Introduction to the Longest Story of All

Beloved readers, how Godwriting and Heaven Letters came about, I can only guess. I can hitch this and that together and say this is how it happened, but I'm not really certain of How and What. Of course, I love to think that the Why was D * E * S * T * I * N * Y!

Not likely that anyone would have picked me out except God. I don't want to say that I am the most unlikely person, but I sure wouldn't have made the top ten list or hundred or ten thousand. Sometimes I think I was chosen (or did I choose myself?) so you could say, "Well, if SHE can do it, I certainly can."

Anyway, Godwriting happened, and I jump for joy to be part of it. I accept it wholeheartedly. What else could possibly absorb me like this. Only God. Nothing but God. What I call God, this Voiceless Voice that captures my being.

I am delighted, glad, grateful, proud, humbled, awed, and scared—for you don't really think I know what I'm doing, or where this is really going and what is going to happen next or that I am ready for it!

Writing

I always wanted to be a writer. When I was an unhappy teenager, I used to write up in the attic in a little alcove on a maple desk. Every night, without fail, and with relish, I would write about ten pages, filling both sides. I fell into a better filing system than I've ever had since. I just placed one written page after another face down in a drawer that was just the right size to hold the pages neatly. But wanting to be a writer wasn't the only thing going on in my life or occupying my thoughts. So this is not so big as it sounds now.

As years of writing went by and my writing was not so overtly autobiographical as it had been, my greatest lack was in plotting. I had even said, "If only someone could give me a plot and tell me what to write." I didn't mean dictation, of course, but, look, here I am now, taking dictation from the Storyteller of All Time.

Once, while I was writing a story, it was like another voice took over. This one time it was like the story was writing itself. It knew before I did what it was going to say next. It was about someone named Ursula, and I think she was a nun or later became a nun, and the story took place in another country, I believe. In the midst of this, I made myself stop because I had an appointment, and I never was able to pick up that story where it had left off. Of course, I have sometimes wished I hadn't stopped and I wonder what the rest of the story would have been.

Education

When I was a senior in high school, the counselor had suggested that I become a kindergarten teacher. She sent me to observe a kindergarten class, and, of course, I liked it. I went to college with the intention of becoming a kindergarten teacher. But when it came to choosing classes, I didn't want the elementary ed courses. I wanted the literature courses, and so I became a lit major. I was not seeking God, yet I think that it was God in literature that drew me. Now I can say, What are the great thoughts of great writers but God's? What are all these eternal and universal truths but God's? But then I just knew I was drawn.

Religion never drew me. Sometimes I missed having what other people seemed to have, but of itself, I was way outside it. I didn't even get what religion was supposed to be. It was not real to me, and I had no reverence. I did not have disrespect either, but I could only have faked any connection to it or even understanding of what it might be or was really for. I did not feel God in a church or synagogue. Religion was a foreign language to me, and not one that I was ever going to bother to learn. And I haven't yet.

When I was in high school, it was a social thing to go to services on the High Holidays, and one time some other girls and I went to a little orthodox synagogue in the North End of the town I lived in. Only old people still went there. Of course, it no longer exists. The little old ladies sat in a balcony and they prayed with fervor. I felt these women had something I didn't, and that what they had was real and good, but that's the closest I ever got to feeling something deep religious-wise

When I was in college, there was one highly religious Jewish girl. Her name was Shulamith Moses. She was excused from Saturday classes. I knew Shulamith only in passing. Once in the ladies' room, she said to me, "You know, Gloria, some day you will really have to come to terms with God." I thought Oh, and didn't know what to make of it really. I felt some shame and puzzlement and had no idea what there possibly was to do about it. Of course, I did nothing. I have never forgotten Shulamith.

The Bible

One summer I took a class in the Bible as Literature at UC Berkley, and I was disappointed. I guess I expected to get something from it.

Looking back, the best Bible thing that ever happened to me was the five minutes or so every morning throughout my public school years when the teachers would read from the Bible before or after the Salute to the Flag. I don't imply that I really listened, but some of the words got from my ears to my mind and maybe even my heart. Any of the slight knowledge of the Bible I have comes from those mornings when the sundry teachers read aloud.

Incidentally, I was literary editor of my high school yearbook. The yearbook had to have a special quote or theme - I'm not sure what it was called - but I chose it, and this is what I chose: "Let your light so shine before men." Mathew. I must have known something before I knew anything.

California and Discovery

I grew up in Massachusetts, but when I was married, I lived in Sacramento, California. My daughter was born there. I do not remember going to services, but my husband did so I must have had some contact. The synagogue was hard up for a Sunday School teacher, and the cantor asked me if I would help out. I told him I had no background and all but he didn't see that as a problem. Isn't that a wonder?

I had a second grade class, and I pretty much did what I wanted. I guess there were books and we talked about the holidays and I faked it pretty well. I also remember doing some Waldorf School type things with the children. We reenacted creation! As God created the world, we put our arms up into a round O, and we said a big Ohhh. Then Adam named everything and Eve followed him around. After each naming, we all said a big admiring Ahhh, and we raised our arms in awe.

