The Undiscovered Country

The Undiscovered Country (1-20-2002)

Dr. Michael Thomas

There are many blessings in life. One of the greatest blessings I have known is to have a partner to walk with through life. I heard a pastor speak to a newly wedded couple on the television the other day. He told them, “From this day forward, your problems will not weigh as heavily upon you because you will have someone to shoulder them with you.” I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but I really appreciate and agree with the sentiment.

I have had the honor of over nineteen years of marriage with the former Bonnie Jean Holland. The comfort and trust that I have shared with her is unknown to me outside of our relationship. I have other friends in this life, but none that have the depth, breadth, and width of this one. Through thick and thin (and there has been plenty of thin…), the young woman I took to be my wife has grown with me and stood by me, through tests and trials: financial, emotional, physical, mental…all the multitude of ways that life grabs hold of you and shakes.

Its complicated having a real abiding love in these days. We are all so very busy. We scurry here and there all day and often into the night. Life pushes on us so strongly that it is hard to hold on to someone else. At least it is hard to hold on for the whole ride….It seems like a lot of folks have been able to hold together for a few years here and there, but many seem to lose their grip on what it was that created the bond in the first place. Sometimes people grow up and realize their reasons for marriage were based on unsound foundations. Fear can make us do a lot of things, but it is rarely the foundation for a good marriage. Ambitions shift and change. People wake up to the fact they are acting out dynamics that belong to their parents. There are a million reasons why marriages fail.

I only know of one reason that marriages succeed. The word that describes this reason has, however, been grossly overused. In fact, I hesitate to blurt it out because a lot of people will probably go, -“oh that!” Words are only descriptors and when a word becomes popular, it’s meaning becomes diluted. If the word was equal to it’s meaning, you would immediately see with new eyes. Your entire world would be transformed and a secret light would shine in every cell of your body.

Instead, something else has happened in our world today. We have so many words that represent so many different things that the impact of words has become blunted. So many incredibly powerful words have been taken and used in ways that trivialize the reality that they represent. Our magazines and books and televisions and theater screens make such stunning use of words that they almost seem to overshadow the very things they represent. The media world almost seems more real than our own. Deeper connections get papered over in a veneer of surface appearance. So we have become ‘sophisticated’. Very little really touches us. Of course, if we just let open the floodgates of the world, we could never take in the resulting tidal wave of information, and we would quickly drown in it. So many words, and in the end, they cancel each other out.

Okay, so it’s not really a secret. The reason marriage works is that both partners have given themselves to the other – in love. This word ‘love’ is so overused as to make it almost meaningless in today’s parlance. People ‘love’ pudding and their new car. They ‘love’ to hit the jackpot and they “love’ to shop. This is not what I am talking about.

You may have read that God is Love. This is closer to what I am trying to express. Love created the whole universe and holds it together. Atoms and galaxies both rely on Love to function. You won’t read this in your science texts but you can read it in your own hearts.

I knew Bonnie for a year or so only as a coworker and friend. Sometimes I think that is why we have been able to make this work for us. We have always been friends. I decided to marry her one evening when I was talking with her in her home. I suddenly, in one moment, knew without a doubt, that I could trust her. We had been talking about something or other, I’ve long since forgotten what, but in an instant, I felt this warm sense of absolute knowing in my chest. It wasn’t just that I could trust her with money or my car or with any other possession. I simply knew that I could trust her. Period. I won’t deny that this is a rare quality. I don’t think I have ever known anyone else with whom I have felt this way. Nineteen years later, I haven’t changed my mind.

This ‘love’ though, is very mysterious. I thought I knew all about it as a teenager, but each year has helped me to see that I really know very little of love. Each time I learn more, another door opens and I realize the vast immensity of the landscape of Love. God’s love is unconditional. Our reflection of this absolute is less perfect, but love offers us a thread to follow. The path of love leads us directly to God. A marriage is predicated in love, and two become one in the light of this love.

Life is longer than a movie. The happy endings we see in movies are clean and definite. In our real lives, we wake up again the next morning and the only ‘soundtrack’ is the love we let sing in our hearts – or the discord of its lack. No one I know has a really simple and uncomplicated life. Life is messy. It is complicated. It isn’t all ‘mountain-top’ experiences. It’s easy to feel love in your heart when all is well, but an entirely different ‘ball of wax’ to sustain it in troubled times.

