Wondersome Wisdoms...!

Ahhh, I'm becoming a blogging-delinquent! 'Tis the season to go insane, I suppose. I'm gearing up for my hugest-ever art/craft show this weekend ... up in Portland, Oregon. It's dubbed "America's Largest Christmas Bazaar". There are almost 1,000 vendors, and last year over 30,000 people paid to enter (there were many more under the age of 12, who were free). I figure it's excellent exposure, even if no one buys anything. I shall happily schmooze my heart out for three days -- Mark (that be my main squeeze) is joining me for the event -- to help me, support me, and reconnect with me in the hotel room (sans children!). We've been passing each other like ships in the night...!

So, blogging has fallen by the wayside! I'm pooped tonight, so I'll be sharing a few things that have fed me today, via email messages ... and tomorrow I want to write about something that's been transformed from "annoying" to "awakening".

With no further ado, be blessed with the following, from various reSources:

ADVENT PREPARATION


Question of the Day:
When have I been so lost that I have had to go back
to the very foundations of my faith?

For fourteen years I was a jail chaplain in Albuquerque. During this time I realized that jailed men and women always feel so bad about themselves. They carry a lot of guilt and shame. These men and women had to learn to dig into places inside themselves that you and I don’t have to dig into.

Religion of itself is not enough for such women and men. They must scratch their way back to faith, and when they get there, it is often the real thing. We always said: “Religion is for people who are afraid of hell or afraid of God, whereas spirituality is for people who have been through hell and ‘undergone’ God."

We nice guys usually have to scratch our way back to faith. We’re comfortable with external religion and polite morality for a long time. God will lead each of us, I am sure, but by a different path, so that all religion one day has to be faith, love, humility, and surrender—or it is not true religion! None of God’s "little ones" will be lost. And we are “one of these little ones” too, just in a different way.

(Fr. Richard Rohr)

Adapted from Preparing For Christmas, pp. 25-26

Current Mantra:
Be Awake.

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On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know...

. ...that this is not the end, but the beginning. All endings
start something better. It is inevitable.

Here is God's promise: Life proceeds, it never recedes.

Life progresses, it never regresses. Not even death
ends anything, so how much can this particular event
matter?

It is true. When one door closes, another does open.

The movement of life is ever upward. Six months from
today you will know this. For now, trust it.

Do you think God does not know what She is doing?

(Neale Donald Walsch, "Conversations With God")

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"Sometimes dreams are wiser then waking."
--Black Elk (Hehaka Sapa), OGLALA

The Great Spirit has many ways of communicating with the human being. He talks to us through the five senses; sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. For example, we can observe nature and see a lesson or get an answer. These five senses function primarily in the physical world. But we also have the ability to receive communication from the Unseen World. To do this we have a sixth sense. It comes in the form of dreams, imagination, intuition, inspiration, or a hunch. Along with the dream or intuitive thought there is a feeling, a knowing. We just know it's true without the need for proof. We need to pay attention to our dreams and intuition. Don't cast them off as being silly or useless. Be respectful to our dreams and feelings.

Creator, if you speak to me through dreams, let me know it in terms I can understand.

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Actually, it's not just that you have countless angels, inner guides, conspiring elements, and a radiant soul.

But, that everything in time and space is make-believe!

I see you -
The Universe

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Tuesday, December 1, 2009 – Wonder

“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content."
~Helen Keller


Today's Affirmation

Peace and joy are everywhere I am.

Today's Meditation

Dear God,

Thank You for the love of my friends; a life filled with wonder; the assignments You have given me; and the sense of peace and wonder that fills me.
May all the Earth hear Your voice and feel Your love.
I confidently let it be.
Amen

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Shalom, Dena