hope

Secret of the Wheelbarrow

/ Darlene Franklin-Campbell / Leave a comment

 

Carrying yesterday’s junk leaves no room for today’s treasures.

DUMP THE JUNK!

About five years ago I bought a new wheelbarrow for the purpose of gardening. However, this spring when I went out to use my wheelbarrow, I found it was useless.

It was useless because of the television, the one that had stopped working a long time ago. I needed to get rid of it; it was useless junk from my past. It was super heavy, too big a burden to carry, so I loaded it onto the wheelbarrow to transport it and then I got sidetracked and left it—for two months!

Recently, I needed to use the wheelbarrow to move dirt as it was time to garden, but when I went out to get it, I realized that I couldn’t put anything in it unless I emptied it.

It wasn’t until I took hold of the handles, guided the wheelbarrow to the barn and unloaded the television that I could use it again for gardening, its original purpose.

IT’S A NEW DAY!

I think our minds are like my wheelbarrow (or any vessel for that matter). So long as we are filled with junk from the past, we are useless in the present.

So often we begin each day with associations to the ones gone before. Each day is a new beginning, but ONLY if we empty the wheelbarrow. There is a passage in the Book of Psalms where David says, “This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” He is telling us that he started over, every morning with gratitude.

There is also a passage in the Tao Te Ching that talks about how the usefulness of a vessel is in the emptiness of the vessel. Only when my wheelbarrow was emptied of the past, could I use it in the present.

THERE IS ONLY NOW.

In the Book of Hebrews Paul says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.” NOW. Not yesterday, not twenty years ago, not this morning. Right now. Faith works in the present. It is in the present that we call those things into existence that we may not see with our physical eyes, but if we see them with our spirits, they have no choice but to manifest.

In Hebrews 11:3, Paul teaches us, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” The reference to the word of God here comes from an old Greek word, Rhema (hray-mah) and means a literal utterance, especially a narrative or a command. Solomon tells us that life and death are in the power of the tongue. In other words, when we speak of a thing or dwell on a thing, we draw that thing to ourselves.

If we hang onto negative narratives of the past, old junk, regardless of who put it there, we can’t move forward into today, we cannot know true peace and purpose. I know people who still live in their high school mentality, some who are holding thirty-year-old grudges, some who are hanging onto to pain from childhood, some who simply can’t move on because everyday they wake up with their wheelbarrows full of yesterday’s junk.

So long as we are wheeling around yesterday’s junk we can’t enjoy today’s treasures.

The usefulness of a vessel doesn’t lie in its fullness but in its continuously being emptied and refilled.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

You Harvest what you Plant

/ Darlene Franklin-Campbell / 2 Comments
Photo by Du01b0u01a1ng Nhu00e2n on Pexels.com

You can never harvest beans by planting tomatoes. At least that’s been my experience. Every time I plant beans I get beans, unless the groundhogs get them first. When I plant corn, I get corn, tomato seeds yield tomatoes, squash seeds give me squash and so on. No matter what kind of seed I put in the ground, that’s exactly the kind of plant that comes up. That seems to be a law of the natural universe. It’s also a law of the spiritual universe. You harvest what you plant.

If you saw a person planting pumpkins and expecting carrots you’d probably think they were a little wonky in the head! Yet, we do it all the time in the spirit realm.

Consider the following:

When I was in college I complained to my beloved Art professor one day that I had no friends. She replied, “He who hath friends must show himself friendly.” I realized it was true. I developed a little philosophy based off my discoveries through the exercise of showing myself friendly.

With one statement that professor taught me a bit about the Law of Reaping and Sowing, also known in some circles as the Law of Attraction. If you see yourself as being lonely then you will be lonely but if you become friendly, you will have friends. If you want everyone to think you’re interesting, then show interest in them.

You can’t sow complaints and reap joy. You can’t sow lies and reap truth. You can’t sow hatred and reap love. You can’t sow drama and reap peace.

In the Book of Hebrews, the Apostle Paul says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not see.” He goes on to say, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Hebrews 11:1 & 3 (NIV) In Romans, he said that God had called the things which were not as if though they were.

The truth is that it’s a little more than just saying something. It’s having a joyous feeling, an excitement, when you say it. Don’t dwell on it. Don’t fixate on it. Speak into life, be thankful, then go about your business doing other stuff and in time, it will come to pass and you will get to rejoice a second time! In the same way, if we have a negative feeling when we speak a thing, we can literally call unpleasant things into our lives by our words and the spiritual vibration or expectation that accompanies those words.

Here’s another way to look at it. Truth or reality is based on the credence or mental acceptance of what one perceives; this mental acceptance is the essence, confidence and assurance, the absolute foundation, that brings into tangible manifestations objects and events that are expected into fruition. In other words, if we believe it and rejoice as if though we already have it then it will manifest in our lives. We don’t have to know the specifics, just that it’s as good as done.

If you sow seeds of earnest expectation with a thankful heart then you will reap crops that are only limited by your imagination.

No More Good-byes

/ Darlene Franklin-Campbell / 2 Comments
Photo by Viktor Lundberg on Pexels.com

People are always asking me, “How do you say good-bye in Cherokee?” or “How do you say good-bye in Tla Wilano?”

Here’s the thing.

In many/most Indigenous American cultures there is no concept of “good-bye,” not a temporary one and certainly not a long-term or permanent one.

Good-bye carries the notion that you will not be seeing that person again. In a culture where there is no concept of a permanent departure, there can be no good-byes. There is only, “until we meet again” and “and so,” which is an internally understood concept of continuation.

Imagine you are going on a trip. You make plans. You choose a vehicle, either you rent one, borrow one, or buy one. You choose the vehicle in which you will travel based on the kind of trip you’re taking. You certainly wouldn’t choose a mini-van to cross the ocean or a boat to travel over land!

Your journey begins the moment you get into your vehicle and it ends the moment you get out. However, when you exit the vehicle, YOU do not end. You do not cease to be. You continue to exist outside the vehicle. You’ve reached your destination. You are in some other place and your vehicle stays parked where you left it until some outside force moves it.

Now, think of our lives on earth as vehicles on a road. Think of our bodies as our vehicles. We are each driving our own custom-made vehicle that will only operate for its precise owner. You cannot drive another person’s vehicle and they cannot drive yours! Our vehicles come in all colors, shades, shapes, sizes, makes and models. These vehicles are not really us, but mere descriptors of us, just as our skin color, gender, size, etc., are NOT WHO WE ARE but merely descriptors of our vehicles.

We exist before we ever get in our vehicles and we exist after we get out of them!

It is only in this life that we have a beginning and an ending. Life within the confinements of time and physical space is a journey along the way in our never-ending existence and in order to travel through this life, we need a vehicle–a physical body through which we can interact with the physical world. So, we are spiritual beings traveling through a physical dimension. There’s an old gospel song that says, “This world is not my home, I’m only passing through….” How true that is! We stay here until our spirits are ready to leave, then we go home. Even when our minds compel us to stay, our spirits know when it’s time to go.

Here, there is a beginning and ending of the physical, because we are on a journey. We are spirit beings and even when we leave our earth-traveling vehicles or houses, we are not gone. We just get out of the car. We transcend. We are still very much here and very much alive.

Recently, I’ve seen several friends depart from this world and several more who almost departed and it just keeps coming to me that they are not gone, they have merely parked their cars and gotten out because they reached their destination–home, a place where only spirit travelers can go, a place where you have to park your car before you can enter.