Spiritual Birthday Quotes

Why are you here?" "'Here' as in your bedroom, or 'here' as in the great, spiritual question of our purpose here on this planet? If you're asking me whether this is all some cosmic coincidence or if there's a greater meta-ethical purpose to life, well, that's a puzzler for the ages. I mean, modern-day reductionism is clearly a fallacious argument, but-," -"I'm going back to bed." -"I'm here because Hodge reminded me it's your birthday.

May the love in your heart overshadow any sorrows, and may you always know with a deep inner certainty, how loved you truly are.

The circumstances surrounding your birth is not as important as the opportunity to live life.

The ecstatic beauty and soulful grace of Rumi’s poetry inspires human hearts to believe in possibilities beyond the predictably fatal.

There is a minute in the day, a minute for everyone, though most everyone is too distracted to notice its arrival. A minute of gifts coming from the world like birthday presents. A minute given to every day that seems to create a golden bubble available to everyone.

The birth of a child is a sacred phenomenon.

Today's my birthday On mans scale 53 is a life more than 1/2 over. On the infinite scale of an eternal being I am just a cell of life that has forever to go!

Time is life. Time for birth, time for death.

To those Romans December twenty-fifth was the birthday of the sun. They wrote that in gold letters in their calendar. Every year about that time, the middle of winter, the sun was born once more and it was going to put an end to the darkness and misery of winter. So they had a great feast, with presents and dolls for everybody, and the best day of all was December twenty-fifth. That feast, they would tell you, was thousands of years old- before Christ was ever heard of.

thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a

For certain you can be helped, should you accept it. But as far as being made...no one can do that. This occurred on the day you were born. An earth day is not a birth day. Own what you create as well as what you break.

Birthdays are a day for being grateful that someone exists. We shouldn’t take it for granted. What if they died tomorrow? They could. Anyone could. We should say what we want without fear of it being taken the wrong way.

Celebration is the sparkle in the eye of the one who glows. It is the song that plays in the house of freedom. Celebration is the dance of life, it’s the one dancing to the drumbeat of the heart, it’s your birthday cake, it’s you blowing out the trick candles, it’s you delighting in the fire of life.

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs

Benefits of Being in God’s Family The moment you were spiritually born into God’s family, you were given some astounding birthday gifts: the family name, the family likeness, family privileges, family intimate access, and the family inheritance!7 The Bible says, “Since you are his child, everything he has belongs to you.”8 The New Testament gives great emphasis to our rich “inheritance.” It tells us, “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”9 As children of God we get to share in the family fortune. Here on earth we are given “the riches … of his grace … kindness … patience … glory … wisdom … power … and mercy.”10 But in eternity we will inherit even more. Paul said, “I want you to realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people.”11

The sacred gift of parenthood is inscribe in the universal words ‘Papa’ and ‘Mama’.

Conception is a blessed event. Fertilization is divine intervention. The development of embryo is a miraculous encounter. The birth of a child is supernatural spiritual event.

Children are the greatest blessing from God.

Could anyone fully understand the wonders of how a baby develops in the womb of a woman? This is the mystery about birth. Birth is by divine power of God.

I fucking love LA (dog birthday parties! spiritual healers on every corner! unironic oxygen bars!). You might not think so because I’m a misanthropic depressed person with menopause acne whose hips are too wide for every single restaurant chair in Silverlake, but you would be wrong. I’m a Fat Bitch from the Middle West and I love accidentally running into minor celebrities with my cart in the wheatgrass aisle at the Rock ’N Roll Ralph’s on Sunset.

There are two ways to turn devils into angels: First, acknowledge things about them that you genuinely appreciate. Uncle Morty took you to the beach when you were a kid. Your mom still sends you money on your birthday. Your ex-wife is a good mother to your children. There must be something you sincerely appreciate about this person. Shift your attention from the mean and nasty things they have said or done to the kind and helpful things they have said or done—even if there are just a few or even only one. You have defined this person by their iniquities. You can just as easily—actually, more easily—define them by their redeeming qualities. It’s your movie. Change the script. Perhaps you are still arguing that the person who has hurt you has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. She is evil incarnate, Rosemary’s baby conceived with Satan himself, poster child for the dark side of the Force, destined to wreak havoc and horror in the lives of everyone she touches. A nastier bitch never walked the earth. Got it. Let’s say all of this is true—the person who troubles you is a no-good, cheating, lying SOB. Now here’s the second devil-transformer. Consider: How has this person helped you to grow? What spiritual muscles have you developed that you would not have built if this person had been nicer to you? Have you learned to hold your power and self-esteem in the presence of attempted insult? Do you now speak your truth more quickly and directly? Are you now asking for what you want instead of passively deferring? Are you setting healthier boundaries? Have you deepened in patience and compassion? Do you make more self-honoring choices? There are many benefits you might have gained, or still might gain, from someone who challenges you.

