Have you ever had the blessing of meeting someone, considered before you met them, that they are a stranger? When they appeared before you, whether in person or even on a screen being used for a zoom, something happened. The site of their face and expression, a smile, an inquisitive nature that was apparent. Then this individual spoke and something stirred in you and the thought may have been, I want this individual in my life. Actually the love that rises up within you has blown through any need to know anything more about them because everything that is necessary has already presented itself to your eyes, ears, heart and soul. This is what I experienced when I met Rev. Stacy Collins about 3 1/2 years ago. 

My friend Michael Gott, sorry honey, the beloved Rev. Michael Gott, talked to me about a series being presented at Unity of Houston at that time. Spirit Groups engaged individuals who took a leadership role as hosts, then people signed up for a host or a time and place, live or on zoom, that fit into their schedule. Each group was guided by a video and a list of questions that further explored the message offered on the previous Sunday morning. I loved watching these videos as I had another opportunity to see and hear my beloved friend and the messages of his heart and consciousness. Of course there was a song sung. Glory Hallelujah!

Michael asked me to meet with Stacy Collins, who was leader of the Spirit Groups at the time while in ministerial school. He reminded me of the role of a host, not a facilitator. I heard him and in many ways, I saw myself being a facilitator, this is one of my favorite things, I love it, inquiring deep into what those who are attending my class for whatever their reasons are. All are always welcome. I did not become a host, I knew it early on.

The day came that I was to zoom with Stacy and discover the duties and responsibilities of being a host. I logged on, and there she was. I was smitten in a matter of a few brief minutes. I was in one of those moments, that had happened only a few times before. Meeting, seeing, hearing, feeling and experiencing her meeting me, introducing herself in a way that went way beyond what she was saying. I loved her. I wanted her in my life. I deeply hoped that she would like me. Would it be possible for her to feel about me the way I was already being blessed by her? The question lingered for months and months and months, even though there was much evidence that she liked me, possibly even loving me. When I told Michael that I realized I had brought her to me. His response was “as she drew you to her.” In the hearing of this, my imaginary distance from her began to shrink. I was willing to take her off the pedestal and being a fan. I wanted to sit eye to eye with her and have found over these last few years, we speak of our love and respect for each other. It appears that we have much in common. I still have a reverence for her wisdom, her wit and sense of humor, her profound commitment to her family, her work and a consciousness I am in awe of.

I have often mentioned Rev. Michael Beckwith to hundreds of people in my company, whatever the reason we have gathered. He is a singular figure that led me to become a Practitioner. Of course God had a great deal to do with that as well. Decades ago he and I were in Merrill Hall, located at the Asilomar Retreat grounds south of the City, near Monterey Bay, where the Centers for Spiritual Living held their annual retreat. I attended that event numerous times. It was the place Where I met Rickie and Michael. OMG

I told MBB of the love I had for him, what I had learned from listening to him on the enormous amount of tapes and CDs of sermons over many years. I also told him the way I held him, high above me. He asked me to sit down, so we did. He looked me in the eye and told me that there was no difference in us, even though he, being black and a man, me, being white and a woman. Underneath all of that evidence of different and separate, we are seen and held in God in the same way. God is infinite, it does not measure. I have always measured everything, comparing all things, in competition with everyone. Anyone else???

That day, I made a decision to release the bondage I was living in most of my life. I would love to tell you honestly that this decision changed by life in an instant. It did not. It did give me a prospective, and at times, I engaged in that false belief while continually letting go and eventually found myself in a place of noticing that I began to be happy for other people, not envying them or being jealous of what they attained instead of me. I still remember what I harvested from my relationship with Rev. Michael Bernard Beckwith, a bounty of harvests. If you ask anyone who has attended one of my offerings in classes, workshops, retreats, Spirit Groups, Power of Inquiry sessions, and daily conversations, I often quote Rev. Michael and continue to grow and profit from his powerful wisdom.

I am now able and incredibly willing to sit across from my beloved Stacy Collins and honor this relationship that has flowered into a powerful gift of friendship plus the continuing growth and expansion of my mind, heart and soul. Thank you dear Stacy. 

