October, 2012
Therese,
How do I stop sending support to my very adult son? He has been in and out of trouble, financially and other ways, like drugs, all of his life. Just when I think he’s got it all together something happens again. The thing is, I can’t afford it, and to help him, I can’t pay own my bills. He’s 16 in a grown man’s body!
Paraphrased, this is the conversation I had with a friend recently.
It is also a question that I have grappled with in the past, and still do. I see how the world, economically, changed from the time I was young, and now. It seemed to be a given then, that a young person could get an education, work hard, and have a reasonable expectation of meeting, or beating, their parents’ standard of living. That is no longer the case.
It was also the standard, in the western world I live in, that the young person leave the house somewhere between 18 and 21 years of age, and never come back, except in the event of some catastrophe. That is no longer the case either. This change, in my opinion, while forced by some fairly dramatic economic changes, has not been entirely a bad thing. Having lived in Asia, where the model is to actively engage multiple generations in the raising of the children, and the sharing of the wisdom of each generation, CWG’s suggestion that this was the way, rang true with me.
I was not about to move my entire family in with me, however! So, how to work within the current economy, and not enable? How to productively engage the multi-generation model? I found my own way to have the East and West models meet. We live in the same neighborhood! My mother, my daughter and husband, and her sons and my husband and me. Boundaries were set at the beginning, and have always been respected.
I have two children, both of whom have seemed to require help. One lives near, one lives far, so it isn’t nearness that is an issue. But giving to them did begin to feel like a burden, and I started to give without joy. So, in the past few years, I began to ask myself the questions I thought I should be asking about the situation of helping them.
Questions like:
What am I getting out of this situation?
Is this help really helping in the long run?
Am I imposing my vision of what their life must look like, and not honoring their vision?
Is this help or control?
What might their souls be wishing to experience…as well as my own?
Hard questions to honestly answer.
While I am truly giving to them out of love, if I am to be very honest, I am also giving out of fear. Sometimes I fear that they will be angry with me. Sometimes I fear what the consequences might look like if I don’t help them. There are, of course, other fears. There are other things, I realize, that I am getting out of this type of giving, that are not beneficial to all, and possibly not to anyone, in the long run scenario.
I also realize I am imposing my vision of what their lives should look like. I don’t want them to not be able to pay the bills, I don’t want them evicted from their homes, I do want them to have the things I had, and I do want them to always have full a full belly and feel secure. But…is this what their soul is really wishing to experience? As “The Only Thing That Matters” articulates quite well, the soul knows where it really wants to go, but it has absolutely no preference as to how we get there. The long road or the short road makes no difference. So, am I helping create the long road by removing the opportunities to take the short road? Am I saying that the short road must not seem difficult for it to be the road that works best? For that matter, am I removing my own opportunity to experience that more difficult path that is, none the less, the one I must ultimately traverse?
Looking at my relationship with money was another thing I had to do. Being an American, I’ll bet you can figure out at least some of where I had to go in that conversation with myself! Not the least of which was asking myself exactly what my definition of abundance really is.
Back to my friend, who specifically said that he is harming his own welfare in order to help his son. CWG says that all benefits must be mutual. Stated in another way, it says that to betray oneself, in order to not betray another, is still betrayal, and it is betrayal of the highest order. And it is giving our children the wrong message.
I was not willing to cold turkey remove the help, but I have cut back considerably, and help in very specific areas, like healthcare for the grandkids. (Yes, healthcare, even with insurance, is expensive for way too many, but that is a different subject!) It was difficult to change some of my behaviors, to be sure, though. It hasn’t been all fun, but, guess what! it has been quite beneficial for all of us.
The oxymoron here, is that, we are told that life isn’t about us, yet it is all about us! So, if life isn’t about you, and it is also all about you…where are you really? How do we justify denying anyone anything, even if it is hurting ourselves?
Neale answered that very clearly in a recent retreat I attended. We forget that there really is just one of us in the room. When I take care of me, I take care of you.
My advice, then, to myself and to others, would be to ask the questions and be honest with our answers. Then…be brave enough to take care of ourselves. When we do that, we will also be taking care of our children well enough to allow them to do what seems to be failure, knowing we are allowing their opportunities to present themselves…and modeling how to find one’s own answers. This may be very difficult to witness on occasion, but allowing the process to unfold, and not preempt it because it doesn’t feel good, will also empower us to know when help will be truly beneficial, to all, if offered.
Therese
(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offering insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. She may be contacted at Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to: Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)
Is it ever “okay” to hit a small child?
Or to hit anyone, for that matter?
