Expressions of Love
Newsletter is now quarterly
The Joy of Friends -
Rev. Frank Arnold
Who Cares? - Rev. Sue Borg
You are the Light of the
World - Tama Kieves
Love Lessons From Tiger Woods
- Karen Bentley
By
Rev. Frank Arnold
01/01/10 - WOW! I never thought I'd get through the 90's - Damn, I never
even thought I would live through the 60's. What's that old saying? "If
you remember the 60's, you weren't there." ha ha I do remember bits and
pieces.
Anyway, here it is ten years after Y2K, ten years into the 21st Century.
Can you even believe that? Remember how worried we were about Y2K? Well,
I'm not sure if I'm worried about anything now. I'm here 40 years longer
than my early lifestyle led me to believe I would be, so what's to worry
about? I've learned for sure that God handles the details and every once
in a while I even remember that. Surrendering to my good sometimes takes
a bit of coaxing.
So many things happened. My friend's son died and I could do nothing to
help. Another friend crushed his whole body in an accident and again,
all I could do was sit and do nothing but pray for his well-being. So
many things like that - we said good-bye to some great people that
didn't make the news, but none the less great to us. God and prayer was
the only way to get through.
During these past 10 years, we managed to get a lot done to help others,
but we could not have done it without your help and your donations. We
helped raise money for children in the community and for a child in
Wyoming, we donated cases and cases of food to the food banks and helped
with donations to many other organizations. Did it make the world a
better place? I don't know, but I like to think it made my world a
better place and perhaps it made my heart happier. As a side to the Golf
Tournament, one of the golfers and his family did a sub for Santa for
the Kenner Johnson family in Wyoming and made a huge difference in their
lives and continued what we started in September. Love always expands,
but we just never know how far. Whew!
Thank you all for stepping up to help - the wrapping, the golfing, and
all the other projects we came up with to help others. I can hardly find
the words to say thank you and let you know how much I love all that you
have done to make our lives better and help us to help others. May the
next 10 years see bigger and better things for the world, if not from
each other. We are all capable of things we can't imagine right now, but
put God in the driver's seat and we'll get 'er done, whatever is
asked of us.
I hope your tomorrow is better than your yesterday and that today is
everything you want it to be. I know that when you are having fun every
day is quick and easy and pretty soon ten years has gone by. Or even 25
years - thanks Sues. I offer you my blessings for wonderful happy days
filled with the Love of God.
By Rev. Sue Borg
The following is the philosophy of Charles Schultz, the creator of the "Peanuts" comic strip. You don't have to actually answer the questions. Just read them and you'll get the point.
1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America Contest.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best
actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.
How did you do?
The point is - none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners .
Here's an other quiz. See how you do on this one:
1. List a few teachers who aided your journey
through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
Easier?
The lesson - The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care, the ones who inspire you.
This little story brings me joy because it is about caring and kindness and, as you know, kindness is my religion.
Twinkies and Root Beer
A little boy wanted to meet God. He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his suitcase with Twinkies and a six-pack of Root Beer and he started his journey.
When he had gone about three blocks, he met an elderly man. The man was sitting in the park just feeding some pigeons. The boy sat down next to him and opened his suitcase. He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the man looked hungry, so he offered him a Twinkie.
The man gratefully accepted it and smiled at boy. His smile was so pleasant that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered him a root beer. Again, the man smiled at him. The boy was delighted! They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word.
As it grew dark, the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave, but before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the man, and gave him a hug. The man gave him his biggest smile ever.
When the boy opened the door to his own house a short time later, his mother was delighted by the look of joy on his face. She asked him, "What did you do today that made you so happy?
"He replied, "I had lunch with God. and you know what? God's got the most beautiful smile I've ever seen!"
Meanwhile, the elderly man, also radiant with joy, returned to his home. His son was stunned by the look of peace on his face and he asked," Dad, what did you do today that made you so happy?"
He replied, "I ate Twinkies in the park with God, and you know he's much younger than I expected."
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Embrace all equally! Author Unknown
You Are The Light of The World
by Tama Kieves
I received this writing from my
friend Tama Kieves, author of the book, “This Time I Dance,” and I loved
it so much I would like to share it with you. I want to give her full
credit for these beautiful words.
