Love, Always Love

I find myself far more grateful than I used to be.  Perhaps it is a result of growing older or interacting with the teachings.  Perhaps it doesn’t matter why, just that it is.  Sharing daily gratitudes with a friend of mine has been a practice I have held now for about nine months.  My friend Larry and I go back about 25 years now, first as colleagues and then as life-long friends.  He lives in Wisconsin and I am in Hong Kong.  Each evening he writes to me just at the time I am waking, and so it has come to be that each morning I am in the habit of giving thanks. Over time, our final parting words became “Love, always love”.  It is something I hold dear in my heart as it embodies precisely the teachings of the Guides.  I hope a glimpse into our correspondence can inspire and release the gratitude in your own heart.  Love, always love, Brenda

July 29, 2020

Larry: Wednesday Gratitudes. 

Today I am grateful for another day. 

I am grateful for a quiet morning. 

Grateful for willingness. 

Grateful for dealing with life on life’s terms.

…And Love.

August 6, 2020

Brenda: Thursday gratitude. 

Today I am grateful for journals to take me down memory lane,new paths to take me down real lanes - nature, waterfalls!- and a soul finding its way to take me down my life’s best lane. 

And love, always love.

August 16, 2020

Brenda: Today I am grateful for a lovely hike at the Peak!  Beautiful views of the city and quality time with Brent.

August 25, 2020

Larry: Tuesday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for caring friends.

Grateful for discernment.

Grateful for a little peace in the maelstrom of the storm.

Grateful for my health-care team.

For hope…

…and Love, always love.

August 27

Brenda: Today I am grateful for the dance, the song, the play that is this lived life but also the knowing of love and song and self that transcends it all.  For the release of the old and the dawn of the new. And for love, always and completely LOVE.

September 4, 2020 

Larry: Thursday Gratitudes

I am grateful for a good nights’ rest.

Today I am grateful for cooler weather.

Grateful for fragile beauty.

I am grateful for freedom from the past. 

…and Love.

September 11, 2020

Brenda: Friday morning gratitude.  For Another day as me, figuring out this life thing, God, the fluidity of time and the notion of creating from a sea of possibilities.  For Love as the unifying factor. For all my teachers and fellow travellers along the way.  Love, all is love. B

September 16, 2020

Larry: Thursday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for another Thursday.

I am grateful for grace.

Grateful I have choices.

Grateful for the music of my heart.

Grateful I can still believe in dreams…

…and of course, Love, always Love.

September 23, 2020

Brenda: Wednesday gratitude.  

Today I am grateful for endings and beginnings - another trip around the sun complete.  A new opportunity to set goals, change, grow, learn, become.  I am grateful for all I have learned this past year, including gratitude, the nature of Self, the divinity in all, how to open up to creativity and how to better welcome the unfolding Universe as it is.  I am grateful for the new connections I have made in an otherwise seemingly disconnected world and for the steady cradle of good forever friends and family.  And for Love in all.  Love, always love, B

September 29, 2020

Larry: Monday Gratitudes

I am grateful for authenticity in all things and all people.

Grateful for the Autumn hush this morning.

I am grateful for the soul of friendship.

For phone calls and ZOOM and connection.

Grateful I am “holding my own” at this moment in time.

And I am grateful I am free to live and laugh and free to love, always free to love.

October 10, 2020

Brenda: Saturday night gratitude.  

For a magnificent day!  Quality time with a good friend online, a walk in a new spot ( Aberdeen Country Park), getting my gong! Dinner out with hubby and friends-amazing food, and ideas for how to start a new life in June.  Banner day. For all of this, much much gratitude. Love, always love.

October 16, 2020

Larry: Thursday and Friday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for Sanctuary.

Grateful for sun and wind and fall.

Grateful for my Bellin team.

Grateful for homemade lentil stew.

For a porch visit from Stacy and a new sign for camp.

Today I am grateful for hope.

