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My dear friends...

 

     Are you feeling as I am feeling as we move through the final week of the opening month of 2008?  For me there's something vaguely liberating about this time of year. For a brief moment, at least, it seems as though we can start over---I mean, really start OVER.
     For me, the feeling lasts just under a month. Somewhere around the 25th of January it dissipates and goes away. But for that blessed three-plus weeks it feels as if I truly have a chance. A chance to break out of old habits that don't serve me anymore---that never served me, truth be told. A chance to break away from old patterns that have stopped me from realizing my highest potential.
     A chance to drop old ways of "being," abandon old behaviors, reject old thoughts that no longer empower me---and probably never did.
     The beginning of the year for me is kind of like a pause to refresh.
     It all starts for me on New Year's Eve, when I make my New Year's Resolutions. I really make 'em, you know? I sit down and think about myself in ways that I usually don't. I take stock. I examine what I was, what I am, and what I want to be.
     Is that old fashioned? I hope not. I hope that a little introspection now and then never goes out of style. We need to look at ourselves---critically look at ourselves---now and then, just to keep the game honest.
     I do, anyway.
     So I start, on New Year's Eve, with my Resolutions. I'm going to eat better in 2008---beginning right after the holidays.  (It's that time now!) I'm going to exercise more. (Well, actually, anything would qualify as "more." So I changed that to, "I'm going to exercise regularly.")
     I'm going to do a better job of nurturing my spirit. I'm going to try to meditate more. And read more spiritually nourishing books. And see more spiritually enriching cinema.
     Now to the really important stuff...I'm going to pay more attention to the people I love. I mean, a lot more attention. I'm going to listen more, and talk less. I'm going to "be there" for them more, knowing that my presence alone is often the biggest gift.
     And I'm going to criticize less. Who needs to hear from me on the best way to live their life---or do whatever it is they're trying to do right now that I think they might be able to do better?
     So I'm going to stop being critical. I'm not the hall monitor around here. I'll give my advice only when I'm asked. Now that shouldn't be so hard, should it? You know what? I think in 2008 I'll pay more attention to improving myself. That should take up enough time to not allow a moment for criticizing others...
     I'm really a nicer person, a wiser person, a more considerate person, a more patient and compassionate person, than I often come off as being. All I have to do is be my Highest Self. I just have to get in touch with Who I REALLY Am on a more consistent basis.
     I think that means getting connected with God again. I mean, really connected, not just "lip service connected." Not just the occasional prayer, but regular conversations.
     Now there's a novel idea. What if, every day, I could have my very own Conversations with God? Hmmmm...
     Probably the best way to start would be for me to realize that I'm talking to God the moment I begin talking to YOU.
     Yes...that would be a good place to start...
     In the meantime, my excitement continues to run high for the new electronic magazine being put out by our non-profit foundation. I just saw the January issue and it is magnificent! You have to see it to believe it.  This is really a special project, and I am so proud of what Marion Black and her team has done with this.
     When you open this electronic file (accessible via the Internet to anyone who subscribes) you get pages and pages of wonderful articles, tips, questions-and-answers on CWG, you name it!  AND...terrific color graphics and photos, many of which are animated.
     This is a novel new idea that could only happen in our new digital world: a "magazine" with pictures that move. It's a tremendously exciting way to put out a publication, and I really want you to see this! If you didn't take up our offer to see an issue free of charge last month, I hope you will do so right now. Click on over to the link just below and take a glance at this fabulous electronic monthly. You're going to love it.
     Just click here: http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?mid=prrwg
     And I will see you here next week.

 

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Message From Marion...

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Hello Everyone:

 

     Things here in Ashland are finally slowing down.  We finished the LEP Life Mission Program just on Saturday the 19th and as our students depart I find I feel excited for them and a little sad for myself - as I will miss them all so much.

     We had a great group this year, as always.   We had a group that represented almost every demographic, each individual had a very distinctive and dynamic personality, but as always the Universe and all of us co-created the perfect group of messengers to be in the room to learn more about Conversations with God and how to teach it to others.

     The last night we were together we did a small dinner up at Neale's and we had a very intimate graduation ceremony.  When it came my turn to speak, I shared that while these students so obviously are full of gratitude for all Neale and the Foundation have given them through the program, it is truly the students who give us the greatest gift of all.

     I find that I'm so moved and touched every year by our students' love and devotion to the Conversations with God material. As the material has changed and enhanced their lives individually they have each committed themselves in some way to sharing the information with others in their own special way. I feel so honored to be a part of helping them to do that. I feel so inspired when I hear their stories and share in their process of learning and deepening their experience of CwG.

     I also find through being involved with this training program for almost a month every year that I personally can shift my understanding and deepen my relationship to the material.  CwG has such an amazingly timeless quality to it. The material always meets me wherever I am in any situation and it never ceases to call forth in me new perspectives and insights.  Sometimes in the hustle and bustle of everyday life I forget that I have this incredible volume of work to support me in my journey through life.
     Oh, yes, I know a lot of it by heart, and much of it is ingrained in me, but I don't believe that anyone among us can "get" it all, or at least I know I can't.  What I can do and often forget to do or start and then stop is to stay in the material.  That is to continue to read one of the CwG books or another at any given time.  It seems when life gets hard or very challenging, Book 1 will take up its place on my bedside table for a time, but that's not the same thing as what I call "staying in the material". 

