New Places & New Faces

This weekend I made only my second ever visit to New York City. Last time I went with my wife and we both thoroughly enjoyed the feel of the city, as well as all the usual “sights”. This time I was there to visit the Spiritualist Church of New York City and although equally enjoyable with my previous visit, it was very different. I was able to see another side of the city and also to make some wonderful new friends. I stayed in West Village and thus discovered a side to the city that I never knew existed. It truly is like a village where I was and this morning as I sat at a pavement café to eat breakfast in bright sunshine, with leafy trees around me, I felt truly blessed

The church is relatively new, having only been in existence for around five years but they have a growing congregation and many enthusiastic workers for the church and for Spirit. They also meet in the most beautiful of buildings; it is The Swedenborg Church right in the heart of Manhattan. The church was refurbished not long ago and is beautiful to behold, as well as possessing the most wonderful atmosphere in which to work with Spirit. Swedenborg features prominently in the annals of Spiritualism, for he was a medium in addition to his many other accomplishments – scientist, philosopher, engineer, etc. He described during a dinner party in Gothenburg, Sweden, the fire that was busy destroying that country’s capital city which was more than one hundred miles distant. He was able to describe in detail the progress of the fire and the buildings destroyed. Later one of the dinner guests, I think it was Franz Kafka, went to Stockholm and discovered that everything took place exactly as Swedenborg had described. He was the spirit that inspired our own pioneer, the seer Andrew Jackson Davis, to write “The Great Harmonia,” a learned set of volumes, to write which was quite beyond the normal ability of Davis who received but four or five years of formal education. In one of his philosophical writings Swedenborg described wisdom as follows – “Love is the life of the world, Wisdom is the light in which love sees.”

There were many younger people in the congregation and it was a real joy and pleasure to feel their vibrant energy which made linking with loved ones in the spiritual world an even greater pleasure than usual. Unless all Spiritualist churches are able to attract more young people, it is difficult to see how the religion can survive, let alone grow and fulfil the role spirit intended for it. That is to bring conviction to all people that life is eternal, we are spirit here and now, should live our lives in the knowledge of the world that is to come and be assured our loved ones can communicate with us to bring us comfort and joy. The philosophy of Spiritualism could and should transform the world by transforming individual thinking and opening people’s minds to the power and beauty of the spirit within them. This can only be achieved if all involved work hard in the service of the Spirit, forget self, prepare themselves thoroughly for their role as mediums, speakers, healers and administrators and follow the dictates of the spirit, rather than those of the ego. For too long now, the development of mediumistic gifts has been shallow and those who should know better have been willing for the sake of having someone to serve their platforms each week, to accept the services of mediums clearly not yet ready to work before the public. Many bemoan the passing of the mediums of earlier years who gave such detailed and convincing evidence from the spiritual world but the reason there are so many fewer such mediums today is precisely what I have just described.

I pray that new spiritual centres, like the one I visited in Manhattan will be brave enough to reverse this trend and bring the world to life once again with the light and power of the spirit working through gifted and fully developed mediums who are dedicated to following the path of spiritual service. I thank my new friends in New York for their generous welcome and look forward to watching their progress over the coming years.

THE JOYS OF TRAVEL

When we travel, as I am doing now, we discover all kinds of things. We discover just how kind and helpful people are, even total strangers who are willing to give you directions when you are lost and offer help about where to find a particular object or service you may be trying to find. We also discover how important to us is our family and how much we miss them. Hopefully it makes us appreciate them all the more when we return home.

We discover that the natural world is beautiful wherever we are and especially when we are travelling we seem to take more notice of the world around us. I know I do anyway. Each country and each part of each country has its own charm and its own specialities where flora, fauna, food and drink are concerned. The people, though universally kind in my experience, also vary and it is this very variety that makes life so interesting. Dialects differ from place to place and one is often surprised to come across people from one’s own country in the most unlikely places. In one country it seems almost everybody is open, friendly and garrulous whereas in others they seem more reserved and it takes longer to get to know them.

The world is a fascinating place and I guess when we are travelling, we are forced to be more aware of others and focus less upon ourselves and this is good for us. It helps us to understand that if we take people as we find them and ignore any prejudices we may have had, we will invariably discover almost everyone is helpful and interested in where we come from, where we are going and what we do. I find travel helps me learn things about myself also. It teaches me just how much habit comes to dominate my life when I am in the familiar surroundings and with the familiar people at home. When moving frequently from place to place you learn to become adaptable and to take setbacks, unusual developments and even pleasant surprises equally in your stride. No two days seem to be the same. There are new faces around, new voices with strange accents, new experiences to hear and to relate. There are sometimes unexpected changes in the temperature and humidity and new scenes to take in and enjoy.

All this is there for our edification and enjoyment. “Variety is the spice of life,” ran the old saying and it is true. For anybody feeling a little jaded and bored with constant repetition in their lives, I strongly recommend travel, even if it is only to a nearby place. Take the bus, walk or cycle to the next town or district and keep your senses alert. Feel the changes going on around you, watch the different scenes passing before your eyes, listen to the different voices and dialects, smell the different scents and taste both the air and any different fruits, foods or drinks that you find. Do that and your boredom and dissatisfaction with your life will vanish, for we are meant to enjoy the infinite variety the Great Creator has placed before us in this beautiful world that is full of joy, love and friendship if only we learn to recognise it by retaining a positive outlook.

