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Ode to Holy Spirit

by Rev. Barbara Kraetsch, O.M.C.

I rely on You, Holy Spirit. You are my strength and my Light. I totally trust in You. I see the illusion but I do not trust it. I trust only in You to be my guiding strength. You lead me into peace. You lead me to the still waters of my mind where I can see reflected the truth of what is. I can give my life to You. I do not know the way or the meaning of the illusion and so I give it all to You.

I want to be healed. It is my only desire. I rely on You to be there for me in every step. You support my mind with strength and Light. I surrender to You. I am most willing for You to lead me, to be my only Guide and my only support. I lean on You, giving You the total weight of my burden, knowing that You will take it from me and give me healing in return.

I give You everything I see and feel, and You give me everything eternal in return. I give You anxiety and You give me peace. I give You worry and You give me joy. I give You dissatisfaction and judgment and You give me Love. You take all I have and give me salvation in return. I give you weariness of the world and You show me Heaven in return. In my gratitude I follow You.

You take my hands and lead me gently away from the oppressive burden of illusion I have made. You comfort me and heal me. You take my cares and woes and transform them into glad opportunities to see the power of Your Love. I rely on You. I rely on Your vision of truth to support me. In the vastness, there You are with me most gently and caringly.

There, underneath the illusion, lies the truth fully supporting me. I know I cannot falter or stumble as You are there to place me firmly on the path to God again. You right my feet and my mind, point me into the direction I am to go and then walk with me holding my hand until I can walk again sure footed, listening only to Your Voice.

When I seem afraid, there You are appearing to me as God’s saving Grace. When I am calmed again, there You are as the part of me You always were, not separate but with me still. How miraculous is this Love You bear for me. You bring miracles of Love from Oneness to where I am. You love me always. I know I can rely on this. You show me Love and I follow Love. Love can see only Itself and so I know again that I am only Love. In my following You am I healed from all illusion.

Holy Spirit, I give You gratitude for Your healing Presence, for Your perfect willingness to show me Love, for Your role in bringing me to remembering that I can only follow Love, for Love is all there is. I can be at peace because You help me remember I am one with peace. This is all there is, just peace. In gratitude, in my willingness, I can let illusion slide away and return in this instant to the awareness of what I am in truth because of You, Holy Spirit. Trust turns to gratitude in the miracle of Your Love.

Rev. Barbara Kraetsch is a Pathways of Light minister living in Hartford, Wisconsin.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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The Call of God

by Rev. Erin Lawson, O.M.C.

I was recently ordained as a Pathways of Light minister on the island of Kauai in the state of Hawaii. I was there to complete my “in-person training” with Rev. Petra Sundheim. I have spent the past two years doing the work of all four steps in the process, over the Internet, with Petra as my facilitator. The experience of sharing with her was so enjoyable and fulfilling the two years seemed to go by in a flash.

However, when I came to the start of the fourth step I began to feel nervous. I was not at all sure why and so I pushed it aside and tried to forget about it. I was enjoying myself too much to let nervousness disturb the process. As the weeks went by the nervousness kept cropping up and I began to notice a connection between the nervousness and the up coming trip to Kauai.

for the past six or seven years I have lived a life of relative seclusion so I thought that maybe I was nervous about meeting new people. I found that hard to believe because I used to travel all over the country speaking to thousands of “strangers” and never thought twice about it. So once again i tried to forget the nervousness and let it pass.

The day finally came and I’m off to Kauai. Petra had let me know before hand that she hoped to take me sight-seeing, if we had the time, and she wanted me to meet her ACIM study group. I had not been to a study group since I started living in seclusion so I was looking forward to the meeting. That Wednesday morning we went to the church where the group met. By the time we arrived they had already started their meeting. Petra and I went in, took our seats and exchanged introductions. The group then went back to the business at hand. The first thing I became aware of was how very nervous I was feeling. I started to share and found it hard to speak normally because of the nervousness. I excused myself, closed my eyes and ask God to bless all there with His peace. I felt the calm come over me in the moment but I knew the problem was not resolved. I thanked God for His blessing and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the meeting.

On Friday afternoon we completed the “in-person training” and I began to ponder the ordination service the following day. The nervousness I had been experiencing suddenly became outright fear. I was shocked. My mind started racing, trying to find the answer. I thought maybe if I sat down and wrote some thoughts on paper it might calm me down. It did not help. Finally, I took the problem to the only place I would get the answer and I cried out, “Father, what am I so afraid of?” I felt a huge release of fear and an amazing sense of warmth and peace as if someone had wrapped me in a blanket. Then my mind was filled with the memory of a moment in my life from twenty-two years earlier.

