The Global Conversation

Author: Neale Donald Walsch

  • Your being on Earth at this moment is no accident

    Did you know that there is a new book that identifies the 25 most important messages of the 9-installment Conversations with God series? It then offers practical suggestions on how to apply each message in every day life. Powerful and inspirational reading.  To see the first seven chapters and hear a one chapter sample of the audio book, click here.
    =====================================================

    (This is Part III of an extended series on being part of the change, rather than simply observing the change, that is occurring on our planet right now.)

    I want you to consider the possibility that your arrival here on the earth at this time is no accident. Nor is it a coincidence. Nor is it happenstance or chance. You are here, now, on purpose. And you are ready, now, to live your life on purpose. You are choosing now for it to be purposeful—or you would not be reading this book.

    You are PART OF THE CHANGE, and you know exactly what that means, what that is going to call on you to be, do, and have, and what it is going to mean to the planet—to our children and to our children’s children.

    Now you are merely looking for two things: collaboration and collective direction. You want people with whom you can collaborate, because you know very well that this is not the time to try to “go it alone,” and you want to see all of us move in the same direction, so that we don’t spin our wheels and waste our energy and produce nothing at all of any substance.

    So, you have come here. Here, among other places. Using this, among other resources. And it is good that you have done so, for many others are now doing so as well. Before this is over, they may number in the thousands. Indeed, I expect that they will.

    So here we are together, you and I. Here we are, with all the others. And so let us look together at what we can do, now, in a practical way, to experience ourselves, to manifest ourselves, as Part of the Change.

    Here are some ideas that I have on the subject. Here are ten things that I think we can be, do, and have in order to become the change we wish to see:

    1. Announce ourselves to each other
    2. Agree with ourselves about each other
    3. Align ourselves with each other
    4. Stop separating ourselves from God
    5. Begin living the truths we say we believe
    6. Commit to being known, commit to being free
    7. Commit to being a leader and forget the outcome
    8. Deal with disappointment and redefine failure
    9. Get real, get practical, get going   
    10. Never take no for an answer

    All of this is easy. All of this is doable. And all of this is focused on producing a single outcome:

    CHANGING HUMANITY’S IDEA ABOUT ITSELF.

    That is the goal. That is the intention. That is the achievable outcome.

     

  • Worldwide Discussion:
    DID YOU HELP RUIN THANKSGIVING
    FOR THOUSANDS OF FAMILIES?

    Are you one of those who may have ruined Thanksgiving for thousands of people across America?

    Did you actually go out and shop on Thanksgiving? Did you actually swap the opportunity for a family gathering, or a longer family gathering, in order to gobble up whatever “bargains” you could find at your friendly (but not family friendly) Big Box Store?

    I mean, really. Did you?

    Because if you did, you are among the reasons why more and more major American retailers than ever before required their employees to work last Thursday, having decided to open their doors on the day before “Black Friday” and its usual calamity of gluttony.

    In case you don’t remember (or never knew), “Black Friday” got its name contemporarily from being the day that many businesses moved their accounts for the year from the red into the black. Merchants put everything but the kitchen sink on sale at very low prices to clear their shelves of stock and clear their books of loss.

    A fairly recent “tradition,” it took on its name in a more widespread way somewhere in the mid-1970s, when stores not only put stuff on sale, but began opening their doors earlier and earlier on this day. Most recently, this trend has seen stores opening at 5 a.m., and then 4 a.m. — and now, in the most egregious grab for profits ever seen even in a country wallowing in consumerism, the evening of Thanksgiving…

    …and in some cases, at 6 a.m. Thanksgiving morning.

    Some of the major retailers that decided to open their doors — and invite employees to leave families and friends in order to work — on Thanksgiving this year were: Walmart, Target, K-Mart, Toys ‘R Us, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Office Max, Sears, JCPenny, Gap, Old Navy, Best Buy, Banana Republic, Staples, and Michael’s.

    I hope that none of you — not a single one of you — helped those stores to justify doing the same thing again next year by shopping there this year on this holiday. Did you know that the United States is the only advanced country in the world that doesn’t guarantee that all workers get paid vacation time?

    How much farther are we as humans willing to go in quest of Bigger-Better-More? Is nothing to be sacred? Not even traditional family times — which are becoming fewer and farther between as it is?

    I hope none of you shopped anywhere on so-called Black Friday, either. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have taught huge money-grubbing corporations a lesson about what humanity values most?

    Some of the companies listed above tried to get out of the obvious horrible “p.r.” rub-off of inviting workers to be at their stations on Thanksgiving by saying that their employees were excited and happy about the extra hours for extra pay. But when you’re making Walmart level salaries, that’s understandable. Throwing someone a log in the middle of a raging river is better than throwing them a rock. But why put them in the middle of the raging river in the first place? Oh yes, of course. Profits.

