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  • The Power of Words

    I have a daily practice of saying affirmations. I publish a new affirmation on my Facebook account every day (ok, on most days….). Affirmations are a way in which we can “reprogram” our subconscious mind, replacing thoughts that no longer support our highest goals.

    I hear so many people say something to the effect of, “Simply repeating the same thing over and over to yourself isn’t going to change anything! It can’t be that easy!”

    And yet these are the same people who are wearing “Duck Dynasty” hats, “Keep Calm and (fill in the blank)” T-shirts and who hum the latest jingle to their favorite fast food restaurant as they wait in the drive through to order.

    The Bible says “In the beginning was the Word.” Words are what creates. We first have a thought, which is nothing more than “silent words”, and those words are energy that is put out into the universe and when enough energy surrounding those words accumulates, those words take physical form.

    You’re frustrated at work yet you say nothing. Every day, your frustration level increases. Soon you begin to notice that you’re having stomach problems or your blood pressure is rising. These are physical manifestations of your thoughts of frustration.

    You think of a new idea for a more efficient way of doing something at work. You spend time putting together a presentation for your boss. She loves the idea and your original thoughts are now a new company policy and you have a nice bonus check to bank.

    You want to try skydiving, but you keep thinking “What if the chute doesn’t open?” or “What if I land in a tree?” and soon those thoughts create a real fear and you don’t ever go skydiving.

    There is an undeniable trend in society today: we are becoming more and more violent.  We see this violence manifested in our lives every day: mass shootings— some by children, suicide bombings, car bombings, people murdered over the clothes they’re wearing, road rage….

    Some say that art imitates life, but I’m of the belief that it goes both ways: life also mirrors art. The movies we go to see, the video games we play, the television shows we TIVO so we don’t miss a single episode, the books we read, the music we listen to— all have become so much more violent.

    The lyrics of some major artists like Eminem (among many others!) glorify the beating, degradation and even rape of women.

    Television shows, especially “reality TV” shows like Survivor and Big Brother, glorify lying, cheating, backstabbing and deception in order to win lots of money. “True life” shows like “Wives with Knives” and “Deadly Affairs” (among many, many others) make murder and violence a big money venture.  Other reality shows, like “American Idol” and “The Bachelor” take special pains to show some of the participants in their worst possible light, some even making entire episodes that are devoted to making fun of someone for following their dream.

    Video games, wherein a player gets to rape a prostitute or steal cars or shoot gays or burn down buildings, are being played by children who are far too young to understand the difference between fantasy and reality. The traditional joystick has been replaced by guns or steering wheels or “wands” that recognize the realistic movements one must make to accomplish what their character onscreen is doing, thus blurring even further for some the difference between reality and fantasy.

    Of course, the makers/publishers/producers/directors/writers of these violent media products deny that these have any influence on the level of violence in society. They say that they’re only giving the people what they want. Then they turn around and spend $4 million dollars on a 30 second commercial to play during the Superbowl because they understand the power of advertising and the power of words to influence what you buy and what you think.

    And that is the paradox with the power of words. Until you recognize that words only have the power that you give them, words have an enormous power over what you think, what you feel, what you believe and what you do. The more you understand that the power of words is in your control, the less power words have over you.

    We have been inundated with words from birth. These words, because we do not yet understand that words have no power over us, affect what we think, feel, believe and do. And we hear them repeatedly, time after time after time. The average person in today’s western society sees more than 240 images every day that are specifically aimed at advertising.  That’s not including the ones our brain does not register.  We’re hearing these messages over and over and whether we want to admit it or not, if we’re not doing something to consciously prevent it, those messages are becoming part of our subconscious thinking and directly influences our behavior and our thinking patterns. (There’s a reason subliminal advertising is illegal!)

    And so we come back full circle to the use of affirmations. Affirmations combat those messages from advertisers that say we can’t be happy unless we buy their product or we won’t be pretty unless we use this make up or we won’t find our true love unless we use this perfume or  we’ll lose our partner to another if we don’t know how to perform this particular act.

