Dear Friends of the Light,Ever since I attended Sunday service this past week at Agape International Spiritual Center in L.A., I haven't been able to get the song "Use Me" out of my head. Agape services are profoundly inspirational, but the music, for me, trumps the words every time. My experience with "Use Me," written by Rickie Byars Beckwith, Agape's musical director, is testimony to that. The call to write The Choice for God — all about answering the call — came through that song.
Los Angeles, and my call to be there, is the theme of one of the most recent posts in my New Earth Chronicles blog. If you're not a Chronicles subscriber, you can read that and all entries at http://markdavidgerson.blogspot.com.
Speaking of L.A., it felt time to update my photo in this newsletter and on my web site. Replacing the old Sedona backdrop in both places is sunset over Venice Beach. Thanks to Kent Spies for taking it.
Very much linked to the theme of this newsletter is the multimedia self-directed program I mentioned in the last newsletter: The Wisdom-Keeper Training: The Way of the New Medicine Wheel. The difference between that newsletter and this one is that now the program is complete and I know more concretely what it's about: charting new directions...for yourself and humanity. I've included a brief excerpt below, The Way of the New Medicine Wheel. As well, I've extended the special prepublication price through Saturday, December 2.
Speaking of specials, just in time for holiday shopping, I've reduced the price of some of my CDs. These are titles I will no longer be offering through the web site, which means that once the limited number I now have in inventory is gone, they'll no longer be available. You'll find all CDs listed at http://markdavidgerson.com/CDs.html.
Finally, speaking of calls, I'll be offering a free teleconference call on Tuesday, Dec. 12 at 9:12 p.m. ET: 12:12 — Gateway to God. To register, click on the link below or e-mail me your name, city/state and phone number. Unless you send complete information, you will not be registered and won't receive the access numbers (e-mailed approximately 24 hours before the call).
If you're registering online, feel free to use a fake credit card number. You will not be charged the one-cent charge (necessary for a shopping cart listing), unless you use the PayPal option, in which case the charge is automatic.
However your call from God comes, say Yes!
I believe in you.
Namaste,
Mark David
_______________________________________________
Instant Inspiration
Be present for the call.
Be present for the possibility of a reality
greater than the one you think you want.
Be present for a life
greater than any you would think to manifest.
_______________________________________________
The Choice for God
Use me
Oh, God
I stand for you
And here I'll abide
As you show me
All that I must do
— "Use Me," Rickie Byars Beckwith
Every time I sing the last line of that song, I cry.
I cried when I sang it at Unity Church of Maui when I lived in Hawai'i. I cried in 2002 when I sang it at in Los Angeles. And I cried again this past Sunday when, not having even thought of the song in four years, I was back at Agape for Sunday service.
I cry because I remember that my purpose on earth in this lifetime has nothing to do with anything I choose, do or desire from a human/personality perspective. I cry because my only purpose is to serve the highest purpose and my only choice is to stand for God.
I cry because that memory and knowingness touch the deepest places within me.
I cry because nothing else matters but that.
The God in that lyric isn't some external force, directing (or not) planetary affairs from a heavenly throne. At least, that's not my take on the unknowable, ineffable energy we call God, Source, Great Spirit, the Universe, Higher Self or the Divine.
In my ever-maturing philosophy, God is part of me and I, part of it. God is the Kingdom of Heaven that already exists, whole, within me, the New Jerusalem I am being called to exemplify and embody. God is what I am growing into, even as I am already it. God Is.
All fine words that cannot even begin to touch the truth. For God, as I've written here before, is a word created by humans to name that which we cannot understand. In some Jewish traditions, in fact, the name of God is never to be spoken and any representation of it is replaced with the Hebrew word Hashem, The Name.
"I am that I am" is another recognition that the infinite cannot be named.
It's likely that by the time we do understand what God is, we'll no longer need a name for it. We'll simply and fully be it.
In the meantime, though, God is as go(o)d a name as any.
Frankly, so is Fred. That's what I call the all-inclusive divinity when I need to remind myself not to take God — and, thus, myself — too seriously.
