​Happy New Year...as we all breathe a sigh of relief. And so it begins, a new consciousness and experience of a new year, 2021. As we know, the best part of turning the calendar over is we all receive a fresh start, to begin again. It's almost like erasing our past and moving forward in a more desirable direction of positivity. It's all good and all God. 2020 called our attention to more changes and shifts than most years, And what that requires of us is to know God is at the center of all of it. Life as we know it will continue to evolve, grow, and will call us to our higher consciousness and our highest good. In keeping with the January, -"theme" of And So It Begins..., I will be speaking about the first four chapters of our Science of Mind Text Book. This week it will be "The Thing Itself". This an opportunity for all of us to bring a friend or family member that has been curious about our faith and philosophy. Each week I will explain not just our understanding of God, but I will add our institutional history about our Founder, Ernest Holmes, and a little dash of my experience growing up in the church that was our first building, Founder's Church of Religious Science in Los Angeles. I look forward to sharing our teaching with all of you.
As for the rest of the year...I will be calling us to a higher consciousness of understanding and intuitively knowing the divine presence within us. It is an intimate relationship for each of us. By understanding how It works through us, as us, I will call upon our understanding of the global faiths. Each month, I will be talking about human culture, different religious cultures, and how the Science of Mind and the Metaphysical sciences (beyond the beyond) come together to create unification in our human existence. By understanding human culture within religious dogma we will have a better comprehension of how we can be one people, as one divine Mind. Many religions teach many saints or Gods, they are aspects of God, the nature of God, just expanded. In Hinduism, Ganesha is an aspect of God. The belief is he removes obstacles from our lives to know God is working for us. Similar to St. Anthony, he is the patron saint of lost articles, etc. As there are many others not just one, but many. 
I often think about how we here in America often do not understand the nomadic culture of Saudia Arabia, Turkey, Israel, etc. A long time ago, a man's value was his herd of sheep or cattle, to keep them well-fed, they would move them from oasis to oasis and this process took about a year. Eventually, they would return to the spot where they started. However, at times someone else with their herd would be occupying the oasis, "their" oasis. A battle would usually ensue, and the winner took all, women, and children, and the men were killed off of the losing tribe. Women and children were absorbed into the victor's tribe usually as slaves. What appears as brutal to us, is a way of life, the culture of the people that live in these desert areas. What I invite us to open to is learning about our cultural differences and practices, we will understand why the Jew celebrates Yom Kippur, Mulism Ramadan, Christians Christmas, Buddhist, Hindu, and others. We are one global human culture. Human science pronounced us separate, but in God's idea, we are a soul, under the umbrella of human experience. One human culture created in the idea of pure love and expressing living our lives in peace.
So dear friends, I look forward to our building bridges and the consciousness of living together as one...Imagine.
In love and gratitude - Rev Rhonda

