--Carl Jung
By this time it's no secret that the Simple Abundance path is spiritual as well as creative and practical. But Simple Abundance will work for you even if you're ambivalent about whether God exists. If you consciously work to bring more gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy into your daily life, your world will be transformed whether you believe a Higher Power is guiding you or not. But if you commit to your spiritual awakening as the most important part of the process, something marvelous will happen. Life will not feel as fraught, as frazzled, or as fragmented as before because you'll realize that the spiritual, the creative, and the practical can't be separated. They each count. They each mean something. They're all connected.
You think you are only making a meatloaf, when really you're ministering to hungry bodies and weary souls in need of love and nourishment. A friend is hurting, so you spend a lunch hour searching for the perfect card to send her. Months later she tells you how much comfort you conveyed across the miles. A woman calls your small and struggling mail-order business looking for a certain item that you are out of temporarily. She can't wait for you to reorder because she needs it for her daughter's birthday party. Instead of sending her away disappointed, you give her the name and telephone number of a competitor who also carries the item. You set in motion a cycle of good that blesses all concerned.
A year ago you might not have done this, but now you know that there is no competition in the spiritual realm. A year ago you were not aware that every choice you make every day is part of the Sacred Whole. But as Christina Baldwin writes in her inspiring book Life's companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest, if we "ready ourselves with spiritual openness," eventually we will come to the awareness that "Spirituality is the sacred center of which all life comes, including Mondays and Tuesdays and rainy Saturday afternoons in all their mundane and glorious details."
A year ago you might not have believed this could be true. But with each day of the journey, you have become more open to the mystery, the magic, and the majesty of the Master Plan because you are committed to your spiritual awakening. You don't have to just believe anymore, because you know.
-Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance - A Daybook of Comfort and Joy©1995
What we go through in our life serves only the purpose to prepare us for what is to come. The groundwork has been laid, if you will, for a purpose. Don't you see that? In the same way that the builder tears down and digs out to prepare for the new, your Higher Power has been cleaning out and preparing the foundation of your life.
Watching the builder at his labor, you notice that when the project gets under way, things look a lot worse than before he first started. Yeah, things didn't look so good to start, but - wow, what a mess now! Dust everywhere, scraps in a heap, many things that were dear to some are now broken and ruined. What is old and decayed needs to be removed. What is insufficient to support must be replaced or reinforced. No builder worth his contractor's license would put a new surface over a rickety old support system. He must begin from the bottom up, and practice his craft with all the skill at his disposal. The demolition may not have taken everything out, but much of what was there is now scheduled for disposal.
What is constructed in the physical world is first conceived and created in the mind, where it is seen as something already whole and complete. At times, during the construction, you may have difficulty understanding why something is framed just so, right there, and in that particular way. You may not be able to visualize the finished product, that which the builder sees in his mind. He also knows that if the foundation work is done properly and skillfully at the beginning, the final work, all the delicate touches of his best craftsmanship, will be as he originally conceived it.
Along the way, he does his best to keep the framework square and plumb, using the best tools at the right times, selecting the most practical materials and installing them in the way they were intended to be used. Walking through the work site each morning, he looks the structure over, and sees this or that which needs improvement or ornamentation to enhance its beauty or functionality. He refines the work along the way, and the original concept becomes more perfected in the process.
This long, hard time in your life has been for the laying of the groundwork. It was not without purpose, although at times the purpose may not have been evident or apparent. But the foundation has been laid, and the structure is solid. It is now time for the finishing touches, time to move in the furniture, hang the drapery and enjoy the fruits of your labors. Congratulations! You have been patient and endured the hard parts. You have trusted and surrendered, and allowed the Universe and your Higher Power to heal and prepare you. Now is the time to enjoy the good that has been planned. Now, you shall see a purpose. Now, it will come together and make sense.
Enjoy.
Michael
email: Michael@N-Spire.com
View My Guestbook