Hey, is anyone listening?
God ends chapter 18 of CWG book 3 saying:
“Your Grandest ideas are as yet unexpressed, and your grandest vision unlived.
But wait! Look! Notice!! The days of your blossoming are at hand. The stalk has grown strong, and the petals are soon to open. And I tell you this: The beauty and the fragrance of your flowering shall fill the land, and you shall yet have your place in the Garden of the Gods.”
I’d like to lighten things up a bit today. No complaining. No calling people out.
Today I would like to compliment humanity! I’d like to take notice of what we are doing right…what is actually working!
Of course, the largest thing to point out is that there are so many of us having the conversations that could change our world! We are actively talking about spirituality in politics, we are talking about the environment and its economic and social impact. And we are doing more than talking. We are actually deciding that we are the ones who can do something about what we see.
We are doing things large and small. People like Marianne Williamson are moving from their comfort zones and entering the political fray. Housewives like me are moving out of the house and onto the blogosphere and into the streets and honoring our hippy heritage! We are turning off lights, installing water efficient toilets, walking, biking, driving fuel efficient cars. We are taking care of our bodies. I, personally, have not used shampoo (baking soda and water only!) for over a year; I do not drink soda, I have gone to a naturopath to lower my blood pressure instead of using drugs. We are recycling and re-using. We are noticing what the human impact is having on creatures large and small, and all of nature.
In other words, we are walking the walk, not just talking the talk. We are Being the change we wish to see…or at least more and more are doing so…and more than we know are doing so.
I know it may seem as though nothing we do will make any difference in the total scheme of things…but that would be a wrong thought. Everything we do makes a difference. There is no separating one another from what we do. There is no one whose effort, no matter how seemingly small, is less than. For, just as the ocean is made up of billions of individual drops of water, so, too, is global change made up of billions of small changes. Our living the change is going to demonstrate, to all who see, our understanding of who we are, and our Oneness, and invite them to examine a different way. Let’s not be arrogant and fall into the trap of thinking our way is the only way, but be open to all ideas.
I am patting us all on the head for starting the dialog, because all great change begins with small conversations, as Neale has pointed out in his most eloquent way. I am giving us all the thumbs up for doing our small part…for creating our places in the Garden of the Gods.
Today I leave you with a little poem that I wrote:
T.
DROP
A pool of deep,black,
Water,
Light glowing upon the
Surface,
Illuminating the endless
Circles,
Created by the single
Drop.
Do you see it?
Asked
God.
I said,
Yes.
Then, said
God,
Be
The
Drop.
~Therese
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of, and Spiritual Helper at, the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
In the United States, bakeries the nation over have become the new “front” in the fight for equality for the GLBT community that is rapidly turning into a fight to maintain the First Amendment right to freedom of religion.
In several states over the last year or two, bakeries have refused to bake cakes for gay weddings, stating that “gay marriage” is against their religious beliefs and that they have a right to practice those religious beliefs even at work, therefore they are not required to bake a cake for a gay couple.
One bakery in Colorado refused to bake cakes for Halloween and bachelor parties because these too violate their religious beliefs. They seemed to imply that since no one is suing them to force them to bake cakes for these occasions, this proves it is a religious belief and therefore protected under the First Amendment.
There’s only one problem. The analogy doesn’t fit.
When one refuses to bake cakes for Halloween or bachelor parties, they’re not baking them for ANY Halloween or bachelor party, whether gay or straight. However, they DO back wedding cakes for straight couples and refuse to do so for gay couples. That is blatant discrimination and the First Amendment does not grant a public business the right to discriminate.
There are religions that are still being practiced today in which the belief exists that the races are not meant to “intermix”. Interracial marriages are against their faith and yet not once has it been reported that a bakery refused to bake a cake for an interracial couple. (There was a judge/justice of the peace in Louisiana who, in 2009, refused to marry an interracial couple because he did not believe in interracial marriages and there was a massive public outcry, even from those who support the ban on gay marriages that exist in most of the states of this nation.) This kind of discrimination is not tolerated in society anymore, although it was only in 1968 that the US Supreme Court overturned the laws that banned marriage between blacks and whites in the Loving v Virginia case.
There are religions who do not believe in interfaith marriages, yet there are no stories about bakeries who refuse to bake cakes for an interfaith couple. It is understood that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and their own religion and that what one does in one’s personal life (ie, marrying someone of a different faith) is not up to anyone but the persons involved.
But apparently, there are those who believe it is their right to impose their religious beliefs on others through the refusal of services based on “deeply held religious beliefs”. In order to “protect” this “right”, many states are seeking to pass “religious liberty” laws that essentially gives someone the “right” to discriminate against anyone who violates their “deeply held beliefs.”
