Well it must be that time of year again, time for the WordPress annual report. Thought you might like to take a look. Thank you for your faithful following this year, we appreciate it. Please feel free to tell your friends and family about Espirational. Next year let’s fill that Opera House 10 times!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 15,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
“Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy.” -Sarah Ban Breathnach
This is the time of year when we look toward the new year. Many of us make plans, resolve to change and set intentions. These are all well-meaning and we really do intend to make them happen, but too often they are forgotten by February or at least March.
Before we start into the new year and add more into our lives it is a good idea to let go of anything which is no longer serving us. Letting go is not easy for many of us. We hold on tightly even to the pain and hurt of the past because we are afraid of the unknown territory we may find ourselves in if we let it go. We may believe that we have to keep working on our issues until they are somehow resolved, when the answer may be to just let go.
This is a time to really let go and let God. Let it all go and don’t pick it up again, even there may be temptation to do so.
In Unity Churches the Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s is observed with the sacred ritual of the burning bowl. This is a time to write things we want to release on a piece of paper and burn the paper in the flame of a candle. This is followed by each person writing a letter to themselves affirming the new, not hanging onto or mourning the old. This letter is read privately at the end of the year by the writer.
This is a prayerful and sacred ceremony, but it is something that may be done at home. Choose a way to burn the paper (it is a small piece of paper) in a way that is safe. You do not have to use a candle. If you have a fireplace you may throw it in the fire. Reverend Erin of Unity Village Chapel tells the online congregants they may write on toilet paper and flush it. Creates a little different imagery but it still works.
As we get ready to begin the new year let us affirm together. I release and let go of the things that have held me back and move into the new year with love, peace and gratitude. And so it is. Thank you God.
“When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.” – Joseph Campbell
At least for some of our time here on earth we live our lives under a great delusion. Believing the myth of separation, we go about searching for God, acting as though the earth is ours to do with as we wish and hating our neighbor while the truth waits to be “discovered.” Actually the truth waits to be remembered. We are all one. We are all created with a sense of “oneness” with the Creator and all of creation — but during our time in this life we forget.
We start playing the “my God is greater than your God” game and we believe that others are actually “less than” we are and deserving of our contempt.
All the while God is not only as close as the air we breathe, God is the air we breathe. The earth is our mother, supporting and sustaining us. When we look in the face of our neighbor or our enemy we see the image of God in whose likeness we are all created. You see, there is no separation. We are all one.
“Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord”– Saint Augustine
Recently I read something that caused me to reflect on the beginning of my spiritual awakening. I had enrolled in a college religion class on the Old Testament prophets. Over the summer things changed and when I arrived for class I discovered that not only was the professor gone, the new one (who by the way had spent 7 years as non-professed monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani) had completely changed the class to something called The God Man Christian Experience. This good little Baptist college girl had just walked into a course on Christian mysticism.
To say I was challenged is an understatement. It was challenging intellectually, spending hours poring over difficult texts as well as spiritually as my beliefs were challenged by ideas foreign to me. It would have been easy to dismiss them if they hadn’t made so much sense. Something inside me knew I was hearing truth, but it was a truth unlike what I had held for so many years. I spent hours in the professor’s office screaming at him for taking away my faith. He just leaned back in his chair and smiled which infuriated me. It took years to realize the smile was because he knew he was watching the beginnings of something wonderful.
And it was just the beginning. It took many years with much suffering along the way to realize that while I felt abandoned by the Church I had been called to walk away to a new, deeper understanding of God. From childlike faith in a God up in heaven who looks down and pulls strings like a puppet master, I moved to an ever-growing understanding of being created in the image and likeness of God and the presence of God within. Yes, I do still occasionally envy those with such a simple and unmovable faith, until I see the damage being done to the earth and our fellow human beings in the name of God and become more and more determined to keep walking. I was called to something, a life of oneness with God, but I was also called out of something, which included leaving the worldly institutional church.
Bob and I believe many are now experiencing this same calling. We know how difficult a spiritual awakening can be and we are surrounding you with light and love. We also smile a little as Dr. Bob Imperato did many years ago, because we know we are seeing the beginning of something wonderful.
Hang in there. Trust God, surround yourself with the protection of the white light of His love and set out on the beginning of a remarkable journey.
“The holiest of all holidays are those Kept by ourselves in silence and apart; The secret anniversaries of the heart, When the full river of feeling overflows;– The happy days unclouded to their close; The sudden joys that out of darkness start As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Just wanted to let everyone know that Rogene’s art is still half price until midnight of December 31; but then it will go back to normal pricing. This sale is specifically for our friends and relatives to give you a break, but we will not be able to keep it up. Consider it an EOY sale (End of Year). Simply click on this link (Espirational Creations), or go to the “Front Door Page” in this blogs directory to get to the store and the savings.
“And in that region there were shepherds out in the filed, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they well filled with fear. And the angel said to them, ‘Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'”– The Bible Luke 2:8-11 RSV
And on that glorious note we end The Daily Angel for 2015. If you enjoyed this and would like to do this again next year please let me know. Please come back tomorrow for the story of that grand old carol I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Blessings to you and yours.
“Every redeemed one will understand the ministry of angels in their own life. The angel who was their guardian from their earliest moment, the angel who watched their steps and covered their head in the day of peril, the angel who was with them in the valley of the shadow of death, who marked their resting place, who was the first to greet them in the resurrection morning — what will it be to hold conversation with them, and to learn the history of divine interposition in the individual life, of heavenly cooperation in every work for humanity!”
~ E. G. White
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