Christmas Magic

Today is Monday December 24, 2007. And although my posts on this blog cover inspirational thoughts over many years, a touching story happened yesterday that is worthy of sharing.

I arrived early at Sunday’s service so I could sit on the front row a mere foot from a towering and beautifully decorated Christmas tree. There are only five seats on this row but when I arrived, two were already taken—the isle seat and the second seat next to it.

Excusing myself as I passed the two men sitting there, the young man in the second seat gestured with a slight hand movement for me to take the empty third seat. Since sitting under this massive and magic Christmas tree is personal, I nodded with a thank you opting to sit in the forth seat leaving an empty seat on both sides.

His brief gesture allowed me to observe a twenty-something angelic face that quite honestly resembled what Jesus may have looked like at his age although his clothes betrayed his personal presence. They resembling those of a homeless person more so than a spiritual power, a thought I quickly dismissed. It’s wrong to “judge a book by it’s cover.”

The first row is also first to receive the collection plate. But when the young man passed the velvet-covered collection basket to me, I couldn’t help but notice his angelic smile and the quarter he had carefully placed there. His gratitude was over-flowing and obvious, far greater than mine. It was a Christmas lesson leaving me to wonder who was he really?

Evil and Death

Just as fame, power, money, monarchy, gender, age and race are unknown to God, so is evil. When cruel, corrupt, and evil people die their secondary energy, which had accumulated around them to influence their evil acts, is sucked back into the vortex.

This adds to the repository of every disgusting, violent act and thought since the beginning of time. It is the same destructive force that temporarily comes alive in us, from somewhat benign picky self-talk to violent, demonic manifestations borrowing its, so called, power from the Law of God.

My 16,777,216 Grandparents

Pomp can easily become a smug happening when based on miniscule facts. Take ancestors for instance. Lots of people get very pomp about theirs. I wonder if they ever thought about how many direct descendants are bouncing around in their DNA? We all have two parents, which give us four sets of grandparents and eight sets of great grandparents. The math is simple and if everyone will agree that each generation is usually calculated in 20-year increments, then there are five generations in 100 years. Now if that’s so, I have 1,048,576 direct linage grandparents who were getting smitten around 1608. Drop another 100 years and I have 16,777,216 grandparents who were roaming around in 1508 when the world’s population is estimated to have been only 800 million—that’s 2 percent of the population!

Lessons in Tiny Packages

Downloading the Creator comes with big lessons in tiny, if not invisible, packages. I had a car rattle that annoyed me and everyone else for months. It sounded like a screw rattling around inside the glove department or, worse yet the dash, but no one could pinpoint the problem including the car dealer. One day the rattle suddenly stopped when I reached for my water bottle sitting in the cup holder. Surprised, I released the cap and the rattle started up. Mystery solved. It was that small band attached to the cap that breaks lose when the bottle is opened. It sits unnoticed with just enough slack to rattle becoming an imperceptible irritant. Sometimes thoughts are like that.

A Lesson In Manipulation

Mother was more than a mother; she could well have been the first life coach although the idea of a life coach was yet to emerge as a profession. Children are natural masters of manipulation. At age five, I was no exception and remember quite well how I fell in love with a beautiful doll in the Sears Christmas Catalog.

I showed the picture to mother but didn’t get the response I wanted. All she did was agree with me that the doll was indeed beautiful. I then decided pity might work better and carefully curled up in an overstuffed chair. Holding the picture close to my chest, I produced tears that softly streamed down my cheeks. And just to make sure she heard me, loudly sniffed and sighed a few times.

She not only heard me, she immediately appeared in front of the chair and gently explained she knew how much I loved the doll. It was, however, unbecoming to pout, cry and pretend to make her feel as though she had to buy that doll to make me happy. If she did buy the doll, it would because she wanted to. “You mustn’t do something like this again. It isn’t nice and it isn’t thoughtful of the other person,” she said.

Flase Identity

False identity is paying people to make it appear as if they admire us. When the New York Times reported that Bill Zanker, president of the Learning Annex paid people to line up for a book signing for his and Donald Trump’s co-authored book, I wondered how much these men should allow when they wake up on the other side of dead with empty wallets?