And I quote
“The wisdom tradition of A Course in Miracles teaches us, "I
am the light of the world. That is my only function. That is why I am
here." When I first read that line part of me stood at attention as
though its true name had been called through a fog and cobweb of
centuries. The other part of me felt screwed.
At the time, I looked around at my life of half-written manifestos,
unused yoga videos, and abrupt tectonic shifts of doubt and fear, and
thought humanity could definitely benefit from a more reliable guide.
But I have come to see that limitation is spirit calling my name.
Limitation puts pins in my sofa and lumps in my pillow so that I do not
fall asleep in my life. Limitation calls me to seek for strength, focus,
achievement, and liberating powers I did not know I had. And, in the
end, limitation gifts me with a one-of-a-kind credential in this world.
It's because as I come to experience freedom in the midst of defeated
circumstances, I become a hope and light to others.
We, who are questioning our lives and our abilities, are the light of
the world. We will be a beacon of comfort, hope and direction to those
who need us. We are in the soup, but it is healing broth. We are the
ones who are learning to find joy and full expression in the midst of
bruised conditions. Every spiritual tradition teaches us that freedom is
not being liberated once the job comes through, the check comes in or
the skinny jeans fit. Freedom is learning how to be at peace no matter
what, no matter when.
Our world is changing. The old ways are falling apart. Some talk about
being in a revolutionary evolution of consciousness. We are the ones. We
are the ones who are discovering our sacred resources and responses and
bringing them to the table. We are the ones who write poems or sing
praises to the divine, even as the stock market crumbles. Our dark days
and stumbles are our training grounds. We are learning how to recognize
a magnitude that is never threatened or taken away. We are discovering
the river of faith in the dryness of our desert. We are the ones. We may
not get it right every single day or even for weeks on end, but we are
the ones.
Your pain is your relentless guru. How do you gain instruction from the
sting? How do you resist the urge to curse it, deny it, or lie down in a
ball for a thousand years? How do you love yourself? How do you forgive
yourself? How do you sit down right now and trust the perfection of
where you are? This is the juncture of your freedom. This life is not
about just sweeping the kitchen one more time, or sending in a resume.
It's about feeding the wild blue bird in your heart on berries not of
this world. It's about feeding the wild blue bird so that it flies free
no matter what.
I do not wish you pain or suffering. But I know that pain will cause you
to seek freedom and freedom will teach you who you are and why you're
here. You are the light of the world, and you have love, talent, and
healing to offer us. Because of the sand, the oyster yields the pearl.
Peacocks grow their signature colorful feathers by eating thorns. "What
is to give light, must endure burning," wrote Viktor Frankl, who taught
about how he found liberation, through mental focus, in the harshest
hours of living in a concentration camp. And Buddhist nun Pema Chodron
says, "Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to
annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us." You are
the light of the world. And it's pain that reminds you, like a ferocious
drill sergeant, to abandon your useless definitions of security, and
penetrate the limitless grace within you.
We may not have easy lives at this time. But it's not because we're
failing, falling, or inadequate. It's because our souls demand healing
more than coping, soaring more than just reaching cruising altitude. We
are the teachers, healers, visionaries, social entrepreneurs and
architects of the coming bright times. We are the sensitive ones, the
canary in the mines. We have never truly been fit for this world. That's
why we are the ones who will change it.
We will change it with our compassion. We will change it with our twigs
of peace. We will change it by sitting in our dark corners until the
pain passes and transmutes into new energy that can sustain the rest of
our lives-- and we have a new stronghold to offer our brothers and
sisters.
We will turn darkness into hope, as humanity has always done. We will
prove that pain passes and leaves strong alchemy in its wake. We will
run a new mile, inspire new actions, bring clean water to the needy, or
paint images of wonder and faith. We will find our unique way to channel
inexhaustible strength to hungry conditions. We will bring the new into
the world by expanding our minds, communing with our creativity, and
opening our boundless hearts. We are in the study halls now. Many of us
are getting ready for our certifications.
