Epiphany — A White Stone, A Piece Of Paper, A New Beginning

January 6 was the Sunday in the Christian calendar that is celebrated as Epiphany Sunday. This celebrates the visit of the Wise Ones to the baby Jesus.

While that is an interesting story and one I have loved since childhood, the question needs to be asked, “what does that have to do with us and our lives?”

To answer this question, I am going to ask a few more questions.

First, what is an epiphany?

Second, how do a piece of paper and a white stone relate to Epiphany or a visit from Wise Ones?

And last, how does all of this contribute to a new beginning?

So let’s answer these question and see what message and inspiration we can get for our lives today.

What is an epiphany?

The dictionary says that an epiphany is “an unveiling, a revealing or a manifestation.”

I was taught that the visit from the Wise Ones signified God’s revelation to those who were not Jews and was to indicate that God’s was available to and inclusive of all of humanity.

You know, many times we need an unveiling in our own lives. We allow the truth that we are a child of God and loved deeply by God to become covered over by thoughts and beliefs such as fear, worry and unworthiness. We forget who we really are and this causes all the things we see in life that we call problems.

So now you are wondering what does this forgetting and the unveiling and to do with a piece of paper and a white stone. I can only tell you how they relate in my life and hope that you can find an epiphany in your own life.

On Christmas Eve, we went to a candle light service at church. Each candle had wrapped around it a piece of paper with an affirmation. As I unwrapped my candle, I read the following affirmation, I rest in the knowledge that God is in control.”

This was the perfect affirmation for me as lots of things in my life had gotten out of my control and I needed to be reminded that even when I appear to be “out of control”, God never is. And maybe even more importantly, I need to remember that even the out of control areas are working together to create and be the good in my life.

Then the next epiphany happened on Sunday, January 6, which was Epiphany Sunday. This time instead of a candle, we were offered a white stone and the minister read Revelation 2: 17. “Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. I’ll give the sacred manna to every conqueror; I’ll also give a white, smooth stone inscribed with your new word, your secret new word.”

He then said that as we each listen to Spirit, we would be given a “new word” that would give us inspiration, direction and guidance for our lives.

So what word was I given? I am going to tell you in my next post where I will also share some about the story of Moses and the burning bush and the name of God that Moses was told. I will also tell you the step that I am taking at present to live my word.

Until then, begin looking for the epiphanies that are happening in your own life and feel free to share them with us. And also, check out Charles Fillmore’s Metaphysical Bible Dictionary for more information on the ‘white stone’. It is found under the article on Pergamus because this was the church in Asia Minor that spirit was speakingto in the verse from Revelations.

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What If God Offered You A Present?

People are always pondering the question “where is God?” This question is as old as time and has engaged the mind and heart of humanity for as long as we have existed.

Most systems of theology seek to answer this question in one of two ways. They either offer a god that is seated somewhere in a heavenly realm and so far removed from the material creation or they see a god that is in every rock, tree, animal or human.

Old Viewpoint

In this blog, I love sharing with you my journey of seeking on purpose.

For many years, I believed in this far distance and removed God. To me, he (and yes, I believed that God was an old white man with a long white beard that was seated on a throne somewhere in heaven. This God was always on the lookout watching for people to stump their toe or do something that he did not approve of so he could strike them with sickness, poverty, bad fortune or ultimately with death and hell.

But for all of those years, yes, while I thought I believed in this God, in my heart, I knew that this was not who God really was.

New Viewpoint

There was a phrase from the Bible that I had read many times that kept coming back to me. But like so many other verses, I just thought and was taught that this was just a nice poetic phrase that was put there and that we could never really fathom the meaning. The verse I refer to is “In God we live and move and have our being.”

After much reflection and contemplation, I feel I now have some understanding of this verse. To me, it now means that everything that exists only exists as a part and an emanation of God. It says that there is no where that we can go that is not a part of God. As the Psalmist says, “if we go to the highest or if we plummet to the depths, there is God.”

