Loving

“In loving others, I am doing that which brings me closest to God, for God is love.” - Excerpt from Today’s Daily Word, May 21, 2010

My loving others took some novel forms for me yesterday. In the morning, I did my first volunteer session at the Humane Society of Sedona. I got to be with Beeker, a canine who’s been living there for about two months.

He’s still a bit wary of humans, but when my mentor told me he loves affection, I exclaimed, “We’re a match!” Beeker enjoys his new temporary home and doesn’t like to go very far from it. Hence, my walking him turned out to be a bust but that simply gave us the opportunity to just socialize.

I spent about 30” with Beeker, keeping him company, petting him almost continuously, talking to him and telling him he was a good boy. I was simply loving him. I opened my heart and poured out to him kindness, caring, compassion, and hope for a better life in the future than what he’d lived in the past.

In the evening, during choir practice, one of the members’ children was playing outside and scraped her knee. Somehow I got involved in taking care of her wound, but I certainly didn’t mind. Tara is part of our Unity family and so it’s natural - and an honor - to pitch in and help. She appeared fine emotionally, but still I opened my heart to her as I gave first aid.

It’s “interesting” that yesterday God’s plan was to open me to two populations - both vulnerable ones - I’ve not had as part of my regular life, both in the same day. It was an adventure and an opportunity for me to love others and bring me closer to God.

And, it is not lost on me that it was also a way of loving the little girl within. We are all wounded in some way, but God’s love shining through other beings brightens our life and helps heal us all.

Gratitude Circle

I have found my home at the weekly Gratitude Circle at Unity of Sedona I just recently started attending. I’ve been trying to figure out what makes it feel like home because the only other venue I feel this is close to is a 12 Step meeting.

Here’s the bottom line: sharing honestly, from the heart, about Spirit working in our lives as we strive to wake up, in a sacred space of openness and respectfulness of each one’s path.

I’m quite often surrounded by intellectualism and not much expression of experiencing and feeling God’s Grace. Although the vast majority of people in my life are spiritual and on a conscious path, it seems to me we don’t often talk from the heart about our experience. Missing are the tales of synchronicity, miracles, "oh shits" turned into blessings. I could sit around 24/7 listening to people share about this stuff. This was what I was hungering for before I joined 12 Step program almost 20 years ago, and it is what I hunger for still. Connection. To people, to Spirit.

This kind of meaningful, heartfelt talk and sharing of the journey opens me up to God and to the connection between us spiritual beings having this human experience. There’s this heart bond. In 12 Step program our bond is that we share a common malady that is solved by coming to believe in a Power greater than ourselves and then we put our faith and gratitude into service, into action; we are graced even more.

Sitting in a sacred circle of gratitude hearing experience, strength, and hope makes me feel like one heart, like One.

Just Do What You Do

Neglect not the gift that is in thee... - I Timothy 4:14

“What is God asking you to give today? It may be large or small, but one thing is certain: It’s something only you can give.” – By Roberta Messner (From today’s Daily Guideposts)

Well, I easily and naturally give hugs. And, I’m quick to help someone with computer-related issues. I consider myself a good listener and empathetic. But, what is it that is uniquely me, that no one else can give? My singing voice, my wit, my wisdom?

Perhaps it’s sharing my experience, strength, and hope. I’ve led an interesting and unique life considering my roots and the fact that I’m a woman. I’ve developed a philosophy of life that has served me and my fellows well.

So maybe it’s simply telling my story of how I came to believe in a Power greater than myself that could relieve me of the insanity of my life, not just in the area of my eating disorder, but in other unhealthy relationships as well. I know that I love sharing about what my life used to be like, what happened, and what it’s been like since I developed a relationship with the God of my understanding. And, I know it has been a service and a blessing to many of those who’ve heard it.

I’ve said that if I accomplished nothing else in this lifetime, shedding the atheist persona and coming to believe in Spirit and acting in accordance with that belief has been plenty.

So along with hugging, listening, and being empathic, I guess just doing what I do means being one of God’s poster children demonstrating how Spirit works in one’s life. It’s an example of healing and waking up to all that each of us truly is.

Today

Today, remind yourself that nothing is too good to be true. Your great hopes can be realized. Your most wonderful dreams can come true. All that you really need, you can have. An incredible goodness is operating in your behalf. If you are living a paltry life, resolve to stop it today. Expect great things to happen. Confidently receive God's abundant blessings. Do not think lack. Instead think prosperity, abundance, the best of everything. God wants to give to you, His child, every good thing. Don’t hinder His generosity.
- PealeCenterforPositiveThinking.com

Look to This Day by Kalidasa

Look to this day:
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendour of achievement
Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision;
And today well-lived, makes
Yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day;
Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

Today is a new day, a fresh start, another adventure. May I partake in it with vigor, enthusiasm, joy, and love.