The road to spiritual growth remains long and ever-changing, especially when it comes to the subtle ways we tend to learn, forgive, or select in the ebb and flow of life. But the experiences already lived and those years that seem to accumulate give us wisdom. I wish you a wonderful life ahead and remember that one more year of life is just additional empowerment that embraces us with the power and determination that will inspire us to do better while becoming it.

My real life work was done at Atlanta for thirteen years, from my twenty-ninth to my forty-second birthday. They were years of great spiritual upturning, of the making and unmaking of ideals, of hard work and hard play. Here I found myself. I lost most of my mannerisms. I grew more broadly human, made my closest and most holy friendships, and studied human beings. I became widely-acquainted with the real condition of my people. I realized the terrific odds which faced them. At Wilberforce I was their captious critic. In Philadelphia I was their cold and scientific investigator, with microscope and probe. It took but a few years of Atlanta to bring me to hot and indignant defense. I saw the race-hatred of the whites as I had never dreamed of it before,—naked and unashamed! The faint discrimination of my hopes and intangible dislikes paled into nothing before this great, red monster of cruel oppression. I held back with more difficulty each day my mounting indignation against injustice and misrepresentation.

The fox has a long history of magic and cunning associated with it. Because it is a creature of the night, it is often imbued with supernatural power. It is often most visible at the times of dawn and dusk, the “Between Times” when the magical world and the world in which we live intersect. It lives at the edges of forests and open land-the border areas. Because it is an animal of the “Between Times and Places,” it can be a guide to enter the Faerie Realm. Its appearance at such times can often signal that the Faerie Realm is about to open for the individual. In the Orient, it was believed that faxes were capable of assuming human form. In ancient Chinese lore, the fox acquires the faculty to become human at the age of 50, and on its hundredth birthday, it becomes either a wizard or a beautiful maiden who will ultimately destroy any man unlucky enough to fall in love with her. “There are several American Indian tribes that tell tales of hunters who accidentally discovered their wives were foxes.”52 This is very symbolic of the idea of magic being born within the feminine energies, and that unless a male can recognize the magic of the feminine-in himself or others-and learn to use it to shapeshift his own life, it will ultimately lead to destruction.

Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else’s life. One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live. ‘I cannot live with myself any longer.’ This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. ‘Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.’ ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘only one of them is real.’ I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words ‘resist nothing,’ as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that. I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marvelling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.

The holy time establish the holy-event.

Hope is the assurance of positive expectations.

What a great gladness to welcome a new born baby into the world.

Children are sacred beings.

The birth of a child is supernatural spiritual event.

The day of birth is a sacred day.

I am approaching my fiftieth birthday, Mr. Trout,” I said. “I am cleansing and renewing myself for the very different sorts of years to come. Under similar spiritual conditions, Count Tolstoi freed his serfs. Thomas Jefferson freed his slaves. I am going to set at liberty all the literary characters who have served me so loyally during my writing career. “You are the only one I am telling. For the others, tonight will be a night like any other night. Arise, Mr. Trout, you are free, you are free.

