The Year 2009: What We Should Have Learned!

Without question, I know that no matter when I look back on all the years of my life, I will have to pause, take a very, very long pause, as I look upon the happenings and events of 2009.

This year, without question, was one of the most provocative for me. I am sure it has been so for many others, too.


For many people, the provocation may have come from displacement in a job, financial circumstances or challenges with their health. For me, it came through a total SHIFT in connecting with my Soul.

As we approach the end of this very provocative year, we should be asking one key question: What have we LEARNED?


I share what I learned to help elicit the same "wisdom" from within you:

I learned that ....even if I ever had the slightest doubt, GOD DOES EXIST!

I learned that... God is closer to me than my very breath.

I learned that... God wants MORE for me than I ever dreamed or wanted for myself.

I learned that... God has me in the palm of his hands and everything that has happened and will happen to me is for MY OWN GOOD.

I learned that... God is LOVE, so I must be LOVE if I strive to be his ambassador of TRUTH.

I learned that... God is alive in everyone else in the planet, no matter how they may show up in the exterior; it's just a 'disguise' for his beauty, love and PRESENCE.

I learned that we must allow people...just to BE! It's not about what we want for them...it's what their God-driven Spirit is leading them to do and BE in this world!

I learned that we can have opinions about people...but NOT JUDGMENTS! We don't know what's going on inside!

I learned that ALL life has value, no matter if we understand or not.

I learned that God is the ONE Spirit within each of us, no matter HOW
we show up in the world.

I learned that God does not make mistakes, not even a tinny, tiny, one, though we sometimes want to think so. NO ONE IS A MISTAKE!

I learned that MY life is NOT about ME; it's about God!

I learned that until I get into total alignment with God's WILL and Purpose for MY life, the struggles and obstacles will continue.

I learned that God always wins!

I learned that... God is here, now, and is always HERE NOW!

I learned that ...God uses my hands and feet to reach and touch others, as he uses theirs to touch me.

I learned that ... I truly am never alone.

I learned that... when I believed there was a problem, it was just an opportunity lighting the path to my GO (o) D.

I learned that... God has no time for my EGO complaints. He wants to get the job done in and through me, and I'm blocking my GO (o)D with my petty and humanistic complaints..about 'not enough,' 'I'm scared,' or 'I can't DO IT!'

I learned that... no matter what happens to me, I will be okay....I always am okay because I always AM in the Presence of God.

I learned that... when I stop my striving, that's when God begins to do his 'arriving.'

I learned that... if I stop in the midst of my troubles and BE STILL, I will always SEE the light and feel the warmth of its touch.

I learned Wholeness.

I learned to live from the Center of my Being.

I learned to make PEACE with My Soul.

What have you learned by living through this year, 2009?

Did you and are YOU continuing to struggle with any issues or challenges that cropped up in 2009?

It's time to give them a rest...yourself a rest.

It's time for you to put aside your egoic struggles and humanistic efforts.

Leo Tolstoy:

"Vanity and seeking fame are the last garments you will have to take off. They are difficult to remove, because they prevent your spirit from being free."

I ask you to do this for GO (o) D if not for YOU:

Lay your burdens down and turn within.

Say out loud or quietly: "I am Whole and Free because YOU LIVE in ME!"


As you prepare to usher in 2010 over the next four days, if ever an uncomfortable thought pops up, shoo it away by repeating:

"I am WHOLE and FREE because YOU live in ME!"

That's what I learned in 2009.

Make your own list of what you learned in 2009 and circulate it to your friends over the next few days, starting with "I learned in 2009 that..."

May you be blessed by the PEACE of the Lord that TRULY passeth ALL understanding in 2010! May you enjoy Peace with your Soul!


Enjoy, too, what has become one of my most favorite poems!

Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley(1849–1903).

Have a wonderful NEW YEAR!


Namaste',
Che'

Beautiful People Profile: Why Warren E. Buffett is Truly St. Nicholas!

Hey, don't let this blog have you fooled: If I knew Warren Buffett personally, do you think I'd be sitting here?


I would have demanded all the "goods" from all the years that I had asked for at Christmas and other times and NOT gotten!

See ...despite my spiritual leanings, I'm no slouch! I like nice and fancy things, too. So, as soon as I met "St. Nicholas," I would have collected on the goods and....run quietly away.

