Carl Eric Johnson

Following is the text of the Forward Day by Day meditation for December 13, 2009, the third Sunday in Advent. Forward Day by Day meditations are written anonymously, otherwise I would love to credit the author. As it is, I shall credit Forward Day by Day itself and Forward Movement Publications.

This meant even more to me by the sheer fact that it was the meditation for that particular day. My mother died on Friday, December 13, 2002, and every December 13 as well as every Friday the 13^th since then, I hold her memory especially close and say a prayer for her. I know she is watching over me. I love you, Mom.

With that, the rest of this post is the author’s meditation on the Epistle reading for that day. I hope you enjoy it and find it as meaningful as I did and still do.

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Philippians 4:4-7. Rejoice in the Lord always.

Really? Always? But Lord…

“Yes, always. I’ve noticed that you’re joyful enough when the flowers bloom and the balmy breezes blow. But why no joy when you lost your job, when your wife left you, and when you had to take a second mortgage on your home? Maybe you thought I’d left you then, that I am with you only amidst the flower blossoms and the warm breezes. But when Paul wrote about rejoicing in me always, he was chained in a prison cell. He rejoiced even there. Paul knew that I lay next to him on that cold stone floor while the mice and roaches crawled over him. He rejoiced not because happy things were happening (they weren’t), but because he knew I loved him. And I love you, too. In fact, I am closest to you when you are most debilitated, fearful, despondent, and helpless. It is then that I hold you most closely to my heart.

“Feel my arms around you. After crucifixion comes resurrection. So it was with me and so it will be with you, for I am with you and you are mine. I claim you for my own. I love you and I always will, come what may. Rejoice in me. Always.”

Most of the year I attend St. John’s Episcopal Church in Portsmouth. During the summer months, however, I prefer to go to St. Andrew’s-by-the-Sea right here in Rye Beach. It is a charming summer chapel, just steps from my beloved Atlantic Ocean. Often, after church, I’ll treat myself to a walk along the shore.

Today I had other commitments, though, so I opted at least to take the long way home and drive along Ocean Boulevard for a few miles before heading back inland. To my surprise, it was very slow going. The good news is that that allowed me plenty of opportunity to see what all the commotion was about.

The road was packed both northbound and southbound, and cars were parked wherever they could find space, legal or otherwise. You see, Hurricane Bill was paying a visit. Now, you’d never know it, because the skies were bright blue with white puffy clouds, and the air temperature was a comfortable 81°F, the high humidity made tolerable by the ocean breezes.

What was causing all the commotion, however, was the ocean itself. Hurricane Bill had created very large waves—the sort I’m more accustomed to seeing in photos of surfers along the California coast than the generally lower waves that are more common here on the Eastern Seaboard.

And the surfers were out on droves. It was fun watching one catch a wave while dozens of others were still paddling out, waiting for a yet more perfect ride back to shore.

I love anything having to do with the ocean, and especially when it causes me to contemplate on the larger issues of life. Herewith my Sunday afternoon musings … before I need to step away from my keyboard and tend to some chores outside, which is my own way of making the best use of the day I’ve been given.

Hurricanes are scary, and they do come as far north as New England from time to time. Fortunately, Hurricane Bill mostly knocked himself out, leaving high seas as the only indication that he was anywhere near. So instead of hunkering down to sideways rain and howling winds, the surfers among us (and New Hampshire’s beaches attract surfers year-round) took their cue and made the most of the situation.

And this is my take-home thought of the day. It’s fine to make plans—in fact, it’s essential if you ever want to get ahead in your life—but you also have to take things as they come. Go with the flow. Roll with the punches. Choose your preferred metaphor, they all mean the same thing. We need to be flexible with our plans.

As my regular readers know, I generally write in my blog maybe once a week or so. This, however, is the third entry in as many days. And that’s because I’m going with the flow. This is the third day in a row that I have observed something that I wanted to share with you. So I’m making time in my busy day (whose days aren’t busy?) to sit for a few moments at my computer and get my thoughts down on (virtual) paper.

My family is coming for a visit over Labor Day weekend. That is another very pleasant “interruption” in my plans, and I’ll need to set aside time to do some serious housecleaning, as I haven’t had houseguests in quite some time. (I remember my grandmother often saying, “Company is good for the home.”) And between now and then I have an out-of-town trip that will occupy six of those precious days.

Of course, these interruptions are all blessings in disguise. So when the seas are rough, there’s just one thing to do. Go surfing!

My brothers and sisters and I grew up in a prejudice-free home.

