Jesus Enlightenment

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Jesus, Enlighten Me

I trust in You, Christ,
to help me steward my sexual energy.
Help me to understand the nature of disease,
and the sanctity of my own sacred space.
Keep me focused on upholding
my personal standards.
Keep me from generating harm
to any other being
through the mis-use of my sexual energy or needs. Teach me to be patient and happy
during the long spells of celibacy.
Help me run my energy in positive ways.
Help me to aspire to a normal life, God,
in such a way that
I do not have to function
as another person's possession.
I love you, Jesus!

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Why did you hurt me?
You, who stole from me, lied to me, denied me, raked me over the coals?
Condescended and abused, leaving me bruised?
You who blamed and presumed,
copped an attitude;
tuned me out,
and
reduced me to begging...?

WHY?

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You know God?
That person was a miserable-fuck.
That's why.


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Green Heart

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Watch Out!
I sting!
I'm succulent!
And I need to keep you from eating me alive!
I'll poke ya with one of my thorns, I will!
Watch Out!

The Green Heart knows everything, because she came from the Earth and has risen up out of the Earth. She'll show you where to find the best plants and food; but she does not advocate eating animals. Animals are friends, that you hang out with! Not food!

Instead, if you can mange to get close to her, she will invite you into her organic way of being... Starting with things like how you walk and sleep. How to forage food and prepare it in nutritious ways - but especially how to grow your own.

She walks among the flowers and trees. Be gentle with her.

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In human history, how did marriage evolve, and the subjugation of women?
- by Osho: Sermons in Stones, Chapter 13, a lecture from the early '70's

This is the compromise that human beings have made: to be secure about the future, to be certain about the tomorrows, to have a guarantee that the woman who loves you is going to love you forever, that it is not a temporary affair...

That's why religious people say that marriages are "made in heaven"... A strange kind of heaven, because if these marriages are made in heaven, then what can you make in hell? They don't show the signs, the fragrance, the freshness, the beauty of heaven. They are certainly disgusting, ugly... They show something of hell certainly. But man settled for marriage because that was the only way to have private property.

Animals don't have private property - they are all communists, and far better communists than have appeared in human history. They don't have any dictatorship of the proletariat and they have not lost their freedom, but they don't have any private property.

Man also lived for thousands of years without marriage, but those were the days when there was no private property. Those were the days of hunting; man was a hunter. And those people thousands of years ago had no cold-storage system, no technology - whatever food they got they had to finish as quickly as possible. They could only hope that tomorrow they will get some food again.

Because there was nothing to accumulate, there was no question of marriage. People lived in communes, tribes; people loved, people reproduced, but in the beginning there was no word for "father." The word "mother" is far more ancient and far more natural. You will be surprised to know that the word `uncle' is older than the word "father" - because all the people were the age of your father. You didn't know who your father was.

Men and women were mixing joyously – without any compulsion, without any legal bondage, out of their free will. If they wanted to meet and be together there was no question of domination. The children never knew who their father was, they knew only their mother. And they knew many men in the tribe; someone amongst those men must have been their father, hence they were all uncles.

As private property came into existence with cultivation.... With hunting, man could not survive long. People have destroyed complete species of animals. Hundreds of species which once used to dance and sing on this earth... Man has eaten them up. Something had to be done because hunting was not reliable. Today you may get food, tomorrow you may have to be hungry. And it was very arduous. The search for animals did not allow man to develop any of his other talents, his genius. But cultivation changed the whole life of man.

You must be reminded of the fact that cultivation is the discovery of women, not of men.

The woman was confined - she was not able to go hunting. Most of the time she was pregnant, she was weak, she was carrying another soul within her. She needed care, protection... So she was living in the house. She started making the living space more beautiful - and this you can see even today, after thousands of years.

If you enter into a bachelor's room you can immediately see that it is a bachelor's room. You may not be able to decide by seeing the bachelor whether he is bachelor or not, but his room certainly is a bachelor! The woman, her touch, is missing. The house of a bachelor is never a home, it is just a place where he sleeps. It is not something with which he feels a certain intimacy, a certain creative relationship.


