"Tell Me How GREAT I Am"

It's 11:30 pm on a Sunday night and my husband and I are driving home from a tornado of stimuli from a weekend in New York City with all three boys, 8, 6 and 2. The word that comes to mind is BLEARY. I am achy, drained, and my brain feels like mush. We stare at the straight away of the dark Connecticut highway like a couple of drones. I feel defeated by the huge amount of activity we chose to take on this weekend. I am done.
My husband yawns. I take that to mean "Keep me awake or we all die." So I start talking. That's our thing. He drives, I talk to keep him awake. I ask him if I can tell him about the Alexander McQueen exhibit I went to and saw on my own while he stayed with the boys and played in Central Park. I tell him all about the fascinating juxtapositions he used in his high fashion...tiny gold beads that drip like honey over a horse hair skirt, shiny silver metal in the shape of a jawbone for jewelry, shredded chiffon, gilded gold duck feather, elm wood prosthetic legs, red jeweled encrusted bodice with hundreds of layers of tulle...
"Enough enough! Ok I can't stand it anymore." he finally groans.
I am stunned. But I was just getting started. This is Fascinating! How can he stop me???
"But I thought you wanted me to keep you awake? " I ask, trying to hide the hurt from squeaking out.
"Yeah, but I want you to talk about something that I want to hear about. Like how great I am. Tell me how great I am." He is not joking.
I burp up a "Ha" without thinking. Then I hold the rest of the full throttle laughter in because I get the vulnerability it takes to ask for acknowledgement. This is what he wants right now. My head is groaning..."Oh God, I have to think about HIM?? I just want to think about ME and what I think is interesting! I don't want to tell him how great he is! What a whiner! I thought women were the ones that were supposed to need attention??? Oh Man..."
And I get could listen to the feminist committee complaining in my head or I could fullfill on my husbands request. I take a deep breath.
Ok. Let's play the game " How GREAT You Are!!!"

"First of all", I begin from the beginning somewhat slowly, "You are SO Great because you carried a fifty pound backpack for hours Saturday so that the boys wouldn't have to carry a thing. And when you weren't carrying the back pack you were carrying Bronson so I wouldn't have to. You are SO GREAT. Secondly, you are so Great because you listened to my friend and I chatting away like a couple of hens for hours and you were totally ok with the whirlwind of a day we had planned at the museum. Thirdly.."
I walked through the weekend like I was reviewing a video. I looked for all the moments he was GREAT and saw everything he was committed to, to making the trip easy for us, to all of is having fun, to feeding and taking care of us, to taking our boys for bathrooms runs seventeen times a day... and it became more and more fun to revel in my husband's GREATNESS. Soon I felt nothing but love, lightness and joy for him and our triumphant weekend. I didn't want to stop. I kept going. I found ways he was great even when we had a breakdown on Sunday and I was spitting fire at him. He was so great for wanting the boys and I to be taken care of...his way. His commitment to us is never ending.
Soon I was at the end of our day, up to the very moment and I found myself acknowledging him for even asking to be acknowledged for being Great, because it really got me present to everything being so perfect. Instead of listening to the tape in my head that often points our what we coulda , shoulda, woulda done, I was present to the glory of the adventure we created in the face of lots of things not going the way we planned.

Then my husband played " How GREAT You Are" with me. And I teared up from his acknowledgments. He saw ways that I was great even when I thought he hated me. He saw all the planning, he turned my worries into my love, he even transformed my snapping at him and grumpiness into commitment to having our adventure go the way we said it would go for the boys. He saw my resistance to take care of myself as a commitment to our kids and then acknowledges how GREAT I was for seeing tat I needed to take care of myself and at one point in the trip, just going back to the room for a rest. He turned my breakdowns into breakthroughs and I love him to the marrow in his bones for that. I would die for him. I would do anything for him. Including talk about how GREAT he is ON DEMAND.
I also can't wait to play this game with my kids. We all just need to be acknowledged sometimes. Asking for it isn't wimpy or whiner-ish. It's GREAT.
It turns our day or event or trip into a adventure that we will never forget, and not because of what we coula, woulda, shoulda done but because of what we did do, that was GREAT exactly the way it was.

Zen Honeycutt

Dodging the Bullet

Young women in their early twenties can seem from the unattached observer,like a different species. This female species are colorful, fashionable and eclectically accessorized. With a blase flair, they combine frills, scarves, ruffles, rhinestones on tee shirts and slouchy tops that barely pass as dresses. They sit laguidly at coffee tables, legs crossed, hair flipped to one side, as if life is a vacation and boredom is stretching on like an eternal yawn.... to the casual observer...