So often, we take God, metaphysics and spirituality so earnestly. We do it even though the forces of love and creation that best exemplify God are neither stern nor serious, but innately playful. We do it even though the divine call is toward light in all its manifestations and meanings. How we can soar with the angels if we're weighted down with the ballast of our own seriousness?
Although that seriousness is suggested in Rickie's lyric — "all that I must do" — I like to think she's not referring to a direct commandment from God that must be obeyed. Rather, I interpret "must" as meaning the only choice possible for me to make in a given circumstance.
Often, over the course of my two years on the road, someone will commend my courage for having followed the call to live this way. Even as I accept the kudos, I always point to the hero who dashes into a burning building to save a life. In the moment of action, there was no choice. There was simply an imperative, a call, to do what must be done.
We're fond, in metaphysical circles, of describing this as a free will universe. And that's true. In theory. In practice, there really is no free will.
Yes, I can make any choice, change any course of action, opt for any preferred outcome. Yet once I commit to making the highest possible choice in each moment, my free will dissolves. In its place is surrender to the only possible choice: the choice for God...or Fred.
Free will is a human concept, tied to the personality or ego self.
Surrender, on the other hand, says to the highest part of me, "Use me." It says, "Thy will, not mine, be done."
It asks in every moment, "How can I live the highest expression of God? How can God best live as me? What is the choice for God?"
I could have chosen not to hit the road two years ago in the wake of a marriage breakup. I could have exercised my human free will to make a different decision, to stay in the same town as my daughter, for example.
Yet I knew from that place of knowingness within me where God/Fred resides that the only choice was to leave. And from my place of commitment to the highest choice, the choice for God, there was no other choice.
So, if the only choice is the God choice, where does that leave manifestation and reality creation?
Do we truly create our own reality?
Can we truly manifest anything we desire?
Yes.
And yes.
But...
What do you choose to create and where do you choose to create from?
From the place of human will or divine will?
From a place of limitation or boundlessness?
From what you think you want or from highest desire of your highest self?
From your human mind or the mind of God?
The human mind and imagination are limited by what they have seen or experienced, by what they believe to be possible. The divine mind is the home of infinite possibility and unlimited potential, the seat of all creation.
When we base our choices on known options, on what we think is possible, we limit ourselves to a universe only slightly larger than the box we claim we're trying to break out of. When we remove the blinders that block our peripheral vision (where so much other-dimensional magic is visible), our horizons expand into the infinite.
Had I limited my life choices to what I thought I wanted — to what I believed to be possible — I wouldn't be creating art or using my voice as a tool for healing and accelerated growth. Nor would I have written a novel and screenplay.
As I didn't, at a human level, know I wanted any of those things, I wouldn't have sought to manifest them. They wouldn't have been part of my created reality.
But God knew. And God sent out a call.
At the Agape service on Sunday, Rev. Michael Beckwith offered a new take on Jesus's statement in Matthew that "many are called but few are chosen."
"Many are called," he said, "but few choose to answer the call."
To that, I add that all are called, but few choose to be open enough to hear it, let alone answer it.
The call is God's call, the call of divine will, the call of the infinite, the call of the most high in you.
We're so busy creating the reality we think we want, manifesting the life we believe we desire, we're often not present for the call.
The call is always one of surrender to divine will. The call is always one of surrender to the highest expression of highest purpose.
The call is often a surprise.
Our immediate response to the call is nearly always shock, often resistance.
In one of her books of memoirs, author Madeleine L'Engle (whose birthday, coincidentally, was yesterday), describes how all the great Old Testament prophets, when they heard God's call, exclaimed, "You want me to do what!?"
In just about every case, the call offers us an opportunity to expand beyond the known, beyond the possible, beyond the stars...beyond what we think we want or desire.
Our human will, choice and desire rarely stretch us to the extent that their divine counterparts do.
Our human will, choice and desire rarely invite us to experience the fullness of our power and infinite nature, rarely challenge us to live as large and play as big in the world as their divine counterparts do in every moment.
That's right, the call comes in every moment. We don't always hear it in our mind, but it is always speaking to our heart.
