Gifts of magic wrapped in red satin sashes

Greetings my gentle readers to the final and Fourth Sunday of Advent as we head into Christmastime, 2012. As many of you may have noticed by now, there was Not, repeat was NOT an apocalypse that happened on Friday. The world did not end on December 21,2012 for the vast majority of people and just a gentle reminder you have 1 day left to get your loved ones (et moi) something if you give gifts.

This is that magical time when we can sit back and reflect not on the year that was (that’s next weeks blog), but on the sanities and insanities of the week that was and filter it through the retroscope and see what comes out. Generally and overall, these are days and moments where the positivity and enhanced days of enlightment can and shall unfold if we wish them to. The weaving of our beautiful tapestry is well under way and through Christmas we can add our red satin sashes as we look to a few of our most favourite things. A time for sharing, a time for love. A time for family, a time for enlightenment.

  Here is likely my last thought before Christmas and 1 more for 2012, which will be the reflection of the year that was. That day of reflection before we look ahead and if we have enough fortitude to learn from the goods and the bads that was and were and never shall be again. What is a gift and why is Christmas so stressful for so many people? Is it the family, gift buying, uncertainty of what to give, family, financial challenges pre and post, travel and all the music that says we should be happy or family?

  Simple answer is yes.

  We tend to lose ourselves in expectations in this time period. Expectations we put on ourselves, expectations society puts on us and expectations commercialism and family put on us. No wonder so many people get overwhelmed, depressed and even suicidal this time of year. Want to give yourself a gift this year? Step back and reflect on where you are, what you have and what spiritual and emotional and physical gifts that you have, for I guarantee that those will last across the decades if you pay them forward. Your health is a valuable gift to treasure that can be used for yourself and to pay forward to others. That iPad? Already declared obsolete, I hate to tell you. There was a study done that took a look at actions versus items and the meanings they had decades later. No surprise people remember the memories and trips and family. That is true for I remember my trip to Italy in 1987 and my trip to Europe in 2011 and Scandinavia last year, but couldn't tell you what my stereo system or family TV or really even my car looked like. Those are big ticket, agreed but we do remember the laughs and "war stories" that go along with an event...even occurring on a long drive or simply in your own backyard. It’s how I made it to Camp David in Maryland in fact... but that’s another story and one that puts a smile on my face as the other person in the car with me on that trip was lost to this world in 2012.  Family, good friends and close loved ones make the season bright, not just at the holiday period, but all year around. Remembering all the trips that were helps assuage some of the losses of the trips that were conceptualized but will never happen. Some of the best memories are happening right under your nose and the best of times in your own 4 walls or in your very own backyard, with people and loved ones that have a built in expiry date. To approach it that way is to help ensure there is no baggage, no resentments and every moment is a Present.

   Want to give the perfect gift... that’s the right colour, size and impact? It may have a cost (or not) associated with it to set up, but the commercial gifts definitely do. To buy board games and then invest the time to play them is priceless.  Give a happy memory to yourself and someone else and be good to yourself always. Its all about perspective and expectations my friends. Be a kid at heart and in mind and spirit and aim towards the play and gentle healings that come with them.

  To step back and make memories is a positive no matter what that can make you smile years later, and maybe make others smile as well as you be yourself, often

~~~ Rev. Dr. Joel Lamoure December 2012

It Just Was

Greetings my gentle readers to this weeks installment of the “Be Yourself, Often” blog. That time that we can snuggle down with a form of comfort and reflect in the recesses of our mind the events that transpired over the week. There is chance to step back in a simplistic way and look at simpler times and be comfortable to embrace that. We need to be able to touch and embrace that innocence and Light again. Not by doing more, but by doing less and with love and passion, which will ultimately give us more depth and breadth to our lives.

The past 2 weeks we have looked at addressing the statements “It Just Is” and then last week looked at “Is it Just?” This week the realize the permanence of the fleeting moments that were and understand the fact “It Just Was”

In the moments of horror of the week that was and the subsequent loss of innocent life in the United States, we realize that there is a battle for our souls and us. A balance of good and evil and a constant interface between the two that is playing out in the here and now. When one is able to look through that filter, which is far beyond us, people, humans and indeed religions, we realize this is very humbling.  We are empowered in the moment and not sheeple or pacifists to whom we blindly accept anything that comes from and to us.  I offer no judgment as we do not know the exact situations that transpired but we have the ability to learn from the tragedy that just was versus frank judgments.

We can be, should be and are empowered to make decisions that when passed through our beliefs, thoughts and such ultimately will become actions. And in order to decide and know that it just was and indeed just and proper, we need to apply basic tenants of kindness, humility, love, light, passion and inspiration to advance the human entity into the sort of person that we truly are, created in Gods image. However, given the challenges and battleground that lies around us, we obviously must make choices to practice in our root entities, which is that of the White and Light and Good.

We have the opportunity and sanity within the insanity of life to make healthy choices moving ahead. To beat the struggle of dark and light. We can choose sanity or insanity to put it bluntly, not in the mental health individual context but a larger “pain body” as eloquently described by Eckhart Tolle.

We can remember the victims. We can sympathize with whatever hell the perpetrator was going through, while not condoning their actions. Condoning through a passive way is in part buying into the same hell they were and engaging in active or passive support through the media. We can refuse to bully. We can embrace the devastating effects of mental health disorders and the dis-ease within the disease.  We can stand together and embrace humanity, not insanity. We can step away and have the choice to turn off the televisions and not create further insanity. We can bond with loved ones and neighbors in a sense of unity.  Touching nature and the previously experience child-like attitudes and thoughts. We can do expressions of basic human kindness. These are our choices.

Because, once the moment passes, we realize it just was. Within that moment however, lives can be made or lost and no one has the power or should have the power to influence or decide what others could or should do. That comes from within our connections and us with our Higher selves. Do you want the moment that just was to be one of positivity or negativity? Herein lie the choices.

Within those moments that just were is a wonderful Power that is the Free Will Covenant and the ability to make informed decisions that help and optimize your physical and mental health and ultimately those around you. For we do not live in a vacuum and we all learn from each other. We are all teachers. We all have the ability to be inspirational through our actions since what we do ripples out in concentric circles and ultimately will impact on others.

For the moment the just was, captured as a snapshot in the photographic album that is the hard drive of our mind, we wish and want is to be fair, positive and just. A moment of healing and a potential for the time for peace. It does start with every one of us making that informed decision that will derive a more positive outcome. We can look and learn, avoid blame and understand we do not know fully the tapestry that is in the process of being woven.

I would rather collect pictures and photographs of moments of prayer, peace, happiness, laughter, love and embracing the moments of innocence and fun that also are associated with healing.  A wise friend told me that love is not complex, it is simple. We only make it complicated and that is so very true.

Close your eyes, open your heart and feel your heart open 10 fold and the love within it and be yourself, often.