Rebirth

We who watch death in every form are the ones who suffer. It is painful to say goodbye to our spouses, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, friends and most of all, to our children. Our life, like theirs, changes. Our life, unlike theirs, is still focused here. The person who made the transition was part of our habit, our identity, and our relationship with the world around us. When the person no longer exists in that capacity, we suffer a loss of identity. They don’t. We do.

Recognizing My Part

We all hit speed bumps and yesterday was mine. Feeling overwhelmed, it came to me "If it's not part of God, it's not part of me!"

Death Is a Colossal Birthday Party

When you turned twenty-one, are you the ten-year old you were once? Of course you are but you neither dwell on or are attached to having been a ten-year old at one time, although you can remember age ten when you are twenty-one. The memory of this life feels like that, like a moment in time or a movie you saw. You will recall it with complete detachment. In your earthly life, any age is only one stage of an overall lifetime. Each age has allowed you to gather enough experience to easily move on to the next age and is usually marked by a birthday party. Death, on the other hand, is one colossal birthday celebration!

We Die Daily

We die every night to the day that just passed. We die to the day because it no longer exists except in a memory cell. One day we will die to this life altogether. For most, the first thing we notice is a burst of beauty and a loving feeling. This impartial all-enveloping light, love and spiritual knowingness doesn’t adequately translate into any language because our recognition of It is a non-language.

Its light and love are indescribable; you just are and you know it! You and the Self are indivisible yet individual. Fame, power, money, monarchy, gender, age, race are unknown giving rise to the question, are the renowned world and religious leaders, the famous, my mother and your mother still the same persona now that they have stepped from human sight?


Yes and no. You will be the essence of you with an added experience, one that incorporates your immediate past life in the same way that you incorporated the experiences of your life at incremental stages.

Three Responses Are All You Need

It’s taken me an entire lifetime to learn I only need three responses if something doesn’t set right with me.

1) To the pompous: Listen and when they are done say, “La-tee-da.”
2) To the fix-it or nosey busy body: Let ‘em ramble on and when they are done say, “Yes ma’am,” or it could be a “sir” but usually it’s a female. This isn't the old world polite "Yes ma'am," it's the tongue-in-cheek kind.
3) To escape the control freak and manipulator: Say, “I don’t know anything about that.”

Death

Throughout recorded history and from every corner of the earth, we have made death the ultimate human tragedy using it as a central theme in an endless stream of real life headlines, operas, movies, television, and books. Because it is a painful experience to say good-bye to those we love, we have created ceremony upon ceremony in the hope it will ease if not erase our pain.

Eventually, though, the natural grieving process gives way to letting us move on; while death caused by accidents, massacres, murders and deviate acts leaves life-altering chasms in our hearts. Sometimes our hearts heal and sometimes they don’t. Not even the passing of eons seems to erase the pain caused by acts of cruelty and terror.

We are still reminded of the Christians who were eaten alive by Lions and of those who have been bludgeoned, buried alive or burned at the stake over thousands of years. There are still many among us who were imprisoned in Hitler’s camps of terror and still awaken each day to the memory of a human sea of living death.

And who was more terrified on that day of horror September 11, 2001? Was it the four pilots who could see what was happening, the passengers who were gripped with fear, or the thousands of people who blinked on one side of reality and awakened on the other? Where did these people go? For those of us who are left behind, how do we stop crying? Does not this give voice to yet another reason why it is important to put a new face on death altogether?

Old Is Not On My Wish List

James Poniewozik, Time Magazine, January 17, 2000 wrote “…remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it.”

Old is not on my wish list, of course, but dead isn’t either! Happiness though, like Poniewozik points out, is accepting the inevitable outcome of life is death. Once we do this, an emotional shift of sorts takes place. “Have to” shackles seem less important and many simply disappear.

Day by Day

The Power is in the decision.

Foregoing Individuality

I’ve watched my beloved country grow from 160 million to over 300 million people in just my lifetime. Where once we were proud and strong individualists, we have succumbed to brainwashing. Most recently, my suspicions were bore out when attending a large vendors’ tradeshow. Upon entering the convention center, I was astonished to see a snake-like line of people obediently weaving from one long row onto the next for nearly 20 rows.

