joyceskaye.com

“Wayne Dyer said, “We are divine enough to ask, and important enough to receive.” …we should continue to ask with quiet expectancy. All that we desire is already available to us. Our work is to be willing to receive graciously and lovingly.” – Science of Mind Magazine, January 9, 2022

I’ve been asking Spirit for more close friendships (in addition to a life companion) for a while. Having recently relocated to Prescott, AZ, working full-time from my home, and being cautious with physically meeting with people due to the COVID pandemic, meeting and making new friends has felt limiting and challenging. Compounding that is living in a new, growing development that is off the beaten path a bit, and hence, I feel alone and isolated. I know Spirit is always with me, but as a spiritual being in a human suit, I need other human beings too in my life.

Back in September, I started physically attending Center for Spiritual Living (CSL)-Prescott and recently felt it was about time to start getting involved by being of service. I wanted to support the Center not just financially (which is what I’d been doing up until that point) but in other ways that were needed. In these times, i’s been my lifeline and in gratitude want to be of service to help ensure its longevity. And, I know from experience that volunteering is also a great way to meet people, especially people with whom you share a common interest.

Last week I checked into one volunteer group at CSL and in chatting, found out that Grace not only lives in my development, but across the street! It turns out that months ago I actually passed her while out walking but wasn’t certain she was the same person I’d seen at the Center. Well, she was! We spoke on the telephone during this past week, and I feel comforted that I am no longer alone.

I also spoke to Gary about helping out in another area, and during the week we exchanged some emails. In speaking today at the Center, I found out that he too lives in my development! I had chills—my prayers for removal from isolation, building community, and blossoming friendships are being answered. But Spirit was on double-duty during my interaction with Gary.

You see, Gary offers workshops on family constellations, healing through working with ancestral family systems. I studied Bert Hellinger, the founder of Family Constellations years ago and know a couple of other practitioners. One of them, in Tucson, was a dear friend and client of mine but when my marriage dissolved nine years ago, that relationship became a casualty. I asked Gary if he knew this person, and he did! More chills. I asked him to send my sincerest regards to John when next they were in touch. I feel even more connection now.

I’ve often said that there are not “six degrees of separation” but just one or two. And how fitting that Spirit is bringing new friends into my life while I am giving of myself, but also shining the light on past ones. I feel so blessed and so grateful—and I haven’t even done much volunteer work yet! I’m excited about what is to follow, as I give of myself and receive the blessings of the Great Mystery as It sees fit.

Thank You, Spirit!

Today at work I started learning about the practice of minimalism as applied to technical writing (my present full-time career). We first addressed what it looks like in our personal lives, in our possessions.

With that in mind, minimalism is the intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from it. Many of us know what a messy house looks like. And, I know that when my physical space is messy and cluttered, it permeates my mind, and from there, my soul. I feel distracted and out of sync, disorganized, and just not right.

But it’s not just physical things that are clutter for me. Relationships (toxic), finances (debt), health (illness), etc. are gluggy to my being and distract me from focusing on Spirit. These distractions make it more challenging to ascertain God’s guidance, hence impacting my entire well-being and life.

I place great value on being a healthy individual in all areas and living from Spirit. I regularly reflect upon who and what in my life nourishes my soul. When I come across things that are a distraction, that don’t nourish me, then they must be subtracted from my life. Things and people who enrich my life are what need to be added in.

Who would have ‘thunk’ that all this time I was practicing minimalism for my soul?

As I moved from being an atheist to believing in a power greater than myself, with my outlook on the world and people transformed, I started reading many books of the type I’d normally not be caught reading in the past and studying subjects also off my previous radar.

I studied and practiced the 12 Steps; learned about New Thought (really Ancient Wisdom); got a perspective of Jesus as an elder brother (A Course in Miracles); was surprised by Emmanuel (with Pat Rodergast); and relaxed through the Tao te Ching. I read authors as diverse as Paramahansa Yogananda; Norman Vincent Peale; Kahlil Gibran; Hafiz; Alan Cohen; Wayne Dyer; H. Emilie Cady; Brian Weiss; and, on and on and on.

And, I came to a conclusion which was quite refreshing: There is no competition in spirituality.

In the field of ideas around economics, politics, education, cosmology, etc., there are numerous views, and there is often a lot of contention between factions espousing one ideology over another.

But in spirituality—not religion—there is much agreement (and much peace).

As I was trying to believe in Higher Power, I learned I could choose my own conception of God—what a remarkable idea! And, you could have your very own conception of God too! Mine wasn’t going to conflict with yours.

