One Song Rising

By Reverend Ellen Wallace Douglas

Going within is the only thing we need to do; knowing our sacred origin is all we need to know; seeking to know Self is all we need aspire to.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781490782324

Reverend Ellen Wallace Douglas

Rev. Ellen Wallace Douglas is a mother of four, grandmother of nine, and great-grandmother of seven. She is an ordained Christian metaphysical minister and a retired counselor. Four years after her retirement in 1994, she began writing. In 2004, she published her first book, The Laughing Christ. You are holding her ninth book. Rev. Douglas facilitates a weekly study group of A Course in Miracles, and she continues to write.

Book preview

Animating Spirit

A human infant is born. Nine months of incredibly fast growth has taken place inside the mother. Suddenly the baby is on its own; separate from the safety and protection the womb provided. Now the infant breathes for the first time. The tiny lungs take on the job of breathing in and out; in and out. As the lungs grow in size, through a young life, the animating spirit continues unfailingly to take in and give out the animating spirit.

Illness, accidents, surgery may slow down the inspiration and expiration of breath, but the lungs do their job without guidance. The animating spirit moves in and out of the lungs automatically. The animating spirit is what indicates and confirms that we are alive on earth. Infrequently the breathing may stop but then it is re-started by some action and we know a miracle has taken place. Somehow the animating spirit knows it is still needed to keep this person alive and breathing.

What is this animating spirit? It is ‘only air’. It is a combination of basic elements which the body requires to be animate; to be alive. It is difficult to believe that ‘only air’ keeps us all alive on earth. What is the body without air; the ‘breath of life’? It is lifeless, useless, moving-less, inanimate stuff. It has no function, no purpose, and no use. How can ‘only air’ be so powerful as to provide us with physical stamina, mental acumen, and emotional stability?

At some point in time we begin to realize that what we considered only air contains some property/properties which we cannot see, describe, define, or measure. God knows; we surmise that there is something in the air we breathe which not only animates the body but also inspires the mind. It also urges us to pray, meditate, forgive, love. The body without air can do none of these things.

The Christian Bible tells us that God is a spirit. The Good Book also says that Jesus was the only Son of God. Did Jesus breathe in different air? We know now from Archangel Gabriel that there is a significant error in translation of the original wording of the Holy Bible. As first written, the words were Jesus, begotten son of the only God. Jesus came to show us the way to salvation. He showed us the way we all will take. He exemplified the ‘good’ life in every day that he preached and taught. Many times he said, Follow me. How could we follow him if he possessed a divinity that we did not? In John 14:12 Jesus even says that everything he did we can do, also.

We are all children of God. The air we breathe is much more than ‘only air.’ It is the animating Principle of Life which is God-given, God-created and which infuses our bodies every moment we ‘live’ on earth. The Originator of Life provides us all with a divine essence which we contain within our bodies every moment of our lives. The Originator of Life - all life - animates all life on earth. We take the air we breathe for granted, unless somehow we do not have access to air or the air is so polluted that it threatens our lives.

As we commence this new age - The Age of Aquarius - we commence a new appreciation of the air that animates us. The breath of life is ours to respect as a gift from God as long as we reside on this planet. It is long past due that we realize all life is connected. All beasts, all plants, trees and herbs are part of our lives on earth. Living in cooperation with all life is a start on the path of awakening to our divinity. Communication between species is another gigantic step we can and must take on our path of ‘coming to’. The well of divine design is within us all. It provides the water for which we will thirst no more.

The animating spirit is God’s holy provision for life as we know it on earth. We have not yet awakened to our innate divinity. Our sacred Selves sleep until we consciously awaken to the power and love which is contained in the ‘breath of life’. It is always available. It always animates our bodies. It provides every holy thought we can ever entertain, every selfless task we ever can perform, every creative idea which we manifest.

Another Choice

We always have another choice. Hundreds of choices are made every single day of our lives. We take this flurry of thoughts and choices for granted. We have endless conversations in our heads about things we said, could have said, left unsaid. Someone once said that when we talk to ourselves we can always be sure we have a good listener. Then the question becomes are our thoughts worth hearing. When friends talk to us we usually listen with a focused ear; when strangers speak we tend to weigh every word and sift their ideas through our ego’s response. Human failings include this tendency to judge. Adulthood is accepted as a time to have compassion on others, to be willing to understand them as products of a different childhood from our own, to see outside ourselves and have conversations with others instead of ourselves. When we live in our own heads and listen to the inner chatter we are focusing on a faulty source and it can make us crazy - or depressed.

