Home is not afar off~ it is inside of us. We think it is in a place, instead it is a presence. We think it is a long distance from us and we must arrive at "it"~` instead we are the "it" of the home. We are center of the hearth, the center of the heart. Our love relationship with our self is the same love that we have for our God and for our neighbor. In fact, every relationship we have with anyone else is only a reflection of the relationship we are having with our self. Walk through the threshold of your true and authentic self and meet and love yourself, just as God knows and loves you. Be grateful for the choices you can make in your life...your little laboratory. You possess the cottage and garden of your life. You can decorate it with any choice of décor you want. You can change the setting and mood by just making some attitude changes. The cottage is within you~ not the outside of you. Care little about the outside changes and let the inside change the outside. The lilies are beautiful and they are cared for with the same love as we are.

Set your house, your cottage on the unchanging rock-like foundation. Set it on the unchanging principles you want to BECOME. In other words, from the inside, set your life on becoming a man or woman of principles. A person of character, integrity, love and honesty and total acceptance of yourself. Honor yourself with love. Keep your word to yourself.

Then the outside will have the natural affect you desire~~ a flow from the inner changes. You will be the principal of your life, when your life is ordered by principles. ~ your life will have order because YOU have BECOME the person OF ORDER and PRIORITY is being given to the right kingdom. Seek FIRST the kingdom WITHIN and then these other things will be added to you. There is a correct order of priority and the kingdom within is the hardest one to give priority to. It demands the greatest honesty about our self and the easiest person to deceive is our self. Like a river whose currents flow naturally and effortlessly to the ocean., so the changes will flow from the inside to the outside effortlessly if we are honest about the changes necessary and the acceptance of our flaws and deficiencies. After all, God knows our weaknesses and it is us who needs to be more loving of our weaknesses. Our weaknesses become our strengths when we embrace them with truth and acceptance and turn to our God for His insight. Self discipline will become the least of the tools necessary to change yourself. You will have little need of disciplining the person you have grown to love and become. It will be a natural fruit of the spirit of love~~ self discipline. If you build your life on things that cannot change then you can change your life.

Your identity will be intact when the kingdom within is the one you are seeking. Your true identity is in that place and not the world of shifting form and matter. You will give the rooms of your interior home the attention it needs. Instead of just a face lift, you will be giving your life a foundation that will be able to withstand other’s rejection, and your own judgment. Love will be the foundation and acceptance will be the signposts for your own personal growth.

Discovery of the Life Within

The alarm never rang...the emotional alarm, that is. The one that I used to be able to depend on to tell me of approaching danger. I was now giving my heart away, without keeping any reserve of love for myself. I was letting my heart believe what I was hearing and abandoning all logic for this one chance at love. Like a well written resume of one's life...this was the way I wanted my life to always read...like a living testament! Written from the inside-out.

It was just as the spirit of God had told me last year: He said, "You will meet someone that will complete every vacant and hollow place in you. It will be easy to recognize this person you will meet, because it will be as though you are looking into a mirror. You will see the best of yourself and know the places in your life that you have compromised before." I thought he meant I would meet the love of my life and I never dreamed it would come in the form of unconditional love and acceptance of myself.

Until then, love had always been an illusion in my life. I had not found it in my family, and my disillusionment with love had caused me to hide under an unyielding crust that I had formed over my heart. It was a shelter of survival that I had learned at a young age, and it served to shade me from the sweltering truth that I was lonely and hollow inside. But I was also holding myself captive in a prison cell of my own making. Now I was letting this crust break for the one person that I would trust to come into this prison cell of my life and set me free. Like a guard letting myself out of my own prison, I agreed to let love come in and set me free. Free to love myself because of Love that sought me out. Out to freedom.

I could let the defense mechanisms go and the protective ways that I had learned. At first they were in place because the pain was too great to bear. But, the protective ways also restricted the love that could be given and received freely. I began to realize that only as life and love are free, are they truly gifts. Otherwise, it is only a loan, and somehow, payment would be expected in return. There would be an obligation and a debt to be paid back. But, for the first time, this was Love that was free that was beckoning to me. No obligation and no pay back. It was a risk , but the risk looked worth the cost.

I was looking into myself for the first time, and seeing a person looking back at me. This person knew all about me, and yet understood all the fears and pains that calloused my heart. It was truly this person inside of me that was the best of me and that understood all the compromises I had made for the chance at love and acceptance. I was loving the person I was intended to be all along. By loving the One who made the treasure, I was automatically loving the treasure…me. No resistance from me, and no restrictions or conditions on my part. I was the love of my life because, for the first time, I was loving myself freely.

"Don’t Shelter the Illusion…Shatter It"

August 6, 2002 EARTH SCHOOL~ Joseph’s and ours. God’s use of this life as training for the inner life.~ "Don’t Shelter the Illusion...Shatter It"

We use our mind, in all it’s fallen condition, to fit God into our logical and reasonable design. His ways aren’t our ways, or His thoughts our thoughts…but that doesn’t matter. We diminish Him down to our size until He is understandable. We’ve carved out a definition of God that is contrary to who he really is. We are not comfortable with trusting Him without trying to understand Him. We aren’t comfortable with the mystery of why a God takes a man and puts him in prison, and has his family sell him because of their own issues, and all the while, God is using it for training purposes in another realm. Training for the day he is set free in the real kingdom he has been trained to reign in. God used even the darkness to train the man.  Even that darkness is under God's rule. But when the training was over and all that was intended for evil was now being turned for his good…the kingdom within was becoming the kingdom without. The kingdom of God penetrates our realm..~ then, the fully-trained man of God steps out of the shadows and takes possession of the Kingdom He was to rule and reign in. His heart’s desire was now his destiny. His God had not wasted a single day in the training process. It was right on schedule as planned.  

