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  • A love letter from Fred

    Even though I author a “Romance and Relationship” column here on The Global Conversation, there are frequently occasions when I write outside the boundaries of that particular category. Most often that happens when I hear of things taking place in our world which I think would benefit from us taking a closer look at and then entering into a dialogue about. But in this particular article today, I am sharing a story with you that can be portrayed as nothing but pure, authentic, and wholesome romantic love, the kind of romantic love which demonstrates in such a clear and moving way what relationships yearn to be.

    I would like to introduce you to Fred Stobaugh, a 96-year-old gentleman who lives in Peoria, Illinois. In 1938, Fred married his sweetheart, Lorraine, and he journeyed through the next 73 years side by side with his beloved wife, cherished partner, and wonderful friend.

    In April of this year, Fred and Lorraine’s journey together changed when she transitioned out of her physical body here on earth, leaving him facing a life without her for the first time in over 73 years.

    Shortly after her passing, Fred came upon a singer-songwriter contest being hosted by a local recording studio and began to jot down some lyrics to a song dedicated to and written about his sweet, sweet Lorraine. The official rules of the songwriter contest required interested applicants to send YouTube links via e-mail to their studio. But since Fred is not a professional musician and didn’t know how to use YouTube or the internet in that way, he handwrote his entry and lovingly placed it into a large manila envelope and mailed his song titled “Oh, Sweet Lorraine” to Green Shoes Studios.

    “Oh, Sweet Lorraine” Lyrics:

    “The memories always linger on.
    Oh, sweet Lorraine, no, I don’t want to move on.
    The memories always linger on.
    Oh, sweet Lorraine, that’s why I wrote you this song.”

    What was about to take place in Fred’s life was beyond anything he could have ever imagined.

    You see, this is where the paths of Fred and Lorraine Stobaugh intertwined with the path of Jacob Colgan. Jacob is a musician and music producer at Green Shoes Studios, who happened to be the person to receive Fred’s entry in their singer-songwriter contest. He was so moved by it that he decided to contact Fred and, with his permission, offered to professionally produce it.

    You can see the video documentary here:

     

    Within the powerful messages of Conversations with God, we have been given an opportunity to view our relationships in a way that perhaps we have never considered before, one which invites us to view our partnerships and relationships, no matter how fleeting, as not ones of simple chance or mere coincidence, but rather purposeful fulfillments of our souls’ deepest yearnings and desires; to understand and embrace the idea that the people with whom we encounter and interact with are not just random experiences, but rather we are spiritually motivated and connected participants in each other’s ultimate communion with God.

    Is it some haphazard occurrence that Jacob Colgan and Fred Stobaugh met in this way? Or is it possible that the crossing of their paths was long before decided, not in a tightly scripted way, but in some powerful and wonderful way which also involved the soul of Lorraine, so that they, and now you and I, could have an experience of Love never before experienced? So that Fred can continue to experience the eternal essence of his beloved lifetime partner long after the presence of her physical body ceases to be? So that Jacob Colgan can experience what it feels like to help return someone back to themselves and, in doing so, experience the light of his own Divinity?

    I guess we will all walk away from a story like this with a different understanding and experience. As in all of life, we each get to make it up in whatever way we choose.

    The important question to ask is: How am I going to make it up this time?

    (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.)

  • HUMANITY: THE IMPOTENT SPECIES

    With all of our intelligence, with all of our inventive genius, with all of our years of evolution, we just can’t find a way to do the simplest thing, can we…?

    …We simply can’t find a way to stop killing each other.

    We are impotent, utterly and completely impotent, in the face of this basic, fundamental developmental challenge.

    Will it never end? Will the killing and the violence and the continual threats to world peace never, ever end?

    The Western powers (U.S., Britain, France chief among them) are said on this day to be considering a military strike against the military apparatus of the government of Syria. Such a strike by these major powers would be, they say, in response to the alleged use by Syria’s government of chemical weapons against its own people.

    The Syrian government, for its part, claims that the chemical weapons were used by “terrorists” who have long been agitating to upend the government.

    As all the world knows, a civil war has been underway in Syria since March, 2011, with rebels seeking to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

    “As a result of the ongoing civil war, an alternative government was formed by the opposition umbrella group, the Syrian National Coalition, in March 2012,” an article on the country in Wikipedia states. “Representatives of this government were invited to take up Syria’s seat at the Arab League on 28 March 2013. The opposition coalition has been recognized as the ‘sole representative of the Syrian people’ by several nations, including the United States, United Kingdom and France,” the article goes on.

