Category: Headline

Should there be a Mimimum Wage, set in each country, for workers across the planet? Is the solving of economic inequality around the world an economic issue or a spiritual issue?

Virtually the entire world sees these questions as economic issues. Pope Francis, on the other hand, has now set the planet’s people to thinking: Might this, in fact, be a spiritual issue?

In a written statement to the world’s billions of Catholics late last month, the Pope asked a searing question: How could it be that it’s not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?

U.S. President Barack Obama has likewise recently brought the issue to widespread attention, calling the combating of growing inequality and lack of upward mobility the “defining challenge of our time.”

Perhaps it is time to look at economic inequality as a spiritual, and not merely an economic, matter.

First, let us look at a few facts.

Let us examine the U.S. economy (picked because it is one of the largest economies n the world, in a country that freely and often boasts that its citizens have “equal opportunity”). Since 1979 the economy in the United States has more than doubled in size. That’s the good news (presumably). Yet most of that good fortune has been experienced by those who already have a fortune.

Second in a series of articles on economic inequality and spirituality, at the crossroads of the two

In the U.S., statistics show that the top 10 percent of the population in terms of wealth no longer takes in one-third of the country’s income. It now takes half. The average Chief Executive Officer of a major company made about 20 to 30 times the income of the average worker in the past. Today the CEO makes 273 times more.

This, proponents of the capitalist system say, is perfectly okay. Because it is the big companies and their owners and leaders that create jobs for the rest of us. Yet, in fact, fewer jobs are being created by the Big Corporate Machine, thanks in various parts to automation, consolidation, and the sending of many jobs out of the country — where wages are even lower.

This is perfectly okay, proponents of the capitalist system say. It’s only “good business” — and it brings economic opportunity to people in poorer nations around the world. Except that people in some of those poorer nations have to work 50, 60, and sometimes 70 hours a week to make productivity goals set by their employers, and, as well, to earn a living wage.

There is been a huge disconnect between productivity and worker income in the past 25 years — and the disparity is growing.  Statistics from the International Labor Organization show that between 1999 and 2011 average labor productivity in developed economies increased more than twice as much as average wages.

In the United States, the ILO says, real hourly labor productivity in the non-farm business sector increased by about 85 per cent since 1980, while real hourly compensation increased by only around 35 per cent.

In Germany, labor productivity surged by almost a quarter over the past two decades, while real monthly wages remained flat.

This is perfectly okay, proponents of the capitalist system say. Productivity will increase as technology makes it possible for fewer workers and fewer hours per employee to produce the same or a greater amount of goods and services than ever before. This, too, is only “good business,” they say.

But is it good for people? That becomes the central question. That becomes the spiritual issue.

Your comments, observations, and insights are invited below.

Amidst all that the world’s people and their leaders have said following his death, is humanity praising Nelson Mandela to high heaven without listening to a word he said?

It is not necessary to agree with everything that a leader asserts, but can the world acknowledge even the smallest portion of what Mr. Mandela sought to bring to our attention — and to solve? Or are we going to honor the man while ignoring all that he pointed out to us?

One of his greatest struggles was against the economic inequality that produces rampant poverty. Do most people agree with what he had to say on this subject?

“Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times — times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation — that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils,” the former president of South Africa once (and often) declared.

He did everything in his power, in speech after speech, in interview after interview, to make it clear to all of humanity that, in his exact words: “overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity.” Rather, he said, “it is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.”

Do we believe that? Does the majority of our species agree?

In eight words that may need to be heard in countries that routinely loudly boast of their liberties — the United States perhaps most notably among them — Mr. Mandela pointedly proclaimed: “While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.”

Does this sound uncannily like the words spoken by another world leader just a few days ago?  It was on November 26 that Pope Francis, in his internationally reported message to the world’s Catholics, warned against the “idolatry of money.”

The pontiff openly decried “the inequality that spawns violence,” and sharply criticized “trickle-down economics,” bluntly observing that the theory most often attributed in contemporary times to the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan “expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.”

“Meanwhile,” Francis quietly added, “the excluded are still waiting.”

First in a series of articles on economic inequality
and spirituality, at the crossroads of the two

Eight days later U.S. President Barack Obama joined the chorus in a what has been described as one of the most important speeches of his presidency, forcefully directing attention to what he termed “a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain — that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead.”

Mincing no words, Mr. Obama labeled this endlessly expanding inequality the “defining challenge of our time.”