I have been honored and privileged to know two young women very well over the past two years. I have seen their species up close. I have ben given a secret pass to their inner lives. They have, in turn, shown me strength, energy and authenticity that the casual observer would not be privy to see. They have supported me in my endeavors, things that should matter not to them...listening to hours of aggravation with managing husband, house and a handful of boys and actual help with boogery children, time to pay mountains of bills, mundane doctors appointment and obligatory household chores.

Christine has been our live in Nanny and assistant for over a year. She was 24 when she started with us, saving money for travel, not sure about her direction or purpose in life, resisting finishing school and happy to have a free place to live that wasn't home. She was fun, sweet and warm... happily dodging creating her life.

Over the course of the year, I was amazed by her generousity, caring for our children while I worked a few hours a day. She gave her complete attention, engaged, present, loving and patient. She was firm too, guiding the children and taking no guff. I am not sure she ever got what a contribution she was to us, how much she matters. She never replaces or usurped me, but supported me fully, transforming the peace and organization of our home.
Over the year, after her travels and confidence built, she transformed her life. She lives on her own now, in a multi renter house with a garden, has a fulltime job and takes four classes in college and also takes a leadeership course two times a week. She is creating being a Holistic Doctor, contributing to others. She is blossoming. Life is no longer boring. She is causing her life.

Anisa was my 24 year old "Buddy" from a leadership program that we both took over two and half years ago. She is stunningly unique, beautiful, and sublimely cool. We called each other three to five times a week, sharing a miracle that occured in our life, and creating what we are causing, who we are being and what we are taking on, and holding eachother to account for that. These calls, and her listening and coaching transformed my life, by having me be accountable to actually do what I said I would.
When we met she was fiercely determined but not admittedly not committed. She was creative and creating her life, but was left wondering why it never happened for her. She was the kind of person you see and think they have it all together, looks, brains and cool factor, but for some reason was disgruntled with life and stuck in quicksand. She was creating her life, but dodging causing it.

Over the two years I was honored to be able to hear her share about confronting herself and what was stopping her, which she soon figured out was simply herself. She took on what it really takes to be a responsible adult. She created getting certain jobs, and she did. She didn't like them, so she left with integrity. She got into struggles from living with her parents and I got to hear what that was really like for her. I got to hear her complete those reoccurring conversations with her parents with responsibility. She shared how she loved and let go of a great young man and is still great friends with him. I got to see her grow, like young sapling into a lush tree before my very eyes. She has moved to San Franciso now, creating AND causing for herself, freedom, grace, ease and being a radiant woman. She is.

Before she left she shared with me that she went to Apple to get her iphone replaced. She had dropped it in the toilet. Instead of going and whining to the customer service rep abot it like a teenager, she took responsibility like an adult. She told him straight up what happened, accepted the responsibility of having to pay a full five hundred dollars to replace it and then just got related to the service rep while he took care of routine paper work. She was curiuos about HIM, and they talked, connecting ( not flirting,just being related ) and creating a great experience together instead of the drudgery a repetitious service act can be. Soon he was finding a way to waive the five hundred dollars, with her even asking for it...and she was beaming radiantly.

" I dodged the bullet Big Time " she said to me. And in that moment I got something.

" Yes, you did. But it wasn't like you dodged the bullet luckily, like a survivor reflex, without thinking about it. This was dodging the bullet like a James Bond girl, or like MATRIX. You didn't strategize it, but you dodged it from who you are being, totally present with him and creating. There is a huge difference"

That kind of dodging the bullet comes with mastery, taking on responsibility and causing one's life fully. There is nothing laguid or lucky about that. That is the transformation from teen to woman.
I will not have a daughter but being allowed the access to these two young women's worlds has touched me and has me be complete with that, beyond what I ever could have imagined. I have been a part of the cycle of woman hood, creating together.
Thank you wonderful ladies.

