"And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
And Love is reflected in love.
Forgive us for trespassing - walking over the sacred ground of another's spiritual identity with our muddy boots of criticism, accusations, blame, anger, and annoyance! Oh please forgive us!
As you let Love, God, be reflected in your heart by being loving - as you yield your projected (yes, projected) and mistaken (yes, mistaken) views of others, for the only view that really matters - that's really true - then you make space for forgiveness. You make space for God's crystal-clear view of things to take precedence. And that then gives you a clearer view of His already perfect spiritual likeness - right where "sinning mortal man appears to mortals."
And remember, you have complete authority over what criticisms, accusations, blame, anger, and annoyance - what thoughts - you let into your consciousness! God gives you dominion - and that includes having complete authority over what you accept into your thinking. You have complete God-given authority to stop trampling over someone else's soul, over their sense of worth, over their sense of peace. And that means you also have complete authority to stop doing those same things to yourself!
All the sorrow and meloncholy, all the deeply felt losses of relationships, jobs, pets, friends, lovers, parents, money, health, joy - if not guarded against - all these can trespass on your true spiritual identity, and your views of others' true identity. Don't do it! Don't get sucked into wallowing there! Snap out of it! Declare the Truth that God actually exists, that God actually is already Love, and that God actually is already All here and now. And since this is actually true, everything is possible!
"God is Love. Can we ask Him to be more? God is intelligence. Can we inform the infinite Mind of anything He does not already comprehend? Do we expect to change perfection? Shall we plead for more at the open fount, which is pouring forth more than we accept?"
So stop pleading and whining and for Heaven's sakes stop blaming other people for your situation! Accept the love that God pours forth for you! and then reflect it, shine it back out, share it, live it! This is your authentic purpose. God will not leave you wallowing in the egotism of self-pity or standing pridefully in the egotism of self-importance! Just as God wouldn't let that whale of egotism swallow Jonah, so He will not let it swallow you! God will stir you, stir you, stir you to action and wake you up to live His Love and let it shine! And God will give you the voice you need to fulfill His mission for you, as you.
Love is always reflected in love, never in criticism, accusation, blame, anger or annoyance! And you are called to reflect that Love. God insists on it! You are Love's witness and Love will not be silent!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Love is always reflected in love (Part 3)
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.
In the dream, you might be beaten and abused. But only you can let that touch your spirit by reacting with hate.
Refusing to react with hate, but instead with love, is following your Master, Jesus. He knew that your spiritual identity can never be touched by hate. He more than just knew it. He proved it. And you can only seem to be touched by hate when you yourself think hate is a solution - or a defense. It isn't. It NEVER is. Only Love can protect you. Only Love is power.
So be willing to let go of the grudge. Be willing not to react - but to act, to act from the highest sense of Love you can muster. That highest sense might only be silence. It might only be a willingness to not replay the offense over and over in your thought. It might be only a willingness to work off your anger with a good run, a good workout, a good cry, or even a good scream. But none of these ultimately will help you. Because what you really need to do is wake up.
So again, be willing to let go of the grudge! Why? because it keeps you from moving forward, from getting to the point of forgiveness, from waking up. The grudge may feel good for the time being - may even feel justified - but the grudge is your enemy. It punishes you be keeping you in the loop of hatefulness. It monopolizes your feelings and your thinking. It sickens you worse than the original offense ever could.
So refuse to let that offense have that kind of impact on you. Snap out of it! Quit being your own worst enemy! Put your trust in God. He will correct every and any evil situation. And love God enough to listen to your intuition. And if it says "Get out!" then get out. And if it says "Stay and face this!" then stay and face it.
And let your clearest, strongest sense of Love move you. "Love your neighbor as yourself" implies that first must love yourself! Love what is true about you, love what God made you to be, and love how God expects you to act. Then, desiring - praying - to do the best you can, move forward with Love for your "enemy." That intuitive sense of Love will guide you, guard you, heal what needs healing - just as surely as a light turned on will expose the darkness for what it is: nothing. No thing. No person. No power.
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is always reflected in love.
And Love is reflected in love.
In the dream, you might be beaten and abused. But only you can let that touch your spirit by reacting with hate.