Hello Dear Friends,
Ernest Holmes our Founder wrote, "We can let it change our lives drastically and dramatically. We can look at this reflection and let it teach us a scientific method for changing our lives. We can let it change us, turn us around and face us toward the light. It can give us a reason and purpose for living and add zest to every experience. It can eliminate greed, selfishness, hypocrisy, hatred, fear, and frustration and be at peace with our God, our fellow humans, and ourselves. It can do this by eliminating poverty, illness, and unhappiness from our lives. We can see our problems as the dark side of the mood needing only the light of Truth, the truth of God within us to dissolve those appearances of problems in our lives into nothingness - the nothingness from which they came. And then that inner light can shine on our pathway more and more until sorrow and sighing, flee away and we have total awareness of our at one-ment with God and all life."   
Life in our experience can change in an instant, a phone call, text, email, whatever it is that comes as information will create a different unfamiliar experience of what was comfortable and familiar. I refer often to it as an AFGO - another fine growth opportunity. Not always is this AFGO invited but rather it drops in unannounced, creating a way of questions, and the "how do I do this?" mode. Ours is to simply accept and know, and forget about "the how". What? But, but, how is all of this uncomfortableness I feel going away?? How do I fix this? Why is there anything to fix? What if instead we allowed things to happen, and be the observer instead of rushing in with the band-aids to make it all better? This is where we find ourselves at the crossroads of our New Life and our Old Life. It is easy to take the safe road and continue on in our old life, old ways of thinking, and be in a safe environment. Then there is a new life, urging us to change our thinking, therefore, shifting our ability to now navigate empowered with the attitude of "bring it on!" Some of our old life will fall away, only to create a new way, new opportunities of growth and understanding the presence within us. When we understand everything is FOR us, and nothing is against us, We will always take the "new life" path. 
At the moment, I am sure we are all sitting in the question of will things continue to get better? Fear becomes a plague of the mind because we do not have any of the answers. So, what do we do? We allow ourselves to be open and trust the process. We get out of the "blame game" and step into "what is mine to do? To create peace, unity, and love?" I am sincere when I ask you all to ask this question of ourselves. There are so many times in my life I resisted change. Only for it to keep "nagging" at me. It did this because Spirit knows our highest good. Once I let it all go, everything shifted, in a good way. It was as if I was taking in my very first breath. It all felt strangely like a relief, I no longer carried the weight of fighting for what I believed was right. I began letting my "guard down", and living undefended. I owned everything I said and experienced. Nothing and no one was responsible except for me. I surrendered, and I let go and let God handle my life. I began to listen and everything began to shift. I now live in a state of constant gratitude. That is amazing when you shift to everything is a positive experience. Life continues to shift and change continually for my highest good. I will take the "New Life" road every time now...God is sooooooo good.
In love and light, Rev. Rhonda 
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As a Spiritual Leader, yes, it has been interesting to navigate this "virus". I am grateful for my Leadership Council and Renee Johnson our President and Connie Kippycash who is the master of getting us on-line with Sunday service and our "donate" button. This is new "territory" for all of us. How to connect with all of you when we are to be disconnected. In the Science of Mind we practice non-separation from our divine source, which I like to name as God. It is interesting in this time to have to practice being separate from each other, when in fact I do believe we need each other more. How do we do that? Well, in this day of technology, I am encouraging everyone to email me (revrhonitretsven@gmail.com) to let me know how I can support you. I am also starting a time on Thursdays at 11 am where we can all meet on-line through Zoom conferencing. If you would like to be connected in that way, please email me.
It is important for all of us not to get caught up in the mass chaotic thinking. The first thing is to know there is enough for everyone. Sure, we have to think about the toilet paper thing, but is it really that important? How about being connected to our loved ones. I can't help thinking how when things seem to fall apart they are actually bringing us all together. The mandatory "stay at home" has provided us each with a space of being present to our home, pets, people etc. Why not look at this as an opportunity to connect with those we are often away from. This isn't going to last forever, though I know to some it will feel very isolating. What is important is to switch our consciousness from "doom and gloom" and stop looking at what I will refer to as "the body count" of those who have died. What we should be focusing on is those that are making it through. If we join together in a collective consciousness of lifting up one another things will start not only to shift within us but the world. When we dwell on the negative we get more of it. Is that really want we want to experience? My invitation to each of us is to know the divine is working through all of this and creating wellness. But, we have to know this without a doubt within our minds. As we embrace wellness it will not only occur within our bodies but again the world. Consciousness is so important during this time. Please know you have enough and you are well. Again, if you have any concerns please, please, email me and I will get back to you. I know for each and everyone of us God has got this. Trust and all will be truly be well. Know that I love you. - Rev Rhonda

 
So, what is in your Spiritual Bank Account?
 Do any of us really understand that infinite account of our life? When speaking to spiritual wisdom? I believe we all understand at some level through our faith traditions that we have an infinite mental reserve account of Love and Faith with God. It is to these Love, and Faith that we draw on when writing checks to the crisis’s in our lives not only for ourselves but for others.
As spiritual beings we accept and know the power of the divine as the infinite depositor in what I am going to refer to as, The Bank of Life. Which lucky for us is always open and never closed, for it is in “God We Trust” and consent to infinite possibilities insured by the FDIC (Fearlessly Divine Infinite Conviction).
 
So, we pretty much know that we have to have money before we can spend it, right?
And how comfortable it makes us to feel to have a good amount in that checking account? Knowing without a doubt it is an account big enough to draw on in emergencies without impoverishing us when it comes to paying for our ordinary needs. So let me speak to another kind of checking account which is equally important, located in the Bank of Life.
I will call this, our Spiritual Bank Account because we believe there are great spiritual forces that we can draw on, and deposit in our own minds, which can be used in any emergency, in any stress or strain of life. Realizing we were drawing on the infinite presence of God each day. We knowingly auto deposit hope, happiness and faith to more than meet any emergency that might possibly arise. If fact, our cup runneth over!
 