    I love the note that the general manager of a Pizza Hut in Elkhart, Indiana wrote to his superiors when he refused to keep his local store open (and his employees working) on Thanksgiving. He claims to have been ordered by his boss to write a letter of resignation, but instead wrote a letter telling the “higher ups” why Pizza Hut should remain closed on the holiday.

    The man, Tony Rohr, had worked at Pizza Hut for 10 years, working his way up to his management position. He said that Thanksgiving and Christmas were the only two days of the year that Pizza Hut was traditionally closed, and that he was not going to take one of those two guaranteed holidays away from his employees.

    When he didn’t write a letter of resignation, he said that he was fired outright. The Indiana management says that he resigned. However the incident is framed, it backfired hugely on Pizza Hut when Mr. Rohr’s letter went viral on the Internet.

    The national Pizza Hut office quickly back-peddled from the position taken by its Indiana franchisee, saying it had made a serious error in judgment, and strongly recommending that it keep the store closed on Thanksgiving (as with most Pizza Huts nationwide), and further, offer Mr. Rohr his job back. The Elkhart store quickly did both.

    What I love in Mr. Rohr’s letter was his closing comment. Said he: “I accept that the refusal to comply with this greedy, immoral request means the end of my tenure with this company. I hope you realize it’s the people at the bottom of the totem pole that make your life possible.”

    The people at the top of the corporate ladder probably did not go into work on Thanksgiving, nor probably even on the day after, preferring to take a long holiday weekend. But then, when you’re making two million dollars or more a year to make the decision to keep your stores open on the holiday, I guess you can afford to do that…

    Hmmm…

    (Mr. Rohr had not decided at this writing whether to accept the invitation to have his job back. Pizza Hut is owned by Yum! Brands, one of the world’s largest fast food restaurant companies, with 40,000 stores worldwide. It also owns KFC and Taco Bell, as well as WingStreet restaurants.)

  • Worldwide Discussion:
    IS IT TIME TO FINALLY BRING AN END
    TO THE ‘GLOBAL FILIBUSTER’?

    Much is being made about the so-called “nuclear option” that has been taken by the members of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate, who last week abruptly changed the rules of debate for the first time in many generations in that lofty institution, removing the ability of rival members of the Republican party to block certain appointments placed before the Senate by the White House for confirmation.

    Previously, members of the minority party in the Senate could slow down, or completely hold up, an up-or-down vote on a nominee for appointment (to a judgeship, for instance, or a high level government position) sent over by the President — which affirmative vote is necessary for the appointments to go through and become official, because of the advise and consent function of the Senate that it built into the U.S. political system.

    Under the long-standing rules under which the Senate operated until late last week, the party of the minority could filibuster any nomination, extending debate interminably and thus effectively blocking any action, any forward movement whatsoever, on the appointment, because the old rules called for a 60-vote margin to end a filibuster, and the party in majority of a 100-seat chamber rarely could muster such a “super majority.”

    Last week, the Democrats — having the majority votes to do so — voted to change the rules, making a simple majority, rather than the so-called “super majority,” all that is necessary to end a filibuster. This effectively prohibits the minority party from slowing down or blocking any Presidential appointment that the majority party supports.

    The lengthy description of those political events was necessary to create a backdrop to the discussion of today’s topic: Is it time to end the worldwide ‘filibuster’ blocking any action on global warming? Or on obscene income maldistribution? Or any action that could change the fact that 650 children die every hour in our world of starvation?

    How about the fact that millions of people continue to raise barrier after barrier to people who love other enjoying all the legal and societal benefits of marriage because they are of the same gender? What is that all about? God’s will?

    How about the fact that 2.5 billion people — one in three people in the world — do not have a toilet or access to sustainable sanitation? Is that also God’s will? Or is it because humanity does not have a will of its own….?

    (Frances Cha reports for CNN that diarrheal diseases are the second most common cause of death in young children in developing countries, killing more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined. Cha’s report says that “in many countries girls stay home during menstruation days because of the absence of a safe place to change and clean themselves, and many drop out altogether.”)

    Have we had enough yet? We haven’t even listed one-tenth of the problems facing the world today — problems which should have been solved dozens, if not hundreds, of years ago by any truly advanced civilization. Is it time for us to civilize civilization?

    What would that take, do you think….?

    We can’t even end hunger in the world, we can’t even end killing. Can we find a way to end the “global filibuster” that keeps us talking, talking, talking about ending the violence in Syria or the oppression of gays in the world or the build-up of nuclear power by many nations or the utter political stalemate and impotence in Washington D.C., or…or….

