Author: Neale Donald Walsch

How do you forgive yourself for an accident in which you killed someone?

The following letter was received by me in my email box on Sept 24, 2013. I have changed the name of the writer to “friend” in order to preserve the author’s privacy.
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Dear Neale…I would like to ask you a question that I would like your help with. I almost do not have the courage to ask, but I will not let the opportunity pass. I am going to ask you now, and God help me, I will truly be whole when I can forgive myself.

I understand the Spiritual truth of the events that have happened in my life, and have been able to forgive others for their part, sometimes I still feel the hurt of being abandoned and abused, and am working on the emotional pain as it presents itself.

Here is the BIG one: I feel so terrible and unworthy as a human, for the tragic accident that took a man’s life. I sill hear the little girl’s voice saying, “Mommy, is that the lady who killed my Daddy?”

I feel horrible, Neale. Can you please teach me forgiving myself, so I can be in both worlds whole, fully connected, mind, body, and soul? I just bought your book Home with God so I won’t feel so afraid. My mind likes to scare me sometimes.

Sincerely, Your Friend.
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NOTE: I am sharing my reply because I believe that Self Forgiveness is one of the most critical issues facing many, many human beings, and I hope that the understandings here will be shared with people everywhere…

My dear Friend…I have received your heartfelt note, and I am pleased that you have written to me, because reaching out is the best thing we can do when we are besieged by negative thoughts from within — as you are by this idea that you have done something unforgivable.

I should like to begin my response to you by quoting you something that humanity was given in the text, HOME WITH GOD in a Life That Never Ends. In that book we are told that “no one dies at a time or in a way that is not of their choosing.” Such a thing would be impossible, given Who and What We Are.

You should know, then, that the Soul of the gentleman who died in the incident that you have confessed was not somehow the “victim” of you, but rather, the “co-creator” with you of the perfect circumstances of his own departure from his then-current physical manifestation. CWG-Book One made something very clear: “There are no victims and no villains in the world.”

What reason this gentleman had, in his own personal experience, to choose the moment of this accident for his transformation we cannot know — but this we can know: It was not something that occurred against his will. That is impossible because of who he is.

This brings us, my dear friend, to a much larger question: Who and What are we?

SOONER OR LATER IN our lives we have to make a major decision about the most important question in life: What is our actual identity? Are we the physical manifestation of a biological incident, or are we something greater, something more, something other than a mere mammal?

As I observe it, I have a couple of choices when it comes to how I think of myself. I also observe that there is no “right way” to answer this question.

Choice #1: I could conceive of myself as a Chemical Creature, a “Logical Biological Incident.” That is, the logical outcome of a biological process engaged in by two older biological processes called my mother and my father.

If I see myself as a Chemical Creature, I would see myself as having no more connection to the Larger Processes of Life than any other chemical or biological life form.

Like all the others, I would be impacted by life, but could have very little impact on life. I certainly couldn’t create events, except in the most remote, indirect sense. I could create more life (all chemical creatures carry the biological capacity to re-create more of themselves), but I could not create what life does, or how it “shows up” in any given moment.

Further, as a Chemical Creature I would see myself as having a very limited ability to create an intentioned response to the events and conditions of life. I would see myself as a creature of habit and instinct, with only those resources that my biology brings me.

I would see myself as having more resources than a turtle, because my biology has gifted me with more. I would see myself as having more resources than a butterfly, because my biology has gifted me with more.

I would see myself as having more resources than an ape or a dolphin (but, in those cases, perhaps not all that many more), because my biology has gifted me with more. Yet that is all I would see myself as having in terms of resources.

I would see myself as having to deal with life day-by-day pretty much as it comes, with perhaps a tiny bit of what seems like “control” based on advance planning, etc., but I would know that at any minute anything could go wrong—and often would.

Choice #2: I could conceive of myself as a Spiritual Being inhabiting a biological mass—what I call a “body.”

If I saw myself as a Spiritual Being, I would see myself as having powers and abilities far beyond those of a simple Chemical Creature—powers that transcend basic physicality and its laws.

I would understand that these powers and abilities give me collaborative control over the exterior elements of my Individual and Collective Life and complete control over the interior elements—which means that I have total ability to create my own reality, because my reality has nothing to do with producing the exterior elements of my life and everything to do with how I respond to the elements that have been produced.