Is it possible that our planet is “getting a message” from several powerful voices at once — a message that events are making it virtually impossible to any longer ignore?

If, indeed, economic inequality is the challenge of our time, what could possibly be done — what action could be undertaken by humanity as a whole — to meet this challenge head on?

That shall be the central topic of a series of articles appearing in this newspaper in the days and weeks ahead. The time has come for us to stop burying our heads in the sand and start speaking out on this issue; to go to the next level — one step beyond the Occupy Movement that spoke of the “one percent” who they allege hold 95% of the world’s wealth, resources, and power.

What could happen after the Occupy Movement that could produce an outcome it could not? That is the question of the day. Could the Evolution Revolution be the answer?

Your comments and observations are invited below. And I believe that Mr. Mandela, were he still here today, would be the first encourage them. (Indeed, I have a notion that he is encouraging them in fact — from where he is right now.)

We might begin by considering the possibility that most of the world is looking at economic inequality in the wrong way. They are looking at it as an economic issue. It is not. It is a spiritual issue. That is clear. And that is why the problem has not heretofore been solved. We are trying to cure an illness with medicine directed at the wrong cause.

— NDW

Is the Pope right? Is it time for the whole world to take stock of who we are as a people, what we set as our priorities, how we determine our most important values, and when enough is enough of consumerism and the seemingly endless push for Bigger/Better/More?

Or is Pope Francis the one who needs to take stock, and stop filling the air with his criticisms of humanity’s behaviors and tendencies?

U.S. talk show host Rush Limbaugh appears to think the latter. Reacting to the Pontiff’s latest news-making statements criticizing certain aspects of today’s capitalism, Mr. Limbaugh described the Pope’s observations as “pure Marxism.”
What has the radio host upset is the widely-reported document written by the head of the Roman Catholic Church that “poses a fierce challenge to the status quo,” in the words of a Jesuit priest and author, Father James Martin, as quoted in a CNN news story.

Released on Nov. 26, the document has received worldwide attention — as it was intended to, having been composed by Pope Francis explicitly for distribution to all of the Catholic faithful and all official members of the church family in every parish and diocese across the planet. It also has received worldwide acclaim from politically liberal Catholics everywhere, and not so nice responses from those of a more conservative bent.

“How can it be,” the Pope asked in the document, “that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

Last May the Pontiff received global news coverage when he said that in recent times the Catholic Church has grown too “obsessed” (to use his own word) with being ecclesiastically correct (my words for the spiritual version of being “politically correct”), focusing on social issues such as gay marriage, abortion, and contraception, while refusing to look at, much less battle against, the idea of so-called trickle-down economics and the world of inequality it produces.

So who is right? Has the Pope gone too far? Or is the Holy Father simply  “telling it like it is” to a global horde not used to being so publicly scolded for its behaviors?

The communication — officially known in Latin as Evangelli Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) — is a 95-page sweeping call for reform within the Roman Catholic Church regarding its mission and method of outreach, but it contained some sharp comments about the larger world outside the church and its economic inequalities.

The “idolatry of money” has created “inequality that spawns violence,” and could, the Pope warned, produce a “new tyranny.”  Francis also had some harsh words for those “trickle-down economics” — a phrase most contemporarily associated with the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who preferred to use the words “supply-side economics” to describe a system of tax cuts and other monetary perks to businesses, on the theory that the economic benefit would trickle down to people at the lower end of the economic scale.

The press began to call this idea “Reaganomics,” though the economic model has not been limited in its application to the United States. The Pope made it very clear he believes the idea “expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.”

“Meanwhile,” he added, “the excluded are still waiting.”

“Sad” and “unbelievable” is how Mr. Limbaugh described the Pope’s comments. “It’s sad because this Pope makes it very clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to capitalism and socialism and so forth,” the conservative talk show host declared.

Is Mr. Limbaugh right? Is what the Pope is saying “pure Marxism?” Does a policy of  “trickle-down economics” create disparity and huge gaps between the rich and the poor, or do the benefits experienced by the rich indeed trickle down to the poor?

According to Lauren McCauley, staff writer for the website Common Deams, the answer to the second part of that question is no.

Ms. McCauley wrote a report published on that website last April in which she said, “The great wealth divide in the United States has only become more exacerbated since the recession, as national policies have buoyed only the wealthiest Americans while the remainder have been left adrift.”

