Archive for the ‘God’ Category

Sometimes there’s just no way around the tough stuff.  While I realize my credibility will take a hit with the following statement, I none-the-less feel compelled to make it.

You are living in two simultaneous realities.  Both are quite real.

In Reality Number One, the world is experiencing unprecedented and widespread change.  Social unrest and faltering economies are breaking down and reorganizing for the good of all involved, even if the transition period is fraught with difficulty and endless challenges.  The outcome, however, is a proverbial giant step for humankind.

In Reality Number Two, the world is experiencing unprecedented and widespread change. Social unrest and faltering economies have created a dangerous global environment wherein opportunists, both political and economic, are exerting every effort, and seeking every means, to meld excessive governmental power to personal financial gain for the few at the expense of the many.  The outcome will be the destruction of the world as you have known it.

How can this be?  How can both be happening at the same time?

The answer is because this moment is a bellwether for the future of humanity. What is at stake is nothing less than personal freedom and rights granted every human being by our Creator.

There is the potential for either of these realities to prevail.  Who doesn’t viscerally feel the yearning for freedom by the Arab youth throughout the Middle Eastern countries manifested through various degrees of uprising? Who doesn’t also feel the violence boiling just below the surface of these uprisings… and the manipulation of those young people by persons with a sinister agenda?  Who does not know from human history that absent the presence of Light, darkness multiplies like cancer?

Will the result be harmony or subjugation?  Will it end in evolution or devolution?  What determines the outcome?

You do.

This is your moment to choose between darkness and Light. This is your moment to join with others of like mind and be heard. This is your chance to put fear to rest and break through the illusion of terror in order to show others who are less certain, the way.  This is your appointment with destiny.

You have always had this much power.  Never before have you been this close to a full awareness of that fact combined with the Will to act upon it.

The future of the world will literally be created this day by your choice and made manifest by your voice. You are the answer. Now is the time.

It has been set before you this day.

 

 

I have a friend who cannot seem to stop blaming herself and feeling shame for behavior she has corrected and no longer participates in.   Her shame and guilt act as an ongoing impediment to her making any kind of meaningful progress in her life because she forever doubts her worth as a human being.   And what’s worse, she expends so much energy trying to hide the knowledge of her former behavior from others that she’s grown comfortable living a lie.

Which got me to thinking about the futility and sheer exhaustion of carrying around unnecessary baggage rather than proudly wearing the lessons and benefits of life’s experiences.

When I was 24 years old I tried to commit suicide.  I speak annually to high schools on depression and suicide and also often include reference to the attempt in my many inspirational speaking engagements which cover a variety of topics.  I am never ashamed to mention the attempt because growing past the circumstances and insecurities that led me to try is one of the greatest lessons of my life.  Rather than see the attempt as something for which I should be ashamed, I see it as a triumphal turning point in my own life and an experience that may help save others from such pain.

However, life experiences can only be instructive and helpful if shared.

I believe that we are all here to be a light unto one another.  It serves no one to hide your light.   And if you’ll allow me to expand the metaphor out a bit … it’s through acquiring experience, of every kind, that we get “brighter.”

I wish I could convince my friend that she needn’t cower or hide from the truth of her experiences.  I wish I could gift to her the forgiveness I feel having given my own unconscious behaviors over to God.  But it is right that we each get to a place of awareness and peace within ourselves in our own time.  I can at least take comfort in the fact that we all, do in fact, ultimately get there.

In the meantime, while I cannot help her carry her baggage… I do routinely remind her that when she is ready, she can simply put it down.

 

There are lots of obvious challenges currently confronting the nation.  Each demands and deserves significant attention and creative thinking to resolve.  Yet, what if I told you there was one solution that would fix all of the problems facing us and it’s within your power to do something about it?

Curious? Intrigued?

Well, first, a little background.

