Never There

Whenever I put my blogs together for The Prophet Within, the writers training in me wants to make sure I have a beginning, a middle and an end. This one is more of a stream of consciousness style. It's almost like I want to try to work out some questions, but I can't do them in my head, so I put them here. Input is certainly invited, like on any of the other post.

The Law of Attraction and the Power of Now also surface here, so I'll be trying to figure where they play in the scenario. Is this about my ego? Not ego in terms of what people think they know about Freud, but as defined by Eckhart Tolle - the voice in your head trying to convince you that you are merely your body, rather than the spiritual being you truly are.

To the source of my trepidation. My 18 year old daughter is apartment searching because she wants to move out of her mothers house before she graduates. Since we're only two months before her graduation, that seems okay. The place she's most seriously considering is near the university where she will enter as a Freshman in the fall. It's a reasoned and rational decision and she wants me to look at the place tomorrow to sort of give it the stamp of approval. No problem yet.

Then last night she called, wanting to know if I would go with her to look at a new bedroom suite, which would include everything she needs. The person selling it is putting it out there at a pretty good price and we'll have to travel about 30 miles to get to it. I asked my daughter why she didn't want to use the set that she has now. This became a slowly escalating issue starting with her saying it's falling apart. Well, her mother and I haven't been getting along so I haven't been in my daughters room at that house for a while, so I didn't argue that point.

But it kept going. They were closer to make a trip but she said her mother was too busy to be bothered with it (paraphrasing her words) and then she said, "nobody is ever there for me. I'm used to it." We fell into silence after which she said she had to go to get directions to the place.

I sat there stunned with my phone in my hand, staring at it but not seeing it. In never even got a chance to say I would go. In my head, I was screaming about how I've been there for 18 years. No, her mother and I didn't work out, but I never ever abandoned my little girl. I thought back to all the times I bent over backward physically and financially, how I argued with my wife about her, how I argued with my ex about her, how I supported everything she ever wanted to do.

I. I. I.

I, as in ego. The ego was banged up after that exchange and that dropped my emotional state because the ego was screaming so loudly that I identified with that, rather than my true self. It's obvious the battle with the ego is not over Those thoughts are evidence of that. Controlling the thoughts is key and that's where my efforts continue.

But the other part that I mull over is this: how did I attract this reaction from my daughter. I love her more than breath. To have her feel this way is disheartening. I'm not looking for a pity party or want to sound like "woe is me," but I do want to turn around that feeling. She is a huge source of gratitude, which is positive energy to send to the universe. That hasn't and won't change. I just need to make my ego shut up so I can concentrate on the unfinished business with my daughter.

Start a Smovement

A friend shared this with me and I thought you might be interested in seeing it as well. It could be the start of a smovement.

You are at my service and I am at yours.

I Never Get Sick

I used to brag to my family and friends that I never get sick. The last time I had a real illness, until recently, was a case of pneumonia back in 1989. At that point, when the brag was made, I had a pretty good track record. Recently years have been a little different.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a "woe is me" story of how I have become bedridden, but I have had my share of health challenges in recent years. For example, 3 years ago, around this time, I was bitten by a black widow spider. We don't know when and we didn't even find the corpse until months later, I just noticed a bite area and figured it was some insect, like all the others that wake up in the spring. The bite area grew in size and got warmer and I went to the doctor. Until that point, I had the stereotypical black man's aversion to the doctors office. No real reason for it these days, but it was there.

When I found out that I was being admitted to the hospital, I began to worry about my obligations to work and family. In my head at the time, nothing would get done because I'd be in the hospital and I wouldn't be able to do it. I barked orders to anyone within earshot while the pain got worse. That is until my wife, to the joy of many, told me to shut up. I had great back up systems at work and she would take care of home. At that point, I gave in to the pain medication and let go of the control I fought so hard to maintain.

It took at week in the hospital and a week convalescing at home before I was ready to return to work. Since then I've had gout flare ups and the occasional flu, but I'm back to my original mantra, though I've adjusted it somewhat. Over the last week a wicked stomach virus took me down and an attack of gout right after that. Consequently updating my blogs hasn't been top most on my to do list. But now I notice a difference in how I'm handling things.

True to my spiritual journey, I took the ego out of my illness. Notice the descriptions above. I was acting all on ego when I had that serious illness 3 years ago. None of that was coming from an enlightened place. Nothing would get done without me? Really? Today, I realize that taking care of my body is much more important while I'm here. Not from the point of ego, but because my spirit resides here temporarily and I should do what it takes to make sure it works properly.

Also in my recent combined illnesses, I found myself sleeping a lot. I called into work Wednesday and slept most of that day and night. And on Saturday, while not sleeping as much, I was resting for quite a bit of the day. It occurred to me that what I was doing was manifesting health. I wanted to be healthy so my body slowed me down so it could work on the healing process. Those two days did wonders for me and, while my knee is still a bit tweaked from the lactic acid crystals that cause gout, I'm back to being the picture of health, with a redesigned credo. You see, if I continue with "I never get sick" I'm coming from a place of sickness and there's a negative in there, too. The Universe only hears the positive.

To have the Universe help me, the new motto is, "I'm always healthy."

A Christian Plus Observes Easter

I have described myself as Christian Plus because people tend to feel more comfortable when they can categorize things or people. And as a Christian, this is a most sacred time, the resurrection of the main manifestation of the religion. The story of the Ascension has close parallels to the other spiritual teachings that I have attracted to myself. And that's what it is. The Law of Attraction says that I will attract what I want and I have been on this spiritual search for quite some time now.

As we go back in the story from the Gospels, what Jesus goes through closely follows life. You have successes and challenges and you do extraordinary things to overcome them. Not miracles as laid out in the Bible, but we create small miracles every day along our journey. We see suffering. We experience suffering. All the while, we understand that we are children of the Creator. And, if we can, we teach others how to achieve their own happiness through the spirit. When you live life through gratitude, your vibrational frequency allows you to manifest you desires. Sounds like the same thing Jesus taught about prayer, doesn't it?

Then there is the Resurrection itself. As Christians believe, Jesus died and on the third day, arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven to be with God, the Creator, his Father. Now what are the metaphysical teachings about what and who we are? All the teachings on the subject tell us that we are energy, or soul, inhabiting this physical body. In other words, we are formless inside the form. When this form, which we all understand to be temporary, is finished, or dies, we return to the formless. Physicists tell us that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. Now apply that to the Resurrection and you will see the parallel. We die, or more accurately the bodies dies, and we return to the energy state from which we came. See the similarities?

So as we're in the season of Easter, the Christian faiths observe it as the proof of the Messiah. Muslims see Jesus as a great prophet. The Jewish faith celebrates passover at this time as Jesus is not part of their religion, but they do observe an important time in their religion. For a man who says he's Christian Plus, Jesus showed us behavior that we try to emulate to this day. Through the Gospels  wed see both the religious and the spiritual journey to the future. This collection of skin, bone and muscle will wither and we will be transformed to our higher formless selves.

I mean no disrespect to the other Easter icon, but I like that thought better than the weird rabbit that leaves eggs around the house. His chocolate replicas, though? I'll have a bite of that, thank you.