 Did you know that there are over 2,200 known religions in the world? We are all born into one belief, religion, or faith, which influences how we see the world and everything and everyone in it, including ourselves. Do our beliefs divide and separate us, or do they bring us together in greater harmony? When you look up with awe on a star-filled night, do you ask who or what created all of this? Have you ever had a profound or deeply challenging experience in your life that changed your beliefs at the core of your being? Enlightened Pathways takes us on a journey of discovery to understand just how spiritual transformational experiences impact our lives and the world around us. Join us now as we deeply explore all that nourishes, heals, and inspires us. Welcome to Enlightened Pathways. Welcome. My name is Robert Cabeca, and I am your host today of Enlightened Pathways. And today, my guest, all the way from Arizona, is Phil Gustafson. Welcome, Phil. We met Phil a few years ago when I was in a NLP coaching certification. And during that time, I met Phil in a number of our online sessions, and I asked Phil one time if he could coach me on a couple of things. And he and I have been talking and meeting and collaborating ever since. Phil has become very endeared to me. I cherish our conversations. We meet every couple of weeks to have conversations about our own growth, what's going on in our lives. How can we be of support to each other? He has been a spiritual gold mine for lack of a better word for me, so that I am able to explore my own growth, but not only that, to be able to understand how to perceive other people's growth in their own life and how I can contribute to that as well. He recently relocated to Arizona from Massachusetts. And one thing that's really obvious to me is that he's always complaining about how cold it is in Arizona. So with that, I give you my friend and mentor, Phil. Well, Robert, it's a delight to be able to catch up with you this way. I'd hope to be able to travel to Portland that just didn't work. So I'm traveling electronically to be with you and engage in this conversation. We've had some great conversations over the last couple of years, and I look forward to our time together today. Yeah, so I like to start out our conversations by starting with a very simple question about what was early life like for you in your recollection of your own spiritual growth or religion that you were brought up in or belief system, and when you became aware of that and what that awareness at that time did for you? Well, when I was born, my mother was living with her in-laws. My dad was overseas serving our military during the end of the Korean conflict. And so I did not meet my dad until I was 10 months old. But she was Baptist by background, but my grandparents were Lutheran. And so she decided to take her son to the Lutheran church and see about him being raised there. So my early memories were that of going to the Swedish Lutheran church, which actually moved from Swedish to English during my early years, but also when we'd sing those songs and hear the preaching in the morning and then in the afternoon, my mother got home and would put on the LP player and play Tennessee Ernie Ford and several other of her Baptist favorite Sims. So I grew up with music from both traditions and an appreciation for a variety within our Christian faith. When did you recognize that you might have started to actually become aware of what that faith actually meant to you as a young person and when you might have started to maybe not question it, but explore what its role was in your life? I'm one of these, I guess, rare people who do not remember a time when I didn't have a faith journey as part of my life. I did because of my mother's background being a non-Lutheran or being in a kind of a Baptist tradition. I had the chance to experience that when I was friends of mine growing up in Erie, Pennsylvania. Many of my friends were of the Roman Catholic tradition, and so I got to learn some of that, some of their beliefs, some of the differences and some of the similarities we had with so in early probably in fifth or sixth grade that I started realizing there were some differences and experienced some level of judgment for having a different type of tradition than several of my friends around me, whether I was going to hell or not, those kinds of things. And I was more interested in seeing what we can find in common rather than what divides us. What differences we had, I always saw as different ways of diversity. I wouldn't use that term when I was in fifth grade, but I would see differences as an opportunity for diversity, not for division and not for judgment. So that was kind of a way that I grew up with that in mind. I had some questions as to whether the Lutheran tradition was indeed the right one for me. I had already, before I was looking at that, at the age of 12, was visiting with my cousins, and we were all talking about what we're going to be when we grow up. And my cousins gave their responses. They asked me what I was going to be. I said, are you going to be a jet pilot or a pastor? And they broke out laughing because they realized that I was not good pastor material for my behavior. But when my parents heard this, within half an hour, I was meeting with my pastor. And he said, well, I've seen that in you. You're going that direction. He wanted to challenge me to broaden my understandings so that I could see if this was a good fit for me or not. And so I did that. What was really faith shaping for me after that was time spent at a church camp, Lutheran church camp, Camp Luthalin, where