Twenty-two years ago while cleaning up the altar at my church, God blessed me with the experience of witnessing the Holy Spirit descending into my Spiritual partner at the time and baptize me through her in the Name of God. My knees bent, my head bowed and I cried like a baby. When she made the sign of the cross on my forehead I collapsed into a state of ecstasy, unable to move for the next few hours. It was my moment of “Awakening to God.”

God was calling me to serve His Will on earth and I wanted to, but I felt so unworthy and afraid. I keep thinking I’ll honor God’s Law on earth, but I’ll do it this way not the way He revealed to me. For the past twenty-two years I have been running from “His Way.”
The fear I was experiencing regarding ordination was about me finally surrendering to my Father’s Way absolutely. I now know what Jesus truly meant when he said, “I am the way.” I am a Child of God, created by God, for God, in God. All else is a dream. I extend the Love and peace of God to all His children.

Rev. Erin Lawson is a Pathways of Light minister living in Honolulu, Hawaii.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Soul Journeys

by Rev. Vallee Rose, O.M.C.

Prayers, miracles and God have always been a part of my life. The beauty of God’s creations and the serenity of God’s Love swelled in my spirit despite a society dismissing such serenity as easily as empty McDonald’s containers. We prayed for people’s health, their travels, their trials and tribulations though ignored the praises to our Creator for what health and happiness we experienced. God became a “Sugar Daddy”; “Give me this and that!” rather than seen for what Love is: Our Creator, the Guide of the Universe, the essence of our soul’s journeys.

We can pray and hope, beg and plead for what we want from a toy truck to a healthy heart. Yet we must remember to praise our Creator for assisting us on the journey we have agreed to, both the dark nights and the golden days. We must remember to pray with our Creator to assist us in remembering our spiritual life and to fulfill our soul’s journey to the best of our ability. Too often we judge ourselves in terms of how well we protect others, raise perfect children and behave by societal norms. We ignore the truth in order to be accepted, decrease earthly conflict and escape from ourselves. We run from what we know to be the truth only to be enmeshed within religious institutions and societal ways. And then we attempt to make sure that all others follow us.

I spent the first thirty years of my life with an internal battle between what I knew to be truth and the path I had been asked to follow. In the middle of studying to be an ordained minister, I had an experience that changed my life. My daughter was sixteen at the time. Her father and I separated when she was one year old, making me a single parent with no assistance. My daughter spent her younger years being labeled everything from emotionally disturbed, strong-willed and having potential, to being a joy to be around and a wonderful dance student. She lived with a mother who was often confused, a perfectionist, a workaholic and had few effective parenting skills. I tried everything from yelling to time-outs, sticker charts, rewards and consequences. Keeping her busy with dancing proved the most effective. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) wasn’t very popular back then or she probably would have been diagnosed such, though I am glad that she wasn’t diagnosed in this way.

My daughter had her own soul journey and I was right in the middle of it, so it seemed. In my heart, I knew she was her own person and had her own journey. I allowed her to pick out her own clothes, eat when hungry, and attempt to monitor herself with parental guidance; something I hadn’t learned until later in life. I was ridiculed and scorned for her behavior as well as mine, and yet I stuck to what my Higher Self told me was the best action to take. As she became older, the advice and scorn increased. My daughter left home for weeks at a time saying she was going to this person’s home or the other. Often drugs were involved, cruising late at night and overall “deviant” behavior according to our society. But I was always there if she wanted to come home or needed a ride out of a potentially dangerous situation. I trusted her until she proved otherwise. I guided her and assisted with the positives in her life as much as I could. And I prayed! I didn’t pray that she would do this or do that; I didn’t ask our Creator for her to come home and go to school like a “good girl.” But rather, I prayed she was as safe as possible as she followed her chosen path and that she would keep God in her heart.

I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to allow my daughter to follow her own journey until one evening after work as I walked through the front door. My daughter was in her usual position: sprawled on the living room sofa. Everything appeared in its usual fashion: the apathy when I said hello, the lack of movement and the overall lethargy. But today had been different for her. Her boyfriend’s mother wouldn’t allow him to visit her that afternoon. So she made another plan: She asked her girlfriend to take her to WalMart, which her girlfriend did. Inside WalMart, my daughter purchased two bottles of aspirin and then had her girlfriend drive her home. She said she had a headache. Once at home alone, she swallowed the aspirin.

As I walked through the front door that evening feeling the daily frustration of my daughter not upholding her end of the bargain of either attending school or having a job, I had no awareness of the emotional pain she was experiencing or the journey she was following until she called out my name and told me of her actions. Often dealing with crisis in my work, I immediately went into the counselor mode. I had her tell me where the empty aspirin bottles were and I counted how many pills were left in the bottles. I, then, called the local emergency room to report that I was bringing her in immediately. I pulled my daughter into the car despite her objections and drove her to the ER as she was passing out on me.