Zen Honeycutt

Instant Rage

It's Sunday late morning and rather than sitting peacefully at church like most families in southern Orange County I just flew into a rage.
My toddler ran screaming after me down the hallway as I went to fix something for lunch and it occurred to me that my husband is doing nothing and POOF! Instant rage.
I start yelling about how We Need To Eat ( I wonder would they all just starve if I didn't cook?? I am so annoyed by my husband's lack of initiative around meal times. Totally annoyed) and WHY did he throw all the leftovers into one bowl??? The rice, chicken and brussles sprouts are all a mixed up mushy mess and the kids will NEVER eat them this way. I am irate with my husband. How hard is it to separate the leftovers???

Then Bronson is pulling on my legs and whining some more. I have had it with him too. At two and a half and still nursing I am over my threshold for tolerance. Sometimes it is perfect and fine, a bonding moment in the middle of the night...but now, when I am trying to make lunch, it's just downright annoying. I need to have a life, to not be tugged at, to care for myself and to have some moments of quiet time when I am not being demanded of, whined at, pulled at, crawled on, boogered on, talked back to, tattled to, pleaded to for food, screamed at for attention and actually hit by my toddler when he is mad. Enough is enough!
I holler at my husband for not thinking about Bronson's needs. He is two year old, who has been sitting around all morning with his brothers,awake for nearly five hours now, and simply watching TV, or watching his brothers play DS games or playing XBox is insane. A two year does not have the attention span or interest in those activities like an eight or six year old. So out of total boredom he comes whining after me for some sort of attention and to latch on like a tick on a dog. I have had it.
Plus how much is enough? Is ANYONE monitoring the amount of time the children spend in front of theses electronic boxes? Even though I bought a timer??? Obviously NOT! Obviously I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING!!!!

Pretty soon I am slamming pots on the stove, resentfully cooking this mush of a leftover lunch, grabbing a bowl for myself and heading to the office to eat alone because I can't stand the thought of sitting and digesting food in front of my husband.I eat with a clenched stomach. I hate to admit the mushy mess actually tastes better than my original dish. Damn him. My shame at my rage is setting in and I continue to hide from him and my children and myself. Except I am still with myself. When I sit dowm to write something inspiring about parenting, I feel like a total fraud. I want to blame him now for my lack of ability to write authentically. Not very Zen.

Or actually, exactly Zen...the identity I mean, not the philosophy. I do this. This is what I do. I don't plan my Sunday, or I do but then I am not aware of it or I don't communicate it with my husband with real times and simple requests like " Sweetie, Please take the boys to the park by ten AM". No... and I lay around, watch mindless TV, have breakfast in bed because my husband is cool like that ( see he did do something...) and let my son nurse whenever he wants because he is so ridiculously attached...but until I am just sore and irritated.

Then, when it suddenly seems like we should all be doing something different, suddenly, like one second it's fine to be playing video games and the next second it's been waaaaay too long...suddenly, because that switch has been flicked by Judge Zen in my brain, the sentencing ensues. The gavel comes down and everyone is condemned to a session of yelling, accusing, demanding, commanding, threats and punishments. I exert my control and everyone pays. And I am justified because I ( Capital of capital I's) DO EVERYTHING. And I am overwhelmed and deserve to blow off steam.
It's horrendous. It's a miracle I am still married. It's a miracle my kids love me anyway.

Why share this? Why write out my very un-Zen like ways of parenting that are definitely not inspiring? One, I am committed to being authentic. Two, I am guessing one or two others do this. Someone might relate. Three, I get out of my system, I work it out and get clarity when I share, and get to create something new.
I don't want to be this way and yet in the moment I see no other way to be. I don't think about it, words are just launching themselves out of my mouth like fighter jets, angrily attacking anyone with earshot.
The magic comes when I do think about it and get present, when I face my part of it. When I can see the pattern and see what is missing that I can put in to have our Sundays afternoons work.

Like.... a plan and a specific time for when the boys go to the park or pool with Daddy. Or food prepared ahead of time and a simple request for my husband to reheat it at a certain time. Asking nicely might help. Putting one of the boys in charge of setting the timer for their video game playing might be a start. Setting rules like our friends where they earn a minute of video game playing for every minute of another activity like playing piano, reading or making art. Or how about I actually stick to my own schedule for writing, making art or girl time? I haven't been to the gym or made art in months.

All this requires that I ( that's another Capital of Capital I's) be responsible...which is exactly what I was raging at my husband for not doing and exactly what I wasn't doing either.
So sorry Sweetie. Please stay married to me. I love you and the kids so much.

