New Year or SOS?

New year…or…SOS (same old shit)? To have it be different, try writing your resolutions differently. Don’t do them alone. Devorah and I invite you for up to three, thirty minute sessions of free coaching. Interested? Reply to this post.  HQPubs.com

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New Years Resolutions

Ugh! New Year’s resolutions. Don’t do them alone this year. Devorah has suggested that we invite you for up to three, thirty minute sessions of free coaching. To learn more, reply to this post.
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Right or Happy?

Would you rather be right with the ego or happy with Spirit? All our feelings of dis-ease and disturbance flow from the mind’s mistaken choice. Not a sinful choice, simply a mistaken choice; one that we can undo without guilt. Only mistaken, what a happy fact! Happy because knowing there’s another way, we can choose it. We are not trapped in our stinkin’ thinkin.
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Question Everything

Ready? There’s some work involved. But the rewards: deep peace, calm, compassion, happiness, and purpose are worth it. Question your perceptions. To access your real thoughts and experience these rewards, first let go of your unreal thoughts. The ego always speaks first and is wrong. Accept nothing it says at face value. Question your perceptions. Let the door behind this world be opened for you, that you may look past it to the world that reflects the love of spirit.
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Confused and Bemused?

Confused and bemused? That’s because it’s a paradox. In the world but not of the world. Seek not to change the world but change your mind about the world. We are not saved from the world but from our own thoughts about the world. If myself is real, then mySelf is not. Which do you want to be real for you?

Happiness is a Decision

Happiness is a decision I make even before I have a reason to be happy. Happiness is an intention, a choice about how to experience life. Life itself is neutral. It’s my choice to experience it with reality as Spirit and be happy and healthy, or unreality as a separated ego and be sad, sick, anxious, fearful and hating. What I experience is feedback about the choice I’ve made, inside. If I’m sad, anxious and sick, I’ve chosen the ego and can now choose again.

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Afraid of Death?

“I’m not afraid of death,” Woody Allen said.  “I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”  Yeah, ditto for me! And what if we don’t have to be there? What if dying means letting go of the particular ego, myself, who I think I am, and taking a step into something unknown, bigger, and perhaps better - mySelf? 

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Illussions

“Put not your faith in illusions,” Devorah said. “They will fail you. Put all your faith in the love of God within you; eternal, changeless and forever unfailing. This is the answer to whatever confronts you today. In the midst of seeming danger, disappointment and failure, allow peace to flow over you like a blanket of protection and surety. Entertain no idle and foolish thoughts for they are illusions.”
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Kindness

Want to be kinder and gentler – with yourself and others? I want to. What prevents us? Nothing really, no thing, just a mistaken belief that kindness doesn’t work, that you catch more flies with vinegar than with honey.

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Enthusiasm

What if you knew you had nothing to fear? What if the strength of Spirit really was in you? Would the barriers to being yourself, expressing and sharing your talents fall away? Would you be more alive, fulfilled and joyous? And how would your enthusiasm, your ‘en theos’, being in God, effect others?
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Peace is Your Right

Do you know that peace is your right? That healing is of the mind, not the body; the soul, not the ego. Reach down into your heart and soul and mind to the deep, real peace that is always there, waiting. Know that place within you where nothing is impossible and the strength of God abides and you need do nothing to ‘earn’ it because it is your right.
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From Desperation to Inspiration

When was the last time you were on fire, burned with passion and desire? To shift from desperation to inspiration watch what you’re telling yourself. Choose a different guide; shift from yourself to yourSelf.
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The Rewards, Part Three

“As you watch your thoughts, your mind is open, not stuck in the limited perspective enforced by your brain. The great Mystery lies in smiling repose before you and you are no longer frightened by the unknown because you know you are part of it.”
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Rewards, Part Two

“As you watch your thoughts you shift from the brain to your mind, which is outside time and space, your sense of time and space changes. The narrow range of your life expands and you are open to more; more clarity, kindness and spaciousness.