Over the past 50 years, the technological explosion has outpaced our social and spiritual development.  As a result, our application of the technology can be likened to a 12-year-old who is given the keys to the family car.  While he or she may know how to put the key into the ignition, press on the accelerator and turn the wheel… what is intended to be a means of transportation turns into a deadly weapon.  Without maturity, understanding and formal training, a 12-year-old with access to driving a car is… no pun intended… an accident waiting to happen.

So, too, is humanity in relation to technology.  Whether it’s the misuse of nuclear power for aggressive purposes or living lives propelled to the point of insanity by cell phones, blackberries, faxes, ipads, or 24/7 news… we are that 12-year-old with the keys in hand lacking the maturity, understanding and training to moderate how, when and why we use what’s before us.  Absent those safeguards, we are not driving the technology, the technology is driving us (again, no pun intended but I can’t seem to help myself!).

Understanding the point at which we’ve arrived, and the inherent dangers, can be very helpful.  To go back to the car analogy, the 12-year-old is unlikely to self-regulate.  After all, the car is fun and faster than walking.  The most likely event that would change his or her mind would be a collision.  The more serious the collision, the greater the change of mind and perspective.

Unfortunately, humanity cannot afford the equivalent of a significant auto collision.  We have become too interconnected globally, and too reliant personally, to withstand a technologically based accident without severe and long lasting consequences: e.g. Japan’s nuclear meltdown.

What can we do?  Well, here’s what you can do.  Get off this train.

First, evaluate your own life and decrease the role that technology plays in it.  Each self-limitation you impose will restore an equal or greater amount of sanity to your world… and the world at large.  Secondly, daily study and teach, by way of example, choices and behavior that are ethically and morally driven.  Thirdly, reconnect with or enhance the role that God/spirituality/Source plays in your life.

If you think that changing your personal relationship with technology will make little difference, let me remind you of a scientific fact.  When a butterfly flaps its wings in New York wind patterns change in Europe.  It’s just a matter of time.

We, like Nature, are all One and everything each of us does affects the whole.  For good or for ill.  And so your changes matter.  They matter most immediately to the quality of your own life.  Eventually and inevitably, however, they matter to the quality of everyone else’s.

That’s what you can do and that’s how you can change the world.

One decision at a time.

Disclosure #1:  I’m a Glenn Beck fan.  I like the guy.  While a little paranoid, he does his homework and as far as the facts go, he gives them to you.  What you do with them is up to you.

Disclosure #2:  I’ve hardly ever watched Lawrence O’Donnell, and the few clips I’ve seen did nothing to encourage me otherwise.  Admitted Socialists aren’t my preference for where to get political commentary.

Now, to the point.

There’s been a battle of ideas playing out between Beck and O’Donnell and, more than that, it seems personal.  While I have no “dog in the hunt” for what’s personal between them, I’m very interested in the battle of ideas.  So this morning , I watched clips from both on their ideas surrounding the Bible (Torah & The New Testament), in general, and the Book of Revelations, in particular.

And you know what?  They’re both right.

Beck is right in that the Bible is filled with divinely inspired ideas, ideals, values and guidance. O’Donnell is also right in that parts of the Bible are filled with poetry, allegory, and unintelligible symbolism… some of which can lead a thinking person to conclude the existence of multiple sources which were neither divine nor particularly loving and compassionate.

That’s what Free Will is all about.

We humans, each get to choose how we see and interpret the world in which we live.  It is our unique perspectives that then form the foundation for how we act within the world as we see it.  And each choice we make is a choice of Self- definition.

If G-d had intended replication rather than creation, He/She would be turning us out on a copy machine rather than through the birth process… whereby each of Us arrives as a unique creation.

In a world where both diversity of thought and tolerance of opposing ideas are both encouraged and valued, we are more likely to stumble upon wisdom than in a world where either You or I must be right and the other wrong.

Let’s take the best of Beck and O’Donnell’s thinking and jettison the rest.  And by the way, You and I may each see “the best of” differently.

That’s okay.

It’s why I wrote this post.

