Speaking of Spirit

(c) 2006 Linda M. R. Neas - Good Vibrations Don't try to comprehend with your mind.  Your minds are very limited.  Use your intuition.  ~ Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time ~ Long ago, one of my spiritual guides reminded me that we must not use our ears to hear but our hearts and souls. While I had done this since childhood, I was not mindfully aware of the process until my attention was called to it. Listening with our hearts and souls means that we trust our intuition - that little "knowing" that calls to us from deep inside. Our ears hear words and sounds, but our hearts and souls sense things that are unseen, unheard, and untouchable.  Some people describe it as "human radar," which is actually a pretty accurate description of what happens when we use and trust our intuition. Let me explain. All matter is made up of energy. Energy gives off waves. Those waves bounce off and into each other. When we allow ourselves to be open to

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."  - Vincent Van Gogh Inspiration comes from some of the most unusual places. Little did I know that watching an old 1940's, black and white film would inspire today's post, but Passport to Pimlico did just that.   This quaint comedy tells the story of a neighborhood in London that suddenly finds itself in an international dispute that leads to the isolation of the neighborhood as a foreign domain.  The good people of the neighborhood must band together to keep their  sovereignty. The intrepid community quickly realizes that while they can survive many of the ills that befall them, they cannot survive alone.   This lesson, I believe, speaks loudly to all of us in the US, now. We are part of the world community. We cannot isolate ourselves from that community, nor our responsibilities to that community.  For better or worse, we are all in this together - each person, family, village, city

Don_Quixote_(1955)_by_Pablo_Picasso.jpg I was about ten the first time I saw this painting of Picasso, which led to the reading of Don Quiote by Cervantes. Two years later, The Man of La Mancha , hit the Broadway stage with its iconic song, "Impossible Dream."  So began my call to ministry. ( To minister is to serve.) Allow me to explain. In 1963, a month before my 10th birthday, I sat in front of our black and white TV and listened to the young minister, Martin Luther King, Jr. give the now famous, I Have a Dream speech . At that moment, with tears running down my face, I made a committment to serve, to minister, to teach others about Love and Peace and Forgiveness. I wasn't sure how this would happen, but I had trust that, given this epiphany, I would be given the tools to move forward. The moment I heard, " Impossible Dream ," it became one of my favorite songs. As a tween, I would sing it with all the passion of youth and innocence. The words

Photo Credit: (c) 2017 Linda M. Rhinehart Neas Yesterday, Christians around the world observed the feast of the Epiphany - or Three Kings Day.  But, I want to discuss the other use of the word, epiphany.  According to Dictionary.com, epiphany (with lower case e) means:  a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.  How perfect! My "epiphany" was to have as my One Word for the year the word - intuition. Epiphany means just that - a simple intuitive moment. My other epiphany, helped along by my dear friend, Hannah, who inspired me, was to use my intuition to give me other words to consider over the course of 2018.  Perhaps this will happen monthly, I'm not sure - but then, that is the way intuition works, right?   Back to epiphany...these serendipitous moments often bring answers to problems that we have been mulling over

Photo Credit: (c) 2018 Linda M. Rhinehart Neas When I was, as my mother would say, a wee sprout, I had my first experience with hearing that soft whisper that has warned me, inspired me, and on occasion, nagged me. Perhaps because I was raised in a household where being "fey" was looked at as normal, I never questioned that this was not real.  I can't tell you what the first thing I "heard" was, but I do remember talking to my mother about it when I was about six years old. We had had a lesson in school where sister had told the class about a saint who heard "the whispers of the angels." I asked Momma if that was who was speaking to me.  I still remember her looking very seriously into my eyes and saying, "Lindy, it might be angels, it might be what artists call the muse, or it might be what some people call, 'the voice of your ancestors or guides.' I don't know, but I do know you need to listen and pay attention to what you he

New Year (c) 2017 Linda M. Rhinehart Neas This morning as I rose to meet this new day of the new year, I was still wondering about my one word for the coming months. Choosing a word on January 1st has been a spiritual practice I have done for several years now. Last year, I focused on the word "fearless."  Over the past twelve months, I looked at how this word played out. How could I be less fearful? What would being fearless look like?  Throughout the year, I discovered that I could be fearless in many aspects of my life.   So, what word of all the words in the dictionary would be my word for this year?  I have actually considered about twenty different words.  Each had its merits and the potential to enable me to delve deeper into my spiritual life. However, none of them seemed to grab me the way fearless did last year. Then, yesterday, as I was heading back to Massachusetts from Maine, I was drawn to a beach that I love. The sun had just risen above t