Yes, wherever we are, God is!!

Maybe all that is really needed in order to answer the question “where is God?” is just a new sense of awareness. We just need to allow ourselves to become aware of the fact that God is right where we are.

For me, I readily become aware of this wonderful presence as I sit in silence in my office or as I walk about in nature. Stilling my thoughts, I sense a presence, an energy that permeates all the space around and within me. I breath deeply and feel life and peace and joy entering and filling my body.

And as do, I am enabled to look  behind all the seeming temporary effects of life and to see the wholeness and perfection from which all of life springs. I take my gaze away from the effects and I look at the cause and as I do, I have to acknowledge that “all is well.”

I find while in this new awareness a greater knowing that the universe in which I live and move and experience my being is a good one that moves in divine order. It is a universe that seeks to conspire and work with me to bring to pass in my life experience the perfection and wholeness that is our true nature.

Today, begin to court the presence of God in this way in your own life. Allow yourself to sense and focus on the goodness of life, on the love which God has for you. And as you do, you can come to realize that a greater life is just waiting to find expression though and as you as you begin to allow it to be. And you will say with me “wherever I am, God is and all is well!”

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Undressing Jesus or “Hey, Who Forgot to Put the Rabbit in My Hat?”

I love unpacking my spiritual beliefs and ideas. This has been a big part of my own spiritual journey. If you are unfamiliar with my spiritual life and the evolution of my theology and beliefs, check out the about this site page where I take you on a journey though all the various spiritual paths I have explored.

I have already undressed the ideas we hold about God.

We now come to a subject that has been at the center of Christianity right from the beginning. For 2000 years, Christians have been debating the place of Jesus in our faith. And for almost this long, the story of Nicodemus that is recorded in the Gospel of John has been used to explain how Jesus fits in God’s plan.

We will begin by looking at what is really said about Jesus and see if we can recover the naked truth about the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith.

So what is the naked truth about Jesus? Was he merely a magician that just appeared to make a difference and pull rabbits out of his hat or was there really something about his life, example and message that cause real transformation in his life and the life of his followers. I believe the later is the naked truth.

According to the New Testament, Jesus is the “image of the invisible God.” And as the image of God, Jesus disclosed what God is like. He often told his followers that if they wanted to know what God was like, to look at the way he lived in relationship with God and other people.

But we must remember that it was about 30 years after Jesus lived among those early Christians, that they began writing down the things they remembered Jesus saying and doing. And as they wrote, two layers of material emerging. These layers present two different pictures: first a picture of the pre-Easter Jesus or the Jesus of history and the second is the post-Easter Christ, or the Christ of faith.

When looking at the Jesus of history, we see five components to this image.

1. Spirit Person

The pre-Easter Jesus was what I call a “spirit person.” By this I mean that he was a person that frequently and vividly experienced the sacred, God, the Spirit. And this experience became the foundation of everything else that he was.

2. Healing Person

Jesus also was a healer. More healing stories are told about Jesus than about any other figure in the Jewish tradition.

3. Wisdom Teacher

The third part of this picture is that Jesus was a wisdom teacher who used short saying and parables to teach and often saw the world and reality just a little bit differently from those around him.

4. Social Prophet

He was a social prophet like Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah who challenged the domination system of his day that was an oppressive social order with sharp social boundaries. And he did this from a social vision grounded in the compassion of God.

5. Movement Initiator

And finally, he was a movement initiator. Well, at least a movement came into existence around him during his lifetime whose inclusiveness and egalitarian practice embodied his alternative social vision.

These were all part of the image the early Christians saw in the pre-Easter Jesus. But as we read the gospels, there is another layer that emerges. This is what I call the Christ of faith.

This presence of Christ continued to be experienced by followers long after Easter, even until today and is a very real but radically different reality — it is a spiritual and divine reality. You see as the church experienced and continues to experience the risen Christ, we see God saying a divine “yes” to the message, activity and vision of Jesus.

