What's in a Name?

Rumi says, “With us the name of everything is its outward appearance; with the Creator, the name of each thing is its inward reality.” - From The Rumi Collection, edited by Kabir Helminski, published by Shambhala Publications, Inc.

How shallow it seems to be named based on outward appearances, for appearances are illusionary and not real. What is real is eternal and internal, the essence of a thing.

I may be named Joyce, woman, female, business person, singer, volunteer, friend, lover, wife, and much more. But what it really comes down to - the reality - is my essence, the real me. And, that is I am a holy child of God. My inward being is love, peace, joy.

Morning Prayer

Dear Spirit of the Most High-
As the month of June speeds ahead, we give thanks for You. We stretch ourselves to feel Your Presence in all that we do and all whom we meet.

Grant us peace as we go out to do your bidding this day. May we be Your emissaries of light and love, as we awaken and demonstrate to others the joy and peace of leaving pain and suffering behind in the illusion of the old world and step into the new earth.

Thank You, God!

Every Day...

I arise every morning at 5 AM. As we move closer to the summer solstice, each day the sun rises earlier and gradually more light greets me at that time. Every morning is lighter and lighter.

But today it seemed to be much lighter than just yesterday. Still, what matters to me is that every day is longer and brighter than the one before regardless of the interval between them.

With this thought, the words “every day” flashed through my mind and I started humming the tune by Buddy Holly. Here’s an excerpt from Everyday:

Everyday, it's a gettin' closer,
Goin' faster than a roller coaster,
Love like yours will surely come my way, (hey, hey, hey)

Everyday, it's a gettin' faster,
Everyone says go on up and ask her,
Love like yours will surely come my way, (hey, hey, hey)

Everyday seems a little longer,
Every way, love's a little stronger,
Come what may, do you ever long for
True love from me?

Everyday, it's a gettin' closer,
Goin' faster than a roller coaster,
Love like yours will surely come my way, (hey, hey, hey)

How true these words from the 1950’s are in today’s world. The days surely are going by faster and faster as time speeds up in this accelerated universe.

And, every day I am a bit more awake from the illusion than I was the prior day. I’m a bit more open, more kind, patient. I am stronger, standing in my power, that which comes from Source.

I’m getting closer and closer to Spirit every day. It seems this song could be about love from God coming my way every day. And that’s so true. God’s love is ever present - every minute, every hour, every day.

Every day - no matter the length of the sun shining - is a day to grow stronger in loving others and getting closer to my Higher Power. Hey, hey! Amen!

Converting Energy

I was surprised to read Dr. Norman Vincent Peale talking about energy. He writes:

“You can actually make worry work for you. If worry attacks you, you may as well make use of it. Instead of letting worry be destructive turn it into a constructive use. Worry is an energy, a form of energy. When you worry you are using energy destructively. When you are practicing faith you are using energy constructively. So make worry work for you. Make it work for you by letting it make you think straight.”
- Set Worry Straight, with Faith


Dr. Peale says that when we worry our mind is thrown off balance. It is hot and it needs to be cool so we can use the power that God gave us.

I know that worry and faith cannot coexist and I opt to be in faith and not in fear.

Dear Spirit –
When I fall into fear and worry, please give me the comfort of Your presence and the confidence to trust You. May I convert negative energy into positive energy to help me live in this world of illusion, knowing that Your goodness, love, and abundance are always with me regardless of appearances. Please calm my mind, bring peace to my heart, and strengthen my spirit so that I may live in joy. Show me Your way and help me to follow it. So it is. Thank You.

The Voice

It seems that as soon as I start looking at the monthly financials, my ego’s energy is boosted and fear moves right into my mind. It’s so easy for me to forget the true Source of all my wealth, to give power to a number, to believe in the illusion. I’m so sick of this game of my ego easing God out.

Dear Spirit of the Most High -

Please remain grounded in my heart and give me the strength to turn off the voice of the ego and hear the voice of love – Your Voice, Your Love. That is truly all there is. I am grateful.

Struggle Versus Peace

“Whatever gives you a sense of struggle and strife is false. Whatever gives you a sense of peace is right.” – Open Your Mind to Receive by Catherine Ponder, page 75.

The above quote is a remarkable and easy tool to use to gauge how I am living my life.

When I feel peaceful about a situation, I know I am doing God’s will; I am following the right path. When I am unsettled, trying to control people and situations, up to my eyeballs in struggle, I am in ego and out of sync with God. I am immersed in illusion and falsehood.

