The Virtuous Way. The Spirit Way

 

The Spirit Way

There is a way that is higher than the ways that prevail in our society, or for that matter, in any society that has existed throughout human history. This way is a higher, more virtuous way and the only way that goes with us beyond the grave. Truthfully, I believe it is the only way worth living.  It is the Spirit Way.

The Spirit Way

The Spirit Way says that…

I am not my body. However, I do temporarily reside in one.

I am not my job. Still, I get up and go to work.

I am not somebody’s wife, mother, sister, grandmother or friend. Yet, I carry out these roles.

I am not an artist, writer or teacher.  Nevertheless, I teach, I paint, and I write.

I am not my thoughts. I have thoughts, but I’m not my thoughts.

I’m not my emotions. I experience emotions but they are not who I am.

The Spirit Way says that…

I am loved. I am appreciated. I am valued. I am content. I am peace. I am abundant. I am spirit. I am life. I am light.

I am all of these and more because who I am, who you are, is an eternal energy being from another realm having a temporary physical experience in this finite realm that people call time, space and reality.

The Dead-End Way

But “reality” isn’t what’s real. It’s just a parenthesis in the expanse of forever, kind of like going into a pocket universe. Our reality is the small pocket in true reality.

The finite physical reality has its way. That way is based in fear and in the idea that there is lack. That way leads us to believe that we must constantly seek what we don’t have in order to be complete and know contentment. That way fosters competition, mistrust, hatred, wars, and destructions of all kinds. Eventually, it leads to a dead end and none of the physical things it accumulated, or impressions made upon others can go back into the spirit realm when we cross over.

The Spirit Way leads to Freedom

The Spirit Way, also known as the Way of Virtue, is the path to freedom. The freedom comes from knowing that nothing here is lasting and that we come from something much bigger and that we have a purpose that is beyond our temporary journey. So, we come here, to experience the physical realm.

When we transition into purely non-physical states of being, we take every important thing we picked up along this road with us. We carry all the love we gave and received the moment we cross over.

I’m remembering my dad when he was passing in and out of this reality and making his transition. On his death bed he was talking about love and how it’s the only thing that matters. The ONLY thing. That’s it. Love.

The Spirit Way is the Prerequisite to Miracles

I am a spiritual being having a physical experience and not a physical being having a spiritual experience. My existence in this world is contingent upon my spirit energy remaining in my body and animating it.

When we walk in the Spirit Way it may look strange or confusing to those who are alienated from the source of their existence or as the Bible puts it, to those who are afar off from God. In other words, they choose to do things based on the conventional wisdom of whatever age and culture they live in rather than on the timeless truth of the Spirit Way. They choose to be led by the finite understanding of fellow amnesiac travelers rather than being Spirit-led.

All of us are animated by energy and that energy is Spirit. The rules of the Spiritual Reality supersede the rules of the physical reality.  This is the perquisite to the miraculous.  The prophet Isaiah once said that God’s ways are as high above the ways of conventional wisdom as the heavens are above the earth. You can’t understand spirit things when your radio dial is set to only receive finite signals.

The Spirit Way and the manifestations it gives birth to are one and the same. As the Apostle Paul once said, we, “call those things that be not as though they were.” We understand that the world was “not made of things which do appear.”

Not by Might, Nor by Power, but by my Spirit….

So having said that, I now encourage you as I seek to encourage myself to stop trying to fix it or make things happen under your own power. Give it to God and let it go.

Follow the inspirations of the Divine Spirit, but don’t do anything because you are being urged by people or seemingly threatened by circumstances.

Surrender your ego. That means stop making it all about how you come across or about your needing something from someone. Seek God’s guidance and then trust it to be there and follow it.

Let the source of all that is, the Great I Am, untangle the knots for you and watch how beautifully everything works out.

Parable of a Butterfly

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Several years ago a little girl caught a small green caterpillar and placed it in a jar. She fed the caterpillar Queen Anne’s Lace leaves daily and watched as the caterpillar grew fatter and fatter, then one day she was surprised to find a chrysalis in the jar. She placed the jar in a safe place and put a damp cotton ball in there. One morning she woke up to find a beautiful yellow swallowtail flitting around in the jar, trying desperately to fly. Her mother told her that she needed to set the creature free so it could use its wings and do what it was created to do, but the little girl exclaimed, “It’s mine. I raised it from a caterpillar. I took care of it and fed it and watered it and kept it safe from my cat, so I want to keep it. It’s mine.”

“If you keep the butterfly in this jar it will die without ever doing the things it was created to do,” her mother said.

“But I love the butterfly,” the little girl protested. “If I take the lid off the jar it will fly away and never come back. Then I will not have a butterfly.”

The young mother knelt beside her daughter and spoke gently. “If you love something you must set it free when it wishes to go. Love doesn’t try to own another living thing. When we keep a thing because we can’t imagine being without it, then we don’t love, we’re just afraid. Love makes us brave and gives us faith. Fear makes us selfish. Do you understand?”

The little girl nodded. “Okay. I will set it free.”

So, they took the jar into the front yard and the child removed the lid. The butterfly first perched on the rim of the jar, then it flew into the maple tree and fluttered about from branch to branch, leaf to leaf. All at once it flew free of the tree, across the yard, and over the field beyond, going higher and higher, a flash of yellow in the sun. The little girl laughed. “Look at it go, Mommy! I am glad I set it free.”

Years later, a young woman loaded her belongings into her gray car and pulled out of her mom’s driveway. The now middle-aged mother watched her disappear over the horizon, a lonely tug in her heart, tears in her eyes. Her daughter was off to life in the world, to an apartment and a job and a man and a…a whole suitcase full of dreams. As her mother stared at the country road leading away from home she saw a yellow swallowtail light on the mailbox and folding and unfolding its wings and she remembered.

Love liberates. Fear imprisons.

My Perfect Day

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On a perfect day

there would be no clocks

calendars

schedules.

I would awaken

when I was rested

sleep when I was tired

eat when I was hungry

drink when I was dry.

On a perfect day

I would go wherever

my creative muses led me.

I might wade a creek

touching nature

teaching children

or I might go to

France’s Mirmande

cobblestone streets

sun on my face

ancestral winds at my back.

On a perfect day

I might drive over

to Penn’s Store

where I would meander

amongst fellow misfits

poets, painters, songsters.

No one would care

what I looked like

what clothes I had on

or how I wore my hair.

On a perfect day

no one would be nice

because of what I could give them

or do for them

or how I made them feel

about themselves.

No one would misread me

assigning desire where

only kindness was intended

or assuming anger when

quiet contemplation overtook me.

On a perfect day

I might paint, write

sing or dance

or stare quietly into space

not really knowing where

my mind had been

then suddenly

having an inspiration

an insight

an ah-ha, that’s it!

On a perfect day

I might make a memory

with another or a few

without baggage

ownership

hurt

just joy.

On a perfect day

I would be like a butterfly

landing where flowers bloom

hurting nothing

taking nothing

expecting nothing

–just being.

All I would want

would be warmth and freedom

from jars, nets and insect zoos.