“In essence, spirituality is simply living with the intention to realize God in every circumstance of your being—your thoughts, emotions, words, deeds, relations, aspirations—in short, the totality of your life, right to its very end.” – John White

So simple and competition-free.

It seems that so many of my parents’ generation believed working a job meant drudgery and was to be done solely for the purpose of earning money. It seemed that no one liked their job nor did they feel they had a choice to make a change; they felt trapped. That’s the mindset I grew up around (although I think it is still widespread today across generations).

Many moons ago, at the tender age of 15, during a discussion with my father and an uncle, I announced that I would never work a job that I didn’t enjoy, that I wouldn’t do it just for the money. Lest you think that I didn’t realize the need for money to provide even the bare necessities of life, I did. But it simply didn’t make sense to me to do something one did not enjoy and for so many waking hours of one’s life, to boot!

Just like it never made sense to me how God, in the Judea-Christian tradition, could be loving and punishing. Shouldn’t we spend our time being joyful? Helpful? Creative? Evolving? I may not have been a believer in God at the time, but somehow I believed we were meant to be happy (obviously I didn’t learn that from my family of origin 😊).

I realized even then that I might not enjoy every job I would have, but if I didn’t, I would take action to make a change responsibly (i.e., not quit until I had another lined up since yes, I would need the income). My job—my life–was not going to be one of drudgery, of resignation. There had to be more to living than that.

I kept to my word, my commitment to myself, my mindset, and in my career life, I never stayed complacent and resigned to the fact that I had to work a job I didn’t enjoy, that wasn’t meaningful in some way. I took action so that I could work a role that I enjoyed at some level. It included becoming a sole entrepreneur so I could have greater control (power) over my work, time, and creativity (my life) than what was allowed as an employee of a big corporation.

These days I do believe in a higher power and I continue to believe we are meant to be happy. Actually, joy is a natural inner state; sometimes it simply needs to be uncovered.

And, I now know that whatever we do we have a choice at how we look at it and how we practice it. Whether I’m working a job where I am compensated financially, doing volunteer work, or performing necessary chores, I strive to do it with an attitude of gratitude, and of being of service to others, and ultimately to God. In that mindset, I am able to feel closer to Spirit. I can make any area or aspect of daily living sacred by the way in which I approach it. Hey, simply having the physical ability to wash the dishes makes me feel grateful and joyful, bringing me back to God!

“The difference between washing windows and resting in God can be a simple decision: choose the work, and it becomes your spiritual practice. Spraying vinegar and water on the panes, you baptize the glass. Rubbing away the film, ye repent ye of your sins. Polishing the glass, you let in the light. No task is too menial to serve as a path. If you are able to sustain other lives along with your own, then all the better.”
– Barbara Brown Taylor

There is nowhere that I am where God is not. There is nothing that I do where God is not present. God is with me always. May I be aware of The Presence in every precious, joyous moment and activity.

Well, is seems the time has come—again—for me to be blogging, to be sharing my life in this way at a minimum. It is my hope that writing about Spirit and sharing my thoughts with others will help us all feel connected to one another and Spirit. We already are connected to one another and in one God, but as human beings we— I— can easily forget that.

It’s been more than a decade since I wrote every day for 598 days during the years 2008–2010. Truly a lifetime ago, if not several!

My tagline personally has been “You are not alone,” embraced once I started to believe in a power greater than myself, the result of joining a 12 Step program for eating disorders three decades ago (how can it be that long?!). When I became a sole entrepreneur, I used it as my business’ tagline, to convey to clients they were not alone in their computer technology problems. The motto is still relevant today, as it continues to remind me that I don’t have to live life alone as I had been so accustomed to doing, without many people in my life, but above all, without Spirit.

This being the first day of a new year, I picked up a different set of books to read for my daily spiritual practice during my morning sabbath.

I thought one of today’s readings was most apt and a great reminder for me. I’ll even throw in the word synchronistic (significant because that’s how I “came to believe”) since I’d been dabbling with the idea of returning to writing my You, Me, and Spirit blog for a while and had some concerns. What was the reading that propelled me onward to get back to the blogging table?

“…I am not alone. Spirit is here. In every step, in every breath, Spirit is with me.”
— “Everyday Joy, 365 days of ohmygod life,” by Z Egloff and Melissa Phillippe, January 1.

As we start a new year, may I remember, may you remember, we are not alone. We are connected to one another and Spirit is with us always!

Happy New Year!