Despite an all-out effort on the part of the President to create a level playing field for faith based organizations to apply grant for and receive faith based grants, many faith based grants go to non-faith based community organizations. 

One of President Bush’s first official acts as President was to create the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.  At its inception the Office was tasked with strengthening and expanding the role of faith-based and community organizations in addressing the nation’s social problems through faith based grants.  The President envisioned a faith-friendly public square where faith-based organizations could compete equally with other groups to receive faith based grants.  Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives were also established in seven cabinet departments – the United States Department of Justice, Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Education and the Agency for International Development. Priority areas for federal faith based grants include:

• At-risk youth
• Ex-offenders
• Homeless and hungry
• Substance abusers
• Those with HIV/AIDS
• Welfare-to-work families

To find out more about federal faith based grants visit www.fbci.gov, www.grants.gov, or www.fedbizopps.gov. There are many free grant writing courses available by federal agencies to learn how to apply for grants.

U.S. Government Grants provides grant writing training that goes beyond the training provided by the federal government for organizations to receive faith based grants.  Each faith based organization that attends a U.S.G.G. Workshop receives a list of at least 100 potential prospects.   

For years, churches have played a vital role in assisting people in need.  Unfortunately, many churches do not qualify for faith based grants because they do not have a separate 501(c)(3) organization.  U.S. Government Grants provides training for churches on how to set up faith based 501(3)(c) organizations. A step-by-step instruction book is available for purchase at a price of $500 which includes 1 hour of consultation services, sample forms and templates. If you prefer, USGG. will complete all paperwork and file your application with the I.R.S. for $2,000. State and federal filing fees range between $10 and $750.

By obtaining the 501(c)(3) status with the I.R.S. faith based organizations become eligible for grants from private foundations, as well as from federal, state, and local governments.  In the U.S. there are over 2,200 private foundations that are interested in giving grants to Christian organizations and agencies, and thousands more that give grants to faith based 501(c)(3) organizations to provide programs that run the gamut from A-Z, including abuse prevention, aging, AIDS, child development, family services, food distribution, health care, homelessness, human services, housing, mental health, music, Native Americans, performing arts, substance abuse, women, youth development, and zoos. The DeMoss Foundation, Huntsman Foundation, Stewardship Foundation, Bonner Foundation, and Bolthouse Foundation all give grants nationally to Christian organizations and agencies.  Other foundations that provide grants nationally to faith based organizations include the Heritage Mark Foundation, Davis Family Foundation, Mustard Seed Foundation, Generation Trust, Rushing Wind, Ltd. and many more.   A great resource for learning about faith based grants from private foundations is the Foundation Directory.

Source: us-government-grants.net

Addiction to Spirituality Recovery Life Basics

Lian had been meditating for many years before consulting with me for his depression. He had been part of a spiritual community that encouraged their members to turn to God through prayer and meditation whenever they were feeling any difficult or painful feelings such as anger, hurt, anxiety, or depression. He had been taught that Spirit would transmute his feelings for him and bring him the peace he sought.

Yet Lian was depressed. “I have faithfully practiced what I’ve had been taught, so why am I still depressed? What am I doing wrong?”

Lian was suffering from what is called “spiritual bypass.”

Spiritual bypass occurs when people use their spiritual practice as a way to avoid dealing with and taking responsibility for their feelings. Anything that is used to avoid feeling and taking responsibility for feelings becomes an addiction – whether it is alcohol, drugs, food, TV, work, gambling, spending, shopping, anger, withdrawal…and meditation. If, when a difficult or painful feeling comes up, you immediately go into meditation in the hopes of blissing out and getting rid of the feeling, you may be addicted to spirituality.

It all depends on what your intent is when you are meditating. People can meditate for two totally different reasons: to avoid pain or to learn about love.

If you are meditating to connect with yourself and your spiritual Guidance in order to learn more about loving yourself and others, then meditation is a good way to get out of your head and into your heart. It is a good way to connect with a loving part of yourself so that you can welcome and embrace your painful feelings and learn what you may be doing or thinking that is causing your own pain. When your intent is to be loving to yourself and take responsibility for your own feelings, then meditation can help you become centered and compassionate enough to do an inner exploration with your feeling self.

However, if you are using meditation to bliss out and avoid your pain, you are using your spirituality addictively. You are using your spirituality to bypass learning about and taking responsibility for your feelings.

This is what Lian was doing. Because he was avoiding learning from his feelings, he was continuing to think and behave in ways toward himself and others that caused him to feel depressed. Then, instead of exploring what he was doing that was causing his feeling self, his inner child, to feel depressed, he was meditating to try to get rid of the feelings.

In his work with me, Lian discovered that he was constantly either ignoring his inner child – his feeling self – or he was in self-judgment. The combination of ignoring himself – which he did primarily through meditation – and judging himself resulted in his inner child feeling unloved, unimportant, and unseen. Lian saw that if he treated his actual children in the way he treated himself – ignoring their feelings and constantly judging them – they would also feel badly and maybe depressed. But Lian did attend to his actual children’s feelings and needs. It was his own that he was ignoring and judging.

