Where Regret Cannot Find Me: Essays from the Spiritual Path

By David Ault

A powerful new voice in the inspirational field! Where Regret Cannot Find Me by David Ault is a captivating debut by one of America's leading motivators and ministers. This collection of spiritual essays honors the full spectrum of our human emotions - whether addressing grief and sorrow, the path of forgiveness, answering the call within or seeing the gift in life's greatest challenges, this deeply personal book offers encouragement and instruction to creating practical shifts in our everyday lives. From David's beginnings in a small Southeast Texas town, to his years as a popular visionary vocalist, to trekking through the ruins of Peru or climbing The Great Wall of China, David's sense of adventure and connection with the Divine make for unforgettable storytelling.

Where Regret Cannot Find Me is a warm and sensitive guide that illuminates many of life's most important lessons with humility and intelligence. David Ault mixes his own personal odyssey with teachings from a variety of religious faiths, creating a book that leads the reader gently from our ever present vulnerability to the profound power of the human spirit, a journey to help our hearts heal and grow. A wise and good read.

Frederic Luskin, Ph.D. Director Stanford Forgiveness Projects author of Forgive for Good: A Proven Prescription for Health and Happiness.

God bless David Ault (and God does bless David "The Old Beloved.") Not only does he sing with a voice Celestial, but his writing enchants the reader's heart and cultivates ones Soul and Spirit. The world is a better place because of his new endeavor.

Lloyd D. Tupper D.D., President Emeritus Holmes Institute, a Graduate School of Consciousness Studies

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483671857

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by David Ault.

ISBN #                  Ebook                        978-1-4836-7185-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/19/2013

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Contents

Prologue

Where Regret Cannot Find Me

The Lid

The Parable Of The Tea Kettle

Ducks In A Row

The Old Beloved

Is This Seat Taken?

Stand Up, Jean Louise,Your Father’s Passing

All That (And a Bag of Chips)

Great Wall

Sticks and Stones Support the Bones

Come Down From the Tree

Taming the Tempo

Epilogue

Sources and Permissions

PROLOGUE

There is an American idiom that suggests we fish or cut bait.

Some use the phrase to mean ‘make a choice about what you intend to do; others define it as either ‘get to work in a productive manner or do something else—get out of the way and let someone else work’.

If we took it from a literal perspective—you might imagine one fisherman stating it to another who is spending far too much time talking and not enough time fishing.

Life beckons us to ‘fish’ – to become involved in the process of living rather than stagnate as a sideline spectator and in the years since Where Regret Cannot Find Me was first published, I have thankfully done a lot of ‘life fishing’.

I’ve learned to embrace more fully the realization that decisions are neither bad, nor good, right nor wrong, they simply are.

Universal Law faithfully delivers to my doorstep of experience everything I habitually adopt as my belief – not because my beliefs are any more accurate than another but because the Law is an impersonal one – bringing to manifestation the sum-total of our focus. I’ve grown to celebrate that impersonal nature of the Law more and more—understanding at greater depth how, for example, the law of gravity causes particles to pull towards each other. Not some particles – all particles. Or, how the Law of buoyancy works for any wooden object in any body of water – not just boats owned and operated by nice people but boats used by thieving pirates as well. All boats will float – the water and the Law of buoyancy are impersonal.

It was Buddha who taught, The mind is everything. What you think you become.

If I choose to think I am capable and worthy more so than not, this impersonal, spiritual law corresponds to my choice and offers a world that reflects back to me a recognition and honoring of those capabilities alongside relationships where my worth is honored. If I choose to feel worthless, the law matches that with compatible experiences.

Since this books original release, I have moved from Los Angeles, a place I felt would be my life-long residence, to a strikingly different environment along the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—Mobile, Alabama. There for five years, I tended to family business in the neighboring Louisiana/Texas border town of Beaumont. I went from being a traveling minister to establishing and growing a mid-sized New Thought spiritual center in the deepest part of the traditional South of the United States.

I would have never imagined living a life outside of California and most West Coast friends responded with, You’re moving where? when telling them of my impending decision to leave. Despite other’s naysaying, I never imagined I was ‘dumbing down’. It never crossed my mind that I was sacrificing anything for a cross-country move which some viewed as a step backwards in established culture, enlightenment and acceptance. Ironically, it was the opposite.

I bought a great home on nearly an acre of land – a first for me. I met and befriended some of the most sincere and kind individuals in my journey – many living from a depth of awareness that seemed light years further than most people I’d met. I realized later on it was simply spiritual law at work—I never expected a loss in the quality of my life thus I never experienced one.

Five years later I was invited to apply for the position of Senior Minister for a large church in Atlanta. After a lengthy process of candidates, I was offered the position.

I now live and work in Atlanta at a dynamic New Thought center named Spiritual Living Center of Atlanta.

If anyone would have predicted these moves when this book was first published, I would have thought them delusional.

And just as I described in the chapter, Great Wall, I have continued hosting people across the globe on spiritual sojourns. It was on just such a trip that I visited and fell in love with Cambodia. There, a deeper commitment to life began taking root as I was shown a greater path of global service.