Where does this “right” end? It is my deeply held religious belief that left-handed people are agents of Satan (don’t laugh: that was once a widely held belief and it is one of the main reasons that we shake hands with our right hands and not our left!) Does that mean I can refuse to serve anyone who is left-handed? What if I am a doctor and it is my deeply held religious belief that single mothers are violating God’s laws? Am I allowed to refuse to treat single mothers? What if I’m a loan officer at a bank and I think that interracial people are abominations (a word often used by some Christians to describe gays)? Am I allowed to refuse to provide a loan to an individual who is Asian and black? What if I’ve got a house to rent and I believe that anyone who drinks alcohol is violating God’s laws? Am I allowed to evict my tenant if I see him/her drinking a beer?
Every single person in this world has the right to live his or her life as s/he sees fit according to the beliefs they hold dear. However, in order to create a society, there is really only one way in which everyone’s right to live this kind of life can be respected, and that is by voluntarily limiting your own actions so they don’t interfere with everyone else’s rights. But since some in society won’t do that, governments are created to make sure they do by passing laws against things like murder, rape, theft, assault, etc.
Forbidding discrimination is NOT violating someone else’s religious beliefs because providing a service to someone does not imply acceptance of, endorsement of, agreement with or condoning of their beliefs or their “lifestyle” (being gay is not a lifestyle, but that’s another article). Simply because one bakes a gay couple a cake for their wdding does NOT mean that one supports homosexuality, that one agrees with gay marriage, that one condones homosexual relationships or that one endorses the “gay agenda” (which doesn’t really exist but that too is another article). It simply means that one is not allowed to impose his/her religious beliefs/standards on others.
There is no need to create laws to protect “religious liberty” because that is already done in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The “religious liberty” laws that are being written and enacted right now are nothing more than legalizing discrimination, something which we’ve been slowly eliminating over the years by recognizing the violation of the rights of women and other minorities and correcting those violations through laws. To now turn around and write legalized discrimination into the law is a step backwards and is blatantly unconstitutional.
In the last year the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, has added to the dialog, and to the polarization of the world. It has become another contentious dialog between those who wish to see change vs. those who believe nothing should ever change; that the Bible is a tool of God vs. the indisputable word of God. It is the people who believe the Pope is the spiritual Head of the Church vs the Pope is the spiritual Head of the Church, but spirituality and politics don’t mix. It seems that talk about money/politics and faith are separate conversations, not one ongoing conversation.
This Pope has had the temerity to suggest, among many things, that we should be kind to homosexuals, review policies that exclude divorced couples from the sacraments, that we shouldn’t judge others, and, worst of all, has suggested that an equitable way of redistributing the worlds wealth should be sought!
We live in an age of ever increasing mechanization of labor, and still increasing population, and stagnant wages. Labor is told to get a job, but jobs are dwindling, and the real buying power of wages has shrunk dramatically. All the while the rich are getting disproportionately more wealthy.
The Pope sees this as against the teachings of Christ, around whom Christianity was born.
What is the response I have seen most often to this Pope’s stand on our world capitalist (Trickle down) economy model? The Pope is a Socialist! The Pope is a Communist! The Pope doesn’t “get it”, when it comes to Capitalism, because he took a vow of poverty and because he lived in a poor country! These are the cries I hear from people in the media…and from many people I speak to.
I, personally, think this means the Pope “gets it” more than any one of the media pundits, or anyone who lets others form their opinions for them. This Pope has seen first hand, and in grinding reality, what poverty really is, and how the “trickle down” economic model is not working. He has demonstrated that happiness comes from within not without. He has seen the effects of entitlement and separation from one another…and Divinity.
There is a whole discussion one could have right now on exactly what “Socialism” is, but I will only say that there is no one definition, and that it is a fluid thing, with, at its core, parity for all, with each culture defining what is of “value”, and what defines an individuals “value”.
What “Socialism” isn’t is an end to individualism, nor does it necessarily mean the government runs the whole thing. It is a fluid thing. What it means is that we can decide what our unique version of “Socialism” looks like, and then declare what we value and deem “productive” or having “value”…and isn’t that the same thing as deciding how we wish to express Divinity in our lives? America can invent and refine and define what “Socialism” means in America, other countries can determine how it would work for them.
Socialism does mean a shift back to production for use, not strictly for capital gains. It means that we will have to re-examine just how influenced by the attitudes of buy, buy, buy and begin to know that there is enough for everyone…and understand who benefits, and who does not, if these attitudes change. It means that a thing or persons value is determined by its usefulness, not by its exchange value. It means that when enough of a thing has been produced, we may have to share and repair!