I had a chance to meet people of various ethnic backgrounds, many of them were Lutheran, some were not. But they were racially disparate as well as lifestyle disparate. So we had a chance to expand my faith and be challenged in ways with the camp. So that was a very helpful time for me. My early years in school were in a school that was 50 percent African-American, 50 percent Caucasian. Then in third grade, I moved to a school which had 600 students, five of which were black. And then when I went to junior high, I was back to a 50-50 population. Again, most of my friends who grew up, the school was only five black, had no experience with that kind of diversity. And I was kind of seen as a stranger because I had no problem looking at a person, chromatic differences or whatever, but just working, just looking at the person's, the content of their character as Dr. King would later ascribe very nicely. And so those factors all kind of went into it. I looked at things that I went to college. I was a psychology major. I was in track to go into a PhD program in psychology, but the chair of the department who was an avowed atheist asked me what I was planning on doing after I got my PhD. I said, I was going to go to seminary. He said, well, why don't we have all the PhDs in psychology we need. But your God needs you as a pastor. So why don't you just skip the PhD and go into ministry? And that was a good experience for me to hear that affirmation from him. And just my experience in seminary was in Philadelphia. I grew up in Erie, which was a medium-sized city. College was in a small town, so going to an urban center to be able to experience the diversity there and a different faith background was always helpful for me to look at what differences we have, how they can point to the same thing. And that's kind of been a draw for me in my ministry, has been looking at that. I don't get into the big picture of making general statements that everybody should fit into. I kind of like the image of in faith the parable of the lost sheep or the lost coin. I tend to focus on that lost sheep or the lost coin that I do the 99 or the nine. And that's kind of where behind me I have an image, a friend of mine crafted for me as I retired from active ministry. My last sermon was on starfish. So rather than having crosses up on my wall, which I've had in the past, I chose to put the starfish up. There's a story that I was taught by one of our people about a beach with loaded with starfish and gentlemen walking on the beach and seeing a young boy picking up a starfish and throwing it into the sea. And he goes, what are you doing? So I'm picking up a starfish and throwing it back into sea so I can live. He goes, well, there's this beach is filled with hundreds of starfish. You can't make those difference. And the boy picked up the one starfish threw it in and turned to the man and said, I made it for that one. And that's kind of that's been kind of my focus as we look at differences, as we look at diversity. What is the one thing that we can that can help that person journey forward to connect with a God who loves them? And that's kind of that's been kind of my faith. My faith journey has been in Lutheran Church as a pastor of various size congregations. But even though it has preached to crowds of anywhere up to 300 most times in the 30s, 40s, 50s, I'm looking for the one who needs to encounter a gracious God in their life that day. I can find a way to to invite that one to connect with God. I'm feeling I succeeded. That's remarkable. And I love the story of the starfish. Absolutely. Because I know for me in my own journey, sometimes I can feel quite helpless in how I can make a difference. It's like there's just so much going on. What can I do to make a difference? And even if I do make a difference, it's not going to be big enough to matter. And it's got to be it's got to matter. You know, it's got to matter and, you know, that type of thing. And forgetting that the most powerful place that I could ever be in my life is here in the present moment with whomever it is that I am with. And that's the only place that I can ever make any kind of a difference. You know, and I think that for me, a big lesson in that regard has been to reduce what I, you know, hold not my imagination, but in my mind is as what I think is good enough or big enough or important enough, you know, enough, enough, enough, et cetera. You know, by misheld or misappropriated beliefs in the past that tell me that, oh, what you're doing is just so insignificant. It's not going to make a difference. But, you know, like you, you know, for many decades, I've had the opportunity to work with people who, you know, on the brink of life and death and being able to make the difference sometimes, unfortunately not all the time, but sometimes to where they're able to live for another day, if not, you know, for even much longer. So I know that like in today's day and age right now with everything that we got going on on the planet, sometimes in my conversation with people, they can feel quite overwhelmed. It's like, well, what can I do? What difference can I make? How can I show up? Maybe you can talk to that for a moment. I think that that being in the present moment, I mean, we have our paths and at times our paths have scarred us, but our paths can also instruct us. I try to play the game of golf and much of my game is based on trying to overcome my mistakes in my past, but try to try to focus on where I'm at each time. I think for people, your past should inform you but should not control you and your future is open with a variety of paths based on