|
Download and Print
| Events |
ReCreating Yourself:
The Annual Holiday Retreat
~All New Program~
~All New Price~
~All New Year~
Dec. 28, 2007
to
Jan. 1, 2008
in
Ashland, OR
What others
are saying
"This retreat has been the most marvellous experience of my 72 years of life and for certain the best investment I have ever made."
~Mary Mumford
|
| Life Education |
Are you seeking to BE the change?
Learn about our transformative teaching programs here at the ReCreation Foundation
Life Skills
Life Change
Life Mission
Join Karen Coffey for a transformational weekend in Denver Colorado
December 6-9!
|
ReCreation Executive Director
Needs Your Help! |
Hey Everybody
I'm looking for energetic people familiar with the Conversations with God material and who love to play with MySpace and YouTube and other online community technologies. If you have time, energy, and want to help please contact me at want2help@cwg.org.
Thanks so much for your consideration.
Marion Black
Executive Director |
|
|
|
New Newsletter "Changing Beliefs" coming soon!
Look for it in our upcoming bulletin.
|
Letter from Neale 
15 Words They Won't Say
Continued from last week...
My Dear Friends...
Last week in this space I talked about 15 words that no one can say - no one, at least, in places of real power and influence within the world's spiritual, political, or business communities. Those 15 words...
We are all one.
Ours is not a
better way,
ours is merely
another way.
This is called, in the fourth of the Conversations with God books (titled Friendship with God), "the New Gospel." In that book a remarkable dialogue takes place, in which I asked God about why it is so difficult for humanity's religions and other institutions to embrace such a simple and wonderful truth.
At the outset of that dialogue I asked, "Can everyone have a friendship with God?" The dialogue continued, with God answering...
Everyone.
Regardless of their beliefs, regardless of their religion?
Regardless of their beliefs, regardless of their religion.
Or lack of religion?
Or lack of religion.
Anybody can have a friendship with God, at any time, is that right?
You all do have a friendship with God.
Some of you just don't know it. As I have already said.
I know that we are repeating ourselves here, but I want to make sure, I want to make absolutely certain, that I get this right. You just talked about how we don't always get everything completely accurate, and this is one thing I want to get as accurately as I can. I want there to be no mistake about this. You are saying that there is no "right way" to God?
That is what I am saying. Exactly, precisely, unequivocally.
There are a thousand paths to God, and every one gets you there.
So we can, at last, bring "an end to better" about God. We can stop saying that "ours is the better God."
Yes, you can. But will you? That is the question.
It will require you to give up your ideas of superiority, and that is the most seductive idea human beings ever had.
It has seduced the entire human race.
It has justified the wholesale slaughter of members
of your own species, and every other species of
sentient being on your planet.
This one single thought, this one idea that you have, that you are somehow better than someone else, has caused all the heartache, all the suffering, all the cruelty, all the inhumanity that you have inflicted upon each other.
You've made this point before.
And like many other points I have made with you in this dialogue, I will make it over and over again.
This point, in particular, I want to emphasize now, in such stark terms, in such clear and specific language, that you can never forget it.
For throughout the ages humans have asked Me,
what is the way to a more perfect world?
How can we live together in harmony? What is the secret to lasting peace?
And throughout the ages I have given you the answer.
Throughout the ages I have brought you this wisdom, a thousand times in a thousand ways. Yet you have not listened.
Now I declare it over and over here, in this dialogue, in language so plain that you can never again ignore it, but will understand it completely, and internalize it so deeply, that you will hereafter and forevermore reject any suggestion that one group of you is somehow "better" than another group of you.
Again I say: put an End to Better.
For this is The New Gospel:
There IS no Master Race.
There IS no Greatest Nation.
There IS no One True Religion.
There IS no Inherently Perfect Philosophy.
There IS no Always Right Political Party,
Morally Supreme Economic System,
or One and Only Way to Heaven.
Erase these ideas from your memory.
Eliminate them from your experience.
Eradicate them from your culture.
For these are thoughts of division and separation,
and you have killed each other over these thoughts.
Only the truth I give you here will save you: WE ARE ALL ONE. 
Carry this message far and wide, across oceans and over continents, around the corner and around the world.
I will. Wherever I go, and wherever I am, I will say it loud and clear.
And with this declaration of The New Gospel,
dispel forever the second most dangerous idea on which human beings have based their behaviors: the thought that there is something you have to do to survive.
There is nothing you have to do.
Your survival is guaranteed.
It is a fact, not a hope.
It is a reality, not a promise.
You have always been, are now, and always will be.
Life is eternal, love is immortal, and death is only a horizon.