Who, we must ask ourselves, is feeling the heat from the words of a Pope who also believes there is enough for all if we have the will to see life as being filled from within, and not from without?
So many of the issues that this Pope has brought up, and which are getting so much reaction, are also those that effect the marginalized or some minority… women, the poor, gays and lesbians. Why is it so upsetting to so many? What would happen if these suppressed groups changed their minds about themselves…what power do they possess?
This Pope says to welcome the immigrant, which usually translates to “the poor”, who will not, in economic terms, “contribute” in the short term fiscal picture. I believe very person of any strata of society in any contributes to the “system”, if not through income tax, then through sales taxes, labor, knowledge, spirituality, and even, simply, the belief in something better. None of these are small things, and most people do not see, minus the immigrant, their country would not look like it does today. The idea that the immigrant population pollutes the pure genetic strain is ridiculous and completely denies that we are all One. I don’t believe for one moment that different skin colors were created by Divinity as a social ranking tool, but merely as a means to know who we are through contrast, in this human experience….and I believe this Pope sees exactly that.
I ask…who and what is your God? Does your God represent all or just the privileged? Does your God ask you to fear change and your fellow man, or to know it is all God? Does this Pope create fear in you, or anticipation? Should this Pope stick to strictly “spiritual” issues, or is, as CWG says politics our spirituality expressed?
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of, and Spiritual Helper at, the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
I was recently in a discussion with someone about a well-known quasi-religious figure who is head of one of the largest right wing organizations in the US. This individual believes in a doctrine called “second grace”, which holds that someone who has undergone a second “moment of grace” from God is incapable of sinning ever again. Even if s/he were to willingly choose to sin, s/he could not do it because of “second grace”. In the hands of this particular individual, that is a frightening idea because in his mind, NOTHING he does is a sin! EVERYTHING he does, no matter how he accomplishes it, must be God’s will because he is unable to do anything that is contrary to God’s will due to having undergone this moment of “second grace”.
The other person in this discussion had never heard of the doctrine of “second grace” and as I was explaining it to her, I was struck by the fact that the CwG material also teaches us that nothing we do is contrary to God’s will. However, the difference in the teachings is the context in which they’re taught: the doctrine of “second grace” is taught from the context of a separation from God and the CwG material is taught from the context of Oneness with God. And it is this difference that makes all the difference in how these doctrines operate in the “real world”.
With the belief that we are all One with God comes the realization that we are also One with each other and that what we do to others, we are also doing to ourselves and therefore we seek to treat others with the same Love and Respect and Dignity that we want from others.
With the belief that we are separate from God, there is the “need” to “reunite” with God, which naturally infers that there is a “right” way to do so and a “wrong” way to do so. The wrong ways are called “sin”. But the soul recognizes that we are NOT separate even if the mind says we are, so to resolve this internal conflict, the mind creates a belief that allows us to recognize that we cannot violate God’s will, although the belief in separateness says that only those who have already done enough things the “right” way can reach this point.
This got me thinking about other doctrines in the teachings of organized religion that “mirror” the things God reminds us of in the CwG material. I realized that there are a lot more teachings in the context of organized religion that I absolutely disagree with but in the context of our Oneness with God and with each other, make perfect sense. However, like the doctrine of “second grace”, these religious teachings are “warped” by the fears instilled in us by the belief of separateness.
Take, for example, the belief that is one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith: that Jesus came to save us and to “pay the price” for our sins with his death on the cross. In the CwG material, God reminds us that there is nothing from which we need to be saved because nothing we do lessens God’s Love for us. During his life, Jesus told us many times of our oneness with God and with each other. However, he also knew that there would be those who would hear the underlying truth of his message and those who would not. For those who could not set aside their fear caused by the belief of separateness, Jesus’ death provided them with the hope they needed to continue to believe that they would one day be “reunited” with God. They were therefore “saved” from our fear of death because Jesus was willing to “pay” with his physical life, which also demonstrated to those who could understand that death is an illusion.
So the next time you hear someone talking about a belief they hold dear that you simply cannot accept, ask yourself what the belief would be like in the context of the Oneness with God versus the separateness of organized religion. You will find that every religious belief that may not make sense to you makes perfect sense in the context of Oneness.
Here we go again. The good old death penalty has reared its ugly head here in the United States in horrific fashion.
The Associated Press headline read: “Okla. inmate dies of heart attack in botched execution”
The story recounted how, using a new, untested, lethal injection drug resulted in Clayton Lockett “writhing and clenching his teeth on the gurney Tuesday, leading prison officials to halt the proceedings before the inmate’s eventual death from a heart attack.”
It went on to say that “The blinds were eventually lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching what was happening in the death chamber, and the state’s top prison official eventually called a halt to the proceedings.”
