Jabba the Frog

I've started swimming again, and loving it. The water is cold for July, due to the very cool weather and thunderstorms we've endured. But today the bright afternoon sunshine invited me to play, and of course I did not resist.

But as I swam about, I was startled to see a frog, resting like a tiny 'Jabba the Hutt' (from the movie Star Wars), regarding me unblinkingly from his perch. This perch being a bulge in the blue pool liner - above the water, and just under the upper rim of the pool.

This may be the same frog I captured in my hands and tossed out of the pool yesterday, or the one my grandkids spotted last weekend, though I can't be sure. Yesterday's frog was on the northern rim of the pool, possibly trying to escape, so I thought I might have been doing him a favor. In any case, I wondered. Can a frog ever get OUT of the pool, once it has gotten in? Are there bugs and food enough for such a being?

Also, there was the matter of his skin color - apparently bleached from the chlorine that 'cleans' the pool. Both frogs - today's and yesterday's - have that skin color. It's a bit creepy to behold, but otherwise they seem quite normal. Of course it is possible that there are not two frogs, but only one,who chooses to live right there, fat and calmly watching me.

Well Jabba, I say, I don't mind you being there if you don't mind me. May this pool be good for both of us. And maybe I'll see you next sunny day.

Kicking Against the Pricks - in politics and in life

Checking my email, today's Abraham message says:

You cannot notice what-is and complain about it, and be a vibrational match to the solution. When you were living the problem, you were asking for the solution, and Source said yes immediately. So, there's never a reason for you to be wallowing around in a problem for more than about a second. You can get so good at this that before you're even aware that the problem has gotten started, you've already got the solution under way.
-- Abraham

This message is the response I intuitively feel when I read the daily political emails. I remember Jesus' words: "it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks" (Acts 9:5). Imagine the futility of kicking your bare legs against the thorns. You make no progress, but get scratched and bloodied up every time.

If divine Love is already giving our most blessed outcome to us - in spirit, and poised for manifestation in and as our lives - we need to be glad for it, open our thoughts to how good it is for us and for everyone, envision how it works, flesh it out in thought and deed. Make ourselves ready for it!

The longer we spend kicking against the pricks (thorns and old ideas), the less we are giving our powerful creative attention to the good that is wanted - and would appear, but for our persistent kicks.

My two cents,
Citizen Gail

in the BlackBerry patch...!

Lord help me, I am the proud and confused new owner of a BlackBerry Curve phone/camera/browser/GPS/and who knows what else! This is a world of multiple applications, teeny-weeny keys, brilliant displays, and and and... Even my BlackBerry for Dummies book is not a huge help, though I did manage to upload my first group of pictures to my computer this morning, and emailed them.

Still, the device is truly exciting for its possibilities. Instead of a purse bulging with all the devices I like to carry (cell phone, camera, notebook, etc) I have this slim little thing that fits in my pocket!

All I wish for now is a BlackBerry buddy, a patient friend who can guide me through the BB world. Still, I think the main person who needs to be patient - is me. When I think of the s t e e p learning curves I've already managed in my years as a computer programmer, I know that even this one will eventually yield and become second nature. Be curious... be kind to self... trust there is an answer... know that Love is guiding me... and it does.

Meanwhile, across the ocean, my grandaughter Megan is experiencing summer as an exchange student in Finland! She competed for and won this scholarship, and I am immensely proud of her. Not only that, but she is blogging her experience at http://summerinsuomi.blogspot.com/ and it is a very fun read!


Gail

My highest wish...

To know God so clearly,
completely, innocently,
that all that is unlike Love
vanishes as morning mist
in the morning light.

gail 5/9/09

Economy and Generosity

As I watch news reports of stock market losses, home foreclosures and business failures, a small resilient voice in me says, "God hasn't gone anywhere, lost any power, stopped being Love and stability and endless provision." And I know that we as God's ideas, his very likenesses, have similarly lost none of our spiritual power, creativity and intelligence.

So what's the problem?

Humans seem to be very easily influenced by fearful thoughts echoing round about them. Holding these fearful thoughts naturally tends to create the very circumstances that have been imagined. It's hard to break out of what amounts to a mass hypnotic vibration of fearful thinking.

Except if one knows to turn to a much more powerful thought, the eternal truth of our being alive in God, divine Love. "There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling" (Psalm 91). Knowing, feeling, and abiding in God's love is the surest way to a deeply nourishing and fruitful life.

So how to respond? Yes, by knowing these sustaining truths. And by humbly listening for the guidance that naturally comes as we align ourselves with these truths.

One clear thought I've had is to practice generosity - to be as generous with others as God is with me. I don't live in a mansion on earth, but I do have heavenly riches - and so does everyone. These riches are invisible, but they can be experienced in prayer, and they can be offered in love.

At the same time, I notice that my closet is bulging with clothes I've outgrown or no longer wear. Someone could use these clothes. I will give them away. My bookshelves are weighed down with wonderful books that are waiting for new readers. They can be offered with gratitude for the goodness in my life. Truly, there is no end to the good that can be shared, if we just know how to look.

With love,
Gail

What does it mean to be spiritual?

Question of the week on http://www.spirituality.com/question/index.jhtml

My answer:

It means to sense the greater Consciousness in which we live and move and have our being. To sense it in a constant, companioning sort of way, and be guided, inspired and transformed as we make our heavenly/human day.

Gail West Greenwich, RI USA

January 20, 2009 - Inauguration Day

Waking around 3AM… Today is Inauguration Day for Barack Obama, and I may as well get up and write my joy.

All the months of yearning, hoping, reaching for a better concept for my country and my life – me and millions of others – is finally, today, bearing fruit. We’ve felt it coming for months, years, from that first nomination speech for John Kerry, back in the summer of 2004. We listened to it, gathered around an ‘illegal’ portable radio with a coat hanger for an antenna, in our tiny Edgewater 3 cabin, and felt ….We can be better…We can be whole…We can at last fulfill the promise of America.

One of the beautiful things about Obama is his use of the word ‘we’. We the people. It’s not all about him, one man, one leader. It’s about us, what we can become, with a clear enough vision, and with hearts united.

This summer I listened to Barack read his Audacity of Hope book on my MP3 player. I learned his life, his worldview, the depth and breadth of his thought. I have been companioning with him in my heart. I felt compassion when his beloved grandmother, ‘Toot’, passed from this life on the day before the election.

Now we are become like “the first fruits of them that slept” …the long nightmare of suppression of human vitality is coming to an end… as the audacity of hope wakes to the confidence of what men and women can truly become.

How thankful I am to be living in this time.