I heard that as a lyric line on a wonderful song recorded by Carly Simon. I think she got the lyrics from a poem, a free-verse that she read somewhere.
Have I not told you that I will communicate
with you in many ways-an article in a three-month
old magazine at the hair styling salon, a chance utterance by a friend, the lyrics to the next song you hear?
It is through these kinds of continuing "conversations with God" that I send you My eternal message: your survival is guaranteed.
The question is not whether you will survive,
but what shall be your experience while you are surviving?
You are answering that question now, in what you call "this lifetime," and what you call the next. For what you experience in the "next lifetime" can only be a reflection of what you have created in "this lifetime," because, in truth, there is only One Everlasting Life, with each moment creating the next.
And so we create our own heaven, and our own hell!
Yes-now, and even forevermore.
Yet once you are clear that your survival is not in question, you can stop worrying about which one of you is "better."
You don't have to punish yourself forever, scramble to "get to the top," or destroy others to ensure that you are one of "the fittest."
And so, at last, you can "get the hell out of there." Literally.
Come, then. Join with Me now in a deep and biding friendship.
I have given you the steps here.
And I have shared with you the Attitudes of God,
which will change your life.
Come then. Get the "hell" out.
Bring the blessing and the joy and the heaven in.
For thine IS the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.
I would not tell this to you if it were not so.
Elsewhere in this breathtaking dialogue God said to me...
Go, therefore, and teach ye all nations, spreading far and wide The New Gospel: WE ARE ALL ONE. OURS IS NOT A BETTER WAY, OURS IS MERELY ANOTHER WAY.  Speak it not only from your pulpits, but from the halls of your governments as well; not only in your churches, but in your schools; not only through your collective conscience, but through your collective economies. Make your spirituality real, Right Here, Right Now, on the ground. |
|
Message from Marion
Hello My Friends:
I want to start this week by thanking all of you who have answered our prayers and sent holiday contributions. Our fundraising letters have gone out over the last couple of weeks and many of you have been quite generous. I urge those of you who haven't yet gone online and made a donation or dropped a check in the mail to do so soon. If you enjoy what we do, if you benefit from the activities of the Foundation and want to help us provide for those less fortunate, please open up your hearts and send your contribution so that we can continue to provide all we do in the world on a sound financial bedrock. Thank you in advance.
Things here in Ashland are moving fast as we get prepared for many of you to join us for our Annual Holiday ReCreating Yourself Retreat and the onsite portion of our LEP program. So far we have a group of people coming from around the world. Our days here are filled with making arrangements to give all of our participants the very best the Foundation has to offer from December 28th through January 20th.
This is our last retreat group.
We can't wait to see some of you again at the Holiday Retreat!
A lot has changed for us this year as we've had to move from the facilities we've used for many years. We've got some new incredible staff working with us and, of course, as is true every year, we have a new group of students that began their program in late October, who we'll get to meet in person with the start of the retreat on December 28.
It's so funny for us, because for most of the year we handle the operations of the Foundation, and with the evolution of technology, we've become very virtual. We spend most of our time interacting by writing to you like this, answering email, and doing teleclasses and the like, and I believe each and every one of us that works with the Foundation does it for those who we serve.
Only a couple of times a year do we get to meet you in person and interact with our old friends and new ones. It's great when we do, and it always reminds us of why we're here doing this. I always feel so honored to have the job I have because I get the opportunity to further the messages of Conversations with God in the world. I believe all of us here feel this way.
While all of this is great, the "real life" side of the holidays is upon me, as it is all of you. I find this year that not only am I dealing with all the trappings of being a single mom at Christmastime, but that I and most of my friends are having to walk through significant emotional shifts. Almost everyone I know is dealing with issues around their relationships with people or circumstances in their lives in a very pronounced way.
 This whole year has been really tough for most people that I know, and I can't tell you how many emails and phone calls I've been on with CwG readers who are working through very serious life-changing issues. It's as if the pressure is on and we're being somehow pressured to move on to the next highest version of ourselves through the process of working through our own issues and addressing the aspects of who we really are that no longer serve us.
For me the year has been one upheaval after another. It's gotten so bad that I finally quit sharing a bunch of it with all of you, because I was getting reader's emails telling me to "get off it" or going on and on about "choosing to be in joy," which has been challenging at best.
 What I've come to understand through this process is that yes, a whole lot of "stuff" happened around me and to me. I created every minute of it and I did it to allow myself the opportunity to walk through my "core stuff" and deal with many of the aspects of who I am that were no longer serving me. This process is tough, and the deeper one goes, the tougher it is to discard aspects of yourself that have been a part of who you are for lifetimes.
