Tag: God

How You can Find Healing that Lasts

How would your life change if you trusted that your challenges are a part of your journey home – back to yourself and back to Life – instead of feeling that your challenges are here because you have done something wrong or you are being punished or God fell asleep on the job? What would happen if your illness, your difficult relationship, your demanding boss, your compulsions, and maybe even your troublesome dog were showing up in your life to help you heal? The healing you long for comes when you discover how to play the warmer, warmer/colder, colder game. Remember that…

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What I Learned from My Father

Happy Father's Day! On this special day, I want to honor my dad, Gordy Goodwin, who passed away on May 20th, 2012. Through the years, here's what he taught my siblings and me. In honor of Gordon Goodwin - 1932-2012 - with gratitude for a life well lived. Make God a priority in your life. Have faith that God is always with you and know that you are never alone. Live your faith and let your life serve as a testament to your beliefs in such a way that others will want to be like you. Walking the walk is much…

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Ask a Luminary

Are You Aligned with God?

"I want to be closer to God. I've tried prayer and meditation, but I'm not hearing the answers I thought I'd hear. What have you found that works in creating a closer bond with the Divine?" ~ Judy, Tallahassee, FL Dear Judy, I believe that God is with us, inside us and around us at all times, and that God works through us to expand and grow. I use a “commitment question” to connect with the Divine. I ask myself, “How may I best embody supportive love, appreciation and gratitude in every moment?” Supportive love is unconditional. God gives you…

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What Do I Do About a Cheating Spouse?

"How can I keep hope when I know my husband is cheating and dishonest? He pretends all is fine, but I am the one who is suffering inside. My only solace is talking and praying every day to my Lord Jesus, God, Immaculate Virgin Mary, St. Anne her mother and St. Joseph along with the Holy Spirit. I gave my vows at the Altar when I got married 30 years ago. It's hard to show emotions toward him when I know what he's doing. What can I do? Do I just put on a face and pretend, and be the victim?" ~…

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How Can I Learn to Hear God?

"I was raised a Christian and have prayed for 50 years. Lately it seems that God isn't listening. How can I increase the connection to make my life work better?" ~ Bob, Prince Edward Island, Canada Dear Bob, God talks in many ways, aurally, visually, empathically, noetically… any of your senses can be utilized. An important tool is learning to acutely discern what I call the “BIG MIND” and the chatter of “little mind”. ”BIG MIND” thoughts drop cohesively into the top of my head, just like an idea. Personally, I hear it much like I hear an idea when it…

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Pi, a Rainbow and a Nudist Beach

The movie Life of Pi is the story of a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an unexpected connection with another survivor: a fearsome Bengal tiger. At one point, Pi, clearly feeling like he had reached the end of his rope, yells out to God, "I lost my parents, I lost everything, what more do you want?" How often in life does this same thing happen to us, where we just want pack up and move on... when we feel like we…

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Doing the Right Thing When the Wrong Thing Happens

We have all heard the phrase Life isn’t fair. Some of us who have read the Bible are familiar with the story of Job. In the Book of Job, Job is presented as a family man who lives a good and prosperous life, but is eventually beset with horrendous disasters that take away all he has, including his family, his health, and his property. Job struggles to understand his situation and begins a long search for the right path that will get him out of his extremely difficult situation. Against all odds, with God’s help, Job is restored to a…

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Sunlight on a Mountain Valley

Letter to God from Bernie Siegel, MD

Dear God, First I want to thank You for answering my previous letters. When as a doctor I couldn’t understand why You made a world filled with disease, war, cruelty and all kinds of difficulties You pointed out to me that a perfect world is not creation. That there would be no need for doctors or anyone else and we would all become totally bored by life and find it meaningless. I remember You saying it would be far worse than a spending a lifetime in Hawaii. But what really made the point for me was your letting me visit…

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Taking on God’s Role

By Michael Cupo. When we judge, we take on the role of God. Who am I to think I know what's best for anyone else unless I think I know all? And who can claim to know all but God? We all breathe the same air and are dependent on the same elements for our existence, but it seems our mind is conditioned to focus more on our differences than our similarities. It is only a thought that creates a judgment that makes a concept or belief about something. We all want to defend what we believe is the right way…

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Unanswered Prayers

Most of us learned to pray as little children. As adults, we've all had experiences where God (or the Universe, if you prefer) hasn't answered our prayers. A recent experience caused me to ask myself..... If God doesn't answer a prayer in the way that we expect the answer to appear, does that mean he's not listening..... or, could it mean that we're not?  A few days ago I was on Twitter when I saw a random tweet from a teenager, asking us to pray for her family, as they were looking for the answer to a big problem. As…

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The Many Meanings of Love

Love has inspired countless generations of poets, composers, and artists throughout history. It's universal to the human experience, and yet can be hard to define. For love has many different expressions, meanings, and contexts. There is the emotion of love. We may express feelings of love for our self, others, or Spirit. There is also the love of art, or of knowledge. Then there is "God's love"- the divine, loving, creative subjectivity - which can also be called value fulfillment, because it promotes the maximum development for each individual in relation to All That Is. It provides the impetus toward…

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Are You Over-thinking the Mystical Realm?

The main problem modern thinking people have with the mystical realm is... over-thinking. We're often not quite intelligent enough to realize that it's the "logical" parts of our brains that insist on "logical" explanations for everything. This is like banks insisting on their own bailouts, to which I say: duh. Thus are many bright spiritual-minded folk calling for something smarter. Let us, for instance, follow the didactic brilliance of India's old Brahman priests who used to debate the divine until there was nothing left to say, knowing full well that the real answer lay in what religious scholar Karen Armstrong…

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A Conversation With God?

About a month ago I sat in front of my laptop with some heavy thoughts on my mind. In trying to figure out a difficult situation, I gave up and just started typing the first statement below. Rarely do I get to a place where I momentarily crash, but I was tired and was venting in frustration. From there my fingers kept typing and here are the  responses that I "heard" in reply to my questions. I'm not sure this came from the Universe, God, my higher self, my imagination or whatever else. What I do know is that I…

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Reconnect to Who You Are

I woke this morning to the chirping of a bird. Not just any chirping, but a vast array of sounds from one little bird. He sang ten different songs and then started his repertoire all over again. It was as if he were inviting me to get up and come outside to play with him. I tried to bury my head under the pillow and go back to sleep, but he was insistent that it was time to rise and shine. This noisy little bird was a reminder of my connection to Nature. And sometimes with me it has to…

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Take Time to Connect

Just for a moment, think this one thought: I am an unlimited being. I have the power to be, do or create anything in my life that I desire. Anything. How does that feel? Like most people, you're probably feeling something like "yeah, I wish", or "if only that were true", or even "I wish I could believe that".  To some just saying this feels like we're lying. Some days more than others, we're able to see the possibility of "I am an unlimited being" really being a true statement. What makes the difference of not being able to say…

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