My spiritual life has a rhythm all its own. There are times when it’s all I can think about; there are times when I don’t think about it at all. Lately, my spiritual life has been rich in imagery and even richer in healing.
I’ve been fifty for less than a month, and in that time wild pieces of my past have surfaced in dreams, in meditations, in prayer. Pieces of the past are queuing up for healing. For those who are astrologically-minded, you will recognize the pattern of a Chiron Return.
Chiron is the rogue planetoid known epithetically as The Wounded Healer. Aren’t we all? In point of fact, we are.
It came to me, in one process, that the reason we work to heal ourselves, our pasts, our presents, and, hopefully, our futures, is that peace will only come when we have taken responsibility for our whole selves.
People ask me all the time what they, one person, can do to help create peace on this planet. It’s really simple, if not particularly easy. Look to your own spiritual life. Seek and heed the voices of inner wisdom that will allow you to have a sense of greater wholeness.
Gandhi was right. The only way to create change is to “be the change you wish to see in the world.”
We can give to others only what we are. If you want peace on this lovely orb, do your healing work for the sake of peace. Sow seeds of peace in your heart every day, every time you think of it, every moment.
In time, as more and more of us are the change, we will live our selves into peace.
Acts of Peace
by Dr. Susan Corso
Sometimes just thinking about world peace is enough to make me want to take a nap. It’s such a big job and, I know this is an illusion, but sometimes I feel like I’m carrying the ball all by myself. Anyone else feel that way?
Enter Blog Catalog on my Sunday morning email telling me that there’s a movement in the blogosphere called Bloggers Unite: blogging for hope. http://unite.blogcatalog.com/ Its purpose is to use the sheer numbers of the blogging world for good works. The latest date we are invited to join together is today, December 17th, 2007 to do some Act of Kindness and write about it. All of us, on the same day.
What, I asked myself and the universe, might be a good work, an act of kindness, an act of peace?
What I heard might surprise you. It did me:
Take that nap you want.
Naps for peace?
Not really, just do the things you do with peace in mind.
My teacup, really more a bowl, sits to my left right now, even as I type. I have a cup of Earl Grey tea every morning liberally laced with hazelnut cream. It’s divine. I don’t know exactly how many sips I get out of each bowl, but I’d bet at least fifty.
What if, with every sip, I held a thought for peace?
May peace prevail on earth.
May there be peace in the Middle East.
May there be peace between my fighting next door neighbors.
May there be peace in the middle school down the street.
May there be peace in City Hall at the top of the hill.
May my brother, David, find peace in his soul.
May my mother be at peace wherever her soul took her when she died.
May I be at peace within my body.
May my sweetheart be at peace within her job.
May all financial need be met everywhere with supply.
That’s ten. 20% of my tea sips.
Thoughts, dear one, specifically your thoughts are actions. Dedicate your thoughts to whatever you choose. I’ll do peace seven days a week. Just like I do tea seven days a week. Do the math: 50 x 7 = 350 thoughts per week x 52 weeks = 18,200 thoughts per year radiating from me alone, and that only during tea time!
Think of what we could do if every time we swallowed, or chewed, or exhaled, or inhaled, or scratched, or smiled, or stepped or whatever, we added a thought for peace! I propose an act of kindness, an act of peace for every one of the over six billion souls with whom we share this planet.
Take one activity in your day—one you do every day—and tilt your thoughts peace-ward during that activity.
I googled world population just now: 6,602,224,175 (July 2007 estimated)
18,200 thoughts per year x 6,602,224,175 = Plenty to create peace in our world. (And more than my puny calculator could handle!)
To quote the latest Citibank ads: “Let’s get it done.”
Are You Listening For The Words Of God?
by Arthur Levine
How can you expect to receive God's message of love and kindness and caring if you aren't listening?
Yes, God will speak to you if you open your heart to him and start to listen. Wouldn't you like to hear from God?
Maybe God is waiting to hear from you. Do you have enough faith to stop patching your life together, and start to rely on the word of the Lord?
Sometimes it's hard to believe in what you cannot see or understand, but if you have enough faith all things are possible.
Wouldn't you like to have enough faith to cope with your personal weaknesses and the troubles of our Time? Don't you want to have peace of mind?
All things are possible when you start to find your faith in God. You can achieve a sense of peace and a feeling of security that you have never known before.
Stop using temporary quick fixes to patch yourself together and learn to rely on your faith in God to avoid addictive behavior. Stop patching yourself together.
When you strip away your inhibitions and start to use your imagination, you will discover your own personal patch of faith: your symbol that will put you closer to God.
Use your faith patch to give you the strength to get rid of all the temporary pills and patches that you use to get you through the day, and learn to rely on your faith.
Don't be shy about trying to become a Person of Faith. You are a good and worthwhile person, and no matter what your background or personal beliefs are, you are entitled to become a person of faith.
You have the God given right to find faith anyway that your imagination dictates. You have the right to make a choice as to how you will believe in the Almighty.
You are genetically predisposed to want to be a Person of faith. It is only natural. It is an instinct that our common Lord instilled us with right from the beginning of mankind.
Strip away your inhibitions, use your imagination to find God, and you will discover how strong your faith in him really is.
Start to use your faith as the only patch you will ever need. Start to use your faith as the only true cure-all you will ever need to stop addictive behavior. Become a person of faith.