I heard my friend Stacy speak today at Unity of Houston. She was eloquent as usual. I was moved, inspired, uplifted and in awe, as usual. I say as usual because it always has been my experience when listening to her, whether it is a sermon or her sharing about what is alive in her. For me, listening to her is a profound gift. I invite us all to listen more. Jane Fonda once said, “it is more important to be interested than interesting. Stay curious”

My intention, when I began to write this blog, was to share with you Stacy’s message, which blessed me today. I guess God has something else in mind. Instead, I’m inviting you to check her out. You can probably find it on the Unity of Houston website and on YouTube. She is saying it much more eloquently that I could ever do. I also invite you, as you listen, to ask yourself the question, “do I truly believe what she is saying about the truth of God and my being?”

I did. May you find the responses to this question contribute to your realization of what and who you are. You can thank me later. Even a better idea is that you feel led to give thanks to yourself for listening, paying attention to what truly matters. Keep listening.

Postscript: The grand and glorious Rickie Byars has shared with us a most extraordinary catalog of music over the past 40 years. One of those songs was part of Stacy’s message today. As I listened to her speak, in her closing prayer, she mentioned letting love wash over us, letting peace wash over us. My eyes had already closed, I thought of Rickie’s song, “Let It Be.”

Wrapped in the holiness of the moment, I heard the song being sung. Opening my eyes, the wonderful Unity musicians were delivering this message in song. Oh my, what a moment. I am fulfilled.

Invitation: I strongly and emphatically invite you to check it out. I did and will continue to honor her by listening to what she says and does in her commitment to God. May we all continue to stay committed to that which serves us so generously.

The Power of Prayer, Movies, Faith and Surrender

Several years ago, in my weekly session with my beloved Michael Gott, he spoke a prayer for me, the essence of which is that God can deny me nothing. It is impossible as Spirit is always and forever generously offering all that it is and all that is has, to us, including you, yes, YOU. 

Later that day I was called to watch the movie, “Miss Potter”. I had seen it many times and at each viewing I was moved by Renee Zellweger’s extraordinary portrayal of the famous author, Beatrix Potter. 

As I watched this beautiful and powerful film again for the umpteenth time, I was resonating with this phrase Michael spoke for me, that God can deny me nothing. I witnessed Beatrix Potter as a Divine design in what being in love and loved feels like. Each time I experienced the scene in which she has gone to her room, her creativity palace, where the magic took place, she is in a state of ecstasy. That evening, at her parents annual Christmas party, the man who was her first editor and champion of her writings had asked her to marry him. She was met that evening as she too was completely in love with him.

I’ve seen hundreds of movies, many love stories and always wondered as I grew up, would I ever have this in my life? I never did. I didn’t experience being loved. There is more of this coming to be written and for now I want to share this particular story.

What I did witness was Renee’s expression of what I had always wanted, I felt it deep inside me. It wasn’t necessarily excitement that I saw, it was complete immersion in her trust and faith that she had discovered the deepest love in her soul. She knew without a doubt, not projecting what could be questioned or what might happen as a result of this union. Her parents had no idea and when they learned of the match, they were very skeptical. I sit here and write these words with the knowledge that, I have not captured what I saw, what I feel in this moment that was and is profoundly meaningful. 

It’s fascinating that in attempting to describe a feeling, when I am caught up in the awe and wonder of life, there is something in me that struggles with coming up with language to convey it. I have read thousands of beautiful passages, seen as many movies or more, heard a speaker be elegant and articulate and this is what I have to offer. I feel the need to stop, let it be what it is and get on with it. Surely you’ve heard of the Inner Critic. I am eradicating it from my consciousness, one step at a time. Feel free to pray for the complete eradication of said IC.

Beatrix lost the love of her life. Her grief was severe and in time she came around to notice her coming home to herself without the pain. She became famous, a brilliant author by telling stories of the myriad of characters that she brought to life through her imagination and the prompting of her mystical, magical intuitive nature. 

She also found her 2nd calling. She had purchased a farm, a working farm, taking residence there and learning about the land, which for her would be sustained and treasured the rest of her life. 

At the same time she encountered an old friend, who she had often shared her drawings and stories with when she was very young. He appeared again as she was falling in love with the land. He introduced her to other properties and she began to buy them. She left an immense legacy of land and property to be preserved.  Oh yes, some years later, she and her old friend married after 8 years.

What am I not praying for? What have I settled for? I’ve spent a lifetime settling based on the false belief I have not been worthy of limitless love. The love I see portrayed in this movie is a love I have not known up until recently. It is the feeling I am seeking and I realized while watching this again, that I have not let myself believe that I can have this kind of relationship and continue to open to what I am called to do and be. The way these movie people feel is what I want to feel. I don’t need it to be a man, or property, or being famous or even being a writer, I want the feeling.

