Archive for the ‘Values’ Category

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!

Today I watched Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, on ABC News “This Week. ”  What was obvious to me as I listened and watched were the severe limitations she is constrained by due to the disease from which she suffers: Myopia.

Myopia is defined as “A visual defect in which distant objects appear blurred because their images are focused in front of the retina rather than on it; nearsightedness. Also called short sight. 2. Lack of discernment or long-range perspective in thinking or planning”

While I am not a physician, I feel confident in the diagnosis.

It is so inconceivable that a public official can, in this volatile and increasingly transparent environment, fail to see the absurdity of continuing to dodge substantive and meaningful questions while reiterating an old, worn out and deceitful message.

The Speaker, limited to an old way of thinking and behaving due to the advanced stages of her disease, not only cannot see the future, she can’t even see the present.  She is still blaming the prior administration for the economy, refusing to condemn unethical behavior of her colleagues, and dodging hard questions about mission and intention in foreign policy.  More disturbing, she is in denial or flat out lying about having no concern for her party losing control of Congress in the November mid-term elections.

Perhaps the Speaker should consider recent developments in treating and curing Myopia. 

Those of us moving through the Ascension process and the simultaneous expanding consciousness of the planet have published the short and long-term benefits of a cure identified as “Adaptability and Truthfulness.”

Generally, we are experiencing challenges of “first impression”… meaning we have never faced them before.  Mainly this is the result of global connectivity due to technological advances.  The resulting transparency, and particularly the speed of that transparency, is making it more and more difficult to sustain deceit. 

Those, like the Speaker, who are unable to see beyond the past and adapt to the realities of the present are not only myopic they are terminal. 

Change and transparency as campaign slogans are a far cry from walking your talk.

Either way there are going to be people unhappy with the outcome of the ethics violation findings against Congressman Charles Rangel.  If it turns out there’s no deal, but rather a full trial before the House of Representatives, some will scream it’s a carnival show deliberately created by the obstruction of the four Republican members of the investigative sub-committee.  If, on the other hand, there’s a deal some will scream “foul” and special treatment for the privileged that would not be afforded a more common criminal.

For me, the outcome isn’t the big story.  For me, it’s the long-awaited public airing of the ethical misdeeds and illegal behavior of a sitting member of Congress and, by definition, a representative of the People charged with our trust and well-being.  But as happy as I am at this long-overdue occurrence, I’m not surprised.

You see, I frequently write about the transition we are going through.  Spiritually, it’s referred to as an “ascension process.”  In simpler terms, it’s an expansion of human consciousness encompassing a higher vantage point from which to view our choices. (Did I just say “in simple terms…?”)!

One of the overriding characteristics of an ascension process is that there are no more secrets.  What that means is that behavior that does not support the highest good (read as “deceitful behavior”) will be forced out into the open… or revealed for what it is.

Hence, Charlie Rangel… who for decades has been able to skate by and avoid the consequence of being confronted with his acts.

It would be a wise decision for anyone watching this drama to pay close attention and take heed.  One need not be a public figure or famous to experience the weight of it, either.  Wherever there is deceit in our lives, whether with ourselves or with another… the inevitable outcome will now be revelation.

So like any “outing”… it’s probably best to do it ourselves, first, rather than have someone else choose the time and place.

Human beings, and particularly Americans, are surprisingly compassionate and forgiving of a mea culpa… and equally hardhearted and unforgiving of those who are caught throwing stones while living in glass houses.

Carpe diem.  Make honesty in your life a priority.  Clean up the muddy stuff.  It’s not too late… for you.

Not so Charlie Rangel.

Okay. These are tricky times.  As uncertainty and fear escalate so too do the voices of polarization.  The Left hates the Right and vice versa.  But there is a more subtle polarization going on that I think is of greater importance and the strongest impediment to our successfully coming through this transition.

The other polarization is between those who wish to restore the past and those who wish to transform it.

Going back is never a good idea. The saying that “the only thing good about the good old days is that they’re gone” is true. The past had a time and a place and they are both gone. Likewise, to so fundamentally transform our Nation that it becomes unrecognizable, is to commit grave and irreversible error. To do so would be to “throw the baby out with the bath water” as another saying goes.