The home, the village, the city and the whole civilization are because of the woman, because she was free from hunting and she had different values of the heart and of the mind. She was more aesthetic, more graceful, more earthly, not at all interested in hell and heaven and God and the devil and all that crap! No woman has written a single religious scripture. No woman has been a philosopher thinking about abstract, faraway things.

Woman's consciousness is interested only in the intimate surroundings - she would like a beautiful house, she would like a beautiful garden. She wants to create a small world of her own - cozy, comfortable. She imparts a certain quality to a dead house and it becomes a living home. It is a magical transformation.

Man continued to hunt, and the woman started looking around... The man had no time. He has always been busy without business, but the woman had all the time there is. The basic work of hunting was being done by the groups of men and the woman started looking around. She discovered cultivation because she saw wild fruits growing, she saw many other things growing and she also saw that every year the crop dies; the seeds fall back into the earth and when the rains come, again those seeds sprout in thousands of plants.

She started experimenting to find what was edible and what was not edible. Soon, as hunting was becoming more and more difficult, men had to agree with women: "We have to shift our whole economic focus. We have to go for cultivation, for fruits, for vegetables. And these are in our hands -- we can produce as much as we want, as we need it, and there is tremendous variety."

Slowly, slowly came the nomads, the wandering tribes, because hunters cannot stay in one place. They have to go on moving as the animals escape. Once hunting was dropped and cultivation became our very measure of survival a new thing also happened alongside.

There were people who were powerful people and there were people who were weak people. The people who were physically powerful managed to claim much ground as their property. They earned much... Slowly. Slowly the barter system started, because when you have too much of one crop, what are you going to do with it? You have to exchange it; then you can have many more things. Life became more complex, with more excitement.

But a problem was felt: after a person dies, who is going to inherit his property? Nobody wanted their property to be inherited by any XYZ. They wanted their property to belong to their own blood. It is out of economics, not out of the understanding of love that marriage came into existence. Its very birth was wrong, under the wrong stars.

And because man had to agree for marriage.... The woman was very willing for the simple reason that for thousands of years in the hunting period she was not financially a part of the society; man was all. Man continued his power, although the whole social structure changed. The hunter's nomadic life became a peaceful life in a village, but man's concern was about his property. He wanted a contract with the woman to be certain that the son she was giving birth to is not somebody else's, but his own. For this simple purpose all the woman's freedom had to be destroyed. She had to live almost like a prisoner, or worse.

Man agreed - under compulsion, he compromised. If the woman was losing a few things - her freedom of movement, her freedom in changing lovers - man was also ready to sacrifice his freedom. They would remain devoted to each other forever.

But it is against nature. Even if you want to do it nature is not going to support you. Nature is for freedom, not for any kind of bondage.




So new problems started arising. Men started finding prostitutes who were no-one's wives, or as it was phrased in India, the prostitute was the wife of the whole town: nagarvadhu. She belongs to anybody, she is a commodity; you have to pay and buy her time and her body. Because of marriage it was very difficult to find married women because then there were more complexities: they had their husbands.... Prostitutes were good.

And you will be surprised to know that in India every city had its topmost prostitute. She was the most beautiful girl born in that city. Because she was so beautiful it was not right to let her get married to one person, she had to be shared. She was so beautiful that if she got married there would be trouble, there would be problems -- people would go on falling in love with her. It was better to keep her free for anybody who would pay.

Marriage created suspicion. The husband was always suspicious about whether the child born to them was his own or not. And the problem is, the father had no way to determine that a child was his own. Only the mother knew. Because the father had no way of being certain, he created more and more walls around the woman – that was the only possibility, the only alternative -- to disconnect her from the larger humanity. Not to educate her, because education gives wings to people; thoughts make people capable of revolt, so no education for women. No religious education for women, because religion makes you saints, holy people and it has been a male-dominated society for centuries and man cannot conceive a woman to be higher and holier than himself.

Man has been cutting from the very roots any possibility of woman's growth. She is just a factory to manufacture children. She has not been accepted by any culture in the world as equal to man.

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Jesus, I know I am perfect in Your eyes.


