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  • Thumbs Down

     

    The gladiators stand in the tunnel surveying the crowd, awaiting their fate, hoping to have some control of the outcome.  The crowd, that fickle crowd, will decide, in the end, the death or the glory of the gladiator.

    Bones crunch, heads snap, bodies bleed, when body hits body at full speed.  The gladiator rises, again and again, to meet the onslaught of his opponent.  Sweating, cursing his body for not doing what he thought he had trained it to do in preparation for this day, this event.  He’s done this before…fought for his life and his glory before, but today that crowd is different.  It’s not on his side today.

    He’s known this day would come for as long as he could remember.  As a youth he knew his ability in the games of youth set him apart, but he could see what happened to those lesser bodies that succumbed to even minor injuries.  Thumbs down.  His physical presence was destined to raise him above his social circumstances, but he also knew he would one day pay the price.

    When his tendon snapped, and his knee bent backward with the onslaught of the physical wall, he knew this would be the day he would pay that price.  This was the thumbs down day he dreaded.  This was the day his life, as he knew it, would end.

    The crowd gasped.  The crowd applauded his lifelong effort to survive and entertain them….and then the crowd turned their thumbs down and walked away, because, in their secret heart of hearts, this was exactly what they came to see…the falling of the best of the best.  The mighty fallen.

    Sound like a story of ancient Rome?  It should, but it is also the same sad game being played out in arenas today, even though it is called something different.  In America one of the the most violent incarnations is called Football.

    Football is arena war.  Football is using the young, raising them up, and then abandoning them when they can no longer entertain.  Too many players with identities caught up exclusively in the sport.  Football glorifies violence, just as does the military, and says that the positive things it instills, like teamwork and discipline, supersede the foundational premise of the game.  This is the public relations lie.  Domination, winner vs. loser, bragging rights…superiority.  It is among the accepted ways of channeling testosterone when there is no war, and working testosterone into a frenzy of camaraderie when there is.

    Beyond even that, sports, like football, (I am staying with one sport, knowing there are definitely others that can be mentioned!) say to the player and the watcher that the physical is more important than the mind and spirit of that player.  When we identify with that scenario, the scenario of only the strong survive, might makes right, outward vs. inward, we play our part in the manipulation of the world paradigm.  This paradigm says that the strong in any way (physical, wealth, mental) are entitled to dominate, and manipulate to get what they desire.  In fact, the thought, in some religions is just that… they are chosen by God to have that entitlement.

    This paradigm manipulates us into living externally…the right clothes, all you can eat to the detriment of your body, bigger, better, shinier, this vodka will get you the guy/girl, this beer is macho, this car…don’t stop to feel, think.  If you did, you might not really see yourself in your own life any more.

    I can no longer watch games of dominance with a passive eye.  There is room for individualism even in the win-win model.  A person can “win” by simply knowing that on this day their skill worked to give them their desired result.  Others can know they did not lose, they merely had the opportunity to enjoy, use, and know their bodies, and the result of scoring the most points was not met.  No shame, no dominations, but still knowing who you are as an individual even in the physical arena.

    Surely humanity can accept and develop games and challenges that do not require mimicking war.  Surely we can know ourselves as strong and capable without requiring certain physical jeopardy to do so.  Surely we, as the observers, can do so without the desire to see blood and defeat…and surely we observers can extend an embrace rather than a thumbs down to those who did not meet their desired result.

    The new Gladiator knows that he/she is valued for all they are.  Valued for the perfection of body, valued for the openness of their hearts, and valued for their Spirit which knows only Love, and never even thinks about a thumbs down.  Even when the game ends.  Especially when the game ends.

    (Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of, and Spiritual Helper at, the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com  She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

     

     

     

  • There is something you can do right now to make the world a better place

    Did you know that there is a new book that identifies the 25 most important messages of the 9-installment Conversations with God series? It then offers practical suggestions on how to apply each message in every day life. Powerful and inspirational reading.  To see the first seven chapters and hear a one chapter sample of the audio book, click here.
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    (This is Part IX of an extended series on being part of the change, rather than simply observing the change, that is occurring on our planet right now.)

    What the world needs today is a new form of spirituality, one that will allow us to express our impulse toward the Divine in a way that does not make others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.

    This would eliminate all of the religious conflict in the world—and as we have already stated in previous installments here, religious conflict is the greatest obstacle to peace on our planet today.

    Now if you agree with this purpose, if you feel aligned with the effort to help create the space of possibility for a New Spirituality to emerge upon the earth, you will be very happy to know that there is a well organized group already working toward this goal.