When I was young and taking ballet lessons, especially when I would perform in my recitals I wanted to be this, a ballerina. A few years ago I thought, I didn’t become a ballerina,  and I did have my dancers at church for at least five years!

When Linda Ronstadt arrived on the scene, I wanted to be her, look like her, sing like her, be on stage and touch audiences like her. She was real, beautiful and doing what I wanted to do and be. I didn’t do that either. I did become a speaker, preaching from stages, facilitating all sorts of processes and classes by others and those created by me. I never did 10s of thousands of people, I did connect with many when I was doing my thing. Another dream came in a different form

I didn’t become a movie star, although it is what I dreamed of my whole life, even now there is a spark of it still alive that one day, I will be discovered. I did appear in a film which is a story about my son Rob and me after he was severely burned called “Here’s Looking at You Kid”, winning numerous awards, including an EMMY. It’s true.

I accept here and now that anything is possible, if I can dream it, I can be it, have it, and feel completely fulfilled. Sometimes I have prayed for something I wanted and ended up not manifesting that particular thing but another gift appeared. Is this about my limited prayer life or is this what God really had in mind for me.

Postscript: I wrote this almost 5 years ago. I am familiar with what I had given voice to here. As I read it this morning, I realize I do have this feeling. The feeling I witnessed of this woman, Beatrix Potter and so want to believe that what I saw on the screen from Renee, was perfectly captured. She inspired me to feel the presence of love, joy, happiness and fulfillment without any fame or fortune or preconceived ideas of what success is about. What I trust is that God truly loves me, Maggie Cole, it is alive in me. The healing I have experienced especially in the last few years is grand in scope. Michael was right, God can deny me nothing.

INVITATION: I invite you to be open in considering that what Michael spoke for me is also available to each and everyone of us. If you are willing to say yes to being available for healing and transformation, it is here for you. 

Have faith that God is here and all is truly well. Come home to the truth that you are the beloved of God. I have found that the “S” word is extremely helpful in this process. SURRENDER.

I have put this off for at least a week, having a variety of excuses and yet I feel the only reason is that I didn’t want to go to the depth of feeling that is inhabiting me here and now.

On the day that honored Dr. Martin Luther King, I spent most of the afternoon and evening watching documentary films about this man. I saw many things I’ve not seen before. I was struck again by his courage, persistence, faith and determination to do what he had been called to do. I believe in calling, you may define it as purpose or Divine appointment, whatever it is, he honored it and served all of us by his words and actions. 

I was drawn to watch a documentary, which I had seen at least once, about Harvey Milk, who was also murdered like Martin for what he was standing for. I noticed I was again so moved by his commitment, his energy and passion to inspire people to be true to themselves, to come out, be proud of who they are. Harvey was a gay man who was, at the time of his death, serving as a representative on the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. A movie was made about him, starring Sean Penn years later. If you can’t find the documentary, I invite you to check out the movie. You will see what I’m talking about. 

There was and still is an overwhelming feeling of sadness that came over me during this time, yet I kept being drawn to more of the same. I watched the movie about Ghandi, experiencing more of what I have shared here. 

When I turn on my TV, as I often do, many times it is on my favorite channel (no, it is not ESPN),Turner Classic Movies. The film that was coming to a close was about the holocaust. My favorite host, Ben Mankiewicz, then introduced the next film about 2 men who, in 1945, after the war and the liberation of the concentration camps, went to Europe to gather film evidence that the germans had made documenting the horrors of their murders. I watched it. Again, I saw the qualities I have addressed here in these men. The tenacity, the grueling physical and emotional conditions with which they endured to bring the truth to the Nuremberg trials.

I noticed by feelings, I noticed the depth of sadness that I was experiencing and as I often do, I repeated to myself, this too shall pass. I remembered how many times my beloved Michael Gott has reflected back to me, about the ways in which he has witnessed me staying with these feelings, whatever they are. He’s seen me come through them and be awake to the healing that wanted to become known to me. 

While this was going on, the Warriors lost a beloved coach to a heart attack. He was in his 40s. They took a week off from game to honor him and grieve. They won the game in which they paid tribute to him, then lost the next two games by 1 point. So sad for them. For those who aren’t sports fans, who may think I’m crazy to put these things together. I do not ask for your empathy and understanding. Sadness and heartbreak don’t seem to have preferences in my world. Thank God the Niners won on Sunday.

