|
Tuesday, 04 May 2010 22:38 |
|
Except from Writing the Divine: How to Use Channeling for Soul Growth & Healing, by Sara Wiseman
 Chapter Three: An unexpected receiving
My first experience with channeling:
By the time I received The 33 Divine Lessons from Constance, I’d been practicing channeled writing for some time. But the first time it happened, it almost knocked my socks off.
It all started in the summer of 2004—on the very morning that I moved into my new home as the first step of divorce. You’ve heard of hitting bottom? I’d long past hit bottom and was hurtling into the abyss.
After 18 years of marriage and four kids, this was an unbelievably painful process that involved loading everything deemed “mine” from the family home into a rickety rental truck. Two burly movers, mouths dark with tobacco and reeking of beer and sweat, were there to did the heavy lifting.
I spent that morning in a state of numbness and disbelief, watching the movers haul things out my old house and dolly boxes into the gaping yaw of my new house. One mover even had the audacity to ask me out when “he was done working.”
“I’m moving here!” I felt like shouting. “I’m getting divorced here!” I wanted to scream, but I was too tired, too fragile, too heartbroken. I simply shook my head.
No.
After the movers left, I stood with my meager furniture in disarray, stacks of unmarked, unidentified boxes, black plastic trash bags stuffed full of toys and clothes after I’d run out of boxes, beds not only unmade but without mattresses (the kids and I would sleep on the floor tonight,) everything piled in the wrong room.
Complete chaos.
Absolute pain.
Regardless of how I felt, I knew it was crucial to create some semblance of order before the kids came home from school—but I didn’t know how to begin. The knife or scissors I needed to open all these boxes was packed in one of the boxes—but which one?
As I stood shakily in the living room, trying to get a grip on my roiling emotions, I looked out the front window and saw a man walking along the sidewalk. To my surprise, he headed up my driveway, and began climbing the steps to my front door.
He’s in sales, I thought ungraciously—I certainly wasn’t going to let him in.
Yet this man didn’t ring the doorbell or knock. Instead, he stood there patiently, hovering outside the front door. And finally, as I stood in the living room not breathing, hoping and praying he’d go away, he opened the door and stepped inside.
Let me explain.
He did not "open" the door in the same physical way that you or I or another human being might. I did not “see” him as a physical person exactly, even though I could easily describe what he looked like. Back then, I didn't even know enough to recognize him as a spiritual entity. But there he was, as clearly as anyone might be—my sense of him was overwhelming.
I was pretty sure he wasn’t a ghost. He wasn’t a trickster, either. For although I knew very little about this kind of thing, having spent the last decades of my life at kids’ soccer games, not séances, I knew enough to understand this “being” was the real thing—I just didn’t know what kind of real thing he was.
This “being” walked or floated or moved across the floor of my living room, and it was then that I met my spirit guide, Hajam, for the first time. He was a dark, slender Indian or Asian man, much smaller than me. He looked like a guru might, but without all the drapery and turbans. He looked like a guru, I might add—except at that time, I didn’t know about gurus. I knew about angels, of course, and Jesus, and God the Father and the Holy Spirit—my Judeo-Christian upbringing had made sure of that—but this “being” had no wings. No halo. Nary a beard or pair of sandals in sight!
I dropped onto the sofa, partly for fear my legs might buckle underneath me, and he sat near my shoulder. To further clarify, Hajam didn’t exactly “sit” either, but sort of hovered patiently near me, until it dawned on me that he was going to say something.
|
|
Last Updated on Tuesday, 04 May 2010 23:39 |
|
Read more...
|
|
Friday, 12 March 2010 12:55 |
Journeys Home: Stories from Grandmother's Lap by Nancy BurnettExcerpt
 Journeys Home
My momma—not a philosopher—once declared me an accident as in, “both my children were accidents.” My mind plays with her announcement and creates an image of Momma stumping her toe and me popping out like spit gum.
One day, walking back to her apartment from the grocery store carrying ingredients to bake a cake—a box of eggs, flour, milk, sugar, and baking powder—Momma runs into a sprinkling rain. She adjusts her grocery sack to one side and holds her other arm up using her clutch to shield her bangs from the rain. Totally distracted with this protective maneuver she doesn’t see the tree root pushed up through old broken cement. Her left toe catches under the knotty root pulling her off balance. Her right foot steps wildly into the air as she tries to catch herself, but instead she comes down on its side. Her right elbow splays out while she simultaneously raises it trying to keep hold of the sack. Her left foot remains stuck under the root and down she goes, mouth opening wide into an “oweee”. The contents of the sack briefly fly into the air along her fall trajectory and then crash to the ground. Eggs crack; flour and sugar bags burst open; the milk jug breaks and spills; baking soda pops its top, and all descends into a mushy puddle inside the opened sack fallen under her chin. Last but not least her gum spews from her puckered lips and lands in the middle of all that mess.
