Archive for Open heart
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: …” – Paolo Coelho
I find it amazing how often the SAME things come back into our lives for us to work through!
My biggest obstacle has always been fear; and primarily fear of rejection (i.e. what others think of me) and fear of failure. These past couple of years, however, I have overcome all of what I know to be my greatest fears and have thusly felt liberated and vindicated! It kind of blew my mind a little to realize (while meditating yesterday) that sure enough I was allowing those SAME things to sabotage me yet again. How did they manage to creep back into my brain so stealthily?! I am grateful at least that I have gotten to a level where I can identify these harbingers of self-sabotage and work them out to a point of respite and resolution. In this light, here are my words for meditation today:
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“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
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“Something did happen to me somewhere that robbed me of confidence and courage and left me with a fear of discovery and change and a positive dread of everything unknown that may occur.”
– Joseph Heller
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“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
– John Lennon
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- art by Artyom Chebokha
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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
Source: Harbingers of Self-Sabotage
What you water your dreams with
A meditative quote progression … see where it takes you, and feel free to share what you find there: 
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“Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.”
– Lao Tzu
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“There is a power that makes all things new;
It lives and moves in those who know the Self as one.”
– quote from a Gnostic Benediction
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“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime …”
– Khaled Hosseini
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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
Source: What you water your dreams with
The Most Progressive
My words to meditate upon today:
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“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”
– C. S. Lewis
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Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain … accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
– Kahlil Gibran
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Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.
– Voltaire
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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
- art by Luis Velasquez
Greatest Fears or Golden Opportunities
This seemed like a much needed re-post given the times we are living in. I know I found it a helpful reminder:
Sometimes it takes the biggest challenges in life to force us to evolve into the Beings we are meant to become.
When we’re down and out; feelings like we are going to collapse from exhaustion already. Suddenly something else comes from out of the blue … something so dire that it jolts us out of our weariness. It pushes us beyond what we are capable and before we know it … we’re there … we’ve arrived at where God intended us to be all along.
However, we MUST vigilantly be open … vulnerable … in order to perceive God’s guidance. In my meditations today (on my prior post, “Willful Exposure“) I reflect on what it is necessary to be vulnerable. Sometimes we master one aspect of it; say we’ve learned how to not cling to the things we desire … we’ve learned how to let go. Then something else comes along and shows us yet another facet that we have been missing all along; someone berates you and you harden yourself … you push away.
In truth, the state of vulnerability requires a sort of spiritual stasis … one in which we are neither clinging, or pushing away. We don’t react to the inner longings that push us to grasp for what our heart aches for. Nor do we react to the machinations of the outer world … which is full of people desperately trying to cling to what they want.
When you are calm, and still … the cords of reaction that bind you simply slip away and you are then free to ACT. You are free to make decisions based on where you feel God is leading you. When you are in that place you are actually able to hear, and sense, where God is leading you. You also see how completely lost you were for so long before.
But … in order to arrive at that place … you have to be vulnerable in the face of your greatest fears. If you let the opportunity pass you by … you will just be lost in the never ending maze that is Reaction.
Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
Why American Republicans are so angry
I don’t normally get involved in politics in this page, but I have found it impossible not to ruminate on the topic leading up to election day. There has been so much more anger and hostility than I have ever seen in an American election that has given me pause to wonder.
I remember my brother, a staunchly right wing voter, said to me after Barack Obama won his first term,
“This isn’t really a reflection of the majority of America, it is just a reaction to the Bush administration. Next election he will be gone.”
Then, when Obama won a second term, he didn’t make such bold prognostications … but he was still adamant that what Obama represented did NOT represent the majority of Americans. In his view what Republicans really needed to win was a “true conservative”.
I would not put Trump into the category of “true conservative”, however he has whipped up the ultra conservative base like no other candidate I have seen. So, while I don’t think Trump is a “true conservative”, he has motivated the base in a way that I believe was what my brother wanted … someone who motivated the “real majority” to get out and go out and vote.
