God

"Any God I ever felt in Church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did, too. They come to Church to share God, not find God." Alice Walker

Iused to think God was separate, unknowable, and judgmental. I saw God more as a judge than a friend and myself more as a sinner than the son.With such low self-esteem, it was hard to associate God with my life! Then I began to search for the spiritual path to a deeper understanding of self. I found a loving, friendly God whose love is so pervasive I was able to discover the Divine in my life and the lives of others.The concept of meeting together to share God made sense.Discovering a God within made God knowable and comprehensible. Because God lives in me, I am alive.

Loving Creator,may I share Your life in my world.

Creating Better Destinations (KB)

Karen Berg
MAY 23, 2020

Have you ever spent any time with unruly children? I mean, really unruly children. I have. Now, don’t get me wrong – all children are beautiful, some are just shall we say… highly spirited? A friend of mine had a couple of kids like that. No matter what she and her husband seemed to do, they could not manage their children’s temperament. We’d be sitting there in the living room and they’d come barreling through, running and screaming, knocking over furniture like bulls in a china shop.

I’ll never forget the day she turned to me and asked: Why, Karen? Why are my children so wild?

I answered, “Well spiritually speaking, many of the behavioral patterns of a child are formed during conception. For example, if one is angry during the moment of conceiving, they might end up with an angry child.”

She didn’t much like that answer. But you know, it is true. We get a glimpse into this profound idea in this week’s portion of Naso. There is an entire passage in which an angel comes to a pregnant woman and tells her all that she must restrict in order for her child to be born a Nazarite. In fact, the angel tells her not to drink alcohol! Imagine, all those years ago the Bible already knew what doctors only started telling women in the 1970’s? What the Bible is really telling us here is that the formation of such a high holy soul does not begin at birth, but rather when the child is still in the womb and even at the moment of conception.

The significance of this story is not reserved for pregnant women alone, as you may have guessed. It relates to every aspect of our human lives. We are constantly “conceiving,” are we not? We are always creating life of some kind. Whether we are forming new friendships, taking on new business ventures, baking a cake, or creating a child – what determines the result of how our lives will look are not just our actions, but also our thoughts as we perform them.

A mother’s home cooked meal always tastes better because it was made with love. A business that is created out of true passion and a desire to share is often more successful than the kind that are built as get-rich-quick schemes. And yes, children who are conceived in a moment of a genuine spiritual awareness and an exchange of true love are special souls indeed.

I’d like you to do something this week: Take a look at your own unruly children. I don’t mean that literally. (Unless, of course, you really do have unruly children.) What isn’t working in your life? What are the areas where things tend to go haywire? Now, trace it back to the beginning and ask yourself if your consciousness was in a state of sharing when the whole process began. And guess what? The good news is, we can always change it. We can always improve the future simply by being better in the here and now.

This week also happens to be when the holiday of Shavuot occurs, an intense injection of Light that can assist us in maintaining a more positive consciousness all year round.

You see, sometimes we don’t need to change our actions at all. We just need our intentions to be pure of heart. With a desire to share as the driving force behind all that we do, we are sure to create better destinations for ourselves and others.

How we’re Taught to use Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism.

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Megan Camille21 Followers

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I don’t have to wonder why I reached for alcohol for relief and started to medicate my anxiety with it.

Now that I am sober, I can see it crystal clear.

The culture that I live in handed it to me on a silver platter. It flavored it like raspberry and lemon drops and celebrated and cheered me on as I drank and comforted myself. Society helped me by making me feel like drinking wine every night was normal. Mommy needs wine; Mommy deserves wine; Mommy earned her wine.

As human beings, we have a natural desire to want to avoid pain.

Take the pandemic, for instance. Online sales for alcohol are up 243 percent, in-store sales shot up 55 percent, and liquor stores are considered essential and allowed to stay open. Our culture has normalized alcohol as a coping mechanism. Period. Society has identified a person “normal” if they drink alcohol and “abnormal” if they don’t.

I never noticed it when I was still drinking. Alcohol is everywhere you look: it’s in constant advertisements, movies and television shows, lyrics in most songs, sporting events and parties, concerts, baby showers, work meetings, movie theaters, and at the end of road races. People drink at home; on weekends; in the evenings after work; at barbecues, celebrations, kids birthday parties, and funerals; and for a variety of other reasons and at a number of other places. If you have a dog, you aren’t drinking alone, right?

In short, alcohol is extremely accessible and is encouraged by our culture. Drinking has become just as socially acceptable as drinking tea or water.

