WELCOME 16

WELCOME 16

Just hanging out in the Kingdom.

We are “there” all the time; we infrequently realize it. I am too busy being right, or trying to protect myself from one thing or another*, or trying to find something else that will bring me peace and/or satisfaction.  

• I became aware the other day that all of my stuff, my material possessions, as well as my mental and emotional stuff are all attachments and my attempts to insulate myself from change or any other form of insecurity. Of course, they do not really work in lessening my fear, in fact, they increase my anxiety because now I have to protect the things I think are protecting me!

“We are taking you each by hand to welcome you to what can be as yourselves as you coexist as a species, as a civilization, who honors the truth of who each of you are.”

How beautiful is that. And yet here I am wondering what lies ahead of me. What am I going to be asked to do? Will I be able to handle it? Will it hurt (as the Velveteen Rabbit asked the Skin Horse.) I am like the person at the Pearly Gates—there are two signs—one says “Heaven” the other “Lecture about Heaven.” Here I am waiting on the lecture line, just to make sure. (Hey, is that you in front of me?)

Isn’t it odd that I perceive myself as being fearful of what I desire the most?

“May I be in my wonder in every day. May I allow myself to be in wonder in every choice I make.”

There was a move recently called Wonder about a little boy with severe facial deformity. It was a simple, but delightful parable, and I became very enamored of the title. Wonder. In the book of Revelations, Jesus claims, “Behold, I make all things new.” What would it be like if I perceived everyone, everything with newness and wonder? 

I sit at my desk—a new desk, new notes; a new chair that holds me up; I allow myself to be blown away as I discover all the information in the world is available to me at my fingertips. The touch of a few buttons, and Voila!

Or I go to work and I see Mary and Mike, and Wynona and Bob and instead of seeing them with all of yesterday’s baggage and labels, I see them as completely new. I look at them, I listen to them for the first time. (Now if you are like me, you will either create a new set of labels and prejudices or resurrect the old ones, but that’s OK, it just gives me the opportunity to “choose once again.”) 

“As you claim this for yourself, you claim yourself, you open to new possibilities. The windows begin to open and what was stale releases. The new air comes in and fills the room with new choice, new ability, new love. The ideas that we give you to sort through, to choose from, to decide with, will be there for you as you need them.

The trajectory we are choosing, you say, is one of wonder. Attending to yourself in wonder, as the one who may be in the new trajectory, is what we ask for you today. “Am I willing to claim myself as the one who may be in wonder? Am I willing to align myself to the possibilities that come to me as I align myself to wonder? Will I listen to myself, to the new thoughts that are gifted to me with each choice that I make, with each idea that comes, with each belief I hold, so that I may know something new?”

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If you are so moved, you might want too check out the questions on the bottom of p. 59 and top of 60.

These are my personal reflections:

What do I want for myself?

I want to be free; I want to see with the eyes of the Christ. I want to be forever conscious of my service as a unique expression of the Divine.

What do I no longer need?

The collected baggage of self-judgment, my comparing myself to others, all of my coulda, woulda, shoulda.

What have I cared for too much?

The opinion of others; being right; immediate gratification; my intellectual understanding.

What have I cared too little for?

my body; listening to the yearnings of my soul; the love others bring to me.

What have I agreed to that is no longer true, and what would be a new belief that would liberate from me the things I have attended to as myself that cannot truly be myself, because now I know who I am in my wonder?

In the past I have agreed to and aligned myself to a belief system that emphasized my limitations and sense of separateness. As much as I realize these are untrue, I am still somewhat shackled by them. My only conclusion is that I continue to hold onto and even nurture some of these old and unnecessary beliefs—in doing so I seem to limit my beliefs in my Divine Truth. (I am aware that what I speak of as being “real” is still only my perception, which by its nature is limited).

Wonder—to greet each moment with wonder. You see, that would continually be the present moment, no expectations, no goals just wonder!

May all beings be at peace; may all beings be free of suffering; may all beings know who they are.