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The Reward, Part One

“And what do you get for the discomfort of pausing momentarily and watching your thoughts?” Devorah smiled. “Everything! Freedom of choice, mastery, less stress, less fear, blame and hate, less being a victim, more peace, ease, grace and joy.
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Coaching With Devorah and Dr. Steve

Need some coaching? Someone to listen to you and encourage you? Devorah has suggested that we invite you for up to three, thirty minute sessions of free coaching. To learn more, reply to this post.
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Hope and Disapointment

Thanksgiving is the holiday of our hopes, dreams, ideals and aspirations as well as our disappointments, fears, anger, blame and victimization. All holidays partake of this, but Thanksgiving seems to partake of it more. We ‘should’ on ourselves more on Thanksgiving: it should be perfect or not like this or better than this. I shouldn’t feel this way, they shouldn’t feel that way. But then there are moments like Goldilocks’ porridge, when it’s just right and the shoulds are gone. God bless and may your porridge today be just right.

Gratitude

“Gratitude turns around moments of fear and distress, shifting attention from what isn’t working to what is.  In every circumstance, there is something to be grateful for. Find it, praise it and feel the shift. Happy Thanksgiving!”  HQPubs.com

The Wizard

“And there will come a great Wizard,” Devorah said. “And a young woman will go to him and ask him to return her to her home. She will go through many ordeals only to discover that she herself possessed the power to return home all the time.” Devorah smiled. “Deep within our hearts each of us knows the truth; that the spirit within us is greater than anything in the outer world. The power of your life is in your own hands where it has always been. Like Dorothy, you had it all the time, even now.”
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Devorah's Webinar

Devorah has suggested that we invite you to a free 45 minute webinar that would be an open discussion and exploration of her unique way of thinking about spirituality. If you’ve been following the posts and are curious, this would be a fine way to ask questions and learn more.  

Please reply if you’d be interested in attending such a webinar the second week in January and what day and time would be best for you.

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History is not Destiny

“Your history is not your destiny,” Devorah said to the multitude. “Until your life is completely over, you lack the information to truly understand how everything in your life fits together. To live more fully, think of yourself as an explorer visiting unknown territory, within and without. Travel lightly, without baggage, allowing your present and future to be totally unlike your past. Be willing to say that wherever I find myself, is home. Resist longing for the safety of the past. You are exactly where you need to be to live the life that is best for you. Life is an opportunity, not a punishment.”
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Flowers and Bees

“So,” Devorah repeated, “don’t rush it or judge yourself and allow each thought to be an opportunity. This is a difficult process with much uncertainty while we identify with the ego. ‘Allowing’ means letting the ego and its way of thinking go, so spirit’s way can emerge. Doing this feels wrong, risky and dangerous. But we have to go through it and know that the ego speaks first and is always wrong. Besides,” Devorah said, grimacing, “uncertainty won’t kill you. It’s uncomfortable, but a necessary part of the process of shifting from ego to spirit.

“For example, I no longer know which thoughts I have and which thoughts have me. The thoughts that have me are the ones I want to question; the obvious self evident ones. The thoughts that shake me up, that make me re-think are the thoughts I want to encourage.

“Consider the flower,” Devorah smiled. “It pours out its fragrance to attract a bee to pollinate it and spread its seed. The flower has no wings but the bee does. The bee has no nectar but the flower does. There would be no flowers without bees and no bees without the nectar of flowers. Can you truly say the nectar belongs to the flower, or that the wings belong to the bee? Were they not made for each other? If it were not for the appearance of separate bodies, wouldn’t you see them as one?”

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Your Responsibility

“Your responsibility is to claim your power and yourSelf,” Devorah said. “To realize you are not a victim and understand this experience of the world as a bad dream, the ego’s nightmare, to give each experience, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, over to spirit; to allow ourselves to experience the dream differently with ourSelves, with spirit, as a happy dream.

“For the world and our experiences are as all things are in dreams, illusory, impermanent and neutral, and who we choose to identify with determines whether we have a nightmare or a happy dream. 

“But the goal of our spiritual practice is not to have a dream at all, happy or sad, but to return to our minds, forgive our own and everyone else’s illusory trespasses, and accept our oneness with spirit. This is a process, a one thought at a time, step by step process. So don’t rush it or judge yourself and allow each thought to be an opportunity.”

