My Diary.
March.
2nd - 5th It should have been
five days at the Glasgow Association of Spiritualists, but inclement weather
meant that Friday’s Awareness Group, Sittings on the Saturday and the two
services on the Sunday were cancelled.
But as soon as the weather relented a little the Monday and Tuesday
services took place as normal.
18th – The Sunday morning service at the
GAS.
19th -
A long journey, but it is worth it for the great Highland welcome at
Inverness Spiritualist church.
25th A much shorter journey this time to
the Kilmarnock Spiritualist Church. (SNU)
Music for our Services.
After last month’s blog about the music in our churches I have had
a lot of feedback supporting the hymns with up lifting lyrics in our
Spiritualist hymnbooks.
GP - “Plenty of spiritualist
church’s around so if you don’t like the music or format at one move to
another. A church cannot change what it
does for every person that comes through the door”.
T – “I attend several our
churches and they all have their own ways of working which I accept”.
BB – “Spiritualist are always
moaning. If it is not the music it will
be that the tea is not strong enough in the tea room”.
Bert – “Too many with their
feet hardly in the door are wanting to change Spiritualism for their own needs. They should be told to accept our ways or move
on”.
Here the top of the charts from the emails i received.
From our Hymn Books
“All Through the
Night”. “Amazing Grace”.
“Into the
Garden”. “I
Hear the Angles Singing”.
“The Absent Healing
Hymn”. “One
More Step”
“Keep the Beacon of
Light Still Burning”. “Morning
Has Broken”.
“Joy Illuminates
Everything”.
“I Walk In The Light”
“I Danced in The
Morning When the World Was Begun”.
And the more modern songs that were suggested to be Ok for our services; -
“I Can See Clearly
Now”.
“Love Shine A Light in Every
"Corner of the World”.
“I’d Like to Teach the
World to Sing”. “Any Dream Will Do”.
“Footsteps”.
“I Believe”
"Wind Beneath My
Wings”
The lyrics of all above are perfect for our services. Even just the music
of these songs being played while the congregation sits in contemplation.
The Biggest Threat of All.
I wrote the following in a magazine recently; -
“Our biggest terror
threat does not come from a human with a gun or a bomb, but from a
disease. How many of us know of a family
that has been killed or maimed by a human terrorist attack? Few of us will. Now think of a family you know where cancer
has not struck. You will now see where
by far the biggest threat comes from”.
A reader commented “TJ, I see
you are of the Spiritualist faith, so why are your spirit guides not pointing
scientists in the right direction to find a cure?”
A good question if you know nothing about Spirit Guides. A spirit guide, in western
spiritualism, is an entity that remains as a disincarnate spirit to act as a guide or
protector to a living incarnated human being.
They can guide us in different directions, to show us different angles
of situations around us, but they cannot take the final choice for us we have
free will to make the final decision.
Cancer has been a problem throughout all of human history. A medical papyrus dating back to 3000 BC mentions this disease. One would have thought that 5,000 years later we might have found a cure.
When President
Richard Nixon declared a war on cancer in 1971, there were high hopes that
scientists were close enough to understanding the underlying causes that many
cures were within reach. Now we are at
2018 and Cancer the name given to a collection of related diseases remains one of the world’s biggest
killers, with approximately 14
million new cases and 8.2 million deaths a year. In Europe alone.
American Vice-President Joe Biden said “Our goal is to make a decade's worth of advances in five years. There's no silver bullet when it comes to
curing cancer, but a difference can be made in the incidence and management of
the disease, even in the poorer countries of the world, if the right
people – scientists, business leaders, politicians, data
analysts – work together”. Breakthroughs in the understanding
of DNA and genetic links to cancer, screening programmes, less invasive surgical
techniques have contributed to reducing the death toll. Yet as the medical
advances have had success in cancer patients living longer the numbers being
diagnosed are on the increase so it could be said this is a no-win situation.
So, are we getting guidance from Divine sources, and more
importantly, are we listening? I am sure many involved in looking for cures are being nudged in
the right direction, but are they aware of this? Are they being allowed by the
pharmaceutical companies to go in that direction? (That direction may be holistic and the big
companies usually steer clear of that area).
We will be guided also. Do
we listen to the little voice in our head suggesting that we stop smoking, cut
back/stop taking alcohol or be careful with what you eat? It is not easy these days with so many additives
in our food and the pace of life can make in near impossible for many to cook
from scratch. It is like everything else
we have to take responsibility for our own backyard and not to blame outside
sources for not doing the work for us.
Over the years I have mentioned how ‘God’s little
helpers’ – flowers – have been a great benefit for so many that having
difficulties mentally and physically.
Well now is the time to start planning what flowers you are going to
plant in your gardens and baskets. Even
a few baskets and tubs filled with flowers in your garden can uplift so many
who walk past. Test have shown that Sweet
Peas and Lilly of the Valley with their lovely scents can evoke memories of the
past. The flowers that bring back
memories of the past to me are Cornflowers, Candytuft that I used to grow from
seed when I was about five-years-old. Often when I am on the platform get Lilly
of the Valley that is a sign a grandmother is coming forward. Even sprinkling
wildflower seeds on a bare patch in the garden and leaving them to their own
devices they will soon start grow and flower.
An added bonus to this is the flowers will soon attract a multitude of
butterflies, bees and insects.
We Spiritualists should know to work with Mother
Nature to make life better for others, other species and ourselves.
Hope on the
Horizon?
Normally I would not discuss political matter on this site, but
with what has been going on during the past two weeks I feel commenting on the
following topics is not out of place
In an extremely troubled world where so many incidents could quite
easily get out of hand, two glimmers of light have appeared. The fact that North and South Korean leaders
are talking and President Kim Jon un will soon meet President Trump is a miracle
in its self. I have said for many years
that the leaders of neutral countries should have been negotiating with NK a
decade or so ago. Let’s hope that the
current talks will be a success and step by step, starvation and torture in NK will eventually be
a thing of the past. There will be no
magic formula, but as long as one small step is followed by another small step a
new dawn will break over the Korean Peninsula.
My next flicker of hope may only have been seen by few. Normally I am against military intervention
as so often it causes many more problems than it solves. The attack on alleged storage of chemical storage
depots in Damascus was like a surgeon using a scalpel to take out diseased
tissue and leaving other areas alone.
Russia and Syria were told the attack were going to take place and they
got their personnel out of the target area so there were no deaths. Hopefully all chemical weapons are now destroyed
and innocent men women and children will not have to suffer and die in such a
horrible way. The fighting, suffering
and death will still go on, but a chemical weapons attack is a step too far and
action had to be taken. Syria is hell on
earth at the moment and has been for seven-years. A different situation entirely from the
Korean stand-off. Presidents and Prime
Ministers from around the world must meet
face-to-face with President Assad. They
owe it to the innocent of that region. The cannot keep walking by on the other
side with their eyes closed.
I am sure the Divine Creator and the Spirit World will agree with
me.
