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My life was difficult for I had stopped daring. I was settling. I was one of the most successful drinkers I had ever known. I did it well—I gave it all I had at the time. Now I am able to drink water and feel the high. Once the decision was made, my old rags of regret were behind me. I felt so strongly that, because I had already given all those years of my life to being numb, I was not willing to play those stories over and over and be stuck in my misery. I did not wish I could be different; I accepted that I was different. I did not wish I could drink, for the best day I had as a partier was never as special as being awake, energized, and impassioned about my life.

Divine order is scientific and is evident as the Universal Mind flowing through all things.We learn through life’s lessons and experiences that everything is happening right here and right now as it is supposed to happen. We participate with Divine order by using declarations and affirmations to influence events, circumstances and conditions in our world.

The demonstration of our good is evident through the laws of life which are always working.We have the ability to demonstrate and measure our good by being able to see and create what we desire. Many people do not believe they can have what they desire; therefore, they do not ask for what they truly want.They believe that to gain their desires they must rely upon themselves and their limited resources rather than asking God.We say in Unity,“we ask what and leave the how up to God.” How big is our demonstration? How big is our belief and how strong is our faith in God?

I am much more fascinated with near-life experiences, however. I do not know what happens when we die. I have a sense of it, yet no deity or God has told me to tell you what happens for sure. As a spiritual leader, I am going to continue to leave that mystery to my Creator. I am more interested in what happens while we are living than I am in spending my life in the unknown of what happens when we die.

I am more interested in not dying while I am living. I am more interested in teaching and facilitating processes that encourage people to have more life experiences rather than near-life experiences, or almost fully living experiences.

Henry David Thoreau wrote the book Walden. In it, he shared this inspiration, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unrecognized in common hours.” Life Rights is a part of my dream!

Thoreau’s freedom was compromised when he was jailed as a result of protesting the United States’ war with Mexico. This event had such a profound impact on him he wrote the famous essay “Civil Disobedience.” In this essay Thoreau wrote “...the state that is created for man whose power comes from the Divine and not the other way around.” Thoreau delivered a powerful message on the importance of freedom in that essay.

I feel Thoreau would have written a little differently today. Respectful of the time, I am not judgmental of his choice of gender specific words. We all have to move past a specific word or phrase to the core intent. We are blessed when we truly acknowledge the Divine Love of God in all regardless of color, gender, sexual preferences...when we know Namaste within and move beyond using the word as friendly greeting. There are many Life Rights violations, abuses of freedom. Our opportunity is right now. “Peace begins right here, right now” with each one of us when we allow the Consciousness of Divinity to emerge. This Divine Consciousness does not fuel the negative emotions surrounding negative events. Violations of Life Rights begin to be diffused with our strengthening consciousness that all life has the right to live their intentions in freedom and peace.

There is a wonderful quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Many people label their experiences as good and bad, and these labels define their realities. Oftentimes they say,“This is just the way I am. This is my reality.” People may get very comfortable with and accept what they have been told, or state that what is is all there will ever be in their lives.

Reality with a capital R is the absolute truth of God. Reality with a small r is that which we have labeled our truth. We are fortunate when the Reality of God and our reality go hand in hand. We can always change our reality if we are willing to draw from God’s greater truth.

First, you must realize you are asleep, then you are awake.
Then you must die, so you can be born.
You can not be born until you die and you can not die until you wake.
Jungian psychology

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I have always enjoyed the story of a multitude of people with Buddha wanting to know how he was so illumined and how he was such a healer and how he could change the vibration of darkness into light. As everyone was awaiting for the lengthy, complicated answer, he replied,” I am awake.”

The word author-ity is an interesting word.

Some people are the authors of their own lives, they live, they laugh, they learn. They tell a story that includes all factors of their life; the joy and the pain, the triumph and the tragedy.While others are authors of ity-bity stuff and they can’t seem to get out of the rut.

It is so comforting when we start to see how we have become wiser because of the hard work or the determination that we have put forth to improve ourselves. Wisdom is an attribute that we seem to appreciate more because of trial and error or through life experience and challenge. Standing up for who you are is empowering, yet it remains uncommon because most people are followers and do not want to be criticized for being different. In the word en-COURAGE-ment is the word COURAGE..it takes a true dedication to speak up for what you feel and honor your feelings.

Let all the lessons you have endured in your life give you the right to BE.

Meditation is essential to students of spirituality. To be still and know is one of our greatest assets in everyday life.

Whether experiencing meditation while sitting with soft music, or walking in meditation near water or at the beach, we are connecting to nature and to ourselves in these moments.

Meditation further develops our ability to see inwardly and to remain peaceful inside, regardless of outside circumstances. We draw from the wisdom that nothing can really happen to us, unless we allow it to happen through us.

Meditation is an amazing practice which clears the way for the “divine knowing” within all people. It creates a sacred space somewhere between what has happened and what is happening, allowing faith to reassure the spirit within. “All is well,” sings my soul.

There once was a king who offered a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried. The King looked at all the pictures, but there were only two he thought really captured peace, and so he had to choose between them.

One picture was of a calm lake. The lake was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy, white clouds. All who saw this picture thought that it was a perfect picture of peace.

The other picture had mountains, too. But, they were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky from which rain fell, in which lightning played. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a foaming waterfall. This did not look peaceful at all.

But upon closer inspection, you could see behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. And nestled in the bush sat a mother bird on a nest. There, in the midst of a storm and the rush of angry water, a mother bird had built her nest and sat upon it.. in perfect peace.

This was the picture that won the prize because the King realized that . . .Peace is not the absence of conflict, not the absence of storms, not the absence of rough waters, but calm and serenity right in the midst of it.