Updated December 29, 2009
 www.lovecounts.net

Be still my heart and listen closely to your desire. Hear the melody of peace, be it ever so faint.

Five years now you have been pushing the oneness in spirit away. You have chosen to turn after physical pleasure, smug in the idea that the Light was there and you could bring it out to shine when it was "time". Except you haven’t allowed yourself to accept that the "time" of being in tune with the Christ Light is of your choosing.  And so time has done its inevitable march.  Lessons have been learned, yes, but there is a good, better and best way to achieve the strength and inner growth that brings oneness with the spirit.

I said to a friend last night that I feel like I've only done my real growing in the past five years.  I realize that it was at the beginning of that time frame that the "miracle on Eighth Street" happened.  It was that spiritual awakening which put me on the path to seek and fulfil my destiny.  How well I remember the joy and peace of those first few months.  I was filled to overflowing with love and a thirst to learn. Yet, I remember too the conflict with how I had been raised and rebellion against the harsh and narrow precepts of my childhood religion.

Then I met Michael.  He was my teacher, my guide in walking a higher plain, closer to God.  He taught me that there is more than one path to God.  He showed me, by example, an unselfish, giving way of service to God and mankind.  What heartbreak that I was weak and failed the test and so lost my teacher and guide in the direct, straight path to spiritual fulfillment.  Michael would ask something hard of me and when I protested that I couldn't do it, he would reply, "Why not, Norah, why not?!"

So I ran away. I buried very, very deep the pain and turmoil and disappointment in myself.

Two years later I was with Bill and my time with him was a little more complex.  I was still, to a large degree, denying or putting aside the spiritual, but it was at least a time of growth. I learned many things about myself, gained a good self-image and confidence I had always lacked.  Yet, in the larger picture there was no substance.  The physical took precedence over the spiritual learning, a void that I have tried so hard to fill with emotion. Recent events, seemingly piled one atop the other, have combined to make me stop and ask, "What am I dong?"  It is a great wrong against ourselves when we have knowledge and scorn to use it.  Because I have knowledge of the truth I have been smug, and stubborn in that smugness, thinking I could continue to live in contradiction of my values and everything would still turn out okay.  Perhaps I was waiting for the proverbial bolt of lightning.  Nothing so dramatic, just an ever-growing awareness of being out of tune and not being true to myself.

How easy it is in learning our lessons to become self-satisfied and, yes, self-righteous and conceited.  The sad result of allowing that to happen is that the lessons learned cannot come to fruition because you cannot be conceited and smug and give with unselfish love at the same time.

It is time. Time to take a good, hard look at my lifestyle and change those things that have no purpose except pleasure.  Time to accept some harsh truths about myself.  Time to let the inner Light shine in all its  glory, to light the path with seeking knowledge and truth.

I want to grow, to have the inner peace that only comes with oneness of spirit; to live a life of loving and giving; to learn; and to be with people who share in a need for substance.