ARE YOU ADOPTED?

While some people will go along with and believe that they are sons and daughters of God they see themselves as "adopted". They are loved and accepted by God but are not really "blood" kin to God. So they are not his "real" children and not therefore, made of the same "stuff" as God. Jesus on the other hand was the only "real" son of God and therefore was made of the same "stuff" as God and therefore can be said to be God.

Believing that we are "adopted" separates us from God to a certain degree. We are separated by a curtain of sorts. I say curtain because a curtain is fluid and can be torn or pulled down or drawn open to get to what is on the other side unlike a steel door or brick wall.

I remember in the Old Testament when it foretold of the rending of the curtain between the people and God in the Holy of Holies. This was in the ark of the covenant I believe if memory serves. It has been said that this rending was a prediction of Jesus’ coming. His message to us was that we are not adopted. When you get that, the curtain is torn and God is revealed to you.

Until that "curtain" is torn and no longer separates God from us, we will remain outside the Holy of Holies yearning to be inside but feeling unworthy "adopted" children.

I believe that God is One and that includes all.

LOVE IS MORE THAN A NEED

I think our emotions and our physical condition (which can affect our emotions as well) often do influence our choices and our behavior, therefore affecting our ability to show love and to keep the love we have more pure and untainted by our needs.

There is so much yet we do not know about this though.

Our ability to rationalize and think clearly can be affected by medications, emotions, mental health, and even pain or discomfort levels in the physical arena. We can become self-focused and pain focused. This is natural. Knowing and accepting that can help us cope with it.

At times we allow our needs (both those needs which are known to us and those which unknown to us) to distort our vision and we think we are loving others when we are in fact trying to fix something within. That rarely works for long.

At those times when we have failed to love because we have tried to fulfill a need that is known or unknown to us, we need to cut some slack for ourselves or others when we recognize this. That inborn desire to survive is very powerful and often we perceive our needs as a survival issue so it is easy to see why we have done what we have done. At those times we will become unbalanced in our efforts to get that need met. It becomes a selfish thing then. We will, under those conditions do “unloving” things. We may shun people or even hate or harass them because they have not fulfilled our need or we may go to the extreme in the other direction and obsess about them which may end in eventual harm for the one harassing or/and his or her object of obsession. We may cause ripples of harm to others in our circle or the circle of the one we are using to fulfill our needs such as family members or fiends of ours or theirs. There are lesser extremes of course of unloving behavior that one may call love when actually it is just trying to get a need fulfilled.

Sometimes we work from the idea that “I will treat you lovingly IF you meet my conditions, fulfill my needs and desires.” As an aside here to those who believe in God, think about this: Sometimes we do that with our idea of God. We think that God will love us if we fulfill conditions that we believe God expects. That is when I think we are giving God a personality based on our own personality, beliefs and our experiences. This only serves to perpetuate the way we perceive ourselves and others and this in turn affects our choices and our behaviors.

I think when a person makes a clear intent to learn what love really is and to practice it, they are given the ability to do that better and better under all conditions. It takes consciousness or awareness on one’s part along with dedication and focus. Nothing is ever forced upon us. We have choices.

The Awakening

One of the hardest and seemingly complicated lessons some of us have to learn is to learn how wonderful, beautiful, and lovable we truly are without misunderstanding what that means as opposed to inflated, ego.

The major difference I have found so far is that inflated ego says I am marvelous above others. I can only see my worth when I compare myself to those whom I do not see as being as talented, beautiful, special, more pious, or as good as I. So when I use comparison, then I can find those I am better than and feel good about me. The down side is that ego will also find those who are more beautiful, young, talented, gracious, educated, smart, pious or whatever than I and then I feel not so good until I can find a comparison that gets me back up. Woe unto those of us who appear to be so far on the bottom. That is because it is harder to find someone "beneath" us.

In religion, ego can kick your rear and keep you down every five minutes because it is telling you that you are so unworthy, so sinful and so ego driven there is very little hope for you.

When you begin to know how precious each and every person is including yourself and you can see differences as just differences, then although some folks seem more this than that and some have abilities others don't and some appear to have egos not yet functioning in balance and in Spirit, you are no longer at the mercy of ego. You know that variety is just that. You can play on the playground with all the illusions and yet know the truth and you can do it without seeing yourself or others as better or worse.

In Spirit we are One. Period.

Understanding this is pure freedom. And when we have to act upon anything we do it from love not from need or fear.

Some folks feel like they have great self images and maybe they do and wonder what the fuss is all about for those who grew up thinking they were the pits. But some of these are still viewing others as piteous underlings and so their egos are not purified in Spirit either.

When I say purified in Spirit, that sounds like religious or spiritual lingo and it is. But you can say that the objective is to have ego functioning in balance and it means basically the same thing. Ego is not bad it just needs a shot of reality. And what is reality?

I will illustrate with flowers. There are a variety of flowers and while you might like roses better than daffodils or some other flower each is a flower and each has its contribution to make and each can be enjoyed for what it is. Its Source is the same. That which gives it life is its Source. And the Source does not love the rose above the daffodil.

Can you get it? Can you accept that you are no better or worse than another and yet are so precious, so wonderful, so much a miracle, such a treasure, so adored, so deserving? If you can, you will experience a marvelous healing within. It will change your life forever.