This morning I felt the ‘To Do’s’ and future concerns that have been piling up and which I’d been struggling with fall into a heap of surrender. And, I felt peace. I’m done with struggle and strife.

Dear Spirit –
Give me peace, I pray. When struggle and strife arise, please awaken me and have me surrender once again into Your peaceful, loving, caring arms. Please keep me in this state of surrender, staying focused in the Now and what You would have me do. Thank You, God. So it is.

Mental Diet

Like many others, Emmet Fox says that if you change your mind your conditions must change too. ‘As within, so without.’ That means your health, your wealth, home life, work life, etc. Pretty powerful concept, huh?

Fox talks about training yourself to choose the subject of your thinking and to choose your moods. He suggests a seven day mental diet whereby you must not allow yourself to dwell for a single moment on any kind of negative thought. Once you start on the diet, you must go right through for seven days. If you go off the diet, you have to start all over - seven days of unbroken mental discipline is essential in order to get the mind definitely bent in a new direction once and for all.

Now, I’d not intended to go on this mental food plan, but reading about it yesterday did heighten my awareness about my thoughts.

In the first place, I noticed the number of all thoughts swirling in my head is huge. It’s no wonder I can be confused or blocked – I need a traffic cop in there! Then, it’s pretty interesting how often negativity can slip in.

However, before getting fully discouraged, I continued reading about the diet today. Ahhh.

Fox doesn’t intend that we will not have a negative thought. Rather, the diet is about not entertaining the thought, not dwelling upon it. The idea is that when a negative thought comes up, one whisks it away like a red hot cinder that flies out from a fire and lands on one’s sleeve. The emphasis here is on not staying on the negative thought. I feel better now.

Having an ego in this illusion, there is no doubt that negative thoughts (fear, anger, judgment, etc.) will come to my mind. My job is to let them go with love. And, I’m more and more able to do this. I may not have followed Fox’s plan – I think it a great idea – but by focusing on Spirit and returning quickly to thoughts of God and Its Will when I stray, I am able to stay in the positive realm of thought. It’s a different type of mental diet, but one that works nonetheless.

Perspective

A line from yesterday’s In God’s Care stated “We need our connection to God to maintain our perspective on life.” How true that rings for me this morning!

Early in my days of 12 Step recovery as “I came to believe” and formulate an entirely new philosophy of life, I realized that everything in this life is just a “spit in the bucket” (of eternity). The little things and the big things work themselves out eventually and hence I can be peaceful regardless of circumstances.

Circumstances are ever-changing and, in this world, usually crazy and illusionary; I often just have to laugh at it all. But Spirit is permanent, never-changing, and what is truly real.

With God “all things are possible,” I am in God’s care at all times, and, in the grand scheme of things, all that matters is God.

As I strengthen my connection to Spirit with each positive thought held and each prayer prayed, I maintain my perspective on this roller coaster of life by keeping my eye staid on Thee.

The Dream

A Course in Miracles talks about this world as an illusion, a dream. So do Eastern traditions as well as other sources. When the individual has awakened from the dream, he/she will know true reality.

Like the alarm clock I use to awaken me in the morning, I set my cell phone alarm to awaken me from my meditative practice. This morning, when it went off, a question appeared in my consciousness: Is this the way it’s going to be when I awaken from the dream, i.e., an alarm will sound, and – poof! – I’ll be fully awaken, and Home with God in the Real World?

No, I don’t think that’s the way it works. For me, awakening has been a gradual process although there’ve been some big “Ah-ha’s” along the path.

I look forward to when I arrive Home a fully conscious being. Until then, I’ll put one foot in front of the other, be open to God’s guidance, and seek to realize all the God-like potential that resides inside me.

Home

When there is nothing I can find joy in as I ponder today’s world of craziness, I can always go back to God. In fact, that is really the best place for me to be always, at all times.

God is my Source, my Home. Why would I want to be anywhere else? The outside, physical world just seems to be getting more and more insane and silly as each day passes by. Just watch TV commercials and you can get an idea of the type of values that are being trumpeted, the things in life that are considered important. Brrrrr!

I choose to go inside more and more, to the world of peace, and love, and joy, and light. There I find comfort, strength, revitalization. Then, I am fortified to deal with the craziness of the illusion, which one day will disappear and I shall be at Home in God at all times and in all respects.