In the small rural community of Ocala, Florida, as reported by www.Ocala.com, “Newly elected School Board member Carol Ely wants to bring corporal punishment back to Marion County schools, two years after the controversial punishment was banned.” And she is receiving support to reinstate this primitive method of discipline, one which involves an adult school official swinging forcefully a large wooden or fiberglass paddle with the intention of striking the tender buttocks of a young child.
Another Marion County board member, Angie Boynton, said while she “does not personally believe in paddling, she would support it as long as parents give permission.”
I am only left to imagine the significantly diminished level comfort and security that public declaration offers to a young child whose home life may be painfully lacking in boundaries, a young child whose own parents’ preferred form of communication is physical force, behavior born out of an “Old Cultural Story” way of thinking where “spanking is a matter of tradition and good old-fashioned discipline.”
If, as Ms. Boynton said, she does not “personally believe in paddling” but will “support it as long as the parents give permission,” why is she not standing in the light of her own truth, what she has publicly professed as her “personal belief”? By the way, the percentage of parents who gave permission to school officials to paddle their children during the years this “code of conduct” was in place and being utilized was reported by Ely to be 95%.
In a recent article reported on FoxNews, in Springtown, Texas, “When Taylor Santos, 15, allegedly let a classmate copy her homework, Vice Principal Kirt Shaw disciplined the girl with a large wooden paddle, which he swung with a violent, upward motion, according to the girl’s mom, Anna Jorgensen,” leaving her teenage daughter feeling numb and burned and humiliated.
As disturbing as these stories are to me, what really caught my attention is not so much the observation of what is happening, but the observation of what is missing…the absence of which pointed me, once again, to one of the critical questions posed to us in “The Storm Before the Calm”:
“Is it possible that there is something we don’t fully understand about God and life, the understanding of which would change everything?”
The answer is undoubtedly yes.
Stories like the two I’ve illustrated invite us to consider the importance of and the possibilities held within having a conversation around questions like this. But are the limitations and restrictions placed upon our children in relation to what they are allowed to hear about and talk about in school blocking their opportunities to see the infinite number of possibilities, all leading to the experience of knowing more fully who they really are? And is it possible that, likewise, that the teachers, administrators, and school board members are also being prevented that same opportunity to experience life at a higher level? Thus being the reason why the only or best choice they are being allowed (or choosing) to see is the one based in fear and not the one based in love?
If every child had the opportunity to learn about the God of their choosing, to explore their own spirituality freely and openly, to appreciate the diversity of their fellow classmates, and to understand a new definition of “relationship” within a new context, a new perspective, a Soul Perspective, could we not potentially eliminate a “need” for most, if not all, of what we perceive to be, for lack of a better word, “bad” behaviors?
What if, in our children’s most formative and delicate years, instead of paddling them, we gifted them with the wisdom to create the life of their dreams by utilizing a process of asking and answering the Four Fundamental Questions of Life:
1. Who am I?
2. Where am I?
3. Why am I where I am?
4. And what do I intend to do about that?
Perhaps if we incorporated larger explorations of Oneness and Beingness into our children’s current curriculum of history and mathematics and government, we would (maybe even in our lifetime) truly witness the birth of a new world, where politics would inspire and unite, instead of dividing and separating; where world countries would co-exist in peace and celebrate each other’s diversity, instead of condemning and engaging in war; and where our children would grow up entering into purposeful and meaningful life partnerships and experiencing relationships without conditions, relationships which nurture Self-expression and provide for the ultimate demonstration of each individual’s Highest Self.
Life is inviting us.
How will the pages of our New Cultural Story read?
Is there, as “Conversations with God” says, another way….a path without a paddle?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support . To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
I was fortunate to have been born into a family of “freethinkers”. My lineage is abundant with people who have challenged the ruling class, either following the route of other contemporary or historical individualists, or making their maverick way, blazing trail through the dense forest of unconsciousness with a tool fashioned by their own hands, journeying for many miles and perhaps many moments with little or no encouragement.
Although I have understood that many of my ancestors were Seekers – intelligent, passionate, fiery, courageous and determined – I never got the impression that they were rebellious for rebellion’s sake. I believe they wanted to find Reasons for Being that made sense to their heart and to their mind. And yet I am certain the paths they chose were not easy ones to walk, and that they clung to those people, places and things that represented and reflected back to them the universal truths that whispered within them.
Of Cherokee, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, Dutch, and Finnish heritage, I can only imagine what immense challenges and heartbreaks my relatives faced – and I can only imagine what yours have faced as well – and continue to all over the world, where people are still punished by death (or worse) for what they believe is their highest dream, grandest idea, most expansive, life-supporting hope for how it could actually be on this planet if we all lived in harmony with one another and all life forms.
