06/18/2026
Dear Light Group,
My mother lived to be 99 years old. Despite dealing with some of the indignities of old age (she had advanced osteoporosis), she maintained a life of dignity. She dressed elegantly, and she always had a cheerful disposition. The president of the senior living facility where my mother spent the last half decade or so of her life told me, “We’re not supposed to have favorites, but, between us, your mother is our favorite.” The woman who called me from the senior living facility to tell me that my mother had passed away said, “We’re going to miss greatly.”
There can be a tendency to think that spirituality has to be a big deal. We may believe that to be spiritual we need to have grand visions or super-cosmic perspectives. But that kind of thinking can lead us to skip over the basics - and the basics themselves can be a fundamentally important aspect of spirituality. Leading a life of dignity, as my mother did, can uplift others, as evidenced by the way she made others at the senior living facility feel.
Kindness, caring for others, communicating our respect for others, and having appreciation for our world - appreciating its colors, its vividness, its freshness - these simple qualities, when coupled with decorum, human decency, self-respect, and dignity in dress and manners - can add up to living a life of dignity. It’s not that hard, and it has a positive impact on those around us.
Although I don’t remember him using the expression “living a life of dignity,” Jim Goure I suspect would have approved of this concept. In one of his lectures, he outlined a code of life. The tenth code was, “Be patient, be kind, be helpful, and be love.” In discussing that tenth code, he said, “Being unkind is often an unconscious act. It comes from thinking of ourselves first and wanting the best for ourselves. Because we are spiritual and have healed someone, perhaps we think we deserve recognition of our specialness. But we need to be careful of our actions and of the ways in which we can hurt others, even with body language. With just a look or a certain subtle movement of the body, we can be showing others that we reject them….When we know that God is in everyone, we know that being hurtful means that we are rejecting God. We also know that helping others is helping God. Being aware that God is in everything and everyone makes us want to be helpful in every way possible."
If living a life a dignity resonates with you, you might want to try a prayer such as: “Thank you, God, for opening my eyes to the beauty of the world around me. Thank you, God, for the vibrancy of the colors in my world. Thank you, God, for the vibrancy of the sounds in my world. Thank you, God, for helping me to see Thee in all the people in my life. Thank you, God, for helping me to be respectful and kind towards all people. Thank you, God, for helping me to lead a life of dignity. Thank you, God, for helping me to see that when I sit in prayer, I am a king or queen on a throne of Light. Thank you, God, for helping me to see the beauty within myself. Thank you, God, for helping me to see that the beauty in me and the beauty in the world around me is all Thee. Thank you, God, for making it so. Amen.”
Love and Light,
Tully
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