So, what relevance should the pre-Easter Jesus have for our lives? If we take the pre-Easter Jesus seriously as the epiphany of God, what do we see?

First, Jesus disclosed that God can be known. God was not a distant reality who could only be believed in or who might be known only in the future or beyond death. God is “at hand” and knowable.

Second, Jesus showed us that God is compassionate. Compassion was the core quality of two of Jesus’ most famous characters: the father in the Prodigal Son parable and the Good Samaritan.

Third, Jesus revealed that the divine-human relationship was not based on meeting requirements. Requirements were replaced by relationships as the central dynamic of the religious life.

And fourth, Jesus spoke and enacted a social vision grounded in God. In his role as social prophet, he indicted the ruling class at the top of the social system of his day and ours. He attempted to break down the boundaries that divided people and to establish an inclusive movement. And in doing so, he disclosed a God that cares passionately about what happens in human history.

I believe that we need to affirm both of these images of Jesus — the pre-Easter Jesus of history and the post-Easter Christ of faith. Both are significant. One glimpse of the pre-Easter Jesus discloses what the Word made flesh, the Spirit of God embodied in human life, looks like. And the Christ of faith shows what Jesus became in the experiences and life of the early Christian communities.

We do not need to chose between the two. Our understanding of Jesus’ significance is richer if we see and affirm both the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith. Both are the image of the invisible God. Both disclose what God is like.

Now I want to close by talking about a very familiar Christian phrase — believing in Jesus — and how it relates to the image of the Christian life I have been talking about today.

For those of us who grew up in the church, believing in Jesus was important. For me, what that phrase meant in my childhood and into my early adulthood was “believing things about Jesus.” To believe in Jesus meant to believe what the gospels and the church said about Jesus. That was easy when I was a child, and became more and more difficult as I grew older.

But now I see that believing in Jesus means something very different from that. The change is found in both the Greek and Latin root meaning of the word believe. Believe did not originally mean believing a set of doctrines or teachings. In both Greek and Latin its root means “to give one’s heart to.” The “heart” is the self at its deepest level. Believing, therefore, involves a much deeper level of one’s self. It means to give one’s heart, one’s self at its deepest level to the post-Easter Christ who is the living Sovereign, the side of God turned toward us, the face of God, the one who is also the Spirit.

Believing in Jesus in the sense of giving one’s heart to Jesus is the movement from secondhand religion to firsthand relationship, from having heard about Jesus with the hearing of the ear to being in relationship with the Spirit of Christ. For ultimately, Jesus is not simply a figure of the past, but a figure of the present.

While there might not have been a rabbit in the hat, or even a hat, we do find Jesus as someone who has the ability to change lives but not through feats of magic but through the experience of transforming relationship.

My prayer for each of us is that we will experience God’s presence through the living Christ in new and powerful ways and that as we do, like Jesus this will cause our lives to be forever changed and different.

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Money, Money – What Is the Source of Your Money and Abundance?

I love talking about the chakra system. This is the way that energy comes to us and interacts with our physical bodies. But it is also a means by which we can gauge and examine our belief systems and our spiritual values.

I have mentioned that the root chakra is the foundation of our energy system.  And because of this, it is a very important one. Here we find our concern to be on survival, belongingness, Money, shelter, are just the physical out picturing of our root chakra beliefs and values.

And many, if not most of our belief and values, are picked up from our families as we grew up.

My Family And Beliefs About Needs

My parents always seemed to be concerned with hard work in order to provide and never seemed to either know what their passion was or how to live and work in order to fulfill it. They always seemed to be involved with jobs that were just there to make money to keep body and soul together.

I can’t say that my family had a belief in abundance and plenty.

We always seemed to be able to have just enough to get by on. And I seem to have caught this thought and for a big part of my life, I made it part of my belief system.