We, as a Nation and as human beings, are on an evolutionary journey.  But this journey requires vigilance… for we have been gifted a quality found nowhere else in Nature: Free Will.  And so we are not only known by our choices but, in a very literal sense, we create our reality by them as well.

Today’s choices are the womb wherein tomorrow’s circumstances gestate.

If we can’t go back because the past is no longer and we can’t discard what the best character and minds of the past 5000+ years have been working on perfecting where does that leave us?

In need of open minds that are ready and willing to comprehend the world differently.  To retain the best while jettisoning the worst.  To understand that change and instability are the norm.  To get comfortable with being uncomfortable.  To learn to be fully present, flexible and compassionate.  To be able to let go while being poised to embrace.

Ever the optimist (while fighting a learned pessimism) I am certain we will succeed.  I don’t think it will be easy but I think it can be exhilarating, and yes, with the right perspective and outlook, even enjoyable.  Roller coasters are uncomfortable and a little scary, but fun.And when the ride is over you’re grateful to have survived it and know with certainty that you’re alive. 

It’s how we’re wired.

Recently I met someone in a social situation.  We talked at length about a wide spectrum of topics and had much to share.  It was an interesting and enjoyable experience.  When I suggested that he might enjoy reading some of my blog entries my suggestion was enthusiastically received.

Two days later I receive the following e-mail (to the best of my recollection as I deleted it upon reading it):

“If you think Glenn Beck is a prophet, as you wrote, then I have nothing further to say to you and we have nothing in common. I met him several years ago and he is a money-hungry phony.How anyone can listen to him is beyond me.”

Now this is a highly educated man who owns his own publishing company that publishes a sports magazine in the Philadelphia area.  So it started me thinking about three things: education, small minds and hate.

1.       My thoughts about education are neither unique nor startling.  The amount of years one spends obtaining a formal education correlates to neither common sense nor wisdom.  It correlates to one’s capacity to regurgitate what is being fed, and in the best of cases, to sprinkle that with some creative thinking of one’s own to hopefully generate some modicum of internally-sourced and outside-the-box thinking.  I make this statement absent jealously or resentment since I am one of those educated people, having spent 19 years in formal education on the way to obtaining a Juris Doctor in law.

All those years made me educated, in a specific way, not necessarily wise or open-minded. That requires education of a different sort.

2.       Small minds abound, even among the educated.  Take my acquaintance above.  His reaction is proof that the capacity to ingest and digest factual knowledge is not a reliable indicator of a mind capable of expansive or inclusive thinking.  To do that, one has to possess qualities not taught in school such as compassion, understanding and wisdom.

3.       As for hate… I’ve come to believe it’s the emotion of choice for fearful, unwise, small minded individuals.

Which brings me back to my acquaintance.

He was quick to condemn both Glenn Beck and me for…well… actually… I’m not quite sure for what exactly and I doubt he is either.  However, the irony is that after receiving his inexplicable e-mail I Googled his name.  What I learned was that not too long ago he was indicted and convicted of failing to report income as well as some dubious ethical behavior while working in city government.  At least he had the benefit of representation and a trial before anyone judged and condemned him… and, oh yes, sentenced him to 6 months house arrest wearing a secure ankle bracelet.

So much for education, small minds and hate.

If you read my blog regularly you’d know that I like to close with some pithy comment but, quite frankly, I can’t top the paragraph that precedes this one. Truth may or may not be stranger than fiction but, in this case, its certainly more enjoyable.

As a Spiritual Coach I’m hearing a great deal lately about people not knowing what to do about, or how to handle, all the change and uncertainty that’s in the air. Because I consider myself an expert on facing change (>read that as LOTS of life experience dealing with the unexpected) I’m pretty comfortable giving out advice on how to effectively get through the unknown.

Its simple, really.  Well, simple to understand, anyway.

The secret, and its really no secret at all, is that anytime we are asked to move from where we are comfortable to someplace unknown, fear comes up.  Now some people will say they don’t experience fear. To that I would reply that there are gradations of fear ranging all the way from a mild discomfort to being completely immobilized.  No matter where you fall along that continuum, at either extreme or someplace in between, the remedy is the same.

Patience in the process.
Trust in the Source.
Release of the outcome.