I had my final class on prayer with the Spirit Group from Unity today. When it was done, I realized I couldn’t escape the depth of my sadness, that I had somehow attempted to wait for it to pass, I had to feel it. I have cried and cried this past week or so and yet it was not enough to relieve me. So what is God calling me to? I don’t know yet. I am now writing, what I’ve delayed in doing in these past hours and days. 

My sadness is profound for what I am experiencing with family, what I see on the news, retaliation, hate, getting even, attack. What I want to remember is that the only thing I can change is my attitude. Michael Beckwith said something years ago that just now appeared to me, “May we see ourselves and others as God sees”.

Thank you for reading what I wrote. It has helped me move yet another step in my evolution. As it says in the Peace song, “let it begin with me”.

Quote from Ghandi:

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible but in the end they always fall, think of it, always.

Invitation: 

I invite you to feel what is alive in you and lean into your faith that God is here and all is well. 

I am currently engaged in facilitating a class on Spiritual Mind Treatment with a lovely group of women affiliated with the Unity of Houston Spirit Group Program. I am grateful for the privilege of doing what I love with the blessings of my very good friend, Stacy Collins and my beloved Rev. Michael Gott, senior minister. 

Our first class was about the form and feeling of this magnificent tool of prayer, Spiritual Mind Treatment. I remember being introduced to it over 3 decades ago. I heard much about the form, the steps, language to be used or not, the principle behind this form of affirmative prayer, very different than what I had experienced growing up in a traditional Christian church. I only went to prayer when I was in trouble and begged and beseeched my way in it.

Over the years, I began to learn the power of feeling the prayer, of allowing the language to be presented to me through Spirit via my mystical intuitive nature. It deeply changed my experience. Through practice, I realized the difference between following form and leaning into the feeling. Ernest Holmes spoke of this saying the form could be taught, the feeling can’t be taught. Actually I got an idea several years ago that assisted me in offering a process of discovery of deep feeling, then applying it to the practice of prayer. It came to me 15 minutes before I met with a class on treatment that I was about to offer to a group of Practitioners. God is so incredible generous when we want or need information, guidance, inspiration, creativity. My intuition is my grandest companion. 

I invite you to consider the possibility of beginning, always beginning with the feeling. It has transformed my prayer life, especially since my relationship with God has been enhanced by the opportunities of spending a great deal of time alone, not distracted by the outside world as much. 

One of my most favorite quotes from Ernest Holmes is “The realization of the Presence of God is the most powerful healing agency known to the mind of man.” When I first read it I was mesmerized and thinking, “you mean I don’t have to do anything for it, all I need do is realize it”. I remain in awe of this powerful truth.

I love the feeling of the presence of God, the realization of the presence of God and even when I don’t feel it, when I am distracted by the world or caught up in a sense of separation, I have the blessing of remembering that God is ever present, just as powerful and lovely as when the feeling overtakes me. I need not wait for it, or urge it to come and show itself, it embraces me always.

I credit this Truth, that God is here and all is well, with keeping me from getting lost or drowning in the pain and disappointments that show up sometimes. I invite you to remember that even when the feeling doesn’t seem to be there, God IS..

This is so alive in me this morning, it comforts me, it reminds me, it soothes and delights me. I invite you to be still and make yourself available to this blessing as God, the living Spirit, is forever showering It’s blessings to us all. 

Thank you for reading this offering. Maggie Cole

It’s Saturday, December 23rd, and I am doing something today that I haven’t done in years. I am writing this for my blog. What have I been waiting for? I don’t know and more importantly I don’t care. I am doing what I am doing and it happens to be NOW.

I was moved (surprise, surprise) by a movie I found many years ago, “Henry Poole is Here”. I’d never heard of it when I saw it on one my many movie channels. I love Luke Wilson, so I watched it then and many times since. I watched it again today. It’s about a man who has been told he is going to die, so he buys a house and sets out to drink himself to death to expedite the disease that is going to kill him anyway. 

On one of the stucco walls outside his house is a stain that is interpreted by his neighbor as the face of the Christ. Many things occur over a short period of time and at one point Henry goes to the wall to touch it, as miracles have already taken place with people he comes to know. He just can’t do it. In that moment, he resists to take a leap of faith and touch the wall that has healed others, he doesn’t, for whatever reasons, he doesn’t believe it, he doesn’t buy it, he is unwilling to surrender to the possibility that even he could be healed. It reminds me of a question posed to me many years ago, “What are you not praying for”? 