It doesn't matter whether you hear it in this moment. All that matters is that you be present for it...that you be present for the possibility of a reality greater than the one you think you want...that you be present for a life greater than any you would think to manifest.
All that matters is that you say Yes! to the call, without having to know what it is, what it means or where it will take you.
That's your primary choice: the choice to say Yes! to the call.
Your next choice, once a direction (however fuzzy) presents itself, is to say Yes! once again.
Each Yes! offers you another piece of the divine jigsaw puzzle. Each Yes! sketches out the next step. Each Yes! frees God to work out the details.
The saying "God is in the details" doesn't mean you have to figure out the details in order to fully answer the call. It means once you say Yes! to that call, the details will reveal themselves to you.
A moment will come when a clearer outline of the call will emerge. Without prejudging what it means or what it will look like, we then say Yes! to that.
In my New Earth Chronicles blog on Sunday, I posted an entry about feeling called to make my home in the L.A. area [Not Safe. Not Comfortable. But Right].
"You want me to do what!?" I exclaimed.
Then I said yes.
Then, with the help of a friend, I realized that my yes, on its own, wasn't enough. From there, I had to choose it.
That's where choice comes in. I choose, not what feels safe or comfortable. I choose, not what seems like a good idea. I choose the divine idea, the emanation of the call.
My response to the call doesn't end there.
Once I've said yes and made a conscious choice, it's up to me to claim it.
That's where manifestation and reality creation come in. By claiming it, I call it into realization on this plane.
I don't need to make it happen. All I need to do is continue to claim it and, leaving the details to God, await the next call in its creation and realization.
That doesn't mean doing nothing. It means acting in response to God, not in place of God.
I can't know the full meaning of the call to L.A. I can't know the timing of its realization or whether it will realize in the way I anticipate.
All I can do is say yes to the call, claim what I can see and allow God to do God's work.
All I can do is choose God, as God has chosen me.
Photo: Sunset on Sedona by Mark David Gerson
To help you connect with your call and with the new directions it represents, I have created The Wisdom-Keeper Training: The Way of the New Medicine Wheel.
_______________________________________________
The Way of the New Medicine Wheel
Unlike the traditional medicine wheel, with its fixed directions and sequence, the New Medicine Wheel has neither. Rather, it’s a series of initiations that invites you to surrender to your highest direction, a direction that may, in this moment, lie beyond the bounds of your imagination.
Whether or not you see it in this moment, that new direction is there...in the infinite realm of your limitless potential, in the limitless sweep of your infinite possibility.
The Wisdom-Keeper Training will both awaken you to those new directions and activate them fully in your life, propelling you forward on a life-altering, life-enhancing path of increased joy and empowerment.
As you work with the tools and initiations that comprise The Wisdom-Keeper Training, all the knowingness that already exists within you will bubble up to conscious awareness. You will not only hear the call, you will begin to know how to chart the new course in your life and how to implement it.
Your Aha! may be instantly self-evident and traceable to your Wisdom-Keeper Training. Or it may appear more subtly, through chance encounters and other synchronicities, through a gradually dawning awareness, or through a life-altering experience that propels you forward on a new path.
In any and all cases, your responsibility is to trust the new direction birthing invisibly within you — as you trust the seed planted deep in the unseeable soil. It’s also to surrender to the new direction as it unfolds in, through and for you and to honor and free the awakening imperative within you.
Adapted from the Introduction to "The Wisdom-Keeper Training: The Way of the New Medicine Wheel
The Wisdom-Keeper Training: The Way of the New Medicine Wheel is a self-directed multimedia program designed to awaken, chart and activate new directions in your life.
The Wisdom-Keeper Training binder includes:
• A 50-page Inspirational Study Guide
• 7 Wisdom-Keeper Initiations
• 4 Compact Discs, with nearly 4 hrs of meditation, sound activation & guided visualization
• Wisdom-Keeper/New Medicine Wheel Cards
_______________________________________________
Free Teleconference
12:12 — Gateway to God
• Tues., Dec. 12
— 9:12p.m. ET
Registration limited!