Also, as a Spiritual Being, I would know that I am here (on the earth, that is) for a spiritual reason. This is a highly focused purpose and has little to do directly with my occupation or career, my income or possessions or achievements or place in society, or any of the exterior conditions or circumstances of my life.

I would know that my purpose has to do with my interior life—and that how well I do in achieving my purpose may very often have an effect on my exterior life.

(For the interior life of each individual cumulatively produces the exterior life of the collective. That is, those people around you, and those people who are around those people who are around you. It is in this way that you, as a Spiritual Being, participate in the evolution of your species.)

My answer to the question: I’ve decided that I am a Spiritual Being, a three-part being made up of Body, Mind, and Soul. Each part of my tri-part being has a function and a purpose. As I come to understand each of those functions, each aspect of me begins to more efficiently serve its purpose in my life.

I am an individuation of Divinity, an expression of God, a singularization of The Singularity. There is no separation between me and God, nor is there any difference, except as to proportion. Put simply, God and I are one.

This brings up an interesting question. Am I rightly accused of heresy? Are people who believe that they are divine nothing but raving lunatics? Are they, worse yet, apostates?

I wondered. So I did a little research. I wanted to find out what religious and spiritual sources had to say on the subject. Here’s some of what I found…

Isaiah 41:23—Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold together.

Psalm 82:6—I have said, ‘Gods ye are, And sons of the Most High—all of you.’

John 10:34—Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

The Indian philosopher Adi Shankara (788 CE—820 CE), the one largely responsible for the initial expounding and consolidation of Advaita Vedanta, wrote in his famous work, Vivekachudamant: “Brahman is the only Truth, the spatio-temporal world is an illusion, and there is ultimately Brahman and individual self.”

Sri Swami Krishnananda Saraswati Maharaj (April 25, 1922—November 23, 2001), a Hindu saint: “God exists; there is only one God; the essence of man is God.”

According to Buddhism, there ultimately is no such thing as a self independent from the rest of the universe (the doctrine of anatta). Also, if I understand certain Buddhist schools of thought correctly, humans return to Earth in subsequent lifetimes in one of six forms, the last of which are called Devas…which is variously translated as Gods or Deities.

Meanwhile, the ancient Chinese discipline of Taoism speaks of embodiment and pragmatism, engaging practice to actualize the Natural Order within themselves. Taoists believe that man is a microcosm for the universe.

Hermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs or gnosis based primarily upon the Hellenistic Egyptian pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Hermeticism teaches that there is a transcendent God, !e All, or one “Cause,” of which we, and the entire universe, participate.

The concept was first laid out in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the famous words: “That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One thing.”

And in Sufism, an esoteric form of Islam, the teaching “there is no God but God” was long ago changed to there is nothing but God. Which would make me…well…God.

Enough? Do you wish or need more? You might find it instructive and fascinating to go to Wikipedia, the source to which I owe my appreciation for much of the above information.

As well, read the remarkable books of Huston Smith, 91 years of age at this writing and a globally honored professor of religion. Among titles of his that I most often recommend: The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions, 1958, rev. ed. 1991, HarperOne; and Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions, 1976, reprint ed. 1992, HarperOne

So…that is my answer to Life’s Most Important Question: Who Am I? I am an out-picturing of the Divine. I am God in human form. So, too, of course, are we all.

MY POINT IN TELLING YOU ALL THIS: The gentleman in the incident you describe was not a mere biological expression of life, like an ant or a bee or a tree. He was a spiritual entity, having a Soul, a Mind, and a Body—and having, most of all, total and complete Free Will and Co-Creative Power. He was not the victim of the circumstance you describe, he was the co-creator of it, the active and willing participant in it.

Now, my dear friend, your purpose in life is to recreate yourself anew, in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are. You do this by creating, in very powerful ways, your interior experience of the exterior events that are collaboratively created by all the Souls affected by them. Nobody is the victim of anything, and nobody is the perpetrator. We are all simply co-creators of a Collective Reality, from which each of us are invited to draw our individual experience of Self, through which we produce our present expression of Divinity.

You, my wonderful friend, have chosen to produce, from your experience of the accident, a portrait of yourself as a person who deserves to feel unending shame and guilt. Yet it is as God has told us through the words of His messenger Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: “Guilt and Shame are the only enemies of man.”

I come now to tell you that forgiveness is not necessary. Neither is guilt or shame. God never forgives anyone for anything. God never has, and God never will.

