Lilly Grace Ke Xiu

Is that not the face of God???????? Lilly Grace Ke Xiu. The bravest person that I have ever known. She is my daughter. She was born in a small rural village in China on January 16, 2007. She was taken to a local clinic the day after her birth and then to an orphanage. She stayed in that orphanage for a little while and was then moved to a foster home where she stayed for a a few months. After she was matched to our family she was taken back to the orphanage to await the arrival of her new family. This all took place in just over ten months. Can you imagine??? She gave up her birth mother, was left on the steps of a clinic & taken to an orphanage. She then got settled there only to move again. I imagine she bonded with her foster family only to be moved back to the orphanage. Then she takes a three hour bus ride and goes to the 26th floor of a building to be handed to two strangers who don't even speak her language. She is taken to a hotel with her new family and lots of other babies with their new families. Over the next two weeks she will ride in several buses, taxis and airplanes until finally she takes a 14 hour flight to the United States and says goodbye to her country, her people, her birth family, her culture and her language. These are more changes in 10 months than many of us will ever see in a lifetime. She is without a doubt the bravest person I have ever met. She is funny and charming. She is spirited and loving. She reachs directly into your heart the minute she looks at you. Her presence is solid and comforting. This picture is of her sleeping this morning. I just can't stop kissing her. I thank God every single day for this privelege. Many people have asked me if I am crazy to want to start over now that my three other children are so much older (13,14 & 17). It does not feel like starting over. It just feels like my precious life. I cannot think of anything I would rather do than shower this baby with love and affection. People often say she is so lucky and I am quick to say that I am the lucky one. Lilly's mother and I have never met and yet she went to great lengths to take this beautiful child to a place where she knew her chance at being adopted to the United States was high. How her heart must ache and how mine aches for her. I wish I could tell her I am taking exquisite care of our daughter. I pray everyday that somewhere in her deepest heart she knows this. There is no way I could love this child anymore than I do. She fills me to overflowing every single day. Thank you God. Thank you Lilly's first Mom.

In deep Gratitude,
Kimberly

A Crocus in Snow

Today was the day. I wait anxiously for this day every winter. The day where I see a crocus coming up in the snow. What courage! What faith! What trust! I think about how I would like to be more like the crocus. Now... before you laugh at me think of this. A crocus does not fret or stew while trying to come up through the icy snow. The crocus does not wonder if spring will really come. The crocus does not worry if the sun will do it's job. There is no struggle, there is no angst just total and complete faith. The crocus comes up through the snow effortlessly, more snow will fall and yet it will still bloom. This amazes me. This demonstrates to me what it looks like to completely surrender and trust God. Everything will be okay. Even if I put myself out there and a storm comes I will still be okay. Yes, I would like to become like a crocus. This image has always been so powerful for me. I remember looking for this sign of spring while waiting for the school bus. I would be doubly excited knowing that winter was loosening it's grip as well as knowing this beautiful sight also meant my birthday was approaching. I love and have always loved my birthday. April 8. Just love the way it sounds. April 8. There was a cartoon called Grape Ape when I was little and I use to think Grape Ape April 8. That always made me smile and still does. April 8 Grape Ape. What can I say..... it doesn't take much to amuse me. I grabbed my camera pretty quickly after waking up this morning. I just had a feeling this would be the day. Sure enough, it was. Moving on to something less exciting but still important I must make a confession on this entry that I am feeling really messed up about not putting up a post every day this past week. I am struggling now with how much to even say about it. As my latest mentor, Bill Harris would say..."let everything that happens be okay." So that is what I am doing. It just is what it is. I will resisit the urge to over analyze myself or shame myself or wonder what others may be thinking of me. I am seeing more and more that a huge part of this journey is for me to explore what it looks like for me to be committed to my creativity no matter what. It is so easy to let so called life keep us from what is truly important to us. I have always been blessed with a high sense of my own mortality. This use to worry me and I use to consider it a curse. I realize now that it is truly a gift to be in tune with the fact that this life does not just go on and on and on. My physical body will change form and my time as Kimberly will be over at some point. When you are aware of this it really helps you to think about your choices. How you spend your time and who you spend it with. What is most important to you day in and day out. I sometimes think of us as each receiving a bag with slips of paper in it on our "birth" day. Each slip representing a day of our lives. No matter what we think of the day we have to give up the slip of paper at the end of the day. We can't just say "this was a bad day I don't want it to count as one of my days". Nope...doesn't work that way. We can certainly go through life in a mediocre way with mediocre jobs, friends, homes and bodies or we can play with this infinite power that we posess. I think it is true what Nelson Mandela said about it being our light we our most afraid of. I say ENOUGH!!!!!!!! Remember the beautiful song we all sang in preschool.... "this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine". We all believed this. There is no 3 year old that doesn't believe in the power of their light. Close your eyes and think back to your little self and feel that feeling knowing that you had a light and you were going to shine it. You were just like the crocus. No doubt, no fear...only trust. Somewhere you had to learn to put out your light because that is just not natural. Make it your mission to find your light and shine it as brightly as you possibly can. Your dreams are waiting for you to make them come true.