“It was a horrible thing to witness. This was totally botched,” said Lockett’s attorney, David Autry.
Oh, so many thoughts are dancing around in my mind. I think of how Christians have been told to leave the old ways behind (old testament, an eye for an eye) and
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
Then I move into CWG mode with excerpts from “Conversations With God, Book 1”
“Should societies use killing as a response to those who violate behavioral codes? . . . Is there a difference between killing and murder? . . .
Society would have you believe that killing to punish those who commit certain offenses (these have changed through the years) is perfectly defensible. In fact, society must have you take its word for it in order to exist as an entity of power. . . .
Do you believe these positions are correct? Have you taken another’s word for it? What does your Self have to say? There is no “right” or “wrong” in these matters. But by your decisions you paint a portrait of Who You Are. . . .”
It is the last statement that jumps out at me.
“But by your decisions you paint a portrait of Who You Are. . . .”
The United States paints, at best, a confusing portrait of who it is, and the rest of the world wants us to make up our minds, and is doing its part to help us make a decision. How? They are refusing to sell us the drugs required to execute.
As a recent New York Post article put it:
“EU nations are notorious for disagreeing on just about everything when it comes to common policy, but they all strongly — and proudly — agree on one thing: abolishing capital punishment.
Europe saw totalitarian regimes abuse the death penalty as recently as the 20th century, and public opinion across the bloc is therefore staunchly opposed to it.
The EU’s uncompromising stance has set off a cat-and-mouse game, with U.S. corrections departments devising new ways to carry out lethal injections only to hit updated export restrictions within months.”
“Our political task is to push for an abolition of the death penalty, not facilitate its procedure,” said Barba Lochbihler, chairwoman of the European Parliament’s subcommittee on human rights.
The United States seems to not see that it is in violation of Human Rights.
I think that anyone who is for the death penalty must ask themselves these questions:
If the blinds had to be “eventually lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching what was happening in the death chamber”, what does that say about the “rightness” of what was going on behind those blinds?
What makes this kind of killing somehow more “wrong” than with the other death cocktail?
Might there be something about ourselves, and our connection to everyone that we deny whenever we rationalize the taking of another life, for whatever reason? What is the death penalty really about?
Why keep testing for the best way to kill someone rather investing in how to allow someone to live a life in which they would never even think of killing?
What portrait are we painting of ourselves as individuals, and as a nation?
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of, and Spiritual Helper at, the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
I have an online friend I met probably 15 years ago on a site that offered self-designated “experts” an opportunity to answer questions posted by readers. I signed up as an “expert” in more than 20 categories ranging from spirituality to divorce to GLBT relationships to death and dying. (The site offered hundreds of categories on everything from art to motorcycle repair to accounting. If you had a question, there was most likely a category for it to be asked.) Over the course of approximately 2 1/2 years while this site was in existence, this one questioner and I developed an online friendship that continued after the site closed down and we still interact on at least a weekly basis through other online venues. To say that this friend and I have opposite views on how to solve many of the issues challenging the world today would be an understatement.
To my friend, everything is a competition with a clear winner and a clear loser. And if you’re not the winner, you’re not trying hard enough. If you are the winner and you won “fair and square” (although what’s “fair and square” is a matter of debate), then you deserve everything you “won” and you’re under no obligation to share it with anyone else, no matter how badly someone else may need it. “Winners” are hard-working, reliable, dependable, employed, self-reliant; “losers” are unemployed, those on welfare or other public assistance (which indicates they are lazy, not resourceful (“where there’s a will there’s a way!”), slackers and freeloaders), needy and unreliable (if you can’t even support yourself, how can others (like family) rely on you to support them?). To my friend, there is this black and white world where you are one or the other: there is no middle ground. There are no other options. There is no compromise. If it’s mine, it’s mine and you have no right to try to take it from me or even to ask me to give it to you. If I choose to give it to you, then I am proving I am indeed a winner because I am willing to help the losers.
For 15 years, this friend and I have been debating social issues. We have, at the very least, demonstrated that it is possible for those on the polar opposite sides to have a civilized discussion about the issues, even if we never reach any sort of agreement on how to resolve those issues. But neither of us has had the least bit of success in “changing” the other’s mind about how to resolve the plethora of problems facing humanity today. Then one day I had an “Aha!” moment wherein I realized that while our solutions may be totally opposite, our goals are the same. We both want a world in which each individual is able to live according to the beliefs s/he holds dear without undue interference from the “outside” world.
In the CwG material, God tells us that all the problems in the world stem from the belief that we are separate from God and from each other. From this belief of separation, all the other illusions spring forth: that God requires something of us, that there is not enough for everyone and therefore we must compete with each other, even justifying killing each other to get what we need, that some of us are better than others because we are following the “right” path according to “God’s word”, etc. God also says that no matter what policies we change, no matter how we do things differently, nothing in our world is going to become what we say we want until we change one very basic thing: our beliefs about God and how we “relate” to God.