Conversations with God makes this bold statement, and does it so unequivocally that even those who agree with CWG’s other spiritually revolutionary revelations find themselves raising their eyebrows—until they look behind the statement to the explanation that is given.

God does not and will not offer forgiveness to anyone for anything because forgiveness is not necessary.  It is replaced in the process of Divine Balance with a more searingly powerful energy: Understanding.

First, Divinity understands Who and What It Is, and so It is Aware that It cannot possibly be hurt or damaged, injured or diminished in any way. This means that Divinity would not be disappointed or frustrated or annoyed or angry or vengeful for any reason. It simply has no reason. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” is the biggest spiritual untruth of all time.

Second, God understands that humans do not understand who and what they are, and so imagine that they, or others, can be hurt and damaged, injured and diminished—and that it is from this experience, or fear, of being hurt that all thoughts, words, and actions seemingly requiring Forgiveness flow.

Knowing this, God has no need to forgive you (even if God could somehow be “hurt”), any more than you have a need to “forgive” a two-year-old child for saying or doing something that doesn’t make sense, or for something that happened by accident, like spilling a glass of milk at the dinner table.

The idea that you need to forgive yourself for something you have done is clearly based on the fact that you feel that another Soul, at the level of Soul, has been offended, damaged, or hurt by you. Such a thought denies the reality of their own sovereignty; of who they really are.  I do not mean here to diminish or dismiss the impact in our present physical reality of what has occurred. A man has died, and in our present physical reality and limited understanding, that is surely viewed as a tragedy. Only from the standpoint of a larger spiritual awareness can this incident be held in Consciousness any other way.

From a spiritual perspective, however, we see very differently, with no place for “fault” or “guilt,” for we know that all that has happened is the playing out of the evolutionary process of all the Souls involved — a process that is mysterious and seldom fully grasped within the limited perspective of the human mind.

Yet even the mind understands the innocence of a child whose presumed immaturity and confusion led to his actions. And so, too, will we eventually see, when we come from the place of Deepest Understanding, that the exact same thing is true of the adults who behave in ways that some might call hurtful or damaging.

It is also important to understand this complexity: There is no such thing, in Ultimate Reality, as an “accident.”  Even the apparent “accident” of the child spilling milk is not, ultimately, an “accident” at all, but an action that appears to emerge from the mind’s immaturity and confusion, but which is actually the perfect playing out of what is in that moment ideally suited to move forward the agenda of all the Souls involved in and witnessing the event.

In short, nothing happens “by chance” in the Mind of God.

And you are an expression of the Mind of God. That is, you are God, individuated in physicality, for the purpose of experiencing your own Divinity. This is what Jesus Christ was. This is what Lao Tzu was. This is what Muhammad was. This is what Buddha was. This is what Abraham was. This is what Bahá’u’lláh was. This is what everyone is.

This is why Moses was able to part the Red Sea. This is why Jesus was able to heal the sick. This is why Muhammad was able to recite the Quran. And, as Jesus said: “Why are you so amazed? These things, and more, shall you do also.”

Understanding thus replaces Forgiveness in the Mind of those who have expanded their Consciousness to include the Awareness of the Soul. The Soul knows its True Identity.

A wonderful effort of your Mind, then, each time you begin to feel that another person has been hurt or damaged in any way by you, would be to open itself to the wisdom of Heaven.

Stop. Breathe. And then listen.

Listen to the insight and the understanding and the compassion and the wisdom of the Soul. You will know, then, that self-forgiveness is not necessary, but that what serves the Mind is simple and real and pure and compassionate understanding of what occurred, why it occurred, and how its having happened has moved forward the larger evolutionary agenda of all the Souls involved in, and affected by, the occurrence itself.

Go, then, and bless all the world that you touch with all the love that you have, and do not weep because you cannot “forgive” yourself for the incident in which a man’s life was ended, but embrace your own Soul’s understanding — and God’s awareness — that you did nothing “wrong,” that such a thing is impossible given Who You Are, that the highest agenda of every person who has been touched by the experience you describe has been served, that imperfection is impossible in the Kingdom of God, and that you are absolved of any “guilt” or “shame” for an event which was collaboratively created by all the Souls involved, each to serve their own sacred and holy agenda.