So here is, in my opinion, why Republicans are spitting mad this year and talking revolt. They are finally starting to realize that they are no longer the majority. They have been the majority for a very long time and it feels like something is being taken from them that they have cherished.
I get that, I can relate with that.
I am a member of one of the minority groups in this country. I can attest that it does not feel good to be disrespected. I acknowledge that it makes the blood boil when you feel like other people are trying to MAKE you fit into a mold that they have cast … when you don’t fit into that mold.
The majority is becoming the minority … and the minorities have largely banded together to make it so.
As much as one side might like to take it out on the other … to have them know what it feels like to be treated in such a manner. This is a mistake … and it is not the behavior of someone with an open heart who is connected to God.
I hope that when this day ends we can actually “go high”, instead of just using it as a catchphrase. I hope that this country can focus on Love, compassion, understanding and, yes, compromise.
It is no easy thing for them … just as it has been no easy thing for those of us who have been minorities all along. We all still will be living together.
God is Love … measure all of your actions against that measuring stick … is how you are conducting yourself the embodiment of Love? Surrender, let go of the ego … and Love.
That is how I plan to move forward.
Peace and Love.
Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
The Untethered Soul (meaningful excerpts) …
A wonderful looking back on a transformative period in my life!
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2012
During the past year I have had the good fortune to read an extremely meaningful and fortuitous book, “The Untethered Soul” … fortuitous in terms of the timing of when and how it came to me. It is one of a handful of books, over the course of my life, to have drastically altered me. Lately I’ve been re-reading it, while doing cardio at the gym, by opening it up to whatever page wants to present itself to me. I found the following excerpts to be powerful (yet again):
“Life is surrounding you with people and situations that stimulate your growth. You don’t have to decide who’s right or wrong. You don’t have to worry about other people’s issues. You only have to be willing to open your heart in the face of anything and everything, and permit the purification process to take place …
The stuff that holds you down periodically rears its head. When it does, let it go. You simply permit the pain to come up into your heart and pass through. If you do that, it will pass. If you are sincerely seeking truth, you’ll let go every time. This is the beginning and end of the entire path – you surrender yourself to the process of emptying yourself …
Getting involved in the darkness does not dispel darkness; it feeds it. Don’t even turn toward it. If you see disturbed energies within you, it’s okay. Don’t think that you don’t have blockages left to release. Just sit in the seat of awareness and never leave. No matter what goes on below you, open your heart and let it go. Your heart will become purified, and you will never know another fall …
Always let go as soon as you’re aware that you didn’t. Don’t waste your time; use the energy to go up. You are a great being who has been given a tremendous opportunity to explore beyond yourself …
So don’t fall. Let go. No matter what it is, let it go …
That which is holding you down can become a powerful force that raises you up.
You just have to be willing to take the ascent.”
Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
Source: The Untethered Soul (meaningful excerpts) …
A Self-Authoring Experiment
This past year I have been engaged in an experiment. I have re-entered the world of classical music after having spent several years of my own meditations as well as taking part in an intensive personal development group.
One of the primary things I learned in this period of time is that WE are the authors of our own reality. Every day, every hour, every minute and second … we author the world around us based on the programming we have received over the course of our lives.
What we’ve been taught from birth. Traumatic experiences that have shaped us. The families we were born into … etc. etc. These are the filters for how we view the world … and thus how we create our personal reality.
But you don’t HAVE to let this be your reality. You can learn how to go within and bring resolution and peace to those inner conflicts and burdens that so shape your current existence. You can be your own author of whatever story you choose.
So, I re-entered the world of music with a very specific promise. I was going to take whatever opportunities presented themselves to me, and do my absolute best with each one. No worrying about the future or fear of rejection to sabotage me … just staying in the present and doing my best with what unfolds.
In order to do this I basically had to let go of results. I let go of worrying about success or what others would think of me so that I could simply focus on keeping my heart open and doing the best that I know how to do. As long as I do those two things … I am a success!