Teach me how to honor Earth
and inherit all the gifts we have here,
to continue to
learn, prosper and preserve new ways
of being Your faithful steward.
In your name, Jesus, I ask; Amen.


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Martyr's Heart

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The Martyr's Heart is a Heart that Never Forgets

Another fascinating tattoo, this image shows the crucifix coming through the heart as a stake! The thorns of the heart are suspended as a kind of "halo" around the puncture wound. Here, our hard lessons of pain become our crowning glory, the things that shape and define us if we so choose. Yes, then it is possible to become a bleeding heart in life... For we must otherwise make the commitment to let the past die.

The type of soul who would be attracted to this design has had many lifetimes of being martyred, perhaps even innate memories of being suspended next to Jesus, or being with Jesus during His hours on the cross at Calvary. Perhaps this person's consciousness is blocked, missing the true redemption of Christ's Resurrection.



This personality must be careful not to inflict his or her victim attitude into the environment, for it becomes an endless circle (the thorns) of futility.

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I'll Never Let You Forget

Perhaps
if you loved me a little more
we wouldn't be
in this predicament.
After all I have sacrificed -
all I have done
for you.
And what good is it?
When you are a repeat offender
coming back time and again
only to use
and take advantage of
my kindness?
My back aches
and my wrists don't work,
my feet are locked and won't move...
But I will try
to help you, anyway.
I'll never let you forget
me.

I should learn to say no,
but you would go
out of your way
to haunt me,
pester me with your pleading
'til I am nothing more
than a bleeding
mess.
Even still?
I'll take you back.

It feels good
to reduce to you a beggar.

It feels good
to make myself feel better
by keeping you dependent...

Coaxing, prompting
enticing you to be anything
but brave.

I'll never let you forget me...

For I Am the Master here!
And you, my naive one,
(so naive)!
Are my slave.

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Smoker's Heart

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This is actually one of the original, older images of the Sacred Heart of Christ. As you can see, the painting style was done with old-fashioned paints, no longer in use; you will find this style in images of the Lord done prior to the 1960's. Please note, the crucifix ascending out of the top of of the heart. This is an interesting addition.


Just yesterday I listened to a blurb on television... That the addictive part of smoking is the nicotine, and not the actual smoking. (I will touch on other substances in later posts.) The real danger that occurs to the heart is inducing it with smoke. The crucifix could be symbolic of self-medication, through nicotine; however smoking is an equal and opposing action which breaks down the integrity of the heart.

With it will come such things as congestion, bacterial infections, and yes, cancer. So the TV discussion advised people to purchase things like nicotine pads and gum to help get their nicotine.

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This week I went to see my Tui Na healer... I have been living with paralysis on the left side of my face and head for at least 3 years that I'm aware of. (It doesn't just happen over night.) Loi is getting the last remnants of paralysis out of me. This week she went into my body through the back of my neck (again), working intensively to move the chi out of the set of muscles that allow us to move our heads up and down. She got my jaw completely unlocked (after 9 years). What surprised me was, how much I wanted a cigarette! And I don't smoke!

But it was a shock to feel some real sensation of relaxation going through that muscle tissue. It reminded me of how pleasurable it used be, to be out with friends having a beer or two, and ask for a cigarette from someone. I clearly understood why it is, occasionally, people feel they want and need to have a cigarette.

But hey! What can I say? At this point in my life???!! I am just happy to be able to move - and do it without any real pain.

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God,
surely You can guide us
to better resources
to help us resolve
our pleasure and pain issues!
Help us
to master our lives
in such a way that we
are not slaves
to the things that bind us.
In Your name,
Jesus, I ask.
Amen


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A Faith Prayer

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Christ, I Put My Heart,
My Health and Well-Being in Your Hands.
I trust You to guide me to the places I need to be,
to discover the information I need to access,
in the most perfect timing.
I trust in Your Promises, Lord,
and turn all my needs over to You,
that I may be a tool of Your life-force
and an instrument of Your Message.
I know my doctors are functioning under Your Will,
or I will be guided to better doctors.
People and doctors and medications
may have let me down, Sweet Jesus;
but You keep me lifted, in your Living Light,
elevated above it all.
You never let me down, Dear Lord!


