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Praise
The Great Adventure of the Spirit
We have all been given opportunity to experience the great adventure found in the invisible world of the spirit
June 02, 2006

When the weather is dreary, the news is bad, or nothing is happening in my life, my spirit slips down, down, down. For me, the "blahs" are more difficult to deal with than are real troubles. Real troubles I understand, the "blahs" I cannot reach out and touch. They make me shamefully aware of my self-centered, ungrateful attitude--of my humanness.

Pulling out of the depressed moment is not as simple as making up one's mind to snap out of it, yet very simple happenings can make the depressing thoughts disappear instantly. Today I was rescued from the "blahs" by a simple phone call from a friend who has found new excitement in his personal relationship with the One Living God. The excitement in his voice, the exhilaration of his spirit, brought me back to a state of rejoicing that we have all been given this opportunity to experience the great adventure found in the invisible (to living humans) world of the spirit. The "blahs" just do not belong with us:

"If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." --John 4:10

"I look at the trees; their roots sink deep by the stream. In the same way, let my roots sink deep into you. Let me feed on your word. As we commune in prayer, let me drink from the living water of your Spirit. Let me jump in and be bathed by your cleansing power. I will rely on you rather than things that are shallow and temporary. I can’t depend on my own abilities and strength, but I’m confident in your care and direction. I will take special notice of the good things when they come. I will fix my mind on what is pure and lovely and upright. When the heat and winds of life’s storms come, I will not fear; I know you are near. I will not worry but keep on producing a life that is a blessing for you and others." --Anita Corrine Donihue

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Meditations
Dispersing the Shadows of Grief and Sorrow
Prayer is a vehicle by which I can miraculously pursue intimacy with the all-powerful God
June 04, 2006

Another month has come and gone. Another month of our lives, with all it's joys, sorrows and troubles. A whole new set of experiences has entered our memory bank and our history has changed....or has it? I listen to the birds singing, I take in the beauty of the green trees and grass. The flowers have begun to decorate the landscape and all seems the same as it must have been since the beginning of time. As spring becomes summer and summer turns to fall, the same story of nature has been repeated once again.

As I leave my peaceful sanctuary and head out into whatever is going to impact me today having requested God's guidance--plus remaining conscious of his unchanging promises--will give me all I need to make it through the best or the worst of days. For in the end, I know all is the same as it has been since the beginning of time in the big picture of God's plan. Today's issues can be forgotten tomorrow, even by the person most affected.

"There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the body; there is no comforter to compare with good will for dispersing the shadows of grief and sorrow. To live continually in thoughts of ill will, cynicism, suspicion, and envy, is to be confined in a self-made prison hole. But to think well of all, to be cheerful with all, to patiently learn to find the good in all—such unselfish thoughts are the very portals of happiness; and to dwell day by day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will bring abounding peace to their possessor." --James Allen

"Prayer is neither black magic nor is it a form of demand note. Prayer is a relationship. The act of praying is more analogous to clearing away the underbrush which shuts out a view than it is to begging in the street. There are many different kinds of prayer. Yet all prayer has one basic purpose. We pray not to get something, but to open up a two-way street between us and God, so that we and others may inwardly become something." --John Heuss

"Prayer isn’t just a spiritual version of Santa’s toy sack. God never intended my prayers to be wish lists filled solely with my requests for what I think I need. Rather, prayer is a vehicle by which I can miraculously pursue intimacy with the all-powerful God. So, in that sense, I suppose something happens every time I pray. I make contact with eternity. I get a chance to let God know how I feel, to laugh and cry in my Father’s presence, and to trust God no matter how life’s circumstances turn out. Perhaps instead of saying, "I prayed, nothing happened," I need to learn how to simply say, "I prayed. That’s enough." --Mike Nappa

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Teachings
The Struggle between Love and Self-Will
Choosing love as a life principle widens the chalice of my soul
June 06, 2006

