I’m back from my adventures back East! It was a wonderful mixed bag of people, places, and events, including 2 family reunions. Now my summer vacation is officially over and I’m back to the new school year at Ele’ele Elementary. Well, I’m furloughed today and tomorrow, but we can go in anyway after 2:45, which we have to do or chaos reigns Monday, when the kids arrive.

 

I’m meeting some challenging issues in my life. My 6 month old granddaughter has optic nerve hypoplasia, which means limited vision at the least, and possible brain damage at the worst. My son is meeting himself and a huge child support debt, and may face jail time, and my dear mother is fighting for her life with stage IV cancer of the tongue and throat floor. My “A Course in Miracles” lesson today is, “I am not a body, I am free. For I am still as God made me. I choose joy instead of pain.”

 

Yes, it’s always a choice. It may seem insane to some to choose joy when a mother is facing death, a child is facing jail, and a grandchild will have to live with a disability, but not if I choose to see them as they truly are, as Spirit, perfectly made, and incorruptible. It’s been a great help to remember Who they are in all of their life experiences. Also, what they are experiencing is some form of projection from their minds…. something that they think they have to experience. The  baby chooses joy instead of pain as well. She’s "reading”, rolling, babbling, and laughing a lot. My mother is going to summer concerts in the park in the evening after her biotherapy and radiation. My son is working on his house to sell it to pay off his fines.

 

I’m the one who has to remember to choose joy instead of pain or worry. I forget sometimes, and I can really bring  myself down. That is why I have to spend time repeating the lesson, or even meditating to shut out the 3D world with all of its misrepresentation. But I’ll soon be cutting out triangles, rectangles, and the like, and filling my room with the wonderful knowing that even though I teach Special Education, and my children have disabilities, they are perfect Spirit…worthy to receive love and give love, worthy to live a great life because they have what the world really needs, LOVE. We all have it, but sometimes we can accept if more from one with no guile.

 

Love rocks! Enjoy the wealth of the Love that you are, and give it away, and open to receive it. It will lead you to fulfillment in your life.

I hope to be at the Lihue Airport in 12 hours, enroute to the East Coast to see family and friends, and to introduce baby Rilynn to our family. I haven’t traveled with a baby in tow for some time, so it will definitely be an adventure, especially the 9 hour flight from Honolulu to Charlotte, NC.  I'm hoping it will match Rilynn’s night sleep time, the best, so we’ll load us up with prayers and a positive attitude and Joshua, Christina and I will take turns passing her around if we need to.

 

I wanted to write my blog before I went to bed, but was just too tired to think straight. I lay down, and did my evening “A Course in Miracles” meditation, and then just couldn’t sleep. So here I am at the keyboard, sending you lots of love. In fact, that seems to be the theme of the trip. Periodically there are 10 days of Lesson review in the workbook, with  a general theme to the review. The general theme for the next 10 days is, “God is but love, and therefore so am I.” Workbook lesson 171.

 

That’s a great theme to take to two family reunions, don’t you think? Oh I know that I can’t talk about the non-reality of this 3-D world, and how it is a world completely different from our true home of spirit, but I can do my very best to love, no matter what comes my way.  I can just live the truth I believe. Actually everyone does that all the time. We can tell what a person cherishes by what he or she talks about, reacts to, and generally gives energy to.

 

So will I fall into old patterns that I want to drop? Will I be able to return a smile  when someone says something that I  interpret as unkind or will I just be able to do what I did with my daughter when she came home from school one day saying” _uck you!” I pretended that I didn’t know the word, and kept asking her what she was thanking me for. It did extinguish the behavior.

 

Can I pretend that barbs don’t hurt? But wait, I am seeing the past. We haven’t had a real family gathering for 7 years. I’m sure we’ve all matured into fabulously loving folks, confident enough not to need to try to split friendships or relationships. This is going to be a great gathering time, because God is but love, and therefore so are you.

