Good Morning and welcome to Dr Ing’s Sunday Soul Connection.

As always, I applaud you for taking the next 45 minutes out of your busy Sunday as we consciously come together to link hearts and minds across the airwaves to deepen in our connection and communion with the ground of being God in us as us.

This morning I want to share a little about my friend who I mentioned before, collapsed the day after we had lunch, and now she's in the hospice and her journey to be at peace. I have always felt open and believed that peace is the thing that we are most seeking.

People can have all the money in the world, have all the possessions they could want and have the abundance most people are longing for; but without peace in your mind, in your heart and your soul, all these things mean nothing and the quote that I shared yesterday by Thomas Merton, who said “we are not at peace with our with others because we are not at peace with ourselves. And we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.” Those words are so true and so deep and meaningful if we dissect it and break it down.

True peace comes from our connection and communion with the Source of All that is, God in us as us. It doesn't matter whether we name it, call it label it God or Intelligence or Life-force. It is that something that is greater than us, that we need to be at one with.
Some people achieve that while they're still getting on with life, and some people attain that as they reach toward the end of their life.

I have visited her several times now and on one occasion, she said to me, “Ingrid, I am experiencing such peace. I don't know where it's coming from; but I feel such a calm, such a peace that I've never felt before.”

I was thrilled to hear that. Because for me, as I said at the outset, peace is so important to have especially at the near end of our days. It is one of the things that’s most important to cultivate whilst we are still living life.

We’ve spent countless hours talking. She shared with me how she has sorted everything that she wanted to do and that she had left a legacy for her grandchildren for their education which was important to her.

But I started to think about what is it that gives us a peace, what brings us peace, and what can help us cultivate peace? As I thought about it, I saw that she too had taken the necessary steps to have peace in her final day and she has managed to reconcile with her family that she hadn't spoken with in a considerable amount of time.

The mother when she had passed, had kind of divided them prior to that; and then as with sometimes when there is an inheritance, money kind of blinkers and blind people to what's important and so they fell out over that. It is when we can forgive those who have wronged us and be reconciled with them I believe is one of the most if not the most important stepping stone for being at peace.

I always say if Jesus on the cross could say “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” what is it that someone can do to us that we can say is unforgivable.

I have friends who will not forgive people who have hurt them or wronged them. They feel that the the thing done against them is too too severe to let them off by forgiving them. But as I constantly reiterate, forgiveness is not for them. It's for you. It severs that cord that connects you to them or that hurtful incident or that situation or experience.

Every time you think of them you think of that and the pain, the hurt, the disappointment, that despair or whatever it is, arises over and over again. To forgive them is to set yourself free, to reconcile with them for me doesn't mean you're going to get back and be bosom pals or be buddy buddy.

But for me personally, to be reconciled with them is to reconcile with them in my heart. If I see them, I can say hello. I can inquire about them and their well being and I can have a small conversation. I'm not trying to turn back the clock and be what it used to be prior to whatever the offence or the hurt or the whatever.

I'm reconciled with them in my heart so that I don't have any grievance against them. That I don't hold them somehow accountable for whatever happened, that pain that wounded me and by that I mean I'm no longer blaming them.

I always loved the quote that is attributed to Buddha who says “that pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.” When we hold on to un-forgiveness, when we hold on to wanting to punish whoever whatever they did to us, we are the ones that are suffering. We are the ones that are prolonging our pain, our hurts and our disappointment; because as Rubin Carter says ‘just as you gain reconciliation from your enemies, but you can only gain peace for yourself.’

We gain peace when we are reconciled and have forgiven and we don't need to be on our deathbed to do so.

She asked me on my last visit What did I think happened to the body and the soul when it died? For those of you that know me well enough know that my belief is that we come from God and return to God that is the great Ocean of Life, that Infinite Consciousness of which we are but a speck of.

We are clothed and housed in this organic form called a body and as all organic forms do, it will ultimately break down so the life that we were loaned will be given back to the lender. So there's nothing for me to fear in that.

There's nothing for me to be concerned or disturbed about. It's okay we don't need to have all the answers about what happens after death.

Every one of us might have a different belief. But it's important that we not be afraid to think about it, to contemplate it and accept we don't know. Steve Jobs says that “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

As I have shared on numerous, numerous, numerous Sunday that we should all die before we die. That is to die to the things that hold us down hold us back, the limiting thoughts, the negative beliefs, the erroneous ideas we hold about ourselves about life about living. Those are the things that should die so that we truly live and embrace the life we've been blessed with; that we have been given.

We should look to fulfil the purpose for which we are here and when I speak of purpose, I'm not talking about any particular grandiose way of being. As I say often we are not here to be the next Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa. But we are here to be the best version of who we are, in whatever shape or way or form that looks like.

Each and every one of us has a different way, a different meaning, a different purpose; and there is no contention or comparison as to whose purpose is bigger, better, larger, smaller, or lesser.