Zen Honeycutt
www.zenspurplegarden.com

Giving Up or Choosing

Ben has a sad face. He walks towards the car and it gets sadder and longer the closer he gets. He is holding it in and by the time he gets seated and buckled in the dam breaks.
"Oh Mom, it was a terrible day!"
I ask him why, truly concerned. he hasn't had a terrible day in months.
" Today the teacher showed Lydia's art, Lydia's my best friend and she's a good artist, but Ms.Cline showed her art and not mine and she showed the whole class and she's a better artist that I am!!!"
Big crocodile tears are rolling and plopping onto his sweatshirt.
"I used to be the best artist and now I'm not and the teacher never shows my art so I'm not going to be an artist anymore!!!'
It's decisive. He is killing off his artistic expression. "The word decide is from the family pesticide, homicide, insecticide," (to quote leaders from Landmark, a breakthrough personal training and development program),"it kills off something in your life. It is very different from a choice, which is to choose freely after consideration."
Ben was killing something off in his life. It was very difficult for me not to make that wrong, to make him wrong. But I knew making him wrong about that would just have him hold onto his new decision with more vigor than ever before. I just needed to be with it.
"Wow, you are really sad." I said, running my hand over his shiny hair. " Yeah." he said and went onto describe in further detail how he is going to stop making art and instead just spend time with his family. Compassionate, but still limiting. Okay.

I listened while driving until he was completely emptied out, then I pulled the car over.
"Ben can I tell you a story?" He nodded.
"When I was a girl, I took a dance class with my sister Chi. Jazz. We had black outfits with fringe on the arms, we practiced for three months. Then we had a dance recital. Chi was shorter so she was in the front row. I was taller so I was in the back. I was nervous. I really wanted to do it right. At the end of the dance our father came up and said " Wow, Chi what a nice big smile you had, you look like you really enjoyed it!" Then he looked at me and said " Zen, where was your smile?"
In that moment I made up that Chi was a better dancer than I was, that dance was " her thing" and I shouldn't dance. So I didn't. For a long time. I missed out on alot of fun.
Then, when I lived on my own in New York City, I met your Daddy and we took dance lessons together, had a lot of fun and fell in love. I took a chance by dancing again. If I hadn't taken that chance then Daddy and I wouldn't have gotten married and you wouldn't be alive today."
Ben said " Well, that's what I am going to do then, not do art for a long time."
I told him that the point was that I could have been having fun all those years and dancing anyway, it doesn't matter about anyone else. He can do whatever he wants, and he can always change his mind and do art again, today even, either way it's his choice...
He soon, sighed, nodded his head, changed his mind and said he chose to do art again.

As we walked into our home he sighed and said " Thanks for telling me that story Mom, You know, parents are useful. They have been kids and they know stuff." I felt so touched by his simple wisdom and acknowledgement. Oh Thank God, I thought, my child does listen a little bit and does learn a little bit from my experience.

The next day, he came home, beaming, that his teacher had shown his art at the front of the class, shining, happy and still best friends with Lydia. He said he learned from what she did and the whole class learned from what he did. That's my boy!

Zen Honeycutt
www.zenspurplegarden.com

"Just" a Mom

On Mother's Day I find it fitting to come out. As "Just" a Mom.
Yeah, Yeah. I know the connotation is one of condenscention. "Just" as if that is all there is, there is something better and I am "just" sitting in a lounge chair by the pool watching my kids lay on floaties, reading books like little angels,or like there is nothing else that I could be doing, I am good for nothing except being a mom, I am put out, tired, overwhelmed, so that's allI can handle... "Just" like people should feel sorry for me or something.

My ego wants to scream out...but I am not JUST a Mom! I have been a Mompreneur for almost six years, creating a gorgeous product line and company called "Zen's Purple Garden"!
I am a writer too, a wife and I am a trained artist and designer...

Yes. All past experiences. All things I did in the past that need not define my future. Every moment I have a choice. Every moment. I am choosing to be presnt with my kids.
Just because two people are married doens't mean the person has to come home to you at night, and you don't have to be there waiting for them. Every day is a choice, every moment is a choice.
So often I choose to do two or three things at once, be a Mompreneur of a company, start a Non Profit, raise two children, be pregnant and create a Green Earth Festival. SUPER Mom it. Somewhere in there my kids and husband hope for the crumbs of me that are left over.

