Illuminating lives

11/14/2025

“Good Morning!
The Goddesses across the globe such as Aurora, Astarte, Hekt, Aja, Ostara ,Tefnut and more all teach us the abundance of love that will be garnered if we open our hearts to thanksgiving for the blessings of renewal that come to us with each new sunrise.

Today I choose to lead with gratitude to the very God of my Understanding. As I slowly breathe the air into my lungs I am reminded to lift my gaze to the rising sun. It is good and right to lift my eyes and heart to the rising sun . As I breathe out the stale darkness that sometimes clouds my mind and thus evades my heart and soul, I am
Reminded to proceed this day from this point of thanksgiving.

I am
Prepared and eager to demonstrate appreciation for all kindness and generosity bestowed upon me by returning such loving kindness to others that I greet along my journey. Expressing gratitude has the ability to wake us up by nudging us to gracious good and beauty that surrounds us daily if we chose to see it and then embrace it.

The practice of gratitude is a description or a blueprint if you will of a successful mode of living. It is within the practice of gratitude our hearts open up our sights to a multitude of blessings and love that continually surround us. Indeed , we are all embraced daily by seen and unseen forces of love.

Gratitude is a powerful engine that will literally shift us from what we have into proclaiming enough ! It tends to make what seemed unbearable bearable and the candy before us even sweeter to taste.

Each of us are called to not to merely feel gratitude but to show gratitude by giving thanks to our God of understanding with our very lives.

The word gratitude is derived from the Latin word ‘ gratis ‘ which translates into pleasing and thankful.

As I began to move my head around as I rose today I stated I was thankful for seeing fireflies dancing over a creek at dusk , the cheerful voice on the other end of the phone that understood I overslept yet again as my sleep was disrupted violently with my sickness , and my thanksgiving For my deep sorrows as I walk away from those that are incapable of knowing how to demonstrate the verb love and are caught up in their cerebrums of thought and discourse. ; because it is from this well of despair a new bubble ...... a new spring is bubbling up and opening me up to new beginnings ...... new places to be ...... new faces to love. .....new heights to arrive at and settle in. ......

You see this God of mine ..... this Great Cosmic Consciousness... knows only good. .... and sometimes allows things to happen ..... even things we deem horrific to our very sensibilities ... and quickly place us where we are needed and supposed to be .

And ....... . So this morning while a part of heart is still broken I am grateful that my God is filling each break with gold as the Japanese’s potters do .... as I move forward not merely on.

I am thankful that God has given me the bravado and the courage to do so ....... because to feel and express the very nature of God which is the verb love is not for the lightweights. It takes courage to allow the darkness to enfold you in order to feel it ....... and then release it because we can’t release what we don’t feel ...... and if we don’t release it we carry it wherever we go. ......... and frankly some folks can’t come with me where I have set my sails.

Thanks be to the God of Great Power who takes the wretched and makes them servants for the good. ...... over and over and over again across time.

All Glory to my God.

From the journal of Reverend Virginia McIntyre. All rights reserved
7/20/19

11/13/2025

"Prayer is not a pious gesture at all. it is a response to the One whose heart beats with ours." Joan Chittister

My earliest memories always involve God, butterflies and Vincent Van Gogh. I know of no time in my life that I did not contend nor practice some sort of interaction between the Great Creator and myself. Nor have I ever been one to contend that only the special people among us are privileged enough to garner such a spiritual interaction. Each of us holds the key in our humanness to call out one or all of the thousand names of this " God."

Call and response is one of our most ancient impulses and endeavors to look up and bring forth the One to make us bow down before to request an audience. Elijah, Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha, Mary, Brighid, and all the trembling and not so trembling prophets understood as I do that if summoned, my God will indeed appear. Their stories attest to the transformation of ordinary lives being made extraordinary when the Super Power breaks us open to lead lives of service. Each of us holds an amazing opportunity to discover our own language of call and in return God's language of response to each of us as we travel this journey.

Every day, my God attempts to communicate to me large and vast wisdom. I am so lucky to know this God that does not require me to have to travel to Holy sites to hear the nudges on my heart or the dips in my stride to lead me home. All I have to do is notice when and where the assistance comes from and make that call. My heart is ripe not only for the picking but for the gratefulness deep within the crevices. You can do the same as well.

All I need to do is prepare my mind. All I need to do is prepare myself to be still, in a quiet receptive state to receive and then allow the Creator to speak to my heart as all transformation truly begins in the heart. All I need to do is to make the time for God by cultivating and maintaining my peace of mind.

Come and stare into your bowl as I stare into mine through the water and take note of our meager but riotous and a ruckus of lives we get to live; as we are being slightly but ever so profoundly altered by the sheen of still waters. We are indeed the people of the water.

With certainty I know all still waters run ever so deep. Thanks and glory to God.

from the journal of Reverend Virginia McIntyre 7/2019. .

11/13/2025