IF ONLY…!

I watched an eagle today as it soared effortlessly into the bright blue sky and began to circle around and around, moving higher and higher as it found a thermal to ride. What majesty, what grace and what perfection! I thought, “If only I were able to enjoy the freedom and power possessed by that majestic bird, to be able to soar into the air whenever I wanted or to fly up to the highest crag on a mountain and with my keen eyes be able to view the world beneath my feet”.

I guess that earth-bound as we human beings are, we have always had a fascination with flying, especially have we envied the apparently effortless way in which eagles and other birds are able to just lump off a tree branch and launch into flight. Then I thought about the other aspects of the eagle’s life and was no longer so certain that I would be willing to change places. I thought about the cold winters, when food was in such short supply and I also thought about the apparent solitude of his life. It is rare to see many eagles together usually it is just one or a pair, except of course when mother eagle is teaching her fledglings to fly. I compared that with the friends I have all over the world and who I am able to join from time to time. Friends who accept me as I am, who I know would be willing to help in any way they are able should the need arise, as I would them; friends who offer companionship and understanding; friends who write me loving messages of support and encouragement.

The more I thought along these lines, the more convinced I became about how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family and friends and that I really have no justification for envying the eagle or any other bird. I began to realise that freedom is a state of mind and not merely an ability to quickly escape from wherever we happen to find ourselves at any given time. It is the ability to open ourselves to the universal love that surrounds us, to take time to appreciate the beauty of the earth on which we are privileged to live, to smell the glorious scent of the flowers and the colour of their petals. It is the ability to watch the humming bird and the butterfly as they beautify our world merely by doing what they have been born to do.

I realised also the truth of those immortal words, “In contemplation of created things, by steps we may ascend to God.” Words that apply equally to all God’s creatures and instead of envying the eagle and wishing I could have his apparent freedom, I should be treasuring the moment given to me to contemplate and enjoy his magnificent presence with its reminder that all creation reflects the love and power of the Creator, whose gifts to us human beings are so munificent. “When through His garden the Father walks, his steps are beauty and His presence light,” and He walks with us and all life that shares this wonderful planet. If only more of us would take the time to “…mark the matchless working of the power that shuts within the seed the future flower.”

CLAY BALLS

This lovely little story was sent to me by a friend today and I want to share it with you all.

Lionel

A man was exploring caves by the Seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake. They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him. As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could.


He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock . Inside was a beautiful, precious stone!


Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls.. Each contained a similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.


Then it struck him. He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!


It's like that with people. We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel.. It doesn't look like much from the outside. It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.


We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy. But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.


There is a treasure in each and every one of us. If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.


May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay.. May we see the people in our world as God sees them.


APPRECIATE EVERY SINGLE

THING YOU HAVE,

ESPECIALLY YOUR FRIENDS!

LIFE IS TOO SHORT AND FRIENDS

ARE TOO FEW!

Thoughts from the coast of Maine

As I look out on the beautiful bay that stretches before me bathed in sunshine and dotted with the white sails of yachts, I realise anew what an incredibly beautiful world this is. It was dead calm earlier and hardly a ripple disturbed the surface of the bay but now the breeze has picked up and little wavelets are scurrying across the water. It reminds me that the sea so often mirrors the events in our lives.

For a while everything seems to be calm and peaceful, we do not seems to have a care in the world and then suddenly the wind picks up and we are trying to cope with choppy water that is making it difficult to retain our balance in the boat of life. We learn to steer our boat into the wind so that it is no longer fighting the waves but is working with them. Sometimes though we are made aware of a storm brewing and then steering into the waves won’t help us, we need to find shelter where we can ride out the storm. As we mature we learn to recognise the signs that tell that a storm is imminent and also get to know where it will be best to seek shelter. Sometimes it is necessary for us to fall out of the boat or try to ride out the storm in the open, before we learn to recognise the warning signs and find out the best places to shelter.

Almost as suddenly as it began, the storm begins to subside and our boat is on an even keel once more. We are grateful and make a resolution not to be caught by a storm in the open again. We have learned from the experience, have become stronger and more resourceful. We have become aware of some of our limitations and know what to look for in future. Life is all about growth and learning and it is a fact that most things we have to learn by personal experience. It seems that although the experiences of others are available to us, there are many things that we only learn from making our own mistakes; we seem incapable of learning from the experience of others.

I believe it is important because of this, not to be too hard on our friends, family or others when they make mistakes, even mistakes that we feel we would have avoided given similar circumstances. It is far too easy to criticise from the safe distance of our own self assurance. Instead, we should try harder to understand and to accept that the individual has enough trouble handling the problems brought about by their mistake, without us adding to them with our condemnation. Our reaction to the mistakes made by others is a measure of our own maturity and wisdom and I can do no better than to accept the definition of wisdom propounded by August Swedenborg: “Love is the light of the world; wisdom is the light in which love sees.”