Many of us suffer with concerns over "getting it right". From every side comes instructions and rules we are told we must follow in order to please God. So many rules come so rapidly that we despair of ever being able to get it right, especially when the rules seem to be conflicting each other. Putting a personal relationship with God first while following the first and second commandments on loving God and neighbor, and concentrating on them until our spirit is at peace, will allow God to reveal to us exactly what He wishes from each of us:

"Saying "Yes!" to God's gift of love and life primarily and above all means choosing love as a life principle. However, saying "Yes!" to God is not a simple matter because making our lives into lives of love is not a simple or easy thing. To choose love as a life principle means that my basic mind-set or questions must be: What is the loving thing to be, to do, to say? My consistent response to each of life's events, to each person who enters and touches my life, to each demand on my time and nerves and heart, must somehow be transformed into an act of love. However, in the last analysis, it is this "Yes!" that opens me to God. Choosing love as a life principle widens the chalice of my soul, so that God can pour into me his gifts and graces and powers." --John Powell

"There is no way of making a person true unless he gives up his own will. In fact, apart from complete surrender of the will, there is no traffic with God. But if it did happen that we gave up completely and dared to put off everything, physical and spiritual, for God's sake--then we should have done all and not before.

"Such people are rare. Aware of it or not, people have wanted to have the "great" experiences; they want it in this form, or they want that good thing; and this is nothing but self-will. Yield completely to God and then be satisfied, whatever he does with his own." --Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327, German scholar, mystic.

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Rants
A Fresher Wind
Creation was given to people as a clean window through which the light of God could shine
June 08, 2006

God has been good to me. Sandwiched between my lessons on the ugliness of life have been periods of wonderful rest and beautiful peace. Recently I've had nearly a year and a half of peaceful joy and the subsequent growth in faith is now being burdened with carrying me through the next period of dealing with naked reality.

The degradation of the human being as a by-product of the drug culture comes straight from the bowels of hell. The depths of depravity the love of money can rest upon well-intentioned people is uncomprehensible. The determination of the forces of evil to hinder anyone proposing to follow God is clear-cut proof of the real stakes in this battle between good and evil. As long as we allow ourselves to slumber in the "la-la" land of drugs and money, we are dooming all of mankind.

"Creation was given to people as a clean window through which the light of God could shine into people's souls. Sun and moon, night and day, rain, sea, the crops, the flowering tree, all these things were transparent. They spoke to people not of themselves but only of him who made them. Nature was symbolic. But the progressive degradation of humans after the fall led them further and further from this truth. Nature became opaque." --Thomas Merton

"The first believers experienced the kingdom of God—the revolution of all things and the revaluation of all values. They experienced the complete transformation of all conditions and all possibilities, the re-ordering of all relationships in business, state, society, and everywhere. An utterly new scale of values took effect, quite different from what had existed so far. Christ replaced all other sovereignties; he swept away the power of lying, of impurity, and of murder—and instead of them, the peace of God took hold and held sway.

"This was the expectation and experience of the original church-community, and it stands in sharp contrast to our Christianity today. Anyone can sense that at that time a fresher wind blew and purer water flowed, a stronger power and a more fiery warmth ruled." --Eberhard Arnold

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Teachings
Get Away from Self
When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of order
June 10, 2006

Continually we are shown the ways of the world are not the ways of Christ. We mouth our disapproval of the sins of the flesh and point our finger at anyone else, but have any of us mastered self-will, stubbornness, ambition, restlessness? Our first reaction is likely to be, "What? Can these be sins?"