My imagining grows wilder. I see Momma lying still, huddled on the ground and collapsed in shock across a cosmic moment—what seems forever but lasts only a few real seconds—before trying to regain composure. But, lightning flashes and thunder cracks as rain pours. Breathless, she hears a squeaky utterance through the pelting rain, and something catches her eye: a tiny movement inside the sack. She carefully peeks inside. Low and behold: a tiny baby has been born of this accident—bone of her cracked knee, breath of her squeal, fat of her eggs.
“It’s a girl,” a voice announces above her. And what a surprise—new life brought forth by an accident. A great Cosmic Intention opened a tiny slit in the gossamer veil, lightning struck at exactly the spot where the spilled cake ingredients landed, charging the gum (a catalyst no doubt!) with electricity that stirred atoms to light speed. A tiny soul slid down the thunder’s vibrating wave, fell into the batter, and instantly baked into a little fleshy human bread girl.
|
|
Last Updated on Friday, 12 March 2010 12:59 |
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Saturday, 31 January 2009 15:09 |
 In His Own Time
By Tamara Pray Frazier
Julian’s Legacy Publishers
156 pages
ISBN: 978-0-615-22488-6
Life can change in a moment. For Faye Baker, this statement couldn’t have been more true. She was the only passenger in a van involved in an accident on I-95 that did not walk away. She suffered a broken neck which resulted in paralysis from the waist down. What lay ahead was a time that would try her spirit and her faith in God. Faye grew up in a tight-knit family and had friends that always supported her. She was a high school teacher and basketball coach and used her vocation to encourage and challenge students and her colleagues to grow in Christ and strive to always give it their all.
When the accident occurred, this network of family and friends were there for her just as they had been in other times of her life. Their steadfast faith in God would fuel Faye with the courage she needed to have a positive spirit to fight the battle for her recovery. “On many occasions she recalls people telling her that her attitude was helping them handle the situation. She would only smile and think to herself, ‘If they only knew. I’m drawing my strength from them.’” (p. 91)
In His Own Time is Tamara Pray Frazier’s portrayal of what happened during this period in Faye Baker’s life. This story is a challenge to always believe God and to trust that He has everything in His control. But, I would have to say that although this is a wonderful story of faith in God no matter what happens in our lives, it was not well-written. In His Own Time would have been an outstanding work if someone could have edited it and changed it into a page-turner.
That said, if you are looking for a book that will challenge you in your walk with Christ, then you will glean some important truths from this work. It truly is a testimony of people who have a strong faith in Jesus Christ.
Review provided to VBRN by Jennifer Barker |
|
Last Updated on Saturday, 31 January 2009 15:12 |
|
Wednesday, 21 May 2008 18:10 |
Cheer! Reviewed By Stuart Nachbar
Last week, as research for a new book, I attended the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Association boys and girls basketball finals at Penn State. Sitting courtside near the spirit squads and cheerleaders was an eye-popping experience I had never gone through in my non-athletic high school days. The quality of play, as well as the quality of cheering was beyond my expectations.  I never got to know any cheerleaders in high school outside of school and I never met any who cheered for the universities where I received my undergraduate and graduate degree. I just thought they were in a different world, and that I would only be an alien presence inside it.
Cheer! by Kate Torgovnick, a former journalist for Jane magazine introduced me to the inner sanctum of competitive college cheerleading. Cheer! follows three college cheerleading squads: Southern University, Stephen F. Austin State University and the University of Memphis in their quests for a national cheerleading championship. In Torgovnick’s story, it is interesting that colleges become confused as to whether cheerleaders are athletes or entertainers. There are anecdotes in Cheer! about split scholarships and cheerleaders asked to support revenue sports that their schools do not invite them to cheer in. And while cheerleaders are subordinated to the athletes in the events they do participate, they must raise their own money, or rely on their competitive association—the NCAA does not recognize cheerleading as a sport—to go to cheerleading competitions. |
|
Last Updated on Wednesday, 21 May 2008 18:13 |
|
Read more...
|
|
Interview with Author Craig B. Garner