    Now, the government is suspected of using chemical weapons against its civilians. US Secretary of State John Kerry has been widely quoted in global news reports as saying that it was “undeniable” that chemical weapons had been used in the country, and that President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had committed a “moral obscenity” against the nation’s own people.

    “Make no mistake,” Kerry is reported to have said. “President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapon against the world’s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious, and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.”

    On Aug 27 CNN’s website headlined a report that the U.S. military was in position with warships and ready to strike on a moment’s notice should the order be given. Syria, in return, has said that the U.S. would be “surprised” by the shape and power of its response.

    Must this go on forever? Must life on this planet go on forever like this? Is there no way—simply no way at all—for members of the same species…a species that considers itself to be evolved…to resolve the differences that arise between them without putting hundreds of thousands of people, if not the entire world, at risk of annihilation?

    What would it take for human beings to find a way to live together in peace and harmony? What is the missing ingredient…that one piece of data that could change everything?

    In Syria, the Assad family has held power for decades. The rebellion there is the uprising of thousands of citizens who say they are tired of the repression by the Syrian Government of any form of dissent. Indeed, the rebellion itself turned violent when peaceful protests in 2011 were ruthlessly squashed by the military, with intellectual leaders of the rebellion arrested and tortured—some of them now among Syria’s so-called “disappeared.”

    People will agitate for freedom as long as people are alive, because freedom is a basic and fundamental aspect of Divinity, and human beings are individual expressions of Divinity. That is why revolutions have been part of human history for thousands of years. For centuries the human scenario has been a struggle between the powerful few and the freedom-seeking many.

    With all the killing, with all the needless dying (not just of armed combatants, but of countless bystanders, including unarmed and nonaffiliated men, women, and children), one would think that our species as a whole would find a way to end—finally, at long last, end—the cycle of murder and violence. But we don’t seem yet to have found the key to doing that. After thousands and thousands of years, we
    Just.
    Can’t.
    Find.
    The.
    Key.

    What stops us, do you think? A species that can put its members on the moon, a species that can unlock the sequencing of DNA, cannot find the key to stop killing each other.

    Remarkable.

    Our species is in a never-ending struggle to end its own most vicious struggles. It seems powerless to end its own misuse of power.

    What stops us, do you think?

  • Should the United States and other Western powers (i.e., Britain, France, etc.) undertake a military action in Syria, bypassing the United Nations Security Council in doing so?

  • What to do when you’ve done all you can do?

    I’m trying to take my career to the next level by applying for work with some people who are quite famous. They say they love my work and will consider hiring me when they have an opening. I feel like I’ve reached out to them as much as I should at this point, so how do I stay on their radar without making a nuisance of myself? …Edwin

    Dear Edwin… Don’t forget that celebrities are really just people too, in a different place along their path. They don’t have anything you don’t have. Their awareness that they have it is the only difference. Don’t be in awe of them. Just love them for Who They Really Are and allow their perceived successes to be an inspiration to you. Express your gratitude to them for showing you what you are also capable of and be a friend when given the opportunity to interact with them.

    For now, just send loving vibes. Let the energy do the work of reaching out. We always think we have to do it on the physical plane, but we don’t. It is equally effective to reach out energetically as long as we do so from a happy, excited-about-the-prospects and possibilities place.

    Conversations With God invites us to start from a place of beingness and to allow everything we do to come from that inspired place. It also says the two most powerful words in the Universe are “I am.” Say this affirmation to yourself: “I AM the man who has taken my career to the next level and who works comfortably with famous people.” Then surround them with love and light and envision your working together. See it as happening now. Pre-pave it at the energetic/thought level and love it into existence. This is how to consciously create everything. Simply love it into existence!

    If some inspired action steps come to you from this place of being, then, by all means, act on them if it feels good and right to do so, but don’t try to force it into being. Never force it. That gives the opposite result because it is a resistant action and what we resist persists.

    Now, please bear in mind that every relationship serves a particular purpose and this one could merely be a stepping stone to something even greater for you. After sending joy-filled love and light to these people, I invite you to allow Life to unfold in Its own wonderful way. Embrace everything that shows up and everything that doesn’t, knowing that all is happening for your highest good. Expect the best!

    Love-Allow-Embrace-Expect-Experience-Enjoy!

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to:  Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

    An additional resource:  ChangingChange.net offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services.  The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions.  What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God.  It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.