Shining my light,
Kimberly

Quote of the Day: "What you are seeking is also seeking you." unknown

The TRUTH

I have not written in the past two days and I would really like to make up some grand excuse that makes it totally acceptable but I have decided to just tell the truth. I have been overwhelmed. VERY overwhelmed. I know I will be okay and I know that all emotion is just energy and can be transmuted in a moment. My ego has been loud and obnoxious for going on 48 hours. It is pretty unbearable yet I am finding a way to bear it because what other choice do I have??? My ego is telling me this idea is dumb and nobody but my friends will ever read it. My ego says I am a bad writer. My egos says now that I haven't written in two days I have ruined the idea. My ego is constantly chattering about some of the bigger concerns of my life right now - my beautiful new home which is under construction and the fear of how I will finish it now that I am a single instead of a couple. The wonder about how the money will show up. I have started a new prosperity workshop with my dear friend Ester Nicholson and have even been feeling ambivalent about that. My ego would be so pleased to keep me on the couch in the fetal position taking small breaks from now and then to eat potato chips and pepsi. Maybe when I started this whole thing I had an attachment to getting noticed or having this blog get a lot of attention. Perhaps my ego in a more sneaky disguise? When the core of the core of the core is that I must only be doing things for God. If I take care of the action God will take care of the attraction. I know better than to get all mixed up in the how but it is one of my ego's favorite questions. How do you think you will do that? How are you going to get the money? How are you going to pay for that? Do you really think anyone cares??? The interrogation goes on........ but then my friend Lisa called in just the right moment and reminded my of the TRUTH. She pushed me to listen to Dr. Beckwith's CD where he describes how we were shot from the mind of God and we must not subscribe to lack, limitation or not enoughness. That we cannot live in the mediocrity. The most important thing I heard was this - "If you are living in a high level of pissosity about your current situation that means you don't plan on changing it." Although I am normally an eye on the prize kind of girl I do sometimes lose sight of my dream. I have definitely allowed my ego to take over the past two days and found myself totally wrapped up in the HOW I am going to accomplish my dreams. I can't seem to visualize or find that place of knowing. I am realizing as I write this that when my focus is on my current circumstances I will create more of the same. I am daunted at times by how diligent we must be with our thinking. It really is a moment to moment process. I totally understand this and believe it and even so I get caught up in the weed patch from time to time. I forget how important it is to love myself. Now that I have had a week to reflect on my visit to the playground I see how important that was and even though the bread bags on my feet is a funny story there was also a profound sadness that I felt for a little girl that lost her chance to play outside many times because she had to get her boots and her mittens just right and that took some time. I see how that has turned into a woman who thinks she has to have every duck in a row before she can go for the joy. I see a woman who wants to postpone every good thing. I see a woman who doesn't want to admit that she has not loved herself enough. A woman who has accepted what she thought she deserved which is not enough. Thus, mirroring back to me that I did not feel like I was enough. Where does this start? When did I decide this and claim this as truth? When did this lie insiduously take up residence in my mind and in my heart? When did the voice start telling me that no matter what I did it would not be good enough??? WHEN??? When did I extinguish my own flame? I notice young girls when I go out in the world. It seems there is a time between 11 and 13 where they go from shiny and alive to sullen and sad. WHY??? Can it be stopped? Where do we slip from pure playing and being in the joy of life to being in competition and comparison with everyone and everything? I don't spend a lot of time these days trying to figure out the why and when of most things but this particular issue takes me right to it. WHY and WHEN do young girls start feeling like they are not enough? When did my little Kimberly self first think maybe I am not okay just the way I am? This makes me weep for myself, my daughters, my mother and every other girl and woman in the world. How can we ever begin to attract all the glory that is our birth right if we don't first start with loving ourselves as is? In the nineties I was definitely caught up in the self improvement trap. Although New Age thinking has led lots of seekers to ancient wisdom there is a part of that movement that carries the potential for addiction to always trying to make ourselves better. I realize that this was bascially sending a strong message to myself that there was so much work to do and I might never get there. I use to see a chirpractor who always would put his hands on my spine and sigh and say "there is so much work to be done, you are carrying so much in here". I know this was a necessary step in my journey but I cringe thinking about it now. Again sending the message that I had a long, long road of self improvement ahead of me. There was this addiction to searching and striving instead of just allowing. I did not know that I was perfect. I did not know that I was entitled to joy because I was born. I thought I had to work and try and suffer and maybe, maybe get glimpes of joy from time to time. I did not know that heaven is right here, right now and all I have to do is stand up and claim it for myself. What a relief. I am beginning to see the utter perfection of myself. One of the most amazing ways I do this is by watching my little girl. She is so divine. She is only 14 months out from coming from the Source, from God. She is PERFECT in every single way. This helps me to see my own perfection at the moment of my incarnation which helps me begin to understand that it still exists. More important than digging deeply into the why and the how of it all is the necessity to begin right now this very moment to fall in love with myself again and again and again. To love me just the way I am. My body, me eyes, my skin, my talents, my heart, my mind - my spirit. All perfect. Every last cell made in the image and likeness of GOD. You too.