I wonder how many of my relatives were “punished by law” or put to death by a deep need to live in alignment with who they felt themselves to be; how many were burned at the stake, or hung or imprisoned because they just couldn’t agree with slavery of any kind, or holocausts of any kind, or separatism of any kind, or the concept of a god that wouldn’t love us if we blundered and stumbled our way through life, trying to figure it all out.
To sin literally means “to miss the mark”. I’d say that’s fairly easy to do at least a few times a day – even on our best day – not to mention over a whole lifetime. So, I’m guessing that I’ve come from a long line of Sinners and Heretics: people who probably just couldn’t understand why wanting the authentic best for themselves and for all sentient beings was so wrong – like so very many of us wonder. And why any god we believe in can’t be a loving god, inclusive even of other gods; other concepts of Wonder and Awe and Mystery…
And then we even kill each other in that name? I believe this is an aberration, a departure from the original idea, which, if I were to submit a guess, would be: Please Love.
A heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs. (Wikipedia) The term heresy, in Greek, αἵρεσις, originally meant “choice”. It also referred to the process whereby a young person would examine various philosophies to determine how to live one’s life.
The process whereby a young person
would examine various philosophies
to determine how to live one’s life.
This has not been the common experience for many of us on the planet for hundreds of thousands of years. But I’d like to think that those of us living in these days and times will begin to change that.
I think “the powers that be” would want it that way. The true Powers that Be: this Knowing within each of us: We started out Good. We’re made of Good. We deserve Good. We’ve always wanted to inspire and share and give away that Goodness. But for most of us, before we even got a chance to uniquely express our Goodness, it was stunted and then rerouted and perhaps misguided into a whole different idea of Who We Are and what source of goodness and intelligence we came from – stunted and rerouted by mostly well-meaning loved ones and members of our society.
Yet, sometimes even our best intentions go awry. And sometimes, we don’t even have all of the information yet. Which is why there will always be Seekers. That is, until the Answers that lie within are allowed to be heard.
Here’s to a new thought about heresy. And here’s to You. You Know Who You Are…
– em claire
Unreasonably
“Show yourself to me,”
said I to God again.
And this is what happened next:
I became pregnant with Light.
My eyes were sunrise and sunset, both.
Freckles announced themselves planets and stars
and beamed upon my cheeks.
Each of my lips became a kiss to the other;
my ears heard oceans of life.
Between my eyes there was an indigo wheel,
between my toes, blond fields.
My hands remembered climbing-trees,
my hair, each lover’s fingers.
And then I whispered,
“But why have you made me This way?”
and it was told to me this:
“Because I have never had Your name before
nor heard the way You sing it.
Nor stared into the Universe through eyes like These,
nor laughed This way, nor felt the path that These tears take.
Because I have not know These ecstasies,
nor risen to These heights,
nor experienced every nuance of the Innocence
with which you create your lows.
Nor how a heart could grow so wide,
or break so easily
or
Love
quite so Unreasonably.”
“Unreasonably” em claire
©2008 All Rights Reserved
(Em Claire is an American poet whose work appears in her book Silent Sacred Holy Deepening Heart, as well as in When Everything Changes, Change Everything. She may be reached through www.emclairepoet.com)
Most people look at the addicted person and see a waste of life; others see lost potential. As for me, I see a person who is moments away from a spiritual awakening that can change not only their life, but possibly the world. Does this sound like and outrageous claim to you? Well, let me back it up.
Let’s go all the way back to the early 1930s. There you will find a man, a drunkard named Bill Wilson (later in life to become famously known as Bill W.) This man could not stop drinking, or if he could stop, it would not be for long. And each time he started again, his drinking became worse and worse. He was in and out of hospitals four times and was at the end of his rope. His family and friends were fed up with his antics. His drinking ruined his reputation at work, and it was known that he could not be relied upon. By all accounts, this man was the living example of a wasted life, sure to die a premature, painful, and lonely death.
Enter the unknown, the unforeseen, and the miracle, if you will. This is where the unexpected comes in to play and why, as humans, we should always hold the space for our reality to change and our consciousness to expand. Bill, the life long drunkard, found sobriety; he also found a way to keep it. According to Wilson, while lying in bed, depressed and despairing, he cried out, “I’ll do anything! Anything at all! If there be a God, let Him show Himself!” He then had the sensation of a bright light, a feeling of ecstasy, and a new serenity. He never drank again for the remainder of his life.
Does this story sound similar to anyone we know?
In finding his own sobriety, he also co-created the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, hence changing not only his life and the lives a few people around him, but actually changing the lives of millions around world. The 12 steps have long since been the most effective method for those suffering from “hard” addiction to achieve sobriety. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of the 12 steps, many members have achieved a level of freedom that many without an addiction in their lives may never experience.
