The Global Conversation

Tag: Newtown Connecticut

  • COULD OUR THOUGHTS ABOUT GOD
    BE AN UNEXPECTED CAUSE OF OUR VIOLENCE?

    This is the last in a 4-part series of commentaries on the Connecticut events, and the larger implications of them.

    In Part III of this series, I called upon all of us to join together in launching what I have called a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul as an antidote to the slow poisoning of human society that has created the environment within which something as horrific as the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School could take place.

    As I have observed in the past, I believe we make a mistake if we view the Connecticut event as only and just the tragic playing out of the twisted thoughts of an unstable mind. It is that, for sure, but it is not only that.

    Many people seem to limit it to that. One comment entered by a reader of my blog on this topic at Huffington Post appeared to be typical of this group: “Wow! Talk about a writer being out of touch with reality. I can answer his question as to how the Newtown Massacre happened. A woman who had a mentally ill son that was obviously also out of touch with reality had weapons in her house that never should have been there.”

    But it is not — it just is not — as simple as that. That is the outcome, but more than one input produced that outcome.

    I believe the event at Sandy Hook Elementary School, as well as all the gun violence (and, for that matter, all the violence of any kind committed in this world) is the outgrowth of a society in which there has come to be an inordinate and consistent focus on, and portrayal of, Violence as Solution. This portrayal is seen in all the ways that we tell stories about our species to our species; in the myriad ways that we tell each other about each other.

    I know that many are beating this drum now, but I am not opposed to getting on a bandwagon simply because others are on it.  So I will agree with many others who say: it is true that everything from movies to television programs to pictured story books unfortunately called “comic” books (although there is nothing comical about them) to electronic video products for children regrettably called “games” (although killing others should never be thought of as a game) tell our culture about our culture in such a dramatic way that it cannot help but create more of that culture.

    We did not tell stories around our campfires in the earliest days of our existence simply as a means of entertainment. We told stories around the campfire as a means of informing ourselves about ourselves. Stories have a larger impact than passing time. They pass the baton to a new generation. To suggest that they have nothing to do with any of this is disingenuous at best.

    The complete desensitizing of human minds  — stable minds and unstable minds alike — produced by the unending onslaught of vivid, ugly, bloody, gory violence everywhere we look cannot help but produce a society in which the playing out of those storylines in minds that are not stable leads to the acting out of those stories in real life.

    And that, as much as the instability of one person’s mind, is what produces, ever more frequently, events of unimaginably tragic consequence such as the Sandy Hook shooting. Especially when one has easy access to assault weapons designed for rapid-fire killing.

    Now what I am going to say next may feel like a bit of a stretch, but follow me here for just a bit and see if in the end you can agree with me. I begin with a question.

    How do you think it has come to pass that we have found our way to a place where we find depictions of overt violence perfectly okay?

    I believe it is because we have equated Violence In The Name Of Justice with Righteousness under Moral Law.

    Movie audiences cheer when the Good Guys (the ones who have “Right” on their side) end the lives of the Bad Guys in the most graphic, revolting, violent ways. Video game players pump their fists in self-congratulations when the Good Guys (the ones who have “Right” on their side) blow the Bad Guys to pieces, literally — their body parts exploding all over the screen. Television viewers give higher and higher ratings to programs in which shooting and killing by the Good Guys (the ones who have “Right” on their side) bring an end to the lives of the Bad Guys in the most horrific ways.

    What is it within our culture that allows us to cheer violence — to actually crave it in the name of “justice” —  as we do, for instance, in countries (America perhaps most rampant among them) that continue to tolerate the Death Penalty?

    I believe these are all the behaviors that might be expected from a species that has been raised to believe that indescribable, horrific, and painful punishment is entirely appropriate as a response to what has been judged to be “bad.” Especially when this idea comes to us from the most authoritative source of which our human society has conceived: God.

    From the time of our youth we have been told of a God who judges, condemns, and punishes in the most gruesome, ghastly ways as payback for (or, if you wish a more gracious label, as the consequence of) the deeds of humans that God determines to be unacceptable.

    The Bible — to cite just one powerful cultural source of this Gory Story — tells us of over one million people who have been killed at the hand or the command of God. (You can take out a calculator and do the counting. It’s right there in black and white.) And if that isn’t evidence enough, notice that we have heard, over and over again: “Vengeance is Mine, sayeth the Lord.”

    This is the God in whom we believe.

    And even those who do not believe in this God at all live in a society in which the vast majority of people do — and have created a social milieu in which justifiable violence is reflected in both the entertainment industry and the justice system, to say nothing of international politics.

    It is this deeply engrained Cultural Story about God from which emerges our idea that violence is fine when it is used as payback on behalf of that which is Good. This is what has led us to a Content Code for our motion pictures in which depictions of graphic violence are totally and completely acceptable — while depictions of, say,  passionate or romantic sexual love are not.

    (Humans do not, you see, imagine or think of God as romantic and passionately sexual, but we do imagine and think of God as punishing and violently vengeful. Therefore, in our culture, publicly making war is more acceptable than publicly making love.)

    Small wonder, then, that unstable minds use violence of a means by which the perceived injustices in their own lives are paid back through vengeance.

    I believe that the next evolutionary edge for Earth’s people is the creation and the embracing of what I have called a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its belief in a violent, vengeful, and vindictive God.

    Humanity’s Team has created just such a movement. It focuses on the same thing that Martin Luther King Jr. sought to produce for blacks, that Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan sought to produce for women, and that Harvey Milk sought to produce for gays. In a word: freedom. Freedom from the impulse to use violence as our means of punishing what we perceive to be evil, even as we cite God as our moral authority for doing so.

    The Civil Rights Movement for the Soul specifically invites members of all religious, spiritual, political, economic, and cultural groups to join together, to dialogue together, to explore together, and to examine together, with sincerity and honesty, the question: Are our present beliefs about God and about Life working? Are they producing the outcomes for which we have yearned — and for which they were intended?

    Some of the activities we can pursue as part of the Civil Rights Movement for the Soul…

    1. Engage all levels of media — including Internet media and websites, as well as brick-and-mortar media…newspapers, magazines, television and radio programs and networks…and, of course, today’s pervasive social media (Facebook, My Space, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) — in platforming the driving message of The Civil Rights Movement for the Soul…which is that humanity now needs to be freed at last from the oppression of its belief in a violent, vengeful and vindictive God, and from its slavery to a dogma of separation from Divinity and punishment by Divinity that has divided the world for thousands of years.

    One idea is that we form a Special Project Team to be engaged in writing articles, news stories, press releases, and interviews and sending them to all media, challenging humanity to release our species from a global doctrine that creates separation and competition, and replace it with an ethos of unity and compassion.

    2. I would like, further, to encourage people all over the world to form Spiritual Discussion Groups, on-the-ground as well as on the Internet, inviting close examination in every community of the beliefs we have been holding about God, about Life, and about Each