     Neale suggests to our students every year that they read something out of the material every single day - I haven't done that in years.  As I sit here and write this I'm thinking it's time for me to re-read all the books again.  I've done this twice before and it made a deep impression on me.  While I'd love to make a commitment to doing that, I also become aware that for me, the last few years have brought great challenges to me in the area of reading. 

     I used to be a voracious reader, but I found in the last few years that gathering the concentration to read a book from cover to cover has become a difficult task.  Even staying focused on a book on tape in the car is trying at best, but I imagine the discipline of beginning with Book 1 and reading at least a few pages everyday might prove beneficial.

     Ugh.  I hate it when I make commitments like this or set intentions in this article with all of you as my witnesses, but it's a good thing, too, because it makes it harder to fudge.  The good thing about this idea is that it will get me back into the material and give me more to share with all of you. 

     If you're interested in joining me in this process - just find your copy of CwG-Book 1, put it on your bedside and make an effort to read two or three pages every morning or every night before you go to bed.  I'll write about insights and such that I have every week.  If you have questions or experiences you'd like to share, write me at marion@cwg.org.  As I'll be on the road for the next couple of weeks I'll start this in February.

     Also, back to my earlier discussion about the Life Mission training.  Because we had so much interest in this program and we'd capped the number of students earlier in the fall, Neale has offered to do a second Life Mission Training Program this year in September.  We hope to have it up on our website this week, but if you'd like more information right now just e-mail Kate, our LEP Coordinator, at Kate@cwg.org.  

     Blessings to all of you. May your week be full of love and light.

Marion Black, Executive Director
marion@cwg.org / (541)301-0365

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Best of the Blogs...

 

Each week we present in this space the best from past entries on the worldwide CwG Blog.  The blog can be accessed daily on the home page at www.beliefnet.com.

Category: The News and The New Spirituality
Doctor Assisted Suicide: Should It Be Allowed?

     The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (known popularly as "the P-I" in that neck of the woods) reports in a copyrighted story that Washington's former governer, Booth Gardner, filed an initiative last week to put a doctor-assisted suicide law on the ballot in November. Gardner says this is his "last campaign."
     The former governor is suffering from Parkinson's Disease. His initiative is fashioned after a similar law in Oregon, and would allow doctors to prescribe a fatal dose of barbiturates to terminally ill patients diagnosed with six months or less to live. He needs to gather 225,000 valid voter signatures by July to get it on the ballot this Fall.
     The Post-Intelligencer quotes Gardner as saying, "I went from thinking I was indestructible to knowing that I was no longer indestructible. Not that all my decisions we're good by any stretch of the imagination, but I was still able to make them. Now I realize I can't do that ... the kids take over, the nurses and doctors take over, and you lose your autonomy."
     The P-I says that the initiative "does not come without its foes." It reports that "opposition from doctors, lawyers and some Christian groups, as well as from disability-rights advocates, is likely to be formidable."
     I am sorry to hear that. Death with dignity should be the right of every human being. To me, the reasoning being used to oppose this initiative is specious at best. In its story the P-I quotes pastor Joe Fuiten of the Faith and Freedom Network as saying, "To me, the religious views are rather simple. 'Thou shall not kill' is still one of the Ten Commandments."
     I find this just a little confusing in the face of the fact that many Christian pastors across the nation have openly favored President Bush's taking of this country into a war in Iraq. He did so, you will surely remember, on the basis of reports that that country was secretly stashing weapons of mass destruction. We now know that there never were any such weapons being hidden...so then we turned the military operation into one of nation building...something that Bush, in his first campaign for the White House, severely criticized President Bill Clinton for...and which Mr. Bush said that he would never, ever do.
     Yes, well, all of that is ancient history...but what is not history is that many people seem comfortable even today using the "thou shall not kill" injunction as a reason to oppose what they want to oppose -- but seem to completely ignore the injunction when it does not serve their purpose.
     Now there are those who will argue that killing people in a war is not really killing, because it is "self-defense." This, however, is the rationale used by every nation and every person in this history of our species who has ever entered into an armed conflict with others. Remember this and consider this carefully: All attack is called self defense.
     There is something else that I just don't understand about the fierce opposition to doctor-assisted suicide. Why is it that we allow dogs and cats and other mammals to be put to death in order to end their suffering when they are in unremitting pain and their quality of life has diminished to the point where it is not worth living, but we can't see our way clear to allow humans -- who at least have a conscious say in the matter -- to do the same?
     The P-I also reported that Duane French, a spokesman for the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide, referred to doctor-assisted suicide as a "phony form of freedom," saying profit-oriented health care providers would be motivated to deny patients coverage, prompting a rise in deaths by patients who view suicide as the only viable solution.
     Nothing of the sort has happened in Oregon, however -- a point that the Post-Intelligencer failed to make.
     Hmmm....

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