But God protects "fools and babies," and no less so has he done with me by sparing me that meeting....from making a fool of myself.

How repulsed do you think St. Nicholas would be?


This is a man who gives away billions...yes...not a typo...billions, not millions...to ensure that it gets to the world of those who need it more than he! Then, he turns around and trains his protege' to do the same!

No, I couldn't ask St. Nicholas for goods.

Here's what he said about material wealth:

"I don't have a problem with guilt about money. The way I see it is that my money represents an enormous number of claim checks on society. It's like I have these little pieces of paper that I can turn into consumption. If I wanted to, I could hire 10,000 people to do nothing but paint my picture every day for the rest of my life. And the GDP would go up. But the utility of the product would be zilch, and I would be keeping those 10,000 people from doing AIDS research, or teaching, or nursing. I don't do that though. I don't use very many of those claim checks. There's nothing material I want very much. And I'm going to give virtually all of those claim checks to charity when my wife and I die."

(But I still would consider it an honor to meet the man. {A 2007 auction that offered lunch with Buffett raised a final bid of $657, 100 for charity.} Come to think of it... recently...I had another such HONOR meeting someone else like that...but that's another story possibly for another time.)

I consider Warren Edward Buffett the St. Nicholas of all times!


Here is a man who has acquired tremendous wealth ($40 billion in 2009; $62 billion in 2008) but still lives in the same five-bedroom Omaha, Nebraska, home he moved into when he first purchased it in 1958 for $31,500. (Net worth today: $700,000; he also has a $4 million home in Laguna Beach, California: Can you BLAME HIM for having this backup? Who wants to be in Omaha 12 months of the year!)

The thing I LOVE about Buffett is that he does his stuff without much fanfare and showing off about his goodness.


In addition to his education at University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and Columbia University, respectively receiving a bachelor's and master's degree in Economics, I also believe he read one of my favorite fables on Giving and Money Management: "Magnificent Obsession," by Lloyd Douglas.

Early in 2006, he must have quietly invited Bill Gates to his home for a game of bridge and a quiet Sunday dinner with him and his wife, Astrid. (His first wife, Susan, died in 2004, but they had lived apart since 1977 when she moved to San Francisco to pursue a singing career. He married his long-time companion, Astrid Menks, in 2006).


Yes, I picture the scene at the nice "little" (sic) stucco home.

He opened the door himself and welcomed Bill and Melinda in.

Then, after he must have defeated Bill Gates soundly at that bridge game, he sat back in contentment and began to tell the story...about WHY he chose to become "St. Nicholas," and works HARD to acquire billions...just to give it away. I'm guessing he must have whipped Gates at the bridge game, because it was in June 2006 that he announced he would give 83 percent of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Transferring 10 million of his Berkshire Hathaway Class B Stock to the Foundation, he essentially gave to them a (US) $30.7 billion gift.


The good thing is, he is not a Robin Hood: he's not STEALING from the rich or anybody else.

Referred to at various times as the "Oracle of Omaha" or "Sage of Omaha," Buffett became rich the old-fashioned way...he's EARNED IT! Yes, through his brilliant financial knowledge and intimacies with the intricacies of companies he is able to make projections about their ability to rise and fall. He's made a killing by investing in the right stocks!

He does this...and then he quietly gives it all away.

As the kids would say, "How cool is that?"

Can you talk about sleeping peacefully at night?



Can you IMAGINE his conversations with GOD?


Can you IMAGINE THE day, he and HIS GOD meet face to face?


Can I have a witness!!!

My appreciation for the goodness of Warren Buffett goes beyond the ordinary! I'm fascinated by his goodness and his lack of seeking glory!

I TRULY LOVE THIS MAN!!! And as a Public Relations professional, I am very wary about reading too much into other people's PR...but...

From the depths of ALL I BELIEVE IN ...about the GOODNESS OF PEOPLE...he proves that it exists!

He keeps what he needs to live on and gives the rest away!


Can you see WHY God is smiling and giving him more and more and more and more and more and more...

I went past the age of most kids in wanting to believe in Santa Claus!


Despite ALL the evidence that we did not have a chimney in Guyana, South America, and we could not hang stockings by the fire for Santa to fill, by God, I wanted to believe in this mythological figure!