    That group is called Humanity’s Team, and it has established local Teams in cities, towns, and villages in over 30 countries.

    HT is focused very much on creating and providing opportunities for people all over the world who may be searching for, and yearning for, an alternative form of spiritual expression—who are tired of the conflicts and the sense of superiority and the doctrines of judgment and damnation that are built into many of today’s religions.

    Among its other activities, HT sponsors a wide variety of activities, all revolving around the kinds of messages found in Conversations with God. Information on the work and activities of Humanity’s Team may be obtained by going to www.HumanitysTeam.org

    Within Humanity’s Team’s Twelve Spheres of Life initiative, in the sphere of Spirituality, there is something you can do right now: Become involved with the Evolution Revolution.

    Do you have nine minutes to give to our world?

    It will take you approximately eight or nineminutes to read what I have written elsewhere on this website. I know that seems like a lot of time, but over the course of your life you will see it as really very little. Go to the blue box on the right hand side of this newspaper’s Home Page and you can learn all about it.

    So the point here is that there is at last an answer to the question, “What can I do?”  There is already in place a group of people who have read CwG and asked the same question, who share with you the desire to place that message into the world, who agree with you on the desirability of doing that, and who will support you in moving forward your own agenda.

  • Why she’s running…and how you can help

    I am running for Congress because I believe America has gone off the democratic rails. A toxic brew of shrinking civil liberties, expanded corporate influence and domestic surveillance is poisoning our democracy.

    We are currently in the process of dismantling the most basic social contract between the American people and our government, as “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people” has transitioned before our eyes into ” a government of a few of the people, by a few of the people, and for a few of the people.” A purpose of American progress is to expand the democratic franchise, not constrict it. Yet today, that franchise is being narrowed for everyone.

    That’s the bad news, but there is good news as well: we can change this!

    But we must do so quickly, for the trajectory of corporatism is already wreaking havoc on our environment, our economy and even our food supply. When banks, oil companies, chemical companies, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, food companies, military manufacturers and prison builders are able to influence our lawmakers so disproportionately to the influence wielded by average citizens, we have a problem. Let us not be the first generation to wimp out on the work necessary to protect and foster our democracy.

    Politics isn’t something that only a few people should relate to. There should be no “political class” or “political elite” in America. In the words of President Eisenhower, “politics should be the part time profession of every American.” The fact that it has in some ways become a spectator sport is unhealthy for our democracy, and I hope you will join with me in changing that. Let’s all of us — not just those of us “interested in politics” — now awaken to both the perils and opportunities of this time, and the responsibility of each of us to be good stewards of our democracy.

    A stale, inside-the-box conversation is inadequate to the challenges that we face now. Other candidates in the race will offer their ideas in this election as well, of course. But while the political status quo addresses the symptoms of our deeper problems, it’s time to address the disease itself. Treating the effects of a problem is not the same as treating its cause.

    The undue influence of money on our politics is the issue underlying all other issues, and we need a national movement supporting a Constitutional Amendment outlawing the undue influence of money on our politics. If elected, I will work with those in and outside Congress who are working on this already– for I feel, as many people do, that getting money out of politics is the greatest moral challenge of our generation.

    I hope you will get involved in the campaign. Please visit our website at www.marianneforcongress.com, sign up for email updates, attend our upcoming events, become a volunteer, spread the word to your friends, and donate what you can to support a campaign that is doing all we can do to provide a genuine alternative to the political status quo. This is not simply a good idea. I believe that it is critical.

    Please join us.

    All my best,

    Marianne

  • Worldwide Discussion:
    SANITY RETURNS TO THE STATE OF WASHINGTON AS GOVERNMENT
    STOPS KILLING PEOPLE

    Noticing that its application is “inconsistent and unequal,” Jay Inslee has decided to oppose the death penalty.

    Mr. Inslee is not the first person to come to this conclusion. Indeed, people have been pointing this out for many years. He is also not the first person to decide that he opposes the death penalty because of it. But he is the first person to come to this conclusion and to reach this decision who happens to be the governor of one of the United States.

    As a result, that State — Washington — has, effective February 11, stopped using its governing authority to kill people in an execution chamber…at least for the next three years. By executive order, Mr. Inslee has imposed a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty as long as he is in office. His current term expires in 1016.

    Why would anybody in the United States — particularly anybody in a position of political power whose ability to hold onto that power depends upon the approval of voters — oppose the death penalty, which has been an American institution for so many years?

    “There are too many flaws in the system,” Mr. Inslee is quoted in media reports as saying, adding that when the ultimate decision is death “there is too much at stake to accept an imperfect system.”

