Angels Unexpected.......

Let me first say that I am not into angels..........never have been!
I just don't get the angel 'thang'!  I know I know, in our Science of Mind teaching we say they are positive thoughts, but even that feels too syrupy sweet to me.

So, here we are, it is the Holiday Season and the materialistic, stressful frenzy, duty & expectation filled energy is in the air and I am so so grateful I don't live there anymore.  I have come to a place in my life where especially during the Holidays I do only what I really want to do, only what feeds my heart and soul.  It has become such a gift.
Now, let me say one more thing (I promise the "good" stuff is coming - hang in there with me).
I do not think of myself as a Christian, so Christmas is not something I celebrate.  I have, however, returned to its roots & the roots of all religious Holidays all over the world right now (and there are MANY) which is all about the returning of the light: its roots being in the Winter Solstice, which came before any and all religions.

So, Angels Unexpected.......

The sweet, sweet people who clean my house bring me an 'interesting' gift each Holiday Season. Almost every year at first look all sorts of judgements go through my mind, but then I sink deeper and tears come to my eyes.
Tears of gratitude, tears of joy, tears of the grace that is within me and around me.
It's all about how blessed I am, how blessed my life is and THEN the angels unexpected come.....
They smile at me, unexpectedly!  They share their heart!  They give a gift I JUST love!  These angels are not just in people, they are in the form of animals, music, color, a great book, SILENCE (my favorite) a movie or tv show or even a commercial!  A really good night sleep, good food, good health, and I could go on and on and on and on.
Could you?
Look for YOUR angels unexpected today and all through the Holiday Season.
For when you look for them, they multiply!!!

Infinite love and blessings for the Holiday Season and the New Year!!

P.S. The picture is of the angel my dear cleaning people Sylvia & Alfredo gave me.
She lights up, fading from color to color : purple, white, yellow, red, green blue.........
They are dear angels in my life!!!

The new "B" Word...........

About five years ago I deleted a word from my vocabulary, for I started feeling that it was the most boring word in the English language.  Someone I love used it so much, it seemed like she felt that she was the only one in the world who was BUSY!
BUSY seems to be the new B word.
Oh, and it is not that I am not busy, it is just that I found it a very boring word and I LOVE words.
I also know that the words I say are VERY powerful and the more I used it, the BUSIER I became.  Thinking about the word allowed me to be more conscious and it allowed me to be more impeccable with my words.
It allowed me to be CREATIVE with my life, making choices about HOW I live my life.  I chose to no longer be lived by my circumstances, by others and mostly by the clock. Time is MY servant!

We all have 24 hours in a day and we all get to choose how we use those hours.  We are responsible for  our own lives and must take good care of ourselves, so that we can live in balance and harmony.

It is amazing to me & it saddens me to see people running around like chickens with their heads cut off, way too stressed out and no room to just be and breathe.  But what is even sadder is that they seem to feel powerless.  The environment we live in now appears to dictate this kind of behavior and it seems to be getting worse.
It is time to stop and look.  Look at what our needs are, look at how we need to create more balance and harmony in our lives and look at what really matters. Listen...listen to your heart, it will tell you!

I have created a life for myself, where it is important to get 8 hours sleep (preferably minimum) and where I need time to do my spiritual practices, time to have a 15 minute rest in the middle of the day- to rest my body and my mind (especially when I work through the evenings).  It is important for me to exercise and to eat healthy, so that my body is fit and fueled.  It is important to have fun and to play.  All that makes for a happier person.  And I don't know about you, but I LOVE to be a happy, healthy and balanced person and I love to be around happy, healthy, balanced people.

So, this Holiday Season, check in with YOURSELF and give yourself the gift of balance and harmony. Find out what that means for you and act on it.

AND KNOW YOU ARE LOVED!

Time After Time................

The Holiday Season is upon us again......winter has returned (almost!!)
How did that happen? How did it get to be November already?
TIME!
It's an interesting 'thing', isn't it?
The best gift I have ever received on the spiritual path is the idea that 'TIME IS MY SERVANT'!

Most of us grow up believing that we are the servant of time.
How can you tell the difference?
You can tell when anything having to do with TIME frustrates you. Notice how you speak about time.....do you use the B word a lot? BUSY! Do you feel you are always running? Do you never have enough time to do 'everything'? Do you give up your spiritual pratice or your R&R time to have more time for the doing in your life?
Could it be that these are all excuses? Excuses to not just be? Just be with you? Just be you?
What would be left of you if you did that?
Who would you be?

During Holiday time we seem to make ourselves even busier, we stress ourselves out more than during non holiday time.. A wise teacher once said that a breath without the remembrance of Spirit is a wasted breath.