I had no faith, and no concern with God, and yet I would tell my daughter a story when she was little, about how God was looking for a wonderful little girl for her father and me, how God searched all over the world for the most precious child. He looked here and he looked there, until he found a magnificent little girl for us named Lauren. Of course, I strung it out.

It was only after I started meditating that I began to discover I was a spiritual being. My daughter was twelve then. My conscious desire for God grew and grew. I can remember times I was absolutely desperate to know God. I would pound my pillow, and cry out: "I want to know God. And I want to know I know." That went on for a couple of years before Godwriting started.

Foretelling

About fifteen years ago, long before Godwriting, someone did my eastern astrological chart. He said I was going to do some spiritual writing. I said, "But I write fiction." He said, "That may well be, but you are going to do some spiritual writing." He said the writing would not be formal; it would be like talk. I just shrugged that off. I did not go around thinking about what he said. Actually, I was well into Godwriting and didn't remember it at all until one time, wanting to test an answering machine, I grabbed a tape and stuck it in. The random tape turned out to be the recording of that session with the astrologer. The answering machine worked, and the part I happened to hit on was: "You are going to do spiritual writing." Only then did I remember.

Also about fifteen years ago, I consulted with a very special chiropractor over the telephone. In the midst of his telling me what vertebrae were out and what tea I should drink, he started laughing. He said, "Oh, my, you are going to have great many spiritual blessings. You are going to be very happy." I asked him what form this happiness would take, and he said he wasn't allowed to know and I had to wait. Actually, I forgot about that too until I was giving a Godwriting workshop in Pennsylvania, and a friend of mine who was attending reminded me that I had told her about that long before.

A Course in Miracles

About nine years ago, I came across a soft back edition in excellent condition of A Course in Miracles at the Bargain Box, a local Goodwill type store, for twenty cents! When I got it home, I discovered I was not able to read it. My eyes would go over the page but I couldn't read it. I couldn't even begin to read it. Every once in a while, I'd take it out and try again. No luck. It was a couple of years before, finally, not only was I able to read it, I couldn't put it down! I read it like a novel. It became a page turner. I am sure I read it faster than anyone in the history of man. I read it four times and did the workbook twice.

Godwriting started one of the times when I was still reading A Course in Miracles, and I am pretty sure it tilled the field, so to speak.

My Godwriting at this time was mostly personal, even though I may have been disseminating it. There was a Godwriting at this time that casually said: "And when you have your ministry…." This was not happy for me. Ministry, even the word, was so far away from me. To me, it was an artificial imposed word, and I could not relate to it. It was a turn-off. I would never chose to have anything to do with any ministry and certainly not start one.

But, of course, I did. At least the word ministry is part of Heaven's name. Well, actually, at first, I hedged, and chose the name Heaven Association. Association I could deal with. I also liked that the initials formed HA. Then, lo and behold, we became Heaven Ministry (HM). Then later and now, we became The Godwriting International Society of Heaven Ministries (GISHM)! Ministry became plural, so I must be becoming good at it, though I still don't really know what ministry means. And, yes, I did send away for a paper, and I can call myself a minister even though it's all a mystery to me. God has called me typist, and that fits better.

Loving A Course in Miracles so much, I started an informal weekly group where we met to read from it out loud. I never wanted to discuss interpretations. I never wanted to even hear anyone's interpretation. Just reading the words meant much more to me than any interpretation. I was not interested in studying the book. I didn't want anyone, no matter how wise or wonderful, telling me what a sentence or passage meant. Except for great deals at the Bargain Box, apparently I am not interested in anything second-hand.

I feel the same way about Heaven Letters, that they themselves give us more than any interpretation ever could. Fortunately, God agrees with me, or, rather, I am agreeing with Him. I hope that's what it is.

Early Godwriting was not exclusively from God. Sometimes it was Mother Divine or Mary and sometimes Christ. And there was a difference. Can't put my finger on it, but there was something. Once I sensed that it wasn't God or Christ or Mother Divine, and I asked, Who are you? And the answer was Raphael, the angel of healing. That happened only once.

Now to some more immediate factors that seemed to deliberately influence the arrival of Godwriting.

I have mentioned in The More Complete Story above about the influence of the two movies, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR and GODSPELL. Wasn't that a bizarre thing. I have mentioned also about the one beautiful time when Christ came out of the picture I have of him and appeared before me in his radiant gold light and told me he had been seeking me. Me!

But there are a couple of direct factors that I will tell you about now.

American Indian Soul Recovery

I had had some American Indian soul recoveries done by a beautiful shaman in Arizona. This was over the telephone. What happens in a soul recovery is that the shaman invokes spirits who bring back lost pieces of soul, in this case, mine. They could be a part of me at birth, before birth, as a child, past life etc. The pieces of soul could have been lost because I gave them away, they were taken from me, or they might have flown away because of trauma. The pieces may have been located in this world or in the earth or in other dimensions. The shaman does not choose which pieces will come back. She simply tells what she has seen.