Dwell on and in that.
Kimberly

Quote of the Day:
"We ask ourselves Who am I to be brilliant, talented, gorgeous, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?" Marianne Williamson

P.S. Thanks to Lisa for saying YES to the SARK workshop in October 2006 and thank you to SARK for giving me permission to write the TRUTH even if it scares me.

Nala

Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate, Happy Sunday to the rest,

This is Nala. She is just over two years old. I rescued her from the SPCA. She had been adopted for 3 or 4 days and all she did was meow and the people brought her back. When she caught my attention I was pulled to her like a magnet. I did not "need" another pet nor was I in the market for one. I wasn't even visiting the SPCA. I was at the mall Christmas shopping and the shelter had many cats there available for adoption. I was an innocent shopper. Really. She sucked me in with her catly powers. I agreed to hold her. Then another couple came by and said they were interested in her. I handed her right over thinking I would find peace in knowing that she had a good home as you could tell they were animal lovers. This cross eyed, part siamese crazy cat would not have it. She meowed and wiggled and tried to jump out of their arms directly back into mine. Sharlyn was with me so I said "you adopt her" she said "no way, you adopt her" I said "no, you", she said "no, you". We went on like this until she finally said " you know I can' t get another cat right now, and you know we can't put her back in the cage so just fill out the paperwork already". So I did. I brought her home and she has cracked me up ever since. She doesn not meow at all and that makes me think she knew her rightly home and had to do something to get the hell out of that last house. She is like no cat I have ever known and I have been a cat owner and lover since the word go. In fact Nala is the 25th cat I have owned in my life. So I can speak with some authority about what makes a unique cat. The first interesting thing I discovered is that Nala plays fetch. Fetch - like a dog. This is soooo funny. One day I was reading and she jumped up on the bed and dropped a small piece of paper next to me. I ignored her but she kept nudging the paper towards me with her nose. I tossed it trying to make her go away but instead she ran after the paper and brought it back to me. This went on for at least ten minutes and I still laugh everytime she does it. A cat playing fetch is just not something you see every day. She is part siamese so her eyes sometimes cross which is incredibly charming and a adds to her mystique. She is quite seductive and I have come to believe that Nala also has a portal. She is so elegant and dramatic (a bit of a queen actually) that one day I started to picture her slipping into a hidden portal in the wall from time to time. I envisioned her wearing long gloves and always walking on her hind feet while in the portal. She wears a velvet shawl, rhinestone necklace and smokes a long ladie's cigarette. In this portal she has all of our missing items. The mate to my favorite sock, Greg's special legos, Heidi's earrings, fishing lures. You name it she has it. On a regular basis she goes into the portal to count her items. She does this in a manner which is very similar to the Count on Sesame Street. One lego....ah..ah.ahh...two legos...ah...ah...ahh...three legos. She is quite amused with herself in here and she even has a fainting couch. Can you see it?? She plays music from the roaring twenties and when she is sick of that she plays Lucinda Williams. She has a grand piano that she pretends to play and fancies herself a nightclub singer. So when I saw her sitting on my dresser this morning I just knew she had to be what I wrote about today. She was looking quite stately after a long nap on my down comforter soaking up the afternoon sun. She was considering a trip to the portal after her daily chat and meditation with the Buddha. I could just tell. Nala is one of those animals that seems to posess more knowledge than most. She is unique to say the least. When I think back to how she came into my life it reminds me of a very important lesson. When you follow that deep inner knowing it often makes no logical sense. You will probably try to resist it. You will get signs that will make you question what you are doing. It might look crazy at best. This is all usually a sign that we are being led in the RIGHT direction. Strange isn't it? I have found my logic to be of almost no use to me anymore. I miss it sometimes. Nala is a great reminder every single day that doing the craziest thing is very often the exact thing that God wants us to do. How in the world can I imagine life with out the cross eyed, part siamese - part lounge singer who plays fetch?