    Um….uh….do you think?

    The mystery is not why one courageous person would risk his political future by doing what is obviously right — but why every governor in the nation is not doing the same thing.

    The State of Texas, for instance, reportedly leads the nation in putting people to death — and by some accounts and appearances the largest number of that state’s residents seem to be proud of that. “Texas justice,” some have been known to call it.

    Yet not only justice, but “equal justice under the law” is the primary responsibility of any government, Washington’s governor asserts, then adds that in death penalty cases he is “not convinced equal justice is being served.”

    Mr. Inslee is quoted in press accounts as observing that the use of the death penalty in his state has been so unequally applied that it was even “sometimes dependent on the budget of the county where the crime occurred.”

    That kind of disparity is, of course, unconscionable, and Mr. Inslee has realized this. Fortunately, there is no other state in America where the death penalty is or has ever been unequally applied.

    Um….well….maybe it has…but just once in a while, just now and then…so what does it matter? Well, it doesn’t seem to matter, as few governors or state legislatures in the United States have done what Mr. Inslee has just done, which is to simply announce: that’s enough. No more state-sponsored killing on my watch.

    While 32 states in the U.S. still authorize the death penalty, Maryland became the most recent state, prior to Washington, to end executions when it repealed its death penalty law outright in 2013.

    Two years earlier Gov. John Kitzhaber put a moratorium on all executions in Oregon. And eight years prior to that, in 2003, Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted all death penalties to life sentences.

    But, as noted above, many states in America still kill people as a means of punishment — and they do not always do it mercifully.

    Much news was made just a few weeks ago when the State of Ohio was widely accused of having badly botched the execution of a man convicted of murder named Dennis McGuire by using a lethal injection made up of a combination of chemicals that had never been tried before.

    According to one journalist who witnessed the execution, the condemned man “struggled, made guttural noises, gasped for air and choked” before succumbing to a new, two-drug execution method.

    In an online story about the execution, the Guardian newspaper news article said “Eyewitnesses in the death chamber reported that it took up to 26 minutes for McGuire to die, making it the longest execution in Ohio in modern times.“

    The Guardian story went on to say that “the prisoner was seen to be gasping for air for up to 14 minutes in a procedure that one observer, Lawrence Hummer, described in the Guardian as horrendous and inhumane.”

    Some medical experts had warned the state that the “death cocktail” would cause slow oxygen starvation, resulting in not just death for the criminal, but prolonged suffering, amounting to cruel and unusual punishment.

    The state refused to listen to those opinions, or to the appeal of the criminal to at least postpone the execution until the injection had been tried on animals. It went ahead with the procedure, and the result, as described above, made headlines around the world.

    At least one family member of the person the criminal had murdered appeared by press accounts to be not particularly concerned with reports of Mr. McGuire’s alleged suffering, reportedly saying to the media that the person Mr. McGuire was convicted of killing was also not spared suffering.

    The spiritual question raised by all of this, of course, is whether the highest or grandest spiritual value to which humanity can aspire in cases such as this is “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

    Billions of humans embrace this notion of justice — many, if not most, of them declaring that it is a concise articulation of God’s Law. God, these believers declare, imposes just this kind of justice on all human beings at the moment of their death.

    In your belief system, is this true? And where do you stand on the death penalty, regardless of what you believe about God?

  • What do I need to change in my personality in order to stop attracting people I don’t want into my life?

    I recently met a woman who I believe wanted a close friendship with me. I have moved to a new community and was keen to meet people and have accepted her generous offer a few times to drive me to venues I would have problems getting to on my own, for which I have thanked her and was grateful for her kindness. Over the course of our newly developing friendship, I found I have no rapport with her no matter how much I tried. In fact, I found her behaviour disturbing. For example, she would yell out, cursing at people legally overtaking her and others while in traffic, and even more disturbing was that she would call me everyday leaving the same monotonous message each day. I returned her calls a couple of times letting her know that I was okay and there was no need for her to be calling everyday. Then, there’ll be the same message, the same dialog the next day and the next and the next. I have a feeling she probably had been drinking when she called, so I stopped returning her calls. In line with CWG messages, how would I handle this situation? What would you propose I do? Also, meeting people like her is not new to me. I seem to attract people with such “weird” personalities into my life quite often. What do I need to change in my personality so that I don’t attract such people anymore? Thank you and best wishes… Gail

    Dear Gail… Although I do believe in the Law of Attraction, I think it’s a bit of a New Thought trap to think that there is something inherently wrong in our personalities when we attract strange people into our lives. While it may be true that there is something your soul wants to move through in these circumstances, it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong!

