I Am a Little Pencil...

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. - Mother Teresa

I have just moved forward toward publishing the book I have been working on - off and on - for a while now. There has been a period in which I could not do much writing and I was frustrated about it, feeling like I was failing, but I have now realized that I have actually been working on it more "on" than "off", even if it did not seem so. Events of my life have been telling the story, with me living the book even when I was not writing. The experiences ARE the book - the seeking, the learning, the practicing - all a necessary part of what is being said. It is one thing to write about something from your head, telling others how to be, but the experience of living it, obstacles and all, makes it from the heart. To write this book from the heart, from the soul, I needed to live it fully, and God provided me with wonderful opportunities to "practice what I preach".

I needed to learn to let go of my own fears and just trust Him, knowing that everything we need is provided at exactly the time we need it, and when we are ready to allow it. I needed to clear areas of my life that were holding me back, some of which had been holding me back my entire life, patterns that ran deep. I needed to learn to love me, because the love I give others is not complete until I really love and appreciate myself. I needed to learn that I am deserving, and special, and that I have many gifts from God to share with the world, to help make it a better place. I needed to let go of the effects of a world that beats us up, telling us that we are less, forcing us to conform to its way, which are not always in line with who we really are.

At the beginning of this year, I started hosting a facebook page studying "A Course In Miracles". Its ideas correspond to many of the thoughts on this blogsite, and the ideas that I have been learning since I started down this journey of spiritual awakening. ACIM shows us a systematic path on which to undo some of our worldly conditioning so that we can return to God in a truer fashion, through returning to our own power that is activated by love. It shows us how to release our fear emotions, which include doubt, guilt, judgment, and uncertainty. Although I had studied ACIM previously, going throught the exercises again at this time, after I had cleared many obstacles, has been immensely helpful. Doing it with others through facebook, I believe, has given me an added power. As we seek to grow spiritually, we are uplifted by others who are doing the same.

As I move forward in finishing the book and publishing it, I keep in mind Mother Teresa'a quote and ask to be a little pencil in the hand of God. I know these experiences I have had are through God, and I ask to be an accurate messenger of ideas that will help others find God, find peace, find love for themselves and others so that our world can be a better place. If you have enjoyed this blogsite, please hold me up in the light to help me complete this task in a way that brings light to others.

We are all pencils of God, whether we are writing, expressing other gifts, or simply living in a way that shows compassion and acceptance of others, remembering that we are all One. Find your avenue to be a little pencil, to open to your gifts and share with others. Your life will have new meaning and you will have more joy and peace.

Purposeful Giving: Give What You Wish to Receive

Give, and it will be given unto you. (Luke 6:38)

During this season of giving, we are provided with an opportunity to be thoughtful in what we give to others. In our commercialized society, gift giving, like much of our lives, has become about things. The giving process becomes more about obtaining the right purchase for each person on our list...the holidays about decorating our homes in certain way, often adding stress to already over-committed lives. As is often the case, the Universe provides us with circumstances to help us learn and grow if we choose to do so. At this particular time when finances are tough for many, we are provided a wonderful opportunity to remove ourselves from the need to exchange excessive monetary gifs and become more contemplative in our sharing, giving in ways that are more meaningful to both the giver and the receiver.

It is a powerful spiritual approach to give that which we wish to receive for ourselves....if you wish to receive forgiveness, give forgiveness to another...to receive healing, help another to heal...to receive patience from others, be patient with another. You will soon learn that your needs are fulfilled, or even that the things you thought you needed to receive from others were within you all the time. In that act of giving it away, we reconnect with what we already had.

For those with financial concerns or who are seeking less financial stress, this process of giving gifts from the heart rather than the wallet provides a gift within itself...if you wish for financial relief, give it to yourself by resisting the temptation to make the holidays about monetary purchases or giving more stuff. In taking this new approach, you will likely see both the financial relief, as well as the gift that comes from giving something deeper, from sharing a more spiritual gift...a gift of time, of love, and one that will be far more meaningful than anything at the shopping mall.

Take a calmer approach to the holidays, think about what you can give from your heart, and feel the peace that follows.

Seeing and Seeking Beyond the Ordinary

My husband loves nature photography, particularly floral and botanical shots. This is not his profession, although he has a real gift that he is developing into a rather serious hobby. (http://public.fotki.com/jwangrin/). I recently sat down to view and choose some photographs to use in a project, and I was so struck by how profoundly more beautiful simple things can be if we take the time to look beyond the surface as he has - if we look beyond what we usually see through our filtered lenses. Such overlooked beauty exists in so many things around us - if we will view them from varied and deeper perspectives.

The way we live our lives is often similar to this. We only see the surface of our existence, but never really go deeper to see more - never getting real or taking the time to see how much more we can be. I think we fail to do this, in part, because we are afraid to know how beautiful and talented we really are. We choose to live mechanical, mundane lives, coloring strictly inside the lines that society has prescribed, instead of living boundlessly and becoming everything that God made us to be. It is so much easier to believe that we are not special or to run from our uniqueness that we rarely dare to discover our true beauty or our true gifts. If we know there might be much more to us (or even much more to God), there might be too much expected of us, too much upheavel to our scripted lives, so we often settle for the ordinary - in our lives and in our faith.

Imagine how much better the world could be if we let down our specified guidelines for how everyone should progress through life - if we started to celebrate our uniqueness rather than ostracizing those who are different and criticizing those who think or live differently than we do. If we did this just long enough to let our own beauty and gifts shine through and to encourage it in others, we would see many problems dissolve in our own lives and those around us. Doing this collectively on a large scale would create tremendous improvements in the world. We often think of miracles as only tangible physical "cures", but sometimes greater miracles occur when we simply change the way we think, both toward ourselves and toward others. For me, this is what the message of Jesus was all about - creating miracles through loving one another. It sums up what he tried so hard to teach, but has often been misunderstood.

Take the time to look beyond the surface and the obvious in your daily path, both visually and within yourself. Dare to let go enough to find the things that make your soul sing, no matter how strange or different they may seem to the rest of the world. Dare to look beyond the surface to see more. If you surrender to your greatest self, your highest self (the miraculous creature that God made each of us to be) you will be a renewed person who lives in joy and touches those around you. What a great way to live each day! It may not be easy to live authentically from your soul, and it may cause upheaval with some around you, but each time you do so, you will begin to rediscover your true self.

If we wish to free ourselves from enslavement, we must choose freedom and the responsibility this entails. - - Leo Buscaglia, Author