Thank You, Spirit, for today!

Signs of Hope

I recently started using Craig’s List as a tool to get clients for my computer-related projects business.

Through me placing an ad under “Services”, I received a call from a woman writer down in Tucson who said in her voicemail that she thought I was exactly the person she’s been searching for. Those words, coupled with her name, Felicity, and her warm, bright energy, made me feel Spirit was very much involved in our connecting. Felicity signs her emails “Love and Light...”

I’ve also used Craig‘s List in the reverse way, i.e., searching for people who have advertised that they’re looking for someone for a particular “Gig.” I started searching in the Phoenix area, and moved to other Arizona area listings. Then I was inspired to check out the Big Apple, my former hometown and “The City That Never Sleeps.” Sure enough, there were plenty of listings there for me to offer my help. I’ve since moved on to Dallas and Chicago as well.

I connected with a NJ company president of an on-line vegan restaurant in need of help with his e-newsletter; Michael signs his emails “Peace Blessings & Joy...” And, I have a telephone appointment scheduled tomorrow with a design magazine firm that donates a portion of its revenue to an organization dedicated to improving poverty through design.

This has been such a wonderfully enriching and eye-opening experience. I am connecting with people throughout the country (and it’s only just begun!) and connection is about Spirit. I cannot realistically think that the type of individuals I’m meeting up with is coincidence - it is synchronicity, the way I came to believe in God. And, these individuals clearly care about other beings and the planet, and have an awareness of Spirit.

It is an honor to meet up with them, and a hopeful sign for the future of the world. People caring, people sharing, people attuned to God. We are One.

The Present

A fresh, new day – yes!

My body may still be feeling groggy and sleepy, but my spirit knows it is a new beginning. And, beginnings are always lush with hope and possibilities.

As I start out and move through this day, I commit to practicing the Presence and sticking with the present. In the past lurks resentment, in the future, fear. The present is where I’ll find and feel faith.

Today is a new beginning. Now, in faith, is where I choose to be.

Invocation to the Dawn

I read the following Sufi prayer this morning on the Beliefnet website. What a great way to start the day!

Invocation to the Dawn

Look to this day, for it is Life, the very life of Life;
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence...
the bliss of Growth, the glory of Action, the splendour of Beauty.

For Yesterday is but a dream,
and Tomorrow only a vision;
But Today well lived makes Yesterday a dream of Happiness
and Tomorrow a vision of Hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day.
Such is the salutation to the Dawn.

- Kálidása

Source: Sanskrit text

Faith and Hope

You know, more often than not, the topics I choose for discussion at the Gilbert Spirituality Meetup Group are not ones that I am perfectly clear about in my own life and am thus seeking some input – that’s an advantage of being the facilitator! That said, I really enjoy hearing other peoples’ perspectives and real life experiences. I see how we have so much in common; we are more alike than different.

Last night we discussed faith and hope...oh yes, trust too.

Now, when I refer to faith, I am not referring to religion. I am pointing to my relationship with Spirit, God, Higher Power, Great Mystery, whatever I choose to call the Spirit of the Most High. In fact, after growing up in a not-so-religious family, being a devout atheist for many years thereafter, and then coming to believe in God, I still claim no religious affiliation and don’t suppose I ever will. Faith is about my personal relationship with God, not a man-made organized structure.

This is some of what I heard at last night’s meeting with my additional musings.

Faith is absolute, a knowing, a certainty; hope implies doubt. If that be the case, give me faith, any day, over hope!

Ah, but is faith something that is or can be always? I find there are times when I am so full of faith, and other times when I’m not. When I’ve got it, I’ve got it – and when I don’t, I surely don’t! Why is that? I would love to always have it ALL the time. To trust in Spirit in all ways, always. If it’s a choice, then we’re talking about a mental process, but to me it’s a feeling and a knowing - from the heart.

Faith is to being as hope is to doing. I guess this idea is similar to faith rests in principle while hope rests in phenomena ... Faith is accepting things for what they are; hope is trying to change things. So when I accept things as they are, I am in a being state (faith), whereas when I am trying to change things, I am in a doing state (hope). Faith as a principle just is, while hope is of a lower level, a possibility. Someone suggested that maybe hope is “baby faith,” a stepping forward towards faith.

Someone shared her experience about hope vis-à-vis despair, which captured essentially what George Bernard Shaw wrote in Caesar and Cleopatra: “He who has never hoped can never despair.” That’s quite a tradeoff!

Faith is the opposite of fear (false evidence appearing real) and where there is one, the other cannot exist. When I am in fear, I am thinking about the future and wallowing in negativity. In the now, there is no fear, and faith can preside.

I was taught that if I don’t have faith, I can act as if I do, and eventually it will come. I pray to Spirit to have faith - certainty that all is well no matter what - in all ways, always.

Feels like Home.