     

  • Society’s topsy-turvy values?

    According to the Telegraph, Real-Madrid want to offer a record £200 million plus for Gareth Bale, who plays for Spurs in the English Premier League. Just two weeks ago it was £80 million!

    “It is understood that Tottenham Hotspur are holding out for £104 million for the 24-year-old forward who is pushing hard for a move this summer. In addition Real Madrid want to pay Bale a salary of £7.8 million a year – net of tax – over a proposed six-year contract, ” says correspondent Jason Burt.

    This doesn’t include sponsorship fees by advertisers, which could easily bring his earnings over £15 million. Maybe £20 million, no one knows for sure.

    I celebrate Bale’s personal success at reaching the pinnacle of his profession, and rewarded for that in terms of both prestige and money. When we look at the current paradigm, we can easily see that most of humanity is working to have more money, so we can enjoy a better life, are we not?

    Yet what kind of society have we created, where we see a company pay this type of exorbitant fee for a footballer and then we say that we cannot find the money to pay for the healthcare for millions of people? In the UK, many hospitals are closing, nurses and doctors are quite often overworked and underpaid, and many welfare benefits are being cut for those “slackers” who should “get a job”… cuts that may even see whole families thrown out onto the street.

    It seems that our values are a little topsy-turvy, are they not? We are creating bigger and bigger divides between the rich and the poor, the “haves” and the “have nots”.

    Shall we use the usual justifications, such as “that’s just the way life is…” or “that’s the way the cookie crumbles…” or “to the winner goes the spoils…”? Or, perhaps we should look more closely at what, exactly, has created these monster earnings?

    And we should definitely look at what we can do to create a world which is not so greedy and out of touch with its own needs. In the UK, so many people (mainly men but some women too) care more about how their team is doing, than how the economy is doing, or how their neighbour is doing. That’s a fact!

    The Premier League competition formed when the FA Premier League broke away from The Football League in 1992 to take advantage of a lucrative TV rights’ deal which will be worth £3 BILLION (that’s 9 zeros after the first digit!) as of 2013–14, with BSkyB and BT Group securing the rights to broadcast!

    The Premier League is currently the most-watched football league in the world, broadcast to 643 million homes, with a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people.

    With an audience of 4.7 billion, big mainstream advertisers (think Coca Cola, MacDonalds, Barclays Bank and so forth) will pay a lot to keep brainwashing their audience into buying their goods and services. It is a sorry fact that if someone sees an advert enough times, they will unconsciously reach for the product through a subconscious imprint.

    For example, the brand LYNX always links itself to SEX and makes no apologies for it. Why? So that guys will associate themselves with the guy who gets the HOT LOOKING GIRL IN SKIMPY UNDERWEAR by putting on Lynx Deodorant. You may laugh – but they do it because it works.

    In the Conversations with God series, God said to Neale Donald Walsch that beyond a certain income, the rest of a person earnings should go into a collective pool, to be used for the highest good of society. It gave a figure of around $20 million.

    I think that’s fair, don’t you? In fact, it’s more than fair.

    Hospitals, schools and so forth would benefit from the earnings taken above that threshold, and the contributor would be recognised for his/her vital contribution towards his/her fellow human beings.

    It seems we are greatly reluctant to do this – it would go against “free enterprise” and inherent “freedoms”. Yet, it seems to sit with us just fine that over half the world’s population is earning below the breadline, and DYING.

    If it isn’t okay, we seem incapable of doing anything about it. We seem incapable of standing up and saying the current paradigm is not fair nor sustainable.

    Many people will ignorantly blurt out that these footballers – as well as other athletes, movie stars and so on – deserve what they earn. They are “paid what they’re worth”, is the reasoning. “They are talented”, will be the answer! Yet are they more talented than the hospital nurses and doctors we have? Are they any more talented than the school teachers who educate our children?

    Is it any wonder that children growing up don’t want a “real job”?

    And, do any footballers, or professional athletes, mainly young men in their 20s, need to pocket more than £10 million a year?

    With all due respect to “free enterprise”, I really don’t think so…

    jaime-tanna (2)(Jaime Tanna is the founder of Energy Therapy and an active Reiki Master and Spiritual Mentor, Healer and Teacher. Together with his wife Jennifer, their unifying vision is to empower others through spiritual education and energy-based healing treatments, to help them become aware of their true natures, and to live more joyfully and consciously. You can visit their website at www.energytherapy.biz)

    (If you would like to contribute an article you have authored to the Guest Column, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Guest Column.”)