The Bill W. story is a glaring example of how, by eliminating a detrimental aspect of one’s life, you can then open up the space for something truly transformational to take place in the world. This is available to all of us, as we were all created in the image and likeness of God.
God does not reserve greatness for only a select few, and we all have had or will have opportunities presented in our lifetime to do great things. For me, I choose to seek the path that will enrich the lives of those who are presented to me. It would bring great joy to my life if what I have learned and experienced through the messages of Conversations with God and the 12 steps could be given to those to whom happiness, joy, and freedom have not frequented.
What gift could you bring to the world? And what would have to change in your life to make that happen? Are you ready to take those steps today? What is your greatness potential?
(Kevin McCormack is a Conversations with God Life Coach, a Spiritual helper on www.changingchange.net, addictions & recovery advisor. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@theglobalconversation.com.)
(Questions in the ADVICE column are answered by a team of life coaches who write for this online publication. Address questions to:Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
GOD: You are nearing the second stage of the process of transforming life on your planet, and it can be complete in a very short period of time—a few decades to one or two generations—if you choose.
The first stage of this transformation has taken much longer—indeed, several thousand years. Even this, in cosmic terms, is a very short time. It is during this period of The Awakening of Humanity that individuals whom you have called teacher, master, or avatar self-identified, and then undertook the task of reminding others of Who They Really Are.
As the number of people who are touched by this early group and their teaching increases to critical mass, you will experience a “quickening of the spirit,” or what you might call a breakthrough, in which second-stage transformation begins.
Now the adults begin teaching their young—and from that point on, the movement is very quick.
Your race is at this breakthrough point now. Many humans felt a shift when you moved into what you called your new millennium. This was a key point in the onset of a global shift of consciousness, in which you are now playing your role.
The key to continuing this momentum lies with your young. If the education of your offspring now includes certain life principles, your species can make the quantum leap forward in its evolution of which it is capable.
Build your schools around concepts, not academic subjects; core concepts such as Awareness, Honesty, Responsibility. Sub-topics such as Transparency, Sharing, Freedom, Full Self-Expression, Joyous Sexual Celebration, Human Bonding, and Diversity in Oneness.
Teach your children these things, and you will have taught them grandly. Above all, teach them of The Illusion, and how—and why—to live with it, and not within it.
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Editor’s Note: If you would like to COMMENT on the above excerpt, please scroll down to the bottom of the ancillary copy below.
If Conversations with God has touched your life in a positive way, you are one of millions of people around the world who have had such an experience. All of the readers of CWG have yearned to find a way to keep its healing messages alive in their life. One of the best ways to do that is to read and re-read the material over and over again — and we have made it convenient and easy for you to do so. Come here often and enjoy selected excerpts from the Conversations with God cosmology, changed on a regular basis, so you can “dip in” to the 3,000 pages of material quickly and easily. We hope you have enjoyed the excerpt above, from the book: Communion with God.
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About Book-On-A-Bench…
If you believe that the messages in Conversations with God could inspire humanity to change its basic beliefs about God, about Life, and about Human Beings and their relationship to each other, leave those messages lying around.
Simply “forget” or “misplace” a copy of Conversations with God on a bench somewhere. At a bus stop, or a train station, or an airport—or actually on the bus, train, or plane. At a hairstyling salon, a doctor’s office, a chiropractor’s office, a park bench, or even just a bench on the street. Just leave a book lying around.
If everybody did this, the message of Conversations with God could “go viral” in a matter of weeks. So I invite you to participate in the Book-On-A-Bench program and spread ideas that could create a new cultural story far and wide.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
ABOUT NEALE…
Neale Donald Walsch is a modern-day spiritual messenger whose words continue to touch the world in profound ways. With an early interest in religion and a deeply felt connection to spirituality, Neale spent the majority of his life thriving professionally, yet searching for spiritual meaning before beginning his now-famous conversation with God. His With God series of books has been translated into 27 languages, touching the lives of millions and inspiring important changes in their day-to-day living.
Neale was born in Milwaukee to a Roman Catholic family that encouraged his quest for spiritual truth. Serving as his first spiritual mentor, Neale’s mother taught him not to be afraid of God, as she believed in having a personal relationship with the divine — and she taught Neale to do the same.
A nontraditional believer, Neale’s mother hardly ever went to church, and when he asked her why, she told Neale: “I don’t have to go to church — God comes to me. He’s with me and around me wherever I am.” This notion of God at an early age would later move Neale to transcend traditional views of organized religion.
