THE TUESDAY OF NOW

It is yet another cloudy day in Georgia punctuated by fits of rain. The Bradford Pear trees (most of which are on "death row") are a brilliant orange that almost lights the backyard like Thanksgiving ornaments. The trees are on “death row” because they encroach upon the gas pipeline space which is verboten. The gas line crew has been ordered to uproot and destroy them without compassion. The weather and "death row" trees are another reason to enjoy the "now" and to learn to stop resisting the impermanence of all things - both those we wish to cling to and those we wish to hurry along out of our lives.

I keep a lot of activity going right now placing carrots of expectations before me prodding me along this path that I sometimes trod with leaden feet. Now and then my mind wanders to thoughts such as "What will I do when I can make only so many social engagements before my friends find something else to do or when I don't have a home project or acting or writing project going. What then? Or will it come to that? What lies ahead? What will become of me?" I don't know. All I have is now. Anxiety awaits me if I look too far ahead. Grief awaits me if I look behind.

I am not the only one who asks these kinds of questions or have these kinds of thoughts. All of us go through similar ones at times.

So being thankful for what is and what I have and what I am and what I dream of begins to open my heart and my joy to the moment at hand.

I am thankful I have a wonderful home and neighborhood to live in. I am thankful I have visitors coming to brighten this next week. I have my health. I have friends. I have this web site for now to express myself and to connect with kindred spirits. I am enjoying my church. So much to be thankful for. So very much. And it is all now.

THE PRESENCE IS THE GIFT OF CHRISTMAS

Love's/God's presence can be experienced in many ways. What you focus on, you have an experience of. So when you pray or meditate with God in mind you can often experience that Presence within. To me it feels like love feels - warm, welcoming, accepting, flawless, restful, and joyful. There is a sense of knowing that all is well, all is right regardless of what is happening to rock your world. During this state all disharmonic thoughts cannot enter nor influence. This is your personal time with your true Self within, the Christ within. At that moment you are that and not separate from that. You are aware that there is not you and that. You are One as God is One. With practice and belief that this is so, you can do it outside of your prayer or meditation time.

Another way we experience God/Love in the world is through, with, and in each other. God's presence is made manifest through us when we surrender all the stuff that gets in the way of that flow and when we connect consciously with one another.

God has no way of holding you unless it is done through the arms of another. God has no way of giving gifts unless we allow our minds, bodies and souls to be instruments. God rocks the cradles, cooks the meals, sweeps the sidewalk, holds the hand of the sick, creates new bodies/lives, invents new things, enjoys the sunrises and sunsets, and in fact does and experiences all things through, with, and in us. What an awesome responsibility we have.

Each time we block the Presence with our stubbornness, our false sense of self, our very ignorance, we have not fully demonstrated our true nature and so there is just that much less joy, love, peace, and rightness in the world.

You don’t have to be aware of or buy into this idea I am presenting for it to work but awareness and belief and cooperation with the Christ within expedites the process and will expand within you the Self that you truly are. More and more you can get your arms around all that is rather than a selective few things. When you are selective you limit yourself and God in this world. You choose to only embrace what your limited human beliefs will allow or accept. God/Love is so much bigger than that.

So, if you have an inclination to do so, if you are up to the challenge, allow that which you are to expand. Allow that which you are to experience the full potential within you. Allow God’s/Love’s Presence to be demonstrated through, with, and in you. Bring forth as Mary did, the Christ into the world. It can be Christmas every day, every moment if you will but allow it.

LOVE AND CHANCE

When we truly love, somewhere in the deepest part of us we are aware of being connected with another human being. When we feel that love, we are connected because there is nothing in that moment that separates us in our minds, our very consciousness, from another. In that moment there are no judgments and no conditions though often times during our interactions with our loved ones, we will judge or place conditions – at least temporarily. When we begin to understand what love really is, as love becomes who we are rather than what we do, there is less fear, less worry about loss of love, less judgment, fewer conditions.

Until then, we as humans become fearful that through death or choice we will be separated from one we love. So love carries with it a certain amount of risks. We live in fear that love will be lost to us. The more we fear, the more the illusion of being separated grows.

This fear may manifest in a person wanting to possess or hold on too tightly to another person. They may smother others who dare to love them. They may be given to fits of jealousy. Their fear of being separated may cause them to beg a terminally ill loved one to hang on to living and to endure longer than necessary their illness and pain . In extreme cases this so-called love that is really fear masquerading as love, may lead to abuse or murder particularly if rejection seems to be a real or imagined.

