Tucked Away In the Closet of Our Mind
Hi Friends,
A few weeks ago I received a package from Diane and Veldon Leverich that included a 45 RPM record of Meditations by Ernest Wilson. Diane said the record was recently found in a box of her mother's keepsakes. She and Veldon were excited. Listening to the record brought her back to when she was a young teenager attending Wilson's services with her mother. Turns out that Veldon's family was also raised in Unity and Unity had brought their families together. You can read Diane and Veldon's letter in the "PDF of archival documents for Ernest Wilson Meditations," available further down.
While I'd like to tell you about all the good things found in Dr. Wilson's recording, the real lesson here is that mothers, and fathers, and especially grandmothers and grandfathers, are special. Quite often they are old fashioned and seem out of place or not in touch with our lives today. But their lasting effect is always there, always present, part of the fabric of our life and family.
Diane and Veldon discovered it was hearing Dr. Wilson's voice that vividly triggered their recollections. Blaine Mays and his family discovered the same when they heard the 45 rpm recordings I found in the Unity Archives of their mother, Lola Pauline Mays. Faces, features and fashions always change, but the human voice is constant.
But it's not only the voice that tugs the heart, it's also the finding of a keepsake, something sacred and tucked away by the person who is no longer with us but who remains present in some unknown way. For me, it was the discovery of a small box of handwritten New Thought meditations by my own mother's mother, Thelma.
So I encourage you, if you are blessed with some family keepsakes, to pull them down from the closet today. Dust them off and allow yourself to be carried back to a more tender moment. If you have no keepsakes, take a crayon and paper and create one. If you find there a wound, offer forgiveness and ask God for healing. If you find there, tucked away in the closet of your mind, a blessing, say Thank You.
Mother's Day, Sunday, May 11, 2025
Download Audio and Archival Documents
Download MP3 of Ernest Wilson Meditations (all tracks)
Download PDF of archival documents for Ernest Wilson Meditations
Diane and Veldon's letters to me are included in these archival documents. In later correspondence they wished to share a few things. Diane's father, Henry W. Bleidistel, wrote the book titled “The Man Within Man,” which was published in the early 1960s in Good Business Magazine in serial form. Also, "it was for Diane’s Uncle and Aunt, Elmer and Adrian Bleidistel, whom we were instrumental in introducing to each other at an event at the Unity Church in Fresno. It’s important because Diane’s uncle married the daughter of Cecil Lake the Unity minister for Merced California. Her aunt’s father, Russel Lake, wrote the book, “Thank God for Prayer,” published by Unity."
About The Meditations And The Author
by Franklyn Kelly, D.D.
Doctor Ernest C. Wilson has spent a great many years in the ministry. He served for eleven years as Editor in Chief of all Unity publications at Unity School of Christianity in Kansas City, Missouri. He succeeded Charles Fillmore as minister of the Unity Society of Christianity in the same city.
He is known throughout the United States and other countries for his lectures and through the medium of many of his books including The Sunlit Way, Many Mansions, Sons of Heaven, The Great Physician, Every Good Desire, Have We Lived Before, The Contemplation of Christ, and The Other Half of the Rainbow, as well as innumerable articles and poems.
Doctor Wilson’s ministry in Los Angeles, California began with the founding of Christ Church, Unity in 1938, of which he is pastor at this time.
Christ Church, Unity is rated as the largest Unity church in the world and its members are numbered in the thousands.
His Radio ministry covers a scope of many years and in the past six years, his television appearances have won him countless friends from coast to coast.
These recorded meditations have endeared him to Truth students everywhere and his sincere and simple delivery of the lines strikes a responsive chord in the heart, bringing to the listener a wholesome refreshment of mind and spirit. They were recorded in the familiar surrounding of his study at home.
The meditations which were written by Dr. Wilson reflect the personal, poised nature of the man himself and indicate his own deep spiritual perception. The beautiful organ music which serves as a background for Doctor Wilson’s meditations has been improvised by Leslie Jolliff, organist at Christ Church, Unity for many years. Mr. Jolliff, having served for so long a time in Christ Church, has been able to bring to these recordings a beautiful and sympathetic accompaniment.
Read the Transcript and Listen to the Clips
01 The Loving Heart
Lord Christ, as I turn to thee, all my speculations are dismissed. All the questions of my mind and lips are stilled. I am reaching past words and even past thought into the great loving heart of God. I am one with that heart, a sense of surpassing peace enfolds me. All the human things seem unreal, like shadows without substance, capable of being refashioned and transformed. I realize as in a dream that this process is taking place. I do not analyze it. I do not think it, but I feel it deeply. I do not fear, I do not desire. I merely drink deeply of the waters of communion. It is enough for me to be still, to lean upon his everlasting arms, to feel his great purpose and his great power, reaching into the world of sense and making light of mortal darkness.