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The Witness

“The first step is to forgive myself for the mistaken thought; to not take what I see and experience here as immutable; to understand that these experiences are of the ego and their purpose to keep me out of my mind; and then give the thought over to mySelf so that I may see it with mySelf, be guided and know what to do. Realize that the world is a witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. Your state of mind, a choice you have made. You are not a helpless victim of forces beyond your control. You are not alone. You are response-able, you have power, you can choose again and see and experience the world differently, with yourSelf instead of yourself.”
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Form Follows Thinking

Devorah smiled. “When I’m able to remember that all thinking produces form at some level - internal and/or external, I’m better able take responsibility for my thinking and my experience of the world. Form follows thought because the ‘thinking’ I normally do is with the ego in my brain and not with spirit which is in my mind. Since mind is spirit, mySelf, outside of time and space, I know that if I’m ‘thinking’ I’m identifying with ego and creating form. The goal of my spiritual practice is to realize this and that form is irrelevant except as feedback about which of the two realities I’m identifying with – myself or mySelf, ego or spirit.

 “It also helps to remember that I am never alone, that I do not have to shift from brain to mind on my own. That I merely have to be willing to do this to claim my atonement with spirit, for it is spirit Itself that doeth the work.

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Two Views of Reality

“The Covenant, the other, non-traditional way of looking at things, teaches that God did not create the world, we did.” Malachizer shook his head and grumbles of “blasphemy” shivered around the crowd. But most of the people were receptive and wanted to hear more. After all, Devorah was a good person, an effective Judge, and an excellent prophet so there had to be something to what she was saying.
 
“In a single instant, long ago past, the ego – an ‘idle’ thought that we were separate from God - wandered into our minds. Instead of ignoring that thought and laughing at the ridiculous idea that such a thing could be possible, we took the idea seriously. We thus became separate bodies in a world of separate things. But our minds, not our brains, but our minds, which share reality with God, remain with God.

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Idle Thoughts

The tent was full for the Sabbath Eve service. The High Priest, Malachizer, had finished his sermon and gestured for Devorah to give her remarks.  “There is no such thing as an ‘idle’ thought,” Devorah said, gesturing inclusively. “All of you know I live in this world with you; but that I see it and experience it differently.” A murmur of ascent. “Malachizer, our good High Priest, sees it one way as do most of you, I see it another. The way most people see and experience the world, the traditional way embodied in the Law and the Scrolls, is that the world is real and outside us. It is and we react to it.
“The other way of seeing and experiencing the world, the non-traditional way that I call the Covenant, is that the world is not real, but a product of our thoughts...."

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Struggle

“And,” Devorah said, “if you find yourself struggling as we all do too much of the time, remember, the essence of struggle is to become new, rather than simply to become older.”

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Tone of Voice

“When I pause and go within for guidance,” Barak asked, “how do I know it’s the still small voice – mySelf – I’m hearing instead of the ego?”

Devorah smiled. “The tone, my general,” she said. “What is the tone? Is it loud, strident and demanding, or soft, calming and soothing? Does it come from your head or heart? Does it make you feel smart, brilliant and in control, or comforted, peaceful and grateful? Is the advice good for all concerned or will some people and things be harmed or punished? Are you concerned that you not embarrass yourself and be right, or have faith and trust, going forward in spite of your doubt and fear? In other words, are you proud or humble?  Are you letting go and letting yourSelf do it, or are you holding on and struggling?”

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Immune to Facts?

“Have you ever noticed how some people, especially true believers like the T Party, are immune to facts?” Barak asked Devorah. Devorah nodded. “Why is that?”

“Making something visible to those who don’t believe in it does not mean it will be seen. Making something like global climate change visible to those who don’t want to believe makes them afraid. When people are afraid, they become defensive and look for reasons to be angry, and the anger makes frightened people feel safer.” Barak nodded. “The best we can do,” Devorah continued, “is allow a thing to just speak for itself so that when people do find it they feel like discoverers.”

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Humility is Smart

Devorah continued, “Humility isn’t a ‘nice’ thing you do, to please your parents or God or show what a good person you are. Being humble is a practical useful thing intelligent people do to find peace, be successful and seize opportunities. Think about it – the world is a complicated place, zillions of variables. Even in your own small life, zillions of variables. What should you do now, five minutes from now? Which variables should you manipulate, which first, second? The one power that is these variables, in and through them as it is in and through you, knows. It alone knows. Being humble and accepting how small and relatively powerless your self is and allowing yourSelf to guide you, is not ‘nice,’ it’s smart. Having humility, letting go and letting God, is the intelligent thing to do.”

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Faith and True Guidance

Devorah smiled. “I close my eyes to see,” she said. “Then am I truly guided. Our lack of faith can be a way of accepting the status quo, a failure to move beyond what is comfortable and familiar.  We cling to what is, rather than seeing what could be.  The spiritual path is a process with no final destination.  It is one long opportunity to learn and grow.  In difficult times… our faith can transport us to new levels.  We emerge on the other side of problems transformed and renewed.” 