    Must there be nothing but talk, talk, talk, and no action?

    Speaking of sanitary facilities, according to the World Health Organization, open areas are the only toilet option for an estimated 625 million people in India. CNN reported in September of 2012 on a government census showing that nearly half of India’s households do not have a toilet, but more people own a mobile phone.

    Many people couldn’t build a toilet even if they wanted to because there are no sewage drainage lines in their area. Out of 7,935 towns in India, only 162 have sewage treatment plants, the 2012 CNN report said.

    Today even a casual observer can see that not one of the systems, institutions and devices that our species has put into place to create a better life for all is functioning in a way that generates this outcome.

    Our political systems clearly are not working. Our economic systems clearly are not working.  Our ecological systems clearly are not working. Our health care systems clearly are not working. Our educational systems clearly are not working. Our social  systems clearly are not working. Our spiritual systems clearly are not working.

    Nothing that we have created is producing the outcomes that were intended. It is worse than that. They are actually producing exactly the opposite.

    Our political systems are creating nothing but disagreement and disarray. Our economic systems are actually increasing poverty. Our ecological systems are generating environmental degradation. Our educational systems are failing to educate enough people in enough places to bring our species anywhere near the reaching of its full potential. Our health care systems are doing little to eliminate inequality of access to modern medicines and health care services. Our social systems are known to encourage disparity, prejudice, and injustice. And, perhaps most dysfunctional of all, our spiritual systems are producing intolerance, righteousness, anger, hatred, and violence.

    What gives here? What’s going on with the human race that it cannot see even as it looks at itself? Where is humanity’s blind spot?

    Might it be time to ask: “Is there be something we don’t fully understand here, the understanding of which would change everything?”

    Why is nobody in high positions, positions of authority in governments, religions, and even in business and industry, even asking this question, much less answering it?

    What will it take for you to ask it? Will you become part of the Evolution Revolution? Can we have a meaningful discussion — a discussion leading to action — about all this? Not more talking that delays action by focusing on everything else but the real problem, but discussion that produces action by highlighting and publicizing and placing before our world leaders the real problem? If your answer is yes, click here.

  • The Ultimate Statement
    on how life works
    YOU WILL WANT
    TO READ THIS

    Finally…All of it Explained in Simple Terms

    Read this and you will understand everything you’ve ever needed to know.

    The Divine Purpose is for Life to be used by Divinity to express Divinity in order that Divinity may experience Divinity is all of its aspects.

    In short, God is using Life in order to experience Itself.

    Divinity can be experienced only through the expression of it. Divinity can be imagined, it can be thought about, and it can be held in Awareness by the Soul, but until it is expressed, it is merely a concept; unless it is expressed, it cannot be experienced.

    Here, then, is the Soul’s Knowing:
    Until you express Divinity you cannot experience Divinity.

    You can talk about Love, you can imagine Love, you can think about Love, you can hold Love as an idea conceptually, but until you express it, you cannot experience it.

    You can talk about Compassion, you can imagine Compassion, you can think about Compassion, you can hold Compassion as an idea conceptually, but until you express it, you cannot experience it.

    You can talk about Understanding, you can imagine Understanding, you can think about Understanding, you can hold Understanding as an idea conceptually, but until you express it, you cannot experience it.

    You can talk about Forgiveness, you can imagine Forgiveness, you can think about Forgiveness, you can hold Forgiveness as an idea conceptually, but until you express it, you cannot experience it.

    Divinity is all of these things, and much more. It is Patience and Kindness, Goodness and Mercy, Acceptance and Forbearance, Wisdom and Clarity, Gentleness and Beauty, Selflessness and Nobility, Benevolence and Generosity. And yes, much, much more.

    You can imagine all of these things, you can think about all of these things, you can hold all of these things as ideas conceptually, but until you express all of these things in you, through you, as you, you have not experienced Divinity.

    And you will never have an opportunity to experience these things unless Life provides you with such an opportunity. This is what Life is doing every day. Indeed, this is the purpose of Life Itself.

    Therefore, when Life brings you challenges, difficulties, and unique conditions, situations, and circumstances that are ideally suited to bring out the best in you, “judge not, and neither condemn,” but be a Light unto the darkness, that you might know Who You Really Are—and that all those whose lives you touch might know who they are as well, by the light of your example.

    While the idea that “God uses Life to know Godself” is surely not new, why God works this way may very well be something you’d like to know more about. So here is the explanation.

    God cannot experience all that God is within the Spiritual Realm alone, because in that realm there is nothing that God is not.

