Month: April 2024

Grief Rooted in the Depth of Love

I want to share a personal reflection that has given me countless “moments” of recalling Transcendental Love.

The ongoing reality of our earth journey encompasses overwhelming grief and loss.

My 50+ years as a Minister in New Thought and founding in the late 80’s into the mid 90’s a non-profit HIV Support Group called “Together to Grow” (TTG) I have encompassed immense grief, personally and collectively.

I’m placing this sharing under “Transcendental Love” because at the root of our deepest grief is the reality of that love.

Deep grief never leaves us; however, it can be the way we move on to meaningful purpose to honor that love.

A TIMELESS MOMENT

I’ve had the JOY of being a founder of a spiritual retreat – now called the Big Sky Retreat in Montana, formerly Grand Teton Retreat – now in its 48th year.

During the late 80’s to mid-90’s of the AIDS epidemic, I was able to bring beloved friends from my TTG group to Wyoming and the Grand Tetons. It was miraculous that this was able to happen. We had rented a van, and we were driving through Yellowstone, laughing, and feeling the depth of our love being together. We were absorbing the wonder of the buffalo and the beauty around us. Suddenly, my soul brother and co-founder of TTG, David, began to weep uncontrollably. We were all silenced as he was in the front seat and those of us in the back put our hands upon his shoulders.

“David, what’s wrong, what’s going on?” as we sought to calm him. After he gained control he said simply, “We’re together and this is so beautiful, I’m so grateful.” I’ll never forget that moment. I said farewell to cherished friends through those years, including David. TTG dissolved after the depth of losses we experienced, and there was no way to continue.

My grief throughout that time was in seeing so many younger than myself leaving this plane and that I was still here! What I have come to know is that their love and that “Transcendental Moment” has been integral to what has carried me on throughout my life.

From Kahili Gibran on Joy and Sorrow

“Then a woman said, Speak to us of joy and sorrow.

And he answered:
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked,
And the self-same joy from which your laughter rises, was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper the sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

Our grief and loss do contain joy and sorrow – and the remembrance of love is what moves us on. Find good purpose in our own moving on!

Monthly Theme and Weekly Speakers.

Every month, we take the Key Principles of MYOB and put them into practice in our lives. Looking at the deeper call before us — What are we each to “Be” to bring about societal change through our soul evolution in ways that establish justice, love, and care for all – without exception. Please join us weekly on Thursdays at 7 p.m. EDT for our virtual program.

Stand For Enlightenment

Accountability and Forgiveness

“True forgiveness deals with the past, all the past, to make the future possible. We cannot go on nursing grudges even vicariously for those who cannot speak for themselves any longer. We have to accept that we do what we do for generations past, present and yet to come. That is what makes a community a community or a people a people – for better or for worse.”
– Desmond Mpilo Tutu.

I Am Accountable to Future Generations

I am accountable for what I pass on and how deeply I have come to insight into my own life in forgiving and seeking healing wherever I could. I know my ancestors are cheering me on to see things differently and to own my accountability to the present moment and to future generations.

I have sought to make amends where I recognized the pain that I caused in judgments I see very differently at this time of my life. I also realize my excessive drinking was the root of the darkest moments of my life, as I sought to escape the judgement and condemnation, I held against myself.

Make the Soulful Inquiries

We are living in an illumined time that is requiring we see ourselves profoundly differently. No one has privilege or entitlement above another. There are no others – just us – finding our way to evolve humanity – or not.

We are also in a time that seeing things with accountability individually and collectively means we are open to truthful history and realizing what equity means for all – opportunity without exception. What we do with that equity is everyone’s personal soul journey.

The soulful inquiries I make are not about being the judge and executioner of my own life – rather – the compassionate observer bringing recognition of seeing things in new awareness – forgiving and living from a higher perspective of myself and others.

One simply ongoing inquiry – “What’s mine to be and bring to this day that impacts all with a sense of personal value and respect – above all myself.”

Monthly Theme and Weekly Speakers.

Every month, we take the Key Principles of MYOB and put them into practice in our lives. Looking at the deeper call before us — What are we each to “Be” to bring about societal change through our soul evolution in ways that establish justice, love, and care for all – without exception. Please join us weekly on Thursdays at 7 p.m. EDT for our virtual program.