    Please remember, the Law of Opposites exists to give us choice points. To paraphrase a foundational tenet from Conversations With God, “In the absence of that which I am not, that which I am, is not.” In other words, we can only define ourselves by being aware of something different than us that we can use as a benchmark.

    You ask what CWG would recommend in regard to your relationship with the woman who you suspect was drinking and with whom you don’t want to associate anymore. I would invite you to look at the Five Levels of Truth Telling from CWG Book Two, as well as one of the 17 steps to being Happier Than God: “Speak your truth as soon as you know it but soothe your words with peace.” The four levels of truth telling that would apply here are, “Tell your truth about yourself to yourself,” “Tell your truth about yourself to another,” “Tell your truth about another to yourself” and “Tell your truth about another to that other.” I find the fourth level to be the hardest one, because confronting someone with my truth about them feels very uncomfortable. When I am brave enough to do it, I prefer to write down my thoughts and deliver my truth that way, so that I don’t end up stumbling over words, or worse, not being impeccable with my word. It helps to tell the other, “I could be wrong, but this is how it looks to me, and this is how I feel about it.” When we put the onus on ourself in this way, it helps us seem less judgmental of the other.

    Now, of course, you don’t have to do any of these things, Gail. You can simply allow yourself to gradually and organically drift away from the relationship. Sometimes that’s the easiest way out, but just know it can leave things feeling unresolved, and that’s why I think CWG invites us to do more than that.

    I feel your discomfort around this. It may help to know that we all have people who show up in our lives who are not easy to deal with, to say the least. It doesn’t mean we are being or doing anything wrong. It’s just what’s happening, so it is of course, perfect! There’s a very good reason CWG says that life begins at the end of our comfort zone. Every uncomfortable situation is an opportunity to choose to be more than we have ever been—to “step up to the plate” and seize the opportunity to re-create ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about who we are. And, interestingly, the more we do that, the fewer “weird personalities” and the more kindred spirits we begin to attract into our lives!

    From my experience of working with you in the CWG Online School, Gail, I would bet that you will handle all of this in the most beautiful way possible, because that’s the type of person I have come to know you to be.

    In all things, give thanks.

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Life Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@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.)

    An additional resource:  The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services.  The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions.  What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God.  It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.

  • Moralizing and Judging

    I wonder if any of us are truly aware of how often we moralize and judge not only ourselves but others during the course of a normal day. I am currently taking a free class online on moralities of everyday existence that is offered by Yale (yes, the Ivy League school– but you get no credits or grades for the class.) The first week of class reminded me just how careful we have to be to avoid moralizing and judging the events in our daily lives.

    Let me give you an example from my daily life. I am a paramedic. Invariably, at some point during the course of any given day, a call comes in to respond to such and such an address for a patient with flu-like symptoms. A groan often accompanies this summons and it’s exacerbated when you get to the residence and find five apparently capable drivers and three cars parked in the driveway. “This,” we think to ourselves while in the patient’s presence and say aloud when the call is over, “is why our health care costs are so out of control! Anyone of those people could have taken that person to the hospital!”

    What we DON’T know is that one of the driver’s has a suspended license for a DUI, one has no car insurance because she can’t afford it, one has three kids sleeping upstairs that are going to be getting up from their nap soon and two of them are also sick and don’t want anyone by mommy/daddy, one just took some cold medicine that makes her drowsy and the fifth’s car isn’t inspected or registered because he couldn’t afford to do it last month when it expired. (As an aside, I recently suffered from a bout with the flu and I have never been as sick as I was for that nine days and there were times when I wanted to call an ambulance to come take me to the hospital.)

    How many times have you been standing in line and watched someone pay for steaks with food stamps and thought “How fair is that? I’m eating hamburger helper and you’re eating steaks on food stamps!” Of course, what we don’t know is that the steaks are for the man’s son, who has terminal cancer and this is to be the last meal they have as a family before he goes out of state for experimental treatments that still only give him a 2% chance of survival.

    Or here’s one I hear often when someone sees a woman with lots of kids that are apparently very close in age. “Keep your legs closed so I don’t have to support another of your brats!” Of course, what we don’t know is that the woman has taken custody of her sisters kids (which were born in between her own kids) because her sister is fighting a drug addiction and is in rehab and the woman doesn’t want the kids to get stuck in the system.

    But what about the smaller moral decisions and judgments we make every day? Are you eating meat? Do you know if the animal who sacrificed their life for your food was treated humanely during its existence? Does it matter?