So after 15 years, I am done debating policy and procedure with my friend. It’s pointless because we humans, when challenged about the things we believe, tend to “dig in” and believe even harder, especially when someone points to factual evidence that counters what we believe. (There is actually a name for this: it’s called the “backfire effect”.) The more I try to show my friend that the way s/he wants to do things, the way that we’ve been doing it since the mid-80’s, is not working, the more s/he believes that the way we’ve been doing it just hasn’t been given a long enough chance to work!
But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up. Not at all. Just a change in strategies. The focus has to be on our Oneness. Those seeds have to be planted over and over and over again. Every response to those who still live in the fear that is virtually automatically generated by a “separatist” philosophy will contain the seeds of Oneness. Those seeds are plenty and are found throughout most sacred texts buried among the atrocities they ascribe to the Divine. We must dig them up from this fearful earth they have been planted in for the last two millenia and replant them, allowing them to bloom when planted in the field of Love. We may not be able to change their minds, but we may be able “change” their hearts.
“…The power to create is derived from the inner strength that is produced through unity.
Stop thinking of yourself as separate, and all the true power that comes from the inner strength of unity is yours-as a worldwide society, and as an individual part of that whole—to wield as you wish.”
(CWG book 3, p.43)
When I read books like CWG, I like to to do the “my life” test. Are they just nice words, or do they somehow have meaning in my life. Can I see how the words might have already proven to be true in my life.
These words have. Let me tell you a little story.
One day, about 7 years ago, I went to a homeowners meeting in my neighborhood, and I asked if our neighborhood had considered a program for recycling. The President of the HOA said it was likely a question that should be asked of our local water district, at their Board meetings…and asked me if I would be the “committee” that went to the next meeting, and asked the question, representing our neighborhood. I decided I would, since it was clear that the others in attendance were also in favor of recycling.
So, I went to the Water Board and asked them if they would consider recycling. They kindly informed me that they had looked into it about 5 years before, but no one was interested. I then simply said, “I’m interested.” They said they would look again, and told me to come back in a month to the next meeting.
So I did…and they had forgotten to look into it. So I told them I was still interested. They said they would look into it, and come back next month.
So I did…and I brought with me facts and figures that I had found on the internet that supported the need for recycling. (At that time the U.S. actually threw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire U.S. commercial air fleet!) The Board had looked into it this time, and had some preliminary pricing, and possible vendors! The Board then said they would consider it, and asked me to come back next month.
So I did! This time they discussed it in the open meeting. This time they voted on it…and approved it! We had recycling! Not only did we have recycling in my neighborhood, we had it in the whole water district. Not only did we have it, but they had a fund surplus and the first year was going to be paid for by the surplus.
I was stunned that one person, sitting patiently, simply letting her Water Board know that she was sincerely interested in recycling, took only 4 months to achieve her goal.
That was my ego talking, of course, because right after that last meeting one of the Board members took me aside and said that he had been trying to get recycling for years, and thanked me for coming to the meetings, month after month, to show that I was serious, and get the Board to act.
I realized that I was the person put in the right place at the right time to join with him in achieving his goal that had become mine as well. This, in addition to the President of the HOA who empowered my purpose by giving me the “committee” status, and the other homeowners who united with me in purpose at that same meeting.
I understood, then, that one person really does have the power to achieve great things in their world…especially if they realize they are never really alone, and actively work with others to achieve those great things! And I understand now that the words of CWG above pass the “my life” test.
The question I now ask of you: What little change might you be able to make in your home, neighborhood, or city, (or office, church and more!) that would come to life, if only someone were willing to give it voice? How can you join in someone else’s goal? How can you demonstrate that one is really ONE? How can you/have you test(ed) the words you read in your life?
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of, and Spiritual Helper at, the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
Last month in the United States saw the return of CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) in which the conservative political groups get together and toot their own horn and hold a straw vote as to who they want to see run for president in 2016. And as the reports on CPAC speakers began emerging, I was utterly amazed as how the definitions of some words have been twisted to the point where they mean exactly the opposite of what the common definition holds them to mean.
For example, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie stated that the Republican party is the party of “tolerance”. Say what? This is the party who has, 50 times now, tried to repeal the Affordable Health Care act, something that the Republican party’s 2012 candidate, Mitt Romney, advocated for and signed into law in Massachusetts years prior to Obama’s becoming president. This is the party who is pushing for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman. This is the party who considers some human beings “illegal aliens” (as if a human being could be illegal!) and who refuses to lift a finger to help the poor and the unemployed/underemployed. This is the party who is making a concerted effort to block the ability of the poor and minorities to vote in the next presidential election, both through laws requiring voter ID cards and through redistricting. This is the party who believes that a woman’s body won’t get pregnant if she is raped and seeks to refuse to allow a woman to have an abortion for any reason. This is tolerance?