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Married Hearts

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With the passage of time,

it's the essence, not the orientation of two hearts

which keeps them together...

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Dear Lord Jesus,
there are so many children on this planet
who need good parents.
Help us all to be mindful
of what we can do to make the lives of others
a little easier.
We never really know
where someone else came from.
Help us all to learn
about the essence of spiritual loving,
that we can bring the practice more
into our daily lives,
feeling the companionship we all desire and need. Amen.

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Human Be-In Tribal Heart

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I believe this design was originally intended to represent the "Rainbow People" of traditional American Indian mythology...

Rainbow People are people of all colors and nationalities, coming together with a unified intention to bring healing, peace and love to all living beings. Much of that idealism is coming to the fore today, with our election of President Obama and the changes American want.

Today it is more about getting involved with our world, taking personal responsibility for our actions in a time where there is no excuse for ignorance, blaming or lack of education.

But the general idea of working with diversity has to do with "Being Here Now". In the '60's, Being Here Now was a lot about withdrawing your participation from situations that did not empower you or others, and becoming more present with your "thing", the things you like to do.

The Be Here Now movement was started by a man who called himself Ram Das. Ram Das was also a friend of Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary was a pioneer in using drugs to alter his consciousness... In the same way Native American Indians did their their ancient ceremonies, the hippies of the '60's followed these models of the time.

In the '60's, the idea was all about using consciousness as a way to lift people out from their prejudices and attitudes.

From Wikipedia:

"Turn on, Tune in and Drop Out" is a counterculture phrase coined by Timothy Leary in the 1960s. The phrase came to him in the shower one day after Marshall McLuhan suggested to Leary that he come up with "something snappy" to promote the benefits of LSD. It is an excerpt from a prepared speech he delivered at the opening of a press conference in New York City on September 19, 1966. This phrase urged people to embrace cultural changes through the use of psychedelics and by detaching themselves from the existing conventions and hierarchies in society. The phrase was derided by more conservative critics.

The phrase is derived from this part of Leary's speech:

“

Like every great religion of the past we seek to find the divinity within and to express this revelation in a life of glorification and the worship of God. These ancient goals we define in the metaphor of the present — turn on, tune in, drop out. I mean drop out of high school, drop out of college, drop out of graduate school... [1]

”

Leary later explained in his 1983 autobiography Flashbacks:

“

'Turn on' meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. 'Tune in' meant interact harmoniously with the world around you - externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. 'Drop' out suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. 'Drop Out' meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity'.

During the era of the hippie culture, more and more people came to identify with the rainbow and it's potential symbolism of bringing diversity together. A very popular way of young adults and groups getting together was to organize gatherings for music, love-in's and Be-In's.

To attend a Be-In might be a meditation circle or a pow-wow where people are invited to bring all their energy into the moment - to "Be Here Now". Be-In's were about creating sacred space, quiet circles of energy where people could share with one another. Of course, in the '60's the counter-culture shared things like drugs, sex, rock and roll.

At meditation groups, people were invited to bring pictures of their saints, gurus, personal heroes and avatars. Children were always welcome, and people collected things to share and trade, like flowers (fresh and dried), beads, flutes, gongs, chimes, feathers, bread, wine, colorful flags, incense, crystals, etc.

These trends also all came around the time of the Stonewall Riot, when gay and lesbian groups also adopted the rainbow as their symbolic light of unity in diversity.


The Stonewall Riot came on full-fledge the night after Judy Garland's death... Judy Garland played Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz", and sang the song "Over the Rainbow". Since Judy had many gay and lesbian fans, they wanted to meet in public together to grieve her passage; however they were denied a place to gather, and their grief shortly turned into a riot at a place called Stonewall.

Please feel free to share more what you know here, or find more info about all this on the internet.

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Dear Jesus, please help me to catch on quickly
when someone is being sneaky and not even bothering
to meet me half-way.
Help me to understand and learn...
The differences between privacy, and healthy boundaries,
and outright lying.
Help me Lord, to see through these things right away.
Direct me to the kinds of human bein's I need to "be with"...
People who are present with me,
not holding back on the truth of who they are
or what I need to know,
in order that I can be whole and happy
in sharing myself with them.