Once in the ER, I stood by her side as she went in and out of consciousness and the nurses struggled to get a tube down her throat. I stood and watched as God spoke to me, “This is your daughter’s journey. You have been a good parent and guide. This is not about you, but rather between your daughter and Me. Pray that she keeps Me in her heart. This is her soul’s journey.” And so I did as I said good-bye to any selfish prayers I may have had of wanting her to live. I prayed she would keep her Creator in her heart and remember the truth. That day I learned how little I knew about the soul journey of others.

Today, my daughter is twenty-two years old with a beautiful husband and son. She is happy and living a life she loves. She may not do everything the way that her mother would do it, but she is being true to her soul journey and I am to mine. We love each other dearly and spend time together whenever possible. She continues to be my teacher and guardian angel.

Rev. Vallee Rose is a Pathways of Light minister living in Raton, New Mexico.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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Keep it Simple… Peace First

by Rev. Debbie Bolton, O.M.C.

I just celebrated a birthday, and many things drifted through my mind. It became a time to reflect, a time to realize all my blessings, a time to appreciate others, and a time to smile gently (even chuckle) at myself. In the course of reviewing my life, a large portion of the reflections were of my spiritual path — you know the one that is sometimes rocky, other times like gliding on cool sand on a hot day, and sometimes it even comes to a complete halt. Road block barricades big, red and white. Other times with many forks in the road. Which way to go?

I think to myself, if I had one piece of advice to give to someone stepping on to one of those paths, what would that advice be? Now, I could offer such advice and I do know what that tidbit would be, but more importantly, I also know I am not here to give advice. I am here to facilitate a “process” and yes it is a process! Cuz, like me they too shall do the work of stumbling on rocks in the path, being confused at the crossroads, maybe even hop off the path at times. Still, I do feel I can share a tidbit that I have found valuable — always, always, always remember — peace first, and keep it simple.

I learn this lesson over and over. And perhaps one day I will get it all the time instead of most of the time, which is better than where I used to be, which was some of the time. (My mind healing partner, Michelle and I frequently giggled early on in our journey together, that we should just tattoo a big P on our foreheads to help us remember!)

I have learned practice is the key. Practice until it is second nature or on automatic pilot. Our receptionist frequently hears me breathe deep and thinks it is a big sigh. Nope, it’s practice. Seeking and soaking in the peace. I don’t know if anyone can relate, but one of my re-current behaviors was to get into that Miracles book, bury my nose, furrow my brow, highlight the good stuff, and try to figure out what is said, then analyze it (recovering Virgo, analytical, perfectionist) memorize it, then get exhausted and put it on the mental shelf! Finally, I just sat back, remembered “Peace First,” took a breath, and decided to just read on. It will come clear. It always does. Be patient, trust, chill! And sure enough, unexpectedly, with ease will come a new morsel of understanding, reaffirming once again that this is a process.

The other lesson I learned from returning as much as possible to “aiming for peace first” is this. Many times, when I asked Holy Spirit for guidance, unbeknownst to me, what I really had was an agenda. I was asking for what I wanted (or thought I wanted), and ultimately may not really be in my best interest, or my path. In other words, there was frequently an attachment there.

Opening myself to peace rather than specified (agendized!) guidance has led me to more discoveries. Relationships faded away that may not have been for my greatest good, activities surfaced which brought enhancing situations in to my life, and all in all my faith has been strengthened. It led to discoveries of areas where I may be using projection, denial, etc., and has allowed me to see them, ask for Guidance, and release them. All in time when it was right for me.

Doing the “peace first always” process has also led to the discovery that there were times when I segmented my life, giving this problem to Spirit, that relationship to me (uh, ego), that job search for Spirit, this issue for me, like sharing M&M’s — ego… Spirit, one for me, one for You! When I came to this realization, a light bulb went off and I began the practice of going to peace and turning to Spirit for all things all the time, everywhere, in the store, car, shower or workplace.

My mind healing partner Michelle goes to Spirit when she picks out her watermelons. Why not? It’s wonderful! Needless to say, a big smile surfaces whenever I buy watermelon, and I value the lesson learned.

Peace can be ours as we remember. Joy can be in all those little things we may take for granted. Spirit will guide us if we let It, and I sense Spirit loves us to ask. I ask to be open to the guidance of Spirit, and trust in Its wisdom.

My gratitude extends greatly to all of us as we share our experiences and heal our minds.

Rev. Debbie Bolton is a Pathways of Light minister living in Edina, Minnesota.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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