Neale Donald Walsch

I've stolen a moment on my muns computer to do a quick blogpost! ;) Yay! :D

I follow Neale Donald Walsch on twitter (@_NealeDWalsch) and OMG he serves up some gems of wisdom! :) I had heard of his Conversations with God series but not been overly keen on reading them...didn't really seem to be my "thing" - my mind has changed. :)

♥


Here's som gems from his twitter feed:

"Spirituality is about the values, ethics, and deepest part of the individual, not the theological dogma of the clump" "

The you that you are is God, in Particular Form.

You are an Aspect of Divinity.

And so is everyone and everything else."

"Consider the possibility that what you call 'God' might also be called, simply, 'life.'"

"Luck, in truth, does not exist, if you define 'luck' as 'unexpected good' emerging 'out of thin air' for no apparent reason."

"In every moment God expresses Himself in, as, and through you. You are not without guidance, nor will you ever be."

- Neale Donald Walsch

Community, Environment

Community.

* Compassion
* Solidarity
* Peace
* Equality

It's about being aware. To See people, whether close to you and your home or on the other side of the world and a stranger.
It's about responsibility - for home, family and the Earth... Doing your part of making a difference. It doesn't have to be something grand! Even a small act of goodness can make a world of difference - bigger isn't better.

The opposite of Community is Indifference.

Environment.

It's where we are, where we live and breathe and bring up the Future. There are no other options but take responsibility, show consideration.

The opposite of Environment is... The End!

"We do not own the world, and its riches are not ours to dispose of at will. Show a loving consideration for all creatures, and seek to maintain the beauty and variety of the world. Work to ensure that our increasing power over nature is used responsibly, with reverence for life. Rejoice in the splendour of God's continuing creation."

(Advices&Queries no.42)

Peace

Peace.

 
* Tolerance
* Equality
* Solidarity
* Love
* Forgivness

The opposite of Peace is Hate, Darkness, Fear...

"A good end cannot sanctify evil means; nor must we ever do evil, that good may come of it... It is as great presumption to send our passions upon God's errands, as it is to palliate them with God's name... We are too ready to retaliate, rather than forgive, or gain by love and information. And yet we could hurt no man that we believe loves us. Let us then try what Love will do: for if men did once see we love them, we should soon find they would not harm us. Force may subdue, but Love gains: and he that forgives first, wins the laurel."

- William Penn, 1693 (24.03)

"...That way of peace is not to be found in any policy of 'unconditional surrender' by whomsoever demanded. It requires that men and nations should recognise their common brotherhood, using the weapons of integrity, reason, patience and love, never acquiescing in the ways of the oppressor, always ready to suffer with the oppressed. In every country there is a longing for freedom from domination and war which men are striving to express. Now is the time to issue an open invitation to co-operate in creative peacemaking, to declare our willingness to make sacrifices of national prestige, wealth and standards of living for the common good of men."

(24.09)

Equality, Honesty, Integrity

Equality.

* Inclusion rather than exclusion.
* Seeing 'that of God in everyone'.
* Solidarity

I wish I had more to say about this, but, it is such an obvious Truth to me that I'm stuggling to find the words to explain how and why I feel the way I do.

We're unique, individual, creatures with the same worth, value and rights as each other. Period.

The opposite of Equality is Discrimination.

Honesty and Integrity.

* Tell the truth.
* Be true to who you are.

The opposite of Honesty and Integrity is Deceit.

"...it has always been a simple truth that a life led honestly, without deviousness or deceit is always a life which is simpler to lead than a life in which one must keep careful track of any dishonest dealings lest one is caught out."

Blog recap 2011

A look back on the blog year of 2011, here are the first blog posts of each month... To take you, and me, back through the year. :)

Psst..! the links open in a new window

January: A hesitant follower of the One Word. ;)

February: I heard and was compelled to share Brene Browns TEDtalk on vulnerability.

March: Finding inspirational words from the teacher of Alexander the Great.

April: Sharing some thoughts about compassion on the eve of Golden Rule Day.

May: Enjoyed being back at work, dispite the commute. :)

June: A lot of sharing goes on here on this blog, here's another one! :) An article well worth reading twice! :) God is not a Christian.

July: ...began with well-needed girliness² !

August: *sigh* Yeah... some days were frustration overload.

September: :) Finally time to go to my first Meeting!

October: Being a bit 'zen'... :)

November: ...began with some more sharing, this time a quote that really struck home...

December: I found myself a new 'man'! ♥  :D

:) This was fun! :D ...for me at least. ;) But I do hope you enjoyed it too.

Do you have any posts of mine that you in particular remember from last year...?? I'd love to hear what and why it stayed with you! :)

Love&Light,

God is with you everywhere...

Hay Quaker posted this on his food-for-thought blog and Oh My Word if it wasn't just that! Goose bumps and I-have-to-share moment! :)

"Your surroundings don't matter. God is with you everywhere..." :) :) :)

Love&Light,

"Some people prefer solitude. They say their peace of mind depends on this. Others say they would be better off in church.