Fear of losing love may cause a person to not be willing to take a chance on love and thereby lose on many opportunities to experience the love they so desperately hope for. Anything worth having brings with it some challenges and some risks. Love is always worth it. I was a widow when I met and fell in love with my second husband. He told me pretty early in the relationship that he had CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia). What this meant was that while the disease was not causing any problems at the moment and required no treatment, at some point it could cause complications that would inevitably lead to death. We had no idea how long or short a time we would have together. The chances that he would die before I would were pretty great and so I knew that if I took a chance on love with him, at some point I would lose him. I knew how painful that could be and though I wasn’t looking forward to that prospect, of living that loss once again, I could not say no to love. I only had seven years with him before he died. Was it worth it? You bet.

We may begin to feel that love is something that we get from another and that others can either give to you or withhold from you. Love is something we have inside and it is always with us. Love is the gift of ourselves that we give to one another. It is in the giving of ourselves, this love we are, that we receive love for what we give flows back to us. Like an echo we extend love out and it comes back to us over and over again.

Perfect love casts out fear we have heard. It is true. We either love or fear. We either love or resist love out of fear.

When we take a chance on love, we open ourselves to risk of separation but as Alfred, Lord Tennyson said, “ ‘Tis better to have love and lost than never to have loved at all.”

THREE WISHES

You Have Three Wishes

Did you ever notice that in stories about genies that grant wishes, there are three? Did you ever wonder why three?

The first wish is made because you think that this is what you want most and will make you the most happy. Usually with first wishes, we get to see what it pays to be careful what you wish for because usually it doesn’t turn out quite like you planned. You see that things are not quite what you thought they would be.

The second wish usually makes an improvement on the first. You learn a little bit more, make corrections with the first wish and ultimately you do seem to get a better result. But still you could sing along with the Eagles the words to one of their songs that says, “What do you do when your dreams come true and they don’t turn out quite like you planned.”

By the third wish the dreamer hopes that he or she has learned something from the first two wishes and can make the ultimate best choice this time. There is this one last shot to correct the misses that occurred the first two times. Alan Watts wrote about three wishes saying that the last wish was to bring the person back to where they began. Though three wishes may be a good basis for stories that show the person back to where they began, I would like to think that the third wish would bring a person to another, better beginning that was enhanced by what they learned from the first two wishes.

Maybe that is what dreams and wishes are created for. We learn and improve on each level.

The three wishes stories usually have the moral that things are not quite the way we thought they were. What we thought was important or would make us happy or was the ultimate wish or dream, was not it. While these things can be blessings, if you don’t know what is really important these will not bring the joy that they could bring.

In the end, it is Love that is what gives us life and sustains it. To love and be loved is the stuff of which keeps this universe going. We think things or other people will make us happy but it is the love we seek and ultimately the love we find that is behind all desires that makes our dreams and wishes have meaning and life. It is what makes people and things have value. They have no value in themselves. Once we know the Source of Love and happiness then people, places, and things will be seen as they really are – gifts of the Spirit. They are not what bring us happiness, peace or joy but the Source of it all, Love, God, Jesus, Great Spirit, Allah, or whatever name you give Love, is what brings these to us. We think that things bring love but it is love that brings things.

If you have but one wish, wish for this – to know the Source of all that you desire and all the rest will be added unto you.

LOVE AND PURPOSE

It has been said that you teach best what you need to learn. And maybe the reverse is also true. You learn best what you need to teach.

I know one of the things I was put here to learn about was love. I don't doubt it for one minute. This is the theme that runs through all of my posts, my blog, and my interactions with others. Sometimes I think maybe my friends and my family tire of it or just yawn and say, "Well, there's good old Brenda beating her "love drum" again”.

My intent is not to bore anyone with my repetitious hammering away and chipping away with words to clear the way for Love; but rather to assist in any way I can for love to become a more vibrant and real happening for all of us.

I used to think that my calling was to be a “healer”. The healing was to be through using psychology I thought. I got a degree that incorporated within it, psychology. Then I thought it was through becoming a Reiki master and using that to help people heal so I did that. One time I though I would go to massage therapy school and do that to help people heal. Though I have used psychology a lot and in the past have used Reiki, that wasn’t it. The idea of going to massage therapy school never did materialize. I couldn’t give it the energy necessary to create that for myself and I think it was because that wasn’t where my calling was. It wasn’t my “real” purpose.