  • Came to believe

    Just about everybody knows someone who is addicted to something, and I am not talking about the soft addictions that limit our connection to our highest self.  I am talking about hard core addictions that are affecting the lives of not only the addict, but also many lives around them.  Addiction takes no prisoners and it spares no lives. Families are torn apart, friendships are dissolved, businesses go bankrupt and employees lose their jobs.  Children are left without parents and parents lose children to drug related tragedies.

    Many of us have been asked to help someone who is in need of treatment, only to find that after a few days of sobriety the person has returned to their past behaviors.  I know of one person who has spent over $200,000.00 on treatment programs for his son only to have him end up using after all was said and done.

    Addicts are not soulless-bad people who willingly harm others for the sake of doing so.  They are suffering with a disease that affects their mind, body and spirit.  They are doing what they feel they need to do in order to survive and they live in fear of having to change their way of life.  They are afraid because the disease of addiction strikes at the center of the brain that operates through our subconscious; the same part of the brain that controls our heart beat and our breathing as well as many other survival functions.

    If you have ever watched the television shows such as; Addicted, Intervention, or even My Strange Addiction, you will see the cold hard truth of what it is like to be under the spell of addiction.  You will see, “Continued use, in spite of negative consequences” up close and personal.  Still, without having the experience yourself, you can never truly understand what is going on in those persons thoughts. The behavior appears to be completely insane, and it is.

    Insanity is defined:  Repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.  The addict truly thinks that the next drug is going to fix them and they will never need to use again, hence the term “get my fix.”

    What I have found in my experience, as well as in the experience of others, is that insanity is temporary. The second step of the Twelve Step programs is; Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.  So how do we do this? How do we come to believe?  How did you come to believe?   Have you always believed? Do you still not believe?

    When I first came to sobriety, and was confronted with this step, I did what many others have done; I went on faith.  If it worked for others it could work for me – unless they were lying!  Yes, I didn’t believe yet, but I was willing to give it a try.  What I have come to understand over the years of being clean is that to be fully sane, is a lifelong process. I return to sanity in bits and pieces only to awaken to other areas of insanity.  Through the enlightenment of unhelpful behavior patterns exposed in my life, my level of joy and freedom are increased.

    To be fully sane, is a lifelong process.

    Faith is simply taking someone’s word for something and being willing to give it a try. It doesn’t mean just trust me and don’t question me.  Faith is not going blindly on what others say.  Faith is temporarily putting aside current beliefs to experience another way of doing things.  Faith, with experience, turns to belief.  Belief, with experience and awareness, turns to knowing.  When you get to a place of knowing something to be true, you have found peace.

    So this is what I am here for, to help others to take a leap of faith, and support them through their process of coming to believe, and then walking beside them as they get to know, who they really are and what they wish to do.  This is life in recovery.  This is the path to peace.

    In June we kicked off our first in a series of CWG on recovery retreats.  A small group of people all shared a life-changing event.  If you are in recovery and not experiencing great joy and freedom or are still suffering with addictions, please consider giving yourself this experience.   Our next retreat will held in San Jose, California, Sept 19 -22nd, 2013.  On October 24 – 27th, 2013, we will have another retreat in Orlando Florida.  Click here for more information on these life-changing retreats.

    (Kevin McCormack, C.A.d ,is a certified addictions professional. He is a recovering addict with 26 years of sobriety. Kevin is a practicing auriculotherapist, life coach, and interventionist specializing in individual and family recovery and also co-facilitates spiritual recovery retreats for the CWG foundation with JR Westen. You can visit his website here for more information. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)

  • When the going gets “Tuff”

    Michael Brandon Hill walked into Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, an elementary school just outside Atlanta, Georgia, armed with an AK-47 type weapon and an ammunition stockpile of an estimated 500 rounds.  From outward appearances, one can only assume that the intentions of this man were not what we would commonly term “pure.”

    None of us can be exactly sure what Hill’s ultimate plan was, but one thing that he surely did not plan on taking place on this particular day was meeting Antoinette Tuff, a bookkeeper who works in the front office of the school, an encounter that would change everything.  Not only would this unexpected relationship significantly change his life, but it would alter the lives of every other person who would be touched in some way, to some degree, by the events that ensued as a result of it.

