Gazing in the Mirror

March 29 - When Our Water Becomes Polluted

Where have you been?
In the ocean of purity.
Now I am ready for more
cleaning work. If there
were no impurity, what would
water do? It shows its glory
in how it washes a face ...
~ Rumi

Life long habits of wrong thinking
can be consciously and deliberately
neutralized, and an entirely new
order of mental and emotional reaction
established in mind. Merely to
abstain from wrong thinking is not enough;
there must be active right thinking.
~ Ernest Holmes

Today with calm acceptance I am a bit sad without abandoning hope. So not really knowing what to write for today, I looked for inspiration in a bunch of spiritually based musings and considered in what ways each of these speak to me personally. First I encountered this beautiful poem by Rumi in which he describes how we move inside grace – "When our water here / becomes saturated with pollution, / it gets led back to the original water, the ocean. // After a year of receiving starlight, / the water returns, sweeping new robes along. // Where have you been? In the ocean of purity. / Now I am ready for more cleaning work. / If there were no impurity, what would water do? / It shows its glory in how it washes a face, and in other qualities as well,".

Ernest Holmes gives me a perspective on my youngest sister in her confusion and entrapment – "Therefore, I affirm that my sister's body is the body of right ideas. It now is the Body of God. Every organ, action, and function of it is in harmony. Whatever does not belong to my sister's body is eliminated. Whatever does not belong is removed. All the energy and all the action and power and vitality there is in the universe is flowing through this Divine Creation now. My word does actually eliminate that which does not belong in my sister. It does establish the action of that harmony that already exists. There is One Life – perfect, harmonious, whole, complete. That Life is my sister's life now – not yesterday, not tomorrow but today". Because I know that awareness is the primary source of my sister's expression – I can know these things for her by knowing them for myself regarding her.

I wrote to my family and friends today that my heart cannot give up, "I keep the door of my heart spiritually open for miracles on her behalf." – so many of the words recorded by others in my reading this day lend their loving insight and remind me of my sister's circumstances. What to do ? There is actually "nothing" to do. But I won't close down. It's painful, all of it, but I know what's needed from me right now is to remain open – to what is – and to possibility. I don't have to close down. I can keep loving my sister and loving my parents for she impacts their lives to a greater extent than my own. There's nothing else for me to really do but this and this I feel I must do – continue loving – even while allowing that suffering will occur or pain that will be present. It's only "my" suffering if I allow myself to suffer. I wonder – am I strong enough now to sit in the presence of all of this pain and suffering and simply allow it to be ? It's like some kind of "test" but the heart already is capable of remaining in awareness and witnessing whatever is and yes, still continue to love.

Can I really know that the way things are, aren't the way that they should be ? No, I don't know that. I believe that all of this that has been happening now for years is a kind of cleaning out and I've no idea how much has been removed or remains to be removed and like much of Life will never be entirely "clean". Everyone is exactly as they should be in this moment. I can wish that it wasn't as it is now but that is only my "wishing" and does not make it so in reality.

Do we know that we are the essence of that of which miracles are made ? Other people's prayers for me when they were concerned about my own well-being did have an effect. So even being concerned or resisting "reality" is not being anything other than what the person is. The great All-That-Is uses it all, uses us all. We can fight against reality and most likely will cause suffering for ourselves. Life has never told us that we must suffer in order for It, the Life Force, to use how we are for It's own purposes. We can't mess things up for It – It already knows what we are going to do because It is us. It knows that we will fight against reality and it will use that. It knows that we will adapt and accept whatever is and It will use that. The only person that can be confused or unhappy is our own self. We can't be happy states of being for anyone else and It is not those subjective states for us but It will always be aware of however we are choosing to BE in any given moment.

By miracles, I always mean only the most natural of occurrences in the world of form and effect that no person looking on from the outside would realize was in any way miraculous. But I might know what a miracle it truly was. I can appreciate the miracle but I should not expect anyone else to "see" that it was "that", not unless they were meant to "see" it that way. A miracle is simply truth shining through into reality clearly without any obstruction. We do not need to force a square peg into a round hole or force anyone else to buckle under to our demands of them. Grace is – when everything happens for us supporting our highest good and well-being – if we let it. I do not need to live from a "correcting place". I don't have to fix things unless I do and regardless of what I choose it is all perfect. Today I cry the tears that my sister cannot even cry for her own self. I cry for whatever has brought her into this state of being, for whatever wounding has left her as she is. I don't condemn her and I don't truly know what she needs to free her own self from the murderous maniac in her that she runs from.

~ perspective

I can have a question in
my mind and awareness will
bring the answer to me.
I can recognize that a
burden is not mine to bear
yet still appreciate the
difficulty of it for the bearer.
Awareness is always there
even though we can't see it,
I can hear It speak in my
own voice or with the voice
of other people.
Interpretation comes from
my heart, from my subjective
experience and from whatever
knowledge or wisdom I have
gained in a lifetime of living –
that does not make it Truth
nor does it make it not true.
Love becomes real through
our words, our hands and
our thoughts about others.

#acceptance #cleansing #family #grace #hope #love #miracles #prayer #siblings #truth