Is it as simple as Friendship?
In This Issue...
Notes from Neale
The CwG Reader
The Calendar
Notes from Neale...
My dear friends...
I hope and trust that your life has been wonderful this week. Let me say that the important thing is to be friends.
Be friends with everybody.
Be friends with your spouse. Be friends with your children. Be friends with your relatives. Be friends with your neighbors and your fellow workers and your acquaintances. And yes, even be friends with your enemies.
Just...be friends.
One of the most stinging criticisms I ever received was when someone to whom I was once married, and who I truly and dearly loved, once said to me: "You treat your friends better than you treat me."
I never, ever forgot that. Because I knew it was true. It is absolutely, stunningly true that I had more tolerance for, more patience with, more leniency regarding my friends' behaviors than I did with the person with whom I was sharing my life.
I said things to my life partner that I would never say to a friend. I criticized my life partner for things that I would simply "let go" with a friend. I noticed things with my life partner that I would overlook with a friend. And I let things bother me---annoy me, actually---that my life partner did that wouldn't even phase me if a friend did the exact same thing.
What is this about? I began to wonder. Why do we so often treat those closest to us as if they were not "close" to us at all? Is it because we know them better than we know our friends, spending more time with them day in and day out as we do? Could it really be true that "familiarity breeds contempt"?
No, no...say it isn't so! Shouldn't familiarity breed compassion, understanding, patience, tolerance, acceptance, and deeper and deeper love? Shouldn't intimate relationship be the place of greatest safety, not of the least?
When I was a small child (which was very, very long ago) there was a song that was popular. Even then it was an Oldie But Goodie, and we had an old phonograph record of it sung by the Mills Brothers that I used to play on the family Victrola (Ha! Does anyone even know who or what I am talking about here---???)
The song was called, You Always Hurt the One You Love. And the lyrics went something like this...if I can remember them now...
You always hurt the one you love
The one you shouldn't hurt at all
You always take the sweetest rose
And crush it `til the petals fall
You always break the kindest heart
With a hasty word you can't recall
So if I broke your heart last night
It's because I love you most of all.
The irony of that song sticks with me to this very day. I have come to deeply regret (and to beg them and the heavens forgiveness for) the many ways that I have treated beloved others who have been close to me, and to realize that one of the greatest gifts we can give to a loved one is friendship. Pure and simple friendship. Just treat them like a Friend. Like we would treat someone we are afraid of losing.
So yes, be friends with your spouse. Be friends with your children. Be friends with your relatives. Be friends with your neighbors and your fellow workers and your acquaintances. And yes, even be friends with your enemies. And most of all...be friends with yourself!
That may be the hardest thing to do of all. And so we'll take a close look at that next week.
Love and Hugs,
Neale.
DEALING WITH UNWANTED CHANGE!!!
Nothing is more disruptive in life than unexpected, unwanted, unbidden CHANGE. It can tear us apart and bring us to our knees. Regrettably, most of us were not given in our childhood the tools with which to effectively deal with such upheavals. So we negotiate them as best we can-and that is sometimes not very well at all. Some of us go into a real tailspin. Some of us become sad, disillusioned, deeply disappointed, and even bitter. Some of us can't even find a reason to go on with life.
That is why Neale Donald Walsch was inspired to write the extraordinary book, When Everything Changes, Change Everything, and to produce an extended spiritual renewal retreat based on this book.
The purpose of the retreat is to "change Change" before Change changes you. That is, to change our understanding of Change, and change our reaction to Change, before the Changes in our lives change us.
If Change has visited your life in the past 24 months---and we're talking about major change here (the loss of a partner, the end of a job, a huge shift in life of some sort)---and you would like some wonderful tools with which to deal with this, why not just check out the information about CwG Spiritual Renewal "Changes" Retreat this coming July 29-August 1 in Medford, Oregon?
Just call Will Richardson at 352-442-2244 and he'll tell you all about it. Or follow this link and you'll have a ton of information right in front of you...
http://www.nealedonaldwalsch.com/index.php?p=Doc&c=classes2
The CwG Reader
Further explorations of the Conversations with God material from the author
Neale Donald Walsch through the years has given hundreds of talks and written scores of articles revolving around the messages he received in his Conversations with God. Now, every seven days, we will present in this space a transcript or reprint of those presentations. We invite you to Copy and Save each one of them, creating a personal a collection of contemporary and uplifting spiritual thought which you may reference at any time. We hope you will find this a constant source of insight and inspiration.