During a panel discussion, right-wing talk show host Michael Medved claimed that gay marriages have never been banned by any state in the US. Of course, that’s because a gay person can get married IF they marry someone of the opposite gender. Racists used the same argument for not getting rid of laws that banned blacks from marrying whites: blacks could get married as long as they married another black person! We weren’t violating their civil rights by not allowing them to marry who they loved!
Michelle Bachmann, once a candidate for the US presidency, says that gays are “bullying” the American public and contends that the bill recently vetoed by Arizona’s governor that would have allowed legal discrimination against gays based on deeply held religious beliefs was about same sex marriage and had nothing to do with gays! This redefining of “bullying” is an insult to those who are truly being bullied.
Mark Sanford, former governor of South Carolina, claims that the federal government did NOT “shut down” last October! I guess not conducting business for fifteen or sixteen days is just an extended break for Sandford. (Of course, this is the man who told everyone he’d be hiking the Appalachian Trail and then took a flight to Argentina to be with his mistress. I never new the Appalachian Trail went that far south!)
The Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber recently compared the “persecution” of anti-gay business owners to that of the Jews under the Nazi regime. (Liberty Counsel is closely associated with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University (Falwell of Moral Majority fame)). Such a comparison degrades the true horror of the Jewish persecutions of the Holocaust.
Scott Lively, a virulently anti-gay pastor, called Vladimir Putin a “defender of true human rights”!
Fred Phelps (who has nothing to do with CPAC) is another example of how the meanings of words have been twisted. Fred, who recently celebrated his transition day, ran the notorious “God Hates Fags” and “God Hates America” websites (along with a lot of other sites of groups God hates), believed that he was being loving by picketing the funerals of soldiers who died in Iraq or Afghanistan because unless we stop being a “fag-enabling” country, according to Fred, we’re all going to end up in hell. So by making us aware that “God hates fags”, Fred was doing something very loving and trying to save our souls. (It was recently revealed that Fred had been kicked out of the Westboro Baptist Church, the church he started and who organizes and participates in the picketing of funerals, several months before his death.)
There is a renewed push for laws to protect what has been termed “religious liberty”. While this sounds like a wonderful idea, what it is really pushing for are laws that would allow people in the public sector (business owners, landlords, etc.) to discriminate against someone who violated their “deeply held religious beliefs”. In other words, legalized discrimination.
The fracking industry is running commercials on television and radio about how safe fracking is for the country and the benefits that fracking provides us by making us more energy independent. And yet in 2012, the fracking industry produced more than 280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater (which doesn’t include the other toxins produced by fracking, such as methan poisoning of groundwater tables, which the fracking industry claims doesn’t happen.) Much of that wastewater was produced in states that are in the midst of droughts and in states where water is a scarce resource. There has been a marked increase in the number of earthquakes in the states in which there is a lot of fracking as well. In Oklahoma, for example, there has been average of about 75 earthquakes of 2.5 magnitude or greater in the four year period from 2009-2012. In 2013, that number jumped to 222. And if the pace of the first six weeks of 2014 continues, Oklahoma will experience a whopping 780+ earthquakes this year! (Source) And when they wanted to frack near the home of an Exxon Mobile corporate bigwig? He joined a lawsuit to prevent it from damaging his property value. But it’s “safe”!
Don’t get me wrong: this kind of thing has been happening for a very long time. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Maggie Gallagher, Pat Robertson, James Dobson (just to name a few): all these right wingers have been twisting the meaning of words for years. Some for decades. (Yes, it happens in the Democratic party and among liberal causes as well, but these groups have nowhere near the media coverage and exposure as the conservatives.)
But what is surprising is how blatant the distortions are becoming. And what is frightening is that many recent studies have shown that there is something called the “backfire” effect. This means when you explain the distortion to people and explain the real truth, they become MORE likely to believe the distortion is true!
And the problem isn’t just with the famous (or infamous). It’s among the “common” folks as well. Just the other day, a friend of mine posted a cartoon in which one character stated that she was pro-choice and the other asked a series of questions like “Can I choose to smoke?” and “Can I choose to drink a large soda?” The first character always replied “No” and gave some reason like “It’s bad for you.” After six such questions, the second character asked “What can I choose?” and the first answered “An abortion.”
