The Global Conversation

Tag: Conversations with God

  • 50 miles in 50 states in 50 weeks…on my 50th birthday

    On February 7, 2011, I began a 2500 mile “walk the walk and talk the talk” journey for Peace. My intention was to walk 50 miles, in all 50 states, in 50 weeks, in conjunction with my 50th birthday, while spreading the message to anyone who would listen that Peace is our natural state and, to assert that conflict is generated by fear. Moreover, to declare that fear is the result of uncertainties about life. With support from my husband, family, friends and many complete strangers, I achieved this goal on January 21, 2012.

    As humans being provide an integral role in the biosphere (indeed, we are the embodiment of Nature) , I became determined to illustrate that our precious Mother Earth not only demonstrates our inherent peacefulness, but is the perfect model for equanimity. I felt that by demonstrating Nature’s synergy, her impulse to grow effortlessly in an expression of life, to adapt and seek harmony, to thrive efficiently and without waste and to protect only when growth is threatened, that she reflects the most sublime aspects of our being. I believed that with thoughtful consideration, the obvious conclusion would be that something against our nature was creating fear for, devoid of Ego or uncertainty, Nature is certainly fearless!  The effort to capture this concept produced a small book entitled, “From Fear to Eternity: A Path to Peace” that I distributed in every state.

    For me, the Peace Walk was both confirming and illuminating. As most of the 2500 miles was completed on trails, paths and walkways, I was privileged to witness a variety of natural ecosystems and their exquisite coherence. What I didn’t expect was that there is a flourishing network of parks and trails that is literally, reconnecting our country to Nature and to each other. Urban and rural, metropolitan cities and small towns have been and are creating pathways to encourage outside activity, alternative transportation routes and unity amongst the residents. Given the “nature” of the walk, I was most encouraged to find that a majority the 100 or so trails that I traversed were very well-kept and inviting.

    I was also instilled with an abundance of hope for our future. Despite what may be perceived in the media, our country is truly ready for a return to a simpler, more natural time which, invites and requires a reconnection with one another. I found this evident in the profusion of markets, community gardens, outdoor gatherings and ubiquitous “green” practices, as well as, the many discussions about the desire to find a “common ground.”

    Anyone who has read the miraculous Conversations With God series knows the primary tenet is that all Life is unified and its essence is Love. Never, in the history of the world, has the need to evoke this awareness been more crucial. Where we have slowly disconnected ourselves from Nature, we have also disassociated from one another and, until we restore that unity, we will suffer the mire of internal and eternal conflict. We have created a world, disparate of Peace, because too many have allowed the belief that we are separate to supersede our knowing we are ONE.  Now is the time to cease our illusion of division and move “from fear to eternity.”

    (Cassandra Curley, BA, LMT, Author and Messenger of Peace, has studied and been active in the fields of Wellness and Spirituality for more than thirty years. Her journey on the path to find her own inner peace has led her to understand Universal Truths that have been veiled by a false paradigm of judgment. During this critical time in history, while there is willingness for change, her mission is to help illuminate these hidden truths and assist others toward a movement of PEACE. She resides in Winter Springs, Florida with her husband of 28 years, Mark and can be reached through www.cassandracurley.com .)

    If you have a Guest Column that you would like to submit, send it to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.  Not all material submitted is accepted for publication, but we appreciate each submission.

     

     

     

  • Hung up and held back

    The accepted definition of “addiction” in the medical community is “continued use in spite of negative consequences.”

    Now combine that with Conversations with God’s definition:  We experience addiction when the absence of something in our life renders us unable to experience joy and happiness.

    Let’s look at humanity’s addiction to our story.

    What is “story”?  Story is a tool the ego uses to protect the small us, the physical sense of who we are.  An observation of mine is that most beings are living in a distorted reality as a result of our ego protecting what it has made up about what it imagines we are lacking.  We then take that out into the world, either silently or quite loudly.  Some of us sneak through life quietly, hoping to not be noticed due to our story that we are simply not good enough; others have to be the center of attention, the loudest person in the room, for fear that they, too, will be seen as insufficient.  We all know the person who is always ready to knock someone else down in order to prop themselves up.

    We have all heard someone tell stories like, “I would have gotten the promotion, but my boss doesn’t like people who are taller than him” or “Jane broke up with me because she didn’t like how I say what is on my mind” or “The cops had it in for me because I have tattoos.”

