Tag: grieving

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Healing Life Spirituality

Am I my brother’s keeper?

richhotel.jpgpoorstreets.jpg

How can the very rich co-exist with the poorest of the poor and still deem himself holy while doing nothing for the sake of his brother?

Seems a bit shocking, but in my country this seems to be the case.  For while beggars roam the streets for food or for whatever garbage to scavenge, the rich proudly and comfortably ride their luxurious cars, making their way every Sunday to Church to attend a mass where they proclaim their holiness as though they and they alone are God’s children, seeing not what suffering his brother is going through.

Each of us must illuminate and warm our surroundings. In this cold world we cannot suffice with warming ourselves by donning a fur coat. We must light a fire warming everyone around us.- Rabbi Simon Jacobson

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Healing Life Spirituality

Life – quote

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Life is not at all a game of accumulating everything you need and maintaining a certain level of happiness, for happiness after all cannot be maintained.  Life is a constant flow, of touching and growing and moving on.  Life is either experienced or not, in joy and in sadness, in anger and in despair.  Those who choose not its sorrows choose not its happiness as well; and those who choose not to live fully choose only to crumble and to die.  – www.itakeoffthemask.com

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Healing Life Spirituality Uncategorized

Waiting for No God

When I was younger, I never thought there would come a time when this bible verse would come true – that there would come a time when no one would be waiting for God anymore.  Yet as I observe our times, I realized that the time may soon come to pass when God would be seeking out his people and no one would be looking back.  Why so?

1. THE RICH

Because the rich will have bought the idea of positivism to the extreme to the extent that they have learned to focus only on themselves and their needs, excluding everyone else that may get in the way of their perfectly established lives. The rich would have become indifferent, already possessing everything they thought they needed to live their lives to the full.

2. THE POOR

Because the poor would have thought of himself as being unloved, comparing himself to the rich one whom heaven has blessed far beyond the necessities he prayed for.  He would have lost his hope or grudgingly accepted his lot.  The poor would have grown a rage that consumes all of his soul.

3. THE RELIGIOUS

The remaining people who claim to be religious would have become the self righteous judgmental people who neither understands the poor nor prays for the awakening of the rich.  The religious would judge the poor and the rich for their sins, but see not the dust in their own eyes.

There may soon come a time when all these would come to be, when the hearts of people have grown so cold as to forget the most important thing of all… authentic love.

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Healing Life Spirituality

It’s such a hard work to rest!

It used to be so easy to rest, back in those days when “recess” was our favorite subject in school, or when Friday was our favorite day of the week because we’d finally have a hard-earned weekend to indulge in a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Yet have you noticed how many people today find no more satisfaction in the simplest activity of all?  We get anxious with our vacant hours and we try to fill our days with as much activity as we can just so we can avoid that time when we have nothing to do but be with ourselves.

I recently had colds and it necessitated a leave from work as well as a leave from the many activities I enjoy, including writing.  How I prayed that it be over, how I desired to get back to my normal routine.  But the body it seems, knows when to go on and when to take a pause, when to wake up, and when to get some time to sleep.  It’s the rhythm of life, the ebb and flow, the natural course of nature that keeps everything in balance, and that makes everything fresh and renewed.

But why the unnatural response from many of us?  Why the difficulty in surrendering to rest?

1.   We’ve lost our ability to wait.

The modern times have provided us with so many tools and gadgets we need that make our life easier.  It has enabled us to do things in an INSTANT, in a single click of a button.  We do things real FAST! 

Rest is waiting.  It is downtime, a healing time both for the body and the spirit.  We just couldn’t accept the fact that we are not after all as perfect and as powerful as we thought we could be, that we can be on the go 24/7 much as we wanted to.

2.  We’ve lost our ability to trust.

Rest and healing is doing nothing necessarily active on our part, but trusting that our body knows what it is doing to repair itself, to grow, maybe even to be better than before.  We believe that only our conscious efforts can accomplish something, and if we’re not doing anything therefore, we’re already doomed!  We don’t trust anybody, not even our own body when we know we are not consciously in control.

3.  We’ve lost our ability to receive.

Our culture has impressed upon us the necessity to give; giving is a concrete sign of being alive, of being of value.  When we are not able to give or to do anything productive, we quickly lose our self esteem.  Our self worth is so connected in doing what we do, that when we’re unable to do anything, we feel empty and worthless inside.

We  do not realize that receiving is also an integral part of being.  Receiving is actively cooperating to the one healing us, actively acknowledging that we are worthy of help, of being assisted in times when we couldn’t help ourselves.  Receiving is honoring ourselves as being worthy of notice and honoring others as being able to endow upon us something that is an important part of themselves.  Receiving, like giving, is being able to share and be a channel of the flow of life.

I’ve learned that even times of sickness and unproductiveness can teach us something.  I’ve learned that in times like that, it’s quite okey to wait, to trust the way of life, and to receive healing from the God who never abandons us whether we’re living our lives energetically, or whether we’re merely trying to while away our time sneezing and teary eyed in the comfort of our cozy beds.

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Poems

Unbreakable Thread (A Poem About Death and Parting)

unbreakable thread 2012

I cannot understand
how two people
who used to be so close,
whose souls were knit
so tightly together
could suddenly
be parted
and stripped away forever
from each other’s arms
mere whispers
used to draw our hearts together,
but now even my loudest cries
fail to bring you back to me
how can it be?
how can you suddenly
be so far away from me?
must I accept your passing
as a fitting end to what we’ve had?
should I accept that from this moment
there will always be a chasm between us
one that I can never cross
to see you
and to be with you again
not even for a single happy while
have you really gone away
have you really left me
all alone
can’t you hear me now as I speak
can’t you see me now as I search the skies
for traces of your smile
O how I wish you could see me now
And how I desire that all this time
that I’ve been praying,
you’re really sitting there, listening
gazing at me
loving me
as you’ve always done before
How I pray
you have not really gone,
that you haven’t left my side at all,
not even for a short lonely while
That all the while I have been weeping
you’re holding out your hand
catching my every tear
that all the while I have been praying
you’re praying with me, too
and with all the angels
in whose company
you now walk amongst
Who knows indeed?
who knows?
maybe you haven’t really left
maybe the love we’ve had
has woven a golden thread
between you and me
a thread that shall remain
as surely as love remains
a thread that shall draw us together
forever
and we’ll never ever need
to say goodbye

In Your Hour of Grief – FREE CHAPTER Download

“The Unbreakable Thread” from the Book IN YOUR HOUR OF GRIEF is indeed a poem of parting, of saying goodbyes, yet it is also a poem of hope, and of keeping what is worth keeping, of being comforted in spite of our sorrows.  It is a poem of healing, a poem of letting go of our bitterness while holding on to what sweetness is left in our souls by those whom God has blessed us to spend our most precious time with in this lifetime.

When You’re Grieving The Loss of a Loved One

In Your Hour of Grief – FREE CHAPTER Download

Grief, particularly the sadness of grieving the loss of a loved one, is one of the darkest hours we could ever experience. It is something that goes beyond our comprehension, something so devastating it destroys the most beautiful dreams we have ever had with and for our beloved ones.

How does one go on after such a loss? How does one survive the empty vacuum our loved ones have left behind? Is there any valid meaning we could possibly attribute to death?

Let this book be like a comforting friend for you, someone who knows just how painful it is to experience what you’re going through. I may not be physically with you, but through this book’s comforting words, may you be hugged with a warmth that reaches your heart, soothing the aches within, whispering words of hope and of a renewed sense of connection with that part of you that seemed to have been suddenly lost.

In Your Hour of Grief – FREE CHAPTER Download