Dear God, we all have needs...
Please direct me to the sorts of people
who respect themselves and also respect me.
In Jesus Name, I ask;
Amen.

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Jesus, I Trust In You

JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU

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by Saint Sister Faustina
APOSTLE OF THE DIVINE MERCY

I want to be completely transformed into Your mercy and to be Your living reflection, O Lord. May the greatest of all divine attributes, that of Your unfathomable mercy, pass through my heart and soul to my neighbor.

Help me, O Lord, that my eyes may be merciful, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look for what is beautiful in my neighbors' souls and come to their rescue.

Help me, that my ears may be merciful, so that I may give heed to my neighbors' needs and not be indifferent to their pains and moaning.

Help me, O Lord, that my tongue may be merciful, so that I should never speak negatively of my neighbor, but have a word of comfort and forgiveness for all.

Help me, O Lord, that my hands may be merciful and filled with good deeds, so that I may do only good to my neighbors and take upon myself the more difficult and toilsome tasks.

Help me, that my feet may be merciful, so that I may hurry to assist my neighbor, overcoming my own fatigue and weariness. My true rest is in the service of my neighbor.

Help me, O Lord, that my heart may be merciful so that I myself may feel all the sufferings of my neighbor. I will refuse my heart to no one. I will be sincere even with those who, I know, will abuse my kindness. And I will lock myself up in the most merciful Heart of Jesus. I will bear my own suffering in silence. May Your mercy, O Lord, rest upon me.

O my Jesus, transform me into Yourself,
for you can do all things.

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Man's Heart

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"Admit what you feel, feel it, and then give it up. You must surrender before you engage the influence of the negative. The issue is not that you experience the emotions. The issue is what you DO in response to the emotions." - Iyanla Vanzant

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Ever notice how some men are feeling less and less, and and doing less these days? It is as if they are becoming more miserly with their energy. It's because men have been acculturated to live more in their minds than in their hearts.

Thus we have this thing we live with called "dominator culture", or patriarchy (which goes way back to the beginning of time).

But for some men, it is so built-in that they never grow beyond it. In this heart image, you can see it's yearning to grow. If you look closely, you will also see a spiritual eye, deep down in there.

In the '60's, when young men were fed up, and more willing to be experimental, and were doing things in America, like refusing to participate in the draft, and dropping LSD, that eye was starting to get opened a little.

We have always had young men like that in our histories, you know, who took chances and lost their minds doing it, literally. Drugs, you see, dissolve boundaries. (But that's another post.)

It is NOT just about being being male, but also how all of us are using our masculine or yang energy out there in the world... American women have become harder, more self-serving as we also experiment with our male energy.

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There is a great spiritual shift happening on the earth right now.
Some people are not going to make it, are they, Lord?

"Surrender allows us to face the things we fear and places us in the offensive position. When we surrender we mentally go through to the end, through the thing that we fear, which in effect releases us fear-thoughts from the mind. It also makes room in your mind and in your heart, for the Divine to give you a new idea." - Iyanla Vanzant

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Dear Jesus,
help us not to be just flailing around
on the planet in self-interest.
Help us all to balance our masculine, male energy,
so we can continue to be
the great creators and lovers,
the avatars you would want us to be.
Guide us into directions where we can dis-cover
the passion and enthusiasm
which makes us Divine.

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Lady's Heart

The Lady's Heart loves to get all-up in your business. (That's what the birds are for.) That's why she's a little hardened, and maybe, if she's learned some lessons she will also know when to knock-it off, back-off and relax.

We ladies love to embellish ourselves with all sorts of decorations to make ourselves look softer, more approachable and touchable... But deep inside, there's a lot of pain there! Many of us take it right to our graves.

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Dear Lord, help the women of the world to let go
of the things that steal our energy,
are a waste of time, and feel like dead-ends.
Help us women in the world feel more confident
about stepping out of traditional roles
like being mothers, grandmothers...
Nurses, secretaries and baby-sitters.
Sure, these roles are important,
but so are we, individually.


