With Rev. Mary Manin Morrissey
In conversation, one easily recognizes her role as an exegete for a pantheistic God. What if we were all born, as the 14th century theologian, Meister Eckhart postulated, in original blessing rather than original sin? What if God lives in us, as much as we live in God? What if Jesus were the great reminder of the potential we all engender - that we, too, are God's offspring? Rev. Mary Morrissey believes and teaches these truths. In 1975, after years of study leading to her ordination through the Church of Truth in Beaverton, Oregon, Mary began her ministry in the living room of her home. Named Living Enrichment Center (LEC), her ministry espouses what she calls life centered spirituality, focusing on our day-to-day, moment-to-moment experience. The umbrella of LEC encompasses Namasté Retreat Center, Cristofori Elementary School and Living Bookends Bookstore. The facility rests on 95 acres of tranquil woodland in Wilsonville, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. Initially, her congregation consisted of a few friends and devoted family. Today, numbers reach nearly three thousand. Members attest that Mary's ability to speak directly to the heart, coupled with the multiplicity of renowned speakers, programs and retreats, ensures the growth of this ministry. Building Your Field of Dreams (Bantam, 1996), Mary's first book, received national attention and will soon be available in Spanish. In it, she shares her personal journey, as well as providing step-by-step processes to assist readers in fulfilling their dreams. Mary serves as director and senior minister of LEC in addition to traveling and speaking around the country to New Thought churches and business organizations. Linda: How would you compare what you refer to as "life centered spirituality" with what Meister Eckhart called "creation centered spirituality"? Both are pantheistic. Mary: I'm not sure who to attribute this quote to, but I've heard it many times: "God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." This is something we can all relate to, because we each experience ourselves that way. Even the little earthworm thinks it is the center of the universe. Each one of us is a center, or a point of awareness in the mind of God. This teaching is found in both Meister Eckhart's work and in the tenets of life centered spirituality. I don't see many philosophical differences between the two, except that life centered spirituality combines Eckhart's teachings with the transcendentalist teachings of both Emerson and Thoreau. They both advocated the creativity of our thoughts - that thoughts held in mind reproduce after their kind. This realization enables us to become conscious co-creators with God. Life centered spirituality is a practical and relevant spirituality applicable to today's living. Linda: Unlike many churches, you chose to establish Living Enrichment Center as its own entity, not affiliating with established churches such as Religious Science or Unity. How is LEC different? Mary: Living Enrichment Center is affiliated with Religious Science and Unity Churches through an organization called International New Thought Alliance. INTA serves as an umbrella organization for all of the New Thought churches. What distinguishes LEC is that I pioneered a work, like Ernest Holmes and the Fillmores did, rather than taking an assignment from an already established church. Philosophically we teach and hold the same basic tenets as Religious Science and Unity Churches. Linda: I understand that you've formed a coalition with a group of ministers around the country. Can you tell me who these individuals are, and what you hope to accomplish with this joint effort? Mary: It's comprised of seven of the largest New Thought churches in America. The senior pastors - along with Dr. Barbara Marx Hubbard, renowned visionary and futurist - have formed the Association for Global New Thought. Charter members are: Rev. David Owen Ritz, Center for Positive Living, Sarasota, Florida; Rev. Guy Lynch, Church of Today, Detroit, Michigan; Rev. Mary Omwake, Unity of Overland Park, Kansas; Dr. Roger Teel, Mile High Church of Religious Science; Rev. Howard Caesar, Unity Church of Houston, Texas; and Dr. Michael Beckwith, Agape Church, Santa Monica, California. Paul Rey, renowned statistician from Stanford University, recently published an article stating that there are 44 million Americans who, in their own way, hold a basically life-centered spiritual approach to life. Most of them have little connection to a spiritual community or to any support system. One of our goals is, through the use of media and the Internet, to provide easier access for people. These millions of Americans are educators, politicians, scientists, technologists, doctors, nurses, and social workers, basically all the professions. They do not realize that there is a spiritual network available to support them. Our goal is to link these people together. We are on the verge of a transformational opportunity in our basic approach to the world, both economically and socially. These people are environmentally sensitive. They practice compassion as a way of life. They believe that there is one God - many paths. There is a great respect for diversity. But the connecting web among them is not yet solid. Paul Rey says they feel alone in their beliefs. In truth, they encompass the growing majority of Americans. We are just one link away from feeling the full power and potential of that connection. The Association for Global New Thought is attempting to become a part of the network which assists people in discovering this already existing and supportive theology - bonding like-minded people together. As one of our first projects, the Association for Global New Thought has been asked by Arun Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, to launch the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Gandhi's