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Still More Trancendence

A crowd had gathered around Devorah. “The transcending I’m talking about is quite literal. For it to work we have to be willing to die to the lesser in order to experience the greater. We have to use our divine nature more generously; giving everything – heart, soul and mind, holding nothing back, we shall receive everything. Letting go of ignorance we will gain knowledge. Trusting spirit we will walk in Its glorious light instead of the ego’s pathetic darkness.”

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More Transcendence

“’Turning away and transcending’ is easier said than done,” Devorah explained. “It does not happen because we think we are turning away and transcending, it happens because our thoughts and feelings are in fact turning away and transcending. A person might imagine herself to be very clever while remaining quite dull, but if her thoughts are brilliant, the person will also be brilliant. So it is with turning away and transcending.”

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Transcend

Lappodoth, Devorah’s husband, was struggling with an annoying cough. None of the usual remedies helped. “We have to remember, husband,” Devorah said. “That Spirit has no opposites. Right now, you, being of Spirit are also perfect and right where that cough is, perfection is. We can avail ourselves of that perfection to such degree as we become conscious of it, claim it and accept it.” Lappodoth nodded. “Health overcomes disease and good overcomes evil, not by struggling or combating it but by turning away from it and transcending it.”

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Please hear

“Beloveds, let us be glad we can walk the world, and find so many chances (especially those given by the T Party) to perceive another situation where God’s gift can once again be recognized as ours! Thus will all vestiges of hell, the secret sins and hidden hates be gone. And all the loveliness which they concealed appear to lift us high above the thorny roads we travelled before. Please hear me, my brothers and sisters,” Devorah said softly. “I cannot call in vain. I rest in God’s certainty. I know you will hear and you will choose again. Amen!”

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A different world

More people gathered ‘round her and Devorah said: “Beloveds, Spirit asks for nothing but your release, and in fact knows that in the real world you are already released and realize your oneness with It. There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from here to Heaven.” She smiled and stretched out her arms in an inclusive gesture. “Through me, and through you too if you will allow it, comes a vision of a different world, so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain and sorrow that you saw before.”

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Just do it

“The need to constantly claim ourSelves, is like having to wash your hands and brush your teeth,” Devorah continued. “It’s not because you are especially dirty, it’s just the way life is. It’s not personal; it’s not that you are a bad person or a failure. It’s just something you do, like washing your hands and brushing your teeth.”

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The Happy Habit

Devorah continued. “What appears to hide yourSelf, is powerless before Its majesty and disappears the moment you turn to it. Hallelujah!” Then she shook her head sadly. “But we must turn to It constantly – every moment, all the time. We can’t seem to do it once or twice and have it stick. Though we are Spirit, we think we are bodies and so must constantly remind ourselves of our Reality.” She smiled. “Learn then the happy habit of responding to all temptation to see yourself as weak, miserable and victimized by saying: ‘I am as God created me. Its child can suffer nothing and I am Its child!’”

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Comfort

A small group of convalescing soldiers and their families were waiting for Devorah when she emerged from the hospital tent. “Speak to us, Devorah,” a woman said, stepping forward smiling. “Comfort us.”

“The comfort is within you, beloved,” Devorah said. “I only awaken you to it. Know that the images you make cannot prevail against what God Itself would have you be. Spirit would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. It would remove all misery and perplexity. Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again and let the strength of yourSelf flow through you and into the world.”

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Insanity

Devorah smiled wistfully. “How seeming strange and paradoxical all this is to the ego self. But experienced with ourSelf, it’s easy to appreciate that seeming trials, difficulties and ‘failures’ are really opportunities to choose again. When faced with difficulties we can pause, reflect and invite ourSelf  to show us the opportunity to choose again and see life differently, with spirit instead of ego.

“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is as good a definition of insanity as there is. The T party and its true believers need to appreciate this and know that adding more fervor and commitment to a failed choice do not help, but actually make it more difficult to change and choose again.”  HQPubs.com

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Making the Right Choice

The soldier looked deeply into Devorah’s eyes. “But how do I make the right choice?” he asked.

