An open book of Psalms displayed outdoors with calligraphy pen and ink beside it
If you are new to this blog, on Friday or Saturday I will post something from my Vault, or one of my other Writing Projects. The Psalms Project is my attempt to take the spirit of the Psalms and re-apply them and write new ones for today. I am NOT trying to replace the amazing Psalms already in the Bible! I am in no way trying to paraphrase or restate each Psalm, but I do pay homage to them and other Bible passages, of course. While often meant as songs in the Hebrew Scriptures, mine are more like meditative essays. I invite you to play along, see what you might identify with or relate to in these. So, here is another Psalm for a Modern Day.(And yes, I did refresh the Picture for this segment.)
WAITING-TIME
Waiting, oh who likes waiting? Waiting for a bus, or a call, or waiting for God. We do not like to wait for Him. But,
His timing shows his sovereignty. x
Selah.
God exists outside time and inside time, and can be in every time at once; He is never late.
God is to be praised!
The past hurts are His to heal, we need only return to them, trusting we will find Him there. For He was in them all along, even it didn’t seem like it.
God is to be praised!
When we go to the future, we so often go alone, rushing ahead in our minds, and we fantasize that He is not there. Foolishness! If He was always in the past, and is with us now, will He not be there in the future to greet us?
Godis to be praised!
He commands us through the prophets of old to wait on Him, to let go of time, to let Him manage it, not us. He bids us even now be still, and recall who He is, was, and will be.
God is to be praised!
X: Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young
-Eric, the Wordsmith
BP28-P8
Have thoughts or comments? You can click on the comment link below, or you can email me at the address provided. Have ideas you want me to write about, or questions? Want to tell me how much you enjoy (or don’t enjoy) my content? All are acceptable, but be nice, please. Thanks!alignwithlove85@gmail.com.
Having just gone through a sweeping proposed way of looking at the Universe, I must now get into how I do it. This is another “How do I Practice?” segment. The point of this particular post is to make the latest series clearer. (Please refer to my Archives Page for my “Theory of the Realms” 3-Part Series.) I also want to help you, Dear Reader, understand better how I live with what I am teaching here. As I have said before, I fail at this often! As soon as you start a blog called Align with Love, you quickly realize how unloving you are! I am truly saddened at my bad temper, impatience, incessant criticism of myself and others. Wow, why am I doing blog this again?
Seriously, failure at any ideal, practice, or teaching, does not necessarily disqualify you from continuing. (Yes, I know certain egregious failures mean you have to “step down” from a position, and deal with the consequences, if we did things that were immoral or illegal.) But we all fail at being loving–the question is: do we keep trying? Do we cry out to any God to help us?
I have so many un-loving moments in my life, with my spouse, my kid, co-workers, fellow believers, etc, that it is a wonder I am writing this at all. But in my failings, I kept writing in my journal, and now I write here. If I am going to stumble towards some new enlightenment, I will do much more of it with the world’s eye upon me. I have kept returning to God too. He kept renewing me, bandaging my wounds, and putting me back up on my feet. Here I am, beginning again.
I say all of this to make it clear, every notion in this blog is not intended to be some new “list” to remember, and then to beat up on yourself when you forget. They are ways to frame life. In that framing you can find some Inner Alignment with the Divine, and slowly, you can become that more Loving Presence in the world.
How do I practice with this Great Reality? I have said how I see this through a Christian lens, but I also see this Great Reality as a “Flow” permeating and infusing everything. Jesus spoke of the “spirit blowing where it wishes” in the 3rd chapter of John’s Gospel. Sometimes, I think of the Great Reality that simply: as a wind, a current, and I need to “catch” it. I need to adjust to it. I need to let it wash over me, and know, past my hyper-thinking mind, what should be my response to whatever is going on.
Oh, how I wish I could do this better! With OCD, my mind is noisy. “Did I say it right?” “Are you OK with me?” “Is that thing really turned off?” I have to keep learning that I must Align with the knowing, and not solely the understanding. As it is said in the Biblical Proverbs: “Lean not on your understanding…” (Proverbs 3:5)
I do not mean we should not try to understand a person or situation. I do not mean to not gather information, or weigh options. I am talking about over-thinking situations and interactions. I am talking about learning to trust, and learning to listen. Is there a “flow” to a situation, or relationship? Does it seem like things are “lining up”? Did you read a meditation, and someone says the same thing later that day?