    Is that person really higher up or more evolved than the rest of us, therefore deserving of their self-created pedestal?  Is anyone greater or less than another?  Are we addicted to our separation?  Are our hang-ups holding us back from experiencing life in all its grandness?

    Why is it that many of us tend to hide behind a story?  A reason for why we act the way we act?  Are we really just acting out our lives  here in this grand illusion to protect ourselves from some unforeseen danger?

    What makes some people rise above their story?  What is your story and when will you change it or, at the very least, challenge it?  What would it look like if you did this?  What would the world look like if we all managed to get out from under our self- imposed prisons?

    By now almost everyone has heard the saying “The truth will set you free,” yet not too many people are willing to tell the truth even to themselves.  Does the truth hurt or does it truly open us to more freedom and joy?

    (Kevin McCormack may be reached at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)

     

     

  • “I love you, you’re perfect, now change”

    “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” is the title of a highly successful and now retired Off-Broadway musical in New York City which emphasized in a light-hearted fashion what has sadly come to be the not-so-light-hearted and oftentimes painful experience found in so many relationships:  partnerships foundationed in neediness and expectation, two of the “three love-enders,” as described to us in the book Friendship with God, with the third “love-ender” being jealousy.

    Conversations with God offers to us the following insight:

    “When you lose sight of each other as sacred souls on a sacred journey, then you cannot see the purpose, the reason, behind all relationships.”

    If we are entering into our relationships with the idea that our partners must BE a particular way or DO a particular thing in order for us to experience the depths of our own happiness and abundance, the expansiveness of our own joy and light, and the fullness of our own completeness and sufficiency, we are functioning within an understanding of “love with conditions” and misguided ideas of what perfection truly is.

    In an era where the divorce rate exceeds 50%, what is really going on here?  What are we not understanding and, thus, not being allowed to experience?

    Are our limited understandings and parameters in relation to this institution called “marriage” too narrow to hold a space for a deeply fulfilling soul partnership to thrive?   Have we placed unrealistic human boundaries on the aspect of ourselves that is without limits?

    Most of us, at one time or another and at one level or another, have experienced the joyful bliss of a budding relationship and the devastating heartbreak of its demise.  So many of us are yearning and searching for the perfect partner, what is often termed a “soul-mate,” only to experience repeated outcomes of disillusionment and disappointment; yet there are those who have discovered and held onto that seemingly elusive but deeply satisfying recipe of love and commitment.

    Why does this experience of a spiritually rich and loving relationship evade so many in what seems to resemble a cruel game of hide-and-seek?  It has been my own personal experience that a gentle shift in perspective can elevate a relationship from an experience of division and angst to an experience of unity and bliss.  This type of shift will invite me to take a conscious step away from my expectations and attachment to outcomes; to separate myself from my mind’s craving to be “right,” which oftentimes requires making someone else “wrong”; and to be fully present in the completeness of not only myself, but in the completeness of my beloved other.

    Perhaps someone, someday, somewhere will create and produce a musical about relationships that carries with it a message from within the perspective of The New Spirituality, and perhaps a title of…

    “I Love You, Without Condition, Eternally.” 

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation.  She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support .   To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

  • France proposes banning words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ as part of gay marriage legalization

    Thank you, France, for demonstrating that, YES, our world IS evolving and moving towards a more loving and accepting society, breaking through the intolerant barriers of an Old Cultural Story which dictates in what form love is to be experienced and expressed and moving into a New Cultural Story where couples of all genders are free to experience and enjoy the rights and privileges afforded to ALL loving relationships.

    According to a recent article in The Telegraph, “France is set to ban the words “mother” and “father” from all official documents under new plans to legalize gay marriage,” giving equal adoption rights to homosexual and heterosexual couples.

    Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told France’s Catholic newspaper, La Croix, “Who is to say that a heterosexual couple will bring up a child better than a homosexual couple, that they will guarantee the best conditions for the child’s development?”

    As expected, this proposed law is being met with vehement resistance by members of the Catholic Church.  “Gay marriage would herald a complete breakdown in society,” Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the head of the French Catholic Church, told Christian’s RFC radio last week.  He is further quoted as saying, “This could have innumerable consequences. Afterward they will want to create couples with three or four members. And after that, perhaps one day the taboo of incest will fall.”

