Well the holidays are here once again.  Here in the United States, our holiday season starts with Thanksgiving, goes right into Christmas and continues on into the new year.  It proves to be a giving time of the year with people taking more time out for family, volunteering at soup kitchens, and giving more donations to help others in need. It is truly a wonderful thing. 

One of the coolest things I have noticed about the holidays over recent years that is actually very powerful is the great amount of goodwill expressed towards one another.  It happens at work, at school, in the stores, and everywhere we go.  With my gutter and window business this past week we have had so many customers wishing us a happy Thanksgiving.  They tell us in person, write in on notes, write it on the checks.  As I notice this, it seems as though peace and love is in the air and it is incredible to see.  I hear it everywhere I go, people expressing and wishing for the best for one another, and I can tell that they really mean it.  I love it, and I think to myself, this is what I am pushing for everyday to be like, people truly wanting the best for one another and taking an extra moment to make sure that other people know that this is what they want for them.  This is what being a Positive Ambassador is all about.

Note:  I could end this post and let it stand where it is but I feel like I have to mention a very important fact.  Spreading peace and love is wonderful and helps to make this world a better place, but in addition to this as we move into the world with this holiday spirit, we not only make the world a better place, we make our world a better place.  We feel better and we see more positive things happening in our world on account of our way of being.  I know you already knew this, but still, How cool is that?

Did you know that we are all connected to a most positive place within and this place is all-knowing? Did you know that not only is this place all-knowing but this super intelligent part of ourselves is always working in our best interest whether we know it or not? Sometimes I forget. On account of my forgetting I hesitate to act on information that comes my way. Prior to my being on this incredibly positive path which includes my spirituality and meditation I would have found it incredible and unbelievable that I could have direct knowledge of things to come by way of dreams, meditation, and intuition. If you told me that I could I know what people in my world are planning, especially when those plans affect me, and I could know the best course of action to find myself in the best possible place for my peace of mind and happiness, if you told me that I would have access to such knowledge along with a vision to live a life with happiness and adventure beyond my most wonderful thoughts, I would have said “Sounds too good to be true but, bring it on.” If you told me that I could be led by God to know exactly what to do to produce the best life for myself and my loved ones I would have said “I want that life.” But when it comes are we really ready? When we start to have to have dreams and intuitions that tell us that maybe people who we thought we could trust in a certain area are not acting in our best interest are we really ready to hear it? When we are being told that the way we were taught to be in the world will not work in this situation, are we willing to move into the new way? When we are being to challenged to do something wonderful, but it takes us out of our comfort zone, are we going to be ready to act? The answer is usually no. Even if the information we are getting is comming from God or the most positive source within us, the answer is usually no. The funny thing is, every time I have had the guts to move into the information from the higher place, the results have been astonishing.

One year my business was slow and I got a message to downsize, I hated the idea, but when I did I instantly had more money and more time for my kids. Another year with my gutter and window cleaning business, winter came early and in a big way with unusually large amounts of snowfall. On account of this, we missed our peak season costing me large losses. We tried removing snow off roof tops. It was crazy and dangerous. I promised myself not to ever do this again. Then I asked God what to do for money. I got a message telling me to remove snow off roof tops. I could not believe it. I asked again and got the same message in the most crazy way. I decided to try again asking “Are you sure?” I kept getting messages saying try it. Then as I became more open to the idea, I got ideas for ways of doing the work in a very safe easy way. Even as I bought the equipment, people were hiring my business to do the work at the store where I was purchasing the equipment. I sent emails to my customers letting them know we were doing this work. The next thing I knew we could not get to the work fast enough. People were paying large amounts to have the work done. The guys who worked for me loved the work. I paid more than usual during this time. And believe it or not, it was fun. When the snow left we had plenty of gutter jobs waiting, but the guys and I wanted more snow so we could keep removing snow off roof tops. These are just two examples of what happens when we pay attention to the most positive connected part of ourselves and do what the Universe says to do.

Today I start off with a reminder of how connected we are. It is short and sweet but for me it is still a reminder of how we all have this knowing deep inside. This morning I woke up and my wife Debbie reminded me that we were supposed to set our clocks back an hour last night. She looked at her phone and said “Sprint still has not turned their time back.” I thought to myself that she should turn off her phone and turn it back on. I didn’t tell her this I just thought it to myself. A couple of seconds later she turned her phone off and turned it back on and said “Oh after I turned off my phone and turned it back on the time changed to the right time.” I know that it sounds very minute but I thought “How did I know that would happen?” It was not like it was a guess but more like a knowing. Then I thought back as to how when we were going to the movies last night we were first headed to one theater. I think I was going there because she said it was closer to her mother’s house. We had just dropped off our youngest at her moms before heading to the show. For whatever reason I did not want to go to that theater. I kept saying I should have gone to the other theater in the other direction. To my surprise even though it would make us late my wife said “You should trust your feeling and go to the one you feel better about.” I was surprised. This sounded more like something I would say. I headed in the other direction to the one I felt better about. I told her that I don’t know what was going to happen if we went the other way but I really had a bad feeling about the first theater.

We got to the movie “In Time” (the name of the movie) a few minutes late but still enjoyed ourselves. As I laid in the bed this morning thinking about this I wondered what would have happened if we went to the first theater. I thought about how connected I am, how connected we all are. Then I looked over to the night stand next to me and thought I need to pick a page from Wise Words to be my page for the day. I decided to randomly pick a page from the front of the book. That’s when I got the grand finale.