Take notice! God may well be showing you something and guiding you.
And, somewhat controversially, is something just not “clicking”? Is a relationship often seeming to be a struggle? Is a situation just not working? This does not mean to bail on a marriage, leave a job, or move across country, necessarily. But instead–look at what is “blocking the flow”? What Egos are crashing? What’s the Expectations of the parties involved? Does anyone even know? What Narratives are playing out? This is all Inner Reality stuff, and Outer Reality, intersecting, over and over again. (Go back to the “Unholy Trinity” on my Archives Page. )
I recently had a a quirky situation with some newly installed shingles on my house. For some reason, a part of the “ornamental” roof, that is almost vertical, was hanging off. I went into “react mode”–this must be fixed right now! Rain is coming. (Which it was.) I figured I could just climb up quick, and nail this section back down, as I can do such things, and it was only like a three-foot section. It just needed a ladder, nails, hammer, and me. Ah–but it got fun! The area is near a large pricker bush, and try as I might, no matter which way I put both of my ladders, I could never get the right angle, or be close enough to the affected area.
I was mad–I had other plans for the evening. I was mad at the bush–and I was about to chop it down! I kept trying to move the ladder, and at one point I had it laying on the bush and was trying to climb up it that way. (Stupid, and I stopped). I then angrily demanded my wife come out and somehow come up with a clever solution. Of course she said, “Why don’t we call the roofer?” Which was a good point–but rain was imminent, so it needed a quick fix. Long story short, I wound up trimming the pricker bush from behind, so I could get a ladder behind it, and I could then reach that part of the roof. Temporary fix done–but with much striving, aggravation, and drama. I never breathed, paused, or considered my options. I just started doing, which is not how I normally am, but it is how I reacted to that roof.
While an unusual thing, I felt bad. There was no Openness or Lightness on my part. I could have left it for the roofer, but wanted it fixed now. I could have paused and asked God for an idea. I surely could have asked my wife more nicely for insight, as she graciously came out to inspect. This was not an Aligned with Love situation. Nope.
It happens so fast. We react to a house issue. We say something snippy. We “lose it” over something dumb. We have had it with the one more question from a co-worker or child, and we know we were not nice. We failed again to be remotely loving.
I thought of words I wrote here before: Jesus said: “You will have tribulation–you will have trouble.” (John 16:33, Christian Scriptures) I still have a narrative that life should be easy. At 52, it is painfully obvious it is not! I am not saying to expect doom and gloom, or Murphy’s (silly) Law, but can I realize that things will go awry? Maybe that is the point. Will I flow with this challenge, partner with God/Spirt, and handle it? Or will I complain, be a jerk, and make it worse?
Will I let the Realms be ‘One’, and see what else might be going on? Can I see a situation as not just something to fix, or get through, but part of a larger life lesson? What is the Universe trying to tell me? Again, what is the Great Reality/Great Flow, bringing to me, showing me, or teaching me? Maybe I should have just called the roofer straight away. Maybe I would have sensed I should trim the bush in the first place instead of trying to climb a ladder laid over top of it!!! My point is: I believe God/Spirit will show us the response we should have to the situations we find ourselves in, if we only bring some Openness and Lightness to it. Perhaps I could have gotten on to other things, instead of killing an evening fighting with ladders, feeling bad I was getting angry, and so forth.
Am I sometimes the “real” problem? I am not trying to dimiss bad behavior, but what are our reactions to others? Did we say no when we should have? Did we take on a task that we never realized was more than we could handle? Were we still trapped in people-pleasing and False-God pleasing?
Breathe and pause–that is in the best way to practice with the Realms. Pause, so you can see what God/Spirit might be up to. If you don’t like the idea “Someone” is up to something in your life, pause to see what is the best way to handle this situation. We live in a world, especially in America, where any pausing is a lost art. We are quick to post, video, and live stream our reactions and “hot takes”. Is your first reaction really the best one? Is it kind? Be honest.
So, yes–pause. Then listen. Observe. Consider. Be revolutionary, and think it through. This is how to Align with Love better. This is giving you space to recognize God, yourself, and others, and then respond wisely.
So, there you have it: How to practice better with the Realms, and how to not practice with them. It is hard work, sometimes. It is hard work to “get out of the way”. But it is so worth it.
Each small step, a breath, and a pause–really does change the world, little by little.