    Wow, is the suggestion really being made that the legalized union of two loving same-sex mutually consenting adults is one step shy of a parent engaging in sexual relations with their own child or brother or aunt?    And perhaps I’m confused, but isn’t it heterosexuals who have been historically, and still are even to this day, entering into multiple-partner relationships?  What does THAT type of irrational conjecture have to do with a same-sex partnership being afforded the opportunity to be a legally and socially recognized union?

    And just WHEN and HOW did God’s glorious gift of sex become a tool to be used to judge, control, manipulate, bring shame upon, and condemn?  Do we honestly imagine a God who created the possibility of deeply felt love to exist between two souls – whether that is a man and a man, a woman and a man, or a woman and a woman – only to then be judged and punished for simply being who they are?  What is it that we are actually afraid of here? 

    I applaud this bold step forward the country of France is proposing, a step that embraces the forward movement of The New Spirituality and celebrates everyone’s ability to enter freely and fully into a legally recognized union that supports at an equal level the depth of their love and the holy union of their souls.

     

  • There’s nothing you have to do

    Question to Neale: Conversations with God says, “There’s nothing you have to do.” What does this mean? If this is telling us what I think it is, why bother working for a better world? Why bother even being a “nice person”? And if, as you say in What God Wants, the truth is that God wants nothing at all, why not just break all the rules, live a completely hedonistic life, and let the devil take the hindmost? This whole message leaves me frustrated. – AG, Minneapolis, Minn.

    Dear AG: You ask a good question. Yet the statement, “There’s nothing you have to do” should bring you the greatest joy, and not a moment of frustration, because it is God’s greatest gift: Freedom. The statement does not mean there is nothing you will do in your life, it means that there nothing you have to do. In other words, nothing that you are required to do.

    God does not require us to do certain things, or to avoid doing certain things, in order to “get into heaven.” That notion reflects an elementary (perhaps even a primitive) understanding of God and Life.

    The God of Ultimate Reality requires, commands, and demands nothing. Why would God, when God is and has everything? What God desires is simply to experience Godself in all its glory. So God created Physical Life as an out-picturing, or expression, of Itself, giving Itself total Free Will to manifest Itself in any way that any of its countless aspects might choose to, using a simple formula: the higher and grander the choice, the higher and grander the experience.

    The opportunity, then, that is placed before Human Beings (who are one out-picturing of God) is to express ourselves in each golden moment of Now in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are. The greater our vision, the grander our possibilities, to which there no limits.

    Thus, the only reason to do or not do anything is not to “please God” or to avoid “displeasing God,” but rather, to express God and to experience God in the next grandest way possible, given the level of Consciousness of each manifestation of Divine Energy that exists in the Physical Realm.

    The answer to the question, “Why bother?” is, therefore: We do, or not do, a thing in order to express and experience, and thus to know and fulfill, Who We Choose to Be.

    Or, as CWG says; “Every act is an act of Self-Definition.”

    Put simply, humanity is in the process of re-creating itself in every moment. Anthropologists might call this process “evolution.” It is the process by which all living things evolve. The reason for doing any particular thing, then, is to evolve—and to demonstrate and experience the level to which one has evolved.

    We can help each other in this process. Indeed, that is what all Great Teachers have done from the beginning of time.

    And now, we are coming to see that we are all  “teachers,” in that humans have developed the technology for everyone now to see each other fully, openly, transparently. By using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and, for that matter, the Internet as a whole—including this Internet Newspaper, The Global Conversation—we place ourselves (perhaps unwittingly) in the space of Teacher. That is, we are teaching others whether we know it or not.

    Other people are watching us. How are we living our lives? How we are using these technologies? Are we using Facebook, Twitter, etc., to tell each other what we had for breakfast, and how frustrated we are that we missed our hairdressing appointment? Or are we using these technologies to share with each other what we have learned and what we have chosen to demonstrate regarding what it means to live our lives as human expressions of the Divine?

    What are you using your life for? And how would you choose to behave and experience your humanity if you felt that you didn’t have to do anything in particular to pass God’s “judgment”? Now that is true freedom. And that is what is meant by on Earth, as it is in Heaven.

    Can we create heaven on earth right now? Yes. Are we doing so? No. We are creating a hell on earth. And that, quite remarkably, is our own collective decision.

    It doesn’t have to be this way. You can choose differently, right now, this day, in your life. And if everyone did this, we could and would change the world.

    May God’s blessings flow to you, and through to, to everyone whose life you  touch, both now and even forevermore.

    — Neale Donald Walsch