Love never fails to meet every demand of the human heart.

"Life requires that we trust the pieces before the puzzle is completed."
---Laura Teresa Marquez

"To trust in the force that moves the universe is faithFaith isn't blind, it's visionary.Faith is believing that the universe is on our side, and that the universe knows what it's doing."
---Unknown

"Have faith---God is near."
---Gabrielle Thompson

"...that I alone hold the definition of what I am."
---Montel Williams

"We can all be angels to one another. We can choose to obey the still small stirring within, the little whisper that says, Go. Ask. Reach out. Be an answer to someone's plea. You have a part to play. Have faith.We can decide to risk that he is indeed there, watching, caring, cherishing us as we love and accept love. The world will be a better place for it. And wherever they are, the angels will dance."
---Joan Wester Anderson

"Mankind understands Love as the ant understands the tree... Otherwise we would no longer be human. Rather, we would be awakened Gods in the flesh."
---Kent Wilson

"The greatest attribute of God is Love. The Tree of Life is located in the very depth of our soul. The most perfect and abundant fruit that grows and ripens is Life giving Love; it is the great healing force in the world. Love never fails to meet every demand of the human heart. The Divine principal of Love may be used to eliminate every sorrow, infirmity, in-harmony, ignorance and all mistakes of mankind. Love is God; eternal, limitless, changeless, infinite. It is the pulse of the world, the heartbeat of the Universe."
---Baird Spalding

"So you call yourself religious? Please don't do that if you're stuck in only one of the many traditions that manifest divine love. When you've found connection and inspiration from many religions, then you probably know more about divine love, and less about prejudice, ego and fear."
---Earon Davis



Mid-life is an empowering time. Yes, I am sure many would disagree. Afterall, the words "mid-life" are often followed by the word "crisis." But, to me, it is a time of great repetition which enables me to catch patterns and discover lessons I learned over the years via the wonder of hindsight.

I was just having lunch with an old friend. I was discussing lessons I learned over the course of my time on planet earth. For instance, how many times did I sell myself short as a young person? A lot. I felt like I couldn't wait, I couldn't hold on, or I failed to believe that life would provide me with my needs. My patience grew thin and I frequently made decisions based on peer pressure that was not in my best interest.

But, as much as I gave in, there were also many times where I stood my ground and I discovered great reward---almost as though I found gold at the end of a rainbow. I was an extraordinary young woman. I survived a lot. I learned a lot. I used great wisdom gleaned from the adults around me. I experienced much that I was proud of. And many people experienced pride regarding me. I was their child, their sibling, their niece, their grandchild, their student, their neighbor, etc.

The last four years of my life have been spent learning how to love effectively. And if there is one wish I had, it would be that I would have known powerful love throughout my life. But, that was not so.

In the beginning, my mother (and other relatives) taught me all sorts of things about love. I was breast fed. I was hugged and kissed quite often as I grew. I was verbally told that I was loved. I was given many presents and many parties. I had friends---some great, some not so great. But, somewhere along the Way I stopped knowing all-encompassing love, the experience of it, the feeling of it, the look of it.

Again and again, I began to question the circumstances that came into my life. And eventually I grew dim inside. Interestingly enough, most people that surrounded me as I grew would have said I was a happy, creative, directed young woman; but, I was not. I was scared quite a bit. I lived in a state of disappointment. I had high hopes that were often dashed for one reason or another. I felt hungry inside. I needed. And I failed to know how to get most of my needs met. I developed coping skills, many of which were not designed to really work well. They were designed to aid me in my survival, or they were designed to give me short term pleasure. Ultimately they magnified my since of lack.

Several years after the fact, I am in some sort of faith period. I know this, because I have visited this "place" before. Things don't appear to be moving. Everything seems stationary. The air even "smells" stale. My lungs literally struggle to consciously breathe in and breathe out. Yet really, the universe is constantly changing, moving, doing. Despite my inability to perceive much action, there is action. God is certainly constant, but very little around Him stays still. Life shifts! Perhaps that is why the Protestant Scripture says, "Be still and know that I AM." Because by settling down and opening our hearts, our minds, our feelings, and our senses, we can glimpse and know the fine movements at last. We can finally perceive whole patterns around us and in us. And we can then divine that we are an intricate, moving part of the universe. We are one with all. There is no true separation.

Recently, I tried to plant sunflower seeds. I wasn't too successful this go around, but I did learn that if you plant five seeds, one seed might sprout up lickety split. Then a second seed might follow a few days later. If one seed dies, another might survive. That too is like us and the story of life. We all grow and develop at our own unique pace. People enter the earth plane and leave the earth plane. Life (Chi, Prana) does not discriminate because of age, race, disability, economic status, and other such issues. We all are born. We all die.

So for me, I am starting to get that I can relax a bit here and there because life is happening all around me. Constantly. And God [Love] IS always about us and in us. The one permanent Truth to living.

However, last night I had a heart breaking experience. I was interacting with a new friend whose daughter is very ill, and has been as such for 28 years. But perhaps this is the time frame where the woman's daughter's stay on earth may end. An infection has been eating away at the daughter's physical body, and the young woman has become highly exhausted by trying to live on. She has suffered and suffered and suffered for a very long stint. I hurt for the girl. I hurt for my new friend. And then things suddenly felt even worse.

