issue a certificate of marriage, required in B.C., so we actually had 2 ceremonies. Since she is also a storyteller, we were treated to one of the tales from King Arthur. The reception downstairs was beautiful: roses and evergreen boughs and candles everywhere. How did all this come about? It happened because a question was posed, and the answer was a very firm and considered "YES". This is the power of 3 letters - Y,E and S. As Rev. Grimm mentioned in his sermon today, one can also find E and S together in the words Present and Presence. One also finds these letters in the words Essence, Essential, Best and Essence. All very powerful and positive words. There is a very wonderful book by Otto Scharmer called Theory U, a remarkable application of anthroposophy as a business model. In it he discusses accessing the Source. Coincidentally, I was reading a book by Florin Lowndes at the same time: Enlivening the chakra of the heart, who also discusses accessing the Source, through Rudolf Steiner's 6 fundamental exercises. In Scharmer's book he discusses how economics has moved its focus over the past 2 centuries from a focus on goods/economies of scale, to a focus on services/economies of scope, and how we are now moving to a focus on co-created personalized experiences/innovation/economies of presencing. (Please refer to the blog on co-celebrating The Act of Consecration of Man.) This means we are moving from a focus on the working class, to service class, to the creative class, which includes science, engineering, architecture, education, arts and music. In other words, a kind of 21st century Renaissance is afoot. Last weekend we were treated to 2 workshops by Stephanie Georgieff, one on the Virgin of Guadalupe and one on the Black Madonna (please take a look at her blog, The Heart of the Black Madonna). It's a curious thing that for the most part, there is no artist associated with the black madonnas sprinkled throughout Europe. These icons were created as gifts to the world for many centuries to come, and the name of the artist did not matter. The same is true of many of the great cathedrals. Creating/building/painting a work of art was a task given by the Spirit, or perhaps one could say Source. The artists knew they were creating something using natural materials at hand, that could be a source of inspiration in the future - something that could be taken into one's soul. Oh, one more thing, there is another sacrament where a question is asked, and it is hoped the answer will be Yes - The Sacrament of Ordination. :))) Sparky