Smile

Today at my dad's assisted living facility this was posted on the bill board, "Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened."
This is a powerful message at every level.

The past few months, I have attended too many funerals for my comfort zone. The message at these funerals has been to remember and celebrate the life and not focus so much on the death. I like this. It affirms my beliefs that our life continues into a different realm after we leave this earthly plane. I find this message comforting and freeing.

This message would also help people who have lost relationships with loved ones through divorce, break-ups or moves. Instead of pining away at the loss of the experience, why not smile because of the Love and joy experienced.

Our lives could be different if we celebrated the love and joy found or experienced in the friendship, the experience, the event, and/or the marriage instead of focusing on it's ending.

In life all things are in constant flux. Change equals life. Let's smile because life happens.

Tis the Season to be Jolly, Bah Hum Bug

During this time of year, so many people begin to feel down and depressed including myself.

Why is this?

In observing myself and countless others, I find that most people are talking about their lack of time, energy, money and ideas. They are spending money they do not have buying things they don't want for people they do not know. People with families stress over having families and those without families stress due to the lack of one. The list is endless.

All of this thinking and talking of lack produces a mentality which creates angst, stress, frustration and fear. This is quite sad because the reason for celebrating Christmas is to welcome the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Lords. It is a time for us to open our hearts to the indwelling Spirit of Christ. The Prince of Peace came to shower us with hope, joy, peace and love.

What the world has created is a holiday which stimulates just the opposite.

When I allow life to get me down, I consciously begin focusing on all of my blessings and my life gets better. I do this daily by writing down at least 10 things for which I am grateful. I encourage my children to do this when they go to bed or when they are stressed because of school and other activities. This one exercise can change your life and the lives of many.

A life of gratitude is a joyful life.

There is a Plan: Good and Bad

God has a plan and the plan is Good. This has been my personal mantra for over 15 years.

Life is but an illusion of interpretations, everyone seeing life through their own life experiences. Some events to one person may seem devastating while to another seems a blessing.

Early in my life, I seemed to see most things as bad. I followed Murphy's Law, if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. As I began to awaken to the Truth that God created all things including me and called them Good, I questioned my belief.

If God created all as Good, why would God institute a law which ensured bad things to happen to creation? This question allowed me to open myself to change. I began using my mantra, God has a plan and the plan is Good. To my amazement, my life began to take a turn for the better. People who know me will tell you that only good things happen to me and my family.

Murphy's Law no longer has dominion in my life.

What changed? What I said to myself and what I expected out of life. We have the power within ourselves to create our own reality.

What reality are you creating?

Living Debt Free

Forgiveness is the key to experiencing the awareness of God in all Its Majesty.

In the Lord's Prayer, we are taught to forgive us our trespasses or debts as we forgive those who trespass against us or our debtors. The word as is the operative word here. For a little word, it has a lot of punch.



I am forgiven in the same measure as I forgive. So how am I doing?



Usually I feel I do very well. However, recently I received a deeper insight about this entire passage in its relation to prosperity. Prosperity is my conscious awareness of the abundance of God surrounding me; freely given and freely available in my life and the life of others. My prosperity is enhanced or is blocked in accord with my forgiveness practices. O.K. so I have a pretty clean slate, why is my business or my bank account not where I want it to be? Have you ever asked that question?



The answer came that I must be debt free.



Ah, ha, I said, "I am debt free, I owe no one, except for my house. And no one owes me anything, I have forgiven all financial debts. So show me the money!"



Really, are you debt free in your emotions and in your mind? Do you have thoughts that people might owe you something, like their time, talents or treasures? Do I, God owe you anything?



Well this question opened Pandora's box. There were a plethora of people in my mind whom I felt were indebted to me because after all, look what I had done for them. This included friends, family, children, acquaintances, the list was endless. Can you believe it, I am a martyr! Oh the Humanity. Even though I helped others from a seemly giving heart, I had an underlying expectation that they some how owed me.



Wow, I spent two hours pouring over my debtors and doing the work of forgiveness. Becoming aware of the areas in which I need to forgive is the first step in the forgiveness process. Next comes praying for and letting go of the expectations of others (and myself for that matter) that I hold in my heart. Then comes the freedom and the removal of blocks in my life.