Use every moment of the remainder of your life to bless the world, my dear friend, for that is what you came here to do. Indeed, that is Who You Are: a blessing in our world. Bring understanding to those who weep for themselves in their own misunderstanding of their own lives and the experiences within them. Heal others, my friend, of any sadness they may have, and you shall heal your own.

I send you love and blessings, my friend, now and even all the days of your life.

Yours in humble service,

Neale.

Can there be any doubt that prayer works? The most recent developments regarding Syria certainly suggests that it does.

People around the world have been praying for a peaceful resolution to the current situation in Syria, with an end to the threat by the U.S. Government to launch a strategic missile strike there in order to disable the ability of the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons.

And now, Russia and the United States have come to an agreement that calls for the Syrian Government to turn over its chemical weapons to international inspection and control—leading to their complete destruction—within a week.

Is any of this the result of humanity’s prayer? I believe it is. Does that mean that God answers our every prayer in just the way we want God to? No. To me it does not. That is not what Conversations with God has told me.

I have received many messages and emails in recent days asking me what is the best way to approach this crisis spiritually. I have said to everyone, simply…pray.

In thinking about this, I found myself going back to Book One in the Conversations with God texts to get a reminder of what it had to say about “prayer.” Here’s what I found:

You will not have that for which you ask, nor can you have anything you want. This is because your very request is a statement of lack, and your saying you want a thing only works to produce that precise experience — wanting — in your reality. The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication, but a prayer of gratitude.

When you thank God in advance for that which you choose to experience in your reality, you, in effect, acknowledge that it is there — in effect. Thankfulness is thus the most powerful statement to God; an affirmation that even before you ask, God has answered. Therefore never supplicate. Appreciate.

Gratitude cannot be used as a tool with which to manipulate God; a device with which to fool the universe. You cannot lie to yourself. Your mind knows the truth of your thoughts. If you are saying “Thank you, God, for such and such,” all the while being very clear that it isn’t there in your present reality, you can’t expect God to be less clear than you, and so produce it for you. God knows what you know, and what you know is what appears as your reality.

The way to be grateful for something that is not there is through faith. If you have but the faith of a mustard seed, you shall move mountains. You come to know it is there because God said it is there; because God said that, even before you ask, God shall have answered; because God said (and has said to you in every conceivable way, through every teacher you can name) that whatsoever you shall choose, choosing it in God’s Name, so shall it be.

No prayer — and a prayer is nothing more than a fervent statement of what is so — goes unanswered. Every prayer — every thought, every statement, every feeling — is creative. To the degree that it is fervently held as truth, to that degree will it be made manifest in your experience.

When it is said that a prayer has not been answered, what has in actuality happened is that the most fervently held thought, word or feeling has become operative. Yet what you must know — and here is the secret — is that always it is the thought behind the thought — what might be called the Sponsoring Thought — that is the controlling thought.

If, therefore, you beg and supplicate, there seems a much smaller chance that you will experience what you think you are choosing, because the Sponsoring Thought behind every supplication is that you do not have now what you wish. That Sponsoring Thought becomes your reality.

The only Sponsoring Thought that could override this thought is the thought held in faith that God will grant whatever is asked, without fail. Some people have such faith, but very few.

The process of prayer becomes much easier when, rather than having to believe that God will always say “yes” to every request, one understands intuitively that the request itself is not necessary. Then the prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving. It is not a request at all, but a statement of gratitude for what is so.

So regarding the ongoing Syrian crisis, perhaps we might say a prayer of gratitude today. Here is mine…

Thank you, God, for helping us to understand that this problem has already been solved for us. Thank you for the peace that will prevail, and for the perfection of the process that leads to that peace.

Thank you for the comfort of knowing that All Will Be All Right in the History of Humanity, and that every living creature returns ultimately to reside in Perfection Itself, in the paradise that is the Presence of Divinity in, as, and through us, completely and absolutely, forever and even forevermore.

I am grateful for this apparent diplomatic breakthrough involving the United States and Russia, even as I am aware that this must be only the beginning of a larger human effort to bring an end to all the suffering in Syria, not just the chemical weapons crisis. And then to bring an end to all the suffering of humanity everywhere.

Can we do it? Can such a thing ever occur? It can, and has, in all of the advanced civilizations of the cosmos. The question is, are we willing to advance as well? If so, we are going to find that using the tools of Spirituality will be the only approach that will get us there. We’ve already tried every other approach. And as Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that working for you?”