 

Jewish or Christian, it’s the season of miracles.  Since I had one this week I thought I‘d share it.  It begins with back pain.

I’m a swimmer.  I love to do laps.  I swim outside in the summer months and in the winter I join a health club with an indoor pool.  My love of the sport is new since, until about 15 years ago, I was uncomfortable in the water and couldn’t really swim.  Having surmounted my fears, I taught myself to swim and have been dedicated ever since.

However, within the last 6 months, I have been having severe upper back pain and so when the pool closed in September I decided it was too painful to swim.  I didn’t join the club.  Recently, I’ve seen several doctors who have ordered x-rays, ultrasounds, thermography and an MRI… all in an effort to diagnose the pain… which happens to be in the area of my rotator cuff and under the scapula as well.

Last week, a friend of mine who didn’t know of the pain, suggested I join the health club as I have for the past couple of years since it was her thought that I am “just plain happier when I am swimming… so why not?”  Thinking over her suggestion, I decided “why not” as well and joined.

Somewhere in my thought process was the hope that, at this point, exercising the muscles by swimming might help.

Enter the miracle.

Yesterday was my second night swimming.  Midway through my regimen of laps, a man asked me if he could share my lane. Swim protocol and courtesy says the answer to that question is always “Yes.”  After he did a lap or two, with beautiful form, he waited for me to end my lap and asked me if I’d mind if he gave me some constructive advice.  “Not at all, please do” I replied.

“When your left arm comes up out of the water and goes back in its crossing over your plane.  It’s crossing all the way to your right side.  You are going to hurt your rotator cuff and upper back.” (my emphasis not his)!

Can you imagine my shock?  I could hardly believe it.  I had just had an x-ray earlier that day.

Here he had “showed up” (a tri-athlete I might add) to tell me exactly the cause of my back pain.  No disease.  Nothing mysterious.  Doctors need apply.  I am swimming incorrectly and reinjuring myself every time I do.

But here’s the thing.

When you are “in the flow” (no pun intended) the Universe gives you what you need.  Exactly what you need.  Not always what you want, but definitely what you need.

So, I got a diagnosis, a solution, and a free swimming lesson from a tri-athlete because I was open to 1) my spiritual friend’s suggestion that I rejoin the health club and 2) I was trying to do the best I could for  myself.

It’s the stuff of miracles.

But that’s not a surprise because… ‘tis the season.

Right?

Well, let me say this from the outset:  If you’ve misplaced, or totally lost your sense of irony and humor in the midst of all the chaos, don’t read any further.  You simply won’t get it.  But if you’re still holding out for some sweetness and light, here it is.

The connection between the newly discovered Star of David on the roof of the Iranian National Airlines building and the chaos resulting from the WikiLeaks disclosure of classified documents is Cosmic Humor.

“What’s that?” you want to know.

Cosmic humor is when God (sometimes referred to as the Universe or Source) is having a good old time doing what it does best… creating.

What is being created at the moment is so obvious one could almost miss it in its simplicity.  Chaos.  Chaos is being created in order to affect real change.  Now there are two plots being acted out here.  I’ll refer to them as the “lower” and “higher” vibration scenarios.

In the lower vibration scenario, individuals and organizations with money and/or power think they are manipulating the masses in order to acquire yet more money and more power.  They are deliberately creating chaos (with a small “c”) to reach their desired ends.

Simultaneously, the higher vibration scenario, commonly referred to as God, is orchestrating (perfect word since we’re literally talking about a higher frequency of energy) events and occurrences that are, in fact, using the lower vibration energies to effect an outcome that moves humankind to its highest and most expansive role ever in the history of the world.  Chaos with a big “C.”

How?

NO MORE SECRETS!

So, back to WikiLeaks and the Star of David on the top of the Iranian National Airlines building.

The information that WikiLeaks is now disseminating has been suspected, and in some cases, known for awhile.  Yes, we now have details… names, dates and places that were heretofore only vague suspicions… but it is really all that startling?   Hasn’t common sense and good old instinct told you this stuff has been going on forever?