First let me give you some background. Yesterday I opened the Bible for a message. I opened up to Ezekiel Chapter 40. It was the description of a temple. Ezekiel was being shown a temple by God on the inner plains. I thought about how my teacher used to say There is only one church, one temple, one synagogue, the human body. I also thought about how maybe that should be the lesson I speak on this week for the Enlightenment Program. I thought should I read from Ezekiel and then explain how we must go within the temple of the body. I thought about it and dismissed the idea. This morning I thought about how I must worship in His temple before I meditated. I thought about going within and seeing deep things on account of going into the true church and communing with God within. Then I meditated. I did not feel like I went too deep at all.

Now back to my original story the grand finale. When I open up Wise Words on the night stand looking for my message today as I said I chose a page from the front of the book. The page has in bold letters God built only one church on temple, one synagogue. . . the human body. To worship in any other temple is a sin. Darkness now covers the earth. This of course was the same page I thought about the day before and also the same page I thought about just prior to meditating this morning. I decided this will be what I speak on today after all, the pages from Ezekiel and Wise Words.

As you probably know I am very big on following signs from God and The Universe. The funny thing is there are times where I am clearly getting signs and will choose not to follow them based on fear and intellect. This is a secret that most meditation teachers and people actively working on spirituality won’t admit. The truth is that even when we are actively working on our growth and actively calling ourselves being in tune, the signs that we get will often be hard to move into. What makes them hard to move into is the nature of the growth process. Often the signs we need are promptings to get us to do things that we up until now we may not have been open to. Our being open to them and moving on them is what ushers us to the new wonderful place in that area of our life. Two days ago I got a sign to make some moves in my world that I have been afraid to make. Did I say a sign. The truth is I got sign after, after sign. Even after getting these signs I was debating if I should act. Then I got my lesson. It came in a totally different situation.

The situation

My message yesterday was to flow with The Universe. In some ways I was doing this, especially in what I perceived to be the easy ways in my life. Like for Halloween last year I took my son Jordan trick or treating with my sister Traci and my nephew Maverick. It was so cool. There was this one street in her neighborhood where almost all the houses gave out candy. On the same street the people were so into Halloween that some of the houses seemed to be competing for best decoration and theme. The whole yard was like haunted houses, with witches fog machines, blowing fog, gravestones, and people crawling locked inside cages. There were people everywhere up and down the block, trick or treating. I believe the news even came out to one of the houses. It was just a lively scene. Well this year I thought about going again but when I called my sister she and Maverick already had other plans. I thought “that’s cool because this year our community is stepping up Halloween. It will be good to take Jordan around to see our neighbors. We live in an apartment and condo complex. We have only been here for a year and a half. We absolutely love the place and community, and I personally have been wanting to embrace and take advantage of all the good it has to offer. For the holiday we were all given orange signs to place on the doors of our homes to show that trick or treaters are welcome. My wife Debbie and I took Jordan around our community. Debbie hurt her leg recently, and has a cast on her foot and ankle, so she drove while Jordan and I walked.

It was very nice we met a lot of neighbors we did not know, and many of the people handing out candy were more even more excited that Jordan. We ran into a few other young kids, most who were with their parents, and all of them seemed so nice. Jordan had a nice time and after a while he was ready to go in. (A Sign) He had his little fun got some candy met some other kids and neighbors and was ready to end a perfect day. Debbie and I could not believe he wanted to go in. We thought we would take him to Traci’s neighborhood and walk down that fabulous Halloween street and give him a real Halloween experience. So we drove over to Traci’s neighborhood. When we got there Jordan was in the back seat of my truck sleep. Every time we woke him up to ask if he wanted to trick or treat more and get more candy he would look at us and immediately go back to sleep. (Another Sign) We finally got him up. I forgot to mention that the street was packed with people and groups of kids and parents up and down the street everywhere. You could hear ghost noises and see fog all around some of the houses. Some of the houses had chain saw noises and crazy looking guys standing outside with blood and chain saws in their hands. Luckily Jordan did not see all of this, he was still sleep when we rode pass. He is only 5 and can scare somewhat easily. I decided we would not go on that part of the street but start a block down where it was still quite lively. We parked the truck on a side street. Jordan and I got out and started walking to houses. There was lots of people out and they seemed nice. The only thing I did not like was there was large bands of teenagers everywhere and it seemed to be more of them then the little kids.

After we got to about the fifth house I got a call from Debbie. She said a group of older teen boys hit the back window of my truck with an apple. When she got out to look, they just looked at her and casually walked off. I was disappointed and angry. I took Jordan and headed back to the truck. I put Jordan in the truck and went to look for the teens. There were many groups of teens in large bands. I was looking for the description Debbie gave me but could not find them. I decided it was for the best. When I got back to the truck and we were headed home we both talked about how we liked the whole atmosphere better at home where it was not as lively, but very innocent with mainly younger kids and their parents out. I personally saw the truck getting hit by the apple as a sign telling me I should have paid attention to all the other signs telling me and my wife to be happy with the experience we had and listen to Jordan and go back home.

As I looked back at the whole situation I also realized that the whole situation was one big sign and reminder that I need to follow the signs I get. We kept getting signs saying to be happy with what we had in our neighborhood Halloween experience and go back home. We probably would have had a better second half of the evening if we did. However, the experience was a blessing because it once again showed me that when I truly follow the signs all is well, but as soon as I start not paying attention to the signs for whatever reason I will have to pay the consequences.