We Moms do that, we multi task on some many levels that we forget where we started, what our intention was, or where we put our keys and then wonder why we are exhausted at three in the afternoon. We don't leave any room to JUST be a Mom.
To focus, to be present, to be a Mom and only a Mom, is such an empowering place to come from, such a generous gift to give our children, I choose JUST being a Mom and I am excited by the possibilities of what we are going to create.
Yes, I will continue to do Zen's Purple Garden when it works for our family, and eventually, when I cause completion with integrity, I will stop. I don't have a feeling of sorrow or failure about that. I am choosing a new focus.
I will continue to write as my creative self expression, and when I DO those things I will JUST do those things. And my writing is in complete alignment with my being a Mom, in fact my Just being a Mom inspires and feeds my writing. I may home school, which will be tremendously inspiring for us and my book. It's all one.

AND who I am being when I do those things and everything else, when I am listening to my child, helping them with their homework, reading to them, and yes occasionally, sitting by the pool...I am JUST a Mom. It is a distinctive shift. It's a big deal. I am not resisting what's happening and thinking that my time would be much better used doing some errand or selling or marketing. I am present, lit up with aliveness, inspired by their energy and love for the world,choosing them, being their Mom, listening, empowering, creating the life of our dreams even when it's not going the way we wanted it to, as Just a Mom, I am creating them to have the power and self expresssion to behave in a way that has them be proud of who they are in the face of any circumstance.

I am JUST their for them, wholly and completely, moment to moment. I am making a singular and complete choice. Empowering. Just. A. Mom.
There is freedom in choosing a singular focus. In fact a Buddhist monk said "The purpose of meditation is not to empty the mind, for nothingness, but a steadfastness of a singular focus."

Zen Honeycutt
www.zenspurplegarden.com

The Best Mother's Day Gift EVER

It's Mother's Day tomorrow.
I won't lie. The day is rife with expectations. In my good moments I am just at peace and grateful, loving my kids and husband and I am so glad they are alive.

Most of the time however, the Expectation Monster is clawing at my brain.
I deserve a FABULOUS Mother's day Gosh Darn it!
When my two sons spit, scream and yell, accusing each other of killing gold fish and threatening to kill any future pets, at the Dinner Table, oh Man!, I deserve a gold star the size of the house.

When I run six errands in a day, wipe toxic poo off a squirmy, resistant, butt two to three times a day, and then make meals for five, all without anyone getting sick or injured, oh Man! I deserve a spa vacation.

When I find rotten apples under the car seat, along with stinky socks, someone's lost R2D2 Lego and the missing library book, for God's Sake, I at least deserve a THANK YOU or a pretty diamond bracelet.

When my two year old bangs his metal sippy cup up and down on the coach and then WHACK nails my knee cap with it, oh MAN! I deserve a marching band!

And if you are a Mom, Don't YOU???

The thing is, that I get the reality is that I am probably going to get a handmade card, maybe one with yarn twisted into flowers or hearts that turn into butterflies. I might get little wooden bird houses that Daddy bought at Michael's Crafts and sat with the boys while I was grocery shopping and carefully instructed them how and where to paint it...until they started doing whatever they wanted and he said, what the heck, Go For it! and they did...
What I will probably get is Daddy making breakfast and the boys maybe helping him with the juice cup or a flower on the tray. What I will probably get is Daddy thinking about what would look pretty on the plate for me and the boys adding their extra special touch, all filing in together, all giving me kisses, all in their underwear, fuzzy messy hair, smiling their early morning puffy faced smiles.

What I will get is Daddy thinking like a Mommy for the day, taking care of all the little details,the dishes, the napkins and boys cooperating, and the boys thinking about what will make Mommy happy. More than any diamond or marching band, that will be the best gift of all, because when my husband GETS what attention to detail it takes, what fore planning, what patience and generosity it takes to Be a MOM, then I feel gotten, appreciated and loved.
And when my boys smile their smiles to make me happy, my heart rejoices in the gift they are to me, the best gift ever.

Happy Mother's day to you and your Mother. May your expectations go on vacation and you be present and peaceful with the people who love you so.

Zen Honeycutt
www.zenspurplegarden.com

To the Rapture

Is Osama Bin Laden in his rapture? 72 virgins and all that?
As I wake up today to the news that this long hunted enemy of democracy is dead I feel both relief, triumph and darkness at the same time. I do not feel joy. I cannot rejoice in the death of a human life. I can rejoice in perserverance, a stand for freedom and for our brave soliders. But still, killing has taken place.
I wonder though, in the name of Allah, if it was all worth it to Osama and his followers, if his death now actually has him in peace, in his heaven as his religion tells him. In his point of view, he died fighting in the name of his God.