    Affirmations are taking conscious control of our subconscious. We are reprogramming the subconscious and building a wall of protection around it that limit the influence that media input of all sorts has on what the subconscious believes. In doing so, we are creating our own reality in which our happiness doesn’t depend on anyone or anything but ourselves. In which Love is not measured in how many times we have sex or how big the ring is on our finger. In which success is not determined by how big the house we live in or the label of the clothes we wear or the kind of car in our garage. In which beauty is not determined by weight, the appearance of age, the color of our hair or whether we have “flawless” skin. In which the world of peace and harmony and brotherly love that we all profess we want to live in becomes reality.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Billionaire’s crusade to un-gay his daughter

    Hong Kong billionaire Cecil Chao is offering $130 million – double his earlier offer in 2012 of $65 million — to any man who can turn his lesbian daughter, Gigi, straight.  In response to Chao’s extravagant dowry, over 20,000 would-be suitors have crawled out of the woodwork, hoping to be the man who finally succeeds in un-gaying Gigi Chao and winning the grand prize.

    Despite the fact that two years ago Gigi married the love of her life and partner of nine years, Sean Eav, Cecil Chao still insists that his daughter is single.  He said that he did not want to interfere with his daughter’s private life, but that he wanted her to have “a good marriage and children.”

    Gigi Chao, an executive director at her father’s property development company, part-time pilot, and founder of anti-poverty charity Faith in Love Foundation, has maintained throughout her father’s persistent quest that she knows he is only doing it out of love and concern.  “I understand that he loves me, it’s just he’s from another time and it’s difficult for him to understand the plight of the LGBT.”

    Billionaire playboy Cecil Chao, who claims to have slept with over 10,000 women himself, says, “I would not force her to marry a man. But obviously I would, from my point of view, prefer her to be married and to have grandchildren.”

    Ms. Chao has demonstrated a high level of understanding in response to her father’s very public and peculiar theatrics.  In an open letter to him, she said, ““I am comfortable and satisfied with my life and completely at ease with her. My regret is that you have no idea how happy I am with my life, and there are aspects of my life that you don’t share. I suppose we don’t need each other’s approval for our romantic relationships, and I am sure your relationships are really fantastic too … However, I do love my partner Sean, who does a good job of looking after me, ensuring I am fed, bathed and warm enough every day, and generally cheering me up to be a happy, jolly girl. She is a large part of my life, and I am a better person because of her. Now, I’m not asking you to be best of friends; however, it would mean the world to me if you could just not be so terrified of her, and treat her like a normal, dignified human being.”  She also added, ““I would be happy to befriend any man willing to donate huge amounts of money to my charity Faith in Love, provided they don’t mind that I already have a wife. Third and lastly, thank you Daddy, I love you too.”

    So here we are once again presented with another example of someone attempting to squeeze love into a one-size-fits-all box.  Here we are once again standing witness to the obscenely wealthy’s weaponization of money, using it to control and exert power over others, including those who are willing to take the bait.  And here we are once again collectively observing another loving relationship being told that it is broken, bad, insufficient, unworthy, and wrong.

    How must it feel to not only have your partnership publicly dismissed, but to further suggest that its legitimacy or authenticity could be proven invalid by someone who was paid top dollar to do so?

    How do we create a world where the idea that love could be manipulated, controlled, or bought simply does not exist?

    Sure, in the way we have constructed our society, there are a lot of things money can buy and does buy.  But is someone else’s sexuality really one of them?   Can even the upper crust of the world’s most elite and financially influential have that capability and the power to do so?

    (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.)

  • Please stand with us now. Please.

    When I was in junior high, my daddy had a heart attack. The medical bills piled up, and we lost our family station wagon.

    So my mother did what she had to do: She went to work answering the phones at Sears. The job paid only minimum wage, but it was enough to make sure we could keep our home.

    If minimum wage had kept up with productivity gains since that time, it would be $22 an hour today. But it didn’t – and today millions of hard-working moms and dads work full-time and still live in poverty.

    No one should work full-time and live below the poverty line. That’s why the Democratic women of the Senate have joined together to say it plain: It’s time to raise the minimum wage. Please stand with us now, and urge Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.

    To me (and probably you), raising the minimum wage is a no-brainer. We know that if hard-working families have money in their pockets they will be able to help grow the economy.