Being given up for adoption at birth, and walking through life being emotionally unmet on almost every front, abandonment has been a life issue for me. While I've touched on it now and then, I don't know that until this year I've been totally conscious of this life theme's impact on my life. So this year, with intention set but not real conscious awareness or effort, I've created numerous opportunities where I've gotten to experience abandonment. In February, my fiancé walked out of our relationship (abandoned me).
Then there were the biggest upheavals and challenges ever in my professional life; many of my established relationships with people changed and several key players left to seek other opportunities (abandoned me). Now my ex-fiance has returned, but just wants to be "friends" (leave me abandoned). My biological mother has come back into my life after a 10 year absence (abandoned me) and we're having difficulty establishing a working relationship (leaving me abandoned). I share all this not to say I've been abandoned every which way, but to demonstrate how I've brought to myself experiences that have sparked all my issues and emotions around being abandoned. Through each of these occurrences which have deeply impacted my emotions and touched on the "stuff" of my childhood, I've had the tools and understandings of CwG to turn to and help me work through these old emotions in a new way.
While I wouldn't wish my year's experience on my worst enemy, what I've come to understand very deeply is that truly no one can abandon me when I'm here for myself. If I'm able to truly embrace the ideas and live the messages of CwG that we're all one, and that none of us are ever truly alone, it's impossible to feel left or abandoned. When I'm able to, I internalize my cognitive understanding of the idea that there are no victims or villains and that no one is doing anything to me, but that I'm at cause. Add to that, the deep understanding that no one is doing anything inappropriate given their model of the world and getting that it's all perfect is a huge step for me.
 Now I'd love to tell you that I've got it all down pat and my work is done and I'll never experience the pangs of abandonment again in my life, but I guess I'm just not that evolved. What I can tell you is this: through these life experiences I've had the opportunity over and over again to work through the old and dark emotions of my childhood and heal those, always returning to a grander version of myself and becoming more of who I really am. It's the understandings I've gleaned from Conversations with God that are the tools I use to recreate myself again, and thus give myself back to myself.
What I've also come to understand is that it's the repetition of the same experience, even though every time it looks a bit different, that is where the healing is found. Every time it's a little easier. Every time it's a little quicker process of forgetting who I am and then returning to who I really am. Every time I'm a little more able to stay in my own power and not forget as easily. Each time the period of blaming the external event or my perceived perpetrator for my experience gets a little shorter. Remembering and understanding that it's all "my stuff" happens faster.
Today more deeply than ever, I appreciate that our own evolution and growth as spiritual beings having this human experience is often times really tough. In it there is agony and despair. The path is through it, and on the other side is our true power-our healing, our happiness, and the next grandest version of the highest vision we ever held of who we really are. It is here that we find our joy, and our happiness-the light and breezy side of life lived.
I'd love to hear from those of you who have had similar experiences with challenge and used CwG to get to the other side of adversity. We love it when you write and, with our new bulletin and Monthly Newsletter launching next weekend, we're looking for articles from readers to share with everyone.
Have a great week and enjoy the season in all its glory.
Love and Light,
Marion~
Marion Black, Executive Director
ReCreation Foundation
Marion@cwg.org
Cell: (541)301-0365 |
From m. Claire, Poet 
 Beloved Friends, thank you for your generous response to the poetry that has been included in these recent wonderful CwG Bulletins by dear Marion. I want to thank you also, for allowing Marion to paste a giant 'Beloved' before my name these last two issues before I could tackle her and abscond with her giant laptop which I then dangled over Lithia Creek until she promised never again to show such unabashed celebration of our newfound friendship! Suffice it to say we have agreed to walk arm-in-arm down the city streets of Ashland-all-a-twinkle, hollering the theme song to "Laverne & Shirley" until we are sufficiently sated with all things unabashed, celebratory, and shameless!
In all seriousness, I am very clear that every one of us is the Beloved, walking. Is the Beloved, smiling laughing moving breathing hugging singing writing shining talking dancing thinking doing BEING!!
Which brings me to a lovely We-Are-All-Connected, synchronicity story.
Last week a wonderful person contacted me regarding one of the poems they came across on my website. This particular poem spoke to them of the challenges that touch every person involved in an Adoption. Although it was written originally about a different experience in my life that had been challenging, it still deals with the same judgments we lay upon ourselves and others, of guilt, and shame. A number of emails were exchanged, sharing how our own lives have been touched by adoption, as my older brother is adopted, as well as my two closest galpals (Marion being one of them). This person who contacted me is also adopted and described to me in incredibly moving terms the often very difficult judgments that the birth mother or parents, the adoptive parents, and the child 'given up' for adoption, experience throughout a lifetime. So moved was I by the even deeper awareness that I was brought to by this beautiful person's sharing, that I was inspired to write a poem that spoke specifically to this topic (which appears at the end of this article, titled Immaculate).