    Are you vegetarian or vegan? Are you eating all organic foods that were harvested by people who were paid a fair wage? What happens to all the migrant workers if everyone buys only foods that were harvested for a fair wage?

    Did you flip someone off while driving down the road today because you got cut off or someone didn’t use his turn signal? Maybe you didn’t flip him off but called him a nasty name or even thought what a horrible driver he was. Would it change your mind about him if you knew he just found out his wife was taken to the hospital after a serious car accident and wasn’t expected to survive?

    In the area I live in, we have had 22 people die of heroin overdoses in the last two weeks because the heroin is laced with fentanyl. I’ve seen stories about it posted on Facebook and local news websites. Comments range from “Good! One less addict to worry about!” to “And we’re supposed to care about these people why?”

    Do you catch yourself judging how your siblings are raising their children and think that you could do a better job? Do you find yourself looking at the clerk in the store and thinking that he needs to find a better barber? Do you overhear your waitress talking about her wife and leave her a smaller tip because you don’t agree with the “gay lifestyle”? Do you see a stray cat running around your neighborhood and think “Someone else is probably feeding it…”? Do you think that the person who is talking in line behind you, who is obviously the opposite party affiliation than you, is a stupid moron for what he believes? Do you speak up when someone in the break room makes an off-color or racist or sexist or homophobic comment or joke? Do you constantly buy pre-packaged meals so you don’t have to cook despite the amount of plastic and cardboard that goes into making just one of those meals and is going to end up in our rapidly filling landfills? Are you more pleasant with someone you know who shares many of your beliefs than you are with someone who thinks your beliefs are a joke? Did you notice that many of these questions are judgmental and moralizing? Or do you think that only the “other side” (or, in other words, someone else besides you) does that kind of thing?

    Perhaps some of the most subconscious moralizing and judging we do is with ourselves. How many times have we said about something we did, “That was stupid!” or “I’m such an idiot!” or “How could I be so naive?” How many times have we judged what we have done as “less than” what it should have been or even as a complete failure? How many times have we said that we “really screwed up” on that one? How many times have we belittled or diminished our contribution to the co-creative process of life? It is a habit we are taught young (“we’re all sinners worthy of death”, “there’s nothing we can do to get into God’s good graces and it’s only his mercy that allows us to live”, “we’re born with original sin on our souls”, etc.) often by religion and it’s a habit that is very difficult to break.

    I’d be willing to bet that there are those who are saying “So what? As long as I don’t voice my thoughts or hurt someone else’s feelings with what I’m thinking, no harm done!”

    But God and science tell us energy is neither created nor destroyed: it simply changes form! So your thoughts are energy that you’re putting out into the world and that energy, if it’s judgmental or moralizing, is helping to co-create the reality in which all of us live.

    It takes being completely aware and in the moment at all times to catch yourself doing the moralizing and judging that the vast majority 0f us do without a second thought. Take the time before you think a thought or speak it aloud to ask “What would Love do?” or, even simpler for some, “Is this how I would want to be treated or thought of?”

    Try, for one hour, to pay attention to every thought that comes into your head. See how many of them are truly judgmental or moralizing and figure out what you can replace that thought with. Sometimes a simple “Bless you” is more than enough.

  • While some weep, others condemn

    The end result of judgment is condemnation.  Human beings feel the need to judge others as a means of justifying their own moral compass.  I understand how deeply ingrained this process is in all of us. From the earliest age, we are taught this distorted truth.  I am not entirely sure why we don’t trust the moral compasses of our individual children to be expressed and experimented with on their own, yet my eyes see that most of the time we do not.

    I do wish, believe, and hope that as we evolve as a species we will begin to trust that our children are here on a soul journey of their own and they are fully capable of determining what their own belief system is.

    Kahlil Gibran wrote:

    “Your children are not your children.
    They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
    They come through you but not from you,
    And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

     

    My thoughts today are on the drug-related death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Much has been said by media and fans as well as others who are comfortable expressing their comments in media articles.  The expressions are as wide and diverse as you would imagine on this very difficult-to-understand topic.philip seymour hoffman

    There are those who say we should sympathize with Philip’s losing battle with addiction and those who say fooey on addiction, he was a degenerate druggie who got what he deserved. Whatever your take on this is, I feel it is important to dialogue about it.  The thing I notice is that for every opinion, there seems to be a lack of willingness to expand our individual perspective about drugs and addiction.

    I get that drug use is not easy for the non-user to understand.  I don’t ask those people to offer up any sympathy or expect any helping hand from them.  But why is the judgment and condemnation necessary?  Why make it personal?  What is it that causes someone who believes that addicts are just morally corrupt degenerates to stoop to name-calling and viciousness?