However, unlike other beverages, alcohol is in fact a drug, it’s dangerous and it’s addictive, and consuming it can have extremely negative—and even deadly—consequences. It is glamorized, despite the fact that 1 in 10 women and 2 in 10 men will experience alcohol use disorder at some point in their life, according to the CDC. There is nothing glamorous about being addicted to alcohol.

I am 1 in 10 women. I am not that unique. It is no wonder I turned to alcohol for relief in the world that I live in. I have let myself off the hook for using alcohol as a coping mechanism.

I am not abnormal or bad; I am human. In order for me to heal, I must put down my weapons of blame and shame.

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Megan Camille  |  21 Followers

Megan Camille is a self proclaimed survivor of the “Mommy Wine Culture.” With no fear or shame, she shares her story about how she caught her addiction to alcohol… Read full bio

AUTHOR: MEGAN CAMILLE

IMAGE: COTTONBRO / PEXELS

Hey America, I Can’t Breathe.

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Priya Tandon84 Followers

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Read this: Who is Derek M. Chauvin? And the beautifully and powerfully written:“Well. My city is burning.” 

The New York Times

✔@nytimes

The FBI and Minnesota law enforcement authorities are investigating the arrest of George Floyd, a black man who died after being pinned to the ground by an officer’s knee. Hundreds of people gathered in Minneapolis to protest the conduct of the officers. https://nyti.ms/3gqyCYA 

‘I Can’t Breathe’: 4 Minneapolis Officers Fired After Black Man Dies in Custody

“Being black in America should not be a death sentence,” the city’s mayor said as video of the arrest was widely shared.

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I write this as a human—no race, no color, no religion.

I see one more hashtag added #justiceforfloyd after #justiceforahmaud, #justiceforcooper, and many others. How many more #justicefor hashtags will we have to bear on our shoulders to the graves? How many names will we add to the list before we realize these are not statistics but lives lost?

I saw the video of George Floyd. The officer had his hands in his pockets while he kneeled on George’s neck. I was more than concerned. I was horrified and disturbed—this was no walk in the park with hands casually in the pocket.

The officer knew he was on the record; he could hear the cries for help from George and the bystanders and the haunting sentence—“I can’t breathe.”

Yet he did not flinch, and he did not stop for even a few seconds to check on George. By putting his hands in his pockets, was he announcing resolute dominance by knee or mocking the judicial system by oppression and thriving racism?

I cannot pinpoint a rational explanation of why some lives matter than others. “We the people” in the constitution are sounding weaker and weaker. We have not found a solution to racism, and we don’t know how to stop these acts because racism is entrenched in society; its roots are deep and thick. We don’t know how far we will have to dig to find the root of racism and what it will take to cut the root so that the tree stops bearing hateful, racist acts.

I also confess that I do not know what to do next except to write about it. I have more questions than answers for you. And maybe you who is reading these words can suggest a thought, if not a solution.

The unfortunate reality remains—George Floyd and many others did not return home, and they died in a free country in broad daylight with people around them witnessing the happening. The most important right is the right to live. And this right has been taken away from many, time and time again.

Can we no longer look the other way and protest peacefully against the gruesome reality of racism? Perhaps, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision to see his children not judged by the color of their skin is still a dream after all.

I remember when my child was only eight years old, he had asked me about the color of his skin—brown, living in a predominantly white residential area, attending school with more white to any other race ratio. My answer was simple and based on science—the magic of melanin—a dark brown to black pigment produced by cells called melanocytes. Melanin protects from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, and people close to tropics produce more melanin to protect themselves from the sun rays resulting in a darker skin tone.

How a skin pigment came to determine the character of a human being bewilders my son, who often questions the behavior of others based on skin color.

For me, this is my small solution—to educate my children and teach them not to judge anyone based on color, status, or religion. Education and awareness begin at home.

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick’s solution was to take a knee as a way to protest for the use of police brutality against minorities, especially against African Americans. I, too, take a knee today because:

Hey America, I can’t breathe.

Enough said and enough written.

I will kneel, and I will kneel in grace. I will kneel in peace. I will kneel with respect. I will kneel for a fair society and social justice because each one of us has a right to live.

I will kneel because I don’t want to see another human killed at the corner of the street for his skin color.

I will kneel because, once living and breathing, humans are not hashtags on social media.

I will kneel because I want the policymakers to change direction toward policies that are just and equitable.

I will kneel because I want accountability and justice from Minnesota.

I will kneel to protest in peace.

I will kneel because I believe in the values on which this great nation founded liberty and justice for all.

I will kneel because if we do not speak up, then who will? And if we do not protest, then who will?

And I will kneel in the memory of George Floyd and other countless lives lost in senseless acts of racism and hatred.