Joseph must have had to give up the need to understand the "why" of it all. He had no answer. He had to trust. That is always the test of life. When our dreams don’t pan out…when time seems to pass without a tangible and visible ‘marker" of God’s Hand on us…we have only one escape we can take...SURRENDER to the Higher Trust. God is out to shatter our illusions of this false front of life called living. He wants us to be pushed, by life’s pain and dis-illusionment, into the other invisible but MORE REAL kingdom within each of us. He wants to shatter our illusions about this one so we will gain sight into the unseen one within us.

We get indignant when God is trying to show us not to trust the world to give us our identity. We get mad when we think God is taking from us all our dreams and visions, but really, He is doing just what He intended...showing us the false foundations under our feet and when He said He will shake what can he shaken…it’s us. If we can be shaken by our trust in man and the world to tell us who we are…then He has accomplished His purpose!! ~~ to dis-illusion us....separate us from the lie...the darkness.

But our ego is insulted because we think this world, where we have made our investment, should return something to us. No, God is using your investments here to gain the eternal weight of glory He has waiting for all of us…like Joseph. We think, during the process of our on-the-job training, while we are still sleeping in a prison cell, that God takes His sure slow time and shows up at the last minute just in time for a grand rescue. But the final day in the prison is just as much training as the first day in the palace.

Use this outward life to train the inward life and truth of the inner man. Let character kill the false made ego, let truth shatter the illusion of ego, let the false security of possessions and power of money shatter the illusion of control. It can all fall in a second...suddenly. Put your time and energy where moth can't rot it, and rust can’t ruin it. You are in the kingdom of darkness for the training of the kingdom of light. The conformity is taking place in the darkness, just as a baby in the womb's darkness is still being formed. when our true identity is lived from (the birth takes place) God in us...then you effortlessly become the life you always tried to make for yourself.  It is now WHO YOU HAVE BECOME. That is the secret to abiding when the adversity of this life comes and tests us. The test is to prove us…prove to us, what is still needing to be learned about US. Not to judge our self, not to condemn or make better strategies…Extract the learning from life, no passing or failure…only learning. Can you learn without judging yourself and stopping the process of growth by your own judgment? That is wisdom from above. Be objective and detached enough to learn without judging. Seeing the log in your own eye without judging the size of the log! Just sight to see it. We judge the sliver in our brother’s eye but don’t you see you are one with him in this regard? Your lessons could be his training as well, if you could tell him of your log without judging his sliver. Translate all your life into learning experiences. This is Earth School. NO JUDGMENT…JUST LEARNING ABOUT OURSELVES. Learn to rule your life~ whether it is life in a prison or life in a palace. Neither change who you are. Joseph was in training to rule his own life before he could rule anyone else’s. His rule was the within kingdom until it became the outward kingdom. He was already reigning while in prison. That is the test…can you value the within character forming life when nothing on the outward seems to match our dreams and visions we have entrusted God with. God so values us meeting ourselves, even our shadow, that He customizes each life to fit our meeting the true and authentic and whole person we are…whole person...both the shadow and the light.

We are in relationship with our self FIRST…out of that relationship issues all the rest...both with God and with man. God is ruthless in this regard…He wants life to shatter even the illusion we have of ourselves...until at last, we are truthful with ourselves and can still love and accept our self...whole people walking the earth...as Joseph learned...to rule and master yourself while still in a prison so the day you are called to reign in a palace, you will have been fully trained for that day.

Janis on Business

Property management might very well be called people management. The bottom line to any profit is people. It is a fine line between the finesse of working with people and the hard line of the dollar profit. People are the most valuable asset the any property has. Everyone from the vendors, to the residents, to the maintenance staff, to the management team is affected by the ability to pull together for one purpose. The skillful manager must have an ability, much like a coach's ability, to make a team bend to the one shared purpose: winning the game. Each person drawing from their own reserve of personal satisfaction and pride to accomplish the one goal: profiting from their combined efforts.

Everyone has built into them a personal reserve of satisfaction and pride. When they have achieved a goal together, as a team, this reserve will take them further than any position offered or title given. It can never be equated to the dollar amount of a paycheck...it is enough to know the true winnings were the personal and combined goals that were attained. The best manager is the one who can see the potential in each person and give them the individual honor and respect for their contribution... even if it is the water boy on the team. Skilled managers can see the needs of the property and be able to filter those needs and goals through the effective management of their staff, through which every goal will need to pass through. People are the goalposts to any "touchdown!"

The foundation of any business is built from the bottom up...not the top down. The bottom will push the top up if the bottom is built well. The easiest flaw businesses make is to give higher regard to those in the highest positions. But, in truth, there are no higher/lower positions. We all make a combined contribution of our part to the greater whole. It is much like synergy that energies the whole machinery. Giving honor to the least employee gives honor to the top without any words spoken. It is an unspoken statement of honor to a business that can value their least profitable employee. Making an employee feel sure and secure about themselves so they can feel safe to make mistakes, but secure in your allegiance to stand beside them while they are still learning.

Since the monetary results have to pass through the well-oiled operation of people, then the machine needs to be run with as little effort and maximum results still achieved. If you can't run the machine well ...maybe it's because you don't know how the workings of the machine are made to operate...with dignity, respect and honor, from the least to the greatest. A skilled manager can attain the profits without wearing down the people by prodding and shoving. Instead, he learns to lead with encouragement that generates profit both monetarily and personally.