    You see, Antoinette had some quick and important choices to make when Mr. Hill came into the room she was in and began firing his gun at the floor.  Even though she had been trained in how to react in this kind of situation, she didn’t have the luxury of thinking about it for a while or making a “pro” and “con” list or weighing out her options.  No.  Her next choice and her next action had to be made almost instantaneously and simultaneously.

    What Mr. Hill did not expect was to come face to face with someone like Ms. Tuff, someone who drew upon her own struggles in life to be able to see through his pain and, in spite of her own fear, offer him an opportunity to make a better choice.  She did not run or scream or attempt to defend herself with some level of physical or verbal force.  Instead she reached out to Michael Brandon Hill with calmness, understanding, and love….yes, love.  She was able to talk the gunman down and bring the situation to a peaceful resolution without anyone getting hurt.  By sharing her personal challenges in raising a severely mentally disabled child, a husband who left her after 33 years of marriage, she convinced the suicidal gunman to surrender.

    “I told him, OK, we all have situations in our lives,” Tuff said. “It was going to be OK. If I could recover, he could, too.”

    And in what may be the most incredible moment captured in a 9-1-1 recording — one that comes after Tuff has convinced Hill to surrender and shortly before the police come in — Tuff tells Hill that she loves him: “It’s gonna be all right, sweetie,” she says. “I just want you to know that I love you, though, OK? And I’m proud of you. That’s a good thing. You’ve just given up. Don’t worry about it.”

    You can listen to the full 9-1-1 recording here:

     

    Stories like this one are deeply moving to me because they are such a clear demonstration of what we are all capable of, the depths to which we can draw upon not only in our day-to-day happenings in life, but in times of turmoil or upset.

    This particular scenario could have turned out much different had Antoinette Tuff chosen to flee or if she had allowed fear to dictate her next choice.  The challenges she was facing in her own personal journey up until this very moment allowed her to demonstrate herself as clarity, as wisdom, and as strength in a moment of significance.

    In the powerful messages contained with the Conversations with God books, God said, “I have sent you nothing but angels.”

    The moment will come for each of us to consider these very words and to make a choice, as Antoinette Tuff did, to embrace them…or not.  We may not find ourselves staring down the barrel of a gun, as she experienced.  But we will have the opportunity on more than one occasion to see the Divinity within someone whose expressions or actions make it challenging to do so.  We will also have the opportunity on more than one occasion to experience our own Divinity once again after our own expressions and actions cause us to forget.  And we will have the opportunity to see someone like Michael Brandon Hill as an angel sent from God when all outward appearances speak to the contrary.

    It is in these moments when we most fully understand and experience what it means to create our life anew.   And if Antoinette Tuff can demonstrate that this is possible in an extraordinary situation like this, imagine the infinite number of possibilities we all are being given all the time.

    (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.)

  • WHY WOULD GOD PLACE SADNESS
    AND SUFFERING INTO THE WORLD?

    There is so much sadness and suffering in the world, and anyone who believes in God and defines it as the Source of Pure Intelligence and Perfect Love would have to ask: Why?

    Why in the world would God place sadness and suffering in the world? And what tools, if any, has God given us with which to deal with sadness and suffering when we encounter it (as surely we will during our life)?

    The answer, as I have come to understand it, is that God has not deliberately placed sadness nor inserted suffering into our world, we have brought it into our experience of our own free will.

    This is difficult to believe or embrace, I know, and so it requires a little exploration and explanation.

    Sadness and suffering are responses, both emotional and physical, to particular situations, circumstances, and events that manifest or occur during our lives.

    FOCUS: The Nature of God and Life/an exploration of critical importance in our time
    PART IV of an ONGOING SERIES

    Because they are responses and not events in themselves, they are entirely within our control. Because they are entirely within our control they are created by us, not foisted upon us.

    There are some who have said that God has imposed sadness and suffering upon us as a punishment for our so-called evil deeds. Yet my understanding is that sadness and suffering are not punishments, they are consequences. And consequences of what? They are consequences of our thinking.

    Thinking is the tool that God has given us with which to deal with life events and circumstances, situations and occurrences. Yet why do events and circumstances, situations and occurrences that ordinarily might be reasonably expected to produce sadness and suffering within human beings even have to arise?

    Ah, that is an even larger question — and on humanity’s answer to that question hinges the future of the entire human species. We will explore that question in the upcoming entries in this series. But for now, let us go about this investigation step by step. Let us look at this business of our thinking, and the role it plays in bringing sadness and suffering into our experience. We’ll take that first step in Part V of our series here.