We live in such an accelerated world that we’ve forgotten what it is to wait.  I mean really wait.  Not wait for a seemingly snail’s paced fax to be sent and arrive because, say, e-mail is down.  I mean really wait.  As in lovingly wait for Nature… or God… or Life to take Its course.  Not only don’t we know how to wait, we don’t even realize that the act of waiting…particularly done in annoyance or frustration… is an impediment to living fully in the present.

That’s where Trust comes into play.  If you can accept that change is inevitable… which it is… and trust that all change is for the highest good… which it is… then there’s no need for impatience.  Because things will unfold as they are intended and. while that’s completing itself. you can go about fully engaged in everything that’s in your life at the moment without care or concern for the outcome.

With patience in the process, trust in the highest good, and absent care or concern for the outcome there is no need or place for fear.

As I said. Simple to understand. Challenging to live.  But since I’ve done it many times, so that its become second nature so to speak, I can tell you with certainty it works.

Give it a try.  It sure beats the alternative.
 

Two phrases frequently repeated on the spiritual path are “the ascension process” and “paradigm shift.”  Often repeated… but not often understood. 

The ascension process refers to a period when the consciousness of a Soul, or many Souls, is elevated to new and expanded realms of understanding and possibility.

A paradigm shift is movement out of, and beyond, one framework of reality into another.

We are currently in the middle of both the ascension process and a paradigm shift.  Therefore, there are four qualities and characteristics that apply and that we can count on during such a transition. 

Infusion of Light

Light is energy.  Light illuminates.  Light obliterates darkness.  Light is intelligence.  Where the Light goes, obscurity is revealed.  “Darkness” in the context of spirituality is manifested as deceit, greed, arrogance, misuse of power, and oppression… among others. 

With the infusion of spiritual Light during the ascension process all that does not support higher consciousness is revealed.

No more secrets

General McChrystal … BP … open microphones for Joe Biden and Carly Fiorina …  Bernie Madoff … Obama appointee and jobs czar Van Jones having co-founded  the militant and revolutionary organization STORM… brothers John and Tony Podesta : John, CEO of the Center for American Progress advising President Obama on off-shore drilling in the Gulf and brother Tony, lobbyist for B.P. (can anyone say “conflict”?)…and the list goes on and on. 

So why are so many things surfacing that clearly were supposed to be kept secret?

It’s because during the ascension process there are no more secrets. 

Personal responsibility

Being unconscious is a little like being a child. Someone else needs to take responsibility for your actions.  Not so when we’re spiritually conscious and awake.  Now is the time to own that our every thought and action determines, in a literal sense, the reality in which we live, the quality of our relationships, as well as the world we are bequeathing the next generation.

Duty to question

Being responsible means questioning the status quo.  It’s no longer productive to be part of a “herd” mentality… to go along to get along.  Courageous inquiry is the watchword of the new paradigm into which we are moving.  

So why write about corruption and you?

Because it’s up to us now.

A good friend recently expressed being overwhelmed by it all and his feeling that, other than the ballot, we individuals are helpless in the face of so much obvious governmental and political corruption.  I would tell him this.

Things are probably no more corrupt today than they have been for a very long time.  What has changed is 1) access to the information; 2) the speed of dissemination of that information and, 3) the paradigm shift.  For just as the new paradigm has no room for that which is not in the highest good, so too does it require that each of us, on a daily basis, demand the highest integrity from ourselves and never fail to speak truth…your truth… to power.

I’m optimistic.  Change, while scary, is always for the good.  It just takes us awhile to gain the distance, and corresponding perspective, needed to be certain of this fact.

In the meantime, while you’re waiting, be the Light.

I can think of no better example of the cause of the economic (and political) turmoil we are presently enmeshed in than the recently passed health care law.  It is a misguided plan destined to fail… and no one knew this better than the Framers of the Constitution.  They advocated decentralization, as in states’ rights, as opposed to a centralized authority, as in the federal government, because they intuitively knew a basic premise of complexity theory:

The more complex an organization(company, society, government etc.) the less able a centralized administering individual or body is able to know occurrences,and direct remedies, regarding aspects of that organization that are located literally miles, and figurative light years, from the centralized authority. 