As synchronicity would have it, while this was the dominant theme in the last week of my own life, it was as prominent in Marion's. Therefore, we decided to include poems that might speak to not only the difficult emotions that often (but not always) accompany this particular life experience, but most importantly, the underlying Knowing that each and every one of us are Innocent simply because we Are. We are That. We are That Which Is. And in my belief, That Which Is, is Love.
We just sometimes forget this simple Truth.
And maybe that's why we're here on this planet together.
To remind one another how underneath it all, we are only made of Love and an Innocence that is our birthright. Our Birthright.
For it simply cannot be wrong, no matter what the circumstances may look like, although it certainly can feel that way sometimes.
The Mystery of why and who and where and how is always a Mystery.
But perhaps the answer to that Ongoing, Unfolding Question can almost always be answered with something like this: "I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love."
Thanks, Mother Teresa. We'll keep at it...
You Are Love; You Are Loved,
- m. Claire
Immaculate
We are birthing
each other.
I step aside, I open, I surrender,
and the womb is
clear
*
Life has taken my knees and gently
and with great intention, invited them
to relax
to make the passing
easier.
*
 Although my own hands may not
catch you
I trust
that Earth-Angels
have been waiting for you
and hold your Light,
and deliver you into It.
.
In this New Family
The Immaculate Conception
is
every Being
Immaculate
at its Birth.
Innocent from Its Inception.
A Heart
on God's Sleeve.
'Immaculate' - m. Claire
(Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved)
Every Child
It's as if we lost a child
even as we held it,
rocking it
clothed & warm.
And now we hold
a Grief between us.
It wails; it goes quiet.
We tiptoe through
the rooms
afraid
that it is either
awake
or
sleeping again,
not knowing
which is worse.
The first -
the one we lost
was named Innocence.
The second -
the one we try to love -
Shame.
But God trusts us with every child...
'Every Child' - m. Claire
(Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved)
There is a Home for You, always.
It cannot be left, or lost sight of in that
Dark Night
because more than any darkness
It is Light.
It is greater than any wing
of Angeled Grace You pray for,
and cannot even pretend
to protect or shelter You
from Life's storms
because
It is a Love
within
that simply cannot
be left or leave
You
on any of Life's darkened doorsteps
for long,
before
that Light - a feather on Your cheek -
carries You,
sleeping, Innocent Child,
and tucks You
safely
safely
back into Your bed.
 'Innocent' - m. Claire(Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved) |
 |
|
Questions and Answers with Neale
Giving and Receiving
Dear Neale,
After seeing you talk last night in Miami, I left with a couple of questions. I figured it would be best to ask. When you mentioned that one has the choice of being the receiver or the giver of whatever one wants in one's life, I can understand how if I want more love or compassion, I give love and compassion to others. But what about when it comes to health or relationships - as in a partner - how does this manifest? What needs to be given to find or have good health, or a life partner?
I guess as I write these questions I find the answers to them myself, but your input would be welcomed as well.
Thank you,
Blessings,
Diana
Neale's Response:
To find a good life partner, BE a good life partner to another. If you do not have "another" to be a good life partner with, than be a good life partner to everyone. Act as if everyone was your spouse! Act as if everyone was your lover! Do this for three months and I promise you that you'll have plenty of people coming to you asking you for a little of your magic and begging you to consider them as a possible life partner.
If you want to have good health for yourself, be the source of good health for another. There are many ways you can do this. Help someone that you know and love with their diet. Encourage someone to whom you are close to do more exercise. You might even invite them to go to the gym with you as you do yours. Buy someone a subscription to a health oriented magazine! There are a dozen ways that you can be the source of good health for another. Indeed, the ways are endless. Simply smiling at other people sends them healing energies.
Neale | |
| The CwG Weekly Bulletin is lovingly prepared by Neale Donald Walsch, Rose Wolfenbarger, Marion Black, Brandon Klayman, LEP Graduates and other friends.
If you enjoy this FREE bulletin, and feel that you get great value from it please consider making a donation to help us continue to offer services like this. The CwG Foundation is a non-profit organization and any donation amount is greatly appreciated.
Please click here to make a contribution
Every little bit helps!
If you would like to connect with us with your comments, questions, or sharing, please visit us online. |
|
|
If you would like to send a comment or a question to Neale here at the Weekly Bulletin, you may do so by addressing an email to: weeklybulletinresponse@CwG.org
Please note that because of the volume of mail that we receive, it is possible your letter will not get printed here. However, we do our best to see that all letters get a response, if not directly from Neale, then from a CwG Foundation staff person, or LEP participant.
|
|
|