~~~ Rev. Dr. Joel Lamoure  December 2012 (Third Sunday of Advent)

The Third Sunday of Advent (Excerpted from: http://www.joelwlamoure.com/id43.html)

The Third Sunday of Advent

Excerpted from: http://www.joelwlamoure.com/id43.html

Greetings again my gentle readrs to this weeks installment of the "Be Yourself, Often" blog. A time for peace, patience and silence reflection of the week past. A time to appreciate and look to the positives of the week to recharge the emotional and psychiatric batteries to prevent the dise-eases that lead to diseases. A time for "Prescribing Spritual HOPE"

Why select the third Sunday of Advent as a topic to discuss, as this is designed to be motivational, reflective and help the reader look to the small positives in the great field of life and look to become a blade of wheat that extends above the torrid weeds that threaten to choke us out? Before I answer that question... what is so critical about being a piece of wheat? It nourishes and many stalks together create bountiful bread, often used in sacraments and also even more importantly is that the wheat needs soil, dirt, moisture, light, sun, wind and energy to create and foster more energy. That the blades must rise above the oppressive weeds that choke us out on a regular basis. They are the BMW class of people, J Class. Biatchy, Moany and Whiny- Jealousy. So my friends if you and I meet personally and I describe something as a J-Class BMW, y'all will know what I mean. Those people are not who I consider to be friends, but I feel sorry for them in their weed chocked existence of human kind. Looks really pretty with such a glorious presentation and drag in the unwary, but are the Datura stramonium of life once their BMW-JClass existence comes in. If anyone wonders. that is Jimson weed...aptly in labelled stinkweed. Ouch... burn baby. All parts of the plant are poisonous, causing abnormal thirst, vision distortions, delirium, incoherence, coma. Often fatal. Crap. You play into that one and its seeya dont write baby... don't write and its a brutal trip. Sadly the plant and you are both DRT..... Dead Right There.

OK...enough about toxic stinkweeds, and Jimson weed too. Lets talk about the concepts of advent, this almost the third Sunday (and it already is to my Aussie and Kiwi friends). This is such a wonderful and joyous time to reflect on anointment and rejoicing. For there is so very much to be appreciative of, is there not? That we are even able to read this is I hope a miracle and a positive. That one can read, see, touch and feel is a miracle. That we love and can be loved. That we can speak and communicate and know that we have gifts and plenty beyond our expectation. It is about changing our thought process from one of entitlement, to one of looking ahead with the eyes of a child to the myriad of gifts that we may be graced with. The gifts are already there, not from Walmart or any other -Mart, mall or store. Look to these gifts I believe is what creates contentment and the positives in the moment. It may be what your neighbour has, or be the status quo or this years model. But DOES IT MATTER? At the end of the day, are you purely sampling the stinkweed and loving the psychotic atropine-like psychosis? Tripping the line fantastic and being Alice going down the rabbit hole? May I be blunt? Yes. End result.... DRT.

So my friends, open the eyes that you have been given and rejoice that we are here, alive and the miracles that abound. I know that we can change the world and believe that we can. The way? Through Belief, with hope and faith and a healthy dose of looking and being like a child on Christmas morning. But the gifts are the anotintment and let us rejoice in the days and the gifts.

For when the toxic efefcts and psychotic delusions of the stinkweed are gone, the eyes reopened and the detoxification finished... you may appreciate the moment, beauty and wonder in the moments of mindfulness. And to look in the eyes of another having undergone the same, is to be able to realize that you have and did and can be yourself, often.

--- Rev. Dr.  Joel Lamoure December 2011