When we first marry, we unite together and it seems so easy. This is the honeymoon. Having a partner to walk through life with feels wonderful. As years go by, this union begins to get stretched and pulled. We change as our experiences begin to pull us in different directions. What was once simple and blissful becomes difficult. What once seemed like an advantage can feel like a millstone slowing us down. It is now that love is most important. If love has bound you together, it is possible to weather these storms. Love is giving and forgiving. It is pliable and reliable. In the darkest moments of my own marriage, I would walk the streets at night and ponder what to do. I even asked God to take the love out of my heart if I was supposed to leave. But it never left and even though in those darkest of moments, when I couldn’t understand why, love held us together. Gradually, something new formed. Love created a bond even deeper and stronger than we had ever had before. Another door had opened into a vast expanse of new territory, one I hadn’t even dreamed of.

It takes great courage to pay attention to love. It takes courage to weather the storms of any marriage. The rewards however, for doing so have taken me into a previously undiscovered country, and for that I am eternally grateful. My marriage has taught me more about myself than anything else ever could. We are mirrors for each other, and during those days when we stand ‘on the mountain-top’ with each other, it is glorious. When those times come that we find ourselves huddled down against a heavy wind in a dark valley of trouble, there is no one I would rather have at my side. Each year together brings new subtlety and strength to our relationship. I learn more about what it means to love someone else. I thank God for my life’s companion and I am comforted as I look to the future.

We are God’s eyes and hands in this world. God has truly loved me through Bonnie and I pray that His Love has comforted her through me. Because our marriage was truly founded in love, we have been able to hold together through thick and thin, richer and poorer, in sickness and in health. God’s grace has never let the fire of love in our hearts go out. Together, as we have helped ourselves, we have also found the strength to reach out to others, and in this way, the circle of love continues on and on…and on!

The Sacred Moment

The Sacred Moment
Dr. Michael Thomas

Author’s Note:

This article may not seem much like health-care advice. But I will tell you this: health comes from the word ‘whole’. It’s root meaning is the same as ‘holy’. Wholeness is health. Life is sacred.

What if we simply accepted God’s Love into our hearts?

Right here, right now.

Nothing needs to change, to let it happen, except our own acceptance.
We don’t need to be different than we are in this very moment. We don’t have to join a church or read a book or listen to a sermon. We don’t have to take a journey or climb a mountain. We don’t need to move a muscle. We don’t need to take another breath. The miracle of God’s Love is infinite. It is fully present now. Each and every ‘now’ contains this possibility.

It is our choice to turn away. It has always been our choice to remain separate. Our beliefs build up a wall between us and infinite Love. The terrible loneliness we feel in our dark nights is the cumulative product of many, many decisions to separate ourselves from the loving mercy of God.

We have so many reasons why we cannot simply let go of our separateness. Responsibilities, finances, desires, commitments, urges and the endless chatter of our minds. All conspire to keep us from turning, humbly and without fear, to the Light of God. Most of us seem to have a lifetime of reasons that keep us in the shadows.

But even so, haven’t we known this Peace? Hasn’t there been a moment now and then, when separation falls away? Unexpectedly and yet completely familiar? A deep Comfort and Peace that is timeless even in the instant of its perception? A clarity akin to the first rays of dawn? An intimate connectedness with all that is? It may come in contemplation and prayer. It may come in the vision of a natural landscape. We may see it in the petals of a rose. It may come at work. It may come in the midst of a thousand activities.

It is a gift of grace. A moment of completion. It rarely lasts. Even so, these moments echo through the rest of our lives. They inform the many other moments. After a time, however, these moments begin to be questioned. Did it really happen? Did I really understand? Was it something else? We often find ways to wall these moments of infinity off from the context of our lives. Because these moments overwhelm the puny meanings we have woven together from our experiences. They threaten to devastate the path we have cobbled together for ourselves.

But what if? What if we lived in harmony with these moments of insight? What would our lives be like? What if the deep love of God really informed our actions and words? What if we began to accept the connections that Love engenders? What indeed?

You don’t really need me to write about these moments. In your heart of hearts, you already know the truth of this. Let the Grace of these moments echo through your life and your actions. It doesn’t matter how many times we have turned away from the Light in the past. Turn again and let Love blossom within you.

The Heart Still Calls

The Heart Still Calls
Michael D. Thomas, D.C.

This world we live in can feel more brutal and confusing by the day,
sometimes by the hour! The complexity and intensity of our lives calls
for redoubling our efforts just at the point where, in many of our
lives, we’d really rather lay down and take a nap! Stress from the
conflicts with which we are presented, make our thoughts and feelings
seem like they’re all punctuated with an exclamation point!