As early as November 1966, the Red Guard Corps of Beijing Normal University had set their sights on the Confucian ancestral home in Qufu County in Shandong Province. Invoking the language of the May Fourth movement, they proceeded to Qufu, where they established themselves as the Revolutionary Rebel Liaison State to Annihilate the Old Curiosity Shop of Confucius. Within the month they had totally destroyed the Temple of Confucius, the Kong Family Mansion, the Cemetery of Confucius (including the Master’s grave), and all the statues, steles, and relics in the area... In January 1967 another Red Guard unit editorialized in the People’s Daily: To struggle against Confucius, the feudal mummy, and thoroughly eradicate . . . reactionary Confucianism is one of our important tasks in the Great Cultural Revolution. And then, to make their point, they went on a nationwide rampage, destroying temples, statues, historical landmarks, texts, and anything at all to do with the ancient Sage... The Cultural Revolution came to an end with Mao’s death in 1976. In 1978 Deng Xiaoping (1904–97) became China’s paramount leader, setting China on a course of economic and political reform, and effectively bringing an end to the Maoist ideal of class conflict and perpetual revolution. Since 2000, the leadership in Beijing, eager to advance economic prosperity and promote social stability, has talked not of the need for class conflict but of the goal of achieving a “harmonious society,” citing approvingly the passage from the Analects, “harmony is something to be cherished” (1.12). The Confucius compound in Qufu has been renovated and is now the site of annual celebrations of Confucius’s birthday in late September. In recent years, colleges and universities throughout the country—Beijing University, Qufu Normal University, Renmin University, Shaanxi Normal University, and Shandong University, to name a few—have established Confucian study and research centers. And, in the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics, the Beijing Olympic Committee welcomed guests from around the world to Beijing with salutations from the Analects, “Is it not a joy to have friends come from afar?” and “Within the fours seas all men are brothers,” not with sayings from Mao’s Little Red Book. Tellingly, when the Chinese government began funding centers to support the study of the Chinese language and culture in foreign schools and universities around the globe in 2004—a move interpreted as an ef f ort to expand China’s “soft power”—it chose to name these centers Confucius Institutes... The failure of Marxism-Leninism has created an ideological vacuum, prompting people to seek new ways of understanding society and new sources of spiritual inspiration. The endemic culture of greed and corruption—spawned by the economic reforms and the celebration of wealth accompanying them—has given rise to a search for a set of values that will address these social ills. And, crucially, rising nationalist sentiments have fueled a desire to fi nd meaning within the native tradition—and to of f set the malignant ef f ects of Western decadence and materialism. Confucius has thus played a variety of roles in China’s twentieth and twenty-first centuries. At times praised, at times vilified, he has been both good guy and bad guy. Yet whether good or bad, he has always been somewhere on the stage. These days Confucius appears to be gaining favor again, in official circles and among the people. But what the future holds for him and his teachings is difficult to predict. All we can say with any certainty is that Confucius will continue to matter.

I am so glad to be with my dear friend. Often things and people try to keep us apart, but the love that we have for each other and the goodness of God’s universe ensures that we shall meet. The first time that the South African government refused him a visa—when he was going to come to my eightieth birthday—I asked him, ‘How many divisions do you have in your army? Why is China scared of you?’ And that is what surprises me—maybe they are right—a spiritual leader is something that should be taken very seriously. We hope that God’s world will become a better place, more hospitable to goodness, more hospitable to compassion, more hospitable to generosity, more hospitable to living together so we don’t have what is happening now between Russia and the Ukraine, or what is happening with ISIS, or what is happening in Kenya or Syria. They make God weep.

One of these days, I’ll die and pass into a new kind of life. I’ll look again into the face of the One who has been my protection, my nutrition, my oxygen. Maybe, when that next birthday comes, I won’t be so afraid to say goodbye. Leaving the womb, after all, is just the beginning of the story.

SHADOW ARTISTS ONE OF OUR CHIEF needs as creative beings is support. Unfortunately, this can be hard to come by. Ideally, we would be nurtured and encouraged first by our nuclear family and then by ever-widening circles of friends, teachers, well-wishers. As young artists, we need and want to be acknowledged for our attempts and efforts as well as for our achievements and triumphs. Unfortunately, many artists never receive this critical early encouragement. As a result, they may not know they are artists at all. Parents seldom respond, “Try it and see what happens” to artistic urges issuing from their offspring. They offer cautionary advice where support might be more to the point. Timid young artists, adding parental fears to their own, often give up their sunny dreams of artistic careers, settling into the twilight world of could-have-beens and regrets. There, caught between the dream of action and the fear of failure, shadow artists are born. I am thinking here of Edwin, a miserable millionaire trader whose joy in life comes from his art collection. Strongly gifted in the visual arts, he was urged as a child to go into finance. His father bought him a seat on the stock exchange for his twenty-first birthday. He has been a trader ever since. Now in his mid-thirties, he is very rich and very poor. Money cannot buy him creative fulfillment. Surrounding himself with artists and artifacts, he is like the kid with his nose pressed to the candy-store window. He would love to be more creative but believes that is the prerogative of others, nothing he can aspire to for himself. A generous man, he recently gifted an artist with a year’s living expenses so she could pursue her dreams. Raised to believe that the term artist could not apply to him, he cannot make that same gift for himself.

