When we accept our own vulnerability just as we accept the vulneravility of other, we can be compassionate with ourselves and with our fears and frailties.
Our greatest fears, however, are generally of pain and death, but when we stare these in the face, we realixe that through our connection to all life and to God, we are stronger than death. I had to think about death often ond early, and this heoped me to confront my fear, I couldn`t but think of death in South Africa when I got death threats frequently.
When I was afraid I would say to God, "If I am doing Your work, then You jolly well need to protect me." But I also needed to accept the fact that the worst that my enemies could do to me was to end my life physically. For those of us who believe in the Resurrection, that is not the worst thing they can do because they can`t accomplish your annihilation, which was what they had hoped. It isn`t that you are saying, "Oh I don`t mind if I die." Hardly. You take reasonable precautions, you don`t do stupid things that expose you to danger unnecessarily, but when you have to encounter danger that is unavoidable, you are relaxed in the hands of God.
It was St. Paul in Romans 8 who said, "What can separate us from the love of Christ?" and he lists all sorts of aweful things-persecution, famine, peril, sword, even death. But none of these, he says, not even death, can separate us from the love of God. It`s an act of faith. You are not able to prove it in the way that rmoves absolutely all doubt, but you believe in you heart that God is in charge. Even when things look like they are confirming the opposite. Those are precisely the moments when you have to hold onto the belief that we are not in the hands of mindless forces; we are in the hands of a loving, compassionate, carig God. And ultimately nothing will happen to us that God cannot handle. Even death.
And if our religion is not true, it still doesn`t matter, because after you are dead, if there is no life after death, it doesn`t matter in the ultimate sense. But if we have loved well while we were alive, ther is life after death here-our love will go on for generations.
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Coming back here to Luton, England. A computer volunteer - from Headway an organisation that helps people with aquired brain injuries- came around this morning to help me with things that I am unable to do on my own. He saw what I need to be able to do the video editing and will try to sort it out before his next visit. Good chap.
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Enlightenment
The brief easy definition of enlightenment that I have, is realization of truth.
Going to a place of Silence + Solitude, warm the heart with spiritual music, or icon, or incense.
An attitude of watchfullness will destroy the ego.
Live in an attitude of freedom from results.
Freedom from thoughts and worry will put us in a state where we can be in communion with the soul.
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Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Begin at once to live and count each day as a seperate life~Seneca
The past and future are over rated. This moment is what really rocks~Me?
Okay brothers and sisters I leave you now in the hope that we will all seize the day. We are one.
Yor brother Peter
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