Undeniably, the late nineties have brought an intensity to our lives that
is stretching many of us to our limits. Opening the newspaper readily
illustrates an ongoing daily crop of people who, reaching their limits,
snapped. Insane violence by all ages makes us afraid to walk our streets
or even leave our homes. Violence turned inward robs so many of
happiness and peace in their own lives as they become lost in drug and
alchohol addiction. One-pointed concentration on work has gutted our
families and in these days, not even provided us with the security to
keep our jobs let alone have long-term financial security.

It seems obvious now that we can no longer look to our leaders to guide
us. They seem to be as lost (or more so) than most of their
electorate. Ethics and morality do not seem to be most politician’s
strong suit and we begin to wonder where all the role models went. There
is a frightening loss of general meaning floating through our society.
Old answers don’t seem to work anymore and not much makes sense.

The answers to life have not gone away. The deep wisdom needed to guide
us out of the social chaos in which we find ourselves at the end of the
millennium, remains in the same place it has always been, in our hearts.

We have been so proud of our heads. Intellectual advances have rewritten
our sense of the possible several times in this one century. This same
intellectual achievement that has brought us so much has also devastated
our air and land and water, created the ability to annihilate the world in
a nuclear cloud of radioactive dust and given the balance of power to
those who view the world as a market to be plundered.

Our hearts know better. Heart is where we connect to the creative force
of the universe. Heart is where we connect with each other. Heart is
where our deepest wisdom resides. The best part of writing this to you
is that you don’t have to take my word for it. You have your own heart
connection. It may take a bit of courage to let your attention shift
from your head to your heart. This is only fitting, because the word
courage comes from the Latin, “cor”, meaning heart.

Our heads are so very useful for thinking and figuring and analyzing.
They are poor managers however, of perspective in life. Many of us run
our worries through our heads over and over. Each re-running of this
“tape loop” amplifies it a little bit. After days, or weeks, or years,
an issue can overturn the balance of our lives. Once an issue is
analyzed by the head it often calls us to action. The alarm that is
sounded is frequently one of anxiety or fear. If we break the lead on
our pencil, our head is adequate to tell us to go sharpen the pencil. In
this complex world, however, many problems are not so simple to
correct. The fabric of our lives is interwoven with a multitude of
knotty problems, (many with knots inside knots!) not so easy to unravel.
This leaves the issue to continue to circulate in our heads, increasing
our anxiety and fear with each internal replay. Many of us have
forgotten we are calling out for an answer. And, we have forgotten where
our deepest answers reside.

We have forgotten our connection. Somehow the heart has been rejected as
silly, mushy and sentimental, ineffective to help with the problems of
today. I am saying that many of our problems today are the result of
this loss of heart in our society and in our selves; -and that our
answers are always found in our remembering.

We now know through published scientific studies, that five minutes of
negative thinking can result in significantly decreased function of the
immune system for up to six hours. We also know, through other studies,
that heartfelt feelings of care and appreciation can boost immune
function, decrease the stress hormones in our systems (like cortisol and
adrenalin), and produce an amazing increase in DHEA, the “mother of all
hormones” which is directly associated with “aliveness”. Kids have high
levels of DHEA and it tends to statisticallly decline until death. We
don’t have to go buy our “aliveness” in a store. We can instead, learn
how to manage our thoughts and emotions. By learning how to “follow our
heart”, we can begin to perceive the deeper answers that eluded us
before.

Sometimes I hear people say they aren’t quite sure what I mean when I
refer to heart wisdom or they aren’t sure how to listen to their own
heart. Just about every mother and father who has ever held their baby
in their arms and looked into their child’s little face, has felt the
depths and magnitude of love in their hearts and the feeling of
connection between themselves and the tiny soul in their grasp. It
happens unexpectedly when a stranger chooses to care for a moment. It
happens when standing in the evening, watching a glorious sunset. There
can be a stir in the heart when looking at the beauty of a flower.
Anything can trigger our awareness of heart. All we have to do is be
willing to put our attention there.

The risk of heartfelt feeling is the risk of opening our heart to others.
We must feel safe enough to be a little vulnerable. To open to
ourselves, let alone another, requires courage, heart. We have all
probably had our hearts “broken” by another. This pain causes many to
close their hearts to the risk of more pain. Paradoxically, the greatest
pain is caused by living life with a closed heart. Ask yourself if this
is true. This is the most important question of our times and each of us
must live the answer. Must I protect myself from life or can I open to
life’s possibilities? Saying yes to a heartfelt life reveals that
within the vulnerability of submission to love is a strength previously
unimagined. The deeper connection reveals answers that simply aren’t
available when the focus is left in anxiety and fear.

