Home is Best

At week's end, the doorbell rang. It was my son, returned home from Outward Bound. He does seem changed somehow. We shall see if it lasts. He even brought his sister a present of candy! And he let us hug him! He came up to me, and told me he'd like to plan some family outings with his sister. I acted calm, and said "sure!" Time will tell, time will tell...for now, I am just happy he is home.

The Sound of Silence

Having experienced a bout of laryngitis this past week, I have had on my mind the sound of silence. Oxymoronic as it is, the phrase also speaks loudly of paradox. How can sound be silent? How does silence have any sound?
With so much change swirling around my life (yet once again, or still, whatever), I do find myself longing for silence. That does not only mean silence from the outer world. It also means silence inside of myself. I am not always handling the change well. I am being loud, when it would be better to be quiet. I am being quiet, when it would be better to speak out. I haven't really resolved this. I am simply recording my present state of mind. In that sense, this is more truly a diary entry than a blog post. SO be it. I am not in the mood to care what anyone else thinks about what I have to say. I don't mean that in any belligerent sense. I am tired of justifying my emotions, to myself or to others. I don't want to explain anything. I don't want to hear anything. I crave silence. In silence, I could think. In silence I could figure out what to do next. Or could I?

Climb Every Mountain

Safety Net

There is a line in A Course in Miracles that says, "In my defenselessness, my safety lies."
This has always been a tough one to accept. How can you be safe if you do not defend yourself when necessary? Certainly that is not the predominant world view. I admit, I ponder this statement quite a bit. I even evoke it in order to banish fear. Amazingly, the very act of saying this seemingly paradoxical sentence is sometimes enough to evoke a feeling of calm and peace!
What is safety anyway? When we are safe, we tend to take it for granted. When our safety is threatened (and let's face it, mostly it's about physical safety), we know it! It is a very real feeling, and the feeling is - you guessed it - FEAR.
So, then it all comes back to the basic tenet of ACIM (doesn't it always?) - which is that there are really only two emotions, Love and Fear. Whatever is not Love, is Fear. Leaving aside your objections to this reductivism, if I, in a time of unsafeness (real or perceived), choose to invoke LOVE, what happens? Well, Love in its pure form must be defenseless. We cannot truly love when there are any kind of barriers. Therefore, we love and we are safe. In our defenselessness, our safety lies.
How's that for being vigilant, World?

Peace Be With You

There are times in life when Peace seems to elude us. It's all an illusion! Peace is still there, but just as we may turn away from God, we turn away from Peace. One could even say Peace and God are the same. In any case, Faith comes into play. Faith is the bridge we use to return to Peace. We don't have to wonder whether Faith will bring us back to Peace, or to God. It just does. We only need to take the step on to the bridge. Faith does the rest.

God is Great because....

I SAID so! Hahahahahahahaha!

God is Great because....

God hangs in there with you even through the tough times. Tough times here are defined as "when you turn your back on God". Even when you get caught up in the "drama" of your life, forgetting all the wisdom that lies in putting your faith in God, God waits for you to return.