    The Realm of the Spiritual is the place where God is all there is, where Love is all there is, where Perfection is all there is. It’s a wonderful place, because there is nothing but Divinity. It is, in short, what you would call heaven. There is, however, this particular reality: There is nothing that God is not. And in the absence of what God is not, what God is . . . is not experienceable.

    The same is true about you. You cannot experience what you are except in the presence of What You Are Not. Nor is anything able to be experienced unless it is in a Contextual Field that includes its opposite.

    The light cannot be experienced without the darkness. “Up” has no meaning in experience without “down.” “Fast” is simply a term, a word having no meaning whatsoever without “slow.”

    Only in the presence of the thing called “small” can the thing called “big” be experienced. We can say that something is “big,” we can imagine that something is “big,” we can conceptualize something as being “big,” but in the absence of something that is “small,” “big” cannot be experienced.

    Likewise, in the absence of something “finite,” “infinity” cannot be experienced. Put into theological terms, we can know “Divinity” conceptually, but we cannot know it experientially.

    Therefore, all the people and events of your life—now or in the past—which seem to be “at odds” with who you are and what you choose to experience, are simply gifts from the highest source, created for you and brought to you through the collaborative process of co-creating souls, allowing you to find yourself in a Contextual Field within which the fullest experience of Who You Really Are becomes possible.

    Or, as it was so wonderfully stated by The Divine in Conversations with God . . .

    I have sent you nothing but angels.

    Now there’s a statement to remember. It was said here that your eternal Sacred Journey has a purpose, and it does indeed. It is a purpose established by Divinity Itself.

    The Divine Purpose is to expand the Reality of God.

    In simple terms (and these are simple terms), God is growing—becoming more of Itself—through the process called Life. God IS this process.

    God is both the Process of Life Itself . . . and the result of it. Thus, God is The Creator and The Created. The Alpha and the Omega. The Beginning and The End. The Unmoved Mover. The Unwatched Watcher.

    In not so simple terms, God cannot “grow” because everything that God ever was, is now, or ever will be, Is Now. There is no Time and there is no Space. Therefore, there is no time in which to grow, and no space into which to grow. The Cycle of Life is occurring simultaneously everywhere.

    What the human Mind wants to call God’s “growth” is merely God experiencing more and more of  Itself as the Individuations of God experience more and more of themselves. This is called Evolution.

    This was accomplished by The Whole dividing Itself (not to be confused with separating Itself) from Itself, re-creating Itself in smaller and finite form.

    No finite form, by the very reason of its being finite, could hold the infinite consciousness, awareness, and experience of The Whole, yet each individuated form was designed uniquely to reflect a particular aspect of Divinity Itself.

    Putting all these aspects together again, as one puts the pieces of a puzzle together, produces a picture of what all the pieces create. Namely: God.

    All the pieces are part of the picture, and no piece is less a part of the picture than any other.

    Now some forms of Life have been endowed with a level of Essential Essence (the raw energy from which everything springs) sufficient to produce the possibility of that Essence knowing Itself. This is the quality in certain living things that is called Self-Consciousness.

    Human Life (and, we suspect with good reason, Life elsewhere in the Universe) was designed in such a way that what we call “expansion” of Consciousness and Experience is possible.

    In fact, human Consciousness can expand even to a point where it once again knows itself as part of The Whole. Jesus, for instance, said: “I and the Father are one.” He understood his relationship to God perfectly. He
    understood that the picture which the puzzle created was not Complete without him. He was The Completion. As are we all.

    A Soul Knowing:
    God is both the Process of Life Itself
    and the Result of that Process.
    As are we all.

    Take one piece of the puzzle away and the picture is not Complete. The experience of becoming fully Self Consciousness occurs through a process by which the Individuated Aspect does not grow, actually, but simply becomes more and more aware that it does not have to grow, but truly is, in its individuated form, Divinity Itself. The individual piece recognizes itself as The Puzzle Itself, simply divided.

    The spectacular physiological, psychological, and theological transition into that higher level of Self-Awareness occurs only once in the epochal history of every sentient species in the cosmos—and this is precisely what is happening within the human race right now.
    ================================

    END NOTE:

    THE 25 CORE MESSAGES of Conversations with God are newly and fully explored, explained, and expanded under one cover in the 2013 text What God Said, from Berkley Books. You can explore it here.

    The statement above is taken directly from The Only Thing That Matters, from Emnin Books, distributed by Hay House.

    These two books are highly recommended reading for anyone wishing to delve deeply into a new theology for humanity.

    It is important to understand that a “theology” is not a religion. No one is suggesting that Conversations with God become a new religion. The word theology is defined as “the study of the nature of God.” That is precisely what the dialogue in CWG is.