Neale grew into an insatiably curious child whose comments about life seemed to possess a wisdom beyond his years, and often caused relatives and family friends to ask, “Where does he come up with this stuff?” While attending a Catholic grade school, Neale would often pose questions in catechism class that would extend past the traditional grade school curriculum.
Finally, the parish priest invited Neale to his rectory to answer the difficult questions that he didn’t wish to address in front of the rest of the class. This meeting turned into a once-a-week visit that blossomed into an open forum in which Neale learned not to be afraid to ask questions about religion and spirituality—and also learned that his asking these types of questions did not mean that he would offend God.
Joyless spirituality is observed.
Is rigidity and anger sometimes produced by religion?
By the age of 15, Neale’s involvement with spiritually based teachings led him to observe that when people got involved in religion they too often seemed less joyful and more rigid, exhibiting behaviors of prejudice, separateness, and even anger. Neale concluded that for many people the collective experience of theology was not positive.
After graduating from high school, he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, but academic life could not hold him and he dropped out of college after two years to follow an interest in broadcasting that eventually led to a full-time position at the age of 19 at a small radio station far from his Milwaukee home, in Annapolis, Maryland.
Restless by nature and always seeking to expand his opportunities for self-expression, Neale in the years that followed became a radio station program director; a newspaper reporter and, ultimately, managing editor; public information officer for one of the nation’s largest public school systems; and, after moving to the West Coast, creator and owner of his own public relations and marketing firm. Moving from one career field to another, he could not seem to find occupational satisfaction, his life was in constant turmoil, and his health was going rapidly downhill.
A life-changing accident.
A desperate questioning that touches the world.
He had relocated in Oregon as part of a change-of-scenery strategy to find his way, but Fate was to provide more than a change of location. It produced a change in his entire life. One day a car driven by an elderly gentleman made a left turn directly into his path. Neale emerged from the auto accident with a broken neck. He was lucky to escape with his life.
More than a year of rehab threw him out of work. A failed marriage had already removed him from his home, and soon he couldn’t keep even the small apartment he’d rented. Within months he found himself on the street, homeless. It took him the better part of a year to pull himself together and get back under shelter. He found, at first, modest part-time jobs, once again in broadcasting, then worked his way into full time employment and an eventual spot as a syndicated radio talk show host.
He had seen the bottom of life living outside, gathering beer and soft drink cans in a park to collect the return deposit, but now his life seemed to be on the mend. Yet, once more, Neale felt an emptiness inside. In 1992, following a period of deep despair, Neale awoke in the middle of a February night and wrote an anguished letter to God. “What does it take,” he angrily scratched across a yellow legal pad, “to make life work?”
The books that began a spiritual revolution.
The words that opened doors again.
Now well chronicled and widely talked about, it was this questioning letter that received a divine answer. Neale tells us that he heard a “voiceless” voice, soft and kind, warm and loving, that gave him an answer to this and other questions. Awestruck and inspired, he quickly scribbled these responses onto the tablet.
More questions came, and, as fast as they occurred to him, answers were given in the same gentle voice, which now seemed placed inside his head, but also seemed clearly beyond his normal thinking. Before he knew it, Neale found himself engaged in a two-way, on-paper dialogue. He continued this first “conversation” for hours, and had many more in the weeks that followed, always awakening in the middle of the night and being drawn back to his legal pad.
Neale’s handwritten notes would later become the best-selling Conversations with God books. He says that the process was “exactly like taking dictation,” and that the dialogue created in this way was published without significant alteration or editing. He also says that God is talking to all of us, all the time, and that he has come to understand that this experience is not unusual, nor does it make him in any way a special person or a unique messenger.
In addition to producing the renowned With God series, Neale has published 18 other works, as well as many video and audio programs. Available throughout the world, seven of the Conversations with God books made the New York Times bestseller list, with Conversations with God: Book 1 occupying a place on that list for more than two-and-half years. Walsch’s books have sold more than seven million copies worldwide and have been translated into 37 languages.
The With God series has redefined God and shifted spiritual paradigms across the planet. In order to deal with the enormous global response to his writings, Neale formed the Conversations with God Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to inspiring the world to help itself move from violence to peace, from confusion to clarity, and from anger to love.
The work expands.
A movement begins.
Neale founded the School of the New Spirituality and its CWG for Parents program to bring parents the tools to share new spirituality principles of a loving, non-condemning God with their children. He also founded Humanity’s Team, with branches in over 30 countries, now promoting the concept of the Oneness of all people and of all of life.
What Neale calls his “final creation” is The Global Conversation, an Internet Newspaper dedicated to exploring day-to-day events on our planet within the context of The New Spirituality, and offering people across the globe the opportunity to not only witness the playing out of humanity’s Cultural Story in the news, but participate in re-writing that Story, through their contributions and posted comments on the newspaper’s site.