During a couple of soul recoveries, beautiful pieces would come back. Very sweet. Perhaps come back as a jewel. It was all like poetry.

Now that the pieces are back, you want to keep them. As part of the soul recovery, you thank each piece for coming back every day for twenty-eight days. You also ask them for what gift or knowledge they brought, and you ask what you can do to make them happy to stay.

I would do this in my mind, and then my mind would wander off, and I couldn't be sure I had really done it. I certainly didn't remember most of the time what had transpired. So after a while I started to write down what the pieces of my soul told me.

Pieces of me at aged seven might give me precious knowledge. Every day beautiful insights and wisdom came from these forlorn pieces of myself.

The shaman died, as we must all. And I had one session with another shaman. And it was different. If my original beloved shaman had been alive, I don't know whether the same pieces would have come back, but this time it was very different. The pieces that came back were not what I would call beautiful. One was a knife. One was a knife and a man and a woman as one. One was a black panther.

I followed the same procedure. The knife turned out to be my assertiveness. The man/knife/woman - the knife was my spine, the man my masculine side, and the woman my feminine. The black panther was my power. I don't remember now what exactly they said, but please believe me, every day something wise would come.

At some point, I thought: Good grief, if a knife or a black panther can give me wisdom, why not God?

A Little Nun

There was one other tiny precipitating factor. A friend loaned me a little book translated from the French Lui et Moi, He and I. It contained the conversation between a sweet nun from olden days and Jesus. Basically, the book went like this:

The nun would write down the date and location of where she was. She would say she was unworthy to be in the presence of Christ. And Christ would say, No, no, she was worthy.

The simplicity and innocence of this book touched me very much.

At some point, I said to myself: If this little nun can do this, I certainly can. I can do better than this. I can branch out and ask wider questions.

And that's how I came to dare to write to God and hear what He had to say.

The Shaman's Vision

There is one other thing I would like to tell about from my soul recoveries with the first shaman. One time she had a vision. I have it written down in one of about a hundred notebooks, and when I find it, I will share the complete many-dimensioned vision she had with you, but I will tell you now what I do remember. It went like this:

I was on a ship, a great liner. It was sinking. Everyone was getting off and getting onto a rescue ship. I was going to get off the ship too, but I had to go a different way from everyone else. There was a rope like a clothesline high above the ship, and I held my arms up high and somehow got a hold of the rope, and, hand over hand, I got across the rope to the waiting ship -- or I slid down the rope to the ship -- I don't remember which. In any case, the point of the vision was that I have to go my own way and cannot go the way everyone else does.

And that seems to be true. Sometimes sad, and sometimes not.

That might explain why I have not been able to be part of a formal religion. Or much else really.

Your Spiritual Journey

When I used to teach English and creative writing in junior high school, to help the children get started writing, I would tell them they could begin their composition something like this:

"Let me tell you about [my pet fish]."

And then I told them a way they could wind up their composition:

"Now that I have told you about [my favorite pet], will you tell me about yours?"

So, I say to you, now that I have told you my spiritual journey, will you tell me yours?

One by one, we bring earth closer to Heaven.

Gloria Wendroff, Godwriter
The Godwriting International Society of Heaven Ministries

To post your spiritual journey, please visit this forum on spiritual journeys. We're looking forward to reading your Spiritual Journey.

The Longest Story of All in 1 Page

Introduction

Beloved readers, how Godwriting and Heaven Letters came about, I can only guess. I can hitch this and that together and say this is how it happened, but I'm not really certain of How and What. Of course, I love to think that the Why was D * E * S * T * I * N * Y!

Not likely that anyone would have picked me out except God. I don't want to say that I am the most unlikely person, but I sure wouldn't have made the top ten list or hundred or ten thousand. Sometimes I think I was chosen (or did I choose myself?) so you could say, "Well, if SHE can do it, I certainly can."

Anyway, Godwriting happened, and I jump for joy to be part of it. I accept it wholeheartedly. What else could possibly absorb me like this. Only God. Nothing but God. What I call God, this Voiceless Voice that captures my being.

I am delighted, glad, grateful, proud, humbled, awed, and scared—for you don't really think I know what I'm doing, or where this is really going and what is going to happen next or that I am ready for it!

Sometimes Godwriting is just part of life like any other, like reading the newspaper or going for a walk. It's something I do. I sit down to it. When I'm in the midst of Godwriting, I'm not thinking about it. I'm letting it happen. My whole focus is there. At the same time, I have to say that that is when I am at my happiest even though I am not conscious of happy or anything like that at the time. I could almost say that Godwriting is a time of no thought, no thoughts of my own, only God whispering His thoughts, and I listening for them. I say this although, when Godwriting, I am well aware of my surroundings, the wind in the trees, whether I feel hot or cold, and what my stomach feels like. I hear all the house sounds, and I can let the cat in. Even while Godwriting, life goes on.

How did it begin? The danger in trying to select events is that things are made more dramatic than they really were. But here goes -- this is my spiritual journey. I'll reveal all I can think of that seemed to lead up to Godwriting over a span of more than fifty years.