Trust your crazy ideas,

Kimberly

The Full Moon and Violins

Hi Everyone,
Whoops!!! I was laying down last night waiting for my son to be done with the computer so I could do my daily posting and the next thing I know it is morning! I guess I was tired. Check out the picture of the sun through the trees - isn't that beautiful??????????? I was sitting in my car waiting for my daughter and her friend and captured this stunning image. Just a few hours later the sun was down and the moon was out and full. I LOVE the moon and all of it's phases. I wasn't able to really get a good photo but I am sharing what came out. Having my camera with me all the time has been really nice and because I love visual images so much it keeps my awareness in a heightened state. Last night I went to the new cafe' in my town for some live music - pictures below. The woman who started the cafe' came over for a chat and I congratulated her and asked her how it felt to see her idea become real. Her response was to point out two people who lived in one room apartments without any family. She said they come to the cafe' to feel part of something bigger and that is what made her the happiest. Now that is GOD. She was beaming as she shared this with me and you could truly feel her heart. She then introduced me to another mother with a baby just slightly younger than Lilly. The babies were connecting while I was getting to know her parents. I shared with them a litte about Lilly's history and what was going on in the world with the orphan crisis. She asked me to be the first speaker at a new mother's group she is starting. YES! I sharedwith her the ideas that Sharlyn and I have for doing our part about raising awareness and helping to fund adoptions both domestically and internationally. They both responded with a lot of emotion and energy helping to keep the dream alive. I haven't shared about that yet on this blog but my daughter was born in China and remained an orphan for the first 10 months of her life. You can see a picture of this sleeping angel on this post. She is a blessing in every single way. While raising funds for the journey to adopt her it become very clear to Sharlyn and I that God was calling us in a big way. I have to confess that there have been moments that I don't want to answer the call. It feels so big and I don't know HOW. We have to answer though. We can't wait for a perceived perfect moment in the future. The ego sometimes wants to trick me into thinking - not now, maybe later. You have more important things to do. Are you kidding me??? Something more important than raising awareness about these precious children and inspiring people to do their part? What could be more important than that? As I recently heard Van Jones say "....we can have no throw away children.....". We believe that the orphans are serving an evolutinary role in humanity. We do not pity them as they are some of the strongest spirits alive on the planet today. They still find it in them to smile while going through hunger, despair and a lack of love and safety. They are teaching us so much. We hear a lot of talk about oneness these days, the idea that there are 6 billion manifestations of the same energy on this planet. As we begin to really embody this we start to take more responsibility. We start to see the suffering as something that we are not responsible for but responsible to. Sometimes things seem so big and we think we can't make a difference. I have thought this many times in my life. Global warming, the orphan crisis, Darfur.....all these things are just so BIG. It is easy to think that my actions won't have an impact. This is WRONG. If everyone just did something it would change the world. It really would. People hear world peace and they immediately think it won't ever happen. Well, not so long ago people were talking about an end to slavery and it seemed impossible. It takes a brave group of people to start talking about things that other people may scoff at or tell us that we are dreaming. I heard Marianne Williamson say that social scientists are now saying that it only takes 11% of the population to create profound change. Be in that 11%. So it is our committment to stand in the gap between the orphans of the world and the people who can help them. We look forward to all the ways we can build bridges between the two. Yes, it feels daunting. Sometimes I get scared or confused but I really have no choice. There is nothing in this world that makes me more excited than knowing a child is being loved. The time is right now to recognize these children and to make a stand for them as if they belong to us. Because they do.

Imagine a world where every child is loved and how this would change the world,
Kimberly

Quote of the Day:
We can do no great things - only small things with great love. Mother Teresa

Open Your Eyes

Sedona, Arizona........just do yourself a favor and buy a plane ticket and see it for yourself. I saw it for the first time last year and it truly made me cry. It was just a steady stream of "Oh My God" coming out of my mouth as well as Sharlyn's - my travel partner - we just could not process all of that mind bending beauty. God is most definitely in Sedona. I will be there again three weeks from tomorrow. I am so blessed. This is what I am sharing with you today because my digital camera is having a small problem that I hope to get resolved tomorrow. Since I started this project my car has broken down, my washer stopped working and now my camera. What has occurred to me is that we take so many things for granted. We have so many modern day luxuries in this country. Instead of being frustrated by these inconveniences I have used it as an opportunity to cultivate an even deeper sense of gratitude for all that I do have. It is so easy to look at what we don't have but there is no joy in that. It is okay to have a vision for more in your life, whatever more looks like to you but the ONLY way to get there is through gratitude for what you have now. Right now. This very moment. Look around and just start making the mental list of all that you have. A computer to read this on, clothes on your back, food in your belly and the comfort of knowing you can eat again today and you will not go to bed hungry - the list could go on and on but you see where I am headed. There is so much to be grateful for and we so easily overlook it. My daughter Heidi and I noticed a cemetary this week that we had never seen. It is behind some trees and slightly elevated from the road. I have lived in this place nearly 40 years and my daughter has lived here for 14 and we NEVER, EVER saw this cemetary and we have driven by it many times a week for a long, long, long time. What struck me about this is that we are so busy looking right in front of us that we don't see what is just beyond that. It blows my mind to think that we get so used to seeing things a certain way that we might not even see what is really there. I see this as a sign of two things. One: If you think there is nothing to be grateful for just open your eyes, take another look - you might be missing the obvious and Two: Expand your vision. Look beyond what you can even see with your eyes. Know that just because you can't see it doesn't mean it is not there. So imagine me now driving down the same road I have been down many days a week for my entire life and now I see something that has always been there but I didn't, couldn't or wouldn't see it. I look up and it reminds me that even when we don't think we are seeing God it doesn't mean that God is not there. Open your eyes. God is EVERYWHERE.

Trust that you have everything you need,

Kimberly

Quote of the Day: As powerful as you are....whose day are you going to make today? Mike Dooley

P.S. What are you waiting for? Go book that flight to Sedona. Just do it.

No Words Required

I love words. I love crafting the perfect sentence. I love bringing the reader along with me and making them feel that they are right alongside me. I do find that sometimes in life words actually get in the way. There are times when something is so powerful that words feel inadequate to express all that we are feeling. Today I decided to keep it short and sweet because that is the kind of day it is. I have chosen these images that I have captured at various points over the past year to share with you. Let them sink in, let them tell their own story and pay attention to how you feel. Allow your imagination to create it's own story from what you see.

I would love to hear your thoughts and what these pictures made you feel. Please share with me at whereisgodtoday@gmail.com.