    Why should people work two or three jobs and still struggle to make ends meet? Why should people who work full-time have to count on food stamps to feed their families?

    This is the answer: Raising the minimum wage would cut into the profits of those who have already made it, and they have an army of lawyers and an army of lobbyists to make certain that the system stays rigged in their favor.

    Powerful interests might need to be dragged kicking and screaming to raise the minimum wage, but I’m going to keep fighting – and so are the rest of the Democratic women in the United States Senate.

    Please stand with the Democratic women of the Senate now – and urge Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.

    When I was growing up, full-time work would keep your family out of poverty. Now, the game is rigged against working families.

    Raising the minimum wage is one way we can start to level the playing field. Change like this is hard, and I can’t guarantee the success of our efforts. But I know this: If you don’t fight, you can’t win. So let’s fight.

    Thank you for being a part of this.

    U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
    Massachusetts

     

  • The President Fails to Mention
    The Real Problem

    U.S. President Barack Obama’s State of the Union message, in our opinion, fell short in at least one area. The elected leader of one of the most powerful nations on Earth failed to give even passing mention to the cause of all of the difficulties and problems that he said he was committed to solving with or without Congress.

    With an audience estimated at 30 million, the chief executive of the United States said not a word about what’s true in America — and, for that matter, around the world.

    Even a casual observer can see that not a single one of the systems, institutions and devices that humanity has put into place to create a better life for all is functioning in a way that has generated this outcome.

    It’s worse than that. They’ve actually generated exactly the opposite.

    Our political systems — created to produce safety and security for the world’s people — have generated widespread disagreement and disarray.

    Our economic systems — created to produce opportunity and sufficiency for all — have generated increasing poverty and massive economic inequality, with 85 of the world’s richest people holding more wealth than 3.5 billion…that’s half the planet’s population combined.

    Our ecological systems — created to help us produce a sustainable lifestyle — have been abused to the point where they have generated environmental disasters right and left.

    Our educational systems — created to lift higher and higher the knowledge base of the planet’s population — have generated such a drop in global awareness and sensitivity that each year our intellectual common denominator seems to sink lower and lower. We can’t even remember our own telephone numbers anymore, or how to spell equanimity, much less produce it.

    Our health care systems — created in hopes of producing a good and long life for an increasingly higher percentage of people worldwide — have done little to eliminate global inequality of access to modern medicines and health care services, thus providing the highest level medical services each year to an insufficient and unsatisfactory percentage of the global population.

    Our social systems — created to produce the joy of community and harmony among a divergent population –have generated (and in some cases even encouraged) discordance, disparity, prejudice, and despair.

    And, most sadly dysfunctional of all, our spiritual systems — created to produce a greater closeness to God, and so, to each other — have generated bitter righteousness, shocking intolerance, widespread anger, deep-seated hatred, and self-justified violence.

    What gives here? What’s going on with the human race that it cannot see itself even as it looks at itself? Where is humanity’s blind spot?

    Might it have to do with our understanding about God, and our relationship to God?

    Yes, I’ve mentioned God here because, in my opinion, unless we change our minds about God — about who God is and what God wants and who we are in relationship to God and to each other — none of the problems that Mr. Obama mentioned in his January speech are going to be solved. They may perhaps — perhaps — be given a band-aid, but they will continue to plague humankind as they have for lo, these many years.

    For a country that declares itself to be “one nation, under God,” the leaders in Washington, and local political leaders across the land are doing a remarkable job of ignoring the topic of God when considering how to meet our collective challenges. They appear to be trying to solve our problems at every level except the level at which those problems exist.

    The problems facing us are not political problems, and they are not economic problems, and they are surely not military problems. The problems facing us are spiritual problems. They have to do with what we believe about ourselves, about our world, and about God.

    Specifically, the vast majority of humans adhere to the belief that we are separate from God, and separate from each other. It is this idea of separation that is killing us.

    As we said in our headline story here on January 15: Might this be a fine stretch of eternity during which to declare that there is clearly something we don’t fully understand about God and about Life, the understanding of which would change everything?

    To put it more dramatically, is it possible that unless we enlarge and expand our primitive ideas about God and about Life in the decades just ahead, we may find that we have backed ourselves into a corner, from which there is no escape?