The results have been fairly mind-blowing. By the time a year is up (still several months away) from having made this promise I will have performed roles in seven operas … that’s more than I’ve ever done in one year.
Even still, there is fear and anxiety … what happens after this year? What if nothing else comes along and I’m right back to ground zero? What if opera is not the world for me as I once feared and wondered? What if, what if??
Sometimes I get lost in those “what ifs” … but all that developmental and meditative work I have done has shown me that all I have to do is stop, open my heart back up again and continue doing the best I know how.
Whatever the result of all that is … doesn’t matter. Happiness and contentment are a result of living life in such a manner, as opposed to the outcomes I achieve.
My results don’t define me, the manner in which I choose to author my life does … and I choose to be an open-hearted conduit of Love. Wherever that takes me, I am happy to go.
Peace and Love
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- pic by MarlouJ
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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
The Elusiveness Of Being Happy
There really is no one else out there … not one person … who will be the answer to your personal happiness.
Your personal happiness must come from you first … and then from there you can find someone to share that happiness and Love with. It doesn’t work the other way around and yet for millions of people in this world THAT is how they go about trying to attain happiness.
You can make a family and then strive for success, you can strive for success and then make a family when that comes along, you can follow your own personal dreams and just take what’s given to you … or any other prescribed formula. If you don’t have happiness within you already … none of those ventures will succeed in bringing happiness to you.
Ultimately, all of these knee jerk reactions toward trying to engineer life into our own personal happiness machine … will simply fail, and you will be left empty, unhappy, and back down at the ground zero of trying to figure out what next venture will be the answer.
The answer is waiting for you … but you won’t find it out there. The only place you will find it; the “answer”, happiness, inner peace, the meaning of life, oneness with God, whatever anyone wants to call it … is by taking the time to go within yourself.
Take the time to work through all of the chaotic crap storm that your inner self has become. You must discover and endure what may very well seem like a soul-rending, inner apocalypse … and come out the other side having learned to keep your heart open through all of it. To do that you have to consciously make yourself be still … meditate, pray, communicate with your Creator, and allow what comes up internally to be … just allow it, accept it, work through it with an open heart, and let it go.
When you have learned to never close your heart, to never shut that inner part of you down, no matter what? Then you will move forward into a new life, and you will discover that happiness simply comes as a result of being open … all the time. Allowing God to flow into and out of you … a constant conduit.
When your heart is open, you really can’t give anything but Love … anything other than Love will close your heart down, even if it is just for a split second. If you judge someone else, your heart closes. If you lie, that door slams shut. Anger stacks up like bricks of an oven; encasing you inside of your closed-off, roasting inferno of a heart. All of these things, and many more, must be worked through, broken down, and released to get to that wide-open expanse of a field that is Love.
It takes time, and along that road there will be times that you revert to your old ways … you close your heart, but as long as you are aware of it … you can just open it again. It’s that easy … or at least, it becomes that easy. It’s harder than any imagined Hades to get to that point … but it is SO worth it … because then? You get to spend the rest of your life being centered in Happiness and Love. Your exterior life simply becomes a series of tests for you to overcome in terms of keeping your heart open … and as long as you do, you will be happy.
That is Heaven. That is Valhalla, Nirvana, and Enlightenment all rolled into one. When you leave this shell of a body? That is what you will be left with … either Heaven or Hell … they are simply the state of your soul sans body; the state of your relationship with God … and thus we really do have Heaven and Hell right here on Earth … it’s called your life, and how you have chosen to live it.
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– pic by photon tamer.
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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
re-blogged from “The Elusiveness Of Being Happy“
A Gracious Receiver
My words to meditate upon today:
“Should not the giver be thankful that the receiver received? Is not giving a need? Is not receiving, mercy?”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
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“If you wish for light, be ready to receive light.”
– Rumi
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“Whatever we are waiting for – peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance – it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.”
– Sarah Ban Breathnach
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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
Religion4All 