    These very same people who look down on the heroin user may have more sympathy for an alcoholic or person who smokes cigarettes.  There is literally no difference. More people die today from prescription drug overdoses than of illegal narcotics.  Alcohol is the single most offensive chemical to the human race, and it is legal!

    Just to remind you, CwG Book 1,

    “And if you’ve ever taken alcohol into your body, you have very little will to live. The body was not meant to intake alcohol. It impairs the mind.”  Alcohol, prescription or illegal drugs (yes, pot included.)  God, although with no judgment, clearly tells us the path to self-awareness is through keeping a clear and unimpaired mind.”

    It is my vision that someday our best chances for ridding humanity from the scourge of addiction will be the understanding of the root cause of addiction.

    I believe that the book Communion with God could offer us the way to make my vision a reality.  When our children are gently guided to their own truths instead of us ushering down the data that was passed down to us by our elders, maybe then we can start making some inroads.

    Genetics seems to play some role in addiction, as does environment and the sheer addictiveness of some drugs. But what is really going on is that the majority of humans have no understanding of who they are, what they are here for, or where we are from.  We have made it up that we are here to learn something, or to do something.  But what is always missing is the part where we BE something.   Most people never even hear this concept.

    I take the road of weeping the drug-related death of Mr. Hoffman.  I believe that he chose this departure time and method. Not because he was selfish, or uncaring.  He chose this because humanity needed the exposure that he could give to the disease of addiction.  Some say, “How could he leave those 3 children behind without a father?”  I can see how they would say that, from the limited perspective of the mind; yet the soul knows the bigger picture. The soul understands that time is only a construct of the human condition.  I also believe that the co-creation cannot be understood by the mind.

    The human mind looks at someone who is sad and sees something “wrong.”  The Soul looks at sadness with joy, for it is truly the physical expression for love.  Yes, some will carry painful baggage away from this human event. Yet others will carry life experience away that otherwise could not have been had.

    I am going to close this blog with food for thought.  The following conversation from CwG, Book 2, caused me to think deeply about events that occur and what they may mean to me and society as a whole.  I would really enjoy having a dialogue about this:

    “God:  There is only one of you, but you are much larger than you think!

    Neale:  So when the “me” that exists now” changes something he doesn’t like about his “future,” the “me” that exists in the “future” no longer has that as part of his experience?

    God:  Essentially yes. The whole mosaic changes. But he never loses the experience he’s given himself. He’s just relieved and happy that “you” don’t have to go through that.”

    (Kevin McCormack, C.A.d ,is a certified addictions professional and auriculotherapist.  He is a recovering addict with 26 years of sobriety. Kevin is a practicing auriculotherapist, recovery coach, and interventionist specializing in individual and family recovery.  Kevin has a passion for holistic living, personal awareness training, and physical meditation. You can visit his website Life After Addicton for more information. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Are we honoring ALL life forms?

    In the Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark, several school children and families gathered around to watch the body of a perfectly healthy baby giraffe named Marius be skinned and chopped up before being fed to the lions.  According to the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, Marius was genetically too similar to the other giraffes in its breeding program. Because captive animals are bred from a limited gene pool, zoos are monitored to prevent inbreeding and ensure the health of future generations.

    giraffe

    Despite protests, online petitions, rescue offers, and tenders of up to $680,000 from outside sources hoping to spare Marius’s young life, this peaceful 18-month-old giraffe was deemed “surplus” by the zoo administrators and sentenced to death with a bolt gun.   Lethal injection would have contaminated the flesh, making its carcass unusable and inedible.

    A spokesman from the Copenhagen Zoo said parents were given the option to decide whether their children should watch what they have labeled “an important display of scientific knowledge about animals.”  Many parents thought the butchering of this baby giraffe was an experience that their children would benefit from watching.  And just as families are known to gather alongside the street to watch a parade, these parents gathered together and encircled the horrific event with their kids at their sides, some grimacing, some taking photos.

    “I’m actually proud because I think we have given children a huge understanding of the anatomy of a giraffe that they wouldn’t have had from watching a giraffe in a photo,” Tobias Stenbaek Bro told The Associated Press.

    Bengt Holst, the zoo’s scientific director, compared the situation to the way parks cull deer to keep the whole population healthy.  He said, “Giraffes today breed very well, and when they do, you have to choose and make sure the ones you keep are the ones with the best genes. The most important factor must be that the animals are healthy physically and behaviorally and that they have a good life while they are living, whether this life is long or short.”