This may take awhile, but the process has begun. Now that I am aware, I am excited to see how my life, my business, and my bank account unfolds to express the love of God as I do the work of forgiveness.

©oneness of life productions 11/2010

Our Thinking makes it so

I remember being in the place of the limited thinking of black or white, instead of unlimited possibilities of black and white. It was a life of fear and struggle, and persuasion and promotion. It was my way or the highway. Then one day someone sent me a note that read, Becky, Take the day off, I have everything under control. signed GOD.
And then I realized that I had been playing God and trying to direct people, places and things into my image of what should be. I had forgotten that God had created all people in the image and likeness of Godself and deemed it all GOOD! Who was I to try to change it.
I began to expand my studies and spiritual practices. The more I read and the more I experience, the more trust I find in a loving Creator.
Instead of just reading and proclaiming the scriptures, I challenged them and practiced what Jesus and other spiritual masters taught and what they did. I moved from my head to my heart (the toughest and longest journey in my life).
The result was an unbelievable knowing of my purpose and my passion for life, for Oneness with my Creator and all of creation. It pulls me forward into my day, it inspires me to do greater things than I ever imagined. It brings me great joy and happiness. It relieves my fear of tomorrow.
The only person who will ever know your truth and your purpose in life is you. You are the only one who can tap into your still small voice. Others may lay out a plan or a path, but you are the only one who can walk you journey.
The indwelling Spirit of God awaits your audience and will guide you along the way.

©oneness of life productions 11/2010

Faith vs. Belief

Faith is developed over time as you experience life. It is something you trust in. A belief is taught. It is allowing someone else to think for you.

Becky, are you a Christian?

I am often asked, "Becky are you a Christian? Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and is the only way to salvation?"

My answer is, I was taught those beliefs as a child. But my conversion experience tells me that there are many paths to God, as mine was not in a church. It was in a secular setting among a group of people; professionals, priests, pilots, doctors, mothers, dads, drunks, prostitutes, ex-convicts, adulterers, abusers, heterosexuals and homosexuals: all sinners and outcasts from the churches of our youth. All of us, lost souls, seeking meaning for life and a reason to live. We all sat around clinging to each other as one would cling to a life raft on a sinking ship hoping and praying for some sort of saving grace.

Many prayed to a God that they did not believe in, some prayed to a door knob, others prayed to a borrowed God, others prayed to the varying Gods of their childhood. I prayed to a borrowed God, the Spirit of love and creativity. These many expressions of God pulled most of us through and led us into a life of light, love and happiness.

As I walked along my spiritual path, I remembered the stories of Jesus eating with the tax collectors, talking to the prostitutes, protecting the adulterers, drinking wine at the weddings, etc. I realized that he hung out with people like me. This opened the door for me to return to the teachings of my childhood and gave me the courage to go before a priest in reconciliation and confess my 'sins'; all areas of my life where I had missed the mark, I had stepped away from my Creator. I revealed all of my secrets that kept me in darkness.

When I had exhausted my life history, wailing uncontrollably, the priest said, "Becky, God loves you unconditionally just as you are. Jesus last words on the cross were, God forgive them they know not what they do. In God, your life is a clean slate. Now you must forgive yourself. And in the words of Jesus, he said, Go and sin no more", which meant keep a tight relationship with God and do the best you can. This experience set me free.

It was sharing our stories, loving and accepting each other warts and all that I began to awaken to the indwelling Spirit of God. As I grew to love these people and they grew to love me unconditionally expecting nothing in return, I began to love myself. In loving myself, I was able to open myself to the love, forgiveness and grace of God.

Scriptures for the first time in my life had meaning. I was once blind but now I could see, I was deaf but now I could hear. My life was born anew. Where once I could not see God anywhere; now, there was no place God was not. In every person, every faith tradition, every mountain top, every experience whether good or bad, God is there.

So in answer to the question, "Am I a Christian?" I can only say, Jesus is my way-shower, we walk hand in hand along this spiritual journey called life. He is my guide and my friend. We are, as you are, One with each other and with our Creator; the Creator of all that Is.

I am a Christian of my kind, just as you may be a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Baha'i, etc. of your kind. For me, It Is All that IS: GOD.

©oneness of life productions 11/2010