Give yourself the gift of TIME as YOUR servant, instead of the other way around.
For in Spirit, Time is Infinite. This Truth exists in you as well, for you are Spirit in form.

Take a breath, let it fill your heart & mind with the idea that there is ALWAYS ENOUGH TIME!

Timeless blessings!!!

Invite the mystery.........

Life has become more and more of a mystery to me and the sweetest thing now is,
that I WELCOME IT!

What do we know?  What do we really, really know?
NOTHING!

Life is too much of a mystery!
When we surrender to life as a mystery, everything becomes a delicious surprise.
When we step away from our history (hystery i.e. hysteria) and surrender to the mystery we open to Spirit's Surprises.  We look through the eyes of love, rather than fear and everything becomes an opportunity to see Spirit made manifest inside and outside of us.
YUM!
I welcome these surprises.

Autumn invites us seeing the mystery.  I mean, look at the change of colors on the leaves, amazing.

Really look deeply at the purple and green that nature created in the picture!
Does that not invite you deeper into the mystery of life?
Let the autumn take you deeper into the mystery called YOU!
YOU are a multidimensional being.....you have more facets to you than the biggest diamonds......see them all!  Celebrate them all. Welcome them all.
AND......know you are loved!!!!

....it only takes a moment.......

This morning, my beloved and I were doing spiritual mind treatment/prayer together. I am a Religious Scientist, he is a Presbyterian and we often do prayer together....it is such a sweet thing.....
This morning it was a prayer for strength, courage and willingness to deepen our faith.....it felt intimate and deep as we prayed in an embrace with our eyes closed.
When we opened our eyes, my beloved was the first to notice......
A praying mantis had landed on his window right before our eyes. Coincidence? I don't think so.
An message from God? We think so!
To me it is reminder that life is filled with mystery and magic, as long as we are willing to see, know and feel that it is so.

Some may think that it is superstitious, but it matters not. If we find inspiration in life and it is seemingly small and takes only a moment, just suck it into your being and let it take up space in you. Give it the attention, so it grows in you and let it become honey for bees, so that it guides you back into the mystery of life. Back into the richness of life and back into faith so strong, that it becomes the solid ground you stand on.

PEACE!

Fresh, new, colorful, cool...............

The other day, I woke up and I was so cold.......my mind was not awake yet and I could not figure out why I was so cold.
Then I opened my eyes and saw my window wide open, curtain flowing and realized FALL was upon us. From one day to the next, it seemed, it went from warm to cold........from summer to autumn..........and from green to reds and browns.
There is one tree in my neighborhood that is always the first to turn red and it turned red overnight.
Does it seem to you like time is flying, that time is going faster?
It does to me sometimes and I KNOW that when it does, it is just an opportunity to be MORE present in the moment.
And I love when I feel that awareness, for it makes me take a deep breath. It moves my attention to my heart and it makes my experience timeless. That's when I know I am most connected with Spirit.

Remember to savor each moment for it can never be experienced again!
And know you are loved!!!!

"mystics"

I LOVE THE EARLY MYSTICS.......ALL OF THEM...put a pile of books before me of any of the early mystics and I drown....
Meister Eckhart, Francis of Assisi, Jellaludin Rumi, Hafiz, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, Brother Lawrence, Mechtild of Magdeburg,...........YUM!

And then there is Ernest Holmes, the founder of our Science of Mind teaching.........he is a contemporary mystic.....just read his early writings like 'Your Invisible Power' or 'The Voice Celestial' that he wrote with his brother Fenwick. Even the early 1926 version of the Science of Mind textbook is so much more mystical than the current version, which is much more mental....much more of a TEXT book.

The early mystics were all about having a DIRECT experience of God (Spirit, Love, Nature, the Universe.....call it what you will!).
It seems that today's spirituality is more about doing, about 'acting' spiritual and talking about spirituality.
I hear it when people use the word 'spiritual'. Like:"he is so spiritual" or "she's not very spiritual".
To me that is very very judgmental. The Truth is that we are ALL equally spiritual! All of us!
God in us, as us, is us!!
NOW, we may not all be aware of it, we not be conscious of our spirituality, but WE ALL ARE!!!

So, what do we do with all THIS?
We remember we are all created by the One Spirit, all infused with all that this Spirit is and all discover what that means.
Deepening our own experience of God, Love, Truth and LIVING THAT!
The early, brilliant mystics remind us......they knew! They know!
No need to reinvent the wheel here....
I LOVE YOU!


A mystic is someone who has a direct experience of God

Laughing out loud!