Neale’s work has taken him from the steps of Machu Picchu in Peru to the steps of the Shinto shrines of Japan, from Red Square in Moscow to St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City to Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Everywhere he has gone—from South Africa to Norway, Croatia to The Netherlands, the streets of Zurich to the streets of Seoul—Neale has found a hunger among the people to find a new way to live; a way to co-exist, at last, in peace and harmony, with a reverence for Life Itself in all its forms, and for each other. And he has sought to help them develop a new, expanded understanding of God, of life, and of themselves that allows them to create and experience this.
(Neale Donald Walsch lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife, the American poet Em Claire (www.emclairepoet.com).)
Why do you think it has been so difficult for women to achieve equal status with men, even after thousands of years of humanity looking at this issue?
(Part 3 of a 5-part series)
This is important. Please read…
If you think that you are going to be forgiven by God for anything you may have done “wrong,” you are mistaken. Conversations with God tells us that God will never forgive you.
Read that, never. As in, never ever. For anything.
It won’t matter how much you beg, it won’t matter how much you plead, it won’t matter how many times you fall on your knees begging for mercy. God will never forgive you for anything, ever.
If you are looking for forgiveness from God, you are looking in the wrong place.
Now there is a very good reason that God will never forgive you. God has nothing to forgive you for. You have never done anything in the entirety of your life that could displease God. You have never done anything that could anger God. You have never done anything that could damage or hurt God.
Do you believe in a Deity that would or could have any reason to be unhappy? Do you believe in a Deity that would or could have any reason to be angry? Do you truly imagine that the God of this Universe (which today’s science is now telling us is actually a universe of Universes…a Multiverse!) could actually be hurt or damaged in any way…much less by something that Little Old You have done?
Well, no, you might say, God doesn’t “punish” human beings because they have offended Him. God sits in judgment and punishes human beings because Perfect Justice demands it.
In some minds that makes sense, and helps people to reconcile a Totally Loving God with a Fearful Deity who would nevertheless condemn His children to eternal and unspeakable agony for their “offenses.” Yet Have you ever heard the phrase, “There ain’t no justice…”? Well, that’s how it is in Heaven. There’s just ain’t no justice. And the reason there is no “justice” is that the whole concept of Justice depends upon the existence of Right & Wrong. And there’s no such thing as Right and Wrong. That’s an abstraction, an hypothesis, constructed totally in the mind of Man. And it’s been twisted beyond recognition even in its imaginary form.
The reason there is no “justice” in Heaven is that in Heaven, everything is Perfect. As well, everything is Perfect “on Earth, as it is in Heaven.” For Earth is part of Heaven…and we just don’t know it.
You have never done anything that could cause God to punish you in the name of seeking “justice.” Do you seek “justice” in the case of an 18-month old baby who knocks over the 200-year-old vase that was the irreplaceable Family Heirloom? Do you punish her with everlasting separation from her Source of Life and Love?
Do you imagine that human beings are much more than 18-month-old babies in the Life of the Cosmos, and in the Mind of God? Is it your thought that God sees us as fully conscious, totally aware, completely knowledgeable, unlimitedly wise beings who are absolutely responsible for their every thought, word, and action in a Reality about which they know and understand Everything?
Do you conceive of human beings as being at the top of the Evolutionary Process that produces Sentient Beings in the Universe? Or is it possible that we have no idea what’s going on here, not the slightest conception of the Reality in which we find ourselves, and are just now truly birthing ourselves into the Cosmic Community of Sentient Beings?
If the second were true, is it your thought that a righteous and virtuous God would punish us with Everlasting Damnation and Eternal Torment in the Fires of Hell for having made what even we would call a simple childhood mistake if we were witness to a toddler “misbehaving”?
What kind of a “God” do you think we have, anyway…? Do you imagine that we truly are Children of a Lesser God?
(Neale Donald Walsch is the publisher of The Global Conversation internet newspaper and the author of the Conversations with God series of books. His latest book, The Only Thing That Matters, distributed by Hay House, is now available in print or audio form from Amazon.com by clicking here.)
“In order to change an existing paradigm, you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called.”
– Buckminster Fuller
There are many challenges that we are facing in the world today. Humanity’s home, planet earth, is in jeopardy. And as time goes on, the issues continue to rise at a rapid rate, even accelerating to the point that many of us may have lost hope.
There are people in this country who are struggling to keep their homes, their jobs, pay their power bills, and feed their families. Millions around the world are homeless, without power, and starving to death at a rate of over 40,000 people a day.
