Category Archives: Books
Contact
Palmer Joss: [Ellie challenges Palmer to prove the existence of God] Did you love your father?
Ellie Arroway: What?
Palmer Joss: Your dad. Did you love him?
Ellie Arroway: Yes, very much.
Palmer Joss: Prove it.
There are so many other scenes that deeply resonated with me. How can someone who claims to be so spiritual have such an affinity for a movie that explores the search for extra terrestrial activity?
I look at it this way:
For the universe to be as vast as it is, who us to say that ours is the only planet with life?
But isn’t that sacrilegious?
Why? Because someone says God created this world? So what? I’m not denying that. What I’m saying is why would HE create ONLY one world where life exists? God is all powerful. If this is the case why would He create just one world? What happens when science proves the existence of other worlds with life? How will that affect our worldview?
Will we deny the existence?
Will we excommunicate people like we did with Newton?
Or will we find ways to filter the information into our existing worldview? Being someone who believes in the ultimate goodness of humanity I’m guessing we will find a way to filter the information.
Ultimately, I believe that’s what Carl Sagan who wrote the book Contact is pointing to here. That we need to learn to marry science and religion. I think Mr Sagan did a fantastic job. Ultimately, the book and the movie leave its audience with a sense that as Wayne Dyer and many others are fond of saying:
We are all spiritual beings having a physical experience.
The fact that religion, spirituality and science can co-mingle has long been an anathema to me. That changed when I discovered Einstein had a spiritual bent as well. Einstein? Yup. I wrote a column at my blog called Einstein and Miracles. Take a look if you so desire. Back on task, Contact is something everyone should be exposed to. Those who have read the book and/or seen the movie, I’d LOVE to hear from you. Did you find the movie to have an underlying message.
Be Happy! Be Well! Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
–
Chris
Meeting Of The Minds
I guess in a way we have known each other for awhile, after all we’d been following each other’s blogs and we’d emailed several times as well. Jessica and I have similar blogs as we both write about spiritual matters. As I think back now I’m reminded that Jessica’s blog is the first purely spiritual blog I came across when my own blog turned from Law of Attraction to Spirituality. I’ve watched Jessica’s growth as her blog has changed direction. Her worldview has changed and she’s come to understand God in larger terms. She understands like myself, that you can’t put God in a box. That God is everywhere and you don’t need a go between to reach him.
We all left feeling quite enthusiastic about finally getting to meet each other and we look forward to our next meeting.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? Bloggers meeting each other? If not I highly recommend it if you feel comfortable enough. I believe a good time was had by all three of us.
Be Happy! Be Well! Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
–
Chris
Books as Inspiration
Bonita Kay Summers writes a blog called The Intuitive Perspective; and she recently posted a column Books for Practical Enlightenment. Seeing as I’m such a vociferous reader myself, I jumped all over the column and wanted to offer my view on using books not just to better ourselves but also as inspiration for my own blog.
I’ve blogged previously bout some of these books, but as with everything It can sometimes be helpful to revisit some of our old friends. As most of you who have been following me for sometime are aware, since I began writing this blog, my spirituality has become stronger and I look to more faith based books now then I have in the past.
I think one of my favorite authors in this field now is:
Timothy Keller
Having now read a few of his books I found him very refreshing. One of the things I look for when reading books in this genre is someone who doesn’t preach to you, someone who when you read you don’t feel like rolling your eyes and feeling uncomfortable, like they are invoking God in a way that some televangelists do. Don’t quite know if you understand what I’m getting at, but I DO know that you understand it when you see or hear it. Timothy Keller doesn’t do this. His books are spiritual without being religious. If you want to check him out, I recommend:
The Prodigal God
and
King’s Cross
Another author I discovered and the one book that left a huge impression on me last year was:
Rob Bell
His book:
Inspiration For My Blog:
I use several books as “Get Me Started” vehicles when I need quotes to move my blog forward. These resources have yet to let me down. Those who have been here awhile will recognize the titles but will not have seen them collected in a list:
1. Letting Everything Become Your Teacher
2. Change Your Life! A Little Book of Big Ideas
3. God Always Has A Plan B
4. A Book Of Bliss, Thoughts To Make You Smile
5. Inspiration For A Lifetime
Okay. So what do all of these books have in common? They all have short quotes, thoughts to inspire, thoughts to help you move forward. I come to these books when I want to find something to write about. I naturally have many resources I use for my blog but books still are at the top of my list. Seeing that my day job is at my local library this should come as no surprise.