Her report, headlined Wealthy Thrive and Poorest Dive as Surge in US Inequality Continues, said that according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data published by the Pew Research Center, since the economy officially emerged from the recession in mid-2009, “the wealthiest 7 percent of households saw soaring gains of an estimated $5.6 trillion, while the remaining 93 percent—111 million households—saw their overall wealth fall by an estimated $0.6 trillion.”

“It has been a very good recovery for those at the upper end of the wealth distribution,” Ms. McCauley quoted Mr. Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center and co-author of the report, as saying. “But,” Mr. Taylor added, “there has been no recovery for the lower 93, which is nearly everybody.”

Indeed, statistics easily available show that over 20% of U.S. income now goes to the richest 1% of Americans. That figure was just 7% in 1980.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of American Wars: Illusions and Realities (Clarity Press). Mr. Buchheit has compiled these statistics:

Based on 1980 dollars and IRS data, this is how U.S. income has been redistributed since that time:

• Incomes for the top 1% have gone from $148,000 to $450,000
• Incomes for the next 9% have gone from $46,000 to $50,000
• Incomes for the next 40% have gone from $17,500 to $15,000
• Incomes for the bottom 50% have gone from $5,400 to $3,750

So there you have it. Mr. Limbaugh may find the comments by Pope Francis regarding trickle-down economics “unbelievable,” but are they? Or is what Pope Francis has called the world out on something that the wealthiest people simply don’t want to believe?

What do you believe…? Your comments and observations are invited below.

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.)

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.

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?

There is a New Thought teaching going around — actually, it has been going around for years — that can be both misleading and disserving (to say nothing of being dangerous) if it is not thoroughly explained.

This teaching is that “everything is perfect,” and that our job is the “see the perfection” in things being just the way they are, and not look at any condition as “not okay,” or as being negative in any way.

This disservice of this teaching has been exacerbated by some of the writing in one of the most widely read and best-selling books on contemporary, New Thought spirituality — namely, Conversations with God.

That book talks about the so-called Law of Opposites, asserting that certain conditions, situations, and circumstances arise in life that appear to be unwelcome, that appear to be opposing us, but that they are actually supporting us on our soul’s journey — and that should therefore not be judged as “bad” or condemned as “evil.”

I think it’s important at this stage — given where our species is today in its planetary experience — to go over this teaching very thoroughly, and to invite your reactions to it.

I want to begin by saying that what brought this all up for me was an entry in the Comment Section under the last article to appear in this top-of-page headline space on The Global Conversation — a story having to do with violence in our world, which asked if humanity would ever see or create an end to it. The Comments entry came from a reader named Tina Ashe Brown, and is republished here:

“I am wondering simply why we are judging these actions as good or bad? I have been so confused on this since reading the CWG books. There seems to be a message that either I am not understanding correctly or we are having a hard time understanding here.

“I understand that we were sent here because God wanted to experience herself and could not do that because there were no contradictions… opposites. In heaven, or at least in God’s world, all there is is love. Are we here to return this plane to the same? To a place where only love exists or instead are we here to remember and see love even in the face of the violence?

“To love those beings unconditionally even in the face of the thing we are calling bad. Can we experience if we turn this world into a place where there is only love? Isn’t this place just as much a part of God’s world as any other plane? Is there only love here, too, and we are not able to see through our ego and judgments surrounding good and bad?

“I long for home and for that place where there is only love peace and joy, that place inside of me. I do my best to create this here in this plane each and everyday despite the pictures I see. I know we are all one and connected and I send my love to all regardless of the pictures that I see that do not resonate me with me to the best of my ability.

“I chose to focus on this and not on perceived imperfections that might be happening in this world, for I have the faith that everything is just as it should be even if I don’t understand how!”

I would like now to respond to these very sincerely asked questions, and in so doing perhaps bring some clarity to the New Spirituality teachings about Perfection and the Law of Opposites.

Tina, you have said…“I am wondering simply why we are judging these actions as good or bad?”

I experience that simply observing that something is undesirable is not judging it to be ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and it is important to be clear about that. I personally find butterscotch flavored ice cream to be undesirable. I much more desire chocolate or vanilla. This does not mean that I have judged butterscotch as a flavor to be “bad.” It merely announces my personal preference in the matter of ice cream.

Speaking of violence as something that I find undesirable is not a judgment that it is “bad.” It is merely an announcement that I find it undesirable. Others may disagree. Others may actually desire violence as a part of human life, or think that it is in any event necessary, or natural to the human condition. Still others may think that it is required in order to create a Contextual Field as part of the Law of Opposites as described in Conversations with God.