Each and every time I watch this movie I am deeply moved for a myriad of reasons. Today it was about the resistance. As I have quoted so many times, Rev. Michael Beckwith once said, “there are 4 kinds of pain, resistance, resistance, resistance, resistance.

I have recognized this pain in my heart that arises during the holiday season, thanksgiving, Christmas. It’s been here for years and years. Interesting word, holiday, it conjures up celebration, time off, fun and on and on. I say it and write it and don’t feel it. 

I’ll stop trying to explain and attempt to tell you what I’m feeling. I am 83 years old, and there are things I want, experiences I desire, so many conversations I want to share and there is a resistance to more deeply expose myself. Thank God there are a few people in my life that may be interested, none of which happens to be related to me. I am beginning to trust it with Rob as Spirit moves and I am listening. Before I leave this body I want to release any resistance to being exactly who and what I am.

I first attended the Church of Religious Science in 1989 and I joined a few months later. At the reception for new members I introduced myself as a writer. I had never really written anything and yet I said it out loud to a group of people. I always thought I would write a book about my life. 

I began a job as a social worker for the State of Kentucky when I was 24 years old. As part of the training, I took classes at the University of Louisville along with other new employees. I shared stories about my life and one of the teachers told me I should write a book. I never forgot that, I also never did anything about it. A few months earlier I had given birth to my daughter, my first child, at a home for unwed mothers. I didn’t tell that story for years, it was a shameful thing to the few family members who knew. Interesting that now, women give birth with or without husbands or even partners without being thought of as whores.

My Mother picked me up 10 days after I had given birth. This was the rule, you couldn’t leave for 10 days no matter what decision was made about your baby. Earlier that day I had held my daughter in my arms for the first time, for 10 minutes, that’s all we were allowed was 10 minutes. The girls, I didn’t think of us as women, who had faced this moment, told the rest of us that if we weren’t going to take our babies home with us, to not hold them as it was too hard to let them go. 

When Mother and I were in the car, I was telling her about Paige, which I had named her, from the leading lady in the movie, “The Red Shoes”. I saw it when I was 8 years old, I was taking ballet lessons at the time and wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up. That dream haunted me for most of my life. For whatever the reasons, and they were many, I didn’t pursue it. 

I’m telling my Mother how beautiful Paige was and what I had experienced when I held her. I went so far as to attempting to describe the emptiness of having to let her go. It was like all the life was sucked out of me and all I was, was skins and bones, it was like feeling dead, except for the pain of it. Mother stopped me in mid sentence, told me right then and there to stop and never speak of it again. I realized in that moment that she was asking me to dismiss, discount, forget and erase my experience of having a child, from my mind, my heart and soul. I never did.

This was to remain a secret forever,  too shameful, embarrassing for the family, what would people think, and on and on. Many years later I attempted to connect with my father, it was the last conversation we would ever have and actually it may have been the first and last one we ever had. He told me I was a whore, because of what I had done by getting pregnant. I realized he really thought that. Thank God I knew I wasn’t. I had less sex that anybody I knew.

I think anyone reading this may resonate with moments of suppressing their feelings, hanging on, moving on and making do. It took many years for me to experience healing, which began when I felt free to share it with a group of friends, six years after the day my Mother told me to stop talking.  Healing is not living with the pain and yet the memory of what happened, for me anyway, has not evaporated or disappeared. In this moment I am reminded of how far I’ve come. God is here and all is well has been on the the truths that has saved and comforted me.

How did I get here from where I started this missive. My mind is racing with so many thoughts of this life I have lived. I often wonder why is it that I want to have a witness, someone to say to me, I see you, I hear you, I witness you, and in the midst of that, I  LOVE YOU. I have been granted this blessing, again and again.

These cherished blessings have been granted to me and I am grateful, so I wonder what is this desire, the seeming need to tell these stories. I have a place in me that misses those Christmases when Rob was little. For weeks and months I would plan and prepare what to give him and see his delight when he woke up and experienced all that was under the tree was for him. It made me so incredibly happy. I miss it so much. When I was growing up, the biggest fight of the year my parents had was on Christmas eve, I wanted Rob to have a different experience. 