Try it. I will too–again.
-Eric, the Wordsmith
BP27
Have thoughts or comments? You can click on the comment link below, or you can email me at the address provided. Have ideas you want me to write about, or questions? Want to tell me how much you enjoy (or don’t enjoy) my content? All are acceptable, but be nice, please. Thanks!alignwithlove85@gmail.com.
An open book of Psalms displayed outdoors with calligraphy pen and ink beside it
If you are new to this blog, on Friday or Saturday I will post something from my Vault, or one of my other Writing Projects. The Psalms Project is my attempt to take the spirit of the Psalms and re-apply them and write new ones for today. I am NOT trying to replace the amazing Psalms already in the Bible! I am in no way trying to paraphrase or restate each Psalm, but I do pay homage to them and other Bible passages, of course. While often meant as songs in the Hebrew Scriptures, mine are more like meditative essays. I invite you to play along, see what you might identify with or relate to in these. So, here is another Psalm for a Modern Day.(And yes, I did refresh the Picture for this segment.)
SHOW ME!
Oh Lord, SHOW ME YOU! I hear a cacophony of thoughts and feelings, and even my own voice, murmuring and complaining. Why am I here? Why am I in this thought-space, this feeling-space?
Help me SEE!
How do I walk with you and your people—how do I see You in the faces of others? Can I let them BE—and not have to judge or fix?
How much of my difficulties did I have a hand in?? How did I perceive it? And from that perception, how did I act??
Aloneness-I feel a “gaping hole”—a void that wants to swallow me. From where did it come? Why is it here?
The answer is always the same: Release, Receive, Continue. Release my grip on how I want to feel, or how others “must” behave. Release my grip on what I could have done or should have done. Receive this void—even in Elijah’s storms on the Mountain, there was a gentle whisper.
So, whisper, please. Whisper anything, please…
“Be still—know.”
“Know me. Know I am with you. I am in you. I am all around you.”
“You fled to this writing-place, and that is where I meet you, and speak through you. You already know the Path, so stay on it. Jettison the anger—it was from another time, that is now past. Go forward, letting me adjust your heart to the new realities you find yourself in. You do not need to have every situation figured out. Only know that I am with you and will show you the Way you should go. You need not withdraw to try “fixing” yourself. I have shown you the Way—continue walking in it….”
I hear. I see. I continue— realign my heart in your True Alignment.
Have thoughts or comments? You can click on the comment link below, or you can email me at the address provided. Have ideas you want me to write about, or questions? Want to tell me how much you enjoy (or don’t enjoy) my content? All are acceptable, but be nice, please. Thanks!alignwithlove85@gmail.com.
The word ‘Reality’ shines brightly amidst glowing cosmic rays.
Welcome back! Today I will finish my three-part series of my so-called “Theory of the Realms”. I have proposed the Universe has three parts: a Great Reality, an Inner Reality, and an Outer Reality. Scroll back if you want to review, or if you never read the other parts. Or go to my Archives Page for those posts, as well as others: https://align-with-love.com/archive/
I think the Great Reality encompasses the other two. You may not believe it, or think there is any Great Reality. But as I said prior, there is so much we simply can not explain or understand in life. I believe there is a God, a Being who is infusing all and is flowing through everything. Part of the point of this blog is to help you see that, and Align with that. Aligning with Love is recognizing the Love that is permeating the Universe, and allowing that to be “absorbed” into you. When you have that love in you, you can truly be a Loving Presence in the world. This world desperately needs that!
The Inner You, the Inner Reality, is all of your feelings, thoughts, and preferences. I would call it your soul. You can be open to the Great Reality in your soul, or you can be closed off from it. You can be in a very warped perception of the Great Reality, trapped by the Obstacles of Ego, Expectations, and Myths. I wrote of these before, which I called an “unholy trinity”. https://align-with-love.com/2026/03/09/the-unholy-trinity/ I also wrote at length about some deep, fundamental Approaches to Life, that would help you start connecting more deeply with the Great Reality, yourself, and help you live more harmoniously with the people around you. I presented them as Openness, Lightness, and Alignment. https://align-with-love.com/2026/02/16/openness/
Having done a sweeping summation of this blog, I want to address the final Realm: The Outer one. This one is also easy to grasp. We live in it everyday. We have jobs to go to and kids to raise. We walk the dog and feed the cat. We go on dates, or to the movies, or to the store. We go to church, or some other social club. We have people over, or visit family. We may live in a reasonably “free” country, or somewhere where freedom is only a nice idea, and you are told who you are and how to be. (You can be told the same things in a “free” country too!)
