She was a schoolteacher in her mid-forties and had been given no more than a few months to live by her doctors. Sometimes a few words were spoken during those visits, but mostly we would sit together in silence, and as we did, she had her first glimpses of the stillness within herself that she never knew existed during her busy life as a schoolteacher.

One day, however, I arrived to find her in a state of great distress and anger. ‘What happened?’ I asked. Her diamond ring, of great monetary as well as sentimental value, had disappeared, and she said she was sure it had been stolen by the woman who came to look after her for a few hours every day. She said she didn’t understand how anybody could be so callous and heartless as to do this to her. She asked me whether she should confront the woman or whether it would be better to call the police immediately. I said I couldn’t tell her what to do, but asked her to find out how important a ring or anything else was at this point in her life. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘This was my grandmother’s ring. I used to wear it every day until I got ill and my hands became too swollen. It’s more than just a ring to me. How can I not be upset?’

The quickness of her response and the anger and defensiveness in her voice were indications that she had not yet become present enough to look within and to disentangle her reaction from the event and observe them both. Her anger and defensiveness were signs that the ego was still speaking through her. I said, ‘I am going to ask you a few questions, but instead of answering them now, see if you can find the answers within you. I will pause briefly after each question. When an answer comes, it may not necessarily come in the form of words.’ She said she was ready to listen. I asked: ‘Do you realize that you will have to let go of the ring at some point, perhaps quite soon? How much more time do you need before you will be ready to let go of it? Will you become less when you let go of it? Has who you are become diminished by the loss?’ There were a few minutes of silence after the last question.

When she started speaking again, there was a smile on her face, and she seemed at peace. ‘The last question made me realize something important. First I went to my mind for an answer and my mind said, ‘Yes, of course you have been diminished.’ Then I asked myself the question again, ‘Has who I am become diminished?’ This time I tried to feel rather than think the answer. And suddenly I could feel my I Am-ness. I have never felt that before. If I can feel the I Am so strongly, then who I am hasn’t been diminished at all. I can still feel it now, something peaceful but very alive.’

‘That is the joy of Being,’ I said. ‘You can only feel it when you get out of your head. Being must be felt. It can’t be thought. The ego doesn’t know about it because thought is what it consists of. The ring was really in your head as a thought that you confused with the sense of I Am. You thought the I Am or a part of it was in the ring.

‘Whatever the ego seeks and gets attached to are substitutes for the Being that it cannot feel. You can value and care for things, but whenever you get attached to them, you will know it’s the ego. And you are never really attached to a thing but to a thought that has ‘I,’ ‘me,’ or ‘mine’ in it. Whenever you completely accept a loss, you go beyond ego, and who you are, the I Am which is consciousness itself, emerges.’

She said, ‘Now I understand something Jesus said that never made much sense to me before: “If someone takes your shirt, let him have your coat as well.” ‘

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t mean you should never lock your door. All it means is that sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.’

In the last few weeks of her life as her body became weaker, she became more and more radiant, as if light were shining through her. She gave many of her possessions away, some to the woman she thought had stolen the ring, and with each thing she gave away, her joy deepened. When her mother called me to let me know she had passed away, she also mentioned that after her death they found her ring in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Did the woman return the ring, or had it been there all the time? Nobody will ever know. One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.

Our 14-year-old dog Abbey died last month. The day after she passed away my 4-year-old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought we could so, and she dictated these words:

Dear God,
Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick.
I hope you will play with her. She likes to swim and play with balls. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her you will know that she is my dog. I really miss her.

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it. Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He had.

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, ‘To Meredith’ in an unfamiliar hand. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, ‘When a Pet Dies.’ Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note:

Dear Meredith,
Abbey arrived safely in heaven. Having the picture was a big help and I recognized her right away.
Abbey isn’t sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don’t need our bodies in heaven, I don’t have any pockets to keep your picture in so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by.
Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much. By the way, I’m easy to find. I am wherever there is love.

Love,
God ♥

The Angel Knock

My beloved German Shepard Lady, was tied out on the back porch while I was in the house working on my computer. It was getting late and I found myself falling asleep when all of a sudden I heard a loud knock at the back door.

I couldn’t figure out for the life of me who it was at this late hour and who would be using the back door. No one ever uses the back door.