    I was once asked on a national television program if I could articulate God’s message to the world in simple terms. I replied, “Yes. I can give it to you in five words.” The host blinked twice, then said, “Okay then. Ladies and gentlemen, God’s message to the world, in five words, from Neale Donald Walsch…”

    And I said…
    You’ve got me all wrong.

    If you have a deep yearning to stop getting God all wrong, I urge you to explore the concepts and principles in Conversations with God—not the least important of which is the New Gospel: We Are All One. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.
    — Neale Donald Walsch

  • NEW INSTALLMENT of Tomorrow’s God: If you have not read it, you must begin here, now…

    Below is the second installment of a continuing series of entries from the CWG book Tomorrow’s God. If you have not yet read this text, and if you have even the slightest interest in your future and the future of your children and your grandchildren, you will find the ongoing postings here to be of utmost importance. I invite you to return to this space often to capture updates in the ongoing progression through this remarkable book.

    —  Neale Donald Walsch

    ============================================

    Tomorrow’s God says that the next thirty years will see a paradigm shift within humanity so positive, so reshaping, so utterly inside-outing, that it will alter the course of human history. And it invites you—yes, you, the person now reading this—to join in this reinventing of humanity. That is why this book has been written. It is an invitation directly from God to you.

    Think about this. Now think about how this writing came to your attention. How did you come to hear about it? Or, if you never knew about it until just this minute, how did it attract your  attention? What made you pick this up and start reading it? For that matter, what makes you keep reading it? Do you think this is all happening by chance?

    It is not. There is no such thing as “chance.” The universe does nothing by accident. This book has come to you to tell you that you can change the course of human history. You. Not only the people who run governments or own corporations or lead movements or write books or are influential for some other reason. Not only those people. You. You can change the course of human history.

    This is not an exaggeration. Please believe me. This is not an exaggeration. This book calls you to that singular undertaking. It invites you now to internalize the wisdom of both ancient and contemporary masters found here; not merely to hear it again, but now to receive it, to take it in, to absorb it at the deepest level of your being, until it becomes the essence of who you are at the cellular level.

    Life will be inviting you in the years immediately ahead to act and respond from this level of Deep Knowing. What you place there now in terms of the things you profoundly believe, and how far you spread the messages found here through the living of your life in a new way, will make all the difference in the world to the world.

    Yet do not feel that you have to do all this by yourself. Perhaps the most uplifting and exciting part of the message that is brought to us in this book is that now, none of us have to “go it alone.” We have teammates, and we can join them and call them to us, to rally around humanity’s greatest cause: changing ourselves and changing our world.

    I said earlier that you might not find much that is new in this book. I was wrong. You might find…a New You. And a way to create a New World.
    =================================================

    In our next installment —  PART ONE: Redesigning God

  • The rate of change has increased to dizzying speeds; are we ready to keep up?

    Preview the new CWG book What God Said now at www.WhatGodSaidbook.com.  Released Oct. 1, this book explores and expands on the 25 most important messages of the 9-installment Conversations with God series and offers practical suggestions on how to apply each message in every day life. To read the first seven chapters and hear a one chapter sample of the audio book, click here.
    =====================================================

    (This is Part II of an extended series on being part of the change, rather than simply observing the change, that is occurring on our planet right now.)

    The questions we asked in our last entry here won’t wait. These are, again, not: Will there be massive change in our future? The questions are: What will be the nature of that change? And…What role will you play in creating it?

    These questions are going to be answered, because the rush of events and the speeding up of time is going to require that they be answered.  They are going to be answered by decision or by default.

    Which one is up to you.

    Years ago the questions would wait. In the time of my great-grandfather, change occurred very slowly. In fact, my great-grandfather lived his entire life without seeing even one of the major underpinning thoughts in his belief system challenged in any serious way. Things were they way they were, and they pretty much stayed that way.

    In the time of my grandfather, the speed of change had increased to a crawl. He could live 50 to 60 years of his life without seeing any of the major underpinning thoughts in his belief system challenged.

    For my father, that time was dramatically shortened. Cut in half, in fact. He could not live through 30 years of his life without seeing the major underpinning thoughts in his belief system challenged.

    In my lifetime (and I am 70 years old at this writing), the speed of change has increased again, cut by more than half. I have not been able to get though 10 years of my life without seeing my major assumptions challenged and overturned.

    My children have witnessed the rate of change increase exponentially yet again. They have not been able to move through more than 2 or 3 years over the past two decades without seeing everything they thought they knew about how things are challenged, and in some cases completely dismantled.