    Conversations with God told us that humanity nearly rendered itself extinct once before. Barely enough of us survived to regenerate the species and start over. Are we at this same turning point again? Have we arrived once more at the intersection where theology meets cosmology meets sociology meets pathology?

    Right now we are still embracing a Separation Theology. That is, a way of looking at God that insists that we are “over here” and God is “over there.”

    The problem with a Separation Theology is that it produces a Separation Cosmology. That is, a way of looking at all of life that says that everything is separate from everything else.

    And a Separation Cosmology produces a Separation Psychology. That is, a psychological viewpoint that says that I am over here and you are over there.

    And a Separation Psychology produces a Separation Sociology. That is, a way of socializing with each other that encourages the entire human society to act as separate entities serving their own separate interests.

    And a Separation Sociology produces a Separation Pathology. That is, pathological behaviors of self-destruction, engaged in individually and collectively, and producing suffering, conflict, violence, and death by our own hands—as evidenced everywhere on our planet throughout human history.

    Only when our Separation Theology is replaced by a Oneness Theology will our pathology be healed. We have been differentiated from God, but not separated from God, even as your fingers are differentiated but not separated from your hand.

    We must come to understand that all of life is One. This is the first step. It is the jumping-off point. It is the beginning of the end of how things now are. It is the start of a new creation, of a new tomorrow. It is the New Cultural Story of Humanity.

    Oneness is not a characteristic of life. Life is a characteristic of Oneness. This is what we have not understood about our existence on the Earth, the understanding of which would change everything.

    Life is the expression of Oneness Itself. God is the expression of Life Itself. God and Life are One. You are a part of Life. You do not and cannot stand outside of it. Therefore you are a part of God. It is a circle.

    It cannot be broken.

  • Worldwide Discussion:
    5th GRADERS TOLD: PARENTS HAVE
    NO MONEY? YOU GET NO LUNCH

    Some 30 to 40 children at Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City were told as they came to the end of the cafeteria line last Tuesday that they could not have their lunch because their parents did not have enough money in their school account.

    The children’s lunches were taken out of their hands and thrown into the garbage, according to a report from CNN affiliate KSL. Students and parents reported the incident, and school officials confirmed the astonishing events.

    Parents pay for school lunches by placing money in their child’s school lunch account, officials explained, and if the account runs dry, the school cannot provide the child lunch.

    A fifth-grader name Sophia was met by a school district nutrition manager, she said, who took her lunch and threw it away and told her to “go get a milk.” When the child asked what was going on, she said she was handed an orange and told: “You don’t have any money in your account, so you can’t have lunch.”

    The lunch was thrown away because once it is on a tray carried by a student, it can’t be retrieved and given to someone else, but must be discarded, cafeteria employees later confirmed.

    More than 30 children faced this experience at Uintah Elementary School on Tuesday, all of told in front of other students and staff that because their parents hadn’t kept their accounts paid up, they were having their lunches taken away.

    Some students and school staff members were reportedly in tears over the incident, the KSL news story said.

    Two Utah state senators who visited the school on Thursday said that the employee responsible for taking the action against the children should be fired if found after due process to have acted as it has been reported—and as school officials have confirmed—because that person “used (their) power to humiliate and embarrass children.”

    But it isn’t the first or only time such a thing has happened in U.S. public schools, according to a story on Jan. 30 by Annie-Rose Strasser for the website Think Progress.

    “In November, a Texas middle school student’s lunch was thrown away because he was 30 cents short on payment,” the news story said.

    Strasser’s story goes on to point out that “depriving children of food — and embarrassing them in front of their peers — isn’t the only option. In Boston, for example, public schools provide all students with cost-free breakfast and lunch no matter what their financial situation.”

    “Boston is the largest city to participate in a national program called Community Eligibility Option that waives meal fees for all students. It’s also being implemented in Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, and parts of New York City,” a September story at ThinkProgress.org said.

    Utah school officials this week did not deny that what students reported last Tuesday is exactly what occurred, and they told students and parents they were sorry. “It was wrong. It should not have happened, and we apologize that it did,” Salt Lake City School District spokesman Jason Olsen said Thursday.