It is my belief that the violence we see on Earth is neither natural to the human condition, nor is it necessary in order to create a Contextual Field within which we can experience nonviolence. This latter knowing arises out of my awareness that the Contextual Field within which the Law of Opposites plays it effect is much larger than the environment known as Planet Earth.

But let us return to Tina’s entry, so that I may ‘contextualize’ my observations within her inquiries.

Tina, you have said…“I understand that we were sent here because God wanted to experience herself, and could not do that because there were no contradictions…opposites. In heaven, or at least in God’s world, all there is is love. Are we here to return this plane to the same? To a place where only love exists? Or, instead, are we here to remember and see love even in the face of the violence?”

Your first understanding, Tina, matches my own, as given to me in Conversations with God. We were sent here because God wanted to experience Herself, and God could not do that in the Realm of the Spiritual, just as you point out, because there are no opposites there.

The answer to your question is that we are here with an invitation to produce the experience of a world of Divine Love, Divine Peace, Divine Wisdom and Divine Oneness, so that God could know Itself experientially as all those things and more. Yet it is not accurate to suggest that we can only remember, and allow God to experience, those things “in the face of the violence” that we now see on Earth. Indeed, God invites us to create “peace on Earth, goodwill to humans everywhere.”

Yet how can we experience this in the absence of a Contextual Field that holds its opposite? Simple. As explained in Conversations with God-Book 3, all we have to do is understand that the entire Universe is the Contextual Field within which the Law of Opposites operates. Therefore, it is not necessary for us to place on Earth and endure, create or suffer the opposite of Peace and Love, Harmony and Joy, Wisdom and Clarity in order to experience it here. We merely need to know that it exists elsewhere.

Just as I experience and appreciate, more than ever before, the good things in life that I enjoy today by noticing that its opposite exists elsewhere on this planet, so, too, can I experience and appreciate the wonderful aspects of life by noticing that its opposite exists elsewhere off of this planet.

That is the reason that the Universe is so unfathomably large. And Highly Evolved Beings in highly evolved societies in our cosmos (yes, they do exist, CWG confirms) eventually create environments on their Home Planet that provide for the experiences of Oneness of All Life and the Reality of Unlimited Joy, Abundance, and Love by removing its Opposite from their local environment — and simply noticing that this Opposite exists elsewhere. (Including the planet Earth.)

All of this is explained in CWG-Book 3, Tina, and with your review of that material your confusion about humanity needing to continue experiencing violence locally in order to experience its opposite globally will disappear.

Tina, you have also invited us…. “To love those beings unconditionally even in the face of the thing we are calling bad. Can we experience if we turn this world into a place where there is only love?”

The answer is yes, by knowing that lack of love, the opposite of love, exists elsewhere in the Universe. Also, Tina, by using another remarkable device — a magnificent tool revealed to us in CWG-Book 3: Memory.

Our memory has been given to us, Tina, for a singular purpose: To create a Contextual Field within ourselves, allowing us to know about the opposite of what we wish to experience without having to recreate the experience of that opposite condition, situation, or circumstance physically, over and over again.

This is why we create memorials to the Holocaust, Tina, with signs on them saying Lest We Forget. We do not have to recreate a holocaust in order to experience humanity without one — and that is the whole point of these memorials, erected around the world.

Going on, Tina, with your very wonderful and soulful letter, you’ve asked… “Isn’t this place just as much a part of God’s world as any other plane?”

Yes.

“Is there only love here, too, and we are not able to see through our ego and judgments surrounding good and bad?”

Yes. All there is is Love, and human beings have simply not yet learned how to express it in ways that produce pleasure and joy, peace and happiness, without the additional (and unnecessary) experiences of pain, suffering and violence. It is possible for humans to do this, however, and that is what the process of Evolution is all about. And it is why I and others call now for an Evolution Revolution on our planet. (For more information about this, see the special Blue Box in the right hand column on the home page of this global newspaper.)

And then, Tina, you have said…. “I long for home and for that place where there is only love peace and joy, that place inside of me. I do my best to create this here in this plane each and everyday despite the pictures I see. I know we are all one and connected and I send my love to all regardless of the pictures that I see that do not resonate me with me to the best of my ability.”

Wonderful, my friend. That is simply wonderful. It is through such intentioned choices that our world will be changed into one of those places in the cosmos where only peace, love, and joy are experienced.

