THE
AWARENESS OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD
Forward
As
many believe, I used to believe that God was
more present in spirit than here on earth.
Of course, the energy is different, either
more negative or more positive, depending
upon the spiritual and material realms one
is present.
However, with discussion with others I have
come to the conclusion that God is
universally present both here and the
hereafter. He is as much present here
as everywhere. We are part of Him,
wherever we are, and are always open to His
love.
I
still am having difficulty recognizing that
one need not ask for mercy from God, since
by His very nature He is nonjudgmental,
always with us and loving us.
Of
course one may be more open to his presence
depending upon his or her circumstances in
life. And by life I mean one’s eternal
existence.
It is
our own perception of God that is different.
The more positive we are, the more likely we
would be aware of His presence. Of
course, the higher the realm of spirit one
is in, the more likely he or she will meet
more individuals that display positive
aspects of God.
Within
this paper I will set forth the beliefs of
various individuals as to their awareness of
the presence of God.
Witnesses to the presence of God
Bishop Sandra Adler of the Peace Community
Church says it this way:
The facts for me are that I am one with all
things and am the creator of my life. I am
what I think and that can change daily with
my free will. I have spiritual helpers who
have mastered the lessons I am working on to
help me do the same (and they have their
helpers and so on). I am a soul with a
physical body here on Planet Earth to
accomplish my life purpose that I chose
before I got this physical body and that I
will never die because I am energy -
electromagnetic energy in a physical energy
form. Energy cannot be created or
destroyed; it just changes form. I am
God; everything is God; I attract to me what
I desire and what I fear so I can learn and
evolve to mastery and enlightenment.
I am in this physical form in the present.
I am now, I have always been and I will
always be because I am energy. I chose
to come here (I've been here many times), I
chose my parents to give me the physical
body and I will choose the time to leave it
and how to leave it. I will also
choose whether or not to come back to
accomplish another 2-fold life purpose which
is to refine my soul energy more and to
provide more service. I will go where
other souls are that have a similar state of
consciousness that I have because like
attracts like in energy.
If I have mastered my life's purpose (or
spiritual thrust) when I decide to pass on
and have become all loving, caring, sharing,
kind, understanding, non-judgmental,
patient, respecting myself, others and the
environment, I will go where others are like
that. It is the farthest region from
Planet Earth where souls reside. It is
total freedom. From there I can choose
whether I want to be a Spiritual Helper for
someone on Planet Earth or take another
opportunity. It is called heaven,
nirvana, the Kingdom of God, 'D' zone,
loyalty to self and other names. It is
where our Spiritual Helpers, Angels, Great
Spirit, Ascended Masters, Messengers of God,
etc. can be found. It is all positive
energy.
If, when I pass on, I am still judging,
competing, fearful, on a glory trip,
jealous, devoted to things outside myself,
possessive, hateful, prejudiced, etc., I
will be confused and I will go where souls
are similar to me. I will stay there until I
decide to change. My helpers never
leave me until I make a new plan. It
will be a comfortable place since others
will be confused and have lack of
understanding like me. This state of
confusion can be called hell, purgatory,
negative energy, the devil, etc. The
only difference between this and earth is
that on earth there are many states of
consciousness to learn from so it's easier
to grow and that's why we come to this
planet. In the spiritual world we go
to the level of consciousness we have
attained; we can go down to lower levels but
cannot go up because of a lack of
understanding.
God is everywhere; God is atoms and
molecules - energy; I am energy, one with
all things; I am God - everyone is - whether
he knows it or not.”
Dawn Overstreet - National Promotion
Director of the Inner Peace Movement says it
this way:
“I am, I have always been, I will always be
energy. To my own self, be true. I
came with everything I need to go beyond any
limitations. Those gifts are the ability to
heal in an instant those areas that may
confuse me or keep me separated from my
Christ consciousness of that good, kind,
loving person that I am. I have
choice. With choice, I have the assistance
of my "board of directors" or angels to give
me insights into the details of my decisions
so I can see myself in all that I do. I am
the greatest each day when I feel good. I
abound with inner freedom knowing that I am
surrounded by inspiration and encouragement
from within. I love life because it is
my opportunity to create the picture that I
want to be involved in.”
Bishop Lorraine Olsen of the Peace Community
Church, San Antonio, Texas, states:
Lighthouses were first used by the ancient
Egyptians and have evolved over the
centuries to what we now know them to be.
They have always been a beacon of light to
warn the ships of impending danger and to
give them direction. Many times ships
were damaged when for some reason they
didn’t see or pay attention to that beam of
light shining through the darkness. I firmly
believe that spirit is like my lighthouse
and my angels are the beams of light that
are there to warn me, back me and to help me
through troubled waters. I need to
listen to that still small voice and to
discern what I am seeing. These
visions, feelings, thoughts or knowing come
to me often but I sometimes don’t pay
attention. This is when I can get into
situations that I could have avoided.
Thank goodness it doesn’t happen too often
and if it does my angels help me discern
what the problem is and what the solution
is. Thank you, Spirit, for always being
there for me, and love, joy and laughter to
you all!!