I pointed out to my friend that this cartoon was filled with lies because people CAN smoke, they just can’t smoke in public where their smoke will be breathed by others who do not smoke. (Her response was “Then don’t go to places that allow smoking”, but if that’s everywhere, then what choice do I have but to sit at home?) I demonstrated to her that every statement was a lie, except of course that one can (for now) choose to have an abortion, usually after jumping through a bunch of hoops.
She replied that the cartoon was just an opinion and everyone was entitled to an opinion. I proceeded to explain to her that opinions have no right/wrong and cannot be shown to be demonstrably true or false. And she simply repeated that she was entitled to her opinion, as if repeating it was just an opinion would change the definition of opinion!
What, you might ask, does this have to do with the Global Conversation?
Our goal, so to speak, is to open a dialogue so that we can discuss possible changes in that which we have refused to change (or even discuss really!) for the past 2000 years: our understanding of God. It is going to be challenging to hold a meaningful discussion if the different sides of the conversation don’t even have the same meaning for words.
We are going to have to find ways around, over or through this very large hurdle if this dialogue is to take place. Talking amongst ourselves really accomplishes nothing because we’re “preaching to the choir”. We know we have to change and expand our beliefs about God and our Oneness and the role of humanity in this universe. The key is to get others involved in the conversation in order to have a chance to create the kind of world we all say we want: a world of peace in which we all live according to the beliefs we hold dear, respecting the rights of everyone else to do the same.
When people don’t even agree on the definitions of words because the national figures that support their current beliefs twist words so that they mean sometimes exactly the opposite of what they actually mean, this conversation becomes much more difficult. Not impossible, mind you. But more difficult. And it becomes all the more urgent because now, before we can even begin to discuss expanding our beliefs about God, we have to find common ground once more on what we mean when we say “compassion” and “tolerance” and “liberty”.
CWG says that everything…everything…is an opportunity to decide, declare and to demonstrate who we really are. Even, and especially, the things that seem most devastating and tragic. Such as the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Over on another of the CWG sites, The CWG Helping Outreach, we had a discussion about what messages, to us as individuals, and the world, might be gleaned in the wake of this still only “apparent” crash.
We discussed several things. Transparency, or the lack thereof, of governments and their agencies immediately after the disappearance. (CWG says we should live in a world of transparency.) The need for updated tracking capabilities in aircraft. (It would seem you and I can be more readily tracked via our cellphones than can an airplane!) How the media handles such things. (Can we say speculation and sensationalism?) The Spiritual knowing that no one does anything that isn’t, at a soul level, of their own choosing, including dying. That we all, those of us observing, and those of us who participated in the event, may now decide who we are in connection to it.
It would appear that one reason they haven’t been able to find the flight, and the reason it is still an “apparent” crash, is because the searchers were sidetracked by all of the trash we, as a human race, have thrown into the ocean.
An article in CBCnews Technology & Science describes the extent of our ocean trash.
“‘Basically, the world’s oceans are plasticized,” says Marcus Eriksen, executive director of the 5 Gyres Institute, a conservation group that researches the amount of plastic pollution in the planet’s seas.’”
“Oceanographer Charles Moore, who works with the Algalita Marine Research Institute in Long Beach, Calif., estimates there could be 200 million tonnes of plastic debris floating in the seas. This calculation is based on the belief that 2.5 per cent of the world’s plastic lands in the ocean.”
“These estimates don’t include the detritus that’s sitting at the bottom of the oceans, which, as he says, is “virtually unknown.”
Also from cbcnews/ World, this graphic is disturbing to me:
There is overwhelming evidence of the destruction to marine life caused by our trash. Yet we continue to thoughtlessly consume and dispose.
I must now make a confession. I got lazy. I lived in Taiwan and Denmark, and each of those countries charged for plastic bags, so I got into the habit of either reusing those bags, or bringing my own, reusable, bag. I carried them with me in my purse at all times. Then, after moving back to my home country, the U.S.A., I gradually got out of that habit.
So I have decided, and am declaring, that I will now recommit myself to always having at least one reusable bag in my purse, and always have a bag of reusable bags in my vehicle…my demonstration of who I am. This is one of the remembrances I have been caused to notice because of flight MH370.
I will, further, encourage all others to do so, both with my words and with my actions. I will also agree publicly with those who wish to charge for plastic bags. I will continue to support organizations and people who wish to create a change in how we use and dispose of our resources.
It is my feeling that one of the reasons the Malaysian flight was created and agreed to, on a soul level, by these wonderful souls, was to cause us to look at what we are doing to our world. The end of their lives is, realistically, just a blip on the radar of human experience, but…drawing attention to what is contributing to the possible end of the entire human race would give immense glory and meaning to these deaths. Perhaps, if we let it, this flight might just be looked at in history books as the beginning of true environmental change.