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This week's offering: PART TWO of a radio interview over the Internet in 2004 that delves into many of the messages of Conversations with God from a layman's point of view. This transcript contains small edits and includes a few additional words here and there written in by Neale while reading the original transcript, in order to clarify a point.
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Internet Radio Interview with Neale Donald Walsch
by SpiritualGrowthMonthly.com
(continued from last week)
Matt: One of the big questions you talk about in your book is: "If I am really talking to God, why don't you prove yourself in some irrefutable way"...
Neale: Well, you see, there are no irrefutable ways. That's the whole point of what I've just said. There are no irrefutable ways because there is no such thing as objectivity; that is, complete objectivity. Once again, everything that's experienced is experienced by you, and you may experience it any way you wish because it is experienced through the filter that is you. You may experience it differently from the way I'm experiencing it, therefore, everything I say is refutable by someone else.
Even if God came down, God would ask the question, "What way would you find irrefutable? I've already come down, I've already made my presence known, I've already made my reality (the reality of God) known in a million ways," but there are a million people who would disagree with each of those ways and claim that it is not the truth.
So it looks as if you have to find your own way, which is, of course, what I've been telling you from the beginning!
Matt: You're saying that God is constantly speaking to us, but we don't listen.
Neale: Unless we do.
Matt: Unless we do! So how can we learn to listen more to God and to get more of God into our lives?
Neale: By wanting to. It's not a question of learning- there's nothing to learn. That's like saying: How can we learn to love? Loving and listening to God are the same thing.
A baby doesn't have to be taught how to love; a baby is taught how not to love, and we spend the rest of our lives teaching each other how not to love.
Loving and listening to God are the same thing, so the answer to your question is: we don't have to learn how to listen to God, we simply have to choose to, and once we choose to, the way to do that will be made obvious to us. It will be right in front of us, and there will be a million ways. There isn't only one way.
That's why it's not a simple thing to say, "This is how you can learn to do that," because there is no one way to love, and there is no one way to listen to God. God will communicate with you every day, in a thousand different ways, from moment to moment...the words to the next song you hear on the radio, the picture you see on the billboard when you turn the corner, the chance utterance of a friend on the street, words you hear in your mind, dreams you have, and a thousand other ways that God has devised with which to communicate with us.
Matt: Do you believe that God really has a personality that is capable of verbal communication?
Neale: God has a form and a shape that coincides with whatever we choose to imagine it to be. There is nothing that God is not. God is the essence of life itself, the most basic and fundamental energy in the universe.
In a sense, God is a shape shifter. That is, God, or that which we call God, the Essence of Supreme Intelligence in the universe, can take on any shape or form that pleases us from moment to moment.
So the answer to your question is yes and no. Yes, God is a personality that actually speaks to us. No, God is not that; God is the Essence of Life itself, the energy, the most fundamental essence of the universe. God is all of the above and can be excluded by no definition whatsoever.
(NEXT WEEK: Part III of this interview.)
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The Calendar
A look at events at which Neale Donald Walsch will share the message of Conversations with God in the weeks ahead. You can learn more about the work of the ReCreation Foundation at these events...and on its official website, www.cwg.org, as well.
NOTE: Not all events are sponsored by the ReCreation Foundation, but because all of the events move forward the message of Conversations with God, which is the mission of the Foundation, the Foundation is pleased to inform you of them.
Click on each event for more information:
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Three days of intense study of the major points of CwG Ashland Oregon Contact: Will at 352-442-2244 - will@cwg.org |
Foundation |
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Tokyo, Japan Contact: +81 3 5272 3113 - naoki@sunmark.co.jp |
Publishers |
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Post-Conference Workshop Chicago, IL |
Productions |
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3 Day Intensive - July 29th -Aug 1st 2010 Southern Oregon Contact: 352-442-2244 - support@nealedonaldwalsch.com |
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Medford, OR Contact: Will @ 352-442-2244 - will@cwg.org |
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London, England |
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Amsterdam, The Netherlands Contact: +31 653 294 701 - Thom.Schouten@heartmedia.nl |
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Normandy, France |
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The most comprehensive, life changing workshop offered by Neale. Medford, Oregon |
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Austin, Texas Contact: (512) 335-4449 Unity Church of the Hills |
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Scottsdale, AZ Contact: 877-300-7352 |
Productions |
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