When he had ate his fill, and proceeded from the urgent first cup and necessary second to the voluntary third which might be toyed with at leisure, without any particular outcry seeming to suggest he should be on his guard, he leant back, spread the city’s news before him, and, by glances between the items, took a longer survey of the room. Session of the Common Council. Vinegars, Malts, and Spirituous Liquors, Available on Best Terms. Had he been on familiar ground, he would have been able to tell at a glance what particular group of citizens in the great empire of coffee this house aspired to serve: whether it was the place for poetry or gluttony, philosophy or marine insurance, the Indies trade or the meat-porters’ burial club. Ships Landing. Ships Departed. Long Island Estate of Mr De Kyper, with Standing Timber, to be Sold at Auction. But the prints on the yellowed walls were a mixture. Some maps, some satires, some ballads, some bawdy, alongside the inevitable picture of the King: pop-eyed George reigning over a lukewarm graphical gruel, neither one thing nor t’other. Albany Letter, Relating to the Behaviour of the Mohawks. Sermon, Upon the Dedication of the Monument to the Late Revd. Vesey. Leases to be Let: Bouwerij, Out Ward, Environs of Rutgers’ Farm. And the company? River Cargos Landed. Escaped Negro Wench: Reward Offered. – All he could glean was an impression generally businesslike, perhaps intersown with law. Dramatic Rendition of the Classics, to be Performed by the Celebrated Mrs Tomlinson. Poem, ‘Hail Liberty, Sweet Succor of a Briton’s Breast’, Offered by ‘Urbanus’ on the Occasion of His Majesty’s Birthday. Over there there were maps on the table, and a contract a-signing; and a ring of men in merchants’ buff-and-grey quizzing one in advocate’s black-and-bands. But some of the clients had the wind-scoured countenance of mariners, and some were boys joshing one another. Proceedings of the Court of Judicature of the Province of New-York. Poor Law Assessment. Carriage Rates. Principal Goods at Mart, Prices Current. Here he pulled out a printed paper of his own from an inner pocket, and made comparison of certain figures, running his left and right forefingers down the columns together. Telescopes and Spy-Glasses Ground. Regimental Orders. Dinner of the Hungarian Club. Perhaps there were simply too few temples here to coffee, for them to specialise as he was used.

This is thy birth-day; thou wert before, but beganst to live when Christ began to live in thee. The

What that means, in a practical way, is that we strive to know and love a few people deeply. We don’t have to distribute gospel tracts to strangers to be effective evangelists; we just have to be present to a few people who are in our lives. We go to their birthday parties. We watch them play softball. We drink coffee with them at the coffee shop. We laugh when they laugh and cry when they cry. And, in the process, we get to be salt and light to them. Even if we never quote the Bible to them or say a prayer with them, we are the presence of Christ to them.

When I was a child and I would listen to my sister's LPs She was a huge fan and she was so in love with him that she wrote him a letter. I enjoyed seeing my sis so happy about Manilow Mania. I wrote some lyrics based on one of his songs, also thinking of those ships that pass in the night in the city where I was born. Can you guess which one? Anyway, my sister was already unconscious at the hospital when I inserted an earplug so that she could hear some of his songs. It was very low, very mild Manilow, when all of a sudden, in the second cord when he sang "I made it through the rain" in a beat a bit higher her heartbeat which was being monitored played faster. I could see that as a sign that she was listening. I stopped the song and I started Singing one of her songs that she had especially made for my birthday when I turned nine yrs old and I never forgot about that. I could see a little smile coming from the left side of her lips. It was the affirmation I needed. That she was and will always be there for me as I so admired her soul to the bones!

Death was a constant fact of life. The reaper struck with fire and drowning; typhus, malaria, yellow fever, and a host of other diseases; accidents that ranged from the swift shock of a horse’s kick to a slow-spreading infection from a cut finger; and suicide and murder. More than one-fifth of the children born died before their first birthday; at birth the average life expectancy for an adult was little more than forty.6 Medicine at best could offer a patient little help and at worst was lethal, an excruciating matter of bleeding, blistering, and purging with potions such as laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol.

Upon my eighteenth birthday I was given three choices: 1. Join the church, and live at home. 2. Move out and live on my own. 3. Move into the single men’s home.