Grateful for Bear Camp.

Grateful for a dependable vehicle.

For choosing recovery today.

And for Love, always love.

October 25, 2020

Brenda: Sunday morning gratitude.  For good friends.  An amazing husband.  Children I love dearly.  Enough to eat.  Enough to do.  Enough to read and write.  Enough to learn.  Every day.  Love, always love, B

October 28, 2020

Larry: Wednesday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for beauty in the world..

Grateful for social media (even with all its warts).

Grateful for good coffee.

Grateful for not giving up.

And Love, always love.

October 30, 2020

Brenda: Friday gratitude.  For the opportunity to hear choirs sing again!  (In masks one and all).  For the blessing of knowing amazing and kind loving people in India who are taking care of their impoverished families.  I am truly humbled by their love and dedication to children and education at this time.  For a new dawn and a new day. And for love alway always love, love, love.

November 4, 2020

Larry: Tuesday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for a “best nights sleep in a while” kind of day.

Grateful for a sunny warm morning.

I am grateful I have a voice and that I GET to vote.

I am grateful for all those who serve.

Grateful for a grocery pick up today.

I am so grateful for friendships…

…and always grateful for love.

November 4, 2020

Brenda: 

An intention: On this day I choose to be a calm and loving energy for myself and others for my good and the good of all. I know who I am. I know what I am. I know how I serve.

November 9, 2020

Larry: Sunday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for not giving up 5 minutes before the miracle.

I am grateful for good friends.

Grateful for the God of my understanding. 

Grateful for my Bellin team.

And Hope and Love.

November 9, 2020

Brenda: Monday morning gratitude. Today I am grateful for perfect weather, for a new day, and for that which I need finding me and coming to me at the perfect moment.  I am grateful my friends and family are well cared for both far and near. Love and hope, B

November 10, 2020

Larry: Monday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for better sleep.

Grateful for my Bellin health care team.  

Grateful for cortisone injection today.

Grateful for the journey.

I am grateful to recognize the sacred in all beings.

Grateful for these beautiful fall days. 

Grateful for family and friends…

And Love…Love…Love.

November 10, 2020

Brenda: Gratitudes Tuesday.  For a slow day ahead with a leisurely morning, a cup of tea, a walk in nature.  for the Kite’s call over the jungle below and the freedom she inspires in my soul.  Gratitude for the connection I now have with all beings.  For the beauty in the journey and the dance of life, even the messy business creates a compelling story with which to engage and learn and grow through.  And for the lesson of the day that I know will come; it always does.  Love, always love.

November 11, 2020

Brenda: Wednesday morning gratitude. For the gentle moments, the joyous moments, the neutral moments, the synchronous moments, the laughing moments, the cathartic moments and all the moments in between.  And always the love-filled moments.

November 12, 2020

Larry: Wednesday Gratitudes (Veteran’s Day)

Today I am grateful for a great night’s sleep.

Coffee ZOOM with Nikki this morning.

Grateful for all who have served.

I am grateful for my morning coffee.

Grateful for a life in recovery.

And Love, always Love.

November 14, 2020

Brenda: Saturday morning gratitude.  For another day as me, in this body with these people and these lessons being learned.  For knowing the divine in all.  For teachers and guides both here and beyond.  For love, always love.

November 17, 2020

Larry: Monday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for Sweet Sleep.

Grateful for another Monday…my favorite day.

Grateful for a beautiful morning.

Grateful for good coffee.

For music and poetry and prayer.

And for Love, Monday love.  

November 26, 2020

Brenda: It is Thanksgiving here on this Thursday morning.  I am grateful for this spot -looking out over Tai Tam Bay; this moment - peaceful and calm for me; this Hong Kong - vibrant, welcoming, diverse ; these people - family, friends, acquaintances, kind strangers; Rigby - Mr Unconditional Love - spending his final holiday with us; Jigs - also Mr Unconditional Love - who perches his loving energy and radiates; Muse- my Gong who is leading the way to a new horizon; my teachers - and there have been many; and love, always love.