I cautiously opened the door and no one was there so I stepped outside to take a look. Just then I realized that Lady had fallen off the porch and was dangling in midair. I ran over and released her.

I know with out a doubt that the knock on the door was an ANGEL that saved Ladies life.

Sandy Baxter, Boston, MA

THE INNOCENCE OF A CHILD

We were the only family with children in the restaurant. I sat Erik in a high chair and noticed everyone was quietly eating and talking. Suddenly, Erik squealed with glee and said, “Hi there.” He pounded his fat baby hands on the highchair tray. His eyes were wide with excitement and his mouth was bared in a toothless grin. He wriggled and giggled with glee.

I looked around and saw the source of his merriment. It was a man with a tattered rag of a coat, dirty, greasy and worn. His pants were baggy with a zipper at half-mast and his toes poked out of would-be shoes. His shirt was dirty and his hair was uncombed and unwashed. His whiskers were too short to be called a beard and his nose was so varicose it looked like a road map. We were too far from him to smell, but I was sure he smelled. His hands waved and flapped on loose wrists. "Hi there, baby; hi there, big boy. I see ya, buster," the man said to Erik.

My husband and I exchanged looks, "What do we do?" Erik continued to laugh and answer, "Hi, hi there." Everyone in the restaurant noticed and looked at us and then at the man. The old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby.

Our meal came and the man began shouting from across the room, "Do ya know patty cake? Do you know peek-a-boo? Hey, look, he knows peek-a-boo." Nobody thought the old man was cute. He was obviously drunk. My husband and I were embarrassed. We ate in silence, all except for Erik, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring skid-row bum, who in turn, reciprocated with his cute comments.

We finally got through the meal and headed for the door. My husband went to pay the check and told me to meet him in the parking lot. The old man sat poised between me and the door. "Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Erik," I prayed. As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back trying to sidestep him and avoid any air he might be breathing. As I did, Erik leaned over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby’s "pick-me-up" position. Before I could stop him, Erik had propelled himself from my arms to the man’s. Suddenly a very old smelly man and a very young baby consummated their love relationship. Erik in an act of total trust, love, and submission laid his tiny head upon the man’s ragged shoulder.

The man’s eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime, pain, and hard labor-gently, so gently, cradled my baby’s bottom and stroked his back. No two beings have ever loved so deeply for so short a time. I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms for a moment, and then his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm commanding voice, "You take care of this baby." Somehow I managed, "I will", from a throat that contained a stone. He pried Erik from his chest-unwillingly, longingly, as though he were in pain. I received my baby, and the man said, "God bless you, ma’am, you’ve given me my Christmas gift."

With Erik in my arms, I ran for the car. My husband was wondering why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly, and why I was saying, "My God, my God, forgive me." I had just witnessed Christ’s love shown through the innocence of a tiny child who saw no sin, who made no judgment; a child who saw a soul, and a mother who saw a suit of clothes. I was a Christian who was blind, holding a child who was not. I felt it was God asking "Are you willing to share your son for a moment?" when He shared His for all eternity. The ragged old man, unwittingly, had reminded me, "To enter the Kingdom of God, we must become as little children."

A Nativity Scene was erected in a churchyard. During the night the folks came across this scene. An abandoned dog was looking for a comfortable, protected place to sleep. He chose baby Jesus as his comfort. No one had the heart to send him away so he was there all night.

We should all have the good sense of this dog and curl up in Jesus’ lap from time to time.

By the way…
No one mentioned that the dog breed is a “shepherd”.

A Final Goodbye

In a prophetic e-mail to his wife from the desert of Iraq, Today co-anchor David Bloom reflected on his life and pronounced himself a man at peace.

Mel,

You can’t begin to fathom, cannot begin to even glimpse the enormity of the changes I have and am continuing to undergo. God takes you to the depths of your being, until you’re at rock bottom, and then, if you turn to Him with utter and blind faith and resolve in your heart and mind to walk only with Him and towards Him, picks you up with your boot-straps and leads you home. I hope and pray that all my guys get out of this in one piece, but I tell you, Mel, I am at peace. Deeply saddened by the glimpses of death and destruction that I have seen, but at peace with my God and with you.