I can look back on my entire life and all its different stages and chapters and see that the lesson I came to learn about was love. And if this indeed is my lesson, then this is what I am to teach through the living of my life, with, in, and through love. Here is a warning. Be careful what you wish or ask for. The lessons for me have been hard at times but the alternative was to not do the most important thing I came to do and therefore to realize on my death bed that I did not do what I came to do. Love, agape, God-love, goes against our basic human tendencies. It cannot abide by strings or conditions. It cannot justify “righteousness” nor thrive in grudges or hardness of heart. It requires all of you, not just the parts you want to give. It asks that you see beyond what you think is the obvious and see love beyond appearances.

When the love I speak of is who you become and what you are all about then all that you say, all that you do, all that you acquire, all that you accomplish, all that you experience will be done in, with, and through, that love. All of your actions and reactions will carry with them a power and a joy and a peace that passes all human understanding. All of these will turn out to be a blessing to you and to those around you.

It is heaven. It is now. It requires surrender when you can’t yet understand what it is all about. But it is always your choice. Always. No exceptions. Love gently calls your name. All we have to do is show up. Love is the lesson in this school of life. And you will experience over and over again the very things that will help you to learn it until you do learn it. It is all good. It is all God. It is all love. It doesn’t get better than this.

LOVE IS ALL THERE IS

Love is all there is and it is Divine.

The only time love is shut off from us is when we resist it.

Sometimes we just don't open to it because we don't recognize the form it in which it is appearing. We have our ideas of what looks like, feels like, acts like and so we sweep away love that doesn't fit that mold.

Sometimes we just are afraid of being hurt to reach out and completely give ourselves to it. I am not talking about just romantic love. I am talking about love in any relationship. We can feel pain in so many ways and none of us likes that. What if I get rejected at some point? What if I really give myself over to love and this person dies? What then? What if I surrender and then they use me or turn on me or demand things of me I can't or won't want to do?

What if I am made a fool of? What if they leave me?

These are some of the modes of resistance that we use to keep love at a safe distance. And then we wonder why we are starving to death for love.

So, we may try to love but we hold back some. We don't give all. We try to control them and try to control us so that things don't get uncomfortable. If we can just make our neighbor, our friend, our family member, our lover or spouse or boss or co-worker do this or that or stop doing this or that, then I can give them love and receive love from them. Right! Ha!

To be love, to give love, to get love, surrender is required. Let go of the need to be "right". Let go of your fears. Be willing to feel the pain of separation. Be willing to love a person and allow that person to be what appears to be unloving at times because you know that they are resisting love. They are protecting themselves from hurt. They are afraid. They are holding back. They do not yet know that what they want is to love and to be loved or they know that but don’t know how. Even the need for them to be “right” is born of their fear and/or their ignorance yet of love.

We all want and need to love and be connected. What causes people to be caustic or hateful or controlling or manipulative or any of those things we try to shield ourselves against is their not yet being able to surrender completely to love.

That's all it takes. Once you surrender to love, love is yours forever and it will change you. It will change the world you see. There will be so much love at your doorstep you wonder how in the heck you missed it before.

What you have inside will draw to you like things. And those situations and people that are not quite as open and loving as you are may find their way to you because they are looking for love. When you are steadfast in divine love, you can be instrumental in being providing just the perfect and safe place for them to surrender to it as well.

Contrary to exaggerated rumors that the state of things is otherwise; love IS all there is. Scoop it up. Invite it in. Surrender one hundred percent to it. Stop resisting. Be willing to feel. Be willing to give. Be willing to receive. There is more than enough to go around.

MOVING FORWARD

Sometimes it feels pretty tough to move forward when the past, even yesterday's past, calls to you. Memory is a great and necessary thing because it gives us points of reference; but it can fool you at times because we tend to overplay the good or the bad when we need to recognize both exist. Memory can trap you and keep you from moving forward. A desire to want things back the way they were will keep you from finding out what is ahead with any great speed.

Lot's wife in the Bible turned to a pillar of salt when she looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah. I don't know what a pillar of salt meant but the feeling is, that this was not a good thing.

Perhaps memory of all that has been is a "necessary evil" but we can't let it influence us to keep grudges or let it act as our guideposts for the future because the future may not be based on any of our past experiences. If we let our memory keep us desiring to live a past chapter in our lives when it no longer exists, then we get stuck there and make no progress. Like beating a dead horse, we aren't going to get that horse to move.

Some of my memories give me great cheer and encouragement and are loving, happy ones. These often bring a smile to my face, make me feel good about myself, and catapult me into a good, positive and fruitful frame of mind. Some memories bring tears. Some bring sadness, sorrow, regret, anger, hurt or fear. These may need to be acknowledged and felt but they can send me into a negative and unproductive frame of mind if I entertain them for very long. Memories of any kind can serve us or hinder us.