Refusing to react with hate, but instead with love, is following your Master, Jesus. He knew that your spiritual identity can never be touched by hate. He more than just knew it. He proved it. And you can only seem to be touched by hate when you yourself think hate is a solution - or a defense. It isn't. It NEVER is. Only Love can protect you. Only Love is power.
So be willing to let go of the grudge. Be willing not to react - but to act, to act from the highest sense of Love you can muster. That highest sense might only be silence. It might only be a willingness to not replay the offense over and over in your thought. It might be only a willingness to work off your anger with a good run, a good workout, a good cry, or even a good scream. But none of these ultimately will help you. Because what you really need to do is wake up.
So again, be willing to let go of the grudge! Why? because it keeps you from moving forward, from getting to the point of forgiveness, from waking up. The grudge may feel good for the time being - may even feel justified - but the grudge is your enemy. It punishes you be keeping you in the loop of hatefulness. It monopolizes your feelings and your thinking. It sickens you worse than the original offense ever could.
So refuse to let that offense have that kind of impact on you. Snap out of it! Quit being your own worst enemy! Put your trust in God. He will correct every and any evil situation. And love God enough to listen to your intuition. And if it says "Get out!" then get out. And if it says "Stay and face this!" then stay and face it.
And let your clearest, strongest sense of Love move you. "Love your neighbor as yourself" implies that first must love yourself! Love what is true about you, love what God made you to be, and love how God expects you to act. Then, desiring - praying - to do the best you can, move forward with Love for your "enemy." That intuitive sense of Love will guide you, guard you, heal what needs healing - just as surely as a light turned on will expose the darkness for what it is: nothing. No thing. No person. No power.
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is always reflected in love.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Love is always reflected in love (Part 2)
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.
Forgive us our withholding love, as we forgive those who we think have withheld love from us.
There is only one way your lack - debt - of love is paid: it is by being loving. It'll never be paid by withholding it or by being stingy. Divine Love requires reflection - requires that you mirror forth in your life the love that God is pouring out on you non-stop like sunshine.
Love is always a declaration of what is spiritually real and true - right in the face of hate. And withholding love is hateful. Withholding puts you in a position of indebtedness, of lack, of the poverty of absence. Why? because Love is presence. Without it, you have nothing. You have absence. And the absence of Love, is hate.
Just as the presence of Light annihilates darkness, so the presence of Love annihilates hate. This is Love's power. Love's somethingness (abundance) fills that nothingness (debt) called hate just as light does when it enters a dark room. Instantly. Effortlessly. Completely.
Love insists on lighting you up. Love insists on being expressed. Love saves you from the dark indebtedness of withholding love: which is any form of hate. And when you let yourself live Love, its light wipes out that dark indebtedness. You awake to Love's everpresent abundance.
Love is always reflected in love.
And Love is reflected in love.
Forgive us our withholding love, as we forgive those who we think have withheld love from us.
There is only one way your lack - debt - of love is paid: it is by being loving. It'll never be paid by withholding it or by being stingy. Divine Love requires reflection - requires that you mirror forth in your life the love that God is pouring out on you non-stop like sunshine.
Love is always a declaration of what is spiritually real and true - right in the face of hate. And withholding love is hateful. Withholding puts you in a position of indebtedness, of lack, of the poverty of absence. Why? because Love is presence. Without it, you have nothing. You have absence. And the absence of Love, is hate.
Just as the presence of Light annihilates darkness, so the presence of Love annihilates hate. This is Love's power. Love's somethingness (abundance) fills that nothingness (debt) called hate just as light does when it enters a dark room. Instantly. Effortlessly. Completely.
Love insists on lighting you up. Love insists on being expressed. Love saves you from the dark indebtedness of withholding love: which is any form of hate. And when you let yourself live Love, its light wipes out that dark indebtedness. You awake to Love's everpresent abundance.
Love is always reflected in love.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Feed the famished affections (Part 2)
"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today. Feed the famished affections.
Chew the Word of God. That is, think about it deeply. Ponder it. Mull it over. Work and pray to feel its inspiration, its power and meaning. Understand it so you can live it and work it and be it and see it and share it and be revealed by it, in it. Chew it!
There is no danger of decay doing this, no build up shellacking your thought, your consciousness of His Word. There is only strength and growth and purifying and wholeness in the action of His Word in your thought and life.
"O taste and see that the Lord is good."
