From the Public Page of my Private Journal 

The thought simply slipped from within the shadows of my mind . . .

 I think it is time to leave.

     Death.  We try as hard as we can to not think about it as though not thinking about it keeps it from knocking at our door.

    Of course, the specter from those shadows comes to the door of each of us at some point like it or not.

    Perhaps it is natural that at my age of 83 (now 90) I should find myself considering the shape of things to come.  Change comes at the blinking of an eye—whether it is ten minutes from now or ten years.  I am ready.

    There are things left undone.  How few of us truly wrap up loose ends in our lives before we change, before we move on to whatever awaits us at the turning of the page.  I have pledged to do as my mother had done, return as many things as she could to the people who had blessed her with them as gifts.  At her passing she was truly free of the burdens of things.  My pledge is so far unfulfilled, but I pledge to keep at it.

    I long ago developed my philosophy of afterlife reality.  I am satisfied that the beliefs I have come to are completely workable for me.  Those beliefs are shaped mainly by eastern religious philosophy.  For many years I have felt that so-called Christians had so diluted and polluted the teachings of Jesus as to make what is left bare threads of what his life truly represented.  Enough said about that.

    If I have regrets, and I do, they come from decisions made that were not so well thought out as I had believed.  Some of those decisions have caused harm to others.  Some, naturally, have benefited others as well as my own life.  I will stand judged not by some far off God, but by my own conscience, which I am certain may be harsher than a loving god would pronounce upon me.

    Not a day goes by that I do not give thanks for the life I have been blessed to live.  I consider myself most fortunate to have survived despite everything I have done to distract me from a course that might have been.  I may leave little trace of my presence this time around.  I will know, and I do, what I have accomplished.  I feel satisfied that I have contributed to the world in which I live, though few may ever know what that has been.

    Finally, I thank all of you who have walked, at least for a time, with me on the path.  You have given me more than you know, probably because I have failed to tell you so.  I tell you now with love and a grateful heart: Thank you!

    Comes also from the shadows of my mind the thought . . .

 Love never fails.

(Reposted from May 20, 2018)

Comforting Peace

It seems to me there are an unusually high number of people in transition right now.   I have noticed in posts to Facebook by my friends, or friends of friends, of loved ones in the process of moving on in life’s adventure.  Of course, the news is full of the almost daily deaths due to gun violence, much of it hitting closer to home than we ever imagined it would.

This challenges us in many ways.  We all know that the time will come for each of us.  Some of us are prepared to “be there” for our loved ones as they move closer to the time of parting from us physically.  Somehow we have found the love and strength to abide in the “peace that passes understanding.”  Still, it is never really easy to voice our final farewell.

When a tragedy of some sort comes unexpectedly, we are seldom ready.  At times such as that instinct often takes over and we are numbed to the tasks at hand that we must attend to.  We are enabled to move through the experience deciding, acting, and comforting others as necessary.  When the immediacy of the need passes, we may fall into our own quiet oblivion while we find our personal healing and renewal.  Perhaps these words from a man who was my mentor and my friend will encourage and strengthen you in your time of need as it has me many times.

I Am There

By James Dillet Freeman

Poet Laureate Of Unity

Do you need me?

I am there.

You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.

You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.

You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.

I am, at work, though you do not recognize my works.

I am not strange visions.  I am not mysteries.

Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I am, and then, but as a feeling and a faith.

Yet I am there. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.

When you need Me, I am there.

Even if you deny Me, I am there.

Even when you feel most alone, I am there.

Even in your fears, I am there.

Even in your pain, I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.

I am in you, and you are in Me.

Only in you mind can you feel separate from Me, for only in your mind are the mists of “yours” and “mine.”

Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.

Empty your heart of empty fears.

When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.

You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.

And I am in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there.

I am there because I have to be, because I am.

Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of Me does the world go forward.

I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.

I am the love that is the law’s fulfilling.

I am assurance.