Have you had a good laugh lately?
The kind where your belly just aches, tears run down your face and you practically pee your pants?
Doesn't that feel great? It is sort of orgasmic, I think. Like it wakes up every cell in your body.
Something in the body moves in such a way that it feels like you shed all toxins.
It's a beautiful thing and I think we could all be doing more of it.
Once you have a good belly laugh, life looks completely different.
It's like seeing the world in a whole new hue, all of a sudden seriousness has left and everything feels lighter.
That which was a problem before has become infused with something that cannot even be named and the problem is just not the same, it may have even dissolved.
The language of laughter is universal and it is so contagious. Check it out! Give it a try........
Take the time to laugh today...with a friend, a loved one, your child, a funny movie or TV show or go on line to a great joke website....laugh yourself silly and look again .....look again at yourself, at your life, at your heart!

KNOW YOU ARE LOVED!!

God Bless the Child......

There is a new member in my family.
Here name is Fleur. French for flower.....
Her mom had a challenging pregnancy and delivery, she arrived over 1 month early.

There are some transitions around me lately....some close to me, some further away.
Some in my personal life.... some in ministry.
It's all one!
All matters of the heart!

Seeing souls slipping in and out of bodies.......

What do we do with all that? All the feelings that accompany THAT?

I told an elderly woman, who is at the end of her life, : "All you need to do is be in THIS moment! All you need to do is breathe THIS breath." She sighed a big sigh........

How sacred, how precious, how sweet to be a witness to that!!!!

I am so so grateful!!

Life is a gift. All that is asked of us is that we live THAT gift.
We can only live it in this moment, this breath.

And that is because Spirit guides us here!

Know you are blessed,
rev. frankie

In The Silence.........

There is this beautiful song, I so love......I hear it in my head and heart often when I hunger for silence and it is not at hand right away. It goes 'In the silence, there is a sacred place, a sacred meeting place, love is there........'. When I hear that song, I can taste the gift of silence. I was in such a space the other day, walking home from a massage. I felt very silent inside and walked home in gratitude, cherishing the soft spring rain, noticing this beautiful rose bush I pass by often. This bush always makes me stop and be in awe of Spirit's Grace in nature. I could NOT resist and picked a rose and brought it home. I put it in a tiny vase and placed it on my altar before I went into meditation. I communed with the rose and thanked it for being there, for reminding me of my own inner beauty. It still had raindrops on it and I fell deeply into the silence I call GOD.
Every time, I look at that rose, it brings me back to this sweet simple awareness of how blessed we are when we really look, really feel, really commune with ALL that is. Now I am preparing for a 5 day meditation retreat. Some of the preparing is active.....being prepared for a week away from home and ministry. Packing my suitcase and all that. And then there is the quiet inner preparation for 5 days of mostly silence. I sigh at the thought and feeling of that. I am so grateful for this privilege.

SILENCE feeds the soul more than anything else, I believe. For it is in silence that we hear/feel the "voice" of Spirit. The voice that only we can hear for ourselves as individualized expressions of the One. It seems that most human beings are doing everything possible to avoid that silence.........

I invite you to welcome more and more silence into your life and see what 'happens'.
I invite you to be less seduced by noise, activity and outer stimulation and notice how full it makes you!

Know you are loved!!!

SUMMERTIME..........

AND THE LIVING IS EASY.......
In our space on earth, official summer is still about three weeks away, but the Memorial Day Holiday brought us to the unofficial beginning of summer and it sure feels and looks like it!
Because of our rainy spring, everything looks greener than green and nature shows off her perennial predictability.
As you find yourself outdoors doing your daily routines, whether is being in traffic, running errands or taking a walk or bike ride, STOP and take a moment to take a most delicious breath. Whether you have allergies or not, whether you think you are too busy or are not busy enough, whether you are sad or happy.....STOP..........and be grateful for your next breath.
Then take another grateful one, another delicious one......and another one....take FIVE minutes, at least, and make your breathing a spiritual practice!
It has been said that a breath without the name of God on it, is a wasted breath.
Let your breath, for at least a few minutes a day outside, have the name of God on it...........
Surely, you will long to make those few minutes longer, for it feeds your spirit like nothing will!
BLESSED BE THE BREATH!!!

YOU ARE PROFOUNDLY BEAUTIFUL: INSIDE AND OUT!!!

Just recently I found myself sitting with this picture. I was at the age of 1 1/2 and the I of today could not help but smile.
It's an old picture so it is a bit fuzzy and I wished it was digital so I could zoom in and see my own face a little closer.
I wanted to see her better...I wanted to look into her eyes deeper. I truly do remember her innocence, her joy and her light!
I wanted to embrace that me, 'cause I found her so embraceable.

Do you have pictures of yourself as a baby?
Do you sit with them? Really sit with them?