November 29, 2020

Brenda: Sunday morning gratitude.  For love and church and dog and cat and good night’s sleep, unexpected laughter, a cool breeze, a nice walk, good check up with the doctor.  For daily Guidance and the trust to move in alignment with it.  For alignment to love, not fear.  Always love, B

Dec. 4, 2020

Larry: Friday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for a Boom Shakalaka day.

Grateful for Friday Morning ZOOM.

Grateful for a sunny, warm, December morning.

Grateful for some success decluttering.

I am grateful for hope and faith and love.

December 5, 2020

Brenda: Saturday morning gratitude.  For a nice, slow, tender Saturday morning.  For my AP Lit kids.  For the promise of Christmas. For Christmas movies. For love, always love.

December 10,  2020

Larry: Wednesday Gratitudes

Today I am grateful for a beautiful December day.

Grateful I can pay my bills.

Grateful for Wednesday Morning Writers.

Gratitude for truth in my day.

Grateful for Living Clean meeting.

Grateful for the healing and grace in recovery.

And Love…always love.

And what are you grateful for today, dear readers?

Love, always love,

Brenda

Time, Now, and Infinity

Let’s just say there IS no such thing as Time.  That Time is just an idea - a net we created for ourselves while swimming; we placed ourselves within this safe net long ago. 

Let’s just say that we live inside this ocean with no end.  In this ocean we can create whatever we want.  And let’s just say that at one point humans created this net, swam into the net so that it surrounded them and then stayed there.  It provided a safe boundary for them in this vast ocean. They liked their net. They stayed there for so many generations that a time came when a generation forgot they themselves had created the net and they no longer knew that it didn’t really need to be there. They and their children and their children’s children forgot they could quite easily swim over or under or even through the net to the infinite possibilities that lay beyond their net in the infinite ocean.

This net - Time, remember - created all kinds of trouble for them. . .  restrictions, really.  It crowded and controlled them.  They became exasperated at how restricting it was and constantly complained about it, but no one could see beyond the net they had made for themselves and generation after generation agreed to the idea of the net fencing them in.

Now those swimming beyond the net in the infinite ocean noticed those caught in their own net.   And although it was fine for the netted ones to stay inside the net if they chose to, it was no longer fine for them to have no awareness of what was available beyond the net. How could they get the netted ones to even SEE the net in the first place?  How could they convince the netted ones that they themselves had constructed the net, which was truly unnecessary now. How could they help the netted ones then BELIEVE in the possibility of something beyond it - something filled with that which was beyond their imagination?  The infinite possibilities that were the ocean itself?  The water was indeed everywhere. 

Now the net is not evil nor is it good.  It simply creates another way of being that is restrictive to the netted ones.  As you may know, inside the net it seems to have gotten quite polluted, frenzied, frenetic really.  In an effort long ago to create something organised and safe, now those netted ones have outgrown the need for the net. If only they knew that they could quite easily swim above or below or through to reach the infinite possibilities of the ocean where there is no net!  Realise, where there is no net, there is no net to contend with - it does not exist.

So now let’s call the infinite ocean of possibilities the Eternal Now.  That water that is everywhere in the ocean is the Eternal Now of infinite possibilities.  And it may be easier to recognise that the ocean that is the Eternal Now is above or below or even surrounding the net.  But is it not also inside the net?  Those caught inside the net are they not ALSO swimming in the Infinite Now?

And are we not the netted ones? Are we not the ones who cannot fathom the Infinite Now in this very moment we swim inside our polluted, crowded, frenetic net?  And won’t we accept the assistance of those who would release us from our ancient and restrictive net? For the Infinite itself is present in this very moment in this very place.  The Infinite is present within and around and through You in this ever present Now.  And the possibilities are, indeed, endless.  

Image credit: "Muguraan" by Hani Amir is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0