And the Star of David?  Really? Come on.  Google Earth just spotted it?  No one knew of it before or saw it?  It’s been there for 30 years!!!  It’s so ironic…funny, actually… that I’m smiling as I type.  A Star of David on the roof of a government building in the center of a country set out to destroy a country and an entire people represented by that star?

You tell me God isn’t having a whopper of a time!

So, while I know the DOW is rocky and the dollar is heading for the dumper and Congress is a joke… take heart.

NO MORE SECRETS.

God is busy reorganizing things.  While He/She is busy cleaning house, let us put up with a little inconvenience for humanity’s sake.  And while we’re patiently waiting, let’s look on the bright side.  The Star of David is watching over everything.

Wasn’t that the original deal?

Like the rest of the world I watched with rapt attention and welling emotion as the last, heroic Chilean miner was lifted from the collapsed mine after being trapped for 69 days. Defying logic and the odds, all 33 men survived an unimaginable nightmare and did so with both grace and dignity intact.

Two thoughts come to mind.  1) There are no accidents, and, 2) there are only two emotions, love and fear.

I have always been a believer that everything happens for a reason… even those things that seem to make no sense at all.  For while we may not be able to make sense of some events or personal experiences, everything that happens offers the potential for growth.  This is Life.

And so, in a world adrift economically, politically, and socially… 33 miners show us how to defy the odds, rise above limitation and scant resources, and accomplish the impossible.

But there’s more.

What the recent rescue teaches us is the power of Love.  In a world so long enamored with the love of power, this is a much needed lesson.

The people of Chile are apparently of hearty stock, with an indomitable spirit, national pride, passion for life, unshakable belief in God, and comfort with the expression of emotion regardless of gender. Love of life, love of country, love of one another and love of God.

And the complete absence of fear.

I did not hear or see fear anywhere.  Not among the trapped miners, not by the President of Chile, not by the waiting family members who camped out in the desert for months on end. Fear was absent in Chile and in the absence of fear, miracles occur.

There are no accidents.  What we have witnessed in Chile is a lamp unto the nations… the hand of God… reaching out to guide us in the direction of all that is good.

May we pay attention, set our intentions, and proceed with unbridled love.

While we have known for some time that the country is headed in the wrong direction, we have been unable to uncover what we can do about it. Glenn Beck, long warning of impending difficulties, has most recently suggested prayer in order to enlist Divine intervention and assistance.

While that may seem extreme and a somewhat desperate act unlikely to affect much there is, in fact, historical evidence that to the contrary it is exactly what can save us.

Enter the Book of Esther.

It’s the story of ancient Persia and how one woman’s voice and the prayers of a multitude were all that were needed to rescue a people from the evil intentions of a corrupt and deceitful public official. It was fasting and the prayers of many that summoned Divine intervention and revealed a hidden political agenda for what it was.

The Relevance & The Answer

The people of Pur (hence the holiday of Purim) were facing down entrenched power. So are we. It was fasting and prayer that summoned Divine intervention. It is now our turn. We are at a critical stage in our existence. We are plagued by threats from multiple directions, from without and from within. Our government has become so big as to be unmanageable and our People have come to feel so small as to believe themselves irrelevant.

The Timing

Purim will be observed five months from now on February 28, 2011. Five months may be precious time we cannot afford to waste. However, Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement is observed from sunset Friday, September 17th to sunset Saturday, September 18th…16 days from today. It is a traditional day of fasting and prayer.

I would like to suggest that on Yom Kippur, this most reverent and biblically ordained day, each of us as citizens of this remarkable Nation, regardless of race or religion, fast and pray for the safety of our land and its inhabitants. Further, that we ask for Divine intervention to shine Its Light upon illusion and deceit while guiding us in turning, once and for all, toward the Light of Love and Truth.

Imagine the power and magnitude of that petition!