That’s not entirely accurate, so let me explain. When we were growing up, it was my father’s influence that governed how we spoke about other people. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that Dad experienced his own share of discrimination, having grown up in a poor Swedish immigrant family in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City. My mother had her share of prejudices, which we were all aware of, and yet my Dad would never allow us to voice similar opinions without challenging them. I thank him for that, as it has given me a unique way of dealing with people whose opinions and beliefs differ from my own.

Earlier today a friend of mine added a comment to my Facebook status. His comment included language that condemned an entire religion. I added my own comment in reply, seeking to soften his language. Next thing I knew, he had posted a second comment that justified (in his mind) his prejudice. So I decided instead to delete all three comments—his two and my one—and I wrote him an e-mail explaining why I took this action. Needless to say, his e-mail reply to me contained further justification for his negativity and hatred. Sigh.

One thing I have learned is the power of the law of attraction. By filling our lives with negativity, we attract more negativity. When we choose instead to focus on the positive, we attract more of the positive. Even with people who disagree with me on issues that are important to me, I choose to find common ground … and there is always common ground to be found.

I am not being a Pollyanna in choosing to focus on the positive. I do it because it actually works. In so many ways, my life has been one blessing after another. Yes, there have been hard times. Those who know me personally, know that I am going through one of them right now. And yet even with all that is going on in my life right now, God’s blessings are palpably present. I have a family that loves me just as I am. I have friends with hearts of gold. I have met an entirely new class of folks since I got involved with network marketing seven years ago—people that want nothing more than to see me succeed, and I them.

At the end of his e-mail to me, my disaffected friend commented on my decision to clean up my Facebook page, because I use it for “self-promotion, recruitment, and networking for profit.” He continued, “I learn little about my friend Carl, and too much about ‘Carl as a business.’ Where did my friend go? I miss him.” Well, my friend, I’m still here. In fact, I’m still the man you knew ten years ago. However, I have grown. Maybe once upon a time you and I would have sat around bitching and moaning about some issue or other. I won’t do that any more. I’ve seen how it poisons people; I’ve seen how it has poisoned you.

Over the years, as I have made new friends, I have also had to let some old friends go. I hope this is not one of those times, but if it is, so be it. I can do more good in the world by minimizing the negative influences in my life. And I want the world to be a better place for my having been here.

The bottom line is this: There is absolutely no room in my life for bigotry, prejudice, narrow-mindedness, and other poisons—even if I agree with you on the issue at hand!

Thanks, Dad!

This is the fourth and final post in my series reflecting on my journey from Maundy Thursday evening to Easter morning.

In recent decades it has been my custom to grow a winter beard—I call it my Thanksgiving-to-Easter beard. This means that I generally shave it off on Holy Saturday. This year was no exception. Saturday morning I decided to spend some me-time reading The Wall Street Journal online. I came across an article about tying bow ties. I’ve always been a fan of bow ties. My dad always looked so dapper in his. I have such happy memories of the day I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church, when he helped me tie my bow tie for the first time. I was a man now—no more clip-ons.

Anyway, in that same article there was mention of a blog site called SocialPrimer.com written by K. Cooper Ray (pictured at right). I knew I was going to like it when I read its tagline:

Manners, Conversation, Style & Handling Your Liquor

I had a rather pretentious childhood, myself, and have always suffered from delusions of grandeur, eliciting much ribbing from my older brothers. My mother’s mother, my Gram, was a very elegant woman, and I always resonated with her. So it was quite natural for me to find myself resonating with SP, as Mr. Ray refers to himself in his blog.

Several hours later I awake from my reverie and extricated myself from the mesmerizing glare of my computer screen, newly invigorated for the task at hand: the annual shaving of the beard. I also decided to class-up my act from now on. That evening for the Easter Vigil and again Easter morning, I wore a suit and tie (never could get the bow tie to work, despite my dad’s tender coaching so many years before) to the shock and delight of my fellow choristers and congregants. It was fun.

Moreover, it felt good. It reminded me of my mother’s father, my Gramp, who was also quite dapper. He would have approved. This has carried forward into this week as well, with several opportunities to dress up nicer than has been my custom.

Resurrection. Time to put away the old and embrace the new. I have a new outlook on how to carry myself in public. Perhaps the Miraculous Medal that I now find myself wearing has something to do with this, and perhaps not. I just know that exceedingly good things are on the horizon. Can’t you feel it? I certainly can.

Happy Easter, everybody! And yes, it is still Easter—will be for a total of fifty days.

