Why are we here? IN PLAIN ENGLISH! :-)

Well, after sending out a few invitations to family and friends to follow along or join this exploration, I got one note back saying: would you try that again in English, please! All right then, let's approach this at the level of the rabble! Let's return to the question, Why are we here? Yup, that's a biggie. It can be answered in a lot of ways. Individually speaking, we all have particular gifts and talents. We usually know what they are fairly early on. Do you know what yours are, honestly? Can you remember? Are you acting on your gifts, or did you bury them under a rock a long time ago? The moment you become conscious of what your gifts are, is pretty much the ideal moment to start developing them with gusto. It will take time to bring your gifts to maturity. Sometimes we choose to bury our gifts early on. This happens for a number of reasons. Sometimes our gift seems threatening to the people in our lives, or is not appreciated. Say you're a kid with extraordinary sensitivity to the feelings of others. That's a gift that can be deployed in service on a daily basis, in a thousand different ways, in a number of careers and countless life situations. Consequently, you feel a lot of strong feelings around you, and so you cry easily as the emotions of your environment move through you. But maybe such sensitivity is perceived as babyish and is frowned upon. Or perhaps those tears seem to imply a need for comfort (they may not) and a mom or dad overwhelmed with minute to minute tasks simply "doesn't have time for that." You might choose to shut down some of that sensitivity, or come to judge it yourself as a liability rather than a gift, or you may try to build up some sort of emotional or even physical armoring to defend yourself from all the feelings you feel. Well, that's all ok. You may even have shut your gifts off and kept them buried under a "rock" for two/ten/fifty/sixty/seventy years! No biggie! Did you remember what your talents and purpose are today, on your 91st birthday? Let's celebrate, for the time has come to start sharing what you have been given! Yahoo! Today is soon enough to start serving the BIG PICTURE. The past is basically irrellevant, except in so much as in the process of self-mastery the past serves as a course of study, and a subject of introspection. In terms of a judgement hanging over you because of your past, forget about it. The fatted calf is slaughtered the moment you let it be know that you remember where you came from, and what you came for: to serve the source of all. Acting on your talents and gifts is the form of service just right for you, if you were wondering. That's a pretty good reason for being here. Tommorrow, I'd like to comment on talents and gifts a bit more.