    Another way needs to be found to deal with lunch accounts that have fallen to zero, parents, school officials, and state political leaders agree.

    It feels to me that in a spiritually evolved society it would be incomprehensible that a child would be denied food for lack of money. Why all school systems don’t do what Boston does is unclear — except that in America’s increasingly “every-man-for-himself, you’re-on-your-own” society, the Boston example may be simply going out of style.

    What’s the great American saying? “There’s no free lunch.” Apparently. Not even for a fifth-grader — or a middle school student 30-cents short.

    All this, in a world where 85 people hold more wealth than 3.5 billion — half of the rest of the global combined.

    Enough, already.

    Enough.

  • Are we overlooking an important part of our humanity?

    This past weekend marks the beginning of a controversial program sanctioned by the government in Western Australia which permits the culling and killing of Great White Sharks.  This “culling and killing” program, which uses hooked lines attached to floating drums to cull sharks in its waters, is the Australian government’s response to a seven fatal shark attacks over the past three years off the coast of their country.

    In Orlando, Florida, a woman walking her two small dogs along the eastern boundary of the Wekiva River Buffer Conservation area was mauled by a black bear who had unknowingly wandered outside the perimeter of her heavily treed home with her young cub at her side.  The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s response to what they are calling an “unprovoked attack” was to trap and then kill two black bears a week later, both of whom “fit the description” of the bear involved in the attack.

    In Africa, an estimated 20,000+ elephants a year are illegally killed by poachers who look to profit financially by cutting off their tusks to sell the precious ivory in the black market.  The widespread slaughter of these majestic creatures is triggered by greedy hunters looking to capitalize and fueled by the demands of people who are willing to pay top dollar for the disturbingly coveted body parts.  With an estimated 90 percent of its elephants lost to poaching in the last half-century, African elephants may one day be facing extinction.

    The examples of abuse and massacring of the animals and mammals who occupy this beautiful planet earth with us is distressing and creates an opportunity for meaningful discussion.  We seem to have done a fairly adequate job of understanding how our relationships work with each other on a human level, at least in a broad sense.  So why are we having such a difficult time understanding how to be in a relationship with these magnificent creatures?  How is it that we seem to be missing entirely the intended purpose for our cohabitation and coexistence? I suppose the argument could be made that their presence in our lives is merely for our consumption, our comfort, and our amusement, but I’m sensing that there is something much more important going on here than simply that.

    After the release of the “Blackfish” documentary, people began protesting and boycotting Sea World for the capture and captivity of killer whales; yet at the same time we are killing sharks in their own natural environment for doing what they naturally do.  We run the sharp blades of our recreational motor boats over the backs of gentle manatees in their native home, the warm rivers of Florida, severely maiming or killing them, and then turn around and sharply criticize the organization who has rehabilitated and released thousands of these wounded peaceful mammals back into their natural habitats:  Sea World.

    What the heck are we doing?

    If we continue to expand and build upon the lands where so many of these animals live and eat and breed, if we continue to squeeze them out of their natural environments to accommodate our desire for another strip mall or more high-rise condominiums, where do we expect them to go?  What do we expect them to do?  What will happen if we continue to adorn ourselves with the furs of minks, fox, and chinchillas?   What will happen if we continue to train pit bulls to fight to the death or if we continue to frequent and financially support the local Greyhound dog track, hoping to win big on the next race?  What will happen if we insist on continuing to be entertained by rodeos where harsh handling practices, such as twisting calves’ tails or painful electric shocks and tightly cinched bucking straps, are implemented to make animals run faster or buck harder?

    I’m just wondering.  Because it seems to me we are truly missing an important part of our humanity here, some aspect of who we really are that is being overlooked or misunderstood or unawakened.  Might there be a much larger reason, a more divine reason, for why we have been given the extraordinary opportunity to share this thing called Life with these furry, scaly, finned, and feathered friends?  And if so, what might that be?

    (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 stop feeling sad all the time?