P.S. I also like SocialPrimer.com from a technical standpoint. It is a very well designed blog. I intend to use it in my technical trainings. So what’s so good about it? It’s rather plain, after all. Well, in my opinion, it’s not plain as much as clean and crisp. Also, Mr. Ray offers useful information for free and does not clutter his blog up with offers for whatever he is hawking at the moment, like so many blogs do. I’m all for generating income with a blog, but let’s do it subtly, and only after providing solid content for free. His blog wins on all accounts.

Here is the third in a series of posts I promised you, reflecting on my own journey from Maundy Thursday evening to Easter morning. This is a continuation of what happened to me Good Friday morning—a positive resolution to yesterday’s post.

Since “Sheryl” did not want to meet with me, and since I had an hour and a half before my next appointment, I sought out someone else to meet with. I ended up with another visitor to this BNI chapter, named Phil (no quotes). We headed to the Me & Ollie’s next door and proceeded to get to know each other better, as we had only spoken in passing before.

Now, as regular readers to my blog can attest, I am rather spiritually inclined (is that an understatement?), and I enjoy it when I detect a kindred spirit. Well, Phil is one such kindred spirit. He spoke about events in his life that could have been coincidences, except that neither of us believes that there are any accidents in this world.

Then, before I knew it, he reached into his pocket and produced a small token. He explained that it was a Miraculous Medal, and he told me the story of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s apparitions in France in 1830. He carries on his deceased wife’s tradition of passing out these Medals whenever moved to do so. Many of the people he has given them to have come back to him with their own miraculous stories.

Now, I am not Roman Catholic, nor am I particularly superstitious, nonetheless I was deeply moved by Phil’s gesture. For several weeks I had felt that something special was going to happen to me on Good Friday. Between Lent winding down and springtime ramping up, I could not feel that better times were at hand. Always attuned to the spiritual, I decided to keep the Medal on me. When I got home I found a chain I could put it on, and I now wear it around my neck. My Roman Catholic friend Nick will have a field day with me, I am sure, as he is always trying to get me to see the errors of my Protestant ways … tongue in cheek, of course.

Anyway, back to the story. It turns out that Phil is a network marketing junkie like me, so we had much to talk about among our various enterprises. Before I knew it, it was 11:00 and time for my next appointment. Phil said good-bye and I settled in with the newspaper waiting for Margo (again, no quotes) to arrive.

I only got through the first page when Margo arrived, and we had another amazing 1-to-1 meeting. She and I connected on a project that she is working on, unrelated to her main business which I already knew about. So again, we had much to talk about and time flew.

Two great connections, two very positive meetings. Thank you, “Sheryl,” for blowing me off, allowing these other two encounters to take place. Maybe Our Lady was already watching over me, even before Phil gave me her Miraculous Medal.

For my readers who observe the holiday, I wish you a blessed Easter. For everyone, I wish you a glorious spring. I don’t know about you, but this time of year always makes me more hopeful of better times to come.

So much has happened to me during the course of the Triduum. From Maundy Thursday to Good Friday to Holy Saturday to Easter Day, it has been an amazing journey. I would have written all along, but I’ve been so busy with work and with singing in the choir that this afternoon is the first time I’ve had to get back into the swing of posting to my blog.

Today’s post will take us back to Maundy Thursday; I’ll post the remainder of my reflections over the next several days.

Part of the Maundy Thursday service commemorates Jesus’ washing the feet of his disciples. In most churches the clergy assume the role of the servants and wash the feet of whoever in the congregation wishes to participate and comes forward. This is a beautiful act of submission and is quite powerful as it is. However, the tradition at my church has evolved in recent years to having anyone who wishes to assume either role. It is quite moving to see whole families come forward and then wash one another’s feet. I don’t really know how or why this tradition started, but it is very powerful.

While singing the mesmerizing Taizé chant “Ubi Caritas,” I found myself musing on persons in authority assuming the role of the servant. And then I remembered my post here from a few months back titled Abundance ~ Service ~ Prosperity and the centrality of service (servanthood) to prosperity. Unless one provides something of value to the world, true prosperity is impossible.

Then I considered who was freer, the master or the slave? To my surprise, I determined it was the slave who was the freer of the two. Positions of authority carry huge burdens of responsibility with them, while positions of service merely involve performing the desired tasks at hand. Perhaps modern life can be made less hectic by simply reorienting one’s thoughts to focus on being of service: find out what the task at hand is (what people are looking for), and then do it.