Rev. Estelle Minor of the Peace Community
Church, San Antonio, Texas, states:
BY THE GRACE OF THE PCC ANGELS and in
humility and grace, I wheel myself in before
the start of a YMCA exercise class, radiant
with joy. Those already seated typically
leave where they are and come to interact
ostensibly with me but actually with the
healing the extra angels I have brought with
me. In different venues this year, I’ve
witnessed people flock toward me. I am
humbled because that reaction is the power
of the PCC angels manifesting.
I frequent medical complexes in large
cities, hospitals and seniors’ exercise
classes. People are there because they want
to “get better”. What I’ve found about those
who live with pain, whether they exhibit the
trademark sense of humor or the crumpled,
tight demeanor is their keen sensing of
where relief lies. There is ubiquitous
thirst for the energy that we carry around
us as participants of this church without
walls. More acutely yet, medical providers
exhibit this need for a “breath of fresh
air" and for words echoing our orientation
lecture! My part is to be in tune with the
patient, all-accepting, comforting love of
the PCC angels.
My day must start with regrouping to clarify
inner direction and the sense of why I am
here in the big picture. I must allow
adequate preparation and time to not be
hurried along my day.
Next I cultivate in myself love of life in
the moment, of a sense that encountering
another human being is a gift, and of a
belief that every encounter can bring
healing at least in one’s soul! My body
benefits and my inner self taps into more
peace than I can put into words, so I
volunteer to be a vehicle for healing
angels. That is why my entry onto an
elevator full of people can be met like an
awaited blessing: I notice the very young,
the very old with their helpers, the ones
that thought they would be crabby this day,
the shy ones who normally wouldn’t speak out
like this to a stranger lean slightly
towards me, take a deeper breath, and relax
as a blanket of comforting love and hope
descends upon us. By the time the doors open
again, their eyes have the Light and their
faces have been uplifted. May we all be
humbled by the power the PCC angels manifest
around us!
Rev. Zoe Jungbluth of the Peace Community
Church, San Antonio, Texas, states:
Remembrances of PCC Opening Circles at Camp:
The July morning air is soft on the
cheek—nature’s complement to angels’ touch.
Our grassy spot in the yard is gathering
searchers to our circle. In slight mist they
come, as if planned, from all directions.
Still near sleep, the mood is reverent,
contemplative, feelings gathering in a
spiritual ballet of accord. Any speech is
hushed as searchers almost float to us, as
the last vestiges of dreams are regrouped
and wired into the coming day. Our circle
comes together in song, sharing and respect
for one another. Reaching out to all the
earth, we are soon fortified with healing,
and off to our day’s possibilities.
Ginny
Hazelton of Rochester Hills, Michigan, a
woman in her 80’s, sees His presence in a
newborn baby, who is [usually] born alike
with other infants: the same
structures, the same limbs, the same amount
of fingers and toes. She is especially
struck by the uniformity of their blood
vessels which maintain their lives.
Peter
Benford of Austin, Texas, states:
I certainly concur that God is All Things; I
would express it: God is all thoughts
and all feelings, all matter and all energy.
There is nothing that is not God: The
real and the illusionary; the best and the
worst; motion and stillness; receiving and
giving (back).
In fact, the nature of God (the Cosmos) is a
complex of hierarchies, too massive and too
complex for us to embrace, in our present
dimly lit consciousness. All
hierarchical elements of the complex, at
every level, express the benevolence and
Divinity, eventually, of the One Most Holy
God.
Mankind exists to serve. That is our
fundamental nature and motivation (deny it
though many of us do, so vehemently).
Our current undertaking is to steward
(serve) the evolution of this planet (and
all who ride with her). Truly, to
serve it is, inevitably, to be it.
Thus we made the sacrifice of
devolving, vacating the ecstasy of our true
divinity, to evolve anew as part of the
planetary process. The burden is heavy but
the reward is huge; to become masters and to
progress to unlimited choice of service at
higher and higher levels, far removed from
the burdens (dragging these bones) we are
now familiar with.
As we are at present, everything that we can
be aware of, as physically anchored
beings, in truth can be regarded as
illusionary. The lower physical that we
inhabit is "not reality" because it
expresses separation, sequence and
resistance; these in the nature of
separational distance, sequential time and
resistive density. In truth these
dimensions, equivalent to darkness, fade and
eventually lose their grip on us as we
progress in the evolutionary
reunion with our Higher Self, or Soul, to
become "the Light".
We are guided by those who are "further
ahead" than us along the road to home.
They are, however, bound by the same laws
that we are, mainly the Great Law of free
will. Basically they will not violate
our free will, even for our own good. If
there is such a concept as "sin" it surely
must be "violation of the free will of (one
or more) others". All things must be
free. So in a
non-corrupted morality it's OK to be
entirely free provided we avoid
depriving others of their right to be free
also. It is as if the higher
level administrating such laws is saying
"Just get involved and learn to live
together. Remember, you are all One,
aren't you now . . ."
All Are One Divinity by Peter
Benford
Take a silent time each day –
Do not be denied!
Just to meditate and pray
And
find peace inside.