The very nature of complexity theory is that in order to discern the changes and shifts that directly affect the whole, it is necessary to determine, as close as possible to the occurrence of change, those actions or events that are impacting overall functioning.

In plain English, and one word, decentralization.

Applied to the political reality of 50 individual entities, each with their own economies and societal preferences, it amounts to states’ rights… not central planning by a federal bureaucracy.  It’s why the Framers were careful and adamant that the powers of the federal government to be limited to preserving, protecting and defending the states.  These enlightened men (as well as the women who,I am certain, played a vital although unrecognized role) were able to anticipate the growth of the nation and the impossibility of governing it from “central command” so to speak.

But that’s exactly what this Administration is doing. In every aspect of our lives… from the auto industry to Wall Street to health care to the oil spill…the means is a centralized authority making decisions about and on behalf of the collective.At best, the policy and approach is misguided.  At worst, it’s sinister… if not in intent then, surely, in its result.

I can give those in power the benefit of the doubt and say what is in their hearts and minds is the highest good for all concerned.  

How does that saying go?  Oh, yes…“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

So, now that we’ve identified the source of the problem, what do we do about it?

Here’s a 5-step plan.

1.       Pray that the hearts and minds of those in power be turned toward what is consistent with freedom and the core principle of individual rights upon which this nation was founded.

2.       Speak up for what you know to be true in your heart and fear not the outcome of being the voice of reason.

3.       Hold fast to faith in the highest good for all concerned… which is different than thinking for and acting by and on behalf of “the collective.”  The highest good for all concerned is the individual’s right to express her or his creativity and intelligence in any way they please, absent harm, and to participate in a free market that bases success or failure on the merit of that effort.

4.       Do not compromise what you expect of yourself or others in order to maintain a status quo.  Be unwavering around ethical and moral behavior and demand a level of adherence by public officials or quickly remove them from office.

5.       Draw upon your own connection to a Source that maintains infinite possibility and boundless creativity in manifesting miracles through the unimaginable acts of goodness and courage.

I never said it was a perfect plan… but unless you’ve already got one… its a plan.

I am not at all disappointed with President Obama’s style, or priorities, in governing thus far.  I did not vote for candidate Obama because I thought, or more accurately felt, something disingenuous and dangerously egotistical about him.

And so I think the country bought exactly what was being sold… if not exactly what it actually wanted.
 
Now, under mounting pressure for his detachment, non-performance and delay, our President is looking to “kick ass” rather than lead.  He is unconcerned with fulfilling the job of leadership for which he was elected (and for which he campaigned) while allowing the judicial process to work as designed to determine negligence and fault, if any, and corresponding liability. The President apparently believes he is judge, jury and executioner.

The problem with his approach is that it is un-American and, more importantly, dangerous.

Our current challenges…economic, societal and global…are not akin to those of a misguided adolescent needing his or her parent to extricate them from the unintended outcome of poor choices.  We are a nation of individuals founded, and grounded, in both freedom of thought and enterprise…going through a period of transition.  What we need is leadership to mirror strength and compassion as we move through new and uncharted territory fraught with pitfalls.

What we definitely DO NOT NEED is an elitist, egotistical ideologue with a specific agenda whose personal mission is to impose the will of a few upon the many.

We are, and always have been, a nation of differences.  It is strength tempered by compassion that creates an environment that fosters the peaceful co-existence of diversity.  Its why the heart chakra (center of compassion)  is located above the solar plexus chakra (center of power).  We are meant to temper strength with compassion. 

We are not meant to “kick ass.”

Its a reasoned guess that this President and I differ on considerably more than we agree upon.  However, I would hope that we agree on this.  The most successful and enduring experiment on Earth in individuality and personal liberty is the United States of America.

The answers to its current challenges will be found in our individual and collective histories, our ingenuity and our continued reverence for personal responsibility. 

The answers will definitely not be found in the failed efforts of undemocratic nations who have repeatedly and unsuccessfully used force, combined with a diminution of personal liberty and personal responsibility, to force upon its citizens an unsustainable political and economic construct.

There’s a lot of talk these days from this Administration and its supporters about “unsustainability.”  I would  suggest that there is nothing more unsustainable, or more unproductive, than a kick ass mentality.

Strength with compassion. Now there’s a winning combo.

And a better campaign slogan.