assassination with a global period of non-violence. We have been working to establish a network of churches and supporting organizations throughout the world to participate in this period of non-violence beginning January 30, 1998. The weekend before this begins, Arun Gandhi and his wife, Sunanda, will present a retreat at Living Enrichment Center focusing on the principles and practice of non-violence as a way of life. The public is invited to attend and are welcome to call Namasté Retreat Center to make arrangements. Linda: With all the media attention focused on the Heaven's Gate cult, how do you teach people to recognize God's voice as opposed to a charismatic cult leader's? Mary: Don't believe anything, no matter what the collar or cloak, unless deep down it resonates as truth. Never render your own knowing to someone else; stop and listen unequivocally to the voice of truth - God's voice, which lives inside of you. It's easy for vulnerable or fragile people to fall victim to "spiritual predators." I suggest that people ask themselves three questions: What is being promised? Who has the answers? What must be given up? Be wary of any order that offers absolute immunity from harm. For the past century, ours has been the first culture to live under the threat of total annihilation. The ozone layer is deteriorating. Global warming, diminishing rain forests, and an immune deficiency disease are sweeping the planet. We live in an age of drive-by shootings and madmen with access to technology that can blow up federal buildings. Everyplace we look, there are messages to terrify us. Suppose someone comes along and promises that you will be invulnerable to all that frightens you? Those who lack a strong spiritual foundation are easily tempted by a quick fix. Lacking a close relationship with God, they seek a kind of sanctuary that, in reality, can never exist. Any order that claims to have a lock on wisdom is suspect. Cults demand consensus, while authentic spirituality embraces individual differences. Any time we surrender our autonomy or thinking process to someone else, we're in trouble. Cults demand adherence to particular practices and principles that defy common sense yet, at the same time, manage to make you feel diminished and foolish for questioning its authority. Cult leaders know that their followers already feel isolated. Threatening them with being ostracized should they display a hint of defiance hits new recruits where they're the most vulnerable. In addition to individual will, cult members are coerced into sacrificing friends, family and possessions. The idea is to create total dependence on the leader and prevent clear-thinking outsiders from talking sense to the members. Yet the basis of all true religion is love. We exist to love our neighbors, our friends, and ourselves. Any group that demands a person cut himself or herself off from loved ones is fraudulent by its very nature. No genuinely caring religious group would demand a person to relinquish his or her identity in order to be loved. God's love is unconditional. Linda: How do you see the future of New Thought, say one hundred years from now? What's your ideal? And how would you like to be remembered in the history of the movement? Mary: I think that one hundred years from now New Thought's recognition will be lost. It will naturally dissolve into what is a universal spirituality honoring all paths in the presence of one God. I'd like to be remembered as one of the midwives for the new emerging spirituality of the 21st century, someone who helped nurture it into being. Linda: Are there times you've felt over-burdened by your ministry and wanted to bag it - say, simply write books? What keeps you so unwavering in your mission? Mary: Shortly after the church moved to Wilsonville and we acquired a 95-acre campus - 140,000 square feet in buildings, including a center - I entered a "dark night of the soul." The immensity of the task that I had taken on began to weigh heavily on me, both personally and financially. What was required to operate the facility seemed overwhelming. For a time, I wanted very much to run away. As I prayed about the situation, I came to know that I didn't want to use the energies of fear and worry as deciding factors in my life. If I were to ever leave, I knew it would have to be by divine guidance. The guidance I received was to stay. LEC is a dream given to me to nourish. It's bigger than I am - a life's work and more. Rev. Mary Morrissey's unwavering devotion to her ministry, a 24-hour-a-day-every-day presence, validates her phenomenal success. "WHAT" is God asking you to do? Mary Manin Morrissey claims that if it doesn't stretch or challenge you, then it's not God asking. For more information about Living Enrichment Center, its programs and services, please call (800) 893-1000. Their e-mail address is info@lecworld.org, and their new World Wide Web site: http://www.lecworld.org. Linda Ross Swanson is a Portland based free-lance writer. She recently completed a playful and poignant book about growing up with a manic-depressive mother entitled Beheading the Hydrangea, and a children's book on creative visualization, Hallie's Believing Eye. Both await publication. Ms. Swanson is a contributor to the new runaway bestseller, Chocolate for a Woman's Soul (Kay Allenbaugh, Simon & Schuster), and frequently publishes essays and poetry. Boasting an extensive background in metaphysical studies, Ms. Swanson recently resigned, after 15 years' employment, from Living Enrichment Center to follow the muse. |
Atop an end table in Rev. Mary Manin Morrissey's office rests a framed photograph of a little girl in a bathing suit straddling a large rock in the middle of a stream. A typed sentence inserted under the glass reads: "God, you want me to do WHAT?" Mary Manin Morrissey is the child in the snapshot; the "WHAT" is her life's passion.