And so my family and myself, for most of my life,  probably had a very diminished and dark root chakras.

There seems to be this belief among most people that in order to get ahead, you must work hard at your tasks. But this often just results in lots of action with little results and not much satisfaction.

My New Belief About Needs

But now in my life, I am beginning to see things differently.

I hope that you have read my post concerning my thoughts on God. This is important because, as Paul Tillich says, “God is the Ground of Being.” How I view God determines how I see everything else in my life.

I now understand that God is truly all there is. “In God,” Paul tells us in the New Testament, “we live and move and experience our being.”

And I believe that since God is all there is, then we are linked with a source of supply that is unlimited. In fact, Paul tells us that God will supply all our needs according to God’s resources and supply in heaven.

Too often, I find myself slipping back into my old thoughts and beliefs and making people or a job my source of supply and as I do, my root chakra gets muddied and cloudy. But as I allow myself to slip into the wordless still place at the center of my being I find that I can reconnect with the true source of life and all that is, God, and then I can allow all sorts of wonderful and creative ideas to emerge and I can begin to imagine a new and wonderful future of abundance and supply. And as I do, I find my root chakra being cleansed, energized and balanced.

Try this and see if it benefits you. Remember what your family’s beliefs about money and work and then as you enter a meditative state, allow yourself to realize that God is the source of all that you need. From this place, allow all sorts of new and creative thoughts and ideas to come into that space. Don’t judge the thoughts, just look at them and see what help they can be and if they offer the next step that you need to take on your journey.

Imagine wholeness and ideas come, then plans, then acts, then beauty out-pictured.

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Undressing God or “Did You Just Use ‘Judge Judy’ and ‘Justice’ in the Same Sentence?”

As I look at beliefs about God, I am going to use as a framework my own spiritual journey. This journey began as a fairly traditional Christian one as I mention in my bio and my previous post Spiritual Striptease.

I believe that you will find many places where your journey touches with mine — where you can identify with my question and discoveries.

For too long, Christian, and many other traditions, have seen God as just an old man with white hair and beard who is separate from creation and always ready to judge us when we stray.

My Spiritual Journey

My spiritual journey began when I was a child. My grandmother believed that I needed to be in Sunday school and church every Sunday. She also encouraged me to read the Bible and to say my prayers and she taught me the great hymns of the church.

But the faith that was imparted to me was a very literalistic faith. It took the stories and images found in the Bible very literal.

My Beliefs About God

There were two main components to what I believed about God.

First, I believed that God living up in the sky and on special occasions, God would interact with the world and people and these occurrences were called miracles.

And second, I knew God was an old white man who always had a suspicious look on his face and a finger that constantly wagged in displeasure. This was because I just could not seem to live up to God’s list of requirements.

This reminds me of one of my favorite TV personalities — Judge Judy. Judy, like the God of my childhood, is always looking for someone to make responsible for any accident or error that occurs. She is very quick to point her finger and boom out a pronouncement — “Does it say stupid here?” And this is just like I thought God did.

And this image of God continued to be mine for the first thirty some years of my life. And unfortunately, the church I attended didn’t try and challenge this. In fact they seemed to reinforce these ideas.

Then, beginning about 1990 and continuing during my years at Brite Divinity School (between 1995 and 2001), I began to examine what I believed about God and realized how limiting my God image really was.

As I looked afresh at the Bible I discovered people who did not believe that God was a distant figure and did not referred to this One using exclusively male images.

You see the psalmist did not agree with my idea of God as someone who was far removed. This one experienced God as close as the waters of the Jordan, as real as the flashing of lightning. God was a very present reality — known and experienced “right here” in this world.

The writer of Psalm 139 says that there is no where we can go to escape the presence of God. If we go to the highest heights or to the deepest depths we will find God. God will be found wherever we are.

In the New Testament, Matthew tells us that Jesus was called Emmanuel –meaning the God who is with us. Now, that does not seem to me like someone far away in the sky.

