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No conventional therapy can release us from a deep and abiding psychic pain. Through prayer we find what we cannot find elsewhere: a peace that is not of this world.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: A Return to Prayer)
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There is nowhere you need go to find God, for God is within you. There is no one you need ask if you are good enough, for He has already established He is exceedingly well pleased.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: A Return to Prayer)
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May I be, this day, an instrument of love and healing.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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Dear God, Thank you for this new day, its beauty and its light. Thank You for my chance to begin again. Free me from the limitations of yesterday. Today may I be reborn. May I become more fully a reflection of Your radiance. Give me strength and compassion and courage and wisdom. Show me the light in myself and others. May I recognize the good that is available everywhere.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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Please enter where You already abide. May my mind and heart be pure and true, and may I not deviate from the things of goodness.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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Dear God, As I rise up, I thank You for the opportunity to be on this earth. I thank You for my mind and body, I thank You for my life. Please bless my body and use it for Your purposes. May I rise up strong today, and may my body and soul radiate Your love. May all impurities be cast out of my mind, my heart, my body. May every cell of my being be filled with Your light.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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now embrace the divine child within me. May it burst forth now to bless the world. May I not be tempted to doubt the light that lights the entire world. Illumine the earth and save the world. Thank You, Lord.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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May I fly with angels and sing with angels and know the angels in myself and others Henceforth and forever as You have promised. Please hold my hand. Please take me home. Please move me forward. Thank You, Lord. Amen.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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Dear God, May this house be a sacred dwelling for those who live here. May those who visit feel the peace we have received from You. May darkness not enter. May the light of God shield this house from harm. May the angels bring their peace here and use our home as a haven of light. May all grow strong in this place of healing, our sanctuary from the loudness of the world. May it so be used by You forever.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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Dear Lord, please lift me up and heal me. Cast out of my mind all thoughts that are not of You. Cast out of me all harsh and critical nature. Cast out of me all violence and all anger. Cast out of me all demons from my past. For I would be made new. I wish to walk so close to You that we might be as one.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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GRATITUDE FOR THE BODY Dear God, As I rise up, I thank You for the opportunity to be on this earth. I thank You for my mind and body, I thank You for my life. Please bless my body and use it for Your purposes. May I rise up strong today, and may my body and soul radiate Your love. May all impurities be cast out of my mind, my heart, my body. May every cell of my being be filled with Your light.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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Every cell of my being is radiant with my love for You. May my earthly self align with this, May my human heart stop beating so wildly. May I remember, dear God, that I live in Your mind and I belong in Your arms.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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The expansion of this country was accomplished at the cost of decimation to the Native American population. The American Indian death toll due to the United Statesβ march to the Pacific was massive. Much of the land we stole from the Native Americans is uninhabited to this day; basically, the Indians could have stayed where they were. Had America expanded its boundaries yet been true to its conscience, the American Indian nations could have remained intact. And were there a greater prevalence of Native American philosophy and culture in the United States today, the life of our nation would be immeasurably enriched.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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The truth is that we have done far too little, for we have never apologized. We have never fully, publicly acknowledged the evil that was done to African-Americans as evil. The Civil War obliterated a wicked institution, but a war alone cannot obliterate wicked thinking. Slavery ended but racism continued, and in many ways it intensified after that war. Slavery existed only in the South, but racism pervades the entire country.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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Without personal commitment to the attributes of fair play and integrity, the United States is in grave danger. Malice and intolerance stalk our society, staking claim to our minds, and not one corner of our social order is unaffected. This darkness is a significant threat to our national good, perhaps the most significant threat in our history, for it strikes at the heart of democracy. Where people are not free to disagree, there can be no democracy, since that is what democracy is.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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The history of the African-American, also, is so morally outrageous as to make the fact that there has never been an official apology almost unbelievable. A strange psychological phenomenon occurs when a truth is so big, so obvious, that it becomes, in some perverse way, almost easy to resist. The history of racism in the United States is so cruel yet systemic in our society. Perhaps we fear we could not bear the feelings of guilt that would be unleashed were we to make to African-Americans a sincere and heartfelt amends. The truth is it is not our guilt that would be unleashed but our love. Making a formal apology to African-Americans is what we need to do in order to morally resurrect as a nation.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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A healthy, civilized society can absorb some anger and dysfunction, as a healthy immune system can absorb some disease. But a massive buildup of anger and mean-spiritedness bombarding our social system day in and day out in millions upon millions of individual doses overwhelms our societal defenses. Medicine does little good in the absence of a healthy immune system. Likewise police and other institutional efforts to counter violence do little good, ultimately, in the absence of our individual efforts to deal with it. Violence is routed out of the world only by being routed out of our minds. Hatred is diseased thinking. Just as a cancer cell was a healthy cell that then transformed, so is hatred, love gone wrong.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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Dear Lord, We pray for the leaders of this country and every other. May they not be swayed by false politics but listen instead to the spirit of truth. May they not harken to the false and bitter voices of a frightened world, but instead hear the angels who minister unto them. May the world make room for their leadership and resist no more their growth into greatness.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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United States today, there is a widespread, malignant thought form that other people are the problem. Conservatives tend to blame liberals for our problems, while liberals blame conservatives. The media blames almost everyone, and almost everyone blames immigrants. Some people are convinced homosexuals are the problem, while others think that single mothers are the problem. Still others think the Christian Right is the problem, and far, far too many people think that our parents were the problem. The entire culture has become a hysterical blame session.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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The source of violence is in our heads. As it would not be appropriate to ignore βjust a littleβ cancer in the body, so it is not appropriate for us to ignore βjust a littleβ violent thinking. A little cancer, unchecked, turns into a monstrous killer. So do small, insidious, seemingly harmless judgmental thought forms become the pervasive cancers that threaten to destroy a society. As the bodyβs defenses against cancer center around a healthy immune system, our chief defense against violence in America is our own individual efforts to cleanse our minds of violent thinking. Each and every one of us tends to be angrier and less tolerant of others than we know in our hearts that we should be.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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PRAYER FOR OUR PARENTS Dear God, Please bless my parents. Thank You, thank them for the life they gave me. For the ways they helped me and made me strong, I give thanks. For the ways they stumbled and held me back, please help me to forgive them and receive Your compensation. May their spirits be blessed, their roads forward made easy. Please release them, and release me, from my childhood now gone by. Release us also from any bitterness I still hold. They paved the way, in all that they did, for where I have been has led me here. I surrender my parents to the arms of God. Thank you, dear ones, for your service to me. Bless your souls. May your spirits fly free. May we enter into the relationship God wills for us. Thank You, Lord, for I am free now. Glory, hallelujah. Amen.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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We welcome you to this moment in your lives and to the place you have come to in each otherβs hearts. We join with you on this day, as you commit before God and humanity that from this point forward you shall live as one. I remind all of our guests that you have been invited here for a holy purpose, not just to witness, but to participate fully with your thoughts and prayers, asking God to bless this couple and their married life. You are here because this couple feels close to you and asks that you join with them in this dedication of sacred purpose. You represent symbolically all the people in the world who will be touched in any way by the life of this couple. You represent their friends and family, now and forever. They have chosen this act of marriage and this public, holy ceremony in which to proclaim it. Together we all thank God who brought them together and ask Him always to guide their way.
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage)
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there will be no peace in the world until there is peace in our hearts
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Marianne Williamson (Illuminata: A Return to Prayer)