The brain is a marvelous organ which does not think but it does process thought. Mind thinks. Our minds are part of the divine Mind of God. In the silence we can listen to our minds and not hear anything but we can know everything. All our questions receive the one Answer we all seek. It is to make the right choice in every situation. The correct choice is already known to us. Oftentimes we choose another alternative which our ego shouts at us. Even Paul had this problem, saying, For that which I do I allow not; but what I hate, that I do … For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Romans 7:15-19. Paul repeats himself indicating his frustration. Later, Paul confesses, . . . there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 2 Cor. 12:7. As a student of scripture, I asked Archangel Gabriel, one day at his seminar, just what the thorn was in Paul’s flesh. Gabriel told us that Paul was gay. We were stunned! Apparently Paul thought he would be exalted because of his conversion and his instructions from Jesus, except for that bothersome thorn. Of course we now know that homosexuality is a feature with which one is born. In Jesus’ time it could easily mean death.

Every time we are tempted to do something against our better judgment - and we recognize temptation before we succumb to it - we are offered a grand opportunity to choose another way. Every road we take is one we have chosen even before birth, because God gave us free choice in all things. We can blame God, blame others, blame circumstances, for all our problems - and we do. But the mirror will reveal the cause of them all. We choose lessons to learn based on previous lifetimes on Earth. We may choose an affliction because we caused another to be afflicted in a past lifetime. We may be gay in our sexual orientation because we persecuted gay people in a past lifetime.

Sometimes we choose to come with birth defects to help others learn a lesson of patience, acceptance, and understanding. It has often surprised me that those afflicted with physical handicaps, blindness, or deafness always accept their burden lightly and deal with it the very best they can. Surely these are lessons for us all. If we cannot identify our shortcomings we can always ask a friend to identify them. They are friends because they love us in spite of our shortcomings. We all have lessons to learn. Love and forgiveness are essential lessons everyone must learn before we ascend (return to Heaven with our body, never to return to Earth again).

All humankind is evolving and will someday ascend. We come closer to Heaven every time we choose rightly. Paul was troubled greatly in his situation. Perhaps one of Paul’s lessons was to forgive himself for a perceived weakness; a perceived bar to exaltation. God loves gay people equally with all others. God loves the murderer and the warrior and the rapist - not because He condones such behavior, for He surely does not, but He loves us as His children and knows our behaviors and attitudes are not the true reflection of our light within. God awaits us as the father of the Prodigal Son waited, as parents today await the return of a wayward child. Hope never ends. God does not hope for our return. God knows we will return. We have choices to make every day. Choosing good is always an option, until we come to know there are no choices to be made.

Before Abraham

"Your father Abraham rejoiced to see to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.

"Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. John 8:56-58, KJV

Jesus was having a discussion with his fellow Jews. In this powerful chapter of the Gospel according to John. Jesus explains his relationship to his Father in Heaven, his essence as the light of the world, and his own immortality. When he had finished talking, Jesus’ listeners picked up stones to throw at him, perceiving his words to be blasphemous. But he hid himself and left the temple.

What Jesus said that day was far beyond the limited understanding of his listeners, but he knew his words would ring down through the ages, just as his example life would be remembered for many centuries. He probably hoped that some few would understand - and some few did understand, and followed him. Archangel Gabriel told us, in his twelve years of visitations (1987-1999) that only his apostle John truly understood the lessons in truth that Jesus taught. Several others worshipped him as the Son of God. They worshipped him because he performed miracles and because he lived his life contrary to the Jewish laws.

By his own admission in our time (he visited earth 1995-1999), he said, I broke all the rules. He told us that he listened only to the God within, and let us now recall that he said, many times in the Bible, ‘Follow me.’ When Jesus gave us A Course in Miracles he explained that we too can perform miracles when we accept the power within us to do so. What he did we can do; how he lived we can live. Something inside tells us this is true. We have simply forgotten our origin in the Father, the God of Love. Perceiving Jesus on the cross and worshipping him is far easier than