Celebrating!

There is always something to celebrate. Celebration is a form of gratitude; it's a way of acknowledging our unlimited ability to create and opening ourselves up to our best and highest expression. To me, celebrating is a form of prayer, a way of saying “Thank you, God” for the gifts we’ve been given. It’s a validation of the goodness and God-ness that makes up our human experience.

I’m a fan of the happy dance. When my mom recently got good news after having trouble getting her car smogged, I did the happy dance. When my husband got a bonus check yesterday that was unexpected, we did a big, loud high-five in celebration. In my family we often toast each other over dinner, with our glasses of water or whatever we are drinking, just to celebrate sitting there eating, and being together. “Tuesday” is a wonderful reason to celebrate. Random acts of gratitude can be large or small in expression, and they reconnect us with the truth of all that we can do, be and have.

Today is my birthday, and that is something to celebrate. I don’t think grown-ups have nearly enough permission to celebrate their own birthdays. This morning driving to work I danced to the radio, sitting there behind the wheel looking very foolish, I’m sure, to others driving by, happy in the awareness that I have experienced another year being me. Happy, too, knowing that today begins another year growing in my awareness of the perfect good from which this existence is created.

As my family sang happy birthday to me last weekend over the lighted candles on the birthday cake, I felt tremendous gratitude, for all of them, and for my precious life. The happy birthday song was a celebration of all of us, for being here now, filling the world with our own unique voices.

May you celebrate all of the large and small things in your life (especially your birthday!), and may this tool be a blessing. . .

Finding the Life in Your Life Situation

I love the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle.  I am currently reading for the second time his book, "The Power of Now," and am discovering some wonderful insights that I somehow missed the first time through.

Tolle, and many others, teach that the ego-driven mind is the basis for all that separates us from knowing ourselves, and all others, as God.  It's an interesting and powerful idea.  The mind, which is the cause of all suffering, is also our most powerful vehicle for getting out of suffering.  It is through the fearful thoughts of forgetting that we are provided the grace of remembering who we are.

In the Now all is well, for in this very moment, what is lacking?  Lack exists only as a construct of time, in the future or from the past.

What delights me and puts it into great perspective is that regardless of life circumstances, regardless of what we've carried from the past or are concerned about in the future, underlying all is that we are here.  We live.

Situations exist in our thinking, and are subject to change from moment to moment depending on the random places our thoughts travel to.  In the middle of all of those engrossing thoughts we could spend an entire lifetime so focused on the details of living that we forget that we are life.

That mysterious, vibrant being is us, as we move through our days choosing our course and experiencing the effects of our decisions.  In every moment our unique voice adds its resonance to the harmony of ongoing creation.  The whole is forever changed because we are.

Underneath life's situations we breathe; we feel and learn and grow.  Time moves on and situations change, but through it all, God sings her song of infinite joy through our beating hearts.

May this tool be a blessing. . .

Hearing God's Whisper

As we move through this blessed life, growing in love and wisdom and in truth, the situations we encounter to help us along on our path can be complicated, confusing, and sometimes painful. These challenges provide our perfect opportunities to remember the highest in ourselves.

In the middle of our biggest challenges it can be pretty tough to see that we are being given exactly what we need to choose our best selves. We work hard to find an answer so that we can be comfortable again.

We give the issue at hand a lot of energy by trying to reason our way through it, talk our way through it, or worry our way through it. We get stuck in what happened in the past, or what might happen in the future. Whatever the issue is, it grows stronger with all of the attention we place on it.

By grace, and through divine order, the profound answers we seek make their way through the clamor, often in the most gentle ways. Sometimes in the middle of chaos our answers come from unexpected places, a few sentences in a book, words from a friend, or the quiet voice of our own deep knowing.

I was reminded this morning of a song that I heard at Unity recently, sung by our very talented music director, David, whose music is always an inspiration and a healing.

The song is entitled “More Like a Whisper”, by Scott Krippayne and Steve Siler.

“Sometimes the mountain moves and is thrown into the sea,
Sometimes the lightning strikes and a vision comes to me,
Sometimes the waters part and the path ahead is clear,
Sometimes the angels sing and it’s music to my ears.

Sometimes it’s more like a whisper, quiet and gentle, peaceful and still,
When questions rain down like thunder, sometimes the answer is more like a whisper.

Sometimes one candle burns and a light glows in the dark,
Sometimes a flower blooms, bringing hope into my heart.

Lord, help me listen whenever You speak,
If the river runs wild or is silent and deep.

Sometimes it’s more like a whisper, quiet and gentle, peaceful and still,
When questions rain down like thunder, sometimes the answer is more like a whisper.”

May you know the ever-present grace that provides all of the answers you seek, and may this tool be a blessing. . .