We will be heard and shown the road
Walk beside the Guide
Along the way to Home and God
The
path is firm and wide.
Closer now to Spirit be
Say: “I am the Soul”
All are one Divinity
All
will be healed and whole.
Each step leads to God and home
Our staff of truth is stout
Belief is power to overcome
The
weaker strength of doubt.
From morning’s earliest waking hour
Though cold the earth, damp the air,
Angels with us give us power
And
stay beside us everywhere.
Then carry us on wings of light
And help us through the hours of night
In vigil patient with no end
To
cleanse, recover, start again …
Kahlil
Gibran in The Prophet (Borzoi book)
speaking on religion (78) says it this way:
“And
if you would know God be not therefore a
solver of riddles. Rather look about
you and you shall see Him playing with your
children. And look into space; you
shall see Him walking in the cloud,
outstretching His arms in the lightning and
descending in rain. You shall see Him
smiling in flowers, then rising and waving
His hands in trees.”
David
C. Hakim
Rochester,
Michigan
April
3-May 5, 2007
The following is an inspirational true story
(click the link below for more information)
that has been heavily circulated by email
for several years:
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/s/smellofrain.htm
The Smell of Rain
A cold March wind danced around the dead of
night in Dallas as the Doctor walked into
the small hospital room of Diana Blessing.
Still groggy from surgery, her husband David
held her hand as they braced themselves for
the latest news. That afternoon of March
10,1991, complications had forced Diana,
only 24 weeks pregnant, to Danae Lu
Blessing.
At 12 inches long and weighing only one
pound and nine ounces, they already knew she
was perilously premature. Still, the
doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. I
don't think she's going to make it, he said,
as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10
percent chance she will live through the
night, and even then, if by some slim chance
she does make it, her future could be a very
cruel one." Numb with disbelief, David and
Diana listened as the doctor described the
devastating problems Danae would likely face
if she survived. She would never walk, she
would never talk, she would probably be
blind, and she would certainly be prone to
other catastrophic conditions from cerebral
palsy to complete mental retardation, and on
and on. "No! No!" was all Diana could say.
She and David, with their 5-year-old son
Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they
would have a daughter to become a family of
four. Now, within a matter of hours, that
dream was slipping away.
Through the dark hours of morning as Danae
held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana
slipped in and out of sleep, growing more
and more determined that their tiny daughter
would live, and live to be a healthy, happy
young girl. But David, fully awake and
listening to additional dire details of
their daughter's chances of ever leaving the
hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he
must confront his wife with the inevitable.
David walked in and said that we needed to
talk about making funeral arrangements.
Diana remembers, 'I felt so bad for him
because he was doing everything, trying to
include me in what was going on, but I just
wouldn't listen, I couldn't listen. I said,
"No, that is not going to happen, no way! I
don't care what the doctors say; Danae is
not going to die! One day she will be just
fine, and she will be coming home with us!"
As if willed to live by Diana's
determination, Danae clung to life hour
after hour, with the help of every medical
machine and marvel her miniature body could
endure. But as those first days passed, a
new agony set in for David and Diana.
Because Danae's under-developed nervous
system was essentially raw, the lightest
kiss or caress only intensified her
discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle
their tiny baby girl against their chests to
offer the strength of their love. All they
could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath
the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes
and wires, was to pray that God would stay
close to their precious little girl. There
was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew
stronger.
But as the weeks went by, she did slowly
gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of
strength there. At last, when Danae turned
two months old, her parents were able to
hold her in their arms for the very first
time. And two months later-though doctors
continued to gently but grimly warn that her
chances of surviving, much less living any
kind of normal life, were next to zero.
Danae went home from the hospital, just as
her mother had predicted.
Today, five years later, Danae is a petite
but feisty young girl with glittering gray
eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She
shows no signs, what so ever, of any mental
or physical impairment. Simply, she is
everything a little girl can be and more-but
that happy ending is far from the end of her
story.
One blistering afternoon in the summer of
1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae
was sitting in her mother's lap in the
bleachers of a local ballpark where her
brother Dustin's baseball team was
practicing. As always, Danae was chattering
non-stop with her mother and several other
adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell
silent. Hugging her arms across her chest,
Danae asked, "Do you smell that?" Smelling
the air and detecting the approach of a
thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells
like rain." Danae closed her eyes and again
asked, "Do you smell that?" Once again, her
mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to
get wet, it smells like rain. Still caught
in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted
her thin shoulders with her small hands and
loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him.
It smells like God when you lay your head on
His chest." Tears blurred Diana's eyes as
Danae then happily hopped down to play with
the other children.
Before the rains came, her daughter's words
confirmed what Diana and all the members of
the extended Blessing family had known, at
least in their hearts, all along. During
those long days and nights of her first two
months of her life, when her nerves were too
sensitive for them to touch her, God was
holding Danae on His chest and it is His
loving scent that she remembers so well. You
now have 1 of 2 choices...you can either
pass this on and let other people catch the
chills like you did, or you can delete this
and act like it didn't touch your heart like
it did mine.
IT'S YOUR CALL!