Jesus attempted during his whole ministry to show people that God was not just an old man who was detached from creation and sitting somewhere just waiting an opportunity to pronounce judgment. But this is the picture that I held to for many years and that the Church continues to have.

The writers in the Hebrew tradition and Jesus wanted us to see that God was more than just an old man. They knew this way of thinking led to a life based on performance. Trying to make daddy happy. Father knows best.

To balance this idea, they used images of a mother bird, a woman searching for a coin and others when discussing God. In these instances, they tried to show that it is not enough to know about God but what we lack and need is intimate direct knowing of God like lover and beloved.

Our Beliefs Affect Our Thinking And Our Perceiving

You see, how we image God shapes not only what we think God is like but also what we think the Christian life is about. People who want God to be a warrior may become warriors themselves, whether in a Christian crusade, a Muslim jihad, or an apocalyptically oriented militia. People who think of God as righteous are more likely to emphasis righteousness and keeping all the rules. And those who think of God as compassionate are likely to emphasize compassion.

Jesus showed us through the way he lived and interacted with people that God is compassionate, the one who gives us birth and nourishes us.

Yes, God still has requirements but these should not be seen as a violation of God’s laws but as a betrayal of a sacred relationship and an absence of compassion. As we become aware that we have not been faithful to our relationship with God, we turn and return to that to which we belong, God as spirit, realizing that all of our actions have consequences.

As we embrace this new image of God, we live our lives not concerned so much with meeting God’s demands and satisfying God’s justice as entering into relationship — with God, the world, and each other. The spiritual life becomes all about turning toward and entering into relationship with the one who is already in relationship with us — with the one who gave us life, who loved us from the beginning, and who loved us whether we know it or not.

May this be good news in your life today and all the days of the rest of your life. And join the conversation by laving your thoughts about God and how you relate to this wonderful Divine presence!!

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Got Security Issues? Check For A Dirty Bomb In Your Root Chakra!!

Abraham Maslow, the famous psychologist, devised his famous pyramid of human needs which is a way of looking at the needs we have in life. There are five levels to this pyramid. It begins with a broad base which he labeled our physiological needs. These included air, food, water, sex and sleep. Next up the pyramid were the needs for safety which for him included employment, financial, other resources, family and health. The other steps up the pyramid were love, esteem and self-actualization.

As I was thinking about this pyramid, I realized that Maslow was laying out the items that were involved with each of the seven chakras of Eastern thought. If you are not familiar with the chakra system, them be sure and read my post, Chakras – An Overview.

We are spiritual beings having a human experiences and as such, we have needs. And it is only as our basic physiological and safety needs are met that we have a firm basis from which to continue our journey of spiritual unfolding and our true self-actualization.

This brings us to our consideration of the root chakra.

The Root Chakra

The root chakra is located at the base of our spine. It forms the base of our development.

It is represented as a red spinning fan. The red is like that of a ruby as it shines in the bright sunlight.

This chakra is associated with the issue of physical security and safety and especially with your thoughts and beliefs regarding these issues.

Family Beliefs

Many of these thoughts and beliefs were gained though your family involvement and the thoughts and beliefs that your parents held and then passed along, both consciously or unconsciously, to you.

For this reason, it is important to revisit and examine the ways your family regarded finances, careers, home, physical needs and possessions.

Were these thoughts and beliefs a source of worry and concern for your parents and now for you?

Was providing for these basic needs seen as a hardship and something that was always just out of reach? Maybe there was a belief that there really was “never enough” to go around and so you must scrimp and make do.

These thoughts and beliefs tend to make the chakra very dark and murky. The cause it to either shrink and shrivel or to be very enlarged and out of balance with the other chakras.

Or was the dominant belief one where all of your needs were easily and comfortable provided?

This causes your chakra to be clear and ruby red and more in balance with the rest of your centers.