Faith Popcorn is a well-known futurist who writes of coming trends. She
describes two main possibilities for the future, one of gloom and one of
hope. She too, sees difficult times ahead, but the long view must be,
she argues, one of hope. It’s possible that we won’t survive what is
ahead, but if we do, we will have learned how to honor the connection we
have with the earth and with each other. She asks, and I agree,-which
scenerio you want to prepare for? Will you choose to live in the heart,
becoming aware of your connection and interconnectedness? Or will you
choose to live an anxious and fearful life, constantly ruminating on
possible calamity? What kind of life are you choosing to live today?
And what kind of lessons are you giving to your children?

We will never change the problems of our world by retreating into gated,
guarded, exclusive communities. All the guns and security systems in the
world won’t protect us from a heartless world. We know its true because
our very language is crafted from this collective insight. At the heart
of the matter is love. We can turn our self-loathing into love of self.
We can turn our fear of others into a love of our brothers and sisters.
In the words of an old Quaker song, “by turning and turning, we’ll come
round right.”

We all want to feel love in our hearts. All we have to do is to choose
to listen to the still small voice within us. It has never abandoned us,
some of us have just forgotten to listen. Take courage, take heart.
Teach the children.

The Best Stress Management Program in the World

The Best Stress Management Program in the World

Dr. Michael Thomas

To believe in Jesus and the teachings of Jesus is a wonderful thing. As many of us have found however, it is quite another issue to actually live by these teachings. This Jesus was a radical fellow. He actually asked us to live a life devoted to Love and forgiveness and tolerance and non-judgment. This is a bit complicated today. Of course, it was complicated in his day too. The complications don’t arise from the concepts themselves. These ideas are simple and easy to understand. They even resonate within us. It is in the application that people find the complexity. We don’t live in a world that seems to value these ideas. Our world seems much more involved with fear and hatred, prejudice and judgement. At least it does if we have come to our view from the television we watch and the newspapers we read and the talk radio we listen to.

We can’t know God’s plan from paying attention to the media. We find it inside ourselves. The deepest wisdom of the universe is available to us within our own hearts. To hear it however, requires that we stop paying attention to what is around us and listen to the still small voice that has always been present , waiting within us. So many voices compete for our attention in the world. Bright lights, flashy graphics, compelling music, all working to re-define who we are so we will want to buy what they are selling. There was a time when we referred to ourselves collectively as ‘citizens’ but now we are more commonly called ‘consumers’. Many people are questioning whether they work to live or live to work. It is a struggle for many people to just keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

People come to see me for a multitude of problems. In addition to the main complaint is almost always a secondary comment about stress in their lives. “I can’t relax, I’m not made that way.” “I’ve always been like this”. “I don’t even know what relax means!” “My muscles are always tight.” “I’m just a worrier”. These ideas have found fertile soil and have been firmly planted. They also bear fruit. The mind keeps telling its story to itself, over and over, amplifying its impact with each inner re-telling. There are almost always compelling reasons to continue to tell this ‘story’. “I can’t stop worrying because of my spouse, job, child, neighbor, debt, investments, the weather, …”.

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” We are enjoined to first love ourselves. This doesn’t mean to be selfish. Love is not selfish. By loving, forgiving, and tolerating ourselves first, we open up space for Love to grow within us. Once Love has blossomed and taken deep root in our own hearts, then and only then, can its seeds be scattered among those we touch in the world. Only then can we be steady in the face of this confusing world.

And so, for those patients who can hear what I am saying, I talk about the best stress management program in the world. “Trust God”. I tell them. “And,” I remind them, “Remember that the Kingdom of God is within you.” This has very practical application. If God’s wisdom is present, waiting for us to listen within our own hearts, then it isn’t lack of knowledge that troubles us. It is lack of listening. The only Commandment that begins with the word ‘remember’ is the one regarding the Sabbath. Sabbath is a time to go within. Most of us remember not to kill people and to honor our mother and father, but we don’t remember to go within.

I used to find it perplexing that whenever I found myself in a defensive posture I would find much trouble in my life, but when I became open and vulnerable, my troubles would dissolve. After a number of years, I realized that when I was open and vulnerable, I was open to the Love of God. I was ‘plugged’ into the great wisdom that encompasses all of creation. When I became defensive, I closed the door to this wisdom. In defensive mode, I had to rely on my puny self-experience and intelligence. I always found myself out of step with the rhythms around me. ‘A day late and a dollar short’, to recall a phrase.