Finally, Tina, you have concluded by saying…“I choose to focus on this, and not on perceived imperfections that might be happening in this world, for I have the faith that everything is just as it should be even if I don’t understand how!”

Ah! Now this gets us to this notion of ‘perfection.’

It is true, Tina, as Conversations with God tells us, that ‘everything is perfect.’ And God does invite us in this remarkable dialogue to “see the Perfection.’ Yet God makes it clear that this does not mean never seek to change anything.

God tells us that the very reason that everything that exists is perfect just as it is, Tina, is that it presents us with a condition, situation, or circumstance that allows us to know and experience Who We Really Are by expressing and creating whatever we wish to express and create in relationship to those conditions, situations, and circumstances.

This could involve changing a particular condition, situation, or circumstance in such a way that it reflects and demonstrates, evidences and reveals Who We Really Are. We don’t change it because it is ‘bad’ or ‘imperfect,’ but rather, because it simply does not represent (that is, re-present, or present again) Who We Are in the world and in the cosmos.

The famous injunction “Judge not, and neither condemn” did not say, “Change not, and neither alter.” It said judge not, and do not condemn.

The Master, therefore, is one who sees all of Life as perfect, because each moment and every experience, each condition and every circumstance, allows her to respond in a way that reflects and demonstrates every aspect of Divinity that she chooses to reveal, express, and experience in any given moment.

Again, Tina, so that it is very clear: Everything is “perfect” does not mean everything should remain “unchanged.” It merely means that the very existence of a situation or condition provides us with a wonderful Contextual Field within which to embark upon our next creation. The trick is to do it without judgment.

Now, Tina, I hope and pray that this somewhat lengthy response has helped to remove you from any confusion around the messages in Conversations with God as they relate to what you are seeing on this website. I hope you will share this remembering with your friends, so that soon, all the world will understand why the world is the way it is — as well as the spiritual reason we may have for changing it.

God sends Divine Blessings to you, Tina…and to all of you reading this…and, indeed, to all the world.

— Neale Donald Walsch

The headlines say it all:

WAVE OF CAR BOMBS IN IRAQ KILLS DOZENS
GANG RAPE IN INDIA: ROUTINE AND INVISIBLE
REASON FOR HOPE IN CONGO’S PERPETUAL WAR
PIRATES ABDUCT TWO AMERICANS

This is from just one day’s front page of the International New York Times. Violence, violence, violence.

It is normal for the human race? Yes. Is it natural? No. “Normal” and “natural” are not the same thing. It is natural for humans not to be violent, yet the normal behavior for our civilization is extreme violence.

Why is this? And, is there no way to stop it? No way to turn this around? Will our species forever be relegated to the level of barbarism — even as it declares its own higher evolution and even enlightenment?

And why have all the acknowledged and extraordinary advances made by humanity in science, medicine, and technology not produced an end to its most primitive behaviors?

These are the questions that are not being asked nearly enough in the halls of our legislatures, in the corridors of our general assemblies and senates, and in the thickly carpeted offices of our world’s heads of state.

Sadly, there seems to not even be a forum for such a discussion. The United Nations is not it. That international body has proven to be utterly incapable of producing world peace, its members completely unable to even agree on simple resolutions — much less concrete actions — aimed at bringing an end to violence. Its discussions seem forever focused on who is right rather than what is right, and who is at fault rather than what is at cause in the matter.

There are those who say that violence is simply part of our nature; that it is, in fact, natural for us to aggressively attack each other, physically assault each other, and wantonly disregard each other’s well being when we disagree with each other. Could this be true? Is that the basic underlying and unchangeable characteristic and attribute of human beings?

What are human beings, anyway? Are we simply biological entities — essentially, chemical creatures born out of a process of chemical interactions initiated by other chemical creatures? Is this who we are at our basis? Or are we more than that…? Are we, at the level of essence, spiritual creatures engaging in a biological expression, for reasons having to do with spiritual realities?

Our answer to these questions will set the course of humanity’s future for the next several hundred years —- presuming that our species has several hundred years in which to experience a future. The way we are behaving today, that is far from a guarantee. It may not even be a probability.

What are your answers to the questions just above? And what, if anything, do you think could change humanity’s present conduct? I am very curious as to your notions about all of this. Can we discuss it? Could this be at least one of the forums in which humans from all over the world exchange views, ideas, suggestions, and even propose solutions, regarding our violent and non-sustainable behaviors?

Let’s have a global conversation.

— NDW