Take time to really see today,

Kimberly

Quote of the Day:

"We must become artists in living. To live by inspiration means to sense the divine touch in everything; to enter into the spirit of things; to enter into the joy of living."

Ernest Holmes

Signs

Easter is in a few days and that reminds me that last year my birthday was on Easter. I had gone on a silent retreat for three days and "emerged" Easter morning for an overnight adventure with my friend Sharlyn whose birthday is just three days before mine. We took what our old therapist use to call an intuitive journey which is where we pack a bag and get in the car with no idea if we will turn right or left when we leave the driveway. That gives me the idea that I should do that during the course of these 40 days and share that adventure with you. But on to today's meanderings on where I found God on a rainy Wednesday in mid March. I have always had a fascination with signs. Old signs especially or hand made ones that say puppies for sale or lemonade 5 cents. For me the signs tell a story. I remember as we began our journey last April 8th I thought it would be cool to take pictures of signs along the way. The photo here is the first sign that I saw. I had to turn around and double check that I had really read what I read. What in the hell does that mean?????? It made me laugh, it puzzled me and it made me really want to meet the person or people who thought that would be a good thing to put on a sign. Is that supposed to make me feel guilty? Are they trying to tell me it is a sin to eat candy? I just can't be sure. Anyway.... it cracks me up to this day everytime I look at this photo. To talk about signs on a deeper or more symbolic level I do think we get signs all the time. Hints of where to go or what to do next. I think we can drive ourselves crazy if we consciously look for them all the time but I think if we set the intention to be mindful then we will just know when a sign is meant for us. It is like when you are at the bookstore wandering around and of course everywhere you look there are books but sometimes a certain book will seem to leap off the shelf as if to say "read me, now!". When a sign is meant for us we know it deep in our gut and we don't have to run it through the intellect. If we are doing too much thinking then we are on the wrong track. I prefer to live and feel my way into right answers. I have learned this the long and hard way.......by thinking things to death. I use to think I could figure things out intellectually and that if I just used my brain power I could come up with the right answer. I definitely used my intellect as a coping mechanism. I am so grateful now to have the realization that God is speaking directly to me and if I am thinking too much I can't hear that. God whispers is what I have come to find out. I would prefer a neon sign with a megaphone but that is never how it has worked for me. God speaks quietly and if we are to hear it we must quiet our minds. We can do this through prayer, meditation, long walks in the woods, sitting in a comfy chair with a hot cup of tea - it doesn't matter how we get quiet it just matters that we make the time. Answers come, solutions to problems seem to appear out of nowhere but they never come when I search for them. When I chase these things with my intellect they allude me. When I get quiet and rest my mind I can hear my intuition. I can hear the whisper. I can hear God. However, just to be clear, I have never, ever seen the Easter Bunny rise from the grave. How about you?
Be aware of the signs,
Kimberly

Quote of the Day:

"Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes."
Etty Hillesum

I Wore Plastic Bread Bags on My Feet

Greetings fellow travelers,
As I was falling asleep last night I was thinking about the importance of being real as I travel through these 40 days. I don't think anyone wants the pollyanna version of my experience. Day two arrived and it did not feel as sparkly as day one. Hmmm........did I want to be this real this quickly? I guess so. I am not currently living in the home or the climate that I would prefer. Most days I am very trusting that this is where I need to be right now and I will move in the perfect time. I have had a tendency to postpone happiness in my life - anyone have that problem? I save the good towels, the good dishes, the new scarf - waiting for some special time. I guess I learned this from my Grandmother who lived through the Depression. When she died we found all kinds of brand new things that she was saving for a special time and then they never got used. Isn't that crazy? It is all special. We should be breaking out the fine China when we have take out or peanut butter and jelly. Every moment we have the joy and privelege to be alive is spectacular and although it is sometimes hard to maintain that high level exuberance in every single moment I do feel that is the ultimate goal. So....back to my living situation....living here even though I have known for sometime that I would be moving has been a huge lesson for me to live in the now. To not fool myself into thinking I will be happier when.... (fill in the blank) or that some moment in the future is going to be more special than this moment I have right now. Some days this is easier than others. Today was a harder day. The cool thing is that even when I don't feel so okay with everything I am still aware that God is present. When I wipe the slate clean in my mind I can begin again. My discouragement or unhappiness is a direct result of thinking things should be different than they are. One of the best remedies for this is to put myself in a different environment. So the baby and my older son Greg and I went for a snack and a trip to church (remember - that is really Barnes and Noble.) We got to spend time with our friend Sharlyn who you will hear about and see pictures of as this journey unfolds. When we left there I heard something tell me to drive home a different way. I found myself in my original hometown of Brooktondale. I had my camera and these pictures are some of what I saw. The water is where I used to swim as a child, I can't believe that my Aunt would let my cousins and I walk down here and swim alone and then take an even further walk to the market for popsicles - ALONE. The oldest one being 11 or 12. The playground is where I went to nursery school and that is the same exact playground. I am thinking that thing must be loaded with lead paint. I am still here though. Probably because by the time I got my mittens tucked in just right to my snowsuit and my boots buttoned up perfectly it would be time to come back in. True story. I rarely made it out to play because everything had to be just right. Hmmm... those issues surface early huh? I grew up in the time where we wore rubber boots with the side clasps and before we put our feet in the boots we put them inside used plastic bread bags. We were recycling so young. It was really not too comfy and within minutes your sock was squished down and your foot was directly on the plastic. It wasn't long before that was one big sweaty mess and pretty soon the sock and the plastic bag were wadded up in the toe area of the boot and you just had your bare foot inside the nasty rubber boot. It is freaking me out just to write that. For a young girl who was trying to make a fashion statement along with having a few sensory issues it was just easier to stay inside. Can you imagine???? So here is that playground and my four year old self played there 35 years ago. I like to think about how my spirit is the same exact spirit. Sometimes I try to get a movie going in my head of my younger self and watch this young girl discover her world. It is good to love you inner child. When I hear the voice of blame or shame trying to get the best of me it helps to remember that young sweet freckled face girl who just wanted her socks to stay on her feet. I just want to pick her up and say "you will still get your chance outside and I will help you until your socks feel just right". It makes sense that I haven't always gone for the fun, imagine finally being ready to play with your friends but they are all on their way back in and now you can't go out. I am not having a pity party but it is so interesting to see how these earlier experiences begin to cloud our perception and drive our behavior. I saw myself sitting on the slide and I saw God with her big blue eyes full of wonder and her chubby little cheeks which she never worried if they were fat. She was just right and still is. The other picture is the front of the church where I was baptized. The place where my parents promised to teach me about God. In our family it was more of a ritual than anything else and for most of my early years I believed in the Sky Daddy version of God. Thank God that is in the past. The picture of the house is the very first place I ever lived. My father built that house but we haven't lived there in over 37 years. So I guess today was about going back to the beginning. It is sometimes good to take a look at your past and honor it for what it was. It is also good to know that anything we tell ourselves about the past is part fact and part fiction. Some of us spend our whole lives living in our story. This can be very limiting and confining. Nothing that happened in the past can control our future unless we allow it. I learned so much about this by reading a book called Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping. I HIGHLY recommend it. It changed the entire way I view the process of forgiveness. Please read it. I think there should be a required reading list to participate in life. They have them in college, why not the college of life? The final picture is of a closed down bar that I used to go to with my Dad. My father is a contractor and Saturdays is when he did estimates. I would go with him and when he was done we would go here. It was owned by a family friend named John. The name of the bar was Honest Johns. I would drink Shirley Temples and my father would have beer and I would play a bowling game and eat pretzels. Now I could get into a whole story about my Dad being an alcoholic and how awful to let his child sit in a bar... when really it was kind of fun and times were different then. It was an era of a certain kind of naivte' - I Dream of Jeannie, bell bottoms, casseroles and hanging out at bars with your Dad. I choose to remember those times fondly and I remember feeling really loved. So I guess that pretty much sums up this day. I know the pictures make it look like I live in Siberia but really it is just upstate New York in March. The month of gray. Gray pavement, gray trees, gray water, gray skies and sometimes gray people. I know that the sky is an eternal blue under that gray and I know spring is coming. I can feel it. The cool thing about this time of year is that for many months you can't really smell anything outside because your nose hairs are frozen together, but starting in mid March we will have days that the earth begins to thaw and there is a smell that I wish I could bottle. It smells like dirt. Dirt smells really, really good in this part of the world. I mean really good. It reminds me of my childhood. It reminds me of swimming with my cousins, eating popsicles, swinging on swings with plastic bags on my feet and drinking Shirley Temples with my Dad on Saturday afternoon. God, how I love my Dad. Thank you for my childhood with all of it's perfect imperfections.
Here's to childhood - we survived it.
Love,
Kimberly
Quote of the Day:
"When the solution is simple, God is answering." Albert Einstein