There is something quite amazing about looking back.
The most amazing aspect is the eyes we look back WITH.
And no matter how far we look back.....no matter if it is 1 day, 1 year, 1 decade or more, it's the eyes we look back with that makes it meaningful or not.

We can look back with horror, fear, pain, loss, lack OR with love, appreciation, mystery, healing, interest, fascination!!

We have arrived! Arrived to THIS day. And yes, some of us have more scars then others, but scars are kind of interesting.
They are stronger than non scars, I have noticed.

We have arrived and are filled with experience, wisdom, awareness........
Life has become so rich and I find all of it delicious (even though not necessarily in every moment), I welcome it all with open arms.

So, open YOUR arms to all that you are, all that you have been and all you are yet to be........
Delight in it all.
Embrace yourself, for you are MOST embraceable!
Re-discover your original innocence and joy. For what I know for sure is that THAT cannot be destroyed by life.....by anyone....or anything! It is yours and cannot be taken away. EVER!!
Look deep enough and long enough until you find it.......and delight in it!!
YOU ARE PROFOUNDLY BEAUTIFUL....IN ALL WAYS!!! INSIDE AND OUT!!

YOU ARE SPRING ITSELF!

You are a most delicious, juicy creative expression in Spirit.
THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE!!
YES, YOU!! ALWAYS WERE, ALWAYS WILL BE, ALWAYS ARE!!
No matter what anyone says! No matter what you say (or think). IT'S THE TRUTH!!

We are God in expression, so how can we be anything less than deliciously juicy?
We can only appear less than that, when we forget who and what we REALLY are.
And FORGET we do, don't we?
Forgetting is incredibly painful! It's agonizing, it's depressing, it's saddening, it's scary.....

Scared and sacred have the same letters in each word, so when we go from forgetting to remembering we just shift from scared to sacred. And that we must do within ourselves!
In spiritual practice we actually experience the shift from scared to sacred, for there we remember that God is ALL there is, God is all we are and the scared literally tranforms into the sacred.

That's what makes life so deliciously juicy, for every time we remember, we feel energized.
Take the energy of Spring and rebirth into your heart, let it touch your ability to be reborn over and over and find yourself as the sacred made manifest. See the sacred in all that is!

BLESSED BE, rev. frankie

YOU ARE EXQUISITE!!!!

What a beautiful life we get to live......when we are open and receptive to the exquisite beauty of Spirit expressing as Life, it can be overwhelming. And the best part is, that it is so all the time....everywhere. The question is whether we are tuned in or tuned out!

I am spending the last day in the Monterey Bay Peninsula area in California. Two days of board meetings and then 5+ days at the Asilomar grounds for the International Centers for Spiritual Living Leadership Conference. We are blazing a new trail, this was a whole new conference for leadership at a sort of new location for us. We have met here every year for 60 years, but it was always the conference for everyone in July. This conference was the leadership conference that previously traveled around the country and besides spiritual leaders there were other people in leadership positions at our centers. It was a great success.

Asilomar means 'refuge by the sea' and THAT IT IS!! (just look at the photo and that's only one scene captured by my iPhone)

So, back to my first paragraph......being tuned in or tuned out to Spirit's exquisite creation......
When we look deep enough and long enough and with an open enough heart we get to see what is REAL and since LOVE has created what is REAL we are shown a beauty beyond description. Once we see what is REAL, we want to live THAT. And the sweetest part of THAT is, that everything is given already within.....free for us to access it whenever we are ready!

What if......we saw ourselves that way more?
What if we saw each other that way more?
What if we saw all of life that way more??

You are exquisitely beautiful.....it is inherent by right of consciousness!
BLESSED BE!!!

Ohhhh, goodness....it has been TOO long!
I have missed YOU!!

Dear friend, I bow my head in humility for not keeping a promise to myself for doing a new blog every month....
I have skipped 2....I "owe" you :-)

Since the last blog much has happened, surely for all of us!
It is a new year and now on March 1st, a new month.
The month that brings us Spring: new life.

So much room for newness, new life.
Often in order for something new to be born, we have to let go of the old.
Ask yourself:"What in my life is no longer serving me?"

If you really do not know, it is for 2 reasons:
Everything is working fabulously for you and you serve and are served beautifully!
Or you think you don't know.
If you think you do not know, all you need to do is look at your life and turn within following your feelings.
Where do you feel 'less than', where do you feel you are not fully expressing yourself, not fully authentic?
THAT is what no longer serves you and you feel the way you feel for something within you is ready to let go of it.
It is "old" and something new wants to be born in and through you.

Let yourself fall, be willing to trust, turn within to Spirit and let Spirit lead the way...
Listen to that deeper voice of continuing new life within you and celebrate.
Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate YOU!!
I DO!!!
Love always!