We have visited many places of worship, Buddhist, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, and in the past two weeks we have taken our children to two religious events where God, Heaven and afterlife have been of much discussion. Not sure how much my children absorbed while they ran around a park at an evangelical service on Easter morning and the minister spoke of Jesus being alive...or last night while they ran in and out of the Hare Krishna Temple in Laguna Beach and saw the devotees chanting, jumping and dancing...but the exposure was fascinating and important to me. It's important to me that my children are exposed to different ways to pray, to be devoted, to feel the rapture of divine connection, here on earth. The differences are vast and enchanting and a crucial part of being a compassionate and vital human being. There is something to my very core that opposes one way, even my way. That's why I try to remain open. There is no one way to get to heaven I believe. Really. Who says? Only us. Only the God that WE say is important, ( nobody makes God mean something to us but us) so in the end, only we say there is one way.
So standing in Adventure, Love and Learning, our family explores those ways.
At the Chapel service on Easter morning in a gorgeous San Juan Capistrano park, we are touched by the community, the welcoming, the attentiveness to children, fun and generosity. What a wonderful gathering of people devoted to the freedom of every person through choosing to believe that Jesus died for us and he is resurrected. I was moved to tears by the people who bravely chose to stand up and go to the front to chose Jesus Christ as their personal savior. I could relate deeply to the choosing of a new life, of being free from past "sins" (a loaded word for me, I detest the make wrong in it...we are simply human and do things that don't work, that's all) and choosing a pathway which has them assured a place in heaven and most importantly, freedom from worry and concern about that here on earth. I rejoice in their choice. I love their courage and connectedness to others. As they drape their arms around each other at the front of the stage, I cry tears of relatedness and relief for them. We all want to be free. They are free.

At the Hare Krishna Temple, sitting on a smooth, cool tile floor, I was fascinated by the presentation of the hundreds or thousands of temples around the world, curious about the words when the chanting began and soothed by the slow movement that began to ripple across the colorful crowd in the incensed temple. I swayed with them, gazing at the sensual blue figures of goddess and gods, manifested from Hare Krishna, a figure much like the Dali Lama who reincarnates over and over again. My eyes feasted on the apples, bananas, oranges and strawberries that decorated the stage, windowsills and alter, like sprinkles in this sacred temple. The woman wore bright saris, dresses, skirts and glowed with femininity. The men mostly wore white, varied between shaved heads or shaggy long hair, and they stood proud, men radiating power, strength and a steadfastness. The groups shifted and I noticed the men were mostly on the left and women mostly on the right. The women swayed, began taking dance steps and the men beat harder on the drums, chanting louder and louder. As the pace progress, hands were raised, smiles beamed across the room, women grasped hands or touched each others shoulders with tenderness and grace. The chanting grew louder, the steps moved faster and the energy built up, a palpable buzz swirling with intoxicating exotic incense and devoted rapture. I felt a stirring and then a wave of emotion, the energy of the room washed over me and I believe I flushed, I felt encompassed and swept up by the devotion and what they call cosmic energy in the room. They chanting and drum beats were so fast they overlapped each other, faster faster faster.My sons held their hands over their ears and needed to leave. I stayed and swayed, smiling with the women, admiring the all-out fever and jumping in the mens side. My heart swelled with admiration that human beings spend time to unabashedly, freely and completely devote themselves to something larger, something unseen, something completely of faith. People want to feel love and devotion. These devotees do.

They will all go to Heaven I believe, and most importantly, through their devotion I believe they are creating Heaven here on earth now. I believe my family will too, no matter our faith, because it's what we believe. Just as Osama, despite his unimaginable acts of violence, because HE believes he was a devoted servant of his God, is in his souls expression of rapture. I want to believe he is in Hell for what he did, but that's where the darkness sets in. I choose the light. He believed what he believed and he has what he believed.
As we continue to explore spirtuality, religion and faith, we are creating our own Heaven on earth. It is Heaven on earth to me to Learn together, to go on Adventures and be fascinated by other human beings, to be enveloped in Love and another's welcoming hands. Heaven.
Thank you to our hosts.
Someday, perhaps, we will choose a "home" for our expression of spiritual connection and host others the way we have been received. We continue the exploration.

Zen Honeycutt
www.zenspurplegarden.com