Having an interest in 10 or so vendors among the several hundred, I asked two suits standing near the information both, “Why do we have to stand in line?” “You don’t,” they replied. “The first time we sponsored this tradeshow, the people automatically formed a line like the one you see,” they said.

Thousands of people attended that day but only a handful questioned the line. “We have been brainwashed at a deep level," I thought. "It is sad to see my countrymen surrender their freedom of choice and individuality.”

"Want" - What Do You Want?

“Want shall be your master.” When I think deeply on this, I instantly internalize a deeper meaning—a meaning that demands investigation. Want is a word that implies lack and places want-satisfaction in the future if I allow it to own me. There is nothing wrong in wanting anything; want is a necessary part of life, an emotional mixture of enthusiasm and motivation. It is when I allow want to become my master, I make everything beholden to it. If everything in my life is beholden to it, want remains in the future. Since the future does not exist except within my idea about it, what I want becomes a vaporous prison.

Thoughts are Collaborative Singularities

Thoughts are energy living forever and transforming into a collaborative singularity. They never die. And since they don’t, our thoughts attract their thought-counterparts. For example, simple self-doubt resides in the third band, deception of the senses. We secretly don’t think we are good enough. If unchecked, self-doubt will attract its thought-counterparts from the deception of senses. It will gnaw and irritate our sense of well being, sometimes for years.

Self-doubt, therefore, lives through us growing more powerful as we entertain its feelings or dissipates when we accept with knowing, “For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.” I Cor 3:16. When alcohol, drug, sex, and food addicts fight their addictions with their wills, they do battle bound and gagged. Ask a genuine intuit anywhere on the planet, and they will tell you disincarnate addicts attach themselves to the nap of the neck and influence their host—like in, “Why not, go ahead and do it; it feel good; I want to.”

Evil Is Black And Thick

If only for a second, everyone on earth has experienced the force from one of the seven vibrational pulses. Sadness begets sadness form the third band as does self-depreciation and judgment. It’s so simple to understand but so difficult to explain. I must admit though, even with a flash of spiritual insight, I was never convinced until I lived in the former Soviet Bloc countries about the same time The Wall fell.

The moment I stepped off the plane, I could feel the despair, pain, and evil as I walked. It was that unwanted thick, heavy feeling from the ground up to my knees, thinning out as it reached my knees. Over many decades, deep human anguish had filled the vortex, as did unthinkable torture and hate from the Holocaust, the death and destruction from World War II, and Communists rule. It blanketed the earth with invisible sludge.

The Seven Energy Bands Circling the Earth

Beginning at ground level, seven distinct fields of energy circle the earth. The first is pure black evil. The second band is soul-darkness and the third is a deception of the senses. The forth band is awakening, the fifth is one of perceiving and knowing, the sixth is internalizing God-Love, and the seventh is I Am That I Am.

Each band has a vibrational pulse that is felt. Evil feels thick like one would feel if it were possible to walk through quicksand. As the bands spiral upward, the pulse grows increasingly lighter until we experience the seventh band which feels like pure joy, not unlike your most joyous and excited moment, only more etheric. No one can mistake this feeling.

Defining the Folly of My Ways

I rediscovered something important today and hope I don’t forget it this time. Human nature welcomes helping others and I’m no different. Last year, I decided to mentor someone whom I thought showed both studied and innate talent. That was my first mistake. Assumptions are illusions and I bought into mine, which was a costly investment taking far more patience, time and money than I had ever anticipated.

At first it felt rewarding to see the protégé’s improvement but slowly these improvements began to transform the protégé into a egocentric. I dismissed the decaying association after considering the hardship imposed upon the protégé at one time, and then I tolerated it as the protégé’s ego grew bigger and bigger “buying into its own press,” as the saying goes. Of course, there is always a boundary that is crossed, and mine was finally crossed closing the curtain forever.

My two lessons? Don’t assume anything. As a line in a TV show once pointed out, “It makes an ass out of u and me.” And the second lesson, if you want to play in my sand pile, you had better bring your own bucket because I don’t intend to hand out buckets to anyone again.

I was wrong to do it the first time years ago and certainly wrong this time. I was wrong because I created the rules, made erroneous assumptions, and turned an otherwise nice person into a arrogant jerk who didn’t have the business or cultural discernment to carry the bucket in the first place. President Clinton had a better idea when he once asked two Eastern European countries that had been warring, “How can we help you along your way?” Asking another to propose the agenda is a lot different than assuming one!