I hate it when Penny does this. Honestly, it can be so annoying. She lives it though. She didn't buy clothes for an entire year, her senior year at Reed, because she felt like she was irresponsible with money. She always looked very beautiful anyway, and for her birthday I bought her some mittens at Saturday Market for seven dollars. She wore them like they were from Tiffany's or something. She always talked about them. They weren't that big of a deal, but she hadn't had any new clothes for a year so I think she wore them while she was sleeping or something. Penny is right about spending money though. Penny is right about everything. Penny said if I were to save about twenty dollars a month and give it to Northwest Medical Teams or Amnesty International, I would literally be saving lives. Literally. But that stupid pleasure center goes off in my brain, and it feels like there is nothing I can do about it. I told Penny about the pleasure center and how I needed the remote control car to make the pleasure center light up, and she just took the phone away from her ear and beat it against her chair.

I hate it when Penny does this. Honestly, it can be so annoying. She lives it though. She didn't buy clothes for an entire year, her senior year at Reed, because she felt like she was irresponsible with money. She always looked very beautiful anyway, and for her birthday I bought her some mittens at Saturday Market for seven dollars. She wore them like they were from Tiffany's or something. She always talked about them. They weren't that big of a deal, but she hadn't had any new clothes for a year so I think she wore them while she was sleeping or something. Penny is right about spending money though. Penny is right about everything. Penny said if I were to save about twenty dollars a month and give it to Northwest Medical Teams or Amnesty International, I would literally be saving lives. Literally. But that stupid pleasure center goes off in my brain, and it feels like there is nothing I can do about it. I told Penny about the pleasure center and how I needed the remote control car to make the pleasure center light up, and she just took the phone away from her car and beat it against her chair.

Has it ever struck you as odd that humans are the only creatures on the planet who wear clothes? Everything else, from aardvarks to zebras, is running around in its birthday suit, blissfully unclear of the concept of underpants. Why don't people do the same?

Yule log (the cake kind), cover it with melted chocolate and sprinkle with icing sugar.  Place one candle on the Yule log for each of the celebrants (birthday candles work the best for this).  Each celebrant then lights the candle as they make a wish.  Once everyone has made a wish, the celebrants blow out the candles and eat the Yule log.  Yule

The Christ Child in a nation is like the presence of the child in the house: everything centres upon his youth; and he fills everything with his life. If he goes away, the child's values go, too, such as the sense of wonder, mystery, beauty, and adventure: the poetry which, free from materialism, is the most complete realism. In England there are traces of where the Child once lived: there are remnants of the Faith; but not the certainty of the Faith that there once was. There is a wistful longing to believe; but not the joyful freedom of living in belief. There is the desire to set up laws of justice for everyone's happiness; but not the spirit of the Child's obedience to God's Law in the heart of all men: and indeed without that no codes and laws can have value; because those who make them have not the capacity to keep them. The absence of supernatural joy on our feast days shows more than anything else that the Divine Child is absent. Christmas is no longer Christ's birthday, except to a few people. It is no longer the time in which everyone, young and old, is born again; no longer the time when the instinct is to find a home where there is a Christmas tree, lit up with tinsel and little candles and with a crowned bambino on top of it; and children standing at the foot of the tree, looking at it with faces suffused with joy.

Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you ..." Jeremiah 1:5 How is this possible? How can God claim to know us before we were formed in our mother's womb? The answer is that the real us is spirit, not flesh. Most of us believe that we have a soul, that we have a spirit. And most of us believe they are eternal - that they were created on our birth day and go on forever, hopefully in a place called heaven. But this idea misses the definition of what eternal really means. Eternal means no starting or end points, no beginnings or ends. In other words - no birth days. Eternal things have always been and always will be. This is how and why God knew you before you were formed in your mother's womb. Because your spirit has always existed and always will exist - as a part of Him. What was created on your birthday was the illusion that you are flesh, that you are somehow disconnected from God. But this is only illusion, not Truth. The ultimate Truth is Spirit, for Spirit is all there is. This is who you are, who you've always been, and always will be - living as One, as a part of God. "There is only one Body, one Spirit, just as you were called to the one Hope when you were called." Ephesians 4:4 May you feel the Light living within you today, and share it with all you meet. God LOVES you and so do I !!! To read more on what it means to be a part of the Truth, try my new book, "Fishing Buddies, A Spiritual Tale" available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.