I wouldn't GIVE IT UP until I was about seven or eight years old!

I wanted the illusion! I wanted to believe in the goodness of man.


I wanted to believe that there truly was a man who heard the quiet pleas of desperate children and then responded...one night of the year...and delivered on all their prayers.

I did not want to live in a world of broken dreams. In a world where people overlooked the needs of others and did not care about anything but their fame and glory and
"getting rich," for richness sake!



(Fast Forward many, many years)....In the midst of believing that I was living in an ocean of selfish and uncaring people...in stepped Warren Buffett!

Warren Buffett TRULY is St. Nicholas to the world!

He truly manifests the goodness of man.

I hope on Christmas Eve, as Warren Buffett sits with his cup of hot chocolate and the cookies his "kids" left out for Santa, he knows that many hearts are warm and alight with appreciation for his BEAUTIFUL SOUL!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, SANTA CLAUS!!!

Hey, can you all see the physical resemblance, too?


I clearly do!


Don't know about you...but as I "lay me down to sleep" on Christmas Eve...I'll be dreaming of a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, this year, with Santa Claus filling up my stockings with ALL that is GOOD!

Merry Christmas!

Namaste',

Che'

NOTE: Read this wonderful news story about "Kansas' new Secret Santa" giving away about $14K this year: cut/paste...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091210/ap_on_re_us/us_secret_santa. Also Cut/Paste this YouTube link to enjoy "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," sung by Bruce Springsteen or Mariah Carey:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWv72L4wgCc&NR=1.

Please Cut/Paste this entire link for more Christmas songs. http://bitsandpieces.us/2009/12/14/christmas-songs/

Book Review: "The Memory Quilt: A Christmas Story for Our Times" by T.D. Jakes

(Che' NOTE: This review of "Memory Quilt" is offered now in time for Christmas. It replaces my planned review of "The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent: The Art of Allowing," by Esther and Jerry Hicks. This November 2006 release is the second in the series of The Teachings of Abraham. I strongly recommend the Amazing Power for all metaphysical readers! The book has awesome and easy-to-apply recommendations for aligning with Spirit. It would be a great way to start your New Year.)




Just in time for Christmas, Bishop T. D. Jakes offers up a great serving of holiday cheer.

The fictionalized story is about Lela Edwards, who lives in Chicago, and is contemplating her Christmas holiday. A perfect Christmas for her would include her husband of 50 years, her three daughters and her favorite granddaughter, Darcie, all absent from Chicago this year.

The perfect Christmas is not to be.

Her husband, Walt, is dead and none of the other family members will be home this year for Christmas, either.

As Lela contemplates whether to make a quilt to give to Darcie, as a long delayed, wedding present, she thinks of Mary and the Virgin Birth.

Through Bible study and Scripture, Jakes weaves a fanciful tale about Lela, her Chicago neighborhood, fellow church members and her family.

Without a doubt, T.D. Jakes has a rare talent to look into the Souls of women and tell their experience, without any apologies or difficulties.

This talent is even more evident in *"The Memory Quilt."


All the bickerings and attitude between mother, daughter, grandchild boil to the service during this "less than perfect Christmas" holiday season.

Nine-inch fabric by nine-inch fabric, the quilt is sewn together. As she brings the pattern of the quilt into wholeness, Lela is able to realize each piece of the quilt represents the fabric of her life: her family, her neighbors and friends.

Lela realizes that God gives us the raw materials to work with through different pieces he lays out before us, but it is up to us to weave those pieces together into a whole and appreciate them as key fabrics in our lives.

Get out your hot chocolate.

Sit in your favorite chair by the fire.

Curl your feet under.

Begin.

The book is an easy read.

You'll be warmed by the tapestry and artistry of a man "and his ladies." In the end, you'll find yourself in a beautifully "tailored" place that only T.D. Jakes could have crafted with his keen insights into the ways of women!

Namaste',

Che'

NOTE:* "The Memory Quilt" is one of a handful of fictions T.D. Jakes has written, among more than 30 other non-fiction, best selling books. To hear a narrative of the story, log onto: http://www.tdjenterprises.com/blog. Scroll down to the bottom of the blog for the narrative.

