Last Saturday, we had the privilege of hosting our weekly Awakin Call with Bonnie Rose.

As a former registered nurse, actress, and opera singer, Bonnie Rose's career trajectory has been anything but run-of-the-mill, but through it all her life's purpose has stayed constant. Bonnie lives through love: being love, sharing love, and serving love. Currently the Senior Minister at the Ventura Center for Spiritual Living, Bonnie has dedicated herself to a ministry with roots in the Transcendentalist Movement of the 1830s, believing "that the universe is spiritual and has intelligence, purpose, beauty, and order." It honors all the world’s great spiritual teachings and all paths to God -- "whether we call it God, Spirit, Energy, or Universal Intelligence." She and her congregation believe that through study and spiritual practice, each of us can come to understand our oneness with this in-dwelling Divine Presence, because all people, places, and things emanate from the Universal Intelligence that is within us and all around us. When we do so, "other areas of our lives fall into place and we can do more for others, be better stewards of the Earth, and bring more peace and harmony to the world." Bonnie furthers her life's mission of being and sharing love by aiming to create ripples of goodness through acts of kindness and generosity, big and small. The values of ServiceSpace -- leading by inner transformation, focusing on small acts of kindness, and trusting the ripples of goodness -- have had a profound influence on Bonnie's ministry.

We'll post the transcript of the call soon, but till then, some of the nuggets that stood out from the call ...

• Bonnie described her childhood in suburban New York in a traditional "Donna Reed" 1950s/60s family. She went to nursing school (with also a degree in opera), and became a nurse. She also pursued opera for a while in NYC, and married her husband -- an actor. She got interested in metaphysics, doing a lot of reading, and also sang at a lot of churches.
• In tracing her call to the spiritual path: "When I was a nurse, if there was a medical emergency, I would often not be the one drawing up the medications or drawing up defibrillators, I would be the one standing by the head of the bed saying 'it's going to be ok, it's going to be ok.' There was something greater than the illness working through the person, and something greater than death. That's what led me to wanting to being a chaplain initially."
• When she and her husband came to LA, she came upon her current denomination, then called the Church of Religious Science (now the Centers for Spiritual Living). She began taking classes, without intending to be a minister -- simply to learn and deepen. She thought that at most she would want to be a chaplain (because of her nursing background) or lead devotional chanting services (because of her singing background), but eventually went on to become a minister.
• While in her denomination there was an emphasis on the notion that when you have the right thoughts, you can manifest what you want materially, Bonnie shifted that emphasis in her ministry: "In my own seeking I have found generally to look for the want behind the want. Most of what people want is love and joy and peace and harmony. So I'd rather just cut to the chase."
• "In organized religion, a lot of people don't have respect for people who don't have all the answers. I'm very clear I don't have the answers -- in groups and circles something emerges that's better."
• "There is nothing to be healed, only wholeness to be revealed. So I try to get to wholeness, not trying to fix. I'm willing to focus on my own struggle and my own imperfections and inability to get it right -- and to find beauty and power and grace in that -- to be fully human and to be fully divine."
• "You don't exist, because you are beyond any concept I have of you. Our perception of reality is only perception; it's only our concept, whereas beyond our perception is an unthinkable, unspeakable vision of reality. ... But there are moments of grace that happen with the merging of the head and the heart where we have glimpses of the experience of reality."
• "Navel gazing is a real temptation because we all want to get better. It's not a bad thing -- inner transformation is an important aspect of spiritual growth -- but so also is taking spiritual growth to service to bless all beings."
• On lightness and failure: "My practice has grown because I've noticed that I've messed up -- in public. And it's been kind of fun, kind of delightful. Holding public failure lightly has always led me to a greater revelation that has made me thrilled that I've failed."
• On ministering to people during times of hurt or tragedy: "I'm not afraid of their pain -- I'm not afraid of my pain. There's a gift in it. It takes time for the gift to be revealed [and one shouldn't always talk about the gift when people are experiencing pain]. But at some point the gift will be revealed through the tragedy."
• On kindness: "I would like our congregation to be even bolder with their kindness ministry. I'm also introducing a form of activism that doesn't polarize or take sides -- I have invited people to try three things: (1) pray for wholeness to be revealed (to see big picture of anything in world of politics), (2) practice principles of reconciliation (listen, realize the law of creation of opposites pushing and to give spaciousness to allow for reconciliation of the opposites), and (3) live like the truth is true -- so practice ridiculous preemptive acts of kindness ridiculously."
• On growth and bringing in the beauty of weaknesses into her ministry: Bonnie noted that it's so much easier to embrace imperfections when you realize that "what you repress you will regress, and what you do not transform you will transmit." At some point she realized that "my life was a mirror of various things that were unhealed in me" (though what's unhealed is perfect in its own way) and her willingness "to see my life as a mirror and see what wasn't working" allowed her to start moving to a greater place of loving kindness and acceptance. And irreverence involves loving laughter about our imperfections.
• On the role of ServiceSpace in her personal spiritual development and her ministry: "ServiceSpace really showed me the power of kindness. Our congregation began on a journey of kindness." "I didn't know that kindness could be small. I thought you had to be Gandhi or Mother Teresa, who actually did do a lot of small things, but it turned into something great. But I thought kindness had to be recognized, and you weren't really accomplishing much if you didn't do huge acts of kindness. Through ServiceSpace, I started learning how the power of the small is extremely powerful, and how part of the power of the small is to recognize the power and to recognize the connections of the impact of one tiny act -- how it can create a ripple throughout the world."

Lots of gratitude to all the behind-the-scenes volunteers that made this call happen!