But instead of echoing what a growing number have been saying for years, we want to focus on a solution and believe that the future we want tomorrow is not only possible, but that we already have all the resources necessary to make it happen. Now it’s up to us to join hands, lock arms, and collaborate on a new way of living, one that strives for the highest good of all.
To help facilitate the shift from where we are now to what we know is possible, One Community (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization) was formed after 15 years of planning, with the mission to provide what is necessary for the re-creation of this world as a cooperative of self-sufficient and sustainable communities. Their path to accomplishing such a lofty goal? To demonstrate and inspire.
Firmly believing in the possibility of sustainable world development, One Community sees a working model as resource efficient, zero waste, and holistic living, with widespread appeal as the key to launching global change like never before.
What makes One Community truly different from existing intentional communities is a commitment to inviting the world to participate and creating what they feel is essential to widespread appeal: It should be affordable, applicable across a diversity of cultures, easily accessible, created so that normal people with average knowledge and little or no experience can duplicate it, be packaged with an transformative education program for all ages, and it must have a marketing engine capable of exposing enough people to build the necessary momentum for it to continue on its own.
With a 4-point strategy for accomplishment, this is what One Community is creating, and they are open source sharing (free sharing) everything they do so others can follow in their footsteps and evolve it all even further.
Swiftly moving forward now, they spent two years to find the perfect property, a year building the necessary relationships with the county, are 2 years into architectural planning and development details, and are now focusing on completing their think tank of world-change-dedicated people, with the hope to move onto the property and immediately break ground in 2013.
Keeping to their open-source sharing purpose and communicating with as many like-minded and forward-thinking groups, communities, and organizations as possible, they have been partnering, expanding their network, and free-sharing and giving away everything they create throughout their process of being the change they want to see. As a demonstration of early success, they are happy to say that this has already led to the formation of a “first wave” of communities with shared ideas of living for The Highest Good of All Concerned, launching websites and beginning the creation process with the help of what One Community has already accomplished and is providing.
One Community is not just another community for sustainability, it is a new way of living For The Highest Good of All and open source think tank of demonstrating solutions that will be able to be duplicated and evolved collaboratively with the rest of the world as we collectively usher in a new Golden Age of civilization.
For more information and on-going updates visit: www.sustainabilitynonprofit.org or just google “One Community.”
(Tony Hua and Jae Sabol are two of the founding members of One Community. Tony manages and operates the marketing and open source web optimization and Jae is the Executive Director and overall coordinator of the One Community project. Combined they have over 18 years invested in this vision for an open source blueprint and modeling of a better world for everyone. The best way to reach them is through the www.sustainabilitynonprofit.org website.)
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The High Court of Botswana has this Friday ruled, in a revolutionary decision, that women have the right to inherit property. The decision overturned an earlier verdict that had gone against three sisters who were living in their father’s home during the years between the father’s death and the time that the property was inherited by the sister’s nephew.
The story is complicated, but deserves telling, because it marks another long overdue, major movement on this planet on behalf of female equality.
It is difficult to believe that it has taken this long for something like this to happen. Yet is the clear that even now, in the second decade of the first quarter of the Twenty-first Century, there are cultures in place where human beings are still considered second-class citizens because they have a vagina and not a penis.
What occurred Friday began in 2007, when the three sisters—all over the age of 65—sued their nephew for attempting to evict them from the home in which they had lived from the time of their father’s death.
At that time, the house was willed to the father’s son, brother of the three sisters, who allowed the ladies to continue to live there. When the brother died, he could not will the home to his sisters, because the local laws did not allow females to inherit property. The brother’s will thus called for the home to be passed on to an older half-brother, who he knew would also allow the women to remain there.
But when the half-brother died, leaving the home to his son—the sisters’ nephew—the younger man sought to evict the trio of aging ladies. In this case, instead of bowing to local custom, the ladies fought back, contesting the eviction in local court, claiming that they had paid for the home’s upkeep through the years they had lived there following their father’s death, and had also paid for an expansion project at the residence.
The local court ruled against the women. In Botswana there is a dual legal system. There are civil courts run by the government, and so-called “customary courts,” functioning mostly in very rural outlying areas. Those courts have traditionally upheld the principle of “assumed male inheritance,” according to a story on this case authored on Wikipedia. That story can be found here.
The women appealed the decision, but lost their appeal as well—also handled by a local court. Supported in their case by the Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), the sisters took their case to the regular government civil courts, and it eventually reached Botswana’s High Court, the article written for Wikipedia said.
“The sisters were opposed by Attorney General Athalis Molokomme. Representing the government of Botswana, Molokomme argued that though the inheritance law was discriminatory, the ‘public mood’ did not yet support its repeal,” the Wikipedia article went on.