I remember talking about him all the time after he was burned. My experience, for the most part, was people didn’t want to hear it and yet I felt so incredibly alone. I wanted someone to know this, I wanted someone to comfort me. I recognize God is here, in this, right now and it comforts me. I am in this body, a human being, a feeling being, so willing, on so many levels, to experience and express myself. I don’t want to resist anything and yet I do as I don’t want to be perceived or seen as a complainer, as a victim, both I am familiar with. I want to tell my stories. I no longer want to qualify them, just tell them.

Am I now in the state of overwhelm and rambling, maybe so. This is my life and I have purged today, with hundreds of tears and a degree of satisfaction that I am, most of the time, willing to FEEL my life. I love this about me. As relentless as it sometimes feels, I promise to be alive with what is alive in me. This happens to be what is alive in me in this moment today, watching my movie, remembering past Christmases with Rob, being touched deeply again by recounting that day when I held my daughter for the first time and then finally hugging her again in the spring of this year.

As Julie London sang decades ago, I have “cried me a river”today and my body is telling me to eat and God knows I don’t my friend Molly upset with me because I haven’t eaten. 

I want to continue to write what is alive in me. I believe it is more for me than anyone else and yet, I have always wanted a witness. 

I have had them, you know who you are, I welcome you again to be my witness. I welcome you all. 

Love and blessings, 

Maggie 

Today, May 31, 2020, there are people protesting in the streets throughout this country, and in the midst of this, a global pandemic is taking  place. The news is being broadcast at this time, too much to take in, too much to witness and yet there are times I am compelled.

On this day, Sunday, as my grief has taken hold, when my sadness is deep and my outrage feels unparalleled, I long to be comforted. There is something in me, the presence of God, that assures me, and I am comforted by this awareness, that is alive here and now. And yet, I still feel all that I feel as this country erupts. I must trust that this too shall pass and there is no way and actually no need for me to know when and how and all those questions that sometimes haunt me. I must have faith. 

Then there is the meantime, in the midst of, what do I need to do to move from one moment to another. Today is Sunday, I watched my beloved Rev. Michael Gott deliver his sermon from the Unity of Houston. He continues to meet me in my feeling state and support me in the consciousness that I hold to be true. 

I virtually prayed for someone after my church service, which always reminds me of the truth as I saw someone confronting their own discomfort and sense of isolation and separation. It is always healing to pray for someone else, how blessed I am to do this. 

After that I attended a meeting on zoom and had an opportunity to answer a question that was posed by the leader. The question was “What is it that you don’t want anyone to know about you”? I was put in a room with another Practitioner and gave her my response, which took  courage and yet it felt powerful and liberating. I give thanks for her willingness to listen with an open and compassionate heart. Everything that happened after that had little consequence for me.

When I got off this machine, fixed some lunch, I realized that I was overtaken again by my sadness, grief, rage and anger which was now being fueled by what took place in the meeting. Many memories had emerged, old wounds surfaced  and here I was, on a Sunday afternoon, what to do?

I chose one of the things that feeds, delights, invigorates and brings me joy… SPORTS. So I watched a show I had recorded about Steph Curry, which made me smile for 30 minutes. I love him so. 

Then I engaged in an activity that I often do, I watched a movie, “Secretariat”, which was made in 2010. I remember going to the theater in Santa Rosa to see it and crying before it even began as I recalled that day I was at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., when Secretariat won the 1973 Kentucky Derby. 

I lived in Louisville at the time, I was a social worker and during racing season in the spring, I sold hot dogs at the track. That day, those of us working our hot dog stand, drew straws to see who had to stay and who got to go see the race, I won. I went into the grandstand and watched this horse run. It was astounding breathtaking, it was magic! It took my breath away. It is said that the Derby is the most exciting 2 minutes in sport. It’s true. 

When I watched this movie today, and I have seen it many times, I was completely immersed in the story as I remembered that time in my life and at the same time I was aware of my feelings I woke up with. I felt gratitude that I knew how and what would comfort me. I am blessed to have the freedom to feel what I feel without explanation or a need to defend, explain or make sense of it. I watched as I experienced a soothing of my feeling intensity. 

My post movie activity consisted of making an appt. with my therapist for the next day and eating ice cream with fresh strawberries. My friend Molly had sent me a poem she had written in honor of George Floyd. I felt met when I read it and proceeded to write this blog. I am blessed.

Invitation:  I invite you to consider the possibility that feeling, even when it hurts, is a gateway to a deeper awareness to what is going  on within you, what is calling to be healed, to be revealed. 

Quote: Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1