The only real difference if there is any is that some of us have not awakened fully yet as to who and what we truly are and so our behavior will indicate that. Our choices will indicate that. Our treatment of others will indicate that. Our treatment of ourselves and how we see ourselves will indicate that. But it does not indicate that those who are in various stages of sleep are bad or evil or need correcting. They just need to be loved into being awakened or love until they are awakened. This is not always easy but the more awakened you are the easier it gets.

Fairy tales are wonderful. Think of the kiss/love of Prince Charming who woke Snow White. Think of Beauty and the Beast and how Beauty could love the Beast when others abhorred his appearance and he, through her love, became a handsome prince.

Awaken sweet prince and princess. It is time.

I Remember Daddy

Today I put aside my ususal type of writing to honor my father on this Father's Day.

My daddy could scare the life out of me because I knew he had a temper that came loose now and then and I didn't want to be on the receiving end but as I recall he didn't lay a hand on me that I can remember.

I do remember his cool hand on my fevered brow when I was sick and I remember his concern that I be made well again.

I remember his kissing the top of my head before he set off to work the long hours at the bakery when I was a young child.

I remember when I was 13 how when mama was about to order some clothes from Sears for me to wear the new school season, Daddy told her to pick more grown-up looking clothes because I was growing up.

I remember carrying the croaker sack for Daddy when he went net fishing on the beach and down off the bridge at Crescent Beach sometimes. One cannot go fishing at will when one wants to anymore. I am glad that Daddy was able to do that before laws of prohibition came about.

I remember my wedding and how proud Daddy was and how happy he was to be able to throw a pretty good reception even though he hadn't much money. I remember my gown was a bit too long and I had to whisper as we walked the long Cathedral aisle to please slow down a tad more so I wouldn't fall flat on my face tripping on my gown.

Daddy was full of stories about my babyhood too. How during the war when gas was expensive for him and scarce, he and Mama had to take me for a ride to get me to sleep. I was a jumpy and fretful baby it appears. He told me about older women who wanted to hold me or get too close when they had a cold or something and Daddy would try to protect me from getting their germs. He was the one who got up at night and fed the bottle and rocked me back to sleep so Mama could get some rest and then he would head off for a long hard day at work.

When I was three, he was lost somewhere in Germany for a while. My mother was so upset. We received a record that Daddy recorded and Mama played it and wept and I keep asking where my daddy was and when was he coming home. He did come home to us.

These are some of the good memories I carry of my father. Today I weep as I remember him and the horrible years he endured after Mama died. Mama was the light of his life and that light seemed to go out when she died. He had years to go before he passed and had three other wives but he was never the same.

I remember today the love he gave me and it completely erases from my memory any times when things between us were painful or challenging.

WILLINGNESS

Willingness has been a word for my contemplation this week. I think it is very important that we be willing whatever the nature of our desires before anything can happen, change. materialize (come into being or be created), or transform. For example, in order for the Spirit to become the guiding principle in our lives, we must be willing and open not to the "law" of religion per se but rather to the Love within.

In order to create something, make something, fix something, we have to be willing.

In order to experience the Presence within, we must be willing.

In order to love we must be willing to love, to be open to receiving and giving of it.

In order to be peaceful we must be willing to think and behave in a peaceful manner.

In order to be brave or hopeful or courageous or anything, we must be willing.

In order to put Love/God first we must be willing to put aside our differences, our opinions, and our desire to make everything and everyone conform to our idea of the ideal.

We must be willing to live the principles we wish to see evident in ourselves and in the world.

We must be willing or nothing happens.

Some of us may stumble over this thing because we are so hung up on "God's will". If you insist on there being God's will as opposed to your will you will get hung up. I think that "God's will" (if there is any such thing) is to be the Love that we are and if we are being that then we are being all that we were created to be and I don't think we can go wrong. When we are not being the Love that we are then, sure, we can do unloving things and create pain for ourselves and/or for others. But again, we have to be willing.

We are never forced to care, to love, to seek, to be happy, to be peaceful, or to be prosperous in all our spheres. Neither are we forced to live in poverty, fear, pain, loneliness, anguish, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, worry, illness or terror. We are never forced to give up our right to be "right” either. Love never forces us one way or the other.

Here's a shortcut for you. We don’t need to fight poverty, illness, pain, fear, loneliness, anguish, drug addiction, or any painful or negative things in ourselves or others; but, what we do need to do instead is to be willing that joy, peace, love, prosperity, companionship, health, freedom, hope, and safety flow into our lives and in the lives of others.

Some folks may think that we need to suffer to be “holy” or “okay” or “acceptable”. These things can turn us around and get us to “right thinking” when they happen in our lives but it doesn’t have to come that way. We don’t have to seek out and chose these in order to “wake up” but we can use them to wake us up from our spiritual sleep once they are in our lives.

If you should find that somehow pain, suffering, worry, fear, etc. has come to visit you don’t have to waste time wondering why it is there but you can use it as an opportunity to examine how willing or unwilling you are to be loved and blessed. Use it for a wake up call. The call is alway to Love. Are you willing to answer that call?

We are invited but never forced to do anything. When you feel someone pushing or forcing you to do or to be what they think is the “right" way for you to do or be, then please know that this is not born of love but of fear. Love gives example. Love is what it is. Love is effective and affective. It transforms without a word. It performs its duties in silence and gentleness. It allows us to be willing. It allows us to love ourselves and all that is. It allows us to reach our full potential as human beings.

The question is, “Are you willing”? Are you willing to answer the "call"?