So go ahead and chew His sweet and salty Word. Savor it. Digest it. Enjoy it. It is your daily bread. It's inspiration is your holy wine. Let His Word feed you, forgive you, deliver you, and lead you. Because it surely will, with divine results.
Give us grace for today. Feed the famished affections.
Chew the Word of God. That is, think about it deeply. Ponder it. Mull it over. Work and pray to feel its inspiration, its power and meaning. Understand it so you can live it and work it and be it and see it and share it and be revealed by it, in it. Chew it!
There is no danger of decay doing this, no build up shellacking your thought, your consciousness of His Word. There is only strength and growth and purifying and wholeness in the action of His Word in your thought and life.
"O taste and see that the Lord is good."
So go ahead and chew His sweet and salty Word. Savor it. Digest it. Enjoy it. It is your daily bread. It's inspiration is your holy wine. Let His Word feed you, forgive you, deliver you, and lead you. Because it surely will, with divine results.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Love is always reflected in love (Part 1)
God would never torment you with something good that is bad for you, or something bad that is good for you. God does not dangle what you need out in front of you like some lucious peach and then make you walk over broken glass to get it. Nor does He make something pleasurable for you that is evil.
God's goodness is free and overflowing, is always withn reach and always available because it is always in consciousness. Recognize that first and then see that all that God gives, is yours. It is yours for the giving and always yours for the receiving.
Are you feeling unloved? alone? Then go and love someone and keep them company.
Need your famished affections fed? Then go feed the famished affections of others.
Don't know anyone who needs such help? Oh yes you do. Can't find them? Oh yes you can.
Just look across the table, or across the room, or across the street, or across town! There is always someone who could use a little love and kindness. And maybe they're waiting for someone just like you to be their angel.
Ghandi said: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Ghandi probably would've also approved of "Be the love you wish to see in the world."
Why? because Love is transforming. Divine Love is always blossoming in you. As you! Where does it bloom first? In consciousness - first in your thoughts, then in your words, your deeds, your life.
And you can only learn love by being loving. You must exercise Love! you must "put some skin on it" - make it alive and active!
And your love is needed. And your love will always be reflected back to you, pressed down and running over.
Don't you think that you've waited long enough? Don't you think that you've spent enough time feeling all alone, or out on your own, having to fend for yourself, somehow separated from Love, God?
Snap out of it! You are the very image and likeness of Love itself! You have a natural God-given ability to love and be loved! Get your love-light OUT from under that bushel! Quit feeling sorry for yourself and get out there and live the love God gives you! Live it openly, honestly, freely, joyously! Do it! No more whining and waiting around for someone else to love. Get up! Get going! and GO LOVE.
God's goodness is free and overflowing, is always withn reach and always available because it is always in consciousness. Recognize that first and then see that all that God gives, is yours. It is yours for the giving and always yours for the receiving.
Are you feeling unloved? alone? Then go and love someone and keep them company.
Need your famished affections fed? Then go feed the famished affections of others.
Don't know anyone who needs such help? Oh yes you do. Can't find them? Oh yes you can.
Just look across the table, or across the room, or across the street, or across town! There is always someone who could use a little love and kindness. And maybe they're waiting for someone just like you to be their angel.
Ghandi said: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Ghandi probably would've also approved of "Be the love you wish to see in the world."
Why? because Love is transforming. Divine Love is always blossoming in you. As you! Where does it bloom first? In consciousness - first in your thoughts, then in your words, your deeds, your life.
And you can only learn love by being loving. You must exercise Love! you must "put some skin on it" - make it alive and active!
And your love is needed. And your love will always be reflected back to you, pressed down and running over.
Don't you think that you've waited long enough? Don't you think that you've spent enough time feeling all alone, or out on your own, having to fend for yourself, somehow separated from Love, God?
Snap out of it! You are the very image and likeness of Love itself! You have a natural God-given ability to love and be loved! Get your love-light OUT from under that bushel! Quit feeling sorry for yourself and get out there and live the love God gives you! Live it openly, honestly, freely, joyously! Do it! No more whining and waiting around for someone else to love. Get up! Get going! and GO LOVE.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Aspects of Forgiveness, Part 4
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.
"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."
Do you think Jesus saw people to forgive? people who had sinned, done evil things, people who were bad and hurtful and maybe even unforgivable?
