I’ve heard and read a lot about surrender. It’s one of those things that Im not sure I fully understand. I think it may only be known when you have done it. Then you don’t know for sure how you did it. These days Im very alert to jargon that is thrown around in our new “enlightenment” language. Much of it sounds good but when I stop and think about it I really have no idea what their talking about. “Let the light in.” What does that mean? “Be in the Now.” Sure, OK. It’s not meant to make fun of people but at the ripe old age of 74 I’m beginning to see how much of my spiritual work has been based on parroting what the “experts” of the day are saying with very little understanding about how to pull it off. Our Self Help market today is drowning in concepts… How does a Rose Open? The truth is no one knows. It just does, when it’s ready. I’ve had to learn to stick with what is simple, doable and leave the results to One greater than me. Gratitude, Blessing others when I can, letting not understanding be okay, Progressive muscle relaxation, easy and doable, life and issues not so intense when I Practice this. I practiced staying in the Now for a while, no past or future. You can’t do it. There may be some who can achieve some degree of it, and it’s not a bad thing, but my guess is that on a large scale it isn’t doable on any consistent basis. Which set people up to fail. I do like very much the “Keep it Simple”, Learn to be kinder and gentler to self and others, forgive yourself when your cranky, never mind trying to understand everything. Some things aren’t understandable here and now anyway and that’s OK. I love to here a bird singing in the morning as much as anyone, can we just listen, say thank you, and move on with our day without analyzing the wonder of it to death? Maybe the modern day plague is over-thinking everything. The title of my quest now is, KEEP IT SIMPLE, just keep it simple. I’d write a book about it but that isn’t simple.☺️

Wanted to add that we all have very little understanding of what life or being is. We use lots of words and few of them can define life in an understandable way. I have had some “spiritual” experiences which led me to conclude that you can’t explain the spirtitual in words, you can only use words as pointers, the person will have to have the experience. And a thought came to me when reading Pierre’s Bio. We are all “innocent death row inmates”. Until we experience the Spiritual aspects of life. — Those experiences will be different for everyone.

Just listened to a Lecture on Humility, the thrust of the talk was, “Just what is Humility?” It nots what we may have been taught. It has nothing to do with self-abasement (to lessen in dignity or status) but to elevate status to that of Holiness, infinite worth: to acknowledge our divine heritage in spite of appearances to the contrary. Jesus certainly was reported to be humble but he declared himself to be the Son of God, Light if the world… Hmmm…Perhaps we’ve been taught in error, he was known by and criticized for the social status of the people he associated with. Do you suppose what we need to learn,more than anything else,is the unimaginable worth and value of every living thing?

Mary Anne, I too don’t feel patriotic. I belong to the human family. There is no your’s and mine, there is Life. I am proud to echo your sharing. We owe it to the world to regard each as a vital part of it with there own divine right to “be.” Destroy any part of life is to destroy some part of ourselves. I think we are begining to recognize this. At least at a grassroots level. Blessings and thanks for giving me the courage to say the unthinkable (to some Americans). I am a citizen of the world. ???? ???? ???? Charla

Anita, let me see if I can convey what I learned in my morning Prayer time. It started with my experience in the park with the squirrels, ducks, geese overhead, birds singing, and I realized they were unaffected, and uninterested in the events reported to us in the news. Hmmm! I thought there is a lesson here for me. This insight has evolved over a few days. This morning it came to me that we NEVER feel safe. We don’t feel safe with others, guard almost everything we say and do lest we offend someone, the news bombards us with serious reports of man’s inhumanity to man, all kinds of catastrophes , and Now a President that is unable to utter a sane sensible word and is given to tantrums… and then we wonder why we are a reck, emotionally and physically. It came to me that what we all need is a good rest wrapped in the divine Mothers arms; how ever you conceive of that. A place where we are loved, safe, and not required to save the world, which we know very well that we can’t. And where no threat of our well being can come. We are just safe and we know it and rest in it. I, also, don’t listen to the news. I’ve heard enough!!! That is not to say I don’t care about my brother and sisters because I care deeply. This is not to say I never do anything, it is to say First, I need some rest from this turmoil and so does everyone else. If there is something I can do divine wisdom will direct me, but the weight of the world does not rest on my shoulders, I am unable to bear the weight of it. I can do something, in my little corner of the world to bring comfort, and care to another, but I cannot bear the weight of the world, it is not mine to bear. So for now I have adopted the attitude of my precious squirrels, ducks, geese, and little birds in the park. I’m not impressed with all the rhetoric. If a little bird song can turn my day around maybe I can whistle a happy ditty today, take a deep breath and say, “all is well, right here right now,” and thereby lighten up someone’s day in my little “park” in the world. Divine Rest to you all. ☺ ???? ???? ???? Charla