God the infinite creative power, the great Bank Manager in our hearts, knows when our funds are getting low and we need to look at our reserves. That is our prayer life. The beautiful part of this reserve account is that it is filled with unconditional love. One of the “conditions” of this reserve account is that it never has to be paid back, but forward. What we recognize is that love constantly expands because wherever we are God is also. Corinthians1 12:6 There are different ways of working, but the same God works all things in all men. So creating through our kindness, understanding, patience, and selfless giving we are embodying the divine power of love, that which God is.
 
The divine essentially has imparted its own life and, in a mysterious way which is beyond our comprehension, has endowed us with the capacity to Love. If the Divine is love, and if each one of us has, as we must have, immediate access to the Love of the Divine, then we earn the ability to draw on the Bank of Life in such degree as we become loving. By communing with the Infinite through spiritual practice of prayer we earn the ability to draw on this bank of infinite Love.
 
We know that we have to deposit money in the bank in order to draw
checks. We know that the money is in a safe place and that the checks will be honored unless we over draw the account.In our ordinary affairs we have to earn the money, and in a certain sense this will be true of our spiritual bank account. But the earning of the supply or substance for our spiritual bank account is a little different, for we earn the ability to draw on the Bank of Life only through having practiced Love. The Divine is in us, through us always, and It has already made the initial deposit, (and a big one), for everyone who is ever born into this world, because the Divine has given itself to us.
 
So what does it look like when we have to “right” those checks? Dip into our reserves? Spend mental coin?  We mentally “right” our checks against our account when we are called on to meet emergencies, times when we need more love and tolerance, more kindness and understanding, deeper faith and a higher hope. The crises that appears as an experience of being human. Here is where Law of Mind in Action comes in to honor that check.
 
When we apply our thought of Love (the Divine is right where we are or the situation is) directly to discordant situations, and there is nothing in you that is afraid, your thoughts of Love are applied to that situation and will heal it….
 
We must have a firm conviction when we apply the Principle of Love to any human challenge, speak our word of conviction through prayer or your personal spiritual practice, because it will operate as God in the condition that confronts you, and will neutralize everything that opposes it.
And now let us think of some other things we want to deposit in the Bank of Life. Perhaps one of the most important next to Love is Faith.
 
Faith in ourselves, faith in what we are doing, and faith in those around us. A person without faith is insecure and perhaps could be unstable about everything. Let us draw upon the reservoir of faith which comes only through implicit and complete surrender of all our fears, whether they be for big or little. Faith is natural; fear is unnatural. Faith is positive; fear is negative. Faith is affirmative; fear is denial of life. And we need a great deal of faith if we are going to meet all the fears and uncertainties that we are sure to encounter. Just as we cannot pay a thousand-dollar debt with five hundred dollars, so it is impossible to meet a trying circumstance unless we have sufficient faith to cover all the fear.
 
We have as much faith as we use. We have as much faith as we believe. Perfect Love alone can cast out all fear. Love is always greater than fear. Fear is not really an enemy of Love. All that fear can do is cast a shadow across your pathway. But this shadow is dissipated when you look at it with Love. We are not dealing with two opposing forces but with only One Force, which is absolute and positive and conclusive. The Divine never fails and Love never fails and we will never fail if we use the Love that the Divine is.
 
Something I want to share is we all have the opportunity to be an ATM (Accepting Truth Mindfully) being as we are always open 24 hours. We do this by knowing the Truth of the challenges in our life. No one and nothing is against us, unless of course you want to over draw your account by spending mental coin to figure that out? It is our consciousness here, and here alone, that is the real substance that we can draw upon to purchase every good and beautiful thing that Life has in store for us.
 
Here alone are peace and joy and certainty. Here alone is freedom from fear and doubt. Deliberately close all your accounts with the lesser banks, throw away the old checkbooks, debit cards, and forget them, and learn to turn daily to the one and only Supreme Source, which is the Divine. Spend your time knowing every day, this or something better, because God works through you as you. And the best part about all of this is we never have to worry about a-loan time, because God’s payments are always considered to be time well spent, because it’s all drawn up in unconditional love. Namaste.

