Friendship

last forever in its present form. I am not going to predict that, because I am not going to put
that kind of pressure on either Nancy or myself. But I believe that even if the form of our
relationship should ever change, it will always remain wonderfully honest, caring,
compassionate, and loving.
Not only have my relationships improved, and thus, my emotional health, but so has my
physical health. I am now in better condition than I was ten years ago, and feeling enlivened
and energized. Again, I am not going to predict that it will always stay that way, because I am
not going to put that pressure on myself, but I can tell you that even if my health does
change, my inner peacefulness and my deep joy will not, for I have seen the perfection of my
life, and I no longer question outcomes, nor struggle against them.
My understanding of abundance has also shifted, and I now experience a world without lack
or limitation. While I know that this is not the experience of the majority of my fellow humans,
I work consciously every day to help others change their experience, and I share of my
abundance freely, supporting causes and projects and people with whom I am in agreement,
as another means of expressing and experiencing and re-creating Who I Am.
And yes, I have been inspired by the many wonderful teachers and visionaries I have come
to know on a personal level. I’ve learned from them what makes human beings stand out,
what lifts them above the crowd. This is not about star worship or name dropping, because I
am clear that what lifts these remarkable individuals can lift us as well. The same magic
resides in all of us, and the more we learn about people who have made life’s magic work,
the more we can make it work in our own lives. In this way we are all each other’s teachers.
We are guides, calling each other not really to learn, but to remember, to know again, Who
We Really Are.
Marianne Williamson is such a guide. Let me tell you what I’ve learned from Marianne.
Courage.
She has taught me grandly of bravery, and of commitment to a higher walk. I have never
known a person with more personal strength or spiritual stamina. Or of greater vision. But
Marianne does not merely talk of her vision for the world, she walks that vision, every day,
working tirelessly to put it into place. That is what I have learned from her: to work tirelessly
to put into place the vision you have been given, and to do so courageously. Act now.
I was in bed with Marianne Williamson once. She’s going to kill me for telling you this, but it’s
true. And I learned many wonderful things in those moments we shared.
Okay, maybe not in bed, but on the bed. And my wife, Nancy was in and out of the room,
chatting away with us as she went about packing. The fact is, we were hanging out at
Marianne’s home, enjoying some precious and rare personal time together. And early on the
morning of my departure, Marianne and I wound up sitting on her bed together, sharing
orange juice and sneaking a pastry talking about life. I asked her how she managed to keep
going, how she had continued her breakneck pace for so many years, touching so many lives
in such an extraordinary way. She looked at me softly, but with a strength behind her eyes
that I remember to this day. “It’s about commitment,” she said. “It’s about living the highest
choices you make, the choices many people only talk about.”
Then, she challenged me. “Are you ready to do that?” she asked. “If you are, wonderful. If
you’re not, get out of the public eye, and stay out. Because if you give hope to people, you
become a model, and you’ve got to be willing to provide a certain amount of leadership,
you’ve got to be willing to live up to the model. Or at least to try, with all your being. People
can forgive you if you fail, but they will find it hard to forgive you if you fail to try.
“Sharing your own evolutionary process with others puts you on the fast track. If you tell
somebody else that something is possible for them, you have to be willing to demonstrate
that it is possible for you. You have to commit your life to this.”
Surely this must be what is meant by living life “deliberately.”
Yet even when we set our intentions deliberately, sometimes things seem to happen
coincidentally. But I have learned that there is no such thing as coincidence, and that
synchronous events are simply God’s way of putting things into place for us, once our