"Are you determined to have your own way in living for God? We will never be free from this trap until we are brought into the experience of the baptism of "the Holy Spirit and fire" (Matthew 3:11). Stubbornness and self-will will always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds His Spirit. Whenever we are obstinate and self-willed and set on our own ambitions, we are hurting Jesus. Every time we stand on our own rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting Him. Whenever we rely on self-respect, we systematically disturb and grieve His Spirit. And when we finally understand that it is Jesus we have been persecuting all this time, it is the most crushing revelation ever." --Oswald Chambers

"People say....I must get away--or go into a cloister or a cell. The truth is that you yourself are at fault in all this or no one else. It is pure self-will. Whether you realize it or not, there can be no restlessness unless it come from self-will, although not every person understands this. This is what I mean: people fly from this to seek that--these places, these people, these manners, those purposes, that activity--but they should not blame ways or things for thwarting them. When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of order.

"Begin, therefore, first with self and forget yourself! If you do not first get away from self, then whatever else you get away from you will still find obstacles and restlessness. People look in vain for peace, who seek it in the world outside, in places, people, ways, activities, or in world-flight, poverty and humiliation, whatever the avenue or degree; for there is no peace this way. They are looking in the wrong direction, and the longer they look the less they find what they are looking for." --Meister Johannes Eckhart, 1260-1327, German scholar, mystic.

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Musings
Our own tight little orbit in life
We gather as church communities or study groups or online and relish in our sameness
June 12, 2006

Brian Robertson writes, "We're used to traveling in our own tight little orbit in life, passing through the orbits of those we know and love, those who make us feel safe and appreciated, those who are quick to praise our talents and abilities and are silent on our shortcomings. We gather as church communities or study groups or online and relish in our sameness."

Does this explain why Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week in the United States of America?

On Sunday morning I see the Church doors opened at the two small churches where I live. I see the immaculately dressed African-Americans enter one church and the casually dressed Caucasians enter the church next door. I think how much more they could do in Jesus name if they came together as one group--as I drive on down the road to my church, never pausing to join in their services.

This whole scenario is disturbing me. Sure, we want to be around people who accept us and whose views we accept. That makes us comfortable; it gives security. But why are we looking for sameness on the outside instead of sameness on the inside?

If my passion is wrapped up in my love for the One Living God, then why do I not search for others with that same passion? How we are dressed, where we live, the car we drive, how full our credit cards may be, has nothing to do with love. A church filled with homogeneous-looking people is very likely to be a church with diverse inner desires for a personal relationship with God.

When church doors open to like-spirited people, a people totally diverse in looks and social standing but equally yoked in their love of God, we have really found our own tight little orbit in life.

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Teachings
Comforting our Spirit
How often does our spirit suffer from loneliness and isolation and receive no comfort?
June 14, 2006

As I walk the streets, I find myself surrounded by wounded eyes: eyes searching for compassion, eyes filled with hatred, eyes pleading for attention, hurting eyes, frightened eyes.....

I want to reach out and console, I want them to understand there is good in this world working on their behalf to counter the bad, but I find the wounds too deep to allow the message to connect, "Sometimes we are discouraged by the direction the peoples of the world--and the religions--are taking. Often the spirit within each of us is suffering from neglect--perhaps anorexia could be a better description. The needs of our individual spirit has to be first recognized as dwelling within us in order to be healed, renewed and nurtured.

"I think that Jesus was also talking about His spirit living within each one of us when He said, 'When I was hungry did you feed me? Naked did you clothe me'. How often does our spirit suffer from loneliness and isolation and receive no comfort? I need to console the spirit of Christ that lives in me in a unique way and that while those around me need to be consoled my first obligation is to console the lonely and hungry spirit of Christ who lives within me and wishes to be recognized by me. Then I can reach out to those around me with a more solid inner strength." --Mabel Gil

"If you love Jesus Christ more than you fear human judgment, then you will not only speak of compassion, but act with it. Compassion means seeing your friend and your enemy in equal need, and helping both equally. It demands that you seek and find the stranger, the broken, the prisoner, and comfort him and offer him your help. Herein lies the holy compassion of God that causes the devil much distress." --Meditations of Mechthild of Magdeburg (ca.1207-ca.1294)

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Meditations
Luck
Realizing our good fortune comes from God will bring us into closer relationship with God
June 17, 2006

Sometimes special connections or circumstances come to us; ones which are unexpected but greatly enhance our lives. There's a tendency to think of these as "luck" or "coincidences", appreciate them for the moment, then allow them to fade from our memories. I have come to believe these coincidences are not luck at all, but are "God-incidences". I also believe realizing the luck came from God, acknowledging Him, and thanking Him will bring us into a closer personal relationship with God.