  • Me, My Cell, and I

    No matter if you are in college, high school, or even middle school, there is one thing that you will find in every one of these fine educational institutions. It’s not a library, a gym, or a cafeteria, but it’s a student doing something on their cellphone. Consider it the most basic cultural norm for our generation.

    From our generation’s perspective, cellphones have simply become a way of life. Whether it’s a productive or destructive use of time, our phones have become a part of Who We Are. Just think about leaving your phone at home for a single day. If you think or know you would feel lost or confused, then you have officially experienced the twenty-first century. With a cellphone, friendships are being made across the world. With instant access to quick communication, friendships never got closer.  

    While cellphones have brought the world closer and ever more connected, they have also helped to drive us apart. With such fixation on our phones, we seem to forget everything else that is around us. This has become such an issue in society that even our popular culture has coined a term for it. On UrbanDictionary.com (in the true spirit of being a teen), the word “Nocializing” literally means “the act of being out in a social public setting and only spending time on your mobile device, not the people with or around you.” But why is this?

    Why is it that we need to always seem as though we are busy in communication, or at least pretend to be? Are our egos so insecure that we can’t look vulnerable to new people and new ideas? Our fear to be alone, or at least look alone in such a connected world of today, is actually driving us apart. Through our egos, we desire to look like we have friends, and look like we belong in something. But, by using that façade, we actually stop ourselves from getting to know that random person on the bus or waiting in line ahead of you for lunch. Chances are that you have more in common with them than you think. So, maybe try and put down your phone for three minutes. The texts WILL still be there.

    Through campus and beyond, it’s become very clear to understand just how our cellphones – which have, basically overnight become instantaneously infused in our schedules – have made an impact on our lives. Finding security in your own beliefs, not in other people’s impressions of your statuses, will work for you whether you are always on your phone or barley even touch it at all. Whether you are a phone fanatic or an avid texter, don’t stop what you are doing because an older generation tells you it is ‘bad’. BUT, just remember that there are more ways to make connections in life. So, whether you choose Facetime or actually talking face to face, make it aligned to your style.

    (Lauren is a Feature Editor of The Global Conversation. She lives in Wood Dale, IL, and can be reached at Lauren@TheGlobalConversation.com)

  • Introducing your child to the concept and the reality of God – Part VII: Be matter-of-fact

    We have been exploring in great detail in this space over the past several weeks the topic of how to introduce your child to the concept and reality of God. That series continues with Part VII, here.

    The main question is, of course, how to do it. How can we best introduce our child to the idea and the existence of God? The answer begins with a willingness to assume and accept that your child may be far more attuned to Larger Realities than you might think. Therefore, talking about God in matter-of-fact ways will feed right into child’s already-present inner knowing.

    True, your offspring may not know the words to describe that which they sense must exist and must be true, but they will readily and easily accept the notion that Something Larger is “out there” if they see their parents readily and easily accepting it—just as, in the area of sexuality, they will readily and easily accept the differences and the wonders of their bodies if they observe that their parents readily and easily accept these differences and the wonders.

    We have touched on this matter-of-factness about God before, encouraging casual and off-handed mention of “God” in everyday conversation around the children. One easy and natural way to do this might be through the age-old tradition of “saying grace” before meals. If this happens from the time a child is old enough to hear, the child will have encountered the notion of “God” long before they ask for a fuller explanation, making that fuller explanation much easier for the child to absorb.

    Is it okay to personify God?

    One of the questions I am most often asked by parents is: “Is it okay to allow our children in the early stages of understanding God to think of God as a ‘person’, even if we, ourselves, don’t really think that this is what God is?”

    My answer is always yes. A small child will may find it difficult to grasp oblique or inexplicit concepts such as “Essence” or “Energy.” If offering thanks at meals to The Essence seems challenging for your 3-year-old, allowing the child to personify God is perfectly okay. Indeed, as an adult I personify God all the time.

    The dialogue in Conversations with God taught me that “God” is The Essence and The Prime Energy of Life Itself; the Source of all Love, all Wisdom, all Power, all Intelligence, and, indeed, everything in the Universe. This Essence can form and shape itself into any appearance or embodiment It desires, and has done so—including the form and shape of a wonderful, kind, gentle, caring, compassionate, understanding, unconditionally loving and incomparably wise woman or man.

    I encourage people, in fact, to use the terms Mother/Father God and Father/Mother God interchangeably and as often as possible when referring to The Divine. This helps to remove the traditional male gender identification that so many children often attach to the idea of God in the early stages of their lives.