What did Jesus say to the crowd about to stone the woman caught in the act of prostituting herself? "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
The Gospel records that crowd was convicted by their own conscience - not by Jesus, whose pure view of them awakened their inherent natural humility that their self-righteousness had hidden.
And what did he say to the prostitute?
"...he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."
"Go and sin no more."
Go and be who you really are: not someone who needs to sell themselves to survive, but God's perfect child, dearly loved and cared for, whose very hairs are all numbered by the Father.
How could Jesus have said such a thing?
Because he saw things differently. He saw things spiritually. He "beheld her - and the crowd - in Science". He saw every situation - including this intense one - from God's perfect perspective. And this correct view not only saved the crowd from committing murder, it saved the prostitute from an adulterated life of sin.
This gives you something vital to understand and to practice.
Real forgiveness is seeing things differently. It is seeing others - and yourself - from a higher, more Christly perspective. It is putting that seeing into action in your life. It is yielding to God's unbounded grace and allowing that to feed your famished affections. It is living your natural state of being as the perfect reflection of God a moment at a time.
Love - true seeing - is always reflected in love - true being.
And Love is reflected in love.
"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."
Do you think Jesus saw people to forgive? people who had sinned, done evil things, people who were bad and hurtful and maybe even unforgivable?
What did Jesus say to the crowd about to stone the woman caught in the act of prostituting herself? "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
The Gospel records that crowd was convicted by their own conscience - not by Jesus, whose pure view of them awakened their inherent natural humility that their self-righteousness had hidden.
And what did he say to the prostitute?
"...he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."
"Go and sin no more."
Go and be who you really are: not someone who needs to sell themselves to survive, but God's perfect child, dearly loved and cared for, whose very hairs are all numbered by the Father.
How could Jesus have said such a thing?
Because he saw things differently. He saw things spiritually. He "beheld her - and the crowd - in Science". He saw every situation - including this intense one - from God's perfect perspective. And this correct view not only saved the crowd from committing murder, it saved the prostitute from an adulterated life of sin.
This gives you something vital to understand and to practice.
Real forgiveness is seeing things differently. It is seeing others - and yourself - from a higher, more Christly perspective. It is putting that seeing into action in your life. It is yielding to God's unbounded grace and allowing that to feed your famished affections. It is living your natural state of being as the perfect reflection of God a moment at a time.
Love - true seeing - is always reflected in love - true being.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Awakening
All the mistakes I've made, all the people I've hurt, all the lies I've told, all the love I've taken for granted or (worse) completely neglected, all the failures to live up to what I know is right, all the bad things that have happened in my life, and even just my day today -- all this history, it is all being washed away by glimpsing that "Love is reflected in love."
To the extent I put aside my ego, the debts, the failures, the separation, the personal sense of myself and of others - of the dream - and take even just a small soulful step in awakening to what I really am as God's, Love's, likeness by being loving, to that extent forgiveness washes over me, washes me clean of the dream of being a "personal author and privileged orginator" of heart-break and hurtfulness. And that Love awakens me to intuitively sense that all real being is actually the emanation of the Great I Am, of God, of Love itself.
Ituitively I sense that Love is the only real power. Love being reflected in love, is a "law of annihilation" to everything unlike itself - to all sense of forgetting, failure, mistakes, hurtfulness, hate, malice, indebtedness, evil. And as this intuition takes hold, the light of Christ begins to dawn and the nightmare begins to disappear. I find myself begining to wake up.
Wake up to what?
To what has always been true: that Love actually is powerful and real. Good actually is the foundation of our authentic nature. We actually are capable of living out a life of love. In fact, we're more than just capable of that. We're made for it.
Forgiveness is always an awakening. Forgiveness is Love, God, kicking over our complacency and idle human do-gooding. Forgiveness demands that you snap out of it! and get your life more loving. Forgiveness shakes you up! Forgiveness makes you think about what's right and wrong, what's good and evil, and most importantly: what's a lie and what is true, what is a dream and what is reality.
Forgiveness never leaves us where it finds us. It forces us to discover what's true - both about ourselves as well as our "debtor." It requires us to repent - to re-think - about what we assume is our perfect little lily-white life.
And in that cold sometimes uncomfortable self-examination, we must become humble before God. We realize that our personal sense of love - of being a nice forgiving person, a self-sacrificing little human, or even a stubborn old goat - that we can of ourselves do nothing. Our words of forgiveness may be well-intentioned but too often are hollow and self-serving. And they alone cannot right any wrong. They cannot heal the hurt.