Energy Singularities

Energy singularities have taken on a life of their own so to speak, merged with others like their own kind, and depend upon us to validate their existence. They are not first cause, but imitators of it and why we can dissolve unwanted influences permanently. At one time or another, everyone is influenced by these so called entities, from the most benign and seemingly innocent thoughts on a down day to rank evil found in darkened envy, hate, molestation, incest, greed, murder, self-mutilation, lying, stealing, self-aggrandizement, vanity, or alcohol, sex and drug addictions.

Influences and Attachments

Every living thought and action that has happened since the beginning of time is immediately transformed into energy leaving an individual imprint in the layered bands surrounding the earth. These imprints have been accumulating for eons upon eons and gather their power by using the law of cause and effect, or first Cause—the Creator. Like water, these energy singularities seek their own level, and when entertained unaware, reinforce our conscience decisions for good and evil.

An Acquaintance Said

“I told God I intend to sit here until you tell me who you are!” That’s funny—like in ha-ha, not like in weird. I bet God laughed too.

The Dog Next Door

Rosie, the dog next-door, barks at every noise she hears including mine. Early on, I decided to be friendly, call her by name, let her get my scent, and otherwise make peace. Dogs are like that--accepting. They learn quickly about new scents and sounds but not Rosie! I tried everything. Nothing worked. Rosie barked on.

Then this morning it dawned on me Rosie can hear but her sense of smell apparently isn’t working. Without being able to associate sound with a familiar scent, she has to do what dogs do—bark. Maybe my conclusion carries no weight but I’m more forgiving now that I’ve decided her sniffer is broken.

People are a lot like Rosie. When they lack insight as to why people do something they don’t like, they bark like Rosie for no reason!

Thoughts About Parents and Children

1900-1920 - Children are to be seen and not heard.

1921-1940 - Children are to be seen and may only speak when parents stop talking.

1941-1960 - Children are to be seen and may speak if there is something important to say.

1961-1980 - Children are to be seen and heard.

1981-2000 - Children are not only to be seen, they may interrupt and parents must listen.

2001-Present - Parents are to be seen and not heard.

Perception And The Perceived

I’ve always wanted to realize what the Eastern philosophies call Nirvana but in order for me to “knock and it will be opened,” I’m the temperament type who needs to know what the door looks like, the address and directions for how to get to that door!

I can now say and humbly submit, the I Am is what the door looks like. That is the address, and the 2nd I Am is the direction for how to get to That door! Fully knowing I know all the aspects of I Am That I Am is akin to internalizing the universe.

If only for a brief period, my visual perception incorporated everything in my line of sight as I thought upon this driving toward home. I recognized the I Am as both my perception and the perceived. A powerful moment that stilled the world to a serene pace just as it should have been busy with people leaving their jobs for a 3-day weekend.

We Are The Experience

When you understand something, you begin to own it and when you own it you experience it. Later today, I went to the market. The thoughts from earlier were still fresh. For an humbling moment the Creator let me see through His eyes as I began hearing, seeing and feeling I Am That I Am to everything about me as I drove down the street. The emphasis was on the word That.

Once in the store and then leaving the store, I honored those who passed me by recognizing their Godhead and thinking I Am That I Am. As I approached my car a shiny new penny was on the ground by the driver’s side.

This has always been a sign between the Creator and me, which I borrowed from the song ”Pennies from Heaven” the first time it happened. Out of context, it seems a little corny. To me, it has been a never-failing validation. The tears welled up inside with a rush of gratitude as I got into my car and cried all the way home.