MEMORIES

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War and in London a service was held for all those still living who were evacuated from their homes and families and sent to the country to keep them safe from bombing. It was a traumatic time for all, although bombing began only months later, parents were fearful for their own and their children’s safety. They were faced with a terrible dilemma, should they risk keeping the children at home and run the gauntlet of the bombing which was bound to come, or should they send them away to total strangers. They knew that whichever way they decided their children were likely to be traumatized.

Most parents decided upon evacuation and there were many tragedies as a consequence - children not collected by their foster parents and left to fend for themselves in tumbledown buildings; children who were dealt with like slaves by their foster parents and often brutally handled, others who were terrified at finding themselves on farms in the middle of nowhere when they were accustomed to crowded city streets and in the case of one group sent to Canada, death on the high seas as a result of enemy torpedoes. Of course there were many dedicated and kind foster parents who treated their evacuees as members of the family. City streets became quiet and deserted overnight because of the mass exodus of children and the population of country villages and their schools often grew four or five times. Finding room for all the new children in classrooms caused many headaches for head teachers.

I was one of those evacuees but was lucky with my foster parents, although I had to be moved from my first place because there was a boy there my own age with a wooden leg due to a mowing machine accident on the farm. It was a small farm and we shared the same bedroom. I became terrified each night when his mother removed his wooden leg and I was able to see his poor, misshapen thigh which he delighted in showing me. I couldn’t stand it, used to scream my head off and the local vicar kindly arranged for me to be moved to another farm in the district. My new foster mother was kindness personified and I am forever in her debt and that of her youngest daughter who was the one who really brought me up during the five years I was with them.

I remember well the journey to the railway station from my home, accompanied by my sister, who was also being evacuated and my father, who was coming to see us off safely. I had to wear an identity label (a luggage label attached to my coat) and carry my gas mask (a horrid thing, the rubbery smell of which can still give me nightmares) as well as my suitcase with what few clothes I was given to take with me. I remember both the excitement of riding on a steam train for the first time (I was 6 years old) and the fear of the unknown as we neared our destination in the heart of Wales. I remember the reception party in the local Drill Hall when we arrived and the long snaking line of us as we were marched there from the station. I remember the distinctive smells, for I had never been in the countryside before and also the tears as I said goodbye to my sister, for we were allocated to different farms.

I was extremely happy once I had settled in with my new foster family and I have kept in touch with them ever since, visiting whenever possible, which I still do when I am in Britain. I realise now just how important was the influence of that family, the peacefulness of the surroundings and the closeness with nature there, in developing my character. However, I would never wish the experience of forceful separation upon any child and pray there will never arise an occasion when it becomes necessary again.

SENSITIVITY

How aware are you? When somebody walks up behind you quietly, how close are they before you become aware of their presence? When you meet someone for the first time, do you receive an immediate mental impression about whether you are going to get along with them or not? When you walk into an old building, do you often become aware of differing emotions like joy, happiness, fear or even terror? Do you notice any difference in the way you feel depending upon which colour clothes you wear?

When humanity was at its most primitive, savage stage, it was exactly the type of awareness I have questioned above that kept them alive. Since we became more ‘civilised’ and sophisticated many of us have either lost much of that awareness or it is greatly reduced. I feel it is important to reconnect with our awareness and to understand why I need to explain the forces behind awareness. Each person and indeed every living thing including rocks and minerals are surrounded by an energy field or aura. This aura is part of our invisible or spiritual self and consists of several ‘subtle bodies’ – The physical, mental, emotional and spiritual subtle bodies. These subtle bodies convey information to and from the various parts of our being. We are frequently not consciously aware of this process but it still goes on and to develop greater awareness we need to learn how to transfer the results from our sub-conscious to our conscious minds.

To do so can help us understand ourselves and others much more clearly. It can also protect us in the same way it protected primitive humanity. As in all things, some people are naturally more aware than others but each one of us can make ourselves much more sensitive to the invisible energies all around us if we so choose. We need to recognise first of all that it is perfectly natural and in order to feel. I say this because many of us have suppressed our ability to feel emotionally because we want to avoid being hurt. This is understandable and I sympathise with it but there is a downside also. If we make ourselves insensitive so we don’t get hurt we also make ourselves less sensitive to feelings of love, happiness and joy.

If you need in your job for instance, to assess quickly whether a particular individual is suitable for a specific responsibility or is someone with whom you will be able to work closely and harmoniously, then developing your sensitivity, your awareness, will help you enormously. There are many people who specialise in awareness training and I myself will be conducting an Awareness Workshop called “The Sacred Flame” in Kissimmee, FL on Saturday 3rd October. Also in Salem MA on Saturday 26th September I am conducting another type of awareness workshop that concentrates on our awareness of colour, how it influences us subconsciously and how we can use it to help us and others. We are all sentient beings so it makes no sense to deliberately dampen down our natural sensitivity. Learn to open yourself to the subtle energies around you by learning how to control the expansion and contraction of the energy field around you – your aura. It is not difficult but it does demand practice and determination. There is nothing weird about it, it is merely learning to use more effectively what we have been given by nature.