And so you may find that only on your knees do you finally wake up.
And forgiveness is always an awakening. Awakening from what? From the dream of many big egos and little minds, of good and evil, of separation from God, divine Love itself.
And what does this awake you to?
To the only thing that really matters: Love is All-in-all.
Forgiveness forces you to reconsider everything so that you can wake up to the fact that Love really is actually All-in-all. Your debt to others - and your so-called debtors' debts to you - cannot survive this awakening. Why? because Love forces you to confront your true nature: that you are just like God: loving. And your debtor's true nature? Yes. Also just like God: loving.
And it is this awakening that annihilates the dream of good and evil, of separation, of personal egos in debt. And by accepting this awakening - actually living out loud the love that forgiveness requires in your thinking and in your daily life - true forgiveness happens. In fact, spiritually speaking, the only thing anyone ever really "owes" - is in debt for - is to love.
Living as Love's, God's, loving reflection, is completely natural for you. In fact, it is (believe it or not) your only authentic state of being and (believe it or not again!) the only authentic being of everyone around you. Love is the only real state of being there is. Love is always reflected in love. Feel it. Accept it. Act on it. This is the practice. Get busy.
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.
To the extent I put aside my ego, the debts, the failures, the separation, the personal sense of myself and of others - of the dream - and take even just a small soulful step in awakening to what I really am as God's, Love's, likeness by being loving, to that extent forgiveness washes over me, washes me clean of the dream of being a "personal author and privileged orginator" of heart-break and hurtfulness. And that Love awakens me to intuitively sense that all real being is actually the emanation of the Great I Am, of God, of Love itself.
Ituitively I sense that Love is the only real power. Love being reflected in love, is a "law of annihilation" to everything unlike itself - to all sense of forgetting, failure, mistakes, hurtfulness, hate, malice, indebtedness, evil. And as this intuition takes hold, the light of Christ begins to dawn and the nightmare begins to disappear. I find myself begining to wake up.
Wake up to what?
To what has always been true: that Love actually is powerful and real. Good actually is the foundation of our authentic nature. We actually are capable of living out a life of love. In fact, we're more than just capable of that. We're made for it.
Forgiveness is always an awakening. Forgiveness is Love, God, kicking over our complacency and idle human do-gooding. Forgiveness demands that you snap out of it! and get your life more loving. Forgiveness shakes you up! Forgiveness makes you think about what's right and wrong, what's good and evil, and most importantly: what's a lie and what is true, what is a dream and what is reality.
Forgiveness never leaves us where it finds us. It forces us to discover what's true - both about ourselves as well as our "debtor." It requires us to repent - to re-think - about what we assume is our perfect little lily-white life.
And in that cold sometimes uncomfortable self-examination, we must become humble before God. We realize that our personal sense of love - of being a nice forgiving person, a self-sacrificing little human, or even a stubborn old goat - that we can of ourselves do nothing. Our words of forgiveness may be well-intentioned but too often are hollow and self-serving. And they alone cannot right any wrong. They cannot heal the hurt.
And so you may find that only on your knees do you finally wake up.
And forgiveness is always an awakening. Awakening from what? From the dream of many big egos and little minds, of good and evil, of separation from God, divine Love itself.
And what does this awake you to?
To the only thing that really matters: Love is All-in-all.
Forgiveness forces you to reconsider everything so that you can wake up to the fact that Love really is actually All-in-all. Your debt to others - and your so-called debtors' debts to you - cannot survive this awakening. Why? because Love forces you to confront your true nature: that you are just like God: loving. And your debtor's true nature? Yes. Also just like God: loving.
And it is this awakening that annihilates the dream of good and evil, of separation, of personal egos in debt. And by accepting this awakening - actually living out loud the love that forgiveness requires in your thinking and in your daily life - true forgiveness happens. In fact, spiritually speaking, the only thing anyone ever really "owes" - is in debt for - is to love.
Living as Love's, God's, loving reflection, is completely natural for you. In fact, it is (believe it or not) your only authentic state of being and (believe it or not again!) the only authentic being of everyone around you. Love is the only real state of being there is. Love is always reflected in love. Feel it. Accept it. Act on it. This is the practice. Get busy.
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.
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