How do you relate to that Outer Reality? How do you see it? How do you interact with others? Is the Universe always unfair, and is everyone out to “get you”? My oft repeated cry, is “Why can’t life be simple??” This is usually while doing some “techie” thing on a computer, or some household project, or in traffic, or standing on line. As I have written before, I believe the Universe to have a Loving Presence permeating it, but things clearly go horribly awry! Sometimes things go wrong in silly, small ways, but sometimes they go terribly wrong, such as disease, floods, and other catastrophes. I will not delve now into the why’s of that, as it would consume far too many lines of text. I am also not sure I could adequately speak to it, either!
When in that frustrating moment, I want the situation to be “easy” or simple for me, as I want to move on to the next thing I want to do. (So very American of me.) That is not how to truly live among the Realms. Trains get missed, people get sick, work deadlines get moved up, and people don’t answer a text for whatever reason. These are all very mundane day-to-day things. I know some have far, far more challenging situations: health crises, living with very dysfunctional people, or living under horrible regimes, or living in war-torn corners of the world.
The Outer Reality stinks sometimes! People are selfish. People have created political and societal systems that benefit the rich and powerful, at the expense of the less educated and less wealthy. We have a world which I believe is deeply Unaligned with the Great Reality!
What can we do? This is where we both choose Alignment, and where we receive Alignment. For the spiritually minded, it is where we believe there is more to life, that the more is some kind of Being, and They have a larger purpose for this life. This is where we choose to be Open to them, and let Them lead us. If you have no such spirituality, you can always start! As I have already written, the Approaches to life can get you on the “path” to the beginning of spirituality, of deepening Alignment.
Humanity has fought and wrestled with the world, bending it to our wills. Sometimes we humans subdued the world in amazing ways, like with electricity and medical discoveries. Other times, we bent the world to destroy perceived enemies, warped by truly insane ideologies. I believe there is a better way: to Align with Love. I know it sounds simplistic, even unrealistic, but it is the Way. We have had many moments in our history where people heard another Voice from that Great Reality, and said: “Here I am, send me…” (the Prophet Isaiah, Jewish Scriptures, Isaiah 6:8).
Today is such a day. We see wealth still accumulated at the expense of others. We see religion warped to benefit some, and exclude others, ignoring the very persons who were the founders of those same religions! We, as individuals don’t align with love in so many little moments of the day. I include myself in this. I can write all this nice stuff, but put me in traffic, or screw up “my” day, or have one of my beloved sports teams play horribly, and I am NOT loving at all! Or, I simply ignore injustice– deciding that shaking my head and complaining is an adequate response to greed, violence, poverty, war, sickness, and everything else that is wrong!
I can not Align with Love with ideology alone, it must be followed with action.
For this I am guilty. I humbly repent. Join mein changing.
In Christianity, there is the notion of the Trinity: Father (God), Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit (Love between Father and Son). I would like to propose that there is a triune nature to the Universe of the Great Reality, Inner Reality, and Outer Reality, as well.
Here is a picture of my Trinity necklace. Got it on Amazon, so it is not sacred, or anything, but I like to wear this reminder of what I believe is the nature of God. I also see this as a reminder of this Theory of the Realms. The Great Reality, Inner Reality, and Outer Reality are all interconnected. How you see the Universe shapes how you feel and think, and then turns into actions: Love/hate, kindness/fighting, etc. Likewise, the events and situations of life affect your perceptions of the world, and how you see God. If you grew up with bombs from some other country destroying your home land, you are not likely to be filled with love for that attacking country or it’s people. Grew up in abuse and nastiness? You will surely have issues relating to others, and certainly have a hard time seeing God as loving or caring!
Ultimately, I am saying is that these Realms intersect, overlap, and merge in your heart and mind. I do not think this is particularly profound, as we all kind-of know it, but having seen it again, we can change how we relate to these Realms. One person–you, can make a difference in your day-to day life. Kindness to a child, with some understanding, can profoundly change that child’s view of the world. Noticing a facial expression, and actually stopping long enough to ask: “How are you? How is it going?” instead of making your next point, starts to build a bridge between hearts. (And my wife said: Amen!)
