What are YOU serving?

These past couple of weeks have been extremely "trying"! Somewhere between the great divide and conquer, scatter the sheep and gather them again, black and white and all the grey areas in between, the "he" said & "she" said, the confusion and chaos, in darkness and light, the east coast and the west coast, numbers and figures, arguments and presentations, the lost and the found... in the deep recesses of my mind, my heart whispered...

What really matters to YOU?

Your values are an "activating intelligence" in your life, guiding you toward the noble tasks that are yours alone to do. There are moments in all our lives that "reveal" these values. Their significance lies not only in what meaning WE make of them, but also what we allow those moments to make of US.

If we are really honest with ourselves, we must admit that "our lives" are all that really belong to us, so it is HOW we use "our lives" that determines what kind of persons we are! And it is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find "life". I am convinced that the truest act of COURAGE, the strongest act of humanity is to SACRIFICE ourselves for something higher-that which WE believe in and love deeply! In essence "Our Why".

I wonder why it is that we so often "imprison" ourselves in the "opinions" of other people. There can be no greater punishment worse than conspiring in our own diminishment. (Getting caught up in the games people play-the tearing down of another to make ones self feel larger, pitting one again another with "gossip.") Yet liberation, ultimately, is a SOLITARY and stubborn affair, requiring old-fashioned cussedness and much rehearsal! Often, in "standing FOR what we believe in", others may misunderstand that PASSION and mistake it as ANGER. I am okay with that.

I am reminded of Jesus when he went into the Temple and turned over the "money-tables" and then took a cat of nine tales to the backs of those "merchants" selling mite infested doves to God's children to offer as a "sacrifice"...not "sweet" merciful Jesus. You see the Temple was to be a "place of prayer" and a "dove" was merely a "symbolic sacrificial offering" to God. The "offering" was supposed to come from the BEST one had to give of theirself. So those only concerned with lining their "coffers" SET-UP camp with a "substitute offering" and Robbed God's people of the sacrifice, and in the process broke the connection with God...all the while making a profit off their pain. Jesus's PASSION was for His People, and it enraged Him to see "merchants" whose only care was for "money" PREY upon His people...so he drove them out and exposed them for WHAT they were....profiteers only! They had no concern for those entering into the Temple in hopelessness in need of Mercy!

So, I have been asking the question all day today..."Where Am I Meant To BE Shining?"

Is "the life" I'm living "the life" that wants to live in me? The only questions that really matter to me are, "Who are you BECOMING?" and "WHAT KIND OF WORLD" are we leaving for the next generation? These words should move like a fire across all of our hearts. I hear it now...the silence that gathers as each of you read this blog. I know you are thinking, "I am only one person, how do I even dare to begin to think about these questions without feeling dispair?"

I float in the space between my questions...unanchored, unchained. I know most won't be able to answer them...most are reading this and scratcing their heads wondering have they entered into the Twilight Zone. Yet, I need to ask them, again and again, to use those questions to find MY way on this path...this journey of MYsoul!

There is a coolness to this summer breeze reminding me of the winter season. I wonder at this sweet and peaceful moment when the trees shed their leaves and stand barren before the cold chill of winter and the only "life" source is in the "roots" which have grown deeply hidden "beneathe the surface"! They are such a wonder, "connected" in the invisible, yet "seperate" as they emerge from the soil, reaching, THRUSTING themselves into this magnificently wide, blue-blazen sky that holds everything in its embrace!

I have a friend who is lonely she says, yet even now, when I am absolutely "alone", I feel "connected" to a community larger than I can even imagine. The deeper I go "into myself", the more "inter-connected" I realize I REALLY am---thus there is truly no ROOM for loneliness; therefore, I have come to realize that what most call lonliness is merely a lack of "connectiveness" to that which is defining Who we truly are. When we lose sight of Spirit, and the knowledge that we are FIRST Spiritual Beings, it is easy to get "caught-up" in the things of the "flesh" (gossip, pride, foolishness and mayhem)...all which sever the "spiritual connection". It is in those quiet alone moments when I feel the most alive.

I smile immensely at this moment for who I have been and who I WILL be when life was only a trail of tears, and for who I will be AGAIN when I forget what "truly matters in the overall scheme of things". I challenge you dear blog reader, to find the "fertile soil" in which the "seeds" of our dreams can "germinate" into lives that are free of the limitations of our PREVIOUS history, lives that are full, warm and RICH with amazement and AWARENESS!

I ask each of you, what are the "influences", the "activities", and the people that CAUSE YOU TO SHINE? What is a "metaphor" YOU would use to describe "the enviroment" that fosters YOUR wisdom and helps you to bring YOUR "gifts" OUT to the rest of us who are waiting for "them".

Are you truly your BEST with that certain friend who tears you down because they feel "less than" next to you. Does their "insecurity" CAUSE you to not trim your wick wherefore you SHINE "brightly"?

Can you grow in their shadow?

Self-Care is never a selfish ACT-it is simply good STEWARDSHIP of the only gift each of us has, the gift each of us was put on Earth to "offer" to others. Anytime we can LISTEN to TRUE SELF, and GIVE "it" the CARE required, we do so not only for ourselves, but for the many others whose lives we touch.