“There are only two choices,” Devorah replied. “You always choose between your weakness, your separated self alone, and your strength, your connected Self. And what you choose is what you think is real. If you do not use weakness to direct your actions, you give it no power, and your strength will automatically guide you. Bring your weakness, your fear, doubt and worry to the light and the light will shine away the darkness.”  HQPubs. com

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Temptation

“This does not mean a denial of the objective world,” Devorah said to the wounded man as she knelt beside his bed and prayed with him, “but a recognition that there is a transcendent cause in and through it. One creative cause for both sickness and health.”

“But they may cut off my leg,” the soldier said.

Eyes calm and full of faith, never leaving his, Devorah said, “Tho you may lose your leg, do not give in to the temptation to see yourSelf as a body. You remain as God created you – perfect – choose yourSelf. Temptation seeks to persuade us - the blessed children of God, that we are bodies, born into what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders us to feel. This is not so! Accept not these limits. See temptation for what it is – a lie. YourSelf is whole and perfect and may still live, love and contribute with one leg or no legs.”

Devorah stroked the man’s bearded cheek. “Relax into your reality as spirit. Do not fight the temptation, my gentle warrior, that only makes it real. See the temptation, do not deny its appearance, only its power over you. The one creative source makes you healthy or sick, whole or broken as you choose. Know this and choose to be yourSelf.”

 

 

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One Cause

“One dead, twelve wounded,” Barak told Devorah as the soldiers returned. “A good night’s work!”

“Indeed, Barak,” Devorah replied. “Would that we didn’t have to suffer even one wounded, and so for the Canaanites. That would be true were we able to turn from the appearance of duality, of good and evil, and perceive the one consciousness behind all forms.” Barak frowned. “This does not mean a denial of the objective world, Barak, but a recognition that there is a transcendent cause in and through it. One creative cause for both Hebrew and Canaanite, democrat and republican…. And we war but against ourselves, something our loving father would not have us do.”  HQPubs.com.

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Gratitude!

Alone in her tent, Devorah felt the anxiety of awaiting the soldiers return. She knew some would not return. Her body trembled. “Gratitude is this present moment.” Yes, Abba, she thought. Thank you. I forget that the present is all we have and the finest, most elevated response we can have is gratitude.

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Yesterdays

Devorah addressed a reinforced company of Barak’s best fighters before they went on an early morning raid. “All your yesterdays ended last night.” Her face shone bright in the flickering torch light. “It makes no difference how long you’ve been alive; they all ended. This day is absolutely new. You’ve never lived it before. Go forth knowing God is with you.”

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Save the Datge

Save the date. Meet Dr. Steve and Devorah, Sun, October 13th, 3 PM, Dave and Mary Alper South Dade Jewish Community Center, 11155, SW 112 Ave,  33176.

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Thank you!

Devorah and I thank all those who joined us for our presentations at the South Florida Writers Assn, Saturday morning, and at Temple Beth Am Sunday morning. We all had a fine time!

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The Field

“Out there, beyond ideas of right and wrong, is a field. I’ll meet you there.”  Hafiz

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Save the Dates!

Save the dates. Three opportunities to meet and enjoy Dr Steve and Devorah.
 

Sat, October 5th, S FL Writers Assn, 10:30 AM, Pinecrest Library, 5835 SW 111 St., Pinecrest, 33156.

 

Sun, October 6th, 10 AM, Temple Beth Am, 5590 SW 88 St Pinecrest, 33156

 

Sun, October 13th, 3 PM, Dave and Mary Alper South Dade Jewish Community Center, 11155, SW 112 Ave,  33176

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Sacred Sex

Can sex – real or imagined, elegant or gross, physical, sensual, erotic, messy and unfettered sex, without limits – be sacred?

Is ‘sacred sex’ a contradiction in terms? For Yael, a major character in Devorah, Book One of The Covenant and The Scrolls series, a fictional account of the life of Devorah, Judge, prophet, and human being in ancient Israel, the answer is “No!”

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Save the Dates!

Save the dates. Three opportunities to meet and enjoy Dr Steve and Devorah.

Sat, October 5th, S FL Writers Assn, 10:30 AM, Pinecrest Library, 5835 SW 111 St., Pinecrest, 33156.

Sun, October 6th, 10 AM, Temple Beth Am, 5590 SW 88 St Pinecrest, 33156

Sun, October 13th, 3 PM, Dave and Mary Alper South Dade Jewish Community Center, 11155, SW 112 Ave,  33176

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