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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Pondering Courses of Action

Days come and days go. They add up to years. For me it is quite a few years. I cannot help but be aware that there are way less days ahead of me here on earth than are behind me. I cannot help but ponder the best and highest ways to spend them.

A post of Facebook today said something like, if you're not excited about ___, it's the wrong path. I am not sure that excitement is the key, maybe passionate about would fit better for me. Say I have 20 years left on earth (of course I have no idea of actual time, but just for discussion purposes). Or maybe a week, or a month, or 30 years, whatever it is, it is finite. I will not be here forever. Time is limited here.

The question I pose to myself revolves around ideas of how to spend the finite well and in tune with the Infinite.

If I am engaging in something that is boring, about which I have no passion, is that a waste of my finite resources of time? Or am I there to be of service to others? If I am not there for my own growth and nurturance, how far do I go into service before it gets self-defeating? If I have to grit my teeth to force myself to go to it, that is the opposite of exciting or passionate.

What speaks to my soul?  

  • Genuine spiritual inquiry and the spiritual journey
  • Creativity - writing, sewing, cooking, painting, etc.
  • Family
  • Friends of like mind
  • Beauty
  • Travel
If I could choose, how would I spend my time? I'd be speaking with people who are sincerely seeking God and spiritual understanding. I'd be reading things that enlighten. I'd be challenging myself and others with fearlessly seeking the Truth about all things spiritual from what happened in the 1st century to how God speaks to us today. I would have friends who are not afraid to question and seek and find.

I'd have a gorgeous studio for my arts with all of the toys that support me in the joy of creativity. I'd have a fabulous computer and my books would be selling well. I'd have a chef's kitchen and be able to cook to my heart's content and have the house full of interesting people in fascinating discussions eating my delicious food.

I'd have family running in and out and a vital part of my life. I'd get to create memories with my grandchildren that would nurture them long after I've left the planet.

Many people who are creators and seekers would fill my home frequently and we would have amazing conversations and discoveries. My home would be alive with the electricity of thought and love and truth.

I would be surrounded by beauty in all aspects of my life from my home to my arts to my clothes. Everything would reflect the glory of God.

Travel would be a regular part of my life. I would get to see and experiences the places and people I long to visit. I'd be able to check in with my friends on the other side of the planet and make new friends.

Basically, that would be the perfect last years of my life. 

God, You have brought me to face my dreams. Open the way for them to come into fruition. Lead me to be the person who has such a life. Flow into our lives the prosperity to make parts of it come true. Flow into our lives people who seek fearlessly and think clearly. I turn my final years on earth into Your capable Hands and ask for Your blessing upon my dreams.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Everyone's Family?



A friend put this on Facebook this morning. It made me wonder if that is everyone's family???

I have heard stories of my family members that I don't know personally, but I know enough personally to verify there have been some very tilted people. They may go back to the story of Adam and Eve who crazily disobeyed God and reaped the consequences. What were they thinking? So from the first story of humankind to now, it is a long line of people who disobeyed God and reaped the consequences. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results :) That is the story of humankind. Perhaps we are all a bit insane.

I know my maternal grandfather had quite a few problems, even though he had achieved a great deal of success. He seems to be the only one in my line that had alcohol problems. Glad that isn't hereditary, at least in my family. He really couldn't cope with the mess he made from marrying a crazy woman and trusting a dishonest business partner. Since he talked himself into not being willing or able to start over, he ended it all when mother was 7 and Aunt Eleanor was a baby. Obviously, I never knew him personally. I did know his crazy wife who tortured me for many years. I knew his two daughters very well and had extensive first hand experienced their tiltedness (mother and my aunt).

During the course of my life, I have had way over my share of certifiable crazy people in my inner circle. I have to say at least it has not been boring, scary at times, but never boring. You might not even believe the true stories I could tell. But I'm not going to tell them here.

Interestingly, most of them had redeeming characteristics in their craziness. My grandmother for example, who I'm certain was paranoid, narcissistic and maybe a borderline personality, and did dastardly things to me (and reportedly to her daughters and others), also had some good moments. Before we moved to California when I was 7, she told me charming stories of a land where ice cream came out of outside faucets, gave me Dinah Shore paper dolls and sang old time songs to me (Dearie do you remember... ) Her relationship with me went way downhill after she came to California after us, I think when I was 8. Lately, especially in the shower, I hear again some of those old songs. Interesting. 

So while I now can see her horrors laid upon me were her craziness, I can still recall a few sweet things and see that there was goodness at the center of her soul. It was shrouded with her craziness, but it did peek through at times. I can see that the "seed of God" was still there.

And with the crazy people carrying on her paranoid, narcissistic behaviors, I strive to remember that "the seed of God" is indeed under it all and strives to be set free and grow and expand and flower. When I get discouraged, I try to remember God is everywhere and therefore there is hope for us all.

Lord, I lift up to You all the craziness in my life and in the life of others. I ask for Your Light to ignite Your seed in each soul and to fan it with Your Grace so it grows and flowers and we each become what You intend for us to be. I have hope for I know You are with us. I ask for this last portion of my life to be lifted out of the craziness, for my loved ones to be lifted, for our world to awaken. All things are possible, for You are here.


Thursday, February 14, 2013

Reflect on Love

Here it is, Valentine's Day once again. This day we devote to love - hopefully unconditional love - agape - the love shown by the spiritual lights of all cultures and ages, the love that is our model and goal.

Perhaps today's question might be, how do I aim  my life more fully and accurately so that the love at the center of Christ shines in my life? What adjustments do I need to make in my aim so that my life continually hits the bulls-eye of love?

I recall archery in college, which I became pretty good at actually. I had to make sometimes minute adjustments to send the arrow to the center. Sometimes the string hit my arm, in fact so often it hit that I spent most of a semester with a bruised and technicolor left arm.

My life is rather like that. In my attempt to learn love, my heart has been hit with misfires and metaphysically anyway been bruised. The wounds of misfired love open the soul to be able to love at ever deeper places and in more profound ways.

I come to love now with the understanding that I am to be love because that is what God is and what God calls me to be. I am to love free of conditions, with no guile  simply being a conduit of God's love with no filter attached. I am to love beyond the egoic love often promoted as being romantic. I am to not withdraw my love, for any reason, just as God does not withdraw love from me, but rather mercifully extends me grace. I cannot be a part of the body of Christ unless the walls fall, conditions crumble, and without judgment His Light shines.

Oh Divine Master, show me refinements I need to make in order to fully shine Your Love through the avenue of my life. Teach me to Love as You have Loved me. Let fall from me all that blocks the full Light of Your Love shining here on earth. Open me to simply, quietly, completely walk here softly as Love.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

I Am Home

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A friend just sent me this cute cartoon. My first thought was - how cute. But then I thought, how profound. Wherever I am, God is. Wherever I am, I am home. I am home because I am a child of God. I am living in the awareness of God's Presence; in communion with God daily, hourly, in the moment; frequently in prayer (usually silently); living in a body filled with the soul that God created. I am home. When it is time to leave the body fashioned of earth, my eternal soul will be with God in a new form, but will still be home.

Just contemplate that and see what happens inside.

Lord, how glorious it is to finally come to realize that restlessness can depart for I am home. Wherever I am, You are. There is no spot where God is not, takes on a deeper level of understanding today. I rejoice!