And what spiritual tools am I talking about? Well, one suggestion might be to start with the 1,000 Words That Could Change the World, found elsewhere on this front page. Have you read them yet?

There can be no justification, in a spiritual sense, for a military attack by the United States on Syria, whatever the intention or cause.

The very first message of Conversations with God, on pg. 5 of Book One, says that We Are All One. If this is true (and it is), then killing each other to resolve our problems — even our biggest problems — can never be the answer.

There are those who say that the leadership in Syria (meaning Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government and military minions) must “pay” for its alleged approval of the use of chemical weapons against Syria’s own people.

The U.S. says it has incontrovertible evidence that the chemical weapons attack that recently killed hundreds of men, women, and children in Syria was conducted by the military of the Assad regime. It says that a military strike against Syria would be limited to the destruction of that government’s own military apparatus.

The spiritual wisdom on this matter says that we cannot continue with the insanity of using killing to end killing, violence to end violence. Negativity only breeds negativity, and CWG says that the problem in the world today is that we keep trying to solve the problem in the world today at every level except the level at which the problem exists.

First, we try to solve it as if it was a political problem, because we are used to using political pressure on this planet to push energy around to get people to do what they don’t want to do. We hold discussions and write laws and pass legislation and adopt resolutions in every local, national, regional, and global organization we can think of to try to solve the problem with words—but it does not work. Whatever short-term solutions we may create evaporate over time, the problem reemerges. It will not go away. So we say, “Okay, this is not a political problem and it cannot be solved with political means. It must be an economic problem…” You see, we are used to using economic power on this planet to push energy around to get people to do what they don’t want to do.

So we try to solve the problem as if it were an economic problem. We throw money at it, or withhold money from it (as in the form of sanctions), to try to solve the problem with cash—but it does not work. Whatever short-term solutions we may create evaporate over time, the problem reemerges. It will not go away. And so we say, “Okay, this is not an economic problem, and it cannot be solved by economic means. It must be a military problem…” We are used to using military might on this planet to push energy around to get people to do what they don’t want to do.

So we try to solve the problem as if it were a military problem. We throw bullets at it and drop bombs on it to try to solve the problem with weapons —but it does not work. Whatever short-term solutions we may create evaporate over time, the problem reemerges. It will not go away. And so we say, “Okay, this is not an easy problem. This is going to be a long, hard slog. Many lives will be lost in trying to solve this problem. But we are not going to give up. We are going to solve this problem if it kills us.” And we don’t even see the irony in our own statements.

You see, we are very used to trying to force solutions in our world. Yet solutions that are forced are never solutions at all. They are simply postponements. I know that you have all heard the definition of insanity. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting to get a different result.

The sadness of humanity is that we are forever ready to settle for postponements in place of solutions. Only primitive cultures and primitive beings do that. Highly evolved beings would never, ever settle for a 10,000-year-postponement in the solving of their largest problem.

The problem in the world today is a spiritual problem. It has to do with what people believe. It has to do with our most fervently held thoughts and ideas about Life, about God, and most of all, about ourselves.

This problem of beliefs creates a condition of hopelessness, helplessness, anger, and rebellion. That condition produces a circumstance of run-away violence.

The problem of beliefs is a problem which all of us have helped to create. This is true because all of us have beliefs—and if those beliefs are mistaken, and we then pass on those beliefs to our children and our grandchildren and our neighbors and our friends, we join together to create a Cultural Story that creates the very Conditions which produce the very Circumstances we are trying to avoid. Yet we cannot eliminate them and we cannot avoid them until we eliminate and avoid the beliefs that created them.

And that is OUR work, my friends. That is OUR job. We must change the Cultural Story that created the Conditions that produce the Circumstances we seek to avoid. Yet we will never do that, we will never even be able to, as long as we refuse to acknowledge our own responsibility in the matter. It is as the headline on the masthead of this online newspaper reads.

It is WE who hold the beliefs that we hold, that create the Cultural Stories that start the spiral going. We, ALL of us — including the people who use violence to announce and to scream out their discontent — must change our cultural story, must change our beliefs, if we expect and hope to see a change in humanity’s behavior.

This is because all behavior springs from belief. All behavior. Everything you do, you do because you believe something. You believe something about who you are, you believe something about what is currently happening, you believe something about what you are doing—and, most sadly of all, you believe that you are “right” about all of that. The possibility that you may be “wrong” never even occurs to you.