    According to Danish media, Copenhagen Zoo destroys 20-30 animals a year, including bears, tigers and zebras.  Elisa Allen, spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in the U.K., said Marius’ case should serve as a wake-up call for anyone who “still harbors the illusion that zoos serve any purpose beyond incarcerating intelligent animals for profit.”

    Undoubtedly, this story is stirring up strong feelings and igniting conversations around the world over whether the zoo’s actions were cruel, unnecessary, and inhumane, and also whether the young children who witnessed the slaughtering of Marius experienced it as an “educational opportunity” or something much more alarming and life-changing.

    Within the messages of Conversations With God, we were told that “you shall know that you have taken the path to God, and you shall know that you have found God, for there will be these signs, these indications, these changes in you” – The 10 Commitments.  Number 5 in those Commitments is the following:

    “You know you have found God when you observe that you will not murder (that is, willfully kill, without cause).  For while you will understand that you cannot end another’s life in any event (all life is eternal), you will not choose to terminate any particular incarnation, nor change any life energy from one form to another, without the most sacred justification.  Your new reverence for life will cause you to honor all life forms – including plants, trees and animals – and to impact them only when it is for the highest good.”

    When we intentionally kill a baby giraffe – or any life form, for that matter – because it no longer enhances the gene pool, does that serve the highest good?  When we teach our children that some forms of life are more important or less important than other life forms, does that serve the highest good?  When we demonstrate to our children that “less valuable” or “surplus” life forms are easily and uncaringly disposed of, does that serve the highest good?  What is the highest good in this situation?   Are we able to stretch our spiritual understandings far enough and wide enough to see what that highest good or sacred justification may actually be?

    Your thoughts?

    (Lisa McCormack is a Feature Editor at The Global Conversation and lives in Orlando, Florida.  To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

  • How can I keep my resolution to stand in my truth?

    I attended a spiritual retreat earlier this year. Afterward, I had all this strength and clarity and felt so strong! I made a decision to leave my husband, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time because the marriage was a mistake from the beginning. When I got home I told him, and it felt really good to start living my truth and moving my life in the right direction. But then I lost my resolve and let him talk me out of it, because trying to figure out all the details of a divorce seems overwhelming. I feel terrible because I really don’t want to be with him anymore. How can I get back on track and stay there?… Carly

    Dear Carly,

    It is said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. When making a big change in your life, don’t try to figure it all out at once. Just take it one step at a time, thanking God for guiding you every step of the way. Your feelings are your guidance and they come directly from God, via your Soul. God puts them there to guide you toward the most joyous life you can live, but the longer you continue to disregard the feelings that don’t feel good to you, the longer you postpone your joy.

    You already followed the first two steps of Truth-telling: “Tell your truth about yourself to yourself” and “tell your truth about yourself to another”. Yet, you say you’ve wavered in your resolve to act on it. Is it still your truth that you want to leave your husband? Knowing that this is a major decision in your life, please, once again, do some deep Soul searching about it. Then if it is still your truth, you may need to repeat that to your husband, as lovingly and compassionately as you can. You might soften the blow by telling him that relationships don’t ever end—they only change form. Endings can be very hard, so sometimes it’s easier if we think of them as changes, not endings. “We’re changing the way we interact together…”

    The way to stay on track is to stay in touch with your Soul, which knows all. You can’t figure this all out at the level of Mind, because the Mind’s information is so limited. However that works for you—prayer, meditation, yoga, walking in nature, chanting… whatever—make it a top priority every day. Better yet, make every waking moment a conversation with God. Learn to trust the wisdom of the Voice within you, knowing it is Divine Intelligence at work in your life. The more you follow that “still, small voice”, the happier you’ll be. And worry not about your husband, because he also has access to all the wisdom in the world. God is always with him too.

    Last but not least, you might find this mantra helpful as you encounter challenges along the way:

    “Thank you, God, for helping me remember that this problem has already been solved for me.”

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Life Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@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.)

    An additional resource:  The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services.  The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions.  What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God.  It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.

  • My Aching Heart

     

    My heart is aching.  My heart is aching for men and women all over the world who have ever been asked to kill for their country or their god.

    On every medium I chance upon these days, there is some message urging support of our troops.  Or support of our veterans.  Or telling me of the horrible things veterans endured for my freedom. Or urging me to send money, letters, packages to active duty soldiers.