Save this note. Look at it a month from now, a year from now, ten years from now. You cannot know now, nor do I, whether you will look back at it with tears, heart-break, and a sense of anguish and regret over what might have been, or whether you will say he was and is a changed man, God has worked a miracle in our lives. And not to be trite, but that will set me free.

God bless you, Melanie. I love you and I know that you love me. Please give the girls a big hug, squeeze them tight, and let them know just how much their daddy loves and cares for them.

With love and devotion,
Dave

This e-mail was received by his wife Mel just hours before his death from a pulmonary embolism.

The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkey liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant.

An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too.

This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists. Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes.

Then something startling took place.  In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes – the exact number is not known.  Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let’s further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

Then It Happened!

By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But Notice… The most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea… Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes. Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

Although the exact number may vary, the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when a certain number of people know a new way of thinking, it remains their conscience property, but there is a point at which if only one more person tunes in to this new awareness, the field of energy is strengthened and the awareness is picked up by everyone.

Your awareness is needed… you may be the hundredth monkey.

This concept should confirm for you that the appreciation and love we have for others and ourselves creates an expanding energy field that becomes a growing power in the world, and it starts with us.  There is no need for us to feel hopeless.  We have the power to create change if we join together and raise our voices in unison.  There is more power in numbers than we ever dreamed about. 

We are the bearers of a new vision and have the ability to remove old destructive ways of thinking and replace them with new truths that are essential to the continuation of life on our planet.

A quick story of Divine Intervention that happened to me:

Last year, My brother was here in Las Vegas and we were hanging out in front of the Bellagio.

We wanted to cross “the strip” to get to the other side of the street. I didn’t see any cars coming so I started to run as quick as I possibly could. I was going very fast in forward momentum.

Next thing you know, Something stopped me dead in my tracks – and pulled me back with a great force. I can’t explain it exactly. I was literally and magically lifted and brought backwards. Time was going in slow motion for me. This happened in just a split second but seemed like eternity to me. It was very weird.

At that time, there was a car speeding right in front of me. It almost nailed me. The car missed me by just millimeters! I’m not kidding. It was that close!

If some force didn’t stop my forward momentum and pull me back, I would of got ran over. The car was going really fast so I would of got hurt very badly, if not killed.

I was saved by a Power, not of this world!

Both my wife and my brother both seen this happen. They will both testify that something very weird happened. They saw me being lifted in mid-air and brought backwards, narrowly avoiding being hit by that speeding car. They both – and myself – witnessed a miracle! It was simply amazing.

I’m still in awe of that great invisible power that pulled me back! It was Divine Intervention. I am truly thankful.

I hope you enjoyed my quick story.
Have a great day and I’ll talk to you soon!

Peace, Thomas M Mirshak
www.facebook.com/Promotional.Dynamite

“When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. 
Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do.  Where is the natural order of things in my son?” 

The audience was stilled by the query. 

The father continued. “I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled, comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.” 

Then he then told the following story: 

Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, “Do you think they’ll let me play?” I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps. 

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, “We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.” 

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted. 

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. 

In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands. 

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again. 

Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. 

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? 

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat.  Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact. 

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.  The game would now be over.  The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.  Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. 

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates.  Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, “Shay, run to first! Run to first!” 

Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.  He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled. 

Everyone yelled, “Run to second, run to second!” 

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. 

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball, the smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.  He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head. 

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.  All were screaming,

“Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay” 

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted,

“Run to third! Shay, run to third!” 

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming,

“Shay, run home!, Run home!” 

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team. 

“That day”, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, “the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world.” 

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

Post by: Debira H

Although I was busy at work and had close friends and family, something was missing – I was lonely.  I just want to feel loved, I said to God.  Is that so much to ask?

I went to a shop across the street during lunch and found a mug with a red heart and the words “I Love You” written over and over in fancy cursive – the very words I needed to hear.

Feeling a little lighter, I went to the cashier to make my purchase.  The clerk checked the mug but could not find a price sticker.  “I need a price check,” he called out to the store manager.

The manager looked, then shrugged.  “That’s the only one.  I’ve never seen another like it.  Take it.  No charge.”  I held the mug tight to my chest.  God had blessed me with a sign of His love.  And He gave it freely.

Nancy Davis – Woodville, Texas

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