    Now, as we move rapidly toward the second half of the second decade of this New Millennium, the rate of change has reached dizzying speeds, like a downhill roller coaster.  Science, medicine, technology, philosophy, even theology—that slowest of all tortoises—bring us new mental and physical constructions, new realities, every year, sometimes every month.

    What we thought we knew for a fact just a breath ago now cannot be counted on. There is no reliable past data anymore. We don’t even have the luxury of seeing where the changes that are occurring are taking us, because the Changers and the Changed have become one.  This means we have to decide, now, not only Who We Are, but Who We Choose to Be, both individually, and as a species.

    And in our next installment here I’ll ask you to consider the possibility that your arrival here on the earth at this time is no accident. Nor is it a coincidence. Nor is it happenstance or chance…

  • Worldwide Discussion:
    CAN WE MAKE KENNEDY’S DEATH MEAN SOMETHING AFTER ALL?

    Can the people of our world transform and “shake free” the consciousness of the past and enter into — through the creation of it — a New Era for Humanity? Can we do it before it is too late?  The remarkable essay on the life and times John F. Kennedy re-printed in the current What Others Are Saying column of this online newspaper from a blog at Tikkun.org, concludes with the asking of that piercing question.

    Its author, Peter Gabel, who is the editor of Tikkun magazine (an online publication of enormous intellectual and social value), offers us this observation, among many…

    “There is no way for the forces of good to win the struggle between desire and alienation unless people can break through the gauzy images of everything being fine except the lone nuts, a legitimating ideology that is actually supported by our denial of the pain of our isolation and our collective deference to the system of Authority that we use to keep our legitimating myths in place.”

    In other words, nothing’s going to change unless and until we let go, at last, of our collective notion that “everything is fine” in our world except for a few crazed people or groups who just don’t ”get” how to behave. The fact is that nothing is working. I mean, nothing.

    It’s time to be honest here: Not a single major system that we have put into place on this planet is functioning correctly. Not our political, not our economic, not our environmental, not our education, not our social, and not our spiritual system. None of them are producing the outcomes that we say we want.

    In fact, it’s worse. They’re producing the outcomes that we say we don’t want.

    And not just on a global scale. It gets down to the personal level. It gets right down to you and me. All but the tiniest percentage of the world’s people are caught up in struggle. Daily struggle. Struggle not merely to be happy, but to survive, to get by, to just stay afloat.

    And now, it has gone past even that. Because now, even those people who are living the “good life” are not having a good time. Not even them. Personal happiness seems mysteriously and frustratingly elusive. And even when people achieve it, they can’t hold on to it.

    Now that’s the greatest clue, that’s the biggest hint, that’s the surest sign that something’s amiss. When even those who should be happy by any reasonable measure are not, there’s got to be a serious systemic problem in a society’s culture. You can tell that a social formula is askew when even if the formula is working, it’s not; when even if everything’s going right, something’s desperately wrong.

    That’s where we are today, and I think it’s time for a New Message to guide humanity. I think it’s time for a brand-new cultural story to be embraced by our species.

    The question is, what will that take?

    It will take the combined energies of all of us. It was take nothing less than an Evolution Revolution. It will take you. And me. And all of us. Each becoming involved directly, each participating in a visible way.

    To learn more about how you can become part of this global shift, click on the blue box on this front page labeled EVOLUTION REVOLUTION. President Kennedy died 50 years ago this week. Isn’t it time that we stepped into the “opening of desire”, as Mr. Gabel so wonderfully put it in his essay, that John F. Kennedy created in the hearts of all humankind?

    I remember, to this day, stirring words which President Kennedy’s included in his inaugural address, in which he placed before humanity a new vision for a new kind of world:

    “All of this will not be accomplished within the first 100 days. Nor within the first 1,000 days. Nor perhaps within our lifetime. But let us begin…

    “With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own.”

    If God’s work truly your own? Then consider finding out more about The Evolution Revolution, and joining in that effort today.

  • Worldwide Discussion:
    DID WE HELP TO CREATE HAIYAN?

    My Dear Friends…

    It is not possible to look at our world today in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan and not contemplate the meaning of life (and death), the purpose of events (be there any at all), and the function and intention of God (if there even is a “God”).

    Is life, after all is said and done, just a series of random events, having no particular or specific Cause…no “reason” for occurring?

    Are we, in the end, really and truly limited to standing by and suffering “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” as Shakespeare put it?

    Should we, as he asked, “take arms against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end…the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to…”?

    Even if we could, can we end them? Certainly we can change our basic human behaviors. We can create an end to war, bring a halt to violence, put a stop to poverty and hunger and man-made suffering. We don’t seem, as a species, to have the will to do so, but surely we certainly have the ability to do so.

    But how can we have any effect at all on natural disasters? We have nothing to do with those...