    Here is a possible Grace that might work in your home:

    Dear Mother/Father God…We thank you for the food we are about to eat, for the love that we feel at this table, and for all the wonderful gifts of life that we share. And thank you, too, for the good days and wonderful times that are still to come for the rest of our lives. We promise to share all good things with all those whose lives we touch. Amen.

    I love this little prayer because it introduces the concept of Sharing as well as the idea of God to the mind of the child.

     Nightly prayers and morning prayers are another sweet way to place the concept and the reality of God before your little ones. Here is a wonderful, short nightly prayer for children…

    Dear Father/Mother God…Thank you for this day, and everything that happened. Even the ‘bad stuff.’ Because I know that all of it helps me to be a nice person, and that’s what I love to be! See you tomorrow…your friend…Neale.

    And here is a morning prayer I’ve been saying myself for many years.

    Dear Mother/Father God…Thank you for another day, and another chance to be the very best Me I can be!

    Invite children’s own CWG

    If the “prayer” idea doesn’t feel that it would work for you, you can encourage your children to have their own conversations with God, and to develop a positive attitude about life in the process, by inviting them to talk to God for one minute every night about The Things I Liked Best About Today.

    Here’s one way that could look…

    PARENT (just before bedtime): Let’s play the One Minute Game!

    CHILD: Yea!

    PARENT: Okay, we have one minute to think of what we liked best of all the things that happened today, and tell God about it. If we can think of at least two things between us, I think God will be very happy. I’ll go first…

    “Hey, Mother/Father God…the thing I liked best about today was…the really neat time I had with all my kids and with Mommy, playing that game after we had dinner! I just wanted to say ‘thanks’ for all the good stuff! You’re neat, God!” (Or…“that I didn’t have to put away all the groceries by myself, because my little sweetie helped me!”) (Or…”How nice my little sweetheart Madelyn was when she didn’t make a fuss at Daddy when nap time came…”) (Or…”Making a super dinner for everybody that they really liked, because they told me so. It feels so good to do stuff that makes other people happy! Thanks, God!”)

    You can’t even begin to imagine the many messages you can send to a 3, 4, or 5-year-old with a nightly tradition such as this—without seeming to “preach” to the child at all. They’re just listening to Mommy or Daddy talk to God!

    In addition to setting up a positive attitude, this creates the habit of your children having their own conversations with God on a regular basis. That habit will extend into adulthood, I promise you. Especially if, later, when your child grows older…of if the child has had an especially rough day…you can model for her or him how to talk to God about that, too…

    Well, God, things didn’t go so well today, as I’m sure you know. So thanks for giving me the help to get through it—and thanks for making everything better…which I know is what is going to happen! I’m glad you’re hear, Father/Mother God. I’m really glad you’re here!

    I think nothing could be more important than the time you spend with your child in this way. (Something could be equally important, but nothing could be more important.) And why? Because, if you will suffer me making the same point repeatedly, what your children come to understand about God and how they experience God through you will stick with them all the days of their life.

    Childhood imagination and childlike faith

    Do not discourage childhood imaginings. That is one of the biggest pieces of advice I offer to parents. Most parents would not discourage this anyway, but I try to make the point with them that they are on the right track in not doing so.

    I have been told by a number of people that I have a child-like faith in God. (An important note here: child-like and child-ish are not the same thing.) I suppose I do. And I am glad of it. I have a childlike faith in all of Life, in fact, not just in God. I have faith that life is on my side. I have faith that I can do anything I set my mind to. I have faith that things will always be okay with me, and that all things work out for my highest good in the end. I have faith that God loves me completely, without condition, reservation, or limitation, and that I am never alone, or outside the embrace of God. I have faith that I will be Home with God when this physical life ends.

    Maybe I am imagining all of these things. Maybe I need to (as some of those who have observed me have said since I was a child) “grow up” and “face facts” and get my “head out of the clouds and feet on the ground.” But I believe that my childlike faith has served me. It has given me strength when things did not seem to be going my way. It has brought me comfort in times of loss, optimism when I might have been tempted to feel hopeless, and enthusiasm for tomorrow even if my “today” made it look as if my future might not ever be bright again. In short, it has kept me in a positive frame of mind the majority of the time.