I am peace.

I am oneness.

I am the law that you can live by.

I am the love that you can cling to.

I am your assurance.

I am your peace.

I am one with you.

I am.

Though you fail to find Me, I do not fail you.

Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never wavers, because I know you because I love you.

Beloved, I am there.

(A copy of “I Am There” is now on the moon . . .carried

there on the Apollo XV voyage by Astronaut James B. Irvin,

and left on the moon for future space voyagers)

What If I Die Without Ever Knowing Who I Am?

The source of many of my essays on LifeCentering come from email exchanges with friends who often ask questions or offer answers to my own.  Such is again the case with this item.

My friend and I have exchanged many emails searching for answers to questions I think many of us wonder about from time to time.  She sent me a course on healing techniques that had been helpful to her.  As I responded after getting started with the program we exchanged our skepticism about such highly hyped courses that seemed to promise “too good to be true” results if you would just give it a try.  In one of her emails she posed the following thought-provoking questions.

What if a person dies without ever knowing who he really is, once all the lifetime "labels" no longer apply, and not knowing absolutely that there is a supreme being and some form of continuing life?  Karma, reincarnation, God etc. are nothing more than words to me that may or may not be real. I want to think there is more to come in my life, but right now I'm clueless. Just a little light food for thought...or not.

A most intriguing series of life questions I thought.  I would like to think that whether or not we come to some understanding of the answers to those questions, Life will continue as "intended" and that essential part of us--call it spirit or soul--that somehow is imprinted with the reality of our purpose will continue to seek its fullest expression.  Admittedly this is a "statement of faith" more than an "understood" Truth, but it works for me.  I guess I remain impressed with the philosophy of Kierkegaard and his "leap of faith" proposition.  Ultimately, life requires that we take that leap if we are to proceed in understanding.  Here are a few of his thoughts on this subject gleaned from Web sources (and my memory of a college paper I wrote about his work).

What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die. [1]

Most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward others, frightfully objective sometimes—but the task is precisely to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others.[2]

For Kierkegaard, his belief in the ultimate need for the “leap of faith” has to do with his commitment to the reorientation of the self and acceptance of personal demands that go beyond what he generally knows.  While the phrase is often seen as taking a risk, for him it is meant in a specific way.

An objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness, is the truth, the highest truth there is for an existing person.[3]

There comes a point in time, it seems to me, that after gathering all the knowledge and insight that appears to be available to us, we must decide, “What now?”  We ask that question because our searching outwardly has not provided a satisfying answer.  It is now we must take our own leap of faith as it were, believing absolutely that we will land on solid ground.  My personal vision of this process was one of a person literally stepping off the edge of a cliff with no sight of a landing to be seen anywhere.  Through the years this vision encouraged me to trust that while I may not know how things were going to work out, I knew they would.  It was not necessary for me to be able to “see” the landing, only to take the step forward.  There were times, though, that I could not take the step.  That meant a kind of inertia immobilized me until I regained my commitment to the leap of faith.  You might liken the process to recharging your battery.  I looked upon the healing course given to me as one of those opportunities to recharge my batteries.

For those who hold no truck with the notion of faith, particularly in the religious sense, there may be no urge to care about wanting answers to questions they are not asking.  But for those of us for whom our belief has led us this far, we recognize our need to keep on keeping on with our search.  Continuing to seek inevitably leads to finding our greater truths. 

And because others have said similar things in ways, perhaps better than I, I share these two quotes from the same friend who started this whole notion of questioning “What if. . .?”

Sometimes it's hard to believe there's a God--to have faith in an unseen power--
To know there's a force you can call on for help in your darkest, most desperate hour.
I know it's not easy--I've been there myself, though our problems are not just the same.
I know how it feels when no one is there--when "God" is no more than a name.
But I'll tell you a secret: I pray anyway to something I can't hear or see.
I pray to the darkness. I pray to the night, or to what may be holy in me.
And sometimes--not always--there comes a deep change.
I feel peaceful, set free, and made whole. Is it God? Is it me?
Has some power of the universe helped me to heal my own soul?
I don't have the answers. I can't say for sure that what I believe in is true.
BUT IF GOD WERE A FACT, WE WOULDN'T NEED FAITH,
So I say: I believe...and I do.