This same wisdom tells us much about how to take care of this temple we live within. Our minds can talk us into just about anything. Our hearts however, tell no lies. Like any garden, it requires nurturing, watering and weeding. It takes time to learn how to listen. It takes practice to be good at it. Sometimes we try to carry loads that are not ours to carry. We push ahead with our ideas of how it ‘should be’ instead of listening to how it is. The stress of this dissonance is written into our bodies, our minds, and our relationship with Spirit. There is a place of peace and comfort within us. It is an open invitation. Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Tolerate yourself. Stop your harsh self-judgment. If you want the world to change, begin with yourself. Prayer is not just talking to God. It is also listening to the response.

Prayer Angels

Prayer Angels

Dr. Michael Thomas

It was getting on toward the end of the day last Thursday when one older couple came in to the office for a visit. I immediately noticed that the husband was doing much better than he had been. He was watching the activity in the room and aware of me as I walked up. I could see that his ankles were also much smaller than they had been for the last few months. His kidneys had been failing and his diabetes had been difficult to control. Today however, he looked like he had turned a corner for the better.

I saw his wife first and worked with her. Then she stayed as I began to work with her husband. As I was finishing up, his wife said,
“What do you think about his ankles?”
I lifted up his pant legs and touched his ankles. The pedal edema (swelling from fluid retention) that usually left a dimple after my finger pressed into his skin was gone. There was no obvious edema at all. As I looked up at him, he was smiling broadly, a twinkle in his eye.
His wife asked me,
“Do you believe in guardian angels?”
“Sure,” I said, and they both looked at each other.
After a moment, the husband began to speak.
“Last Friday,” he began, “we were driving down 200 when we went past a van that was pulled over on the side of the road. The hood was up and a man was walking down the road toward Sullivan’s Chevrolet.”
His wife took over.
“Normally, we would never stop, but I turned to (her husband) and said, ‘do you think we should turn around and pick him up?”
She related that they did turn around and pick him up and that the gentleman had been very grateful. Sensing that they were church going folks, he asked where they worshipped. They had told him and he said he knew of that church. He said that perhaps he would visit one Sunday. He then began to talk of his miraculous healing through prayer that had occurred when he was almost completely wheelchair bound. Now he walked without even the aid of a cane. At hearing this story, the couple related some of the husband’s infirmities and their fear that his kidneys might soon fail. Immediately their newfound passenger began praying for God’s Grace in this matter. The prayer was long and heartfelt. Arriving at a service station, they let their passenger out. There were warm goodbyes all around. As the fellow walked away, they realized that they didn’t even know his name.

The weekend continued and by Monday morning, they knew something miraculous had occurred. The husband’s mind had cleared and he was nearly his old self again. His hips had completely stopped their chronic ache and he was walking without staggering. Even more amazing, his legs had returned to the shape that they had been before the swelling had squeezed his skin so tight.

As I related earlier, I was seeing them on that Thursday and he was still experiencing the same happy changes. The difference was quite remarkable. Bonnie had even noticed the obviously positive change in him from her desk.

Miracles come in all shapes and sizes. They didn’t just happen in Palestine two thousand years ago. They happened last week in a car traveling down 200. One is happening right now. They happen all the time. They happen to those who ask. They happen to those who can let love and grace permeate their defenses. They happen to those who don’t even know they are possible. Grace occurs because we are, each of us, loved by God, unconditionally.

Churches aren’t just made of lumber and brick, stone and mortar. They are made in a meeting of sincere hearts. Last week, a prayer angel led a congregation of three folks in a rolling service down the asphalt of Highway 200. The service was short and exceedingly blessed. And perhaps, in the midst of a generous act of service, a place was opened for the grace of God to enter and lessen the husband’s suffering. We are, each of us, God’s eyes and hands in this world; and in our acts of service, we are blessed more than we even know. And who knows what angels walk among us?

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a story like this. In fact, I hear them almost every day. Sometimes they happened twenty or thirty or more years ago but the impact they made is still incredibly precious to the person telling the story. Such an event or events, often seem to create a foundation from which a person can build a life of abiding faith in God. Many of us live our lives in the light of our own personal knowledge of God’s grace. Love is always waiting to saturate our actions and spill over onto those we touch.

There are moments when we feel close to God and there are times when we feel far from love; times when all of us feel alone and disconnected. We can’t imagine that miracles could ever touch our own lives. We might even wonder if grace really exists.

This is why they’re called miracles.