Thank God

THANK GOD




Center you first thoughts on God in the morning and if you can sit quietly and listen to the voices of nature as the insects and birds wake up. I sit quietly on the deck where I am housesitting. It is quite peaceful even though it is situated in the city being next to a park and having two plots where the house sits on which has massive shady trees and vines covering the ground, which looks quite natural. The full moon at night makes the landscape visible. I can watch raccoons and possums scurry about their life in the yard and climb trees next to my bedroom window. One night I saw a family of raccoons walk up a tree, which has bent over the flat roof of the house, and come down again. I wish that I could leave the French window open at night and enjoy the cool night air, but it is not animals that I am afraid of it is the caution that I have to use because of man.



Praise God inwardly all the time – all day long! The Bible says that God will listen to the praises coming from rocks if He doesn’t hear our praises! Think about that! God really loves to hear our praises and He lives in our praises. Be thankful for all that you have and all that you have accomplished and have been given. It is no mistake where you are today because your life is Divinely guided. Always take the high road in situations and make the best choices for yourself. Be pure of heart, kind and giving. One of the things you can do if you have the resources is to keep a stock of food and some cash on hand, blankets, seeds and water. Things that you will need to survive if the time comes when the economy plummets. I read Suze Orman and Susan Miller at Astrologyzone.com. Both say that the economy is going to recover. Susan say the economy will recover. Susan Miller’s prediction in October 2012 and Suze Orman more like 2014. Keep in mind that we may have some difficult times to navigate and being prepared is one of the tenants that children learn in scouts. If you are a member of a church community encourage those in leadership to support the homeless through shelter and food pantries. Keep any money aside that would otherwise be spent on building expansion or projects that will use up funds that can be essential for the community. Stick together and offer one another support when families are in difficulty.



Guild and shame are negative feelings that we harbor due to social stigma as a result of judgment from others. You may have experienced shame during your school years if you suffered from a condition know as dyslexia that interferes with your brains ability to interpret. Maybe you were hyperactive and always found yourself in trouble. For some weird reason teachers didn’t have much education in the areas of psychology and growth and development. There was a tone of punishment for those who were in a muddle because of the way their mind worked. It doesn’t mean that you were any less intelligent it means that you needed a different way or forum for learning. I remember the times that we spent in England on leave with our parents from East Africa. After the three to six week trip by ship depending on whether we took the Horn of Africa or Suez Canal route we had to be enrolled in school after a certain period of time. The school that I attended was in Staines, Middlesex, nor far from Windsor Castle. We stayed with my grandmother in her bungalow and my father would take us to school in the morning on the bus. The school was at the end of a long road with semi detached Victorian homes and sat on the corner of a street that wasn’t far from the railroad station. It was a red brick school, which had a soot-stained surface from all the coal smoke that was used to heat homes. The classroom I attended school in was a later addition and sat by itself in tarmac covered playground. The toilets were accessible from the playground and had long chains that hung from a toilet bowl high up near the ceiling. School lunches were served to us as we went through the line at noon. The food had the same smell no matter what was prepared. Basically the plate was colored brown and white. We had a serving of meat with mash potatoes and gravy. They might have had a vegetable. The plate looked soupy and steamy as we carried it by hand to the table trying not to let any of the potatoes and gravy slip off the plate. We weren’t allowed to get up from the table and go out to the playground until we had cleaned our plates. Kids seem to be subject to so many erroneous rules by adults that we have to somehow hope that they don’t add another layer to the punishments to the situation that they trap us.



While out in the playground a pigeon plopped it’s poop on top of my head as it flew over. Of all the kids for this to happen to! I really wasn’t like the other kids in that they knew one another and this incident was humiliating and made unluckily made me stand out even more. I always looked forward to being met from school either by my father who always dressed nicely in slacks and a woolen tweed jacket. He was a very handsome man and it made me feel proud when he was around. At other times my mother’s friend Ospit would pick us up on her bicycle which had a child’s set over the back bumper plate. She would wheel the bike along beside her while we walked home. Ospit was a nickname bestowed on her during during WWII when she was stationed at Aldershot, England with my mother in the ATS, which is the woman’s army. Ospit was always having a laugh about things and loved us children. We stopped at the “tuck shop’” which is a candy store down the street from the school. We would buy licorice and other things that were on display in huge glass jars for us to choose from.