Today, I am the director of a non-government regulated school in the outskirts of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Serving an average of 200 students throughout the year, we provide free education, life skills and agricultural training plus supply vital, fresh water through ongoing well facilitation programs. In addition, we deliver personal hygiene and medical assistance to the orphaned and disenfranchised of this region of Southeast Asia.

And, if anyone would have told me . . . .

I continue to deepen my understanding of how life offers us what we are able to grasp as possible in the realm of Mind.

Regarding Cambodia, I knew I wanted to do something but I did not know what that something would look like. What began as an irrepressible urge to help, morphed into traveling back every year; digging wells, making mistakes, fumbling my way in finding reliable support, applying for permission to build a school through the Ministry of the Interior of the People’s Party of Cambodia (a Communist country), my subsequent interrogation and placement on a subversive list.

And two years later, after a process of letting go my attachments and control of how it was suppose to look like, approval came and Khmer Child Foundation was officially born. http://www.khmerchildfoundation.org

Interlaced throughout all this, I have laid to rest another sister, a brother, my mother and the most beloved animal companion I have ever had the pleasure to love.

I turned 50 years of age and hiked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage across the entire northern rim of the country of Spain.

I opened my heart to love again and am blessed with a wonderful relationship.

And the sentiment behind the first chapter of this book still remains.

I long to be where regret cannot find me.

That destination is right here and now. All we have to do is cast our line into the world and fish.

Blessed Be,

David Ault

October 2011

Where Regret Cannot Find Me

I have a crack in my windshield. Somehow a single pebble escaped the suction of the fresh asphalt on the Interstate by my house in Los Angeles and launched itself towards the glass of my truck. What started as a single bullet shaped scar soon gave way to a free flowing line that worked its way across the glass like the outline of the surrounding Southern California Mountains. It wasn’t the first time that this cosmetic flaw had paid a visit. With a modicum of regularity, it seemed that every car I’d ever owned eventually displayed this. Yet, this time, there wasn’t the urgency to have it fixed. I even stopped apologizing for it whenever I had a guest passenger. This thin, prism-like crack, with its peaks and valleys, became both mirror and messenger to my aching heart.

Stop trying to cover me up, it seemed to lament. Don’t be in such a hurry to replace or fix me. So what if I’m not perfect. Let me be your teacher.

My imperfect windshield and I made our way to a lunch with one of my oldest friends. Hope and I first met in sixth grade and bonded through our love of journalism and theatre. We stayed best buds from high school graduation through our years of living in New York City and Los Angeles. Yet, even though we lived only fifteen minutes apart now, there were times when our schedules were just crazy enough to keep us from seeing each other. This lunch was our new commitment to at least make the effort once a month to sit down to a meal together and catch up.

She called before to let me know that her four-year-old daughter, Sophia, would be joining us.

Sophia was at that stage of independent exploration where she insisted on dressing herself. Greens with purples, stripes with plaids, and in this case a black feather boa. Hope wanted to warn me ahead of time.

How brave, I laughed, I would never consider a boa in daylight.

There really wasn’t much catching up, as Sophia innocently demanded much of her mother’s attention. Even with a bag full of distractions from books to games to dolls, she still wanted to be a part of our discussion. I marveled at what Hope had assembled to keep her daughter entertained, finding myself mentally reciting a phrase that was quick to age me.

In my day… Well, at least I hadn’t ventured into the time segregating commentary about the number of miles I had to walk to school, I reasoned.

The established toy choices available to me at that age were Hot Wheels and G I Joes. If fortune smiled, an Etch-A-Sketch was thrown in—a far cry from the electronic, high tech gadgetry that blankets today’s shelves.

Mine was a generation that played games outdoors. In the neighborhood of my adolescence, it was not uncommon, as the sun went down, for our mothers to be calling and calling. With sweat from the sweltering humidity as layer number one, dirt and pine sap nestled into the creases of our necks, arms and knees creating a zebra effect. We were hard pressed to give up tree climbing, fort building and the multiple uses of spare tires. However, the most popular game by far was always Hide and Seek. There were myriads of places to hide—under the house, in drainage ditch openings, in trees and on rooftops. As I became a seasoned Hide and Seek professional, I realized that I would much rather be the one who was it. Hiding became boring fast and I always drew attention to myself so that I could be found. Being the seeker meant freedom to explore and search, and at those times when I felt exceptionally mischievous, I’d go inside and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while the others hid.

In retrospect, I can appreciate the parallel of that game with my spiritual path. There is that part of us that abhors hiding. To deny any part of the full spectrum of life—the disappointments as well as the victories, grief and joy, times of doubt as well as faith—is to hide from our feeling nature.

Now, the message of the windshield seemed vitally clear. Stop judging how you feel.

I was experiencing the mental exhaustion that comes from standing in front of the dam of disappointments. Pressing my hands against the cracks to keep the regrets and sorrow at bay, I expended great amounts of energy in the denial