10/15/13-Learning Who I Am

I am learning who I am.

On September 17, I found out I have family on my father's side I never knew existed.  My birth father died when I was 10 months old, and I was always told he had no relatives.  As I get to know this loving, new-found family of mine, I am learning amazing things from them through all of the genealogy work they've done, especially my cousins, Bob and Ella Faye.  For example, Samuel Burling Dickinson was my great-great grandfather which means I am a descendant of the passengers that came to America on the Mayflower in 1620.

Chart prepared by Dickinson descendant and Mayflower Society member, Bob Webb

And I look an awful lot like my grandfather's sister, Mary Ellen Dickinson Flenniken, 1893-1932.

Photo provided by Ella Faye (Flenniken) Johnson.  Mary Ellen was her Mother.

I'm also learning things that sadden me - my grandfather (one of the twins on the left in the family photo below) died in 1987, in San Antonio.  All these years he was so close and I didn't know anything about him.

Samuel Abel Dickinson and Laura Ann Finley

Photo provided by Ella Faye (Flenniken) Johnson.  Samuel Abel and Laura Ann were her grandparents, my great grandparents.

All of this research has also revealed that I had a half-brother on my mother's side of the family that died in 2003.  I would have liked to have known him too.

I'm struck more than ever on how important it is to strive to love and live from Spirit - every moment, every day, with every person.  I'm sure there are many New Thought prayers and great FB quotes that can capture this, but what is present in my heart today is the St. Francis of Assisi's Prayer.  There is nothing I want more than to be a vessel of love and light in this world, and it is a good reminder for that.

by stevepr56-d3joygi

I get to meet some members of my new family soon, and I am very grateful for that.  I am learning who I am, but I am more than just a descendant of the Mayflower voyagers, and the Dickinson-Kinnison line, and what I've believed about me and my time on earth to date.  As Gangaji states in her book, the Diamond in your Pocket, "I am that which animates the body."  I am, as you are, one with all that is, all that has ever been and all that will ever be.  We are the Divine expressing, or as Rev. David Howard writes in his blog (here), "We are the Christ expressing."  We are love.  I pray that my new family and I, that you and I, recognize that in each other whenever we meet, every time we meet.

I celebrate this gift of knowing.  I celebrate you.  I am grateful.

Love Greatly Dear Ones