I’m taking an online course in Internet marketing, and one of the recommended strategies involves keyword research to determine a niche market to exploit. Although I’m sure this works for some, this has never made much sense to me. If it is not an area in which I have personal expertise, why would I want to expend any energy on it? Instead, what I teach my protégés is to identify their own personal strengths and then determine ways to share those strengths with others to mutual benefit—i.e., to be of service.

Before I knew it, the footwashing was over and I ended my reverie, but not without reinforcing my resolve to seek to be of service in all that I do, whether through this blog or through my various business ventures or through the book I am writing. My greatest desire is for the world to be a better place for my having been here. Let me know how I may be of service to you.

For the past year or so I have been enjoying learning about and practicing centering prayer. My church hosts a centering prayer gathering once a week, and I have been augmenting that discipline with near-daily sessions at home.

If you wish, you can click on the following link and read Wikipedia’s definition of centering prayer. My practice involves sitting in silent meditation for twenty minutes. To keep the mind from wandering, many people choose a mantra that is meaningful for them. My mantra started out simply being:

Breathe ~ Breathe ~ Breathe
Breathe ~ Breathe ~ Breathe

More recently I have been using some combination of Abundance and Prosperity, invoking the law of attraction to bring more abundance and prosperity into my life.

Just yesterday morning a third word entered the mix—Service—and specifically in this order:

Abundance ~ Service ~ Prosperity
Abundance ~ Service ~ Prosperity

I pondered this sequence of words, and then it hit me. Prosperity requires two preconditions before it will appear in one’s life.

Abundance

The first precondition is a mindset of abundance. Let’s face it, our modern society screams scarcity, scarcity, scarcity all the time, especially in our current economic climate of contraction. As long as we buy into this mindset of scarcity, we are sure to keep prosperity at bay.

So how do we cultivate a mindset of abundance in today’s world? Actually, it needn’t be all that difficult. The first thing we have to do is to recognize that abundance and prosperity still exist in our world. Some of the largest fortunes were made during the Great Depression and during other economic downturns. The simple adage, “Buy low, sell high,” still pertains. As an example, for real estate investors, now is an ideal time to buy depressed properties.

I’ve always loved the expression, “Buy low, sell high,” but for a reason that may not be immediately apparent. It is the classic mantra of a contrarian. If prices are low, that means most people are selling; it must be time to buy. If prices are high, then most people are buying; that means it’s time to sell. To cultivate a mindset of abundance in the face of economic chaos, one must truly be a contrarian.

So if abundance is possible in any economic climate, I may as well choose to think thoughts of abundance and to banish thoughts of scarcity as soon as they arise. This sets up the proper vibration to attract prosperity.

Service

It’s this second precondition that eluded me for the longest time: Service. Like many who have watched or read The Secret, I fell into the temptation that all I needed to do to attract prosperity into my life was to resonate with vibrations of abundance. Needless to say, this had little effect. Yes, it’s an important first step, but the second step is to offer something of value to the marketplace—to be of genuine service.

Moreover, one must strive to give away something of value. I am currently in the process of updating my various websites to offer valuable freebies to my visitors in exchange for providing me with their contact information. No doubt, I am opening myself up to being taken advantage of by people who subscribe one day, grab their free gift, and then immediately unsubscribe. So be it. That is a chance I am willing to take. (How’s that for an abundance mindset!)

This is also lighting a fire under me to ramp up the progress on my book, Demystifying Prosperity™: Why You Should Take a Serious Look at Network Marketing. I can begin to use content-rich excerpts from it as valuable giveaways, instead of (or in addition to) someone else’s products.

One of my goals is to be a successful platform speaker. In order to do so, I must offer a product or service of value to my audience. I’m sure I’ll ultimately be speaking on Demystifying Prosperity™, but for now, my presentations may have something to do with my other love: Demystifying Technology®. Therefore, I am also ramping up production on my technical videos. So far I’ve been offering them mostly to the people who join one of my network marketing businesses, but why not open them up to everyone?

So you see, Service has opened up whole new horizons for me. Such a simple lesson—I’m amazed that it eluded me for so long. Watch out world: Carl Eric Johnson is preparing great new things.

Prosperity

Only by first nurturing an abundance mindset and then offering a valuable service to the world can one attract true prosperity. The good news is that now it is likely to rush into your life much faster than you could have imagined it.

In my one-on-one coaching sessions, I help people identify their strengths and weaknesses and ultimately their long-lost dreams. This reveals areas where they can offer unique services to the world. It provides direction and a target to aim for. A life well lived is one where the world has been made a better place for you having been in it. Let’s all strive to find our unique gifts to offer the world. This is sure to open the floodgates of prosperity.