spirituality
Neale Donald Walsch said recently, “A master lives in gratitude at every moment.”
How can we guide our children to find their own meaningful experience of a life of gratitude?
In the U.S., the month of November is often a time to reflect on one’s good fortune. As we approach Thanksgiving, social media is inundated with “30 Days of Thankfulness” posts, while many renew their attention to charitable giving and volunteering as an outpouring of their gratitude. These phenomena are demonstrations of one of the core concepts of Conversations with God, “There is Enough,” which teaches us that the world is an abundant place in which every person can get what they need and that scarcity only exists as we, collectively, allow it to persist. Feeling this way in November is a great step toward a thankful life, but what about feeling gratitude during the other months of the year?
In a society which is centered on external factors of happiness — acquiring more material things, improving physical appearances, and glorifying competition — it can be difficult to instill a constant and unshakeable sense of inner completeness in your family’s hearts and minds; however, when approaching life through your spirituality, you learn that instead of looking out there, you must start searching within to find fulfillment. In fact, the root of all happiness is gratitude. Being grateful helps us to see everything more positively, even the aspects of our lives we wish to change. Encouraging children to embrace and embody gratitude assists them in their spiritual development, as well as their view of the world around them.
Children learn by example. One way to demonstrate your own gratitude is to, as they say, find the silver lining in negative situations, and share those sentiments with your children. Another way is to share your abundance with others by donating time, resources, or just a kind word to another. Giving of yourself to another person helps you appreciate your own gifts and blessings. A daily practice of gratitude allows it to permeate your thoughts more fully, becoming an integral part of your Be-ing. To this end, children, whether school-aged or even younger, can contribute to your family’s daily gratitude journal by drawing pictures, writing words, or even verbally expressing gratitude (for you to write for them).
Whatever way you choose to bring an awareness and practice of gratitude into your home, it will bring you closer together. I believe you will find that it takes the edge off of a rough day, endears you to each other, and easily becomes a large part of your dialogue and vocabulary…allowing you, and your children, to live in gratitude at every moment.
(Emily A. Filmore is the Creative Co-Director of www.cwgforparents.com. She is also the author/illustrator of the “With My Child” Series of books about bonding with your child through everyday activities. Her books are available at www.withmychildseries.com. To contact Emily, please email her at Emily@cwgforparents.com.)
On Tuesday, November 6, 2012, President Barack Obama was re-elected to serve four more years as President of the United States of America. This particular result may be cause for celebration for some and perhaps feel disheartening for others, depending on where you personally stand in this year’s heated election. It is not unusual for clashing belief systems and opposing views to quickly turn an election into an experience of conflict and discord, even among those who most often are agreeable. But no matter who the perceived “winner” of this presidential race is, let us not lose sight of Who We Really Are.
There IS something much bigger going on here.
Many people hold a belief that politics and spirituality do not mix, that they are opposing energies. However, the freedoms and liberties we enjoy in this country provide us the perfect opportunity to flex our spiritual and intellectual muscles and to demonstrate and experience individually and collectively why we are here. Because while our Ultimate outcomes are guaranteed, we do have the ability – the gift – to choose how we desire our human experience to be, where we want our human experience to go, and, of course, who we desire to be in relation to ALL of it.
Therefore, the most important “win” of all is the one in which we use an experience like this, the election process, as a catalyst to unite and connect, not to divide and segregate. Even if in this year’s election there was an absence of a candidate that embodied ALL of the concepts and ideas and visions that are important to you, continue to lean your energy in the direction of what you would like to see our world evolve into and watch that consciousness create and give birth to that future leader. That is spirituality in action!
The most important win of all is the one that facilitates an experience of Oneness, not division; the one which holds our relationships with each other as Holy, not negligible; the one which uses our differences and diversities as a context within which to experience our Highest Self, both as aspects of Who We Are and Who We Are Not in this never-ending process of experiencing, expressing, demonstrating, and remembering.
It is not possible to lose in this Life Game…so who will you choose to BE in relation to what it is presenting you now?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
Thank you, France, for demonstrating that, YES, our world IS evolving and moving towards a more loving and accepting society, breaking through the intolerant barriers of an Old Cultural Story which dictates in what form love is to be experienced and expressed and moving into a New Cultural Story where couples of all genders are free to experience and enjoy the rights and privileges afforded to ALL loving relationships.
According to a recent article in The Telegraph, “France is set to ban the words “mother” and “father” from all official documents under new plans to legalize gay marriage,” giving equal adoption rights to homosexual and heterosexual couples.
Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told France’s Catholic newspaper, La Croix, “Who is to say that a heterosexual couple will bring up a child better than a homosexual couple, that they will guarantee the best conditions for the child’s development?”
As expected, this proposed law is being met with vehement resistance by members of the Catholic Church. “Gay marriage would herald a complete breakdown in society,” Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the head of the French Catholic Church, told Christian’s RFC radio last week. He is further quoted as saying, “This could have innumerable consequences. Afterward they will want to create couples with three or four members. And after that, perhaps one day the taboo of incest will fall.”
Wow, is the suggestion really being made that the legalized union of two loving same-sex mutually consenting adults is one step shy of a parent engaging in sexual relations with their own child or brother or aunt? And perhaps I’m confused, but isn’t it heterosexuals who have been historically, and still are even to this day, entering into multiple-partner relationships? What does THAT type of irrational conjecture have to do with a same-sex partnership being afforded the opportunity to be a legally and socially recognized union?
And just WHEN and HOW did God’s glorious gift of sex become a tool to be used to judge, control, manipulate, bring shame upon, and condemn? Do we honestly imagine a God who created the possibility of deeply felt love to exist between two souls – whether that is a man and a man, a woman and a man, or a woman and a woman – only to then be judged and punished for simply being who they are? What is it that we are actually afraid of here?
I applaud this bold step forward the country of France is proposing, a step that embraces the forward movement of The New Spirituality and celebrates everyone’s ability to enter freely and fully into a legally recognized union that supports at an equal level the depth of their love and the holy union of their souls.