Even though I felt the tension of being in a school where I felt that I didn’t belong having people in my life who loved me made me feel good about myself. My father was a civil engineer and I know that genetically I have been blessed with good genes from both my parents. My mother played bridge and was as sharp as a tack until earlier this year when she died at the age of ninety-seven.



Even with the good genes having disruptions in my life had its effect on me in school. I was six when I first attended school in England and their monetary system was based on 12 pennies to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound as opposed to Kenya where learned the decimal system of counting money much like they use in the United States. I am a creature of habit I guess and it is so easy just to go into the automatic mode of thinking and I made mistakes. One day I was told to stand in the corner of the room with my back to the class like you see in movies with the kid having to wear a dunce cap. I didn’t put on any cap but I knew that I was being humiliated and other kids tend to stay away from you when you are not one of the ones that are chosen because you excel. Still at the end of the school year I chose a nice present for my teacher and took great pride in being able to give something. I remember giving a ceramic eggcup that was in the shape of some animal like a pony or donkey. I thought it was special and I had a heart that liked to give.



If you know of children that are experiencing difficulty see if you can assist them with taking them to the library or finding resources that they need. More and more families are homeless due to unemployment and our society had problems anyway that made children vulnerable such as drug addiction. Be kind to our children they will remember that you showed concern and respect. Teach them about gratitude and giving even when they don’t have much. Life has an ebb and tide to giving and receiving. The universe likes to give to us and we have to be willing to share our abundance no matter what form that takes. It might be with time or sharing insights into living. Easing pain through sending our prayers and blessings to people you know and don’t know. Yesterday as the recycling truck pulled away with two men holding on to the back of the truck I blew kisses and sent them blessings. Bless everything around you. Uplift the energy where you live. Light a candle next to the picture of the God you worship. Play chants and read prayers of Saints whom you admire. Turn the direction of your focus away from external worries and focus the mind on the area of the heart. Breath-in deep from time to time. If your mind wanders back into a state of negativity and worry sit down quietly and refocus. Know that it’s the minds job to question and that you have control over your mind. Think of good things in your life and thank God for them. Think of the good that you have earned from your past good actions. They are like petals beneath your feet to ease the friction as your walk along the path that life has for you. Remember that you are a child of God. If others don’t appreciate or respect you don’t waste your energy on them like Christ instructed “shake the dust from your feet,” and move on. You need to find others who are positive and uplifting to be around and who will be sensitive to your spiritual growth. When times get tough the tough will be weeping and hollering because they won’t have learned the inner tools of enlightenment to guide them.



You will learn to follow your intuition or hunch. Your inner voice will direct and guide you when you are challenged to make a decision an unknown situation. I remember coming up from the Bart station in San Francisco, California. Ahead of me was a Buddhist monk who was dressed in a simple cotton saffron robe. He paused when he got to the sidewalk. He needed to regroup his intuition and tune into his surrounding. He was then able to pick up on which direction to take. If you watch animals in nature you will see similar behavior. There are meridians or energy channels in our bodies that can be manipulated through acupuncture to allow energy to flow and enable our bodies to function at an optimal level. Similarly there are magnetic pathways and energy fields around us where we live. Some people study water divining to find where currents flow in relation to our home setting that can adversely affect our health due to the energetic pull that it has on our bodies. I am not an expert in any of these fields I just know the basic principles and have used it for my own purpose to support my own health and well-being. I would like to caution that my teacher has said not to use hands on healing or Reiki because the energy is strong and we can subject ourselves to other people’s karma. This realm of energetic work is powerful so read what Spiritual Masters have to say about it.



Keep your day light by not overloading your self with too many plans and multi-tasking. Keep a regular schedule as much as you can. Try to focus on positive things even when your life seems like a overwhelming struggle. My teacher used to say that going through struggles actually strengthens our hearts and minds. You are become an Olympic athlete in the spiritual sense so allow some of the difficulties to come and do your best to deal with them. One Saint said that we are like lilies in a muddy pond and to rise above the water and live there. That is what higher consciousness is about. When you feel a slump in your attitude or inner feelings become negative pause and reflect what your most recent thoughts were. I sometimes find that I have hurt myself directly after I had a negative thought. You will pick up on how you respond naturally and you will soon skim on top of the mud instead of sinking in as you once did. Trust yourself to make the change. It is going to happen for you. All you have to do is make the commitment to become a better person through learning to give love. Meditate daily and give thanks and praises to God all day long!



Blessings to you in every breath you take and every step you make.



Please feel free to contact me. Lawrencerita511@gmail.com

816-437-0682