"Don’t wait for some miracle to be performed on you from without, lifting you above your fears and doubts and self-centeredness. You help God from within by turning in outgoing love to others, and miraculously your fears and doubts and self-centeredness will vanish. The miracle starts within, not from without." --E. Stanley Jones

I checked the Bible to see what it had to say about luck and could not find the word in the King James or the New International Versions. Only in the modern day translation by Eugene H. Peterson, The Message had the word "luck" come into use. Psalm 145:13-15 is a good example of luck being ascribed to a loving God:

13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
The LORD is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made.

14 The LORD upholds all those who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.

15 The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.
--New International Version (NIV)

13Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.

14The LORD upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down.

15The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
--King James Version (KJV)

13 Your kingdom is a kingdom eternal;
you never get voted out of office.

God always does what he says,
and is gracious in everything he does.

14 God gives a hand to those down on their luck,
gives a fresh start to those ready to quit.

15 All eyes are on you, expectant;
you give them their meals on time.
--The Message (MSG)

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Musings
Regrets--I've had a few
Looking back and thinking what might have been
June 20, 2006

It wasn't so long ago that I aspired to be perfect--and then again, it's been a lifetime. My parents were good people; they were loving parents but they never heard Thomas Lickona's advice, "You want to encourage obedience, but you don’t want to stifle independence. It’s wisely been said that every child should have the confidence to misbehave occasionally. Giving kids room to be less than perfect is important…The girl who’s a “little angel” as a child isn’t necessarily the one who’ll make a resourceful, independent adult."

When we strive for perfection we are setting ourselves up for meltdown. The perfection we fail to achieve becomes the excuse for our rule-breaking rebellions. Looking backward I can understand the message Thomas à Kempis is conveying while it went right over my head before the rebellious period, "We should not strive for a peace that is without temptation, or for a life that never feels adversity. Peace is not found by escaping temptations, but by being tried by them. We will have discovered peace when we have been tried and come through the trial of temptation."

Those Special Spirit Moments created while mulling the convoluted past and sensing the present day's God-sent peace are the most priceless gift I will ever receive! Those Special Spirit Moments created while examining the present and not having any regrets because I know the [far less than perfect] past created the journey that brought me closer to God, "If we are willing to spend hours on end to learn to play the piano, operate a computer, or fly an airplane, it is sheer nonsense for us to imagine that we can learn the high art of getting guidance through communion with the Lord without being willing to set aside time for it." --Paul Rees

I now understand the recipe for success: whatever comes my way, whether it be good or bad, taking time to be with God and listening for God's counsel prior to taking any kind of action works every time! Unless, of course, the house is on fire. In that case, get out of it and call the fire truck!! After all, God made sure man discovered all the essentials required to provide fire protection. Thank you, Lord.

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Praise
Praying over little things
God pays attention to you, down to the last detail
June 23, 2006

Praying over little things gets amused reactions from many. God has this whole big universe to look after and asking Him to help find a lost dog tag somewhere in the grass on a city block...well, that's a bit farfetched, isn't it?

I was walking the dog toward the park when his leash suddenly released and whacked me in the forehead. I was instantly aware of the bloody forehead, but it was two days before I noticed his dog tag was missing. It took another day to realize the dog probably lost the tag at the same time as the incident with the leash (angel on my shoulder whispering in my ear?).