We are here to express from that Divine Source that Ocean of Life, Infinite Consciousness that is in all, through all. We are to give it its full expression and not dumbed down.

I caught myself this week. I had gone to collect my glasses and get my new glasses adjusted in this shop in Camden. And whilst in there a fairly well known female black comedian came in, we acknowledged one another and she and her friend continued to look at spectacles etc.

Then she engaged me and said I looked familiar. I said I know of you but I've not seen you before; then her friend said Oh, are you a singer? I laugh and I said if I was a singer you'd be running out of the store right now. But then I never said what I was. I never acknowledged who and what I was about. After I left that door, I questioned myself. Why did I not say I was a minister Why did I not talk about what I do? What I'm about? Or say about my Sunday Soul Connection? it's something that kept popping into my head. Why why why?

After all, this is my purpose. This is my reason for being. Why did I not say… I was speaking with my friend and in Costa Rica yesterday, we were talking about how things from our childhood are still impacting us well into our adulthood. As I'm sharing with her, the fact that I never spoke to what I am or what I do; it suddenly came to me because my mother was someone who liked to brag and boast about herself and her accomplishments. I who always want to be the opposite of anything that I considered a negative of my mother, have gone the other way.

I don't speak about who I am. I don't speak to what I do. I don't speak to what I've accomplished or achieved. As I'm sharing this morning with you about fulfilling our purpose, about living our purpose in whatever way shape or form that is. It has occurred to me that sometimes we don't acknowledge whatever it is that we do that is our purpose that we do.

Playing small and dumbing down and in doing so, we are doing God a disservice .Whenever our time comes, let our legal be one that we can be proud of. That we fulfilled whatever it was that we were meant to do on this journey, this expedition called life and living.

We're not taking anything with us when we leave, as the saying goes “ there are no pockets in a shroud”. We come into this world and we leave this world the same way. So as I said, we spent many hours talking and she's given me her iPad to show me pictures of past holidays and trips they've done and pictures of the grandchildren. She expressed the deep deep gratitude for the life she has and the life she had. She has no regrets about leaving. She has lived a good life, she's been blessed and loved by the many people that care for her and that have visited her and for that she so grateful, grateful grateful. Grateful. Charles Dickens says “reflect upon present blessings of which every man has many and not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.” I've always loved quote, because all of us are blessed now and all of us have had trials and tribulations in the past. But as I said in the beginning, as I said in the beginning, we have to be reconciled with these things. Forgive them learn our lessons and embody them and move on.

The other thing that I noticed she had come to an acceptance and the letting go of the things that she could no longer influence or affect or change. She had accepted that this is her time and accepted that there are things maybe she's left undone but she was okay with that. I believe we too, have to come to a place of acceptance and letting go.

Acceptance of ‘it is what it is’. You've often heard me share that I let go of what no longer serves me. Let go of the would have, could have, should have; forgive yourself and let that go.

Finally, although she's not a religious person, I believe she has ultimately surrendered to a higher power. I believe each and every one of us here recognise our oneness with that higher power. Even if at all times we don't use it or utilise it or embrace and embody and it is always with us.

Sacred Text

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”- 1 Corinthians 15:54-56

Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.—Romans 14:19

Poem

Life is but a stopping place,
A pause in what's to be,
A resting place along the road,
to sweet eternity.
We all have different journeys,
Different paths along the way,
We all were meant to learn some things,
but never meant to stay...
Our destination is a place,
Far greater than we know.
For some the journey's quicker,
For some the journey's slow.
And when the journey finally ends,
We'll claim a great reward,
And find an everlasting peace,
Together with the Lord.

Story

In London, there's a woman who goes every day on the subway and sits on the dock just to listen to the announcement recorded by her husband in 1950.
Margaret McCollum after the death of her Oswald Laurence, sits on the bench waiting to hear this recording that became one of London's most famous "Mind the gap" (attention the space between the train and the dock). In 2003, Oswald died leaving a huge void in Margaret's heart. So Margaret found a way to feel his presence closest.
But from the day after more than half a century, this voice was replaced by an empty electronic recording. Out of distress Margaret asked this cassette tape to the London subway transport company to continue listening to her husband's voice at home.
But, knowing the moving history, the company decided to restore the announcement in the only stop near the house where the woman lives, specifically at the Embankment stop of Northern Line, where all passengers can listen today Oswald Laurence's voice and to think that eternal love really exists.
Wonderful gesture by the authorities

BODY MEDITATION

Please click here to be taken to the Body Meditation’s page.

MOVEMENT PRAYER 2

Please click here to be taken to my Movement Prayer’s page.

BUDDHIST REFLECTION

Please click here to be taken to my Buddhist Reflection’s page.

RUMINATION

“Peaceful is the one who's not concerned with having more or less.
Unbound by name and fame, he is free from sorrow from the world and mostly from himself.” |
Rumi

Closing Benediction

May the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

Steps to Peace