If you do well, you do well wherever you are. If you fail, you fail wherever you are. Your surroundings don't matter. God is with you everywhere -- in the market place as well as in seclusion or in the church.

If you look for nothing but God, nothing or no one can disturb you.

God is not distracted by a multitude of things. Nor can we be."

- Meister Eckhart

Sarah Dawn Finer - For A Friend

I love this song. It just makes my tears well up every time. :´) I don't know if its intended but I hear double meaning in the song. It is not only about a friend comforting another but the Spirit/God(s) asking for Faith... You hear it too? :)

This song has also been covered in a take your breath away beautiful love song in Swedish.

Love&Light,

God Is Not a Christian

As you might already know I'm a big fan of the Charter for Compassion and (unsurprisingly ;)) I also follow it on facebook. :) There I get links to lots of interesting articles and other stuff. :) Today when I came home from work I did my usual look-through of my news feed and as usual there was a link to an article, this time by Desmond Tutu - "God Is Not a Christian" . I usually feel somewhat silly re-posting re-posted posts ;) but, this I just had to pass forward!

He writes inspiringly "We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.[...] We have enough that conspires to separate us; let us celebrate that which unites us, that which we share in common."
Read, read and re-post! ;)

Love&Light,

* Parenting * Family * Children *

"Give the children love, more love and still more love – and the common sense will come by itself."
- Astrid Lindgren

"Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence."
- Plato

"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
- Theodore Hesburgh

"What good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best after all."
- Benjamin Spock

"There's no road map on how to raise a family: it's always an enormous negotiation."
- Meryl Streep

"You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them."
- Desmond Tutu

"Family is not an important thing, it's everything."
- Michael J. Fox

"Raising children is an incredibly hard and risky business in which no cumulative wisdom is gained: each generation repeats the mistakes the previous one made."
- Bill Cosby

"We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

...all the sad world needs.

I went looking for an 'old' quote I was sure I must have posted! Couldn't find it so I went 'hunting'. :) I found it! :) Here it is 'again'(?). ;)


So many gods, so many creeds;
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Thomas Merton

Via Master Coelho's blog I found this prayer by Thomas Merton.


My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
__________________________________

in Thoughts in Solitude

It made me curious to know more about Merton (see wiki-link above) and his words. I found a lot! :)

Here's 'a little bit' of what I found:

"To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that Love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.
Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name."

"The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another."

"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can."

"It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him."

"Life consists in learning to live on one’s own, spontaneous, freewheeling: to do this one must recognize what is one’s own—be familiar and at home with oneself. This means basically learning who one is, and learning what one has to offer to the contemporary world, and then learning how to make that offering valid."

"We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen."

"...to love another as a person we must begin by granting him his own autonomy and identity as a person. We have to love him for what he is in himself, and not for what he is to us. We have to love him for his own good, not for the good we get out of him. And this is impossible unless we are capable of a love which 'transforms' us, so to speak, into the other person, making us able to see things a he sees them, love what he loves, experience the deeper realities of his own life as if they were our own. Without sacrifice, such a transformation is utterly impossible. But unless we are capable of this kind of transformation 'into the other' while remaining ourselves, we are not yet capable of a fully human existence."
(here's what I have to say on Love)

"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt."

"A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire."

"We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent,
and God is shining through it all the time...
He is everywhere,
He is in everything,
and we cannot be without Him."

- Thomas Merton



For more Merton quotes follow this link.

Walt Whitman

Walter "Walt" Whitman (1819 – 1892) an American poet, essayist and journalist.

Whitman was a religious skeptic: though he accepted all churches, he believed in none. God, to Whitman, was both immanent and transcendent and the human soul was immortal and in a state of progressive development.

"This is what you shall do:
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labors to others,
Hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
Have patience and indulgence toward the people,
Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,
Or to any man or number of men,
Go freely with powerful uneducated persons,
And with the young and with the mothers of families,
Read these leaves in the open air,
Every season of every year of your life,
Reexamine all you have been told,
At school at church or in any book,
Dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
And your very flesh shall be a great poem,
And have the richest fluency not only in its words,
But in the silent lines of its lips and face,
And between the lashes of your eyes,
And in every motion and joint of your body."

"I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best."

"In the faces of men and women, I see God."

"When I give, I give myself."

"The future is no more uncertain than the present."

"Be curious, not judgmental."

"Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?"

"I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others..."

Maya Angelou quotes

Feeling a bit bored... Seems like everyone is doing what they're supposed to do today, while I just sit around just not able to be bothered. Gosh! Sounds depressing! :[ Sorry! :) Is not that bad...just having an off day.
So I waste (yeah waste! I so could be doing other stuff!) my time surfing the web, hunting for more fab quotes/saying/proverbs. I "always" seem to "get stuck" on a certain person or theme when I go in these hunts, today I got stuck on Maya Angelou. :) Don't mind that at all! :D Here are a few of gems I found...


Hope you're having a better day than me!


"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
- Maya Angelou

"Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean."
- Maya Angelou

"While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone elseand everything else are also God's creation."
- Maya Angelou