Cleansing The Root Chakra

After you have looked at how your family believed and thought about money and employment, you are now ready to think about cleansing and balancing the root chakra.

One of the most effective techniques I have found is the use of a beam of white light. White light is the most pure form of light and it also includes all of the colors of the chakras. This energy is very effective in cleansing and balancing the energy of the chakras.

Visualize your body. See a ball of red light at the base of your spine. Then visualize a beam of crystal white light coming from above and entering your head and going through your body until it enters the red root chakra. See this as a powerful cleansing light and allow it to purge your chakra of any fears and worries about money and success.

You might also want to use the affirmation “All of my fears and worries about money and success are cleansed by the light. All of my wants and needs are met and provided for at every moment.”

Try this technique daily for a week and see what results you get. Then be sure and share any of them with us as you desire. As we share our stories and experiences, we all grow and develop.

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Just for Today — Be Kind to All Living Things

Well, we have come to the fifth Reiki principle which is — Just for Today, Be Kind to All Living Things.” [If you have not read my previous posts about the Reiki principles, be sure and do this.]

This fifth principle encourages us to embrace inclusive living. Unfortunately, too often we find it easy to be kind to those who are like us, who are kind to us. But this principle encourages us to be kind to all living things.

I believe that it is time that humanity makes the move to a more inclusive way of living and I believe that we are moving in that direction. Maybe it is not seen in the big names in politics, education or even religion but on the level of the ordinary world citizen. Everyday more and more people are taking those first steps on the spiritual path — turning their back on old notions of exclusion, fear and hate and turning toward those of inclusion, hope and love.

The numbers of people who are living their lives from a center of spirituality is growing every day. They are shining their light in a world of darkness and the light is growing. Unfortunately, as in the physical world, it is often the darkest just before the dawn of spiritual light. I can only imagine that just before every great spiritual revolution of the past, the people living then felt that life surely could not get any worse — and then the light dawned and humanity was offered a new path to walk. And my friends, the same is true for us today.

Now is the time that we truly need to remember that this planet is our home. And as such, it is time that we begin to value and care for this planet — from the soil, rocks, water and air, to the plants and animals, all the way up to the human and yes, even to the invisible dwellers on the planet.

We must realize that there is a matrix — a connection that exists from the smallest subatomic particles all the way up to, yes all the way up to God.

The writer of Ephesians says “there is one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

One of my favorite preachers, Barbara Brown Taylor writes about this passage in her book of essays titled The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion:

we have made much of the ‘above all’ in Christian theology, placing God at the top of the organizational chart of the universe and ourselves, as God’s deputies, right below. But what about the ‘through all and in all’ part of the equation? In a world like ours, which even the new science calls a web of relationships, there is no place to stand apart from and above the rest of creation.

She then says that “what if the universe is not merely the product of God but also the manifestation of God — a ‘eucharistic planet’ on which we have been invite to live?”

I too have been wondering the same thing for quite awhile now. Yes, I believe that in some way God is transcendent — a part from us but I am beginning to see God more as imminent — Emmanuel, God with us, and we with God — in and through us. That’s why I talk so much about living and moving and having our very being in God.

We can only begin to remember this and live in this new awareness as we move beyond our old tribe and even civilization or nation-state mentality. Brian Swimme, in his informative book The Universe Is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story says “the tribe will not be the center of the human world, nor will the civilization, the culture, nor the nation-state. It will be the Earth community as a whole that will be understood as our home, our womb of creativity and life.”

As you have read these words that I share with you, I pray that we will each begin the process of remembering that truly we are all one community on Planet Earth — soil, air and water; plants and animals, humans. And that we will let that remembrance color and give our life new meaning and direction beginning tonight and every day we live.

“Just for today — be kind to every living thing.”

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Just for Today — Be Devoted to Your Work

We are discussing the fourth Reiki principle in this post. We have already looked at the first three:

Just for today — do not worry

Just for today — do not anger

Just for today — be filled with gratitude

Now we’re looking at the principle that says — just for today — be devoted to your work.”