This morning, I attached Whautey's leash and asked God for help locating the dog tag. Somewhere in the grass between here and there, I felt confident we would find a little tag saying he'd had his rabies vaccine. We walked slowly toward the park watching for a hint of silver in the grass. When we had passed the point where I was sure the accident had occurred, we turned back and began examining the grass on the other side of the walkway. At some point I had a nudge to turn around and look once again in the direction I had first examined. As I turned I noticed, on the edge of the sidewalk, a small piece of metal almost the same color as the concrete. It was the dog tag!!

Do I believe when the Bible says, "And he pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail--even numbering the hairs on your head!" Luke 12:7, The Message (MSG). YES!!!

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Meditations
The Healing of the Heart
How I feel about and behave toward myself is the basic determinant of most of my behavior
June 26, 2006

"When praying for healing, ask great things of God and expect great things from God. But let us seek for that healing that really matters, the healing of the heart, enabling us to trust God simply, face God honestly, and live triumphantly." --Arlo F. Newell

Nothing makes us as heartsick as behaving badly and no matter how hard we try to always behave appropriately, there are times when we really lose it. There's the anger that strikes swiftly and then violently explodes all the while we are determined not to show our anger--the bowl full of jelly we become when we are devastated by an unexpected failure or reprimand. Do we beat ourselves up when we mess up, resulting in multiplying the anxieties that we might mess up again? Doesn't this kind of anxiety guarantee we will mess up?

Asking God to heal us of a physical problem makes the faith grow when we feel like our request has been answered. So what is the real healing? Is it the healing of the body or the healing of the heart? Can we recognize the misbehavior as an exercise in failing and forgiving--can we look at it as a lesson hopefully learned well so we will not repeat, then forgive ourselves as God forgives us and ask for his assistance in accepting ourselves as we are--warts and all!

"How I feel about and behave toward myself is the basic determinant of most of my behavior. If I improve my self-regard, I will find that dozens of behaviors change automatically. If, for example, I increase my feelings of self-competence, I will probably be less defensive, less angered by criticism, less devastated if I do not get a raise, less anxious when I come to work, better able to make decisions, and more able to appreciate and praise other people." --Will Schultz

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Praise
God is Love
God himself raised the bar on love when He sacrificed a part of himself
June 29, 2006

With a prayer in my heart and a spirit that is very much at peace, I sit here needing God's help to accurately convey something that looms so large and so beyond me that I can never do it justice.

I have a strong belief in something that is far greater than humankind--The One Living God. God has been known by countless names. Who is to say that His name in any utterance is either correct or incorrect. Only He. There's an old one that's been around a long, long time about God addressing the human race, "Folks, I want you to know you all got it wrong, but I love you anyway."

John Harracharan was born into a Hindu family, raised Christian and Buddhist. He has written a trilogy where he brings together, in novel form, aspects of all these religions. It may only be John's theory about how all the great religions can be tied together, but it certainly made me think. Let me tell you, one of my favorite moments was when God appeared in the form of a beautiful woman. God can be anything, anywhere, anytime and He is!

Sandi Kimmel, has written a song, What Color is Spirit. Just as we cannot declare a spirit a particular color or a color more favored by God, neither can we put God in a neat little box with a label on it. God is sooo big! So big beyond our comprehension.

Each of us has a destiny to fulfill. Each of us travels a different road. My journey involved a couple decades of seriously disgusting misbehavior. I had to suffer great pain and humiliation in order to learn the lessons required of me. Had I been a nice person; had I been the "good" girl my parents determined me to be, I would in no way have the preparation I required in order to fulfill my destiny. The scales do balance in the end....just as great as my pain was then is my joy and peace today. I had to lose everything (worldly value) in order to gain everything (spiritual value). Having travelled this road, I really believe that an open heart and a willing spirit is all that is required for God to guide us precisely where we need to be and bring to us the understandings that He knows we must have. We have to be patient as this journey takes a lifetime.

I believe that God is Love
and Love is Giving
Giving to All Humanity in Turn
God himself raised the bar on love when He sacrificed a part of himself. He made it very clear that nothing is to be held back. All we have must be made available with honorable intention and open heart.

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