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We have a lot more to give,
starting with giving to ourselves.
Help us to drop our expectations of others
so we can see them for who they truly are.
Help us to follow our true interests,
educations and passions,
so we can be more effective on the planet,
and in the lives of other beings.

Help us to clearly know we have choices, God.


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Help us to understand
we don't have to be reacting,
help us to find our timing
so we are better
at responding.
Help us to keep our egos
from getting all-up-into-it, God!
Help us to keep ourselves
from jerking people around.
Our hearts need more resilience, Jesus,
by being good stewards of our energy,
our value-judgments
and attitudes towards others.
We like to say we are patient, even good to others,
but our egos and our money
are all-up-into-it, God.

Help this heart, our real hearts;
it's about what's going on
inside,
not outside, of who
we are that matters.


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Dear Jesus, protect us from those who would blame
and accuse us, undermine and not communicate with us or defend us.
Help us to forgive Those
Who Screw Us Over,
that we don't end up walking around poisoned.
Teach us, Jesus,
Show them to us, let us know who they are so
we can turn the other way.
Help us to stop enabling, and excusing the ignorance in this home,
on this planet;
keep us from feeling personally responsible, God,
for those who misuse and abuse;
they have choices, too.
Let me simply be a light in their lives.
Lord God,
that's all I ask.



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Thorns and Roses

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Some hearts have roses...

Most of the time I only see roses in the hearts of young children, or very old women... Very rarely occasionally I will see a rose in a 20-something-year-old's heart; but that person is usually breaking down. I can see petals falling, one by one, and fresh thorns forming, stealing their light, their youth and their beauty.

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And then there are the people who line their hearts with paper roses... So even though you think there is something warm there, that you can get close to, there is no substance, no light. In fact, they are downers to be around.

Once in awhile? I meet a man with a red rose in his heart, but he is usually looking at something else!

And when I look closer I'll see a big thorn inside.

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I know some people who are healers, who manage to carry one giant rose in their heart... Surrounded by thorns, protected by their ribs. They are better at touching you, then letting you touch them. In fact they are very extremely private personalities, and you can't help but love them.

That's how Jesus Is!

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He Is, He Is, He Is...

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Roses bloom in another dimension, one which can only be labeled as "spirit" because there is little, if no control there, to grow a rose in your heart.

All you have to do is let a lot of light and fresh water in.

And then it just happens, with daily doses of things like innocence, faith, and trust.

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People love people with roses in their hearts; it's so sad. Sad, I think, because if someone could take this flower from you, they would do it (and they can, and they do).

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Don't you ever get tired of hurting?

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Check this out: have you ever noticed how some thorns look like hearts? It's very deceiving.

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As people get older, everyone gets a thorn in their heart. I think this can begin to happen as early as the age of nine? But I don't know; I need to talk with more children about it...

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Jesus, tell us about the thorns
in and around our hearts.
You wore them as a crown on Your head;
the energy swooping to and fro with Your blood.
Ancient sisters and the priests
took Your crown and placed them
in
Your heart,
our legacy to remember.

Now I think, Dear God,
the heart is more important than the head.

Isn't it?


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We can live without our minds,
but we always need our hearts
to keep the life-force pumping.

Sometimes I think the thorns are like
spiritual acupuncture,
lessons we need to keep blood flowing,
to keep our hearts alive.

But we don't have to let our hearts hang on to them!

Thank God!


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Here's My Heart

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Here's My Heart, Lord... There is so much change going on, Lord... Each day I feel as if my heart is mutating in time. I feel You molding me, shaping me, shaking the negative chi out of me. I'm trusting in You, Jesus. I wish I could break it down...! I wish I could say what's really on my mind and place it here, entrust it to You, and give it away so I can get clear. Day by day my heart feels more and more like clay... And it's just enough to surround myself with LOVE.

Help Our Hearts, Jesus.



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Jesus, You gave me everything...

You have got to help me break it down; I have so much anger inside. My heart burns for the pain of being human. I am present here, watching how we destroy the earth... Bring cruelty to animals... Neglect and repress our spirits; how we indulge in waste... Treat one another as being disposable!