--Author unknown

And from a novel, Out of the Shadows  by Kay Hooper. A character (scientist) with "no belief in a deity" offers this on something of us that survives death:

To me, that's not a religious thing--not a question of faith or belief, or any notion that surviving death is some kind of reward for a life well lived. It's a certainty. It's like knowing a tree sheds its leaves year after year, cultivating a new set each spring of its cycle. The tree grows and sinks its roots deeper and deeper, and wears a new set of leaves each spring, until it finally grows as large as it can, reaches the end of its life, and dies.

Our bodies are the...leaves of our soul?

Why not?...We tend to think what's real and lasting is only what we can see, but that doesn't mean we're right. Maybe our skin and bones and the faces we see in the mirror are really the most transitory things about us. Maybe we just wear our bodies the way that a tree wears its leaves, our physical selves being born and maturing and dying over and over while inside our spirits grow and learn.

Perhaps the greater truth will be discovered in wondering if we ever will know the full extent of our reality.  Is there a “culmination” to life?  If there is such a point, what must it be like?  If there is no end, then . . .?

Some things each of us must discover for ourselves.  There may be as many “answers” as there are people asking the questions!

---

[1]   Journal entry, Gilleleie (1 August 1835) Journals 1A

[2]   Works of love

[3]   Concluding Unscientific Postscript

What Goes Around . . .

In the Hindu society emphasis is placed on the cycles of life, death and reincarnation.  Simply stated this is the process of working through the varieties of conditions one faces as growth opportunities are presented to us.  The goal is to “get off the wheel” of life and death and experience the purity of a life lived without stain of discord, hatred or injury to others.  This is karma, or to put it another way, “What goes around, comes around!”

I could not help but think about karma in this somewhat humorous manner as I was exchanging emails with a long-time friend.  We were each sharing particulars of some life events and I automatically tried to see links in what I had experienced with something I had done to cause the event.  I first encountered the concept of karma while in seminary at Unity School in the middle 1950s.  James Dillet Freeman, then director of Unity’s ministerial school, was tutoring me in philosophy and religion.  We had extended discussions of the concept of reincarnation and I readily accepted the idea of having as many opportunities as one might need to come to a full expression of his/her true spiritual nature.  At that point one would be free of the cycle.

Through the years I have continued to develop my beliefs about the subject and of how karma works in my life.  As I was thinking about it today, it seemed almost humorous in how the concept is used to both accept and explain away a sense of current responsibility.  We can blithely comment “oh, it’s just karma,” when something happens in our life or in the life of a friend.  By that statement we are commenting, perhaps too casually, that a person is just getting paid back for something they did, usually in a previous life.  Thus, the notion, “What goes around, comes around.” 

Actually, there is much more to understand about how it works.  In the physical world, including our human experience, there seem to be “causes” and “effects” in everything.  When good things come about in our lives, we like to think we earned them through good karma.  However, it is often more difficult to think we deserve things that are less likeable in our experience.

It is about at this point in the discussion that I always realize I may have bitten off more than I can chew!  The subject does not lend itself to easy explanation, nor are the “unbelievers” likely to be convinced of my arguments!  So, I think to myself, why in the world did I start this essay?  I can only say that because I accept the principle of cause and effect in the world in which I live, I am always eager to understand how I can set into motion better causes and reap better results.  In the worst of times I just want to “get off the wheel!”  In the best of times I hope that perhaps this is the last time around.  Who really knows?

Lacking a more thorough consideration of the subject I accept that what goes around comes around!  (And I enjoy a good laugh at life’s foibles!)