    My assistant at my job who I became very close friends with, sabotaged me at work (I loved my job) and with my boyfriend who I was potentially going to marry. I never put it together until ultimately my boyfriend broke up with me, and the company I worked with for 27 years asked me to resign. Needless to say, I have been very sad for a long time and have been searching for healing, answers, something to help me feel good again, feel happy again, put those awful memories behind me, or I pray to bring my ex back but it’s never happened. She ruined my career and my life. I still relive, rethink the memories and feel so sad all the time. How can I get past this?… Cindy

    Dear Cindy… I am very sorry you went through such a heart-breaking event. You had a triple whammy, really: losing a friend you loved and trusted, losing the man you loved enough to marry, and losing a long-time job you loved. Wow. It’s certainly easy to see why you have been searching for healing and answers and a way to feel good again.

    You say you’ve been carrying this deep sadness for a long time. My question is, for how long? It is normal and healthy to feel sad during times of loss, and for some time afterward. It is not normal and healthy, however, to continue to feel deep sadness long after an event is over, and to continue to dwell on it. In doing so, you are actually continuing to create the sadness in your mind. Has this sadness become depression for you? If so, you may need to see a psychiatrist to help treat it, at least temporarily. On the other hand, if you don’t think you are clinically depressed, then as a spiritual life coach I would say it is time to become pro-active and to take your joy back. I would invite you to notice that that was then and this is now.

    You say that your assistant ruined your career. While it may be true that she sabotaged you at that particular job, can you absolutely know that your entire career is ruined? Is it out of the realm of possibility for you to ever work in that type of job again, but with a different employer? What I’m trying to say is, a job is one thing; a career is another.

    Likewise regarding your statement that she ruined your life. Dear Cindy, no one, and I mean no one can ruin your life except for you. Do you know what hell is? Hell is what you are putting yourself through by continually re-living these painful memories! It is so important for all of us as human beings to stand at the portals of our minds—to consciously choose to stop dwelling on things that are unhealthy emotionally, spiritually and physically. It is up to us to stop thinking thoughts that don’t feel good. We all have this ability and it isn’t as difficult as it might seem, once we start noticing the painful thoughts and start choosing to say to ourselves, “I’ve thought about this long enough. It hasn’t changed anything. All it does is make me feel bad, so I’m just not going to think about this anymore.” Then we intentionally shift our focus to something that makes us feel better, which can be a thousand different things. It doesn’t matter what you start thinking about as long as it makes you smile, laugh or feel good. It also helps to do something fun. Watch a comedy show, listen to positive music, pet your cat, take your dog for a walk in the sunshine—anything that feels light and good.

    I get it, that you would like to understand why things happened the way they did, but if after all this time you haven’t come up with any good reason, then I invite you to allow yourself to move on, regardless. Given the benefit of time, surely some good thing will come as a result of it. For now, I invite you to trust that God knew exactly what It was doing when it brought you this experience. I invite you to rest in the knowledge that God doesn’t make mistakes and that everything that happens is for your highest good, or it wouldn’t be happening. I invite you to take charge of your thoughts and stop thinking about past pains. Start thinking about how you would like to start living now. There is great power in keeping our focus on the present moment, for when we continually dwell on the past (or the future, for that matter) we are robbing ourselves of the potential joy we could be experiencing now. We are depriving ourselves of the gift of life, the gift of the present moment. We aren’t really living at all when we do this. If we have tried and tried to understand something and we still don’t, then we just have to drop it and get on with this thing called life.

    Please read Neale’s book, Happier Than God. It contains 17 steps to being happy, and if you start to implement these, I promise you, it will change your outlook on life. Just as you have created your sadness by dwelling on sad thoughts, you can create happiness by dwelling on happy thoughts. You are the creator of your own reality, dear Cindy, and it’s time you take your life back. It’s time you re-claim the joy that is your birthright as a human being. Please, please read this book. I promise, if you follow its advice and if you take charge of your thoughts and refuse to dwell on the past anymore, you will feel happier and happier.

    You have manifested a great job and a wonderful man before, so you have proof that you can do it. If you can do it once, you can do it again because you have the consciousness of it. It will be much easier to find another dream job and another life partner when you are coming from joy because you will radiate that out into the world. And speaking of radiating joy out into the world, maybe the best thing I can tell you is this: Conversations With God says, if you want more joy in your life, the fastest way to have it is to be the source of joy for another. Take your focus off yourself, and start focusing on how you can bring happiness to others. The paradox is, when you brighten someone else’s day, you end up brightening your own.