A question entered upon the scene. Did the daughter have the appropriate religious training? Would she be relayed to an eternity with God or an eternity in hell? In my mind today, there is no dividing line. I went through a nine year period where Christianity drove my life. I, too, once questioned my life in terms of God, punishment, sin and suffering. And then one day I woke to a different world. A world where I had suffered ENOUGH. A world where my chronic illness was not because I sinned and thus needed to suffer so I could return in repentance to God the all avenging Father.

The world I awoke to was full of love, hope and harmony. From that point, the Christ I knew was no longer denied by [my]our finite minds and [my]our closed hearts. The Christ I knew became cosmic and capable of eternal, unconditional love. I didn't just believe He was that. I knew it! I experienced the sense of His post-crucifixion love and then His post-ascension love like I never had before.

Please know that I had been growing in Christ since I was born. My mother was a dedicated Lutheran who came to personally know Christ in her early teens. I heard numerous times how she went through her baptism as a young person. Lutherans typically Christen people as infants so being baptized as a teen was very big deal. And following her baptism came her confirmation. Mom was completely determined to get her four kids to age 18. Furthermore, she was determined to provide her kids with a Christian education; and she did. We were regular church goers. We were, also, all confirmed as Lutheran believers when we reached the junior high level.

However, I became quite disturbed with the Church and God when I turned 17. I was very angry about my parents and how the family just disintegrated. I was, also, highly disillusioned by the adults and their behaviors in my local Church congregation. So not too long after, I became a wild child. That period lasted 3.5 years. And then, abruptly, I found myself ill with a chronic disease that affected my mind and my emotional balance. I felt damned.

I reached and reached and reached for some light. And eventually I cleaved to my Heavenly Father once again. I became a Christian zealot. I would find my forgiveness and God's love for me the Way I knew how. I would over achieve it into my life. God's grace would open my heart wide, and I would just exceed with all my thoughts and feelings into understanding the True faith and the Godly circumstance. Works were important but grace was everything. Yet, in many ways, mysticism was even more significant to me. I would love God and the world around me as much as I knew how. I made it to the Christian missionary field. I moved to Hong Kong. I wanted to do good, be good, love good.

I came home from Hong Kong riddled with pain and confusion. "Uhhhh...How could I return home sick and without much money to keep me afloat?" I tried and tried to have faith and know God with all my being. [Actually, I DID have faith, and I DID know God. I just didn't think I did.]

The process was unnerving. Church people [my brethren] far and wide became some of the most unGodly experiences of my existence. I heard it all. "God would strip me of everything if I didn't give it over to Him." "You can pray where you are. We don't need to pray for you." "Are you possessed [because my disease affected my brain and my emotional system]?" "Only those with the Gift of Tongues are truly born again in Christ." And on and on!

And then things went black. My path seemed endless and devastating. I didn't belong anywhere. I was empty trying to fit back into the Church. I had no bearings. I just began reaching out, reaching out, reaching out again to find some semblance of order and peace.

I fell in love with a dark horse who had left the Church early in his life after he was mamed severely by a group of his peers that hated him for his intense love for Jesus. I went through hospitalization after hospitalization as my health destabilized and continually broke down further and further.

And finally the light came my Way. I discovered unconditional love and forgiveness within a paradigm that I never knew before. I became my own person. I began to love myself. I felt the power of Christ in absolutely everything I came in contact with. I became highly syncretic. I created a loving universe inside my very own heart and mind. I breathed for the first time in years. I was free.

Over a series of stages I began to know God as never before. I defied the little world I used to submit to willingly, ignorantly. I began shrugging off the limited perspective of the Protestant Church. I retained Scripture, but I, also, burnt it from my heart. Paradox? Not really. As love opened my inner vision, I began to understand deeper truths laid out in the Bible. Love is very, very big!

Last night I was crushed that my new friend was feeling such crisis regarding her and her daughter's religious training. For me, now, it is very painful to watch others strain against the power of the Church. History reveals much weakness---from the very beginning---in the Church. Catholicism and Protestantism have been waging holy wars for centuries. The Holy Crusades' last battle has been evolving in Iraq even today. Westerners are superior to all. That is the bottom line.

I take a breath here and there, and then I tell myself to trust in the Sovereignty of an all-loving God.

Love encompasses the universe. It is virtually unimaginable! Love is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. Love is gentle, kind and patient. My Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. My Christ's body was broken for all of us. Every BEING. No exception! As we separate ourselves in fear, darkness, bigotry and strife, we will inevitably experience the power of healing, the power of love somewhere, some way.

My God holds each of us in the palm of His hand. Every hair on our body is counted and watched over. We don't get shoveled to hell because we live in Ethiopia and no one ever mentioned the name Yaweh. If we are a part of this universe, we are immersed in "Project Love." God is not a leave anyone behind kind of deity. God loves, loves, loves. Always!!! Forever. Since the day He conceived of mankind. We are His precious creations. He has been building our sweet and comfort-filled destiny since He experienced His own consciousness. Yes! Since THE BEGINNING.

Understand that man has been playing with various Scriptures and Dogmas throughout history. King James, alone, was a political expert. And, God has allowed the development of mankind always. If love is not the superlative, then the Scripture, the dogma is fallible. Love is the only complete Truth. God is Love first, last and always. Believe it. End any undue suffering. You are beautiful in God's heart and in God's eyes. Receive this love as soon as you can. It is important.