Transmissions & Falafels & Sweet Sleeping Lilly

Where to begin.....I woke up this morning to the sun shining brightly in my window which is amazing when you live in upstate New York and it has been winter for the past five months. I could hear the birds singing and there was Spring in the air. I felt such gratitude at the sounds and smells of this bright new day. I went about my morning doing my normal routine but there was a new awareness that felt really good. I would consider myself "awake" as I go through life but somehow making this committment to a bigger audience has created a deeper awareness for me. I love knowing there is another layer of love and gratitude to surrender to. I felt very excited about getting in the car and going in search of God however that might manifest. I had envisioned myself leaving the house between 10 and 11am. It turned out that 11 came and went and then 12 came and went and then 1pm came and went. I found myself getting caught up with phone calls and things that "needed" to be done and I started to feel impatient. What was going on .... I needed to go out and find God - oh yeah - God is everywhere - including my house. Silly me. I recognized this pretty quickly and reminded myself that something higher was at work creating all of these seeming interruptions so I just took a deep breath and knew that I would eventually get out the door. When the next phone call came I just thought to myself "God is calling." It was my friend Lisa and we made spontaneous arrangements to meet for a late lunch. Lisa is pictured above with my new daughter Lilly. Lisa was a sister of the heart from the moment I met her four years ago. Our friendship has deepened and expanded in countless ways and I am truly blessed to have her in my life. I was excited to spend time with her. We went to eat at a place that serves wonderful middle eastern food. The owner is a good friend of mine, he is from Syria and his falafel makes me want to cry it is so good. His food nourishes my soul every single time. Thank you dear friend. There was an older man who appeared to be from India sitting at the table next to us. He was wearing a bright yellow sweatsuit and was clearly developmentally disabled. He was bonding with Lilly and it was beautiful to witness the exchange of love between souls that required no words. While we were eating our friend Kris stopped by for a quick visit. Not long after an old friend I had not seen in over two years happened to walk by with her young daughter and ended up joining us. After our bellies were full we went for a walk in the cool air. We then "bumped" into our friend Jill and then an old classmate also named Lisa. It occurred to me later that those people were exactly who I was supposed to be photographing. Hey.... it's my first day on the job! It also occurred to me that had the day went according to my timing I would not have bumped into any of these people. God's timing, not mine??? I guess so. A good reminder to practice letting go of agendas and trust. We went to the bookstore for some tea. We refer to the bookstore as church. If you hear me say I am going to church that is code for Barnes and Noble. I often laugh if I get a call while at "church" and I will tell the person on the other line that I am at church and people nearby will give me a look like - "you liar" - pretty funny. After the bookstore I was headed home but decided to make a quick stop to fill Lilly's bottle up with milk. I even warmed it up in their microwave knowing that she falls sound asleep to a warm bottle. She sometimes gets fussy on the way home and it was close to bedtime. Thank God I did because just a few miles down the road something went wrong with my transmission and I found myself in the middle of four lanes of traffic and a car that would not budge. How do you get out of a car in the middle of this craziness? Especially in the dark with a baby. I decided the safest thing was to just stay put and I turned my four way flashers on. I wondered aloud how God might show up. No time like the present to TRUST! It was just a few minutes and a police officer came up behind me and helped me get the car in reverse and then I was able to get it into drive again. He gave me some advice on what to do if it happened again and sent me on my way. Thank you to all police officers who risk their lives for complete strangers every single day. He got out of his car in the dark in the middle of busy traffic to help me - sending him love as I write this. I wish I had a photo of him too. I drove another three or four miles and again I was stranded in the middle of a busy highway and my car would not move. I put the flashers on again and was able to slowly get onto the shoulder. I had the awareness that this was no accident in the midst of this potentially high stress situation. I was able to turn off the highway and get myself safely into a parking lot. From there I used my cell phone to get a ride home. While waiting for my ride I had a little private picnic with my left over falafel and baklava looking up at the stars and my sleeping baby and feeling deep, deep gratitude. I was feeling pretty happy that although I had tried to share that food earlier with our friend Kris that she had turned it down. Lilly was peacefully sleeping in the back seat thanks to the milk I had stopped to buy. When I did that I thought I was saving myself from listening to 20 minutes of fussing when in reality she would have been hungry and crying while I was stranded in the middle of the highway but instead she was blissfully unaware. My awareness to take pictures of all the ways God appeared in human form today was a little off the mark but my awareness of gratitude was amped up on full blast. Grateful for falafel (fresh and leftover), grateful for listening to my intuition for something as basic as a carton of milk, grateful for bumping into old friends, grateful for police officers, grateful to the person who thought up four way flashers, grateful to the people who went around me without beeping their horns, grateful for cell phones and parking lots and a safe ride home. I must confess that earlier today while trying to leave the house I found myself thinking that something grandiose needed to happen so I could start day one off with a big bang. I laugh at that now when the very purpose of this project is to show the presence of God in everything from a catepillar to the Grand Canyon. That right there is why many people think they are not having a direct experience of God. When we are waiting for the grandiose or the miracle we forget that it is already a miracle. The miracle is not just to be alive or to awaken but to stay awake. As Michael Beckwith says...."you are the miracle, you are the joy, you are the peace, you are the love. When you walk into a room you bring those things with you." So I am beyond happy to be tucked in with my jammies, my down comforter, my laptop, my candles lit and my baby sleeping by my side. Sweet dreams until tomorrow.

Love,

Kimberly

Quote of the Day:

"When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path to summer." Helen Schucman

Day 1

Hello -
It is 2:15pm here on the east coast and I have been aware of God in a variety of ways all morning. I am now headed out to run some errands and tonight I will share with you what I have seen, felt or heard on the first day of my adventure. My own awareness has been so high today and I am feeling incredibly light in my being and full of anticipation and joy.
With love,
Kimberly

Where is God?

Dear friends,
Welcome to what I know will be a very inspiring and exciting adventure. I am so glad you are here. I first want to be clear about this blog and the upcoming movie - "Where is God?" - the hope is to inspire others to ask this question to themselves and search for their own answers. The intention is to spread love and joy as far as possible. I am a fellow seeker on the path not someone claiming to have the answers. I have been a seeker as long as I can remember, asking big questions and looking for the answers. I can only share with you my own experience and that of others who are willing to join in this project. It is meant to be uplifting and thought provoking. If God is not a word you feel comfortable with then feel free to replace it with any word that works for you - The Divine, The Universe, Spirit, Mother Nature - it doesn't matter one iota. I love the word God so I use it.