That is what I have come up with, so far, regarding the “meaning” or “purpose” of the disappearance of flight MH370. What have you decided? Remember, nothing has any meaning, save that which you give it!
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of, and Spiritual Helper at, the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
If you call someone a “Judas”, most people in the western world will understand that you’re calling someone a traitor or a false friend or a turncoat. Someone who will “sell out” their friends. Someone who values money above human life and above truth and above Love.
The reference, of course, is to Judas Iscariot, who, according to most interpretations of the four gospels of the Christian Bible, betrayed Jesus to the Romans for 30 silver pieces. Most people seem to despise Judas and blame him for the death of the Son of God. For his part, according to some accounts, Judas felt so guilty that he later hung himself and, if asked, most people would suggest that he now rots in hell in eternal torment.
I have a very different view of Judas. Jesus states that one of his twelve chosen disciples will betray him. And he knows it’s Judas. So if Judas is not “in on” the plan for Jesus to be crucified, then God/Jesus is using Judas as a pawn, against his free will. And this is something that God will not do! Therefore, Judas is an integral part of Jesus’ soul’s plan: to be crucified and rise from the dead after three days to show all of humanity that death is not the end. That life and Love go one forever without end.
And, in fact, if it were NOT for Judas’ “betrayal”, the Romans would have had no reason to crucify Jesus and his soul’s agenda would have been unfulfilled. The way Jesus led his life, the only way TO be crucified was to have Judas “betray him”. So if it was NOT Judas’ choice to help Jesus to fulfill his soul’s agenda, then he was “used” by God/Jesus and that is simply not possible.
So I believe that Judas accepted the role of Jesus’ betrayer, knowing full well that his name would be vilified and demonized for thousands of years afterwards. That he would be hated and scorned and, if others had their way, would be severely punished for his “betrayal”. I view Judas as Jesus most trusted friend. As the one who Loved Jesus the most because he was willing to be forever hated to help Jesus fulfill is soul’s agenda.
So when police in Missouri recently arrested Craig Michael Wood on suspicion of murdering 10-year-old Hailey Owens and later reportedly found child porn on Wood’s computer, my initial reaction was the same as everyone else. “What a monster! Lock him up and throw away the key!”
Then I remembered Judas.
Most Christians— both back then and nowadays— would, I think, have said the same thing about Judas. “Lock him up and throw away the key!” (As an aside, many of the comments I read on various news sites and social media sites proposed punishment for Wood (who is still innocent until proven guilty in our legal system!) and other pedophiles/child murderers that was much more cruel, violent and ruthless than simply removing him from society for the rest of his life!)
Judas sacrificed his “good name” and his “reputation” for the greater good. Jesus chose to die the kind of death he did to help every soul who lived after him to remember that death is not the end. Judas accepted the scorn and contempt of generations that would follow him to help Jesus get this message out to the world.
God tells us in CwG that there are no victims and there are no villains, even if it appears that way sometimes. So Craig Michael Wood is not a villain and Hailey Owens is not a victim, although most people will see it that way. On some level, their souls (apparently— remember innocent until proven guilty) chose to meet in this lifetime in this manner so that we, collectively as the human race, might learn from the experience. So that we might be able to more fully express our divinity after Hailey’s death.
Please understand, I do not condone what Wood has been accused of doing. But I recognize that there are many, many souls alive today that sacrifice their physical, mental and even emotional well-being to provide us with opportunities to demonstrate Who We Really Are. As history has demonstrated to us over and over, and as personal experience has shown us over and over, it is the most trying times and the most heinous acts that give us the greatest opportunity to grow the most spiritually.
I am relatively certain that many people reading this are going to be very angry at my words. At the challenge they present us as Divine Children of God to Love everyone, even the “least of our brothers”, unconditionally. Maybe even at me. Some may even think I’m as “bad” as her alleged murderer for suggesting that Hailey “planned” this and that Wood was (allegedly) helping her fulfill her soul’s agenda.
That’s okay, because sometimes I myself wonder if these kinds of thoughts are “valid”. And yet when I look back on my life, I realize how many important relationships in my life were with survivors of childhood abuse. I volunteer to help in domestic violence shelters and on sexual assault hotlines. I wonder if maybe the reason for so many relationships of all kinds with survivors of abuse is so that I could think these very thoughts. That I could come to understand that even those who society despises the most are still Divine Children of God. Are still worthy of unconditional Love. Are still contributing members of the human race.
What message was Hailey Owens trying to get out to the world? Did Craig Michael Wood give up his “good name” just as Judas did by committing an act that most of us find vile and inexcusable? What message was he trying to teach the world? And, just as importantly, are we willing to learn those lessons?