the choices you make at this time. And I see when I'm working with someone, sometimes I've been privileged to journey with someone in their end of life cycle. Other times as they're making life decisions, vocational, relational, just to be able to help them imagine what can this can be and what are they hoping to accomplish with what they're doing? And sometimes having people being able to articulate for perhaps for the first time, what their choices can mean can help them find a better path. I mean, when you come to the fork in the road, take it. There is a sense of going both ways. But let's explore which way can we see and understand that we can control everything. We can just control what we're doing now. But if we have an awareness of what might be, we can prepare ourselves for that. And that's a lot of what I do in what I've been privileged to preach with a group of people is help with stories and metaphors to help people create their own vision from there, what they're going to do. I'm not a person who gives you three steps and this is how you have a better life. I'm more of a person. Let's tell a story and I take my pattern from my ultimate mentor, which is Jesus Christ, who whenever he was asked a hard question would always let me tell you a story and would do those metaphorical stories so well that we call them parables or whatever. But I think as we as we listen, have a chance to listen to to a person who's in those situations to help them free them up from from bondage to their past to opening to a brighter future. And and one of the gifts I I've appreciated in the Lutheran tradition when we're at our best, when we're at our worst, I don't want to go there. But when we're at our best, we we live in what NLP calls metaprograms in the tension between either oars and and and and that living in that in that in that tension in between can be a very helpful way to look at things so we're not at one end or the other. I mean, you know, politically, I'm not red or blue, I guess purple. But I see I see good in both sides. And what we can craft as a nation is based on when we can live at the best of both and kind of demolish the worst of both both sides. And I think the same thing comes with with with people's faith journeys. Too many people. Have experienced church. Or in the Christian faith in fear of rather in moving towards. I'm afraid of hell. I'm afraid of judgment. I'm afraid of this. And certainly, there's there's a there's a cause for things. Are we in times those kinds of things? But if we live our life around fear, it limits what we can do. If we live our life around hope or faith or trust or love, that opens up gates for us to be able to do things to overcome fear, to overcome things. That's so that's kind of kind of where and that's again with starship with the starfish. I'm sorry. The starship starfish. We want to have a space, I guess, but in the starfish story that I can help the one and help the one open a future. Who knows what's going to happen when the starfish enters the water, but it has a chance of living life that didn't have before. And I think it's interesting that fear has with it so much energy that can be all encompassing. And for me, for many years, I know that fear felt overwhelming where I felt like I had no choice but to live my life in reaction to that fear. And then through various methodologies, spiritual teachings, NLP, core transformation, et cetera, it's all these different methodologies. I can learn how to interpret that energy. And instead of labeling it fear, I can actually tap into the energy of it and redirect that energy to where it's going to most support me and be the most resourceful for me. So because when I get into fear mode for me, and I guess for most folks, possibly is that I put myself into victim mode. I have to defend and self preservation and it's me against. So if it's me against all my barriers come up and who do I trust and why am I trusting and how long should I trust you for, et cetera. So I spend all this energy trying to figure things out instead of just being able to unlabel that energy from fear and actually utilize it in a more resourceful way that's where I can actually experience unconditional love, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness. I mean, our subconscious mind fight, flight or freeze. Fear can generate one of those three immediate decisions before we're consciously thinking about it. But then what we can do is we can allow that fear to control us and inform all our decisions or it can inform us as to what we can do. After our initial reaction of flight, flight and freeze, what can we do to the process? Is this fear life threatening? Is there something I can do about it? And that's that's I think part of where faith in spirituality can help is if we have an anchor beyond that fear, beyond our self, beyond our feelings. If if we if we have an anchor that leads us to trust and faith or to or to love, which can give us the gift of hope. St. Paul once wrote, faith, hope and love, these three abide the greatest of these is love. That I think love is is the ultimate answer to the fears of life. If we're afraid of judgment, you know, can you control it? No, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. What can you do? Well, in the meantime, I can live a life of love as opposed to a life of fear. I can I can embrace the world and can embrace embrace those around me to assist them in any way I can. Or I can just lock everything up and build a mode around my castle in fear of faith, which way you want to go. And both of those can will result in a different in a different type of life. Pensioned