We are the light of the world. We are the ones who have mercy for
others. We are the ones who lend a hand. We are the ones who share a bit
of writing, a dance, a healing session, a vibrant expression filled with
courage and forgiveness. We are the ones who question limitation and
habits and demonstrate the raw and formidable power of love and
alignment with our source. We are the ones who believe there is enough
here to work with and we are about the business of working with it.
Jesus walked on water. We may be doing something far more electrifying
in these times. We are walking in this world.”
For those of you who are not yet familiar with Tama Kieves, (www.AwakeningArtistry.com) she is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School who left her corporate law practice to write and to embolden others to live and breathe their most meaningful self-expression. Best-selling author of the life-changing book This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love, (which was chosen as a Finalist for the National Nautilus Book Award, along with the Dalai Lama's book The Art of Happiness) she is now a sought-after speaker and career coach who has helped thousands of individuals world-wide to live their creative dreams. She frequently presents at the world-famous Omega Institute and the Canyon Ranch six star spa and other fabulous destinations.
Visit her website
www.awakeningArtistry.com
By Karen Bentley
Before we get to that world class hound dog, Tiger Woods, and his
shennanigans with not keeping Mr. Weenie in his pants, I ask you to
indulge me for a brief moment to talk about dreaming and sleep. Trust me
that sleeping, dreaming and Tiger Woods will all come together in a
blaze of glory and understanding later in the article. For now, though,
imagine that you’re in the middle of a very deep, enjoyable sleep and
you’re having the most wonderful, lucid dream. The dream is so good, so
delicious and so filled with favored images and activities, you somehow
realize that you never want the dream to end. Even stranger, you also
realize you can keep the dream going as long as you want. All you have
to do is stay asleep, and this is what you intend to do. Then wham!
Someone screams in your ear, whacks you on the head, shakes your body
and jumps wildly on your bed. You complain bitterly and try to stop it,
but the person continues, relentlessly, until you finally begin the
process of waking up from your mind-numbing dream.
Okay, okay. Having your sweet dreams interrupted is never a fun
experience, and it’s not so great being rattled out of a numbing sleep,
either. But here’s a thought. What if we stay stuck in Snoozeville
forever if there’s no one around to bother us and force us to wake up?
Enter Tiger Woods, golf champion extraordinaire and powerful magnet to
beautiful babes. Woods bothered a lot of people with his extra marital
exploits. Are you one of them? Being bothered can be your wake-up call
if you want it to be. It can be the smack in the head that rattles your
brain and gets you to change the way you see things. Perspective, baby,
perspective.
Here’s how to make the switch from seeing Woods as bad boy devil to
divinely inspired angel. The first but most unlikely idea to consider is
that we’re having the dream of love rather than the actual experience of
love. Love comes from your God-self within, is always available and can
always be experienced. This subtle sacred love, however, is forgotten
and is not valued as much as the exciting human attention and love that
comes from another. Awake dreaming is the endless hypnotic fantasy about
getting love from another. Thoughts are dominated about finding special
love, keeping special love, placating your special love’s feelings,
wondering if special love is worth the effort, trying to force special
love to be delivered exactly the way you want it, apologizing and
feeling bad when the special love experience turns sour, and finally –
lamenting special love when it’s missing. Sound familiar?
It seems like the dream of special love is real, but it’s not. It seems
like you’re awake, but you’re not. Instead, you’re hard at dream work
making sure someone else loves you. Making sure someone else thinks
you’re special and worthy and important. Making sure someone else takes
on the task of making you happy. Or conversely, maybe you’re having the
reverse side the dream -- the nightmare that no one loves you. No one
thinks you’re special or important. It’s all the same.
Our special love behaviors are closely governed by our culture, our
families, our religions and our government, and they all reinforce the
same special love “deal.” You give your special love to someone and that
person gives his or her special love back to you. Maybe your special
love interest is a spouse. Maybe it’s a parent or a child. Maybe it’s a
friend. The object of your special love can change over time, but the
underlying contract and condition on love never changes: no one else can
have your special love and no one else can have theirs. Love must be
separated and cut off from others or it’s not special, is it?
Everyone buys in to the promise of fulfillment from special love.