We are going to look at work — what we usually think work is and we will see if work and making a living is the same thing as work and making a life. We will the look at the work which if the real purpose of our soul.

Work, What Is It?

When you think of work, what thoughts come first to your mind?

The idea of work seems to many of us to not have a very positive feel and connotation. We do not seem to like the idea that to work well is to live well as Thomas Aquinas tells us.

You see for Aquinas, living and working went hand in hand. I believe that this is true because he gets the two in the proper sequence — to live and then to work. While for most people today, we seem to live like we work to live and this is a most unfortunate occurrence.

Aquinas says that we should display a good activity. Our lives should show off or parade our inner beauty for others to see and enjoy. In this way, we return beauty to our communities. Our work is a means to increase the beauty of the world, of one another, and of the worker.

In her writings, Hildegard of Bingen likens a person who does good work to an orchard bearing fruit. She says that “our good work permeates the universe and makes the cosmic wheel go around.”

She says that three things are important about work: first, humans are fruitful and flourishing when working; second, we are about good work; and third, our work affects the universe, our work actually contributes to turning the big cosmic wheel.

Jesus and other writers in the New Testament talked about lives that bear good fruit.

Working to Live or Living to Work, that’s the Question

So how do we make the leap from our common idea of living life working to make a living to a new idea of living life doing good things and making a life all the while performing a job?

When considering this question, the main thing that each of us needs to do is to remember.

We must remember that we do have the power to choose to make a life rather than to just make a living. You see, the main job that your soul must accomplish is to evolve — to be.

The soul that you are desires to be the grandest version of the greatest vision that it can conceive. You are on this planet to produce something with your soul. Your body and your job are simply tools of your soul.

As you allow your soul to be all that it is designed to be, then you can go about the business of doing the job that you have chosen for this lifetime.

You see jobs are to the real issue of work like leaves are to a tree. If the tree of your life is ailing then the leaves of your job will fall. But fiddling with the leaves is not going to cure an ailing tree. One cures an ailing tree by treating its roots and so we cure the crisis in work by treating the root meaning and purpose of life. By remembering why it is that we are here in the first place, to allow our souls to experience all that we can and to do good things. In this way our tree becomes healthy and we are like that fruitful orchard.

My prayer for each of us is that we will make the choice right now to concentrate on making a life that is worthy of the soul that you are — that spark of divinity — of God — that lives in your physical body. And as you make this choice, just for today, each and every day, you will find that truly the work you do will be profitable. But if it’s not, then just maybe your soul is trying to communicate the message to you that a change is something that you should consider. May it be so for each of us!

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Mysterious Adventures or Coincidences — You Decide

Synchronicity

As we begin to wake up on our life’s spiritual journey, we start to take notice of meaningful events that occur in our lives. This is the beginning point and leads to an awareness of the divine flow within our lives.

Synchronicity was the name given to the observance of life coincidences that seem to flow together in meaningful ways or patterns by the Swedish psychologist, Carl Jung.

Have you experienced synchronicities in your own life?

Maybe you got a call from a friend that you had been concerned about only to hear that they were involved in an accident but were unharmed by the experience. Or, you went to the mailbox and found an unexpected check from someone. When you saw the check, it was for the amount of money that you were needing to make your expenses.

The Message In Synchronicity

We have all had these or similar experiences. But what message are they seeking to bring to us? That is the question we should be asking as they occur.

We are not on this planet at this time by accident. Our lives are not a series of meaningless dramas and comedies. There is a purpose to life and somehow, we are guided by something outside ourselves, something bigger and grander than we are as individuals.

And these seemingly coincidental events are attempting to help reconnect our lives to that something bigger and grander. They seek to remind us that all of life is interconnected and that we live and move and experience life within a bigger framework. And I call this framework God.

And the message they seek to convey is only heard as we allow ourselves to listen to that still small voice that speaks at the center of our being.