Lastly, this is my human plea—we should all kneel, for everyone has the right to live. No one should have control over someone’s else breath by placing a knee. Period.

May George Floyd’s memory be a blessing for all. My heartfelt condolences to his family.

~

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Priya Tandon  |  84 Followers

Priya Tandon is a single mom to two high spirited boys and a dog, a devoted Yoga practitioner, and an RYT 200 Yoga teacher. Her nine-year-old son on the Autism spectrum has ta… Read full bio

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NUGGETS OF WISDOM - 283

• ·       “Let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.” ~ Kahlil Gibran
  ·       “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” —William Arthur Ward
  ·       "You mortals who read this message may yourselves ascend to Paradise, attain the Trinity embrace, and in remote future ages ... be assigned to enlarge the revelation of truth to some evolving inhabited planet, even as I am now functioning on Urantia."
  ·       “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” —John F. Kennedy
  ·       "Unless the moral insight and the spiritual attainment of mankind are proportionately augmented, the unlimited advancement of a purely materialistic culture may eventually become a menace to civilization." - Teachings of Jesus
  ·       “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” —Willie Nelson
  ·       "Jesus did not long to escape from his earthly life; he mastered a technique of acceptably doing the Father's will while in the flesh. He attained an idealistic religious life in the very midst of a realistic world."
  ·       "The experience of the realization of the reality of unconscious religious growth is the one positive proof of the functional existence of the superconsciousness."
  ·       Today let us be thankful.
  ·       "One of the apostles once asked: 'Master, what should I do if a stranger forced me to carry his pack for a mile?' Jesus answered: 'If you can think of nothing more effectively positive to do, you can at least carry the pack a second mile. That will of a certainty challenge the unrighteous and ungodly stranger.' "

The Quote

Suffering

"Every flower must grow through dirt." Author Unknown

Say Yes to Your Spirit is about divinity, love, and beauty, but it also includes suffering. Nobody is going to get out of life alive, and nobody leaves this life without experiencing pain and suffering. My suffering, although not exhaustively, has been from alcoholism; for others it can be divorce, poverty, racism, sexual abuse, sickness-the list is endless.We all suffer in life. But suffering is not the whole story. If we are to move away from victimization, we need to accept this and be prepared to move on. Day follows night; after the rain comes sunshine; better days inevitably follow. Just as the dirt is essential to the flower, so is suffering essential in the molding of the spiritual life.

I thank God for the dirt I can dust away.

On this day of your life

I believe God wants you to know ...

... that you need not be concerned about money.
Be concerned, instead, about joy.

 

How much joy are you experiencing in this moment?

How much joy are you bringing to this moment?

The joy you experience will be the joy you bring.

If you are waiting for joy to be brought to you,

you do not understand what you are doing here.

And if you think that joy has anything to do with money,

you really do not understand what you are doing here.

There is a person waiting right now, right this very minute,

for you to uplift them.  Do that...and you will be rich.

Really.  I mean, really.  I'm not making this up.

Supporting Your Spouse (OM)

by Madisyn Taylor It is natural in a marriage for shifts to take place - these can be navigated smoothly with open communication. Throughout the course of a successful marriage or long-term commitment, the two people in the relationship may shift in and out of various roles. For example, one person in the couple may support the other person going back to school. In order to do this, he or she steps into a supporting role, setting aside certain goals or aspirations in order to provide a stable base from which his or her partner can launch in a new direction. There are many gifts of learning inherent in this role--from having the opportunity to embody a nurturing stance to feeling the pleasure of seeing a loved one thrive. When our partner expands his or her horizons, ours expand, too, and we gain access to a world that would otherwise remain closed to us. However, there is also much to be said for having a turn to be the one stepping outside the box, perhaps taking time to attend to our personal healing, spiritual pursuits, or other interests. In order to maintain balance within our relationships, it's important that we address these issues each time one person steps into a supporting role so the other can try something new. When we are conscious about acknowledging that one person is bearing a bit more of a burden so that the other can grow, we stand a better chance of making sure the ebb and flow in the relationship remains fair and equal. The most important part of this process is open communication in which each person has a chance to express how they feel and come to an understanding about the roles they have agreed to play and when they expect them to shift. Each time a dynamic shift occurs, a ceremony of acknowledgment can lend an air of distinction to the moment. This can be a simple dinner or an elaborate ritual, depending upon what works best for us at the time. Perhaps the most important thing is expressing gratitude to the person in the supporting role and encouragement to the person moving in a new direction. When the flow of feeling and communication is open, a healthy closeness develops that allows each person in the relationship to have a turn at each of these important roles.