    More often than not I look for the solution when others see problems. More often than not I see molehills where others make mountains. More often than not I go for the gold when others are willing to settle for the bronze—or no medal at all in the Olympics of life—not because I need or want to be a “winner,” but because I hold quite naturally the idea that we are all intended to be winners, that life was made for us to be happy, and that all we have to do to get to that place is understand who we are and why we are here…and, of course, that God and Life are on our side.

    For more on this I strongly urge you to read—or if you have already done so, to re-read—Happier Than God.

    I could, in fact, be imagining all these things. But if I am, I must say that my imagination seems to be a very effective mechanism, a wonderful tool used in the fashioning of life. And here is my point; here is the reason I am bringing this all up now:

    My parents encouraged me to use my imagination as a child. And they did not discourage me when my imagination ran wild. Rather, they simply coached me to notice when my imagination served me (that is, made me happier or gave me confidence) and when it disserved me (that is, made me scared or tentative or sad or took my confidence away).

    If they saw that I was imagining something that made me scared or tentative (“There’s a monster under the bed!”) (“I’ll never get the part in the school play, so why bother even trying out!”), they would gently demonstrate to me that what I was imagining was (A) not helping matters any, and (B) probably not true anyway, if I just explored it.

    If they saw that I was imagining something that made me happy or confident (“I’m Superman!”) (“I’m going to try out for the play and I bet I get the part!”), they would gently smile and demonstrate that they loved all ideas that made me feel better about myself—whether I was imagining all the good stuff, or talking about actual reality.

    In this way, the line between Good Imagining and Good Reality began to blur, and as I reached 10 or 11 I began making a connection between the two.  By the time I’d hit 16 I had a reputation in our family: “Neale has all the luck! He always seems to get what he wants.”

    What I am saying here is that I think there is a direct connection between positive thinking and positive outcomes. And I am very clear that the way my parents worked with my imagination, and the way they encouraged it when my imaginings were positive, even if unrealistic, made that connection real for me. (“You know, son,” my father once said to me, smiling, “in a lot of ways you are Superman.”)

    If you don’t take away a child’s dreams, you guarantee that he’ll keep dreaming. And what does all this have to do with introducing your child to the concept and the reality of God? Well, imagination is the tool of God. Dreams are the stuff of God. Great visions for tomorrow create excitement today—and nothing makes a dream more exciting than knowing that God is on our side to help make them come true. And this is what my Mother always encouraged me to feel.

    “If that’s what’s best for you, God will help you make it happen. And if it’s not what best for you, God will bring you something better,” is what I would say to children from the time they are old enough to understand that idea (which might be a lot younger than you think).

    “Thank you, God, for this or something better” is, by the way, another wonderful prayer to share with children (and adults, for that matter).

    Stories and books are terrific tools, too, of course

    I know this is obvious, but just as a reminder….Story Time provides another wonderful opportunity to introduce your children to God. Some parents merge Story Time with Bed Time, so that children will look forward to, rather than revolt against, bedtime. Others like to create Story Time in the afternoon, or after dinner in the evening.

    It used to be difficult to find children’s books in which, if God is mentioned, the story and “the moral of the story” didn’t emerge from a Traditional Idea About God. This is perfectly okay, of course, if what you hold, and what you wish to share with your children, are those traditional ideas. If, on the other hand, your ideas about God lean more toward what might be termed New Thought concepts (such as the concepts in the Conversations with God texts), it was not always easy to find children’s books that reflected those values.

    I am happy to say that these days it has become a bit easier. The CWG4Kids program has been gathering resources now for quite a while, and I think you’ll be impressed with the number of children’s stories that are out there—as well as short audio programs on CD, and even some animations on DVD.

    For instane, there is a wonderful animation that a professional film company made of the CWG children’s book, The Little Soul and the Sun, as well as an audio enactment of the story with original songs that kids love. The second book in the Little Soul series, titled The Little Soul and the Earth, offers another resource straight out of the Conversations with God cosmology, as does the very special Christmas story Santa’s God, in which a little girl asks Santa the most important question of all time: Who is the real God? Who does Santa pray to?

    The answer that Santa gives is exactly what you would want your children to hear if you, yourself, have embraced the message in CWG, yet it is placed before children in a way that is neither “preach-y” nor “teach-y,” but is presented in language and through an example that all children can easily understand.

    And there are other wonderful children’s books and resources out there as well—and that’s what the CWG4Kids program is all about. It is about helping parents to introduce their children to the concept and the reality of God in a way that aligns with how they would like their children to start out on their own search for inner truth.