And that's just the beginning...


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There are many great misunderstandings, much unresolved anger between people because... I think it is human nature for people to hear only what they want to hear. So some people say they are hearing, when in actuality they are controlling, distorting, perverting, and never resolving. Forgive me, for trespassing, Lord...

There is a difference between listening and hearing.

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To really hear someone, you have to listen with your heart.
And
sometimes you have to ask for the same in return.

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We deny our actions,
responsibilities and good intentions, good health.
I am present with You here, God,
burning inside...
Like Fire.

Maybe it's just not me, God.
Some people are not making it, are they?
Some people are getting more than sick inside.
What will the Rapture be?
Tell me, Dear Jesus!
Will it be like some great collective heart attack?

I can see that.

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What is happening to the people? What is going on here, God, that we are hurting so badly?

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Why did you hurt me?
You, who stole from me, lied to me, denied me, raked me over the coals?
Condescended and abused, leaving me bruised?
You who blamed and presumed,
copped an attitude;
tuned me out,
and
reduced me to begging...?

WHY?



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Y YOU Y

hurt

Me.

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The Root of All Evil

These are just my opinions about being female and living in a "man's" world...

It seems to me American society has somehow forgotten, displaced or erased the immanence of the female species by recruiting us into the worlds of trade, purchasing and functioning as commodities. Somehow we, ourselves, have been misguided... Into thinking our abilities to reproduce and nurture are not useful or important (unless it comes in the form of motherhood). Many of have chosen not to have babies, or are deprived of being able to settle-in with children we could care for because children also need persons such as fathers; and without fathers, it is is very difficult to provide.

So it seems we live in a country where a lot of good things are happening, but we are unable to let good things into our lives. The trends in our country have not done much outside of condoning self-indulgence, self-service, self-absorption and isolation. Refugees come here and join us in a place where a primary pastime is to lick our own wounds, and not take any real action to get healed. Yet, at least, many refugees are connected with community in such a way we Americans might have something to learn.

The problem, the root of all evil is that licking your wounds, and being pressured to do so only results in depression.

The challenge might be to learn more how to relax and be ourselves without hurting others in return?

Instead, we live out each day, year after year with the reality that mistrust, bad people and bad strangers are what threaten our well-being and abilities to function successfully in the world.

Do we, as women, really like the American way of life? I think the answer is no. And that, on a very basic level we are just working very hard to survive. Instead, I would invite you to start thinking about the quality of your life, the people you work for and with, and reevaluate your role in those areas where you are putting your power and energy. If, on a very fundamental basis you don't believe in what you are doing for others, it's time to stop.

Black Madonna, by Larry Contrappo, 1999

The New Era of President Obama is one that invites people to start becoming more than just active participants in their lives, but to learn how to become more responsible to one another (as opposed to "for" one another). We are a very educated country where all people have access to information, tools, and resources that can help and empower them. There are no more excuses for ignorance. From this stand, all people are responsible for their own happiness, and have choices, options, and possibilities in creating that happiness for themselves and others.

Women have an innate understanding of what this means, because we are natural helpers and healers; we are taught from childhood to be big sisters, to care for attend to those in need, to do the mom-thing. Why do we hate it so much?

How many of you contend with jealousy, hostility and bullying from other women? Are we becoming more war-minded? Is being in the world all about injustice? Not being "able" to ask for help when we need it - and get it? Are we not neglected and taken advantage of often?

How is it we are able to hold so much bad stuff inside, allowing and accepting our lives to be reduced to something pornographic? while the media around us exploits the image of the female (and her children) to the extent that we are treated as if we are dogs? or bags of dirt? or something worse?

I would urge you to start asking for help from good people. Start talking to others about the bad things you have been holding inside, the bad things that have been hurting you deep down for years and years. Surely there is someone out there, a professional perhaps, who can help you to start changing some things up.

All your life, you have had people telling you you can do anything. All your life, you have been surrounded by others who can only focus on the bad, and who pressure you to do the same. But today is a new day, loaded with all sorts of opportunities that could help you help yourself redirect the power of your life. We are so very lucky to be here, in America, for this reason!

Y