Silent Agreements

Silent Agreements are what we have lived by, condoned, and often rewarded in our societies and cultures throughout history. They are the silent agreements we make regarding how we define our roles and identity sexually, of how religion defines us, our culture, our race and how we have come to live by those agreements without challenging those that deny our true soul-expression and being.

Silent Agreements are those that maintain silence about abuse, and atrocities. Those agreements create genocides, and they continue the personal abuse on all levels of our societies in families and cultures everywhere. No matter what the authority, be it parental, societal, ethnic, religious, through institutions, governments, or cultures … silent agreements keep us bound to the pain, to the wars, and the violence we continue to condone on our planet. When we hold to that deafening silence future generations pay the price.

Humanity is the most brutal species in acts of abuse, violence, and perpetuating terror of its own kind. The Patriarchal history we hold has perpetuated that reality as it has continually supported Silence and celebrated its crimes against minorities, sexual orientations, and women.

Our Greatest Struggle

In an evolving world with greater potential for enlightenment more than ever before, we still see that violence throughout the globe. Our planet is in its greatest struggle. It is our identity and whether we hold to the old beliefs through our various patriarchal religions, governments, and institutions, that pre-define everyone’s role as opposed to celebrating our diversity out of the Unity we share as humanity. One by one, we can plant the seeds for change and illumination. The impact of that silence is clear. It shatters lives and it creates generational abuse. Silence shattered my family as it has millions of other families and lives.

The Root of All Suffering

What is at the root of all our human suffering …. fear, denial, and ignorance and the only cures: love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Forgiveness is not about forgetting. We don’t evolve humanity through erasing memories … but we do through enlightenment, compassion, and the truth and rising to stories of empowerment as Victors of this journey and not victims.

Silent Agreements are rooted in keeping us as victims and it has been the world practice to condone and accept “Silent Agreements.” Our suffering is always rooted in fear and ignorance. When we have the courage to speak out – to intervene when we see abuse – we create bridges for others to cross and end the cycles that continue from generation to generation.

Monthly Theme and Weekly Speakers.

Every month, we take the Key Principles of MYOB and put them into practice in our lives. Looking at the deeper call before us — What are we each to “Be” to bring about societal change through our soul evolution in ways that establish justice, love, and care for all – without exception. Please join us weekly on Thursdays at 7 p.m. EDT for our virtual program.

Shame and Guilt

Shame and Guilt

Shame and guilt go together. I learned shame early on with an unconscious mantra – “Shame on you.” Shame can be something we carry through our lives and never address. Early on we learn guilt and shame in religious paths that are meant to be about enlightenment.

PRE-DEFINED ROLES

We are born into pre-defined roles. Shame and guilt can emerge for not living those roles as society prescribes them. As I grew through adolescence my sense of shame and guilt became the root of overwhelming sorrow and pain as the complexity of my sexuality continued to deepen.

I entered ministry because I felt if I did enough good for others I could make up for the shame and guilt I had for being born in the wrong body and the complexity of emotions around that.

Shame and guilt can also be the root of how easily we fall prey to emotional manipulation that brings up all those feelings of inadequacy of doing something wrong when we have not!

I inherited guilt and shame, and I am the only one who can free what has not been mine to carry. Guilt has a place to make amends where it is a soul healing factor for self and others. Individual and collective shame is when we do not take accountability for what we are passing on to future generations when we could awaken and be aware. I choose not to pass on shame but accountability through how I live my life now.

VICTORY IS

My personal victory is when I no longer feel shame for the soul I am meant to be and can look in the mirror and genuinely feel love for who I see.

Clearing that learned shame opens my heart and mind to live a life of integrity, authenticity, and self-regard for myself and others. Shame not addressed, creates only darkness and behaviors that keep us in judgment of ourselves and others and at war with life itself.

I will be addressing more on these posts on shame and guilt. There is a great healing catharsis in my sharing.

Monthly Theme and Weekly Speakers.

Every month, we take the Key Principles of MYOB and put them into practice in our lives. Looking at the deeper call before us — What are we each to “Be” to bring about societal change through our soul evolution in ways that establish justice, love, and care for all – without exception. Please join us weekly on Thursdays at 7 p.m. EDT for our virtual program.