As I reflect this morning, I am reminded that focusing on what was will not move me forward. I must begin to focus on what I want to come so that I am less resistant and more poised to receive the gifts at hand.

It isn't easy but it is doable.

GRIEVING LOVE

I see all of life as spritual and I see it all as a journey in which the destination is not the goal but the journey itself is what is important. As I go through the process of grieving the death of my spouse it is processed within me in a psychological and spiritual way. This I share openly with any who wish to explore the process with me.

I have found that my grieving takes different forms. Today I found my self remembering the Edgar Allan Poe poem The Raven. The raven that perches on his chamber door says, “Nevermore”.

I was realizing that never more would I be able to look into my husband’s blue eyes or watch that wonderful smile start to take shape at the corner of his mouth. I would never more feel his arms around me or be able to sit next to him on the sofa or the swing and talk about all the things we used to talk about. Never more would I be able to share a kiss with him or share the intimacies that belonged only to him and to me.

It is the “never more” part that trips us up. When that hits it goes right to the core. I start remembering the things that were so precious to me, so delightful. I remember things that I looked forward to and enjoyed with him. I remember being able to ask for a hug or to be held when I didn’t feel well physically or emotionally or I just needed love or comforting. I remember the talks we had; the walks we had before his illness; the trips we went on and hoped to do yet; the Scrabble games; the shopping trips; watching him fish in our pond; and those quiet moments when we cuddled and felt the love that we had for each other well up inside bringing peace and comfort and contentment to us in a way that only that kind of unity with another can bring. As I remember these, the icy fingers of grief grip my very being and shake me to my core coldly saying, “Nevermore. Never again in this lifetime”. The last time you shared a kiss was the last time. The last time you played Scrabble was the last time. The last time you went for a drive was the last time. The last time you said “I love you” was the last time.

The last time is so final. The dance is done. The party is over. It is complete and yet my heart yearns for this to be a nightmare that will end and I will awaken and find my love beside me. But in the middle of that desire the raven swoops through screaming, “Nevermore” and I face the pain of that and the fact that life is not only fleeting but everything is impermanent and I may as well get used to it.

I begin to try to see my time with my love as a blessed time and something to be thankful for regardless of the short duration. I reach to feel his presence with me even thought we are separated by and abide in different dimensions. I open myself to become aware of the things that tell me he is with me in Spirit. I remember how much he taught me and what his presence in my life has meant to me. I count those blessings and strain to see my cup as running over even though it seems otherwise.

This is the second spouse that has passed before me. It is the second time that I have grieved over love lost. It never gets easy no matter how many times or how long the relationship lasted.
But I have had the love of two wonderful men who brought so many wonderful gifts to me for which I will be forever grateful. I had a chance to give love and gifts of my own to them. How blessed I am.

If I listen closely, I think I hear the raven say “Evermore” and rejoice in the knowledge that love never dies though it takes different forms.

REINCARNATION?

I play with that idea but to tell you the truth I just don't know if it is a reality nor do I know exactly how it is or how it works if it is a reality.

But this I can tell you. I have looked back at my life unfold for over the past decades and I can see within this lifetime that I have lived many different lives so to speak and played many different roles.

As I learned and grew and matured and made decisions I found myself living from a different point of reference and sometimes from a different home or even from a different state.

Every time someone in my family died, the idea I had of my family and my place in it changed.

Every time I had a child the structure of my family of procreation changed.

Every time someone died or remarried it affected every corner of my world.

Change is a constant but every change in it brings another life, another chapter, another way of being. The main character (you) stay the same in terms of your awareness of a sense of your self but how you see things and relate to the world changes as things around you change.

There are always some things in your life that you call "constants" but the overall thing that you call your life cycles and recycles so that you are never quite the same person living the same life all throughout what you call your lifetime.

My children are all still alive at this point in my life and the fact that I gave birth to them and that they are my children is a constant; however, they continue to change and so do I and so do our circumstances and our point of reference to one another.

Life changes, particularly earth-shaking ones can throw you into a whole different life very quickly rather than slowly or progressively. You are a constant in consciousness of your self but how you think, feel, look, react, live, and choose continues to change. Your world changes and you find yourself living in another body so to speak as a different person than you were before the dramatic change took place. Some changes come more slowly and you adjust to them and don't notice them quite so much. But haven't you one day just looked in the mirror and wondered who that image was that stared back at you? You wondered about the physical changes that seemed to just suddenly appear when you know that they did not do that just suddenly. So too other things change in our world.

So, this day I reflect upon the many changes in my life that have given birth to many lives that I have thus lived in this one body, this one life time. Perhaps this is reincarnation of some type - living different lives (so to speak) with one consciousness.