Intuition

Some see this as the voice of our intuition. And listening to this voice often opens the doors up for coincidental experiences or synchronicities to occur in our lives.

Look at your own life and see where you have had these wonderful experiences where the divine Spirit intersects with your life and allows a miracle to be born. Then please share these experiences with us.

Carl Jung made this wonderful observation, “Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. [The one] who looks outside, dreams. [The one] who looks inside, awakens.”

Look inside and allow the awakening to begin with you and as it does, then you will join the mass of people who are awakening spiritually as they are led by these mysterious coincidences.

The only question that remains is “What will happen when the number of spiritually awake people reaches critical mass?”

Who knows what the answer to this question will be? I don’t know that answer but the one thing I do know is that it will be awesome when it occurs and I want to be a part of it. I hope you do also!!!

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Just for Today — Be Filled with Gratitude

Before I get to this third Reiki principle, I want to remind you that my last post covered a very important topic, anger. If you have not read this, I encourage you to do so. Also, please share with us any of your thought about anger and how you deal with this very powerful emotion.

And if you are new to this blog, you will want to read my introduction post about the Reiki principles and the one concerning another powerful emotion, worry.

In this post, we are looking at the Reiki principle that says “just for today — be filled with gratitude.” I hope that by the end of this post you to will know why joy and gratitude go hand in hand.

When I was preparing this post, I looked in my library where I found a book compiled by Louise Hay entitled Gratitude: A Way of Life. This book contains many articles by lots of different people about how to make your life one of gratitude.

Think for just a moment about the following scenario: you spend the whole afternoon looking for just the right present to give your best friend for his/her birthday. You arrive at the party and when your gift is opened, your friend remarks “oh, it’s not my size”, or “it’s not my color”, or “I never use anything like that” or is “that all there is?”

How would you act? Would you want the next year to go and spend all afternoon again buying this friend a present? Probably not.

But if on the other hand, when opening your present, their eyes dance with delight and they thanks you profusely for the gift, then every time you see something he or she would like, you want to give it to them.

And this is just how the universe, just how it is with us.

You see gratitude brings more to be grateful about. It increases your abundant life. Lack of gratitude or complaining, brings little to rejoice about. Complainers find that they have little good in their life or they do not enjoy what they do have.

The Universe and God always give us what we believe that we deserve.

Many of us have been taught to look at life and see only what we do not have and to feel only lack. When we say, “I don’t have and I won’t be happy till I do” they guess what? This is what will be true in your life.

You see gratitude give us an attitude that is above all earthbound concerns and worries. As our lives are filled with gratitude, we assure ourselves of abundance and growth.

This principle is echoed in the words of Jesus that say “whatsoever you will ask in prayer, believing you shall receive.”

You see the success that you desire is found in doing three things.

First, affirm that your needs have already been met.

Second, believe that this is true.

And third, be grateful for your supply.

You see when we look beyond the problem to the answer we bring the invisible into the visible. This is the way we turn problems into opportunities. This is the way we release tension and congestion. This is the way we move into the realm of the solution.

Most of us are grateful for the things we have but it is time that we begin to give thanks for what we are about to receive:

I am thankful for the blessing I am about to receive. I am thankful for the increased harmonious conditions in my home. I am thankful for the wonderful experiences that exacerbate my growth. I am thankful for the newness that I am about to receive. I am thankful that I have an attitude of gratitude about the living of my life. My attitude of gratitude opens the portals to richer living.

You see what you complain about and resist — persists. But what you adore and are thankful for, becomes more.

You see if you don’t remember anything else, remember this — You cannot be grateful and unhappy at the same time.

So begin right now to adopt the habit and attitude of being grateful. Just for today — be filled with gratitude. Be filled to overflowing, pressed down, shaken together and running over so that the words that escape from your lips are enveloped in gratitude.

Let this be the attitude that defines our lives — each and every one of us.

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