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     “There is no real happiness for those on the wrong side. The greatest pleasure in life is the security of the true side. You can vainly try to win over the world or you can nicely be over the world. Your task is to change your operating center from strained imagination to relaxed reality.”

New Life News
Articles and Banquet Reports

  • 2025 Irish Banquet

         The March banquet in Strawberry was packed with mountains of lessons for us all if we had “eyes to see.” The Wednesday night talks set the tone and introduced concepts to help us build a right attitude towards what we’re learning here. New Life Director Richard Wooldridge said when events bring up fear and negativity inside, we are being given the opportunity to clearly observe their damaging effect on us. When seeing my mechanical reactions, my stubborn insistence on doing things my way, for example, that can enable me to “feel the difference between a wrong and a right state.”
         Robin mentioned that with “True Prayer” defined in Chapter 7 of A Treasury of Trueness, you can receive help when you genuinely become aware that you of yourself can’t do anything. “A right attitude is a right prayer.” Eric reminded us to keep it simple with the prayer given by Vernon Howard, “God please help me to see more.”

    Saturday Banquet
         At the banquet day Saturday class, Richard and Moe emphasized the mechanicalness of human beings. Referring to two transcribed talks in Your Power of Natural Knowing and to a talk by Vernon given on 4/23/86, they explained how to see our own machine-like sleep. Richard added with humor, we “don’t need robots” to show us that!
         Instead, we can practice awareness everywhere we go, such as in the grocery store; we were told to have your money ready at the checkout and always know where you are. This way you are “accumulating money in your spiritual bank account.”
         As Vernon often said, “Don’t try to find goodness; just observe badness.” Something higher can be with us and protect us from both the evils in society and the wrongness within us. “Christ was firm with devils,” Richard recalled, and “righteousness enrages evilers.”
         Moe described mechanicalness with a quote from Vernon, who called us “sheep imitating observed evil.” As we see what we are actually like, we go through one embarrassment after another, like becoming aware of false goodness. When seeing this, we must remember it is “not necessary to ever feel bad!” We are given a choice whether to “pass beyond” what we see.
         A surprise snowstorm covering Strawberry on the weekend provided speakers with numerous descriptions of the common experience of getting stuck in a snow drift. And how that revealed reactions and attitudes, for example, embarrassment to the vanity, or “I know what I’m doing — I’ll just plow right ahead through this drift!” There was also the invigoration of climbing a New Life hill on foot in the snow that forced one to go against lazy sluggishness. We were being tested in spite of ourselves and so could learn something new about ourselves.

    Sunday’s Class
         At Sunday’s class, Eric described another example while driving his truck up the hill from Payson to Pine; because of some weird “advanced” mechanical technology, the truck would only go 20 mph. He explained how he gripped the steering wheel and tried forcing it to go faster by leaning forward and how he felt humiliated because he was going so slowly.
         We don’t want to make effort, which is why, as Moe said, we don’t get more higher rewards. “We must RISK more. Truth wants you to grow up and will not coddle you. We’re going to make mistakes, but it’s good for the ego to be humbled,” so we can use the errors to rise above them.
         We had a great exercise in Pagosa classes last week that explains this process. In Pathways to Perfect Living, Vernon told us to “prefer a disturbing situation over a comfortable one, for we can learn from disturbance, but not from comfort, which makes us too lazy....” This whole week was very helpful in showing us how to use disturbance and self-imposed humiliation to go beyond them. As Jeff said, “Our fear comes from a fear-thought.” So, we cause our own discomfort by wrong thinking.

    Comments
         During comments on the banquet experience Sunday morning, Dave H. said it is good to be with other students while studying these higher lessons. Moe mentioned how the class provides the choice for what we will do, as what we’re really like when the unexpected occurs and we feel panic. Lynne described a moment of awareness during the entertainment when she met the genuine smile of someone who was dancing and truly having a good time.
         Everyone especially enjoyed the traditional Irish meal of delicious corned beef and cabbage. We also liked the wholesome entertainment of the jokes and of Nancy and Judy singing Irish songs: the sweet and poignant “Galway Bay,” and the rollicking and humorous “McNamara’s Band.” Most everyone was dressed in green, with exuberant Nancy all decked out in shamrocks. Ladies who lead the final Irish songs were very vibrant, pure and clear in encouraging us to sing along.
         Because of the many challenges that came our way during the banquet week, we were presented with valuable lessons and choices. For example, if corrected or humiliated, we could either turn away in hostility, run back to our cave, and avoid seeing what we are really like or we could pass beyond to rise above this world and our reactions. There was so much help available at this banquet to practice a right attitude.
          As we departed for home to California, Colorado, Utah or Arizona, we took with us our exercise for the week to “Stop doing what you’re doing. Slowly look around. Don’t think about it. Just quietly observe.”

  • 2024 Christmas Banquet
  • 2024 September Banquet
  • 2024 Pagosa Springs Banquet
  • 2024 Irish Banquet
  • 2023 Christmas Banquet
  • 2023 Thanksgiving Banquet
  • 2023 September Banquet
  • 2023 Pagosa Springs Banquet
  • 2023 May Banquet
  • 2023 Irish Banquet
  • 2022 Christmas Banquet
  • 2022 September Banquet
  • 2022 Pagosa Springs Banquet
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     “Thank you so much for the newsletter. Each one is a delightful treat to receive in the mail and is a sheer little treasure of fresh inspiration and relevant comments from Mr. Howard. I have made a vigorous determination to devote myself to my freedom and wholeness. This determination and continuous study of Vernon Howard’s writings yielded life saving results nothing short of miraculous.
    Anyone who really wants an ‘authentic’ life filled to overflowing with the good Life can’t afford to ignore Vernon’s writings and powerful insights into the human condition. His writings answer a life-time of real and imagined concerns that have mystified the most learned minds.”

Sincerely,
Marie N., Palm Springs, CA

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