 

What is required of us is so terribly simple…. Just still our chattering minds and open our hearts and minds to receive the gifts of God.  For years I have pursued an active form of meditation that lead me to a still point, and I would feel peace and Light. That connection helped me cope with divorce, deaths of loved ones, handicapped family members, alcoholism, and more. I didn’t just cope, I thrived, and my family thrived. I tended my life with the blessings of God that I received in meditation, and gratefully appreciated the surprises offered me in life. Most of them were delightful, and the ones that knocked me down made me stronger when I got up, after kicking and screaming.

 

But was that it? Aren’t I supposed to walk on water or something? Shouldn’t I have been able to save my daughter from dying? Isn’t that what a great spiritual teacher would have done? And isn’t it really a sickness of the spirit that consumes people when they are ill?  What am I supposed to do then Beloved???

 

Ah! Wait Annaleah, did you say you thrived in adversity as the world judges it? Might that not lead people to think that there might be something more to life than what their senses report? Spirit says look past what the eyes see, and use the vision of our spiritual selves. Bodies can die, but we can’t die. We are spirit pure and strong. Spirit doesn’t hunger, or want. It is complete.

 

If we carry the Grace of that in adversity, then we teach much more than any words we can say. If we are meant to heal, we will. I have humbly been a tool for Spirit in that way too. But I continually need to reign in the need to be the one in control. Ooo boy, all the shrinks will have a trip with that, to which I say, it’s so terribly simple, and so terribly difficult.

Have you ever thought of the benefits of holding a grudge? I mean, what benefits can there possibly be for the grudge holder except for some form of a loss of love that the or she could be receiving if the relationship was intact. I love very much a father and his daughter. I’ve known them for years, and watched the daughter grow up. Sadly, about 3 years ago, some incident occurred that left them not speaking to each other. It may have something to do with a new girlfriend the father had, and both of the women being threatened by the other, I’m not sure, but for three years there’s been a demand that each apologize to the other side.

 

Recently because of an upcoming family reunion, the daughter apologized, but then it wasn’t enough, and a list of more things that were needed by the father, and/or the girlfriend surfaced. I know that the family of these two have been asked by both sides to take sides, but they’re all backing off from that, which is the right thing to do, because when people take sides they increase the problem, and alienate  the other side.

 

The father told his sister that he wouldn’t go to a house where the daughter was staying. So he tried to force her into taking sides. The sister didn’t like that because instead of choosing to love them both, she felt manipulated into choosing rejection for one. So a grudge can build something toxic that reaches outside the situation.

 

But the sad thing is, what if the story was released? What if they decided to remember the love that they enjoyed so much a few years ago? They would be receiving love from each other, which is very healing. I asked the daughter what she was supposed to apologize for, and she couldn’t remember.

 

Did I mention that conflicts can lead away from the needs of the problem to some tangent of negative behaviors? If we focus on what we want, we have a better chance of getting it. If they want love and respect from each other, they could ask for that, rather than what keeps alienating them from each other.

It’s my mother’s birthday on Friday, and I decided to enclose some peace quotations I offered at a party that I gave awhile back. She’s told me that she needs no more “things”, at age 87, so I thought, well, let’s go for an inner experience. If we think about what people want to experience in their beings, we can follow the trail to peace.

 

If I’m busy in my career, it’s so I can make enough money to retire, and experience the peace and freedom from having to be somewhere or do something when I may not want to. If I’m a power freak, it’s so that I can experience some perceived idea of being in control of everything, which would  seemingly lead to peace. You get the idea. Too bad we don’t just go for the peace.

 

In going through the quotations, I saw one from Mahatma Ghandi that just stopped my mind. [I love it when that happens.] We think of the strong and brave as physically strong, and emotionally brave. But true strength comes from within. Here it is:

     “If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive. If you want   to see the heroic, look at those who can return love for hatred. “ Mahatma Ghandi

 

It’s huge to be able to see someone as a perfect, lovable Child of God when they are in your face attacking you for something that you may or may not have done. But what would happen if we did? Science has proven that the elements in this 3-D world respond to our conscious thoughts. I think that Jesus could resurrect his body because He knew that as humans we didn’t know what we were doing, and He looked past that to our true natures that would never have put him on the cross. Therefore He was able to overcome the effects of that action. He was living proof of the power of forgiveness. Or maybe He was a master of matter in this world, knowing its illusory nature.