Peace & Love

I look around me and note that in many situations as a species we are not treating each other or this earth very well and in some cases we are destroying each other and the earth, our home. Using only a short term perspective, conditions look pretty grim. I also note that in an increasing number of cases we treat the earth and each other with love and respect. Using an eternal perspective, conditions are just fine. Both views are accurate. I keep the words of Williamson in mind, that "Love is the only absolute reality, which never changes and never dies. Dwelling in that which does not change, while things around us are changing all the time, is our key to inner peace."

Power of Love

As I have said before, my goal is to change the world - one person at a time. My book is my effort to reach more people about the significance of love, forgiveness, inclusiveness and connection. I do use the word "God" and what some people consider a Christian approach, but the love, etc. is most important, not the name. I identify closely with Williamson when she wrote "We read the papers. We grieve the suffering. But many of us think, God has a plan, and we believe----still----that its name is love. Not a silly love. Not a childish love. But a powerful love, an awesome love so aligned with God that it will change all things."

Limitations

I commented a couple of days ago that I would keep moving forward, in spite of the apparent limitations of age, money and disability & today I realize that I have been doing that for years. I keep asking for guidance and support and plunging forward in spite of comments like "a person in your condition does not belong in a place like this", which I have been told several times. It’s not that I have no doubts about my capabilities. I do, and I hear my ego putting those doubts and limitations forward all the time. I just don’t pay much attention and figure that I will get the support and guidance I will need - to accomplish the impossible. Then that happens and I am reminded that "understanding is not required".

Change

I am in the process of changing several things in my life, revolving around where I live and what I do. I am beginning a new "adventure" in spite of the obvious facts of my disability and my advanced age. I also need to keep in mind the word of Williamson, that "It’s not arrogant to believe that you’re infinitely creative, brilliant and potentially perfect through the grace of God. In fact, it would be arrogant to think otherwise because what God has created cannot possibly be less than perfect (The Course In Miracles). That fact applies to you and it applies to everyone. It is not arrogant, but humble to accept God’s gifts and allow them to be expressed through you." I will keep moving forward.

Eternity

I often speak and write about "eternity" and refer to this life as being short in comparison. To me, the reality of eternity is a given. Even if a person does not believe in an afterlife, love has an impact which is eternal, even within the material world and the evidence of that is all around us, ever present. In addition there is my own and the many well documented reports of near-death-experiences. There is also the spirit experiences and correspondences I speak of in my book as well as documented mediumistic experiences, such as those described by Anthony in Evidence of Eternity. Putting all of that together is the reason I consider eternity as a given.

Growth

Several spiritual leaders like Mother Teresa have stated that the purpose of living is to learn and grow about love & I totally agree. I have seen that happen in my own life and I am extremely grateful for that. The outcome sounds and is wonderful. However the path to that outcome is not always enjoyable because as Marianne Williamson says "We will be given every opportunity to learn through joy, and when we deny ourselves that, we will learn through pain. But we will learn." In my case it took pain to move me in the direction of love & now I learn through joy.

The Power of Love

I live within a "bubble of love", which sounds insane and impractical but it is neither. I gain in awareness, physical & emotional strength, a feeling of rightness and peace through that power. I have a wonderful life, great relationships and am coping and living well with a major disability because of that bubble of love. I look around me, noticing that we humans are harming and, in some cases, destroying each other and this planet and, at the same time, realizing that ultimately things will be fine, not knowing what that really means. In the words of deCastillejo "faced with the mystery of life and death we know almost nothing".

Change 2

The other evening I had a period of feeling sorry for myself, feeling that life was just too hard. For that period I had forgotten that everything in my life was a gift, sometimes in strange wrapping paper, or, as Williamson put it, "Every circumstance------no matter how painful-----is a gauntlet thrown down by the universe, challenging us to become who we are capable of being." Remembering that sort of thing, I changed my thinking to gratitude for the things I have learned.

Change

I really like the words of Marianne Williamson when she wrote "It is time to die to who we used to be and to become instead who we are capable of being. That is the gift that awaits us now: the chance to become who we really are. And that is the miracle: the gift of change." That change to becoming who I really am is what the transforming events I spoke of yesterday have led me to. I now wish to do everything I can to help others achieve the same sort of change.

Unconditional Love

I was reading today in Mark Anthony’s book Evidence of Eternity, his comment that "Nancy Evans Bush, the president emeritus of the Near-Death Experience Society has said, "Most near-death experience [N.D.E.] subjects say they don’t think there is a God—they know there is a God." In 2006 I had an N.D.E., and I have also had numerous miraculous experiences of that same presence or force. In addition, I am with God every night through prayer and meditation. I have been gifted to know God, though I do not understand and cannot define that entity. I am in no way a religious person and I definitely have a less than "pure" past, meaning I am not "worthy" in any traditional sense, which seems to make no difference. Following that example, I love the people I meet regardless of what they do or believe.