Lian realized that he was treating himself the way his parents had treated him. He was a much better parent to his children than his parents had been with him, but he was parenting his own inner child in the way he had been parented. He was not only treating himself the way he had been treated, he was treating himself the way his parents had treated themselves. As a result, he was not being a good role model for his children of personal responsibility for his own feelings, just as his parents had been a poor role model for him.

In the course of working with me, Lian learned the Inner Bonding process that we teach. He learned to welcome his painful feelings during meditation. He learned to quiet the self-judgmental part of himself and to treat himself with caring and respect. He learned to take loving action in his own behalf so that his inner child no longer felt abandoned by him. It was the inner abandonment that was causing his depression. He discovered that his depression was actually a gift – a way his inner child was letting him know that he was not being loving to himself. With practice, Lian learned to take loving care of himself and his depression disappeared. Now his meditation practice was no longer a spiritual bypass.

Advantages of Applying Feng Shui in Your Life

Many people are fascinated with Feng Shui and with many good reasons. While others generally believe that it is just some oriental superstitious set of paradigms on interior design (but that is just part of the extensive definition for Feng Shui), the Feng Shui that we know now is actually comprised of various schools of learning and incorporates the different cultures under which it is housed.

The good thing about the different options pertaining to Feng Shui is that even the layman can actually be able to understand and apply it immediately in their homes without having to spend too much. And apart from that, there are other advantages that only Feng Shui can bring if you can actually open up your mind to try it.

Advantage Number 1: It brings balance to one’s life

Have you ever found yourself completely overburdened with clutter and unnecessarily stressed out of your wits? Chances are, you are suffering from a visual imbalance of some sort in your surroundings. Now, the best way to introduce some sense of balance is by incorporating elements that provide you with a sense of control in the outer balance of things. If you are able to get some semblance of balance even in things as menial as your furniture, you are bound to find balance in other aspects equally manageable.

Advantage Number 2: It helps you become more mindful of the little things

Mindfulness in the little things can actually be a good thing. Some of us tend to be heavily focused on the big things of life that even the minor details like home arrangement and office ergonomics no longer come to play. When these “minor” aspects of life continue to take a backseat, they tend to accumulate and produce a very stressful environment which can add up to other problems and worries of life.

Advantage Number 3: It opens up possibilities of meeting new people

Meeting new people is another bonus of being a Feng Shui enthusiast. When you are applying Feng Shui, chances are, you will be able to find another person within your social network who likes the same stuff and can even help you expand your knowledge on Feng Shui, no matter how limited it is to begin with.

Advantage Number 4: It gives a fresh perspective on things

At any given time, a fresh perspective is always welcome. This positive perspective can invite changes for the better. A new way of looking at home arrangement, for example, may actually serve to benefit you in the long run. The fresh perspective brought about by Feng Shui can actually bring about an enrichment of one’s mind.

Advantage Number 5: It invites prosperity and success

The main objective of Feng Shui is to invite all the good things to one’s life. Prosperity and success can be more easily within reach and a positive disposition may be expected if Feng Shui is practiced well.

Advantage Number 6: It has aesthetic appeal

On top of all the enumerated benefits of Feng Shui, the best would probably be its beauty. The physical appeal of a well-decorated home, interspersed with good Feng Shui techniques, is actually something that you can call a personal heritage that can transcend generations and promote beauty in all aspects, including design of the home and the office.

The Landscape of the Soul

Through the years, we accumulate a series of experiences. Our tendency is to evaluate and simply reflect on what we have been through and what we have learned. This inward site into what we can no longer see with our eyes allows us to see through them through our soul.

The landscape of the soul creates a movement and a synchronistic pattern between our heart and our mind through the inner visions of our soul. When the heart and imagination join forces to look back or look forward, we are deepening our awareness of who we really are. This deepening of who we really are is our soul.

It has been said that “our hearts will not rest until we rest in thee.” This is our journey in life. It is our journey home. It is the journey into the spacial quality of existence that brought us into this world. It is the journey of what is leading us through this life. And, it is the journey back to where it all began.

One could say that the infant and the elderly are more soul than body. As you and I develop our personality and ego, we begin to think we are somebody. Ram Dass calls this “somebody training.” We begin to think we are real and act on this appearance of being as we move into adulthood. When we mature, we go back into what Ram Dass has called “nobody training.”

We spend a great deal of time learning to develop independence from infancy only to lose it again as we die. It is the journey from innocence to grace. The human expression is a journey with many ups and downs. What keeps us on tract and often sane in an insane world is the “landscape of the soul.” The landscape of the soul gives us strength to do the impossible and give us hope when there is none.

Even though all parts of the self needs to be embraced with scrutiny and unconditional love, there is something inside us perfecting our true nature. Our authentic self knows we are growing through life and simply going through life at the same time. This delicate balance between these two forces of nature enables us to stay on our path. It is the path a knowing who we are through the various experiences and expressions of our life. Insodoing, we learn to trust in our soul and find direction there when direction in life is not present.

Samuel Oliver, author of, “What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living”
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