You don’t have to believe in the more traditional definitions of GOD!
Translate into what you do believe in .......Love or Creation or Goodness or Infinite Intelligence or ????
What does this really mean to you?God is blessing you now.
May Goodness bless you now and always.
My prayer is that we allow God’s Good to bless us all and our lives.
May we realize that Good is blessing us now and always.
May we allow ourselves to receive the Good that already is.
May we awaken to the possibility that the blessings always are.
May we come to know that God’s Goodness is ever present and all powerful.
I am blessed by each day that comes.
When I do not recognize the blessings, I am blocking my awareness.
I am loved with each moment I live.
When I don’t feel it, I have closed my heart and mind to the awareness of Love.
When we do not feel loved and blessed, it is because we have falsely judged.
We may have judged ourselves, our lives, our friends and our family.
When we are too busy, distracted, critical, guilty or ashamed, resentful or vengeful that we deny the Good.
When we are limiting our Good or denying the Good we have, we forsake the Truth.
Sometimes we talk too much.
Sometimes we think too much.
Sometimes we want too much.
Sometimes we judge too much.
There is an exaggeration and amplification of what appears to be wrong.
What if we focus always and only on what is right with us and everyone.
What if we give the benefit of no doubt when we see the light shining through.
What if we step away from being distrusting, negative and limiting and free the love inside.
Let’s begin to believe….
Everything works together for Good.
We are always in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Everything is a lesson God would have me learn to better receive the Good in my life.
There are no accidents. Everything is an on purpose.
All upsets are wakeup calls to change my mind.
Changing my mind changes my life.
Everything that happens to me I have asked for and receive as I have asked.
Life is a learning laboratory to realize the creative power of Good in me.
Everything I think and say and do teaches all the Universe.
There are no secret thoughts.
Cleaning up my mind clears my relationships with myself and others.
Forgiveness is the key to happiness and inner peace.
And more……
God blesses you and me.
May we appreciate the Good that already is!Betty Lue
I love this story! And I know it is true about me and you. So begin to see the good, the God, the Love in everyone. It is through our perception and appreciation that we bring forth the Good in everyone!
THE RABBI'S GIFT
There is a story, perhaps a myth. Typical of mythical stories, it has many versions. Also typical, the source of the version I am about to tell is obscure. I cannot remember whether I heard it or read it, or where or when. Furthermore, I do not even know the distortions I myself have made in it. All I know for certain is that this version came to me with a title. It is called "The Rabbi's Gift."
The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of anti-monastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.
In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. "The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again,: they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.
The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. "I know how it is," he exclaimed. "The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore." So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. They read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other . "It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years," the abbot said, "but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?"
"No, I am sorry," the rabbi responded. "I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."
When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, "Well, what did the rabbi say?" "He couldn't help," the abbot answered. We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving--it was something cryptic--was that the Messiah is one of us. I don't know what he meant."
In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that's the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he couldn't have meant Brother Eldred? Eldred gets crotchety at times. But, come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's side, when you look back on it, Eldred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Eldred. But surely not Brother Philip. Philip is so passive, a real nobody. But the, almost mysteriously, he has a gift of being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Philip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn't be that much for You, could I?
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. On the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura or extraordinary respect that now seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.
Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spiritually in the realm.
The story concerns a monastery that had fallen upon hard times. Once a great order, as a result of waves of anti-monastic persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the rise of secularism in the nineteenth, all its branch houses were lost and it had become decimated to the extent that there were only five monks left in the decaying mother house: the abbot and four others, all over seventy in age. Clearly it was a dying order.
In the deep woods surrounding the monastery there was a little hut that a rabbi from a nearby town occasionally used for a hermitage. Through their many years of prayer and contemplation the old monks had become a bit psychic, so they could always sense when the rabbi was in his hermitage. "The rabbi is in the woods, the rabbi is in the woods again,: they would whisper to each other. As he agonized over the imminent death of his order, it occurred to the abbot at one such time to visit the hermitage and ask the rabbi if by some possible chance he could offer any advice that might save the monastery.
The rabbi welcomed the abbot at his hut. But when the abbot explained the purpose of his visit, the rabbi could only commiserate with him. "I know how it is," he exclaimed. "The spirit has gone out of the people. It is the same in my town. Almost no one comes to the synagogue anymore." So the old abbot and the old rabbi wept together. They read parts of the Torah and quietly spoke of deep things. The time came when the abbot had to leave. They embraced each other . "It has been a wonderful thing that we should meet after all these years," the abbot said, "but I have still failed in my purpose for coming here. Is there nothing you can tell me, no piece of advice you can give me that would help me save my dying order?"
"No, I am sorry," the rabbi responded. "I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you."
When the abbot returned to the monastery his fellow monks gathered around him to ask, "Well, what did the rabbi say?" "He couldn't help," the abbot answered. We just wept and read the Torah together. The only thing he did say, just as I was leaving--it was something cryptic--was that the Messiah is one of us. I don't know what he meant."
In the days and weeks and months that followed, the old monks pondered this and wondered whether there was any possible significance to the rabbi's words. The Messiah is one of us? Could he possibly have meant one of us monks here at the monastery? If that's the case, which one? Do you suppose he meant the abbot? Yes, if he meant anyone, he probably meant Father Abbot. He has been our leader for more than a generation. On the other hand, he might have meant Brother Thomas. Certainly Brother Thomas is a holy man. Everyone knows that Thomas is a man of light. Certainly he couldn't have meant Brother Eldred? Eldred gets crotchety at times. But, come to think of it, even though he is a thorn in people's side, when you look back on it, Eldred is virtually always right. Often very right. Maybe the rabbi did mean Brother Eldred. But surely not Brother Philip. Philip is so passive, a real nobody. But the, almost mysteriously, he has a gift of being there when you need him. He just magically appears by your side. Maybe Philip is the Messiah. Of course the rabbi didn't mean me. He couldn't possibly have meant me. I'm just an ordinary person. Yet supposing he did? Suppose I am the Messiah? O God, not me. I couldn't be that much for You, could I?
As they contemplated in this manner, the old monks began to treat each other with extraordinary respect on the off chance that one among them might be the Messiah. On the off, off chance that each monk himself might be the Messiah, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura or extraordinary respect that now seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.
Then it happened that some of the younger men who came to visit the monastery started to talk more and more with the old monks. After a while one asked if he could join them. Then another. And another. So within a few years the monastery had once again become a thriving order and, thanks to the rabbi's gift, a vibrant center of light and spiritually in the realm.
From A Different Drum: Community Making and Peace By M. Scott Peck, M.D.