earlier, the fork in the road and which one do you take? Am I going to go down that? Road of love and faith, or am I going to, you know, go down that road of, you know, fear, you know, and all that that entails? Which what do you do on a regular basis to support and nourish your continued spiritual growth? I continue in my retirement. I continue to to gather with others for worship. I think that that that's that is a key ingredient for me to connect with other people focusing on God. And that's not all Lutheran worship, it's different types. I think there's a wealth of traditions within the Christian tradition. There's also a wealth of traditions around faith communities around the world. Our Buddhist friends, our Islamic friends, our Jewish friends all have a wealth of spirituality that we can tap into that can that can benefit us. Our Native American religions and some of the other pagan religions can can can lead us very, very in very helpful directions. I also. And do spend, try to spend some focused time every day just kind of meditating. Sometimes it's around a practice in spirituality called a lecture, the vino, where you read a particular writing either of sacred texts or of of of contemplation and and read it and then read it to stop and then and then reflect upon it, then read it again. What is it? What is God telling me in this and read it again? Sometimes sometimes it's it's it's reading scripture or or or some other overt religious writing. Sometimes it's reading just a another source, you know, to me, C.S. Lewis is is often the screwtape. Letters has been one that I've I've used a few times. J.R. Tolkien's lowerings in the Hobbit, not all three parts of the Hobbit movie, but but at least the story itself leads some good some some good reflections as to what I would do, what we could do, what might have happened differently. And those those are ways that I I retap with myself. But I do like connecting with others on a regular basis for for communal worship and and and and and and conversation afterwards. Learn what what maybe I got from something or that when somebody else got it that I never that I never saw and and and hearing someone else preach, they'll often take a journey as entirely different directions I ever would, but it's been a great drive. It's a great ride to take up and in great experience to have. That's fantastic. And I'm just curious, where do you see yourself going? You said retirement, but I happen to know it's retirement. Two point. Oh. A colleague of mine from the Anilpiece Circus, Steve McVeigh, and I talk about a realignment, not retirement, that we are realigning ourselves by my friend, Greg Euthis, who who painted that wonderful picture, has also retooled himself in the life of post ministry, which in a great way. And I deeply appreciate their friendship. I'm doing. Part of that that starfish imagery has been in the last years in ministry has been doing a lot of coaching, working with people one on one to take them either formally or informally from a present state to a desired outcome. It could be sometimes a problem or it could just be a direction I want to go. I've done this with individuals. I was privileged in my in my retirement to to work with a congregation whose pastor had died and to serve as the interim pastor. So till such time as they call the new pastor and help that congregation move from their present state of grief and of doubt and and and struggle to a healthy position. So when the new pastor arrived, they were in a good place. And if God willing, that may be another another journey for me. But I also am working with with with coaches to help other coaches do things. Well, I work with the ICF Arizona chapter with professional development to seek help provide tools for coaches to go. I also have a course at the AP Center on spiritual leaders that there are some unique things about spiritual leadership that that that coaching can help and and and I'll pick and help them understand that. So I work with them in that program. So those are some of some of these, but I'd like to do one on one coaching or group coaching or team coaching. I love doing those as well, to help move from that present state to that desired outcome. Well, thank you so much, Phil, for that. And unfortunately, that is all the time that we have today to speak with Phil. I really appreciate your time here, and I look forward to talking with you again off camera, as it were. And faithmindset.net. And if you wish to be in touch with me, I'll be happy to do that at a great Webmaster who got that site up for me. Web link up on our credits and on our website as well. So if you'd like to, you can get in touch with Phil. And just a few closing remarks and a shout out to today's executive producer and sponsor Bridge to Heaven Healing and Lipin Lizards, which is the premier source for healing crystals and readings with four locations. You can visit www.lipinlizards.biz for more information. Also, a big thanks to our co-executive producer, Dr. Anna Cabeca, the creator of Mighty Makka Plus, the daily nourishing supplement that improves metabolism and reinvigorates the body. Visit drannacabeca.com for more information. Also, if you would like to get more information about this show to reach out to us or to sponsor us, please visit www.deepbeing.org. And a quick shout out to the crew, Director Pat McCartney, Audio and Sound, Dale Ashme, and Cameras, Travis Nadeau, as well as to the Portland Media Center and their team, Tom, Dino and Warren. Thank you for watching Enlightened Pathway is in spending your valuable time with us today. Until next time, play, have fun, be happy.