Omnificent - Omnipotent - Omnipresent

Three meanings representing I Am That I Am completes the realization of who we are. When we begin to internalize the I Am Its purity resonates within our energy field. With this, we arrive at the Godhead and are able to heal any situation in a waking state just as the Master demonstrated and declared we can do. The following three make up the definition the Creator declared Himself to be when he said, “I Am That I Am.” The three definitions are illustrated as follows:

OMNIFICENT: Unlimited Creative Power and The Only Power
The First I Am = Absolute Spirit

OMNIPOTENT: Having Unlimited Authority and Influence As One and The Same
That = Same As

OMNIPRESENT: Present In All Places At All Times As All and Everything That Is
The Second I Am = All Life, Places, Things, You, Me

The Meaning of THAT

I saw in my mind’s eye this morning an added meaning for I Am That I Am. God is declaring He is the Creator in the first I Am. The word That, used in this context, is never found in writings as a capitalized word but should be since it is key to the Creator's declaration. By using the word That, God affirmed He is the same as His creation—therefore, the word That written thus is a holy word. The second I Am is you and me and why we have been called “brothers and sisters.”

Old Patches on New Garments

My awareness from absorbing Proverbs 25:4 has been lingering for days. The first thing that became apparent was the “dross” cannot coexist with the “silver” prompting a giving up process versus one of getting. The preeminent venture capitalist, Ann Winblad, once said, “If you are going to invest forward, what you knew yesterday is not good enough for tomorrow.” She was, of course, referring to financial investments but the same analogy is true of the spirit. We must be willing to give up worn out concepts whose tattered edges are fishhooks to the soul. They represent our identity with yesterday’s definitions and they are “not good enough for tomorrow.”

Not long ago, a minister made the same point in her Sunday sermon. She told of breaking a fingernail en route to a presentation several hours away where she was the keynote speaker. Since there wasn’t time for a repair manicure, she decided to stop at the first drugstore, buy nail glue and glue the broken part of her nail back on. Glue in hand with twenty minutes to spare this seemed like a plan, except for one thing.

When she attempted to glue the broken part of the nail back, it didn’t fit! In a flash, she saw the fluidity of life and that imperceptible change takes place in each moment. When we hold onto the dead parts that have broken off and attempt to affix them onto the present, disappointment is the result. Her experience turned out to be a valuable lesson she shared with her audience as she held up her hand, broken nail included, for all to see.

The Finer

My journey has been multifaceted with many peaks and valleys. Some of the experiences don’t easily translate into words while I would have preferred to skip others altogether. Each, however, has taken “away the dross from the silver … (to bring) forth a vessel for the finer,” Proverbs 25:4.

In retrospect, the “finer” provided the glue to go beyond my first spiritual link of realizing I Am to a recognition of what “that” means and how to use It in my life. I have come to know I Am is instantly what I declare it to be conferring Its power of self-fulfilling prophecies. I must “watch” as the Master as instructed.

Notes From A Life-Worn Soul

Spiritual revelations, like all inspired thought, are instantaneous; the entire concept is grasp in a split second. Whether the idea is for a revolutionary new product, a miraculous discovery, a novel or spiritual insight, each step in the development process is ultimately experienced in real life until the concept is brought into physical form. During this, so called, R&D (research and development) phase we discover what it takes to make the “rubber meet the road.” This is our journey.

Giving Credit

Mark Carlson, an author of six historical novels, wanted to convert one of his novels into a digital format for mobile devices so I told him about a free software program called Creator. Inquiring later as to how it worked out he said, “Last night I downloaded the Creator.” We both recognized the unintended pun simultaneously and had a good laugh.
“You just provided the title for my book,” I said.
“You may quote me,” he said.

Thinking at a deeper level about the pun, led me to realize it’s actually true. There is certainly a lot of yada-yada that goes on between the Creator and us and truthfully, I feel very inspired by mine.
I’ve wanted to share some of these life-changing revelations but also reasoned with millions of pages already written on the subject, adding one more page to the mélange will not change the world.

But then I ask you, what would you do if you were yanked through a spiritual portal; your soul cracked open with piercing knowing and the universe began a data dump?

Like me, I’m certain you would began journaling and that is exactly what I did—for over thirty years. Not too far away from checkout and having grown a steel spine on one level and wisdom on another, I decided adding a few more words to the repository might not be too bad after all.

The world is agonizing over nearly everything these days and debating over the remainder. Perhaps an inspirational insight here and there, a quote worth repeating or observations written down by this life-worn soul will give you a chuckle while others will anoint your life in some way.

Chronology gave way to beginning with the most profound and eye-opening transmissions. Times and dates for the rest of the work are omitted altogether. I credit Mark for the title, the Creator for the rest and the insight to recognize both as gifts.