You Are Never Too Old

Have you noticed how many beautiful young women come to our Center? These women are beautiful spiritual beings who are confident and radiant, living life fully because they know who they are. We live in a culture that worships youth and emphasizes the appearance of youth. If you don't know who you are, it would be very difficult to live in our culture. Open a magazine and you will see photos of beautiful women. These models are often very young and have tortured themselves to stay a size zero. Sometimes the photos are of older women who look remarkable thanks to the magic of photo finishing. Oprah reminded us when she talked about her photos in her magazine that there has been a lot of retouching before we ever see the finished picture.

Why do we want to look young? I believe we want to feel attractive, graceful, maybe even glamorous. We want to restore the vitality and love of life that we had when we were in our twenties.

What if we really could have the effects of that fountain of youth by believing in ourselves and acting accordingly? What if we used spiritual practices to form a new idea of someone our age? What if we really could be as graceful as a teenager into out eighties and nineties?

Well the fact is we can! Watch the video to see 86 year-old Johanna Quass do the most graceful routines on the parallel bars and the floor. She competed in her native Germany last year in the Cottbus World Cup and wowed the audience. She has the strength and agility of a youngster! She isn't trying to cover up her wrinkles! She is living her life fully! She has become one of my role-models!

What do we have to do? The answer is available every Sunday; we are going to discuss it all month. We are going to Practice: Exercising Our Souls!

What does that mean? How do we exercise our souls?

It is a very catchy title and it is the heart of our teaching. The Soul, according to our founder Ernest Holmes, is the Law through which life comes to be. It is the way God, or Divine Presence works in us. The Soul is like a mirror, whose job it is to reflect back to us, the thinkers, what we have been believing about ourselves and our lives. Exercising your Soul means to invest some of your precious time imagining the life that you DO want. When we have a clear mental picture we will notice that we naturally want to take some actions in the outer world.

I don't know Johanna Quass but I can see that she is a women of determination, strength and imagination. In addition to her desire to be a graceful, strong gymnast, she also needed to learn the skills of a gymnast and perfect them. Maybe she signed up for an adult gym class. Maybe she has been practicing gymnastics since she was a child. It doesn't matter to me. The fact is she did it!

That is the great news for all of us. If one person can accomplish something extraordinary, then we all can. It is simply a matter of believing it until we see it.

You are never too old to accomplish your dreams! What is it that you have been dreaming of doing? Has anyone told you that you are too old to begin that practice? Share my blog and the video of Johanna.

Vitality is the Presence of God

Vitality is an energy which SHINES.

Every month at #CSLCV, Church of Spiritual Living Capistrano Valley, we have a theme which all the Sunday services revolved around.

Vitality has been the theme for August and I have found it a more potent idea than I had previously considered. In fact Vitality has given me food for thought.

"The natural vitality is the presence of God and it flows through us."

"That feeling, that is the presence of God. That is who you truly are. That shining presence in you is the presence of God."

Vitality to me has meant energy, a natural healthy energy, a fueling energy which helps me accomplish, a sustaining energy which gives me strength.

But to think of Vitality literally as the presence of God within oneself led me to think about our responsibility to nurture that Vitality, that God source which we experience and that we have the responsibility to share.

Those of us who come from the Christian tradition have certainly heard some version of Matthew 5:15 which in the King James Bible says, "Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under a bushel, but on a lamp stand; and it gives light unto all that are in the house."

And so to nurture ourselves in a healthy way, eating life sustaining food, participating in healthy activities, following our creative passions, letting our best self shine forth is expressing God or Universal Consciousness or whatever you feel comfortable calling it.

To shine is our natural calling.

What Makes A Great Chef? Julia Child Remix

What makes a great chef?

Well, training and technique of course!

Plus a great love of food, a generous personality

& the ability to invent Hot Chocolate Truffles!

This is what good cooking is all about,

Cook & Cook & Keep On Cooking.

This is the way to live, Bon Appetit! - Julia Child