The judge in the case, Key Dingake, ruled for the High Court that the local customary laws prioritizing male inheritance were not in keeping with the promise of gender equality in the Constitution of Botswana, and awarded the home to the sisters, the article said.
According to further reporting in the Wikipedia article, Dingake stated in his decision: “It seems to me that the time has now arisen for the justices of this court to assume the role of the judicial midwife and assist in the birth of a new world struggling to be born. Discrimination against gender has no place in our modern day society.”
The nephew who lost the case is reported to have called it “a sad day,” stating that “people should learn to respect our culture.” The Wikipedia story said, “Regional human rights campaigners expressed hope that the case would not only be a landmark in Botswana, but also set a precedent for surrounding countries grappling with similar issues,” and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa described the decision as “a huge boost to the struggle for gender equality,” while SALC’s deputy director said that the ruling “sends a very strong signal that women in Botswana cannot be discriminated against and that the days of women suffering from secondary status under the law in Botswana are drawing to an end.”
Drawing to an end? That’s what the person said.
All of which leads to the matter raised by the women’s nephew: Should people respect a culture’s values, no matter how patently unfair and discriminatory those values may be? And if the answer is no, on what basis can proposed laws permitting gay marriage be opposed in the United States?
It seems to many people incomprehensible that in 2012 anybody at all on this earth could still be earnestly debating such issues. Yet the politically divisive and combative discussions go on. As an overall global culture, we just can’t seem to “get it.” So many members of the human race are still elementary in their understandings.
What will it take for our species to “grow up?” To mature? To evolve to the point where, thousands of years after the birth of Christ, it still makes headline news when an entire culture is rattled to its bones by a simple decision to make it legal for a woman to inherit her father’s property?
Or, for that matter, for a girl to receive an education—or to advocate for it without being shot in the head by males who would seek to preserve the backwards status quo, as was 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan the day before the court decision in Botswana.
The Taliban publicly took “credit” for the shooting, announcing on Saturday that if the girl—whose “crime” was to write a blog calling for support of the right of girls to go to school—survives her wounds (she is in serious but stable condition in hospital), she would be attacked again, and this time, they would make sure that she was killed. And neither the government nor the people of Pakistan have sufficient will to stop the Taliban, and to say, “No more. Finally, at last, no more of this primitive, barbaric behavior masquerading as religious teachings and cultural ‘honor’.”
When, oh human race, when will it be declared that enough is enough?
I am 38 years old, employed in a fairly secure job, but the debt I have is starting to cause me to become anxious and afraid. I have modified my spending, but I still can’t seem to get even, let alone ahead. I don’t go out with my friends much, and the thought of dating someone, and what that will cost, is overwhelming. I never intended to get to a point where I considered defaulting on what I owe; however, it is now causing a great deal of stress in my life. What would God say? What is the right thing to do in my situation? – Tom in Tacoma, Wa.
Hi, Tom… Your situation is all too common in these times. Many of us have found ourselves facing a similar situation, some have thrown their hands in the air and defaulted, others have found ways to keep their necks above water, and others have used the situation to motivate themselves into higher wealth and abundance.
Now, some of those in the latter category will take the experience of being overwhelmed with debt and decide they will not do that again; that is, they will be more conservative with their money moving forward. Others in that group will think they are invincible and live even riskier lives; of those, some will achieve greater success and some will continue to experience feeling broke and broken.
You see, Tom, I believe that God wants for us what we want for ourselves, nothing more, nothing less. If we want peace, God wants peace. If we want extravagance, God wants extravagance. To Her, it makes no difference. So I believe God would say to you the following: “Tom, what do you wish to experience? What do you want to feel? How may I help you to achieve that?”
So if I may turn the question around on you, Tom, is it possible for you, in the moment, to see that everything is perfect, everything is the way it should be? Can you believe that you are safe right where you are right now? If so, where would you like to go from here? Are you in the right job for you? Is there something you love doing and feel a strong sense of purpose in? Is there something that you feel you have a gift for, a gift that you are not using to your benefit or the world’s benefit right now?
What I am trying to get at here is that God does not care what you are doing, what your financial situation is, or how you go about handling that situation. What God does care about is that you do whatever you do consciously, knowingly, and lovingly. So, Tom, make a decision (for to not decide is a decision in itself) on who you will be in relation to whatever it is that you do. “Being” must always come first in the conscious person’s daily affairs.
(Kevin McCormack is a “Conversations with God” Life Coach, a Spiritual helper on www.changingchange.net, and an addictions & recovery advisor. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@theglobalconversation.com.)
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