What I want to share with you is how this project got started. In May of 2007 I attended The Revelation. This is an annual conference with Dr. Michael Beckwith, leader of the Agape Spiritual Center in Los Angeles. I had no idea that weekend would change the course of my entire life. One of the speakers during that weekend was James Arthur Ray. He is a dynamic and engaging speaker and I was familiar with his work. He said something during his talk that really struck me. It was this: "In a study of the religious, 90% (including clergy) said they had not had a direct experience of God." I knew I had just heard something important but I did not know why. For weeks after that I kept hearing that statement over and over in my mind. What did that mean exactly? What was a direct experience of God? Have I ever had one? Could it be possible that these people were having an experience of God and did not know it? How could people that we look to as authorities on God not have any direct experience of God? The questions went on and on. I did not have answers but I pondered this every single day. Several weeks after the conference I was doing my meditation and I suddenly saw all kinds of people holding up signs with letters on them. The people were young and old and represented all cultures. The scene was kind of foggy and the letters were scrambled but as I looked closer and the people started arranging themselves in a certain way, I began to see a word forming. The word was EVERYWHERE. In an instant I saw this scene as the ending to a movie. I saw the word EVERYWHERE as the answer to the question "Where is God?". This all happened in a flash. It was instantaneous and it can best be described as pure inspiration coming directly from God because there is no way I would have thought of this with my own mind. I have no experience making films. I have steered clear of technology as much as possible in this modern world. I have questioned and wondered about God all of my life and in no way would I have ever thought I had something of value to share on such a vast and infinite subject. What I have learned since that moment last summer is that when an idea is given to you by God you can resist and turn away and try to avoid it but it will come back over and over until you have no choice but to listen or go crazy. That is what has been happening for months. Do I really have free will??? If you could hear my inner dialogue it would go something like this: Why me? What if people think I am saying I have the answers when in reality I know nothing? What if they write me mean e-mails? What if the intention is misunderstood? What if people laugh at me? What if my family thinks I have taken the ultimate plunge into craziness? What if I lose all of my friends? I have received no answers to these questions and I think the reason is that God has no time to entertain my nonsense. While the voices were going off I was still able to read "This Thing Called You" by Ernest Holmes and I received confirmation of what I was envisioning for this project. I read the following - "...there is no place where you leave off and God begins." I could feel something lift up inside of me as I recognized the truth of his words deep in my being. I thought back to the study of the religious and realized that we are indeed experiencing God in every moment. There is no place where I am that God isn't. If someone is not experiencing God it is not because God isn't there. God is in the joy and the grief, the well and the sick, the rich and the poor. If we can resist the urge to label everything as good or bad we will begin to see that God is always there. If we look back over our own lives we often see that what seemed to be an overwhelming obstacle became one of our greatest gifts. As I have come to understand that there are no accidents in this universe I have been able to let go of trying to control all the details of my life. I now see everything as perfect for my learning at that particular time. This has allowed me to be in the flow of life and to trust God. So............I am taking the plunge into this project and I am nervous and thrilled and overwhelmed all wrapped into one little bundle. I want to use this blog as well as the videos I will post on You Tube to share with you what I have found so far and what I continue to discover. It is my intention to spread love and joy and inspiration as far as possible. I have found that it is really quite simple. I have been given an inspired idea and I have a choice - act or not. It occurred to me earlier this week that this idea is truly beautiful and if I do not take some immediate action the idea will move on into another person's conciousness and I will find myself saying in the future..."Hey, that was my idea!" When in reality I have been offered the opportunity to take action on an inspired idea but the idea itself does not belong to me.
What you are reading is the result of my decision to take big, bold, immediate action. I am trusting that everything is already being arranged for this idea to become real. Starting Monday, March 17, 2008 I will be going out into the world everyday for 40 days and looking for people and images and stories that reveal the truth that God is right where I am and right where you are in every moment. The key lies in our awareness. Each day I will document and photograph what I find. I am so excited and I can hardly wait until Monday. When the 40 days have passed the material will be edited onto a DVD which will enable this material to travel the globe. I know this is something I have to do and if you are reading this right now please know that it is no accident and ask yourself how you can be a part of this amazing adventure. If you have something to share please e-mail me at whereisgodtoday@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you. I am excited and scared which I hear is exactly how these divine ideas work. So here I go........I invite you to come along with me.
With Great Love and Extravagant Blessings,
Kimberly

P.S. I would like to thank some people I have never met but have influenced me greatly and mentored me day after day with their books, blogs, websites, audio tapes, seminars etc. They are Joe Vitale, Dr. Hew Len, Michael Beckwith, James Arthur Ray, Bill Harris, Pat O'Bryan, Ernest Holmes, Dr. Sue Morter, Iyanla Vanzant, Jack Canfield, Janet Atwood, Chris Atwood,Dr. Barbara King, Rev. Deborah Johnson, Mike Dooley, Lisa Nichols and last but certainly not least the comforting, inspiring and uplifting music of Ester Nicholson, Nicki Harris and Rickie Byars Beckwith.

P.P.S. Did I forget to say Thank you God????? THANK YOU GOD. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.