Everyone. Straight people have special love dreams. Gay people have
special love dreams. Rich people have special love dreams. Poor people
have special love dreams. Pretty people have special love dreams. Plain
people have special love dreams. Young people have special love dreams.
Old people have special love dreams. We’re all playing the same game.
This is why we’re here on planet Earth instead of in heaven with God.
God’s love is not special. You are not special. I am not special. And
it’s specialness and distinction from others that we secretly crave,
isn’t it? Does God Will us to make love special and exclusive or do we
simply demand it of each other so we can stay asleep and keep the dream
alive a little longer? This is the baseline question you have to ask
yourself.
Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren had special love on steroids. The
beautiful blond Swede and the equally beautiful Blasian enriched their
special love pact with the added ingredients of special fame, special
money, special achievements, and special privileges. Through the magic
of TV, internet and gossip magazines we saw gorgeous, wholesome, happy
images of Woods and Nordegren together, and we loved these images.
Through them, we had tangible proof that special love is real after all.
It’s possible, and it pays off.
Now we see another picture. Nordegren is probably divorcing Woods for
smashing her dream of special love. Woods is rumored to be in sex rehab
for breaking the rules about special love. Even Jamie Grubbes, the
24-year old former companion to Woods, got into the disillusionment act
when she discovered she wasn’t his only special extra marital
relationship. “Seeing that [he had other women] was devastating to me,”
she claimed in a TV interview. “It hurts.” Everyone feels justified in
being mad at Woods or at least disillusioned with him because he broke
the special love rules.
Dis-illusion means no illusion. It’s seeing things clearly, as they are,
rather than as we fantasize them to be. We are all trying, sometimes
quite desperately, to feel good and to live the dream. The basic problem
is that the dream, being an image, only provides brief moments of
satisfaction. Like a broken clock, the dream of love is only “right”
twice a day. The rest of the time, special love is problematic. Even
though we conform, follow, imitate, obey and willingly play the game,
there are always lots of reasons to be unhappy with the dream of love.
The dream of love is never recognized or acknowledged as the culprit.
Instead we scrutinize the players involved and lay our blame there.
Of course, you can change the people in your dream. We’ve all tried
different variations of the same old special love routine many times,
maybe even hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. No matter how smart we
get, no matter how beautiful we make ourselves, no matter how rich we
get, no matter how able or disabled we get, still the dream misfires.
It’s enough to make you crazy or worse. Who wants to feel like this?
Women are more apt to mask bad feelings and make themselves feel better
using food. Like Woods, men are more apt to use sex. Other things work,
too. Alcohol is an old standby. Drugs. Cigarettes. Worry. Anger. They
all distract. They all provide a moment of pleasure or relief, but the
time will come when you want more from life than oblivion.
Society judges some of these mistakes as worse than others. For example,
being married and having a special relationship with several women, is
judged worse than pigging out on food when you’re not hungry or drinking
yourself into a light buzz. However, it’s worth considering the
uncompromisingly spiritual notion that all mistakes are exactly the
same. It’s not a sliding scale, and there are no degrees of okayness.
You are either dissipating your energy in a purposeless way or you’re
not. Since we all make these seemingly “little” mistakes every day, we
cannot judge Woods as bad because it’s the same as judging self bad for
all our tiny mistakes that we pretend don’t count.
Tiger Woods is asking you, wordlessly, to lift yourself up out of your
tired and closed way of thinking and to be the love you seek. So what if
he disillusioned you? The love that’s inside you is completely for free.
It does not depend on any condition. It does not ask for a bargain. It
does not care who is right or wrong. Go within to find your love and for
one holy instant shine it on Woods. Then you can see for yourself if it
fills the empty hole in your heart.
Karen Bentley writes about the mind-body-heart-spirit connection.
She’s the author of The Book of Love, America’s Spiritual Reviewer, the
MyThinLifestyle Reviewer, and the creator of The Sugar-Free Miracle™
Diet System. For more information, visit any of her websites:
www.karenbentley.com, www.sugarfreemiracle.com,
www.spiritualreviewer.com, or www.mythinlifestyle.com.