    I watch television (I know, that might just be my first mistake, right?), and I see war, and violence and the glorification of dying for a “cause”.  Every time I do, I see painfully accurate portrayals of what I have seen in my life.  I see “that look” in the eyes of a man who has had to kill and who must bury what he really felt in order to survive.  I see stories similar to when a friend of mine, after being home from Vietnam for a number of years, could not contain his secret within himself any longer…he had to unburden having videoed himself, as a gunner on a helicopter, shooting the “enemy”.  I see television shows and movies putting on little “morality” plays over and over, laying out before us the real damage done by asking a person to harm another…most recently in the show “Homeland”, where a main character is actually relieved to be released from the torture in his mind from the things his country asked him to commit, and this relief shows on his face as he is hung in a public square.  They show us these things over and over, but all that seems to stick is that it is good to die for your country, or your cause…the personal results are yours, as an individual, to deal with.

    Then I look around and I see the literally wounded in my community.  I see the statistics of the number of soldiers of recent conflicts suffering from a myriad of mental and physical diseases.  I see stories of ex military snapping.  I see the statistics of homeless veterans.  I hear from a man who recruits for the Houston Police Department that they rarely recruit military any more because they are too damaged and too violent.  I witnessed, as a juror in traffic court, a young man so traumatized by his tours in Afghanistan that even watching the video of being ticketed by a police officer caused him to tremble and fight back his tears…and this while on antidepressant and anti anxiety medication!

    Fast forward from other times, from past conflicts, and I see aging veterans with military bumper stickers identifying the branch of the military they served in, and wearing baseball hats emblazoned with the war they served in whilst in military service.  They join lodges, they have reunions of those with similar experiences…and, of course, they have to do this, because how else can they “speak” of the things that torture them, except by not having to speak at all, because all surrounding them know exactly what they know.  It is also who they identify themselves as being, as powerfully as they identify themselves as being father, husband, son or daughter.

    The United States (indeed, the world!) has done a good job of indoctrination.  They have created a “brotherhood” (and now sisterhood), that lasts a lifetime.  This brotherhood, in our current world, with relationships of all kind being ripped asunder…parents from children, husband from wife, teachers not trusted any longer…having one thing, one brotherhood, they can count on, is immensely appealing.  I get that.  The military teaches so many things, like discipline, selflessness, loyalty, patriotism, duty,…and that most illusive of all things, how to keep your room clean!  I get that it seems to be necessary these days, but why?  How is it that this mystique has been built up so successfully around killing and death?  How has it become honorable to kill and die for your country?

    What have we done?!  What have we done to the young that one of the main bonding arenas in this world is found in institutions that promote these things?  Why are we willing to sacrifice our young for patriotism?  or money?  or land?  or God?

    Further, why would I even consider asking someone to die for my freedom to be against killing…if I am not willing to stand, unarmed, passively, and die for what I believe.  In other words, how can I ask someone to defend what I believe, by doing that in which I do not believe?

    Because we believe it is what God does.  Because we believe it is what God asks of us.  “Onward Christian Soldiers” and jihad, might makes right, and all of the similar things that have been placed into our consciousness from the time we were little.

    These soldiers are not monsters!  They do what they do because they sincerely and completely believe they are doing the honorable thing.  In fact, they ARE honorable…but are they being honorably informed and motivated?  I do not believe so.

    I think that we can certainly find evidence of new forms of information available to us, guiding us to our inner knowing of killing one another for “honor” of any kind is not our true nature, but we all tend to gravitate to what we know…after we have been told what we believe.  Which means, to me, that we must inform the informers that their information is, as CWG says, incomplete.

    Support and love the veteran now that he/she has given their gift to you…but give them a gift in return.  Go to your places of worship and question out loud how a merciful, all loving, God would ever ask anyone to die for It.  Ask yourself, consciously, how harming your child in any way, could ever be what God would ask of you, or direct you to do.  Go to your schools and question the history books.  Become involved in Spiritual Politics, requiring your elected representatives to have a broad understanding of Oneness.  Suggest to elected officials that soldiers can be of “service” in many more ways than those requiring killing…natural disaster relief comes to mind.

    Why?  How is this your gift for their service?  It is your gift, because you will refuse to ask their children to die.

    I read an article recently about a pilot who, many years after his plane was shot down, met the man who shot him down.  He ends the story of this reunion with this:

    “There’s so much misunderstanding in the world resulting in unnecessary sorrow. Having…—a positive, joyful family—in my life has altered my perspective. It may sound trite, but if only there were a way for all the religious, cultural, and ethnic groups of the world to meet and get to know one another in a meaningful way—the way (he) and I have—how could we ever go to war again?”

    Good question…how could we?  Why do we?  When will we give men and women something better to identify with for a lifetime?

    (Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of, and Spiritual Helper at, the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com  She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)