    …or do we….?

    Has human behavior had anything at all to do with the creation of the worst storms this planet has ever seen?

    We’ll look at that in just a moment. But first, a word of compassion and a plea for help and healing for those caught in the grip of this terrible typhoon. Our human family members need help right now in those areas struck by this calamity. Please see the story on our front page headlined EMERGENCY!, and do what you can do. Right now. Today.

    And let us offer a collective prayer:

    Dear God of our Highest understanding: Bring succor, comfort and healing to our brethren around the world who suffer today in the aftermath of this terrible disaster. Bring them the strength to endure their indescribable losses, to rebuild their lives in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever they held about Who They Are. Help them today, Dear God, with your mercy and compassion, giving them strength to endure the unendurable, that they might experience at this hour the indestructible nature of the human spirit — which is your spirit, Dear God, flowing through them. Amen, and amen.

    And now, the question that this moment begs: Has human activity had anything to do with this cataclysm?

    Haiyan has been called the biggest storm to hit landfall in the recorded history of Earth. It slammed the Philippines with 200+ mile-per-hour winds, flattening entire villages and killing an estimated 10,000 people. (By contrast, those winds had died down to “only” 74 mph, killing 13, by the time they had reached Vietnam.)

    Has global warming done anything — anything at all — to create the conditions that are now spawning more and more violent storms at sea? Meteorologists and environmental scientists don’t even question this anymore. They know the answer.

    Weather on our planet — producing, in cycles, heat waves, droughts, winds, torrential rains, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, tidal waves — has become more disastrous for a reason.

    Yet there are those in our world community who continue to insist that “global warming” itself is the false cry of earring-sporting, Birkenstock-wearing, tree-hugging environmentalists; that it doesn’t even exist.

    Or that if it does exist, human beings have had nothing to do with creating it.

    The important thing is jobs. We’ve got to protect the economy, not the ecology, of the planet, these folks insist.

    All attempts to control or limit global warming by calling for the altering of industrial and commercial activities that may add to the conditions that create it are roundly criticized and angrily and summarily rejected by those who declare that livelihood comes first in our world.

    This, however, seems so shortsighted as to defy belief. Can the human species be so blind to the long-term effects of what it is doing? Can nothing save us from ourselves?

     If something can, what might it be? Your ideas please, below. We’ve no time to lose. Your ideas, please.

     

  • Will you be a ‘player’ or an ‘observer’ during this extraordinary time?

    Preview the new CWG book What God Said now at www.WhatGodSaidbook.com.  Released Oct. 1, this book explores and expands on the 25 most important messages of the 9-installment Conversations with God series and offers practical suggestions on how to apply each message in every day life. To read the first seven chapters and hear a one chapter sample of the audio book, click here.
    =====================================================

    (This is Part I of an extended series on being part of the change, rather than simply observing the change, that is occurring on our planet right now.)

    This is the most extraordinary time to be alive in the history of this planet.

    Do you know that?

    I said, this is the most extraordinary time to be alive in the history of this planet.

    And you are here, alive, now, not by accident.

    Do you know that?

    I said, you are here…alive….NOW….not by accident.

    What are you doing here? Do you have any idea? Yes, you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this. And that’s the best news this planet has had in a very long time.

    Wow, grab hold of that. Hear that thought, and grab hold of it. You are the best news this planet has had in a very long time.

    You’re good news because you are about to change this planet in very important ways. And the planet needs changing now, in important ways, more than it has in a very long time. In fact, if those changes don’t take place now, in the nearness of our short-term future, our long-term future may not be assured.

    I am sure that I do not have to tell you that life as we once knew it no longer “is” on our earth. And life as we will know it “is” not yet.  So we are living the In Between Time—what social scientist Jean Houston calls “the time of the parenthesis.” We are no longer one thing, and we are not yet the other.

    This is the most wonderful and exciting time to be alive, because this is time Time of Pure Creation. There is no other time like it, and such a time comes along only once every several hundred years. In fact, it would be argued without much refutation that the kinds of changes we are going through now come along only once every several thousand years. And, to be totally accurate, we have never had a time like this on the earth—because the changes we are now about to make could not have been made before.

    We are entering not only a new era, but a new experience—one never before known by our species. This is the Time of the Enlightenment.  There are glories awaiting. Glories we could not even have dreamt of just a few decades ago.

    Those who come after us will live these changes—but we will create them! And THAT is the wonder of this moment. For this moment holds for us the chance to experience ourselves as few humans have ever experienced themselves across the span of Time.

    We are going to experience ourselves as the Changers and the Changed. Indeed, we are doing so right now. And so the question before us now is not, will there be massive change? The question is, what will be the nature of that change? And….what role will you play in creating it?