Yet we are wrong. About almost everything. Certainly about almost everything that is important, such as God, and who God is, and what God wants. And Life, and how it works, and its purpose and function. And we are wrong about each other, and about ourselves, and who we are in relationship to each other, to ourselves, and to God.

The problem in life is a spiritual problem—and the spiritual problem is a simple problem of misidentification. We have misidentified Who We Really Are. We have failed to answer accurately life’s four major questions: Who are we? Where are we? Why are we? What are we doing here?

Most people have not even asked themselves those questions, much less answered them.

If the United States goes to war in Syria — and it very much looks as if it may — the world will have once again used precisely the wrong tactics to solve the world’s problems. What is wrong with all the nations of the world who disagree with the alleged actions of the Syrian government simply and powerfully boycotting that government? Refusing to sell it anything, give it anything, supply it with anything, or deal with it in any way?

There are those who say that won’t work. Russia and China, two huge allies of Syria, will give its government all that it needs to keep things going over there and to stay in power. But surely there must be some effect that the combined nations of the world which disagree with Syria can have on that country, other than raining rockets down on its military facilities and killing more people.

More killing cannot be the answer. Have we become so barbaric as a species that more killing is the only answer the world can come up with? Or have we so utterly failed to crawl out of our Original Barbarism? Is there no way we can advance as a species? None at all?

If I were President Obama, I would hold a globally televised news conference immediately, and place before the world every last bit of evidence that I had that Syria’s government forces were responsible for the chemical weapons attack on its own people. As of writing this update (Friday, Aug 30, 1 p.m . PST), U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has done that, to the degree that he can, without revealing or placing in danger U.S. intelligence methods and sources.

Then I would ask the whole world, “Is this where we have fallen? Is this what we are willing to tolerate in the name of non-intervention in a so-called sovereign nation’s affairs? Are we willing to stand by and do nothing while, according to the irrefutable evidence we have obtained and shown you here, a despotic government kills its own people by the thousands to stay in power?”

UPDATE: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has, in essence, done that as well. His statement may be seen and read here:

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/30/20261297-read-secretary-of-state-kerrys-full-speech-condemning-syria-attack?lite

Then I would dare both Russia and China to respond to the incontrovertible evidence which has been gathered and placed before the world. I would demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad respond to the evidence. This is something that Mr. Kerry has not done.

I would boldly and publicly challenge Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, to respond to this evidence, and to do so now. I would demand that he give an explanation of his regime’s actions and stop pretending that the intelligence evidence of thousands of sources, including satellite technology picking up rocket launchings from regime-held areas of Syria and landings in the opposition-held areas, mean nothing.

I would demand, as well, that the rest of the world — Russia and China in particular — respond to these intelligence findings, and stop blocking every attempt to economically and politically punish the Assad regime for its actions, to show him and all of the world’s real or would-be despots that humanity will not tolerate despotism, or the killing of a nation’s own people by a nation’s own government, by any means — to say nothing of the most heinous.

Why do we not do that, I wonder?

UPDATE (Sat., Aug 31, 3 pm pst) As you must know if you are following this international story, President Obama has said that he will not order a military strike by the United States on Syria’s chemical weapons capacity unless the U.S. Congress votes to authorize him to do so. If you are wondering what you can do, please read the headline story on this newspaper’s front page, then join me and Marianne Williamson in the Global Collective Prayer Initiative, Monday, September 2, at 16:00 GMT (that is 9 a.m. Pacific Time). We will pray solidly and intentionally for ten minutes that the U.S. will not launch air strikes on Syria, and that the larger Syrian conflict may end, at last, with peace and harmony prevailing.

UPDATE (Sun. Sept 1, 12 noon pst) Pope Francis today told a papal audience: “Never has the use of violence brought peace in its wake. War begets war, violence begets violence.” NBC News reported that the Pope made his remarks “ahead of the traditional Angelus prayer on Sunday.”

“I appeal strongly for peace, an appeal which arises from the deep within me. How much suffering, how much devastation, how much pain has the use of arms carried in its wake in that martyred country, especially among civilians and the unarmed! I think of many children will not see the light of the future!”, the television news network quoted Pope Francis as saying.

The Pontiff, of course, denounced the use of chemical weapons, saying that he condemned “with utmost firmness” such use.