So this past week when I made bread, I thought of the yeast working its way through the dough, how it changes the composition and appearance of the dough, making it softer, smoother, pliable, bake-able, and ultimately, digestible. And I thought also about how the leaven of God's True Word (the one written in our hearts, not necessarily in books) works its way in and through our lives to bring us to God-Consciousness~~and radiates from there to the collective Sonship. Does the leaven of God's true word working in us make us more palatable to, more in tune with All That Is?  Oh, yes. 

And then my thoughts wandered to the relationship of yeast and mushrooms. Most of us understand that yeast is a form of fungus. Mushrooms are yet another type of fungus. And in a way, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to mushrooms as well. Tiny, almost invisible spores make their way into a moist, friendly medium and begin to grow down into the soil, extending mycelia in all directions, a mass of interwoven filaments gathering nourishment. This process goes on unseen, as with the yeast hidden in the meal or flour, until suddenly a multitude of mushrooms appear as if from nowhere.

God's Word indwelling us via the Holy Spirit is the leaven of the Kingdom of Heaven. It may sometimes appear to be bearing no fruit in us. We may despair of ever reaching that goal of perfection in our Sonship. And yet it grows in us, despite ourselves, until there is no room to contain it and it must overflow. For its nature is that of Love; and the nature of Love is always to extend itself infinitely.

And when we begin to mature in spirit, we drop our spores (recognized by my spirit as the "goodness and mercy that shall follow us all the days of our lives") and the Word spreads underground until the Kingdom sprouts up in "the twinkling of an eye." Those who are have prepared for this and have the intent to be One with God are eventually "caught up in the air" (become spiritualized souls) and are shifted into a new paradigm, the dimension of the New Heaven and the New Earth. They may still be here with their brothers in this version of reality, destined to serve, but have become as Jesus was, fully aware of the ONENESS of all things as reconciled in God.

Actually Jesus referred to leaven in two ways. He referred to the Word as leaven. But he also likened false doctrine (the Gospel of Ego) to leaven. Of the "leaven" of the Pharisees He is quoted as saying, "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." It was the hypocrisy of those who strain at gnats and swallow camels, who live by the letter, who build fortresses of traditions, but who deny the power of man's spirit to transcend both "natural" law and the laws and traditions of men.

And so it appears that there is a universal principle at work in Jesus' illustrations regarding the metaphorical "leaven." The symbolism of the leaven seems to point to an idea that whatever we think or dwell upon becomes reality and grows within our experience. And it follows then, that whatever we think or dwell upon (or perhaps "gaze" upon intently with the mind's eye) is what we become.

And so when we dwell intently upon the indwelling Word, the quiet yet thunderous voice of the Eternal All That Is, we become more and more the image of our Source, our Father/Mother God, the Primal Will to Good. As we practice the Art of Love, we become more like the Source from which we have sprung. And that Source is God, who IS Love. Jesus said of us humans, quoting the psalmist, that we are gods. How could we NOT be gods, who are made in our Father's image and brought forth from the womb of Spirit?  We are the little trees springing up at the base of the Tree of Life waiting to be grafted onto our Parent yet again.

When we are all grown up in Spirit and have cast off these mortal garments, will we not be proven to be spirits, born of God, who is a spirit? Will we not then see clearly that though we once descended into flesh, we will ascend again to return no more, pillars in the Temple of Temples, our Fathers house?

If God is love, then I AM love, if I am made in my Fathers image. And you, all my human brothers and sisters, are love with me. All the rest, when all is said and done, is mere illusion caused by our own mistaken thoughts about who we are.

Holy Spirit, help me strengthen my intent to mix the leaven of God's pure Word thoroughly into my life and environs that I might finally see that I am a true and rightful heir to the Kingdom, sitting at your right hand with Elder Brother Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, and all the Children of God. Help me to practice the Art of Loving till I am perfected in it and have realized and fully apprehended the Holiness Within that I gaze upon. Light up my darkened corners till I am ablaze and radiate the Love of God from within. Comfort me, Holy Spirit when I despair, as I am often prone to do. I take the name that Brother Jesus took, not in vain, I pray--the name of Christ, annointed Child of God, Bread of Life. Help me to live up to that name. Holy Spirit, show me where to make space in my life for silence that I might hear the still small Voice for God that you are.   Amen.