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NOTE: Saturday is Prose & Poetry Day here on the blog, a time to take a moment once a week to relax the mind, open the heart, and access the soul through the gift of prose from one of the many books of The New Spirituality, and through the poetry of m. Claire, author of the forthcoming volume, Openings & Deepenings.
This week’s prose…the sixth in a series of excerpts from Happier Than God.

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Last week I said in the book excerpt here that we’ve heard a lot about how Personal Creation works, we’ve heard a lot about the way it works, but we’ve hardly heard anything at all about the reason that it works.
This has led to a lot of questions—and one in particular that might just be the most important question of all time. We’ll pick up this week by me noting that I’ve had this question asked at my lectures and spiritual renewal retreats often. Other messengers have heard it too, I’m sure. And now it’s been asked on global television.
When this question is answered fully and completely you will know how to be happier than God.
During a February, 2007 telecast of Oprah! a member of the studio audience asked it and darned near stopped the show. The broadcast was devoted to that motion picture that was capturing a lot of attention at the time, having to do with the so-called “Law of Attraction.” This “law” is a phenomenon which has been described in the books and programs, classes, and lectures, statements, and sermons of many teachers and messengers throughout the centuries.
On her worldwide telecast, Oprah used these words to describe this great principle of life:
“It says that the energy and the thoughts and the feelings that you put out into the world, both good and bad, are exactly what is always coming back to you…so you have the life that you have created. I’ve been talking about this for years on this show…”
Oprah’s on-set guests were waxing enthusiastic about using positive thoughts and feelings, consciously and deliberately to bring about desired results in one’s life as described in the film, which was called The Secret, when Oprah called on a woman in the audience who, she said, “has a question that many people want answered.”
The woman then rose to say…
“My husband and I, we are Christians, and our kids are Christians. We teach our children to put their faith in God, and it seems that The Secret teaches you to put your faith in yourself. So I was wondering if God is anywhere in this.”
Oprah thought that was a good question, and I can understand why. Since we were children, most of us have been told that God is the One to whom we can turn if we need help, or if we desire something that is really important.
Isn’t that how millions of us have been trained? No matter what the culture, no matter what the religion, if a person believes in a Deity at all, isn’t this one of the most important roles that the Deity plays? Is God not the supplier of all good things?
Yet what of the dramatic assertion in some teachings and writings that if we need a miracle or wish better health or want more money or ache for a perfect companion or seek right livelihood or simply desire a better life, all we have to do is use the power that lies within us, “speak our word,” and everything for which we yearn will be ours?
We must ask again, where does God fit into all this? If what was said earlier—that we don’t “need” God because God is always with us—is true, then just how does God fit into all this? What is God’s role in the Process of Personal Creation?
(This is not an idle question, and the text that is being excerpted here offers one response that may be well worth considering. Happier Than God will be released in late February by Hampton Roads Publishing.)
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This week’s gift of poetry
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I know, Dear Ones: there is much to say.
What artists use,
is their Life.
If Your eyes
see something not yet spoken for,
then name it.
It was waiting for You.
Do you not long to paint
yourself upon Life?
Every anger,
every lost dream?
The Love you made,
and didn’t?
You must find a way to
say everything.
Shout the word that has been living
in your chest –
the one you imagine yourself
howling from the mountaintop
screaming into the deafening surf
because until then,
Life’s Great Work
is
still
Unfinished.
(Unfinished – m. claire – copyright 2007 – all rights reserved)
For more of the work of this new poetic voice you are invited to visit www.mclairepoet.com.