    (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.

  • Justin, oh, Justin, what have we done?

    Ahhh…good old, poor old, Justin Bieber.  He has landed himself smack dab in the middle of the convergence of several double standards, hasn’t he?

    Here’s my take…

    On the one hand we raised him up, from the time he was little, and told him just how special he was.  We told him that because he was so special, and did such a good job of entertaining us that he could do virtually anything he desired…and we were going to give him the money to do so!

    Ooops!  Then we told him that, despite the fact that there were surely people who knew exactly the behavior he was getting caught up in, it is not okay to do this thing.  We love you, but there are invisible rules to the game that he should have just known don’t get covered and ignored because of his status as special!

    At the same time he got special status, because he is so special, and got allowed, as a Canadian National, into the United States to work and live, so that now he gets to be the target/example/representative of what is wrong with American immigration and deportation policies.

    Let’s not forget that because he is so special, and because he makes so much money and entertains us so well, it is entirely possible he will be treated in a manner very different than any other 19 year old citizen, but without money, in this country…and this is before throwing in that lovely wild card of skin color.

    Wow!  wouldn’t we all like to be so special?

    Our relationship with celebrity (or anyone who we perceive as “successful”) reminds me of our relationship with God.  In these cases WE are God…and we act as we have had demonstrated to us God acts.

    So just what has been demonstrated of God’s love and approval to us?

    First we are told how loved and lovable we are.

    Then we act as if we are as we were told, lovable and perfect in the Creators eyes, and we experiment with Life to figure out who we are.

    But then we cross that invisible line that says, whoa!  you’re special, but not THAT special!  Better watch out or there could be some pretty dramatic results in the end…eternal results!

    So, we give being special another go, but we keep an eye out for where that invisible line is, because we now know it is there…and, even though we don’t know it is what we are feeling, we are feeling just a little bit less special every time we stumble upon that line with God, and risk damnation with our next move.

    This is the little play we act out with people like Justin Bieber, or any of the others in the news lately.  We love to play God, and have the opportunity, finally, to be the one condemning rather than being the condemned.

    Here’s a twist, however…I have no problem with anyone “playing God”!  The problem I have is with how the part of God gets played by we Humans most of the time!  Yes, I capitalized “Human” in the same sentence as “God”.  I happen to believe we are individuations of the Divine, which gives us the opportunity to actually use our Humanity in a Divine manner.  We are not doing so.

    All of that aside, in my view, all that we consider “entertaining” is actually nothing more than “diverting”.  Turning our attention away from something to something else.  We hand our power to something other than ourselves.

    I think it is obvious what our attention is turned to, but from what?  At its core, quite simply, away from ourselves…away from our own thoughts, and our own Love.  We place it all outside of ourselves, and we reach out to find what will fill us, instead of looking in, with gratitude, at the great gift of this human experience that has been provided by Divinity.

    The outside is great!  If we view it all through the eyes of our Divine connection.  So let’s go one more step…let’s look at Justin Bieber as part of that Divine connection, and even while we notice what isn’t working in his life, love all that he is…because we did co-create the circumstances that resulted in this moment, didn’t we?

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

     

  • Worldwide Discussion:
    SHOCKING TRUTH REVEALED TO THE
    WORLD ABOUT HOW THINGS ARE

    How long will humanity allow this to go on…? The 85 richest people in the world own the same wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest people. That’s half of the Earth’s population.

    This mind-boggling statistic was released last week by Oxfam, the international organization that monitors life in Earth in many of its aspects, and reports to the world periodically about global conditions.

    Is creating this kind of disparity the way that a spiritually evolved species constructs its society? Or is this a model that could only be put in place by the primitive species of the Universe?

    That is the question placed before humanity today as billions suffer from not enough food to eat while fewer people than it would take to populate a fair-sized Manhattan cocktail party have enough wealth to end world poverty overnight.

    The plain and unassailable fact is that the global economy does not work to produce the outcome that human beings have imagined (or at least hoped) it was designed to produce.