Who do you want to be? No, not the misshapen opinion of everyone else–who do you want to be? No, not just that you want a mate, or a nice house, or kids, or a well paying job, or health, etc.
Who do you want to be in the midst of your life?
Do you want to be known for kindness and for understanding? I want to be know for being a Loving Presence. I want people to feel loved when they come to me, loved when they are with me, and leave me knowing they were loved. It’s a “high bar.” I stink at it. But I came here to this digital space, to get better at it. I came here to help you get better at it. I don’t think any of us can do it by ourselves–we need God’s help, infusing us with His/Her Great Reality-their Loving Presence.
Aligning with this is how we heal the world, inside and out. Join me. Keep reading-keep practicing. I have already written many helpful things you can do. More will come. This is a “movement” of sorts–that is not just religious, or Christian, but a movement of growing up, as a species. It’s not the only way to phrase it, or express it, but it is how I am doing it, and I think it is transformative. So come along.
Together we can do great things, Aligned with Love.
For the Realms are one, and we can be “one” in the Realms.Let us be going-
Books tumble out of a heavy iron archive vault inside a stone-walled room.
As I have said, I will try later in the week to post a ‘From the Vault’ item from older writings I did years ago. I may have released it in some fashion somewhere, but only to a small audience, or only myself. This one is from a group of writings I called simply ‘Meditations’. I did not do many–but this one I liked, and I felt it was time to release it. I do feel it needed some touch-up, like that table you got at the garage sale that you want to paint a different color. (Yes, I did refresh the picture for these posts too.) Enjoy-
Meditations # 1
The Invitation
“Come Lord Jesus!” the Bible ends it’s second to last verse with that phrase in Revelation. If we are a Bible reader, we may then close the book, and go about our day. But I think there is great power and insight in that phrase. I do not think it is just a closing word, but an attitude, and a prayer. It’s a way to be. It is an invitation.
I always thought that John, one of Jesus’s Apostles, and the author of said Revelation, was saying: “Hurry up Jesus, and make all this stuff I saw come to pass!” (John had seen many crazy visions in Revelation, the last book of the Bible.) Maybe John was saying, “I want to get to this Cataclysmic End,” but maybe he meant this: “Come Lord Jesus into my life now.” (And if ‘Jesus’ is not your practice, consider some other Spiritual Word.) In Christian practice, we believe John knew Jesus, and walked and talked with him, and saw him risen from the dead. I believe that John was inviting this risen, living Jesus into his situation, into his own daily life.
I encourage you to invite God into your situation, to invite Him/Her to come into this moment. This moment you are reading this. This moment. Consider inviting God/Spirit again and again to be a part of your Life-Path. Indeed, invite God to show you His/Her Presence, to guide you, and lead yoursteps.
May I suggest that we should pray this prayer often. Let it be a mantra, if you will: “Come, Lord Jesus”, when we’re scared or uncertain. “Come, Lord Jesus” when we face a problem. “Come, Lord Jesus” into our joy, on and on and on. “Come, Spirit. Come, Lord, I invite you into my now.”
The Greek word for ‘come’ in that ending verse of Revelation, among many uses and meanings, includes the notion of accompanying, and bringing, as in bringing something along. How many situations do we find ourselves in, wherein we should have let Jesus/Spirit accompany us, and brought Him along? Did we go-it-alone, or ASK God for some direction?
In truth, God/Spirit was there all along, but we so often had no openness, no lightness, and did not align ourselves with Him, or acknowledge Him. We soon found ourselves in a mess, even it was just a mess in our hearts! Aren’t you tired of inter-personal messes, churned-up minds and hearts? I am.
So, pray this and pray this often,
“Come, Lord Jesus, Come, Lord Jesus, Come Lord Jesus!”
I have recently added: “May I come along with you, my Lord and my God”. I am repurposing another Apostle’s confession, Thomas, upon seeing Jesus risen a week after Easter. (John 20:28)
Whatever your Spiritual Practice, I hope you will find that God is always present. I know praying some mantra-prayer will not fix everything, but it will start aligning your heart, and as the Big Book of AA says: “See to it that your relationship with (God) is right, and great events will come to pass, for you and countless others.”
May you, like the Jewish Patriach Jacob, say of God: “You were here all along, and I did not know it!” (Gen 28:16)
Be Open. Be Light. God will fill the spaces you make. Ask Him to.
