March books: spirituality

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One fun book and lots of spiritual reading this past month.  Tell me what you’re reading!

George Anderson’s Lessons from the Light: Extraordinary Messages of Comfort and Hope from the Other Side by George Anderson and Andrew Barone

I read this one because I was curious.  Apparently George Anderson is the world’s greatest living medium.  He’s worked with bereaved families to help them heal from loss by being in touch with the souls who have left their bodies.  He explains what it’s like to be a medium, what he experiences, and what it means and he reassures the reader about life and the afterlife.  I found comfort in the idea that all the things we wonder about will be revealed and that someone who may not have acted from love on earth can see his/her errors and apologize!

I have learned that a soul can be anywhere at any time just by thinking of something.  Remarkably, it works for us too… us just thinking of someone who has died can bring them to us.  It is for us to see and feel their presence near us.

“On the road of our spiritual lives here on earth lies the flickr of all things great in our universe — the Eternal Light that makes all things possible and becomes greater with each step.  You are not alone, and your loved one has never left you… The Infinite Light shows us every day the promise of things to come.”

I don’t know… a little too woo woo for me.

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Once Upon a Time, There Was You: A Novel by Elizabeth Berg

I think now I’ve read every Elizabeth Berg novel.  This one is different form all her others.  It’s about a long-divorced couple who come together to help their daughter.  It’s about independence, the power of family, and love.  Sometimes differences heal over time, sometimes you can forgive, and sometimes you find that you both have changed.

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The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew
by Alan Lightman

As soon as I saw that Alan Lightman was coming out with a new book, I knew I’d read it.  It’s a slim volume of essays and I read it (and enjoyed it) on a plane ride.  I can’t really say it better than this review does: “Not since Fred Hoyle in another era (and universe) has anyone dared to cover such a sweeping domain, and no one so elegantly, so parsimoniously, and so personally. From the triumph of the Higgs boson to the underlying discomfort of multiverses, from the question of God to the erosion of embodied presence via digital self-distraction, Lightman explores with wistful irony, lyricism, and insight his relationship as a theoretical physicist, a cosmologist, a novelist, a humanist, and a human being to the ever-changing and mysterious interior and exterior universes we all inhabit, knowingly or not. Any one of these essays invites deep reflection. Together, they disturb, inform, inspire, and delight.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

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Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred by Mark Nepo

This is a thought-provoking exploration of the art of listening.  Nepo proposes that just as there are 7,000 languages, there must be 7,000 ways of hearing them.  This engaging book asks the reader what kind of relationship we want to have with the people and the world around us.  It’s about receiving and coming home to ourselves.  Highly recommend.

“Consider the Polynesians, who believe that everything physical – stone, wood, a flower – everything has a numinous quality; that each thing on earth emanates an inherent Spirit that glows from within it.  This is another way to describe the moment where everything touches everything else.  We’ve come to call that inherent glow “life force” or “essence.”  When fully here, we touch what is before us life force to life force, essence to essence.  When asleep or numb or moving too fast, we only touch surface to surface.  And without that glow of life force, that glow of essence, things just get in the way.

“It seems that the feel of truth and meaning waits below the surface and it’s the heart of listening that allows the life force in all things to touch us.  It’s our ability to listen that saves us from the sheer fact of things.  What often starts as a moment of unexpected feeling becomes, if leaned into, a deeper way of knowing.

“So how do we listen in a way that allows us to be touched by life? It helps to stay devoted to moving below the literal fact of things.  For waiting under the surface, like an inner sun, the life force or heartbeat of the universe will reveal itself and connect us to the sheer power of what is vital in life, all through the heart and overflow of earnest listening, through a Beingness that keeps us alive.”

and

“To honor myself means that as I grow, I will not ignore or hide the parts of my soul and humanness that become more present in me and the world.  To honor myself means to make a commitment to keep the truth of who I am visible, that I will not let the truth of my Being become invisible again.  Or if it does, I will stay devoted to retrieving it.  To honor God means that we vow to keep all that we become aware of in view, that we will not pretend to be ignorant of things we know to be true or holy.  And if we forget or get distracted or derailed, we will stay devoted to retrieving the ever-present sense of the sacred.”

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Conversations With God : An Uncommon Dialogue (Book #3) by Neale Donald Walsh

I’m enjoying Neale’s 9-week “Living from your Soul” e-course and so I’m happy to have now read all three of these first (of 29!) of his books.  This series has changed the way I think and respond to every thing.  Seriously.

“What you think, you create.  What you create, you become.  What you become, you express.  What you express, you experience.  What you experience, you are.  What you are, you think.  The circle is complete.”

“I am A BEING.  Notice that “being” is not a thing, it is a process.I am not the result of a process; I am The Process by which I am created.  Everything you see in the heavens and the earth is Me, being created.  The Process of Creation is never over… This is another way of saying everything is forever changing.  Nothing stands still — nothing is without motion.  Everything is energy, in motion.  In your earthly shorthand, you have called this “E-motion!” You are God’s highest emotion!  When you look at a thing, you are not looking at a static “something” that is “standing there” in time and space.  You are witnessing an event.  Because everything is moving, changing, evolving.  Everything.”  

“You cannot comprehend God if you are thinking inside your current values, concepts, and understandings.  If you wish to comprehend God, you must be willing to accept that you currently have limited data, rather than asserting that you know all there is to know on this subject.” 

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What God Wants: A Compelling Answer to Humanity’s Biggest Question by Neale Donald Walsh

The short answer, in case you’re wondering: nothing.  God doesn’t need anything from us.  God is all-encompassing love.

“The point of having a God is to use the essence and the energy that IS God, and that is life, in a way that allows you to create your own experience, thereby becoming as God is: the creator.

“God cares for you by giving you the power to care for yourself.  Each human being has the ability to create his or her reality.  All human beings are creators, and we are creating our reality in every single moment of now.

“And it is not what you do in the moment of Now that is the most important element of the creative process; it is how you feel.  Your feelings create your inner reality, and your inner reality creates your outer experience.

“Feelings are created by thoughts and every thought is nothing more than an idea conjured up in your mind that is not reality, but is merely an idea — your idea — ABOUT reality.

“Once you understand this, you can literally decide to feel any way you wish about any experience you are having – and in that moment experience it in a new way if you choose.  You can even decide ahead of time how you are going to feel under certain conditions or circumstances.”

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I am also reading an entry a day in The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have by Mark Nepo.  My favorite passage from March was this one:

“After breaking many things in my life – hearts, heirlooms, robins’ eggs– I am humbled to admit that the only difference I see on Earth between being strong and being weak is the honesty which which we face ourselves, and share ourselves, blemishes and all.”

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What have you been reading lately? And are you on Goodreads? I’d love to connect there.

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