Other Books That Inspire:
The Ultimate Gift
My Name is Memory
Siddhartha
The Alchemist
Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Tunnel Vision
As you see, books inspire me in many ways. They’ve always been an important part of my life and I read everything. I’ve said it here before and it bears repeating:
I’m so fortunate to have been able to bring my love of books and reading into my career and I can only thank the Divine/God for guiding me to the career I so wanted.
Be Happy! Be Well! Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
–
Chris
Smile Today
The best defense is a smile.
Smile at a stranger today
It’s the little things we do and say
that mean so much as we go on our way.
Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.
A Book of Bliss
Thoughts to Make You Smile
Pages 89 and 97
A smile certainly can be the greatest defense. It can disarm a volatile situation. Think about it. Have you ever been in a position where words were getting more heated by the moment? What if you simply beamed your best smile instead of adding more negativity? What do you think would happen?
One of the two things come to mind for me:
1. It would entirely diffuse the standoff and everyone who was involved would laugh it off.
2. The offending party wouldn’t know how to react and they’d simply walk away shaking their heads.
In both cases violence would be averted.
A smile can go a long way to averting violence.
A smile can be a bridge to loneliness.
A smile can say I love you.
A smile can do so much.
Smile more.
Frown less.
Laugh more.
Cry less.
Be happy more.
Be sad less.
And your life will change.
I’m reminded of a quote here:
Smile and the world smiles with you.
Frown and you frown alone.
The next time you pass someone on the street who seems down, throw them your biggest smile and watch for the reaction.
Be Happy! Be Well! Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
–
Chris
Something Broken
…and we must decide how we’re going to deal with the brokenness. We can wallow in self pity or regret, accomplishing nothing and having no fun, or joy in our circumstances; or we can determine with our will to take a few risks, get out of our comfort zone and see what God will do to bring unexpected delight in our time of need.
God Always Has A Plan B
Page 93
How do you deal with the brokenness in your life? You know everyone has something broken in their lives. It’s how we deal with it that makes us or break us.
Do you shut yourself out.
Do you turn away from those who care?
Do you wallow?
Yes we all need downtime when something unexpected comes up, when something challenging arises in our lives. What we do after we suffer our challenge will determine the outcome of our lives.
Do we want to live a joyful life?
Do we want to remain broken throughout our lives? Because that is what will most assuredly happen should we continue to wallow, should we continue to shut out those who care about us.
What we need to do is what I always maintain here:
Take the right amount of time to wallow. We all need time to dwell. The challenge comes from knowing when we’ve had enough time. I give myself ONE day to dwell. For some of us that may not work. You may need more time and that’s alright but as I said above you can’t spend TOO much time otherwise you’ll never pull yourself up.
Look for the blessings in every one of our challenges.
Move on from your latest challenge and put it behind you.
The only way to really move on is as the above quote says:
Get out of your comfort zone.
Take a few risks.
Move beyond your fear.
I’m reminded of the book:
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.
That’s really the only way to fix your brokenness. Don’t let fear intimidate you, because the minute you feel incapicatated by the unknown, that’s when fear wins, that’s when you will remain broken. If you’re here reading my blog then I have to believe you want joy, you want happiness, you want to feel blessed.
Mine is not the only way by a long shot. You have to do what feels right for you, but do something. Don’t just sit there expecting something to miraculously appear as THE fix. That doesn’t happen. You still have to do the work. It’s not always easy but you will be rewarded if you stick with it. Only you can fix your brokenness
Only you can decide when you’ve wallowed enough
Only you know when you’ve hit bottom
That’s when it’s time to pull yourself up.
That’s when it’s time to say:
Okay. I’ve had enough.
Be Happy! Be Well! Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
–
Chris