How securely I rest in his presence, how confident I feel, how able to cope with any problem, how conscious that in truth there is no problem that in God all problems are now solved. God, they cannot touch me, much less chain me with their bonds of seeming, God is their master and I am one with him, immersed in his great heart of love, the effluence of that heart courses through my being with growing comprehension. I sense the nature of God's love me.
Oh, loving heart, keep me steadfastly one with the thy love has filled my heart. It is a cup overflowing. Help me to offer it simply for the guide thou my hand. Oh God, choose thou my word that all who hear my voice thine shall have heard. Hold me. Oh God, help me to learn better herald thee to all who yearn for the love I have found mine to express, love that when found and shared brings happiness. Amen
02 Inward Peace
Oh loving presence, as I turn to the conscious recognition of thy abiding, I give thanks that thou hast been and even now art a very present help, that thy presence, which was with me from the beginning of my ways before and will be to the ultimate fulfillment of being, is with me now every step of the way and in the steps that are just at hand.
In the midst of life's shadows, oh loving Father, help me to find the light of thy holy presence amid outward confusion and change. Grant me the comfort of I divine order and changeless law. Help me, oh God, to find inward peace and tranquility, a sense of oneness with those I love and to love me. The assurance that thou aren't mindful of the needs of all and dost, hold them in the safety of thy matchless love. Help me to know that thy wisdom sees and guides where human wisdom falters, that thy purpose works without stay or hindrance through the tangled maze of human thought and action to accomplish all that thou has envisioned from the beginning as being the goal and destiny of thy children.
Here in the inward place of meeting in the heart, I give thanks that before we ask Thou dost answer, pouring out upon us thy rich blessing, sustaining and upholding us in thy everlasting arms where I now dwell in the joy and the comfort of my presence. May all men dwell as I now feel thy presence near, may all men feel and may I take with me into the outer world of overcoming the calm contentment of thy sure abiding in Jesus' name. Amen.
03 Letter to God
Dear Father God, I was lost in the world today. I forgot for a while that you were with me, that my hand was clasped in yours, that your everlasting arms upheld me. That your spirit went before and cleared my way. That your quiet voice of counsel was speaking beyond the den and babble of my world. But now I remember. I remember that you are my Father and that I am your child. That I live in your world and have fellowship with children of the most high. I remember the place of communion that you have prepared for us all.
I am reaching toward you and outer things are receding in my thought. The cares that pressed so closely are taking their proper distance. I'm coming closer to you, Father. The last wall of partition is crumbling into dust. The veil of the temple has parted and I stand within your sanctuary. I had thought that I might be lonely with you this way. I had thought that I might miss the things and the people of my world, but they too are here and I behold them as they are in spirit. I come closer to them in understanding as I reach toward you, oh God, closer to all whom I love and all that I love. Closer to all that is. My mind is merged with yours. I am one with your love, your power, your understanding, your purposes, your bounty.
What shall I ask of you? You are smiling within me an answer. There is nothing to ask. All that I might have asked is answered. Now, what shall I say to you or you or to me? There is nothing to be said for we are one. I am in you and you are in me. We shall go together knowingly, as always, we have been together, though I knew it not. Oh Father God, I am glad, glad that I have remembered. Amen.
04 Healing Realization
Lord Christ in thee I am at perfect ease. My body is relaxed and resting. I am grateful for all that my body does for me, for all that it has done and will do. I forgive it for any sense of shortcoming, and I realize that my increased understanding brings it new power. My body is the servant of my mind, and my mind is the servant of God. God expresses health and power and strength and prosperity through me. I forgive myself for my own shortcomings and forgive others for theirs. I lay aside all regrets for the past. I relinquish all worries and perplexities.
For I know that God's perfect love surrounds me, that his strength fills every part and particle of my being. That his wisdom guides me. That his plenty operates in all my affairs. I am at peace with myself and with the world. I realize the presence of God in and about me, and I realize that all his forces of good are working with me to heal, restore, renew, and revitalize me, in, body, mind, and spirit. This great healing flood of power flows through me, sets my blood tingling with new life, soothes my nerves, relaxes the muscles of my body, and quickens every organ and cell to the harmonious performance of its functions.
Conscious of my oneness with God, whose presence is my richness and support, I am freed from all sense of limitation, all fear of want. I rest my affairs securely, in the open, bountiful hand of God. I rejoice and give thanks that all my needs are now met and always will be met by the Father who works in and through me to give evidence of the eternal bounty. Knowing that as I develop the ability to give my services my love and myself efficiently and healthfully, I shall attract abundant recompense. I have no fear for the forces of good surround me. I am one with the omnipresent, omnipotent God. Amen.