When Our Humanity Gets "Ticketed" ...Yet...

In the name of the law, all sorts of strange things have been happening this year.

This news article appeared on February 26, 2009:

DENVER – A good Samaritan who helped push three people out of the path of a pickup truck before being struck and injured has gotten a strange reward for his good deed: A jaywalking ticket.

Family members said 58-year-old bus driver Jim Moffett and another man were helping two elderly women cross a busy Denver street in a snowstorm when he was hit Friday night.

Moffett suffered bleeding in the brain, broken bones, a dislocated shoulder and a possible ruptured spleen. He was in serious but stable condition Wednesday.

The Colorado State Patrol issued the citation. Trooper Ryan Sullivan said that despite Moffett's intentions, jaywalking contributed to the accident.

Moffett had been driving his bus when the two women got off. In the interest of safety, he got out and, together with another passenger, helped the ladies cross.

Moffett's stepson, Ken McDonald, said the driver of the pickup plowed into his stepfather, but not before Moffett pushed the two women out of the way.

When he awoke in intensive care, he learned of the ticket. "His reaction was dazed and confused. I was a little angry," said McDonald.

The other man also was cited for jaywalking, while the pickup driver was cited with careless driving that led to injury. Sullivan said the two elderly women haven't been cited but the investigation is ongoing.

Moffett got ticketed for doing good.


More recently Tariq and Michaele Salahi allegedly crashed a dinner at the White House in honor of the Indian Prime Minister.


Here is where the dichotomy begins in the diligence of law enforcement officers: one good man got ticketed for "doing good," while "party animals" escape the scrutiny of law enforcement at the highest level because "they were really looking good!"

Huh?

These two situations demonstrate a simple point: when it comes to using the "HUMAN" radar to judge what is just and right and fair practices in these United States, it seems that we're failing miserably.



A person can look good and be up to no good other than wanting to get fame for himself. Another can go to his heart space and reach out in compassion to another, and he gets penalized.



We need to move away from superficial measures to exercise judgment.


In the case of the Denver situation, the officer really did not use compassionate attention or good judgment at all when he wrote that citation. (This is evident when the Colorado State Patrol soon dropped the citation). With the alleged gate crashers, we see that even the guys who are supposed to be guarding the top level
of our government take a nap every now and again when it comes to those who look good.

When we begin to use an external radar to gauge one person's "rightfulness," we all are headed for trouble.


Jesus said: "Judge not, that you be not judged." Matthew 7:1

But he also said: "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." John 7:24


This means that we should use spiritual judgment to discern the right and apppropriate actions and attitudes to take with people. And I tell you, every time I come from the center of my being in judging people, I'm never, ever wrong.

People can fool us on the outside by all their loving words and ways.
But then, go within to "feel the spirit" of the person and you will ALWAYS know the truth about them.


Sometimes when I've been in certain places, I've been overwhelmed by the attention I get from people who would normally be strangers; they quite frankly tried "to gate crash" their way into my life. To keep from losing my equilibrium at those times, I've always gone within to know the "truth" about them.

Nothing happens in the immediate to disprove superficial ways but time always has proven the truth of spiritual discernment.


The Spirit will never steer you wrong. If you "feel" something about a person, just watch and wait it out.

It could be a person you don't know well, who catches your attention by his or her beautiful disposition. Given enough time, circumstances WILL surface to prove your discernment true.


In situations where an officer has to use his "human" judgment and application of the law, it gets tricky. But even in those times, the officer (s) quickly can go within to his heart space and be guided as to whether to issue a warning or a ticket.



There's a spiritual song that goes,"Don't let anyone ever tell you...
you're not whole. Don't let anyone ever tell you, you're not beautiful..."


People may respond to you in different ways, based on your appearance.
Despite having clearance and an invitation, they may look you
right in the face and say, "You're a party crasher!"
But know that this has everything to do with the reflection of
their "human" radar than with YOU!


Don't let people's responses to you ever define you
and make you respond to life in any way that cages up
your true beauty! The truth is that YOU are whole...and
beautiful...and FREE.

Just go within and SEE and FEEL the beauty of your Spirit!

That is the BEST radar for your life:

You are beautiful!

God never has and never will make a mistake!


You're God's perfect child just the way you are!


Namaste',

Che'