    Indeed, even a casual observer can see that not one of the systems, institutions and devices that our species has put into place to create a better life for all is functioning in a way that generates this outcome.

    Our political systems clearly are not working. Our economic systems clearly are not working.  Our ecological systems clearly are not working. Our health care systems clearly are not working. Our educational systems clearly are not working. Our social systems clearly are not working. Our spiritual systems clearly are not working.

    Nothing that we have created is producing the outcomes that were intended. 

    It is worse than that. They are actually producing exactly the opposite.

    Our political systems are creating nothing but disagreement and disarray. Our economic systems are actually increasing poverty. Our ecological systems are generating environmental degradation. Our educational systems are failing to educate enough people in enough places to bring our species anywhere near the reaching of its full potential. Our health care systems are doing little to eliminate inequality of access to modern medicines and health care services. Our social systems are known to encourage disparity, prejudice, and injustice. And, perhaps most dysfunctional of all, our spiritual systems are producing intolerance, righteousness, anger, hatred, and violence.

    What gives here? What’s going on with the human race that it cannot see even as it looks at itself? Where is humanity’s blind spot?

    Might it be time to ask: “Is there be something we don’t fully understand here, the understanding of which would change everything?

    Does anybody even care about this global economic inequality? Does anybody care enough about it to do something about it? Does anybody think they can?

    Have we gotten to the point in our world where the conditions in our world are seen as being totally, completely, and utterly out of our hands? Have we given up? Simply given up?

    Is this what our spirituality calls us to do? Give up?

    Just wondering here…

  • Have we made God angry?

    Illinois Republican congressional candidate Susanne Atanus is asking you to believe that God is not only highly displeased with us, but that many of the life-threatening illnesses and precarious weather patterns we have been experiencing around the world are the direct result of an “angry God,” a God who means to inflict suffering upon thousands for the choices of wrongdoers.

    What could be making God so unhappy, so disappointed, so furious that He would categorically punish so many people in such widespread and catastrophic ways?

    The answer is clear and simple, according to Atanus:  “We are provoking him with abortions and same-sex marriage and civil unions,” she added, blaming natural disasters like tornadoes and diseases, including autism and dementia, on recent advances in the LGBT movement. “Same-sex activity is going to increase AIDS. If it’s in our military it will weaken our military. We need to respect God.”

    It feels almost silly to give Ms. Atanus’s diatribe any thoughtful attention, to shift even for a moment our focus and energy away from the places and people in our world who really need it. But if she believes this, truly believes this — and is publicly asking others to believe it, too — how many other people might there be out there that also feel this way?

    Well, apparently even those within her own conservative Republican party aren’t willing to stick their necks out as far as she has and have asked Atanus to drop out of the GOP primary for the 9th Congressional District.

    Jack Dorgan, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, called Susanne Atanus’ comments “offensive.”  “She has no place on the ballot as a Republican,” he said.  “Her candidacy is neither supported nor endorsed by the leaders of our party, and she should withdraw from the race immediately.”

    Adam Robinson, chairman of the Chicago Republican Party, said, “Atanus is not in any way affiliated with any of our efforts in the Chicago GOP, nor have we ever supported, endorsed, or assisted her in any way at any time.”

    But Atanus is not budging.  She adamantly refuses to drop out of the race, perplexed why the Republican party is not standing behind her.

    Is it possible that Ms. Atanus is only boldly verbalizing what many other people are thinking, but are just too afraid to say?  Is there that much of a divide between a God who would condemn a person for being gay and a God who would condemn a baby for not being baptized?  Are the conservatives who claim to be offended and righteously speaking out against Atanus also denying opportunities — and even God’s unconditional love — to these very same people by creating and defending laws which discriminate and deprive them of equal rights and freedoms?

    So how should we react to someone like Ms. Atanus?  Do we just ignore the hate-filled tirades and antics?  Do we look the other way because these outlandish proclamations just simply do not deserve our recognition and attention?  Or do we talk about it, look it squarely in the face, and stand up to people like Susanne Atanus by saying, no, we do not desire to live in the kind of world which supports behaviors which are born out of a belief in an angry God?

    What would you do?

    (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.)