DIAMONDS AND FOREVER

We shall find peace.

We shall hear angels.

We shall see the sky sparking with diamonds!

-- Chekhov

Lucy in the sky with diamonds....

-- The Beatles

We find our diamonds wherever we find our diamonds...but they are only forever when we find our diamonds within ourselves.

Thank You.

ACCEPTING ONE'S PURPOSE

This is the true joy in life, 

the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself 

as a mighty one. 

-- George Bernard Shaw

IT ALL BEGINS WITHIN

Simply changing my own mind about something that originated in my own mind, based on my own opinion is the hardest for me.

I was talking with a person in my condo recently, and she was sharing that she'd told her pastor about "this really nice lady who has a dog named Ruckus." She was talking about me, and I was very touched. I was very touched because when first I met her, I just wanted to put a whole lot of gone between us. I just didn't take to her. But I thought of all the running my mind and mouth I do on love, and I consciously decided to move closer to her...to think welcoming thoughts when I see her, which isn't all that often, but to make an effort to simply change my original impression which had become my opinion almost on thought. And now I really do feel welcoming when I see her, when we stop and chat.

Which brings me to another person toward whom I feel less than wonderful. Unfortunately, I have spared neither my thoughts in the thinking nor my tongue in the saying how I feel.

The trouble with still more spiritual growth is that it works. I'm now feeling really uncomfortable about my badmouthing, because it is true that no matter how justified I feel, badmouthing is just picking up mud and slinging it in my own face.

I do know that having a change of heart, becoming willing to change my mind, is all that is necessary to invite God's perfect work to begin. Mine to stay in the attitude of invitation, as in, clean up my own thoughts with which my own tongue becomes kinder (without becoming show-off sweet, kind, considerate, lovable and generous...phony, in a word).

It seems to me that spiritual growth begins within, gets completed by the Father within, and only shows forth when the action is completed...and we are usually the last to know.

Thank You.

SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD

I have come to believe that our every word and action are the tools we have chosen for God to use in leading us back to the Father within.

I have done many things with my goal being still more spiritual growth and had the results be P.U. Ugly. Then I'd beat me up for way too long.

I have come to see that when we look at the results of such words or actions and regret them, we are staying in our reasoning mind, holding God at bay. We need to be still...to still our minds...and then to wait in order for God to interpret those very words and actions from God's view.

And there's the real stumbler: first, stilling our minds; second, waiting. For God is a real drag-foot to my reasoning mind. On the other hand, He makes no mistakes. My reasoning mind sure can't claim that even when it's bending reality for its own benefit...i.e., lying to itself.

Again, the answer is in the old tried and true: Sit and wait on the Lord.

Thank You.

THE GIFT OF GOD AND GRACE...SILENCE

The greatest impediment to our spiritual growth may well be our inability/refusal to fully accept our gifts of grace, to integrate them within, and then to live them...without words.

If our lives are not showing it, we have not fully accepted it, and it is still up yonder...in our heads.

Thank You.

GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD

Is it possible for the Four Splits – body and mind, ego and soul, life and death, self and other – to be healed in this world, on this plane? That healing, that being made One, is necessary in order to know the fourth dimension.

I never seem to be able to feel any inside healing when I’m striving for inside healing. It seems I realize incredible healings within only after the fact. When I look back at my life,  I see some service I’ve given, some words I’ve spoken, some just being there I’ve done, and all of them were quite literally no big deal to me. But, in the after-the-fact, I recognize how my unplanned aid was used for the good of another.

That is humbling because quite often I also recognize my original motive, and, it was rarely for another…more likely, it was CYA on my part. Recognizing that interaction helps me recall less than wonderful things done to me. I get to refocus my first take, i.e., that there was a wrong done me, and see it as having been God’s gift to me.

Reminds me of Joseph’s punch line after his brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt. He later became the Pharaoh’s aide-de-camp, and the brothers came sniveling to him for help, apologizing for having done him dirt. His response was, “You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good.”

There’s our shortcut when someone steps on our toes seemingly without provocation. Remind ourselves s/he meant it for ill but God meant it for good…then focus on passing God’s good on.

Thank You.

WHAT IF?

[The following is a reprint of my blog of August 5, 2009.]

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

What if those words, found at the base of the Statue of Liberty, represented our real immigration policy?

What if the primary purpose of business was service to and for the benefit of the customer instead of profit to and for the benefit of the owner/stockholders?

What if the peoples of the world knew…truly knew…that bad business gets you bad business?

What if you suspected that “give until you hurt or you will hurt until you give” is a fact of life?

What if “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” were practiced by all, always and all ways?

What if you knew you really could change the world for the better by being just a little more giving each day?

What if the person who had stolen your good name, got you fired from your job, and ran away with your spouse needed your blessing to die at peace…and you knew God was listening, loving you the same no matter what your choice?

What then?

Thank You.