God Talks to the Heart
 
There are days in our lives where we stop along our path of life and ask, “What is mine to do God? Can you give me a hint, because I am feeling a little lost at the moment!  I’ve lost my spiritual compass and I have no idea what direction I am going.” Actually what has happened is we have walked so far, we have finally reached the spiritual fork in the road. One side of the road leads to continuing life as it always has been, the other the sacred. Yes, it is that place we have arrived where humanity and divinity meet. Meaning we are really looking at our life as it stands and asking, “How has this all been working for me?”, “I feel something is missing from my life, yet I have everything I need?” Then as we stand staring at the road and something within our being, a place in our heart, beacons us to take the path of the sacred.   We find everything within us feels the “Yes” to walking with God, Our Father, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, Supreme Being and we begin. What we have yet to discover is we have always been on the journey with IT, we just have finally decided to have a relationship with it. When one starts out on their spiritual journey we usually have no idea what we are looking for but we know it calls to us. IT hits us directly in the heart. There is an unexplainable longing to commune with this energy which we can only explain as loving. IT draws us into it and what is amazing about this loving momentum is it is unconditional.
As humans we long for connection and we seek until we find it with like minds that celebrate this sacred life. This is what we know as Religion or for some Spirituality. What we know about both is it is belonging to a collective spiritual practice that agrees with who we are on the inside and learning through prayer we can talk to God.  Often I am asked, “What is the difference between religion and spirituality?” Well, Religion is for people who are afraid they are going to Hell, Spirituality is for those that have already been there. But both speak of our relationship with God, it’s just a matter of how you want to understand and create that connection. One of the Master teachers of our path to God is Jesus the Christ. He was a way shower to mankind and what he demonstrated was our ability to be in a relationship with the divine. In the New Testament scripture we understand Jesus spent much of his time communing with his own soul, and in that communion he revealed it is through our inner thought that we contact God. Prayer is where we have a conversation with the divine. God knows what is on our hearts. In the book  A Course of Love, it says, “God is a relationship with love. If God were to speak to you Himself and tell you of what means your service would be to Him, He would but tell you this…My child, return to me. For we belong to one another. You are the bridge to me. I am the bridge to you. You are the bridge to your brothers and sisters. They are your bridge to yourself.
God talks to our hearts….but it is up to us to listen and take the first step.
Namaste

I love the conversations I am invited to during our "fellowship" time after service. I learn so much from everyone, and for this I am truly grateful. So today, I learned that most of the "valley" of Hemet thinks we are a "cult". This is because our building that we call a church is actually two domes. So like all good people we judge a book by its cover, right? People who know nothing about our "Faith" tell others we are "weird". I recently put up on our marquee, "no guilt, no sin, inquire within". Which is true about Religious Science, we do not believe in either one. But those again, who have no facts have condemned us to being scary and of course would NEVER cross the threshold for fear of being wrong.
First, I find the word "cult" funny. ALL religious faiths are cults, and this is why...a cult is a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object. A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister, a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing. Yes, my friends that is what "cult" means. So, the love one has for Jesus, does that not qualify as a cult? Interesting...
So Science of Mind practices many paths to God. We agree to see more than one teacher like Jesus the Christ, Krishna, Abraham, Mohammad, Buddha, etc... We invite everyone to the table, to share ideas and to enter into a conversation about our relationship with it. Each of us has an experience of God to bring, mine is different from yours however, I know that it is all about love. God loves me and you and everything in this world, that is why it was created. 
I also know that I do not have to live a life of guilt or sin. Because I can forgive myself and start again. That is what God's love is about, knowing that each day is a new, and I can begin again. Sin is a mistake. Do we not all make mistakes? It is also a term of archery when you miss the mark. I've done that quite a few times in my life. But I keep going, knowing this or something better. Man created the term to control the masses NOT God.
We are an amazing faith that teaches the spiritual tools of positive living, empowering living, making better choices and loving God and all the teachers for loving us.
When you come to church you will be greeted and left alone. We will give you a visitors pack and answer any questions you may have, we are pretty much like many churches on Sunday, just glad you are here and exploring your Divinity. The only thing we ask, is for you to be open to the possibilities of having an amazing relationship with the God of your understanding. We are layed back and loving people. Our foundation is philosophy and our heart is love. So, if you want a BIGGER conversation about God, come see us under the domes OR if you are just curious, come to, all are welcomed, and you will leave knowing we are peaceful and normal people like everyone else in the valley and our God and Jesus are your God and Jesus.
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Blessings of love to all - Rev. Rhonda

I welcome your response