     Now, as exciting as all this is, there’s one condition; there’s one catch:

    You’ve got to decide now.

  • Worldwide Discussion:
    ARE AMERICANS ‘PEOPLE OF THE GUN’?

    A 3-D printing company in Texas has announced that it has successfully created a process by which it can produce a fully operational metal handgun from a printout.

    And both a long-time writer and his editor at a magazine catering to gun owners are out of work today because they dared to author and publish an article in the magazine inviting a discussion of reasonable gun purchasing requirements.

    These are two developments in the news these days about guns and the obtaining and owning of guns — and they bring up, in the minds of many people around the world, questions about the gun culture in America.
    The author of the magazine article, Dick Metcalf, had edited and written for Guns & Ammo magazine for years. But his longevity with the publication made no difference. His column in the December issue “sparked an online uproar from readers, gun bloggers, and other corners of the conservative movement,” writes David Sessions for The Daily Beast, an online news outlet.

    “Metcalf’s back-page column was headlined ‘Let’s Talk About Limits,’ (PDF) and cautiously argued that gun enthusiasts should not oppose basic limits on firearm ownership,” Sessions reports. The column, Sessions goes on, “made the obvious point that all freedoms protected by the Constitution are regulated in some way, and that gun owners should stop acting as if any regulation whatsoever amounts to the ‘infringement’ mentioned in the Second Amendment.”

    Gun enthusiasts did not take kindly to the comment, however. Especially when Metcalf wrote:  “I don’t think requiring 16 hours of training to qualify for a concealed carry permit is infringement in and of itself. But that’s just me.”

    The writer was summarily fired after the magazine received a raft of subscription cancellations and a deluge of negative commentary and boiling criticism on internet blogs and social media, including the magazine’s own Facebook page.

    And Mr. Metcalf’s boss, a man named Jim Bequette who manages the editing of the entire magazine, resigned his position early (he was planning to leave in January) in an effort to quell the rising tide of hostile response from people across America.

    Wrote Bequette in a statement: “I made a mistake by publishing the column. I thought it would generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights. I miscalculated, pure and simple. I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness.” In publishing Metcalf’s column, Bequette said he was “untrue to” the “tradition” of Guns & Ammo magazine.

    So it would appear that there is, among a huge swath of Americans, no room for even a discussion of any limits whatsoever on gun purchase and ownership in America. This is a land with a huge gun culture. Americans by the millions love their killing weapons.

    So for them it may be good news that now a 3D-printing services company Solid Concepts has developed a sintering process (the dictionary defines that term as “making a powdered material coalesce into a solid or porous mass by heating it, usually also compressing it, and without liquefaction”) that creates a gun using powdered metals for the firearm’s material.

    “The weapon’s design is based on a classic 1911 handgun and is made up of 33 different stainless steel and Inconel components, along with a carbon fiber filled nylon handgrip,” according to a report by Dara Kerr for the Internet site CNET.

    Solid Concepts vice president of additive manufacturing Kent Firestone said in a statement: “We’re proving this is possible, the technology is at a place now where we can manufacture a gun with 3D Metal Printing, And we’re doing this legally. In fact, as far as we know, we’re the only 3D Printing Service Provider with a Federal Firearms License. Now, if a qualifying customer needs a unique gun part in five days, we can deliver.”

    Kerr’s report at CNET said that “The first known 3D-printed gun was made by another Texas-based outfit called Defense Distributed. The gun, called the ‘Liberator,’ is made entirely of plastic, except for a nail used as a firing pin and a six-ounce piece of steel designed solely to allow the gun to be detected by metal detectors.

    “The Liberator can be instantly downloaded and anonymously printed by anyone who has access to 3D-printing technology. While the gun debuted amid much fanfare, it has since been said the firearm rarely works,” Kerr’s report went on.

    The ability to print out a metal gun presumably solves that problem.

    The United States is virtually the only country on Earth where a high percentage of citizens are so fixated on guns. Apparently, those enthusiasts see little or no connection between the easy availability of guns in America and the ongoing stream of heartbreaking news stories about mass killings and shocking murders involving guns making headlines every day in the nation’s media.

    Mr. Sessions, in his article for The Daily Beast, quotes a man named Robert Farago of the website The Truth About Guns, who is reported to have posted a PDF of the offending Guns & Ammo column. “Anyone who says ‘I believe in the Second Amendment but—’ does not believe in the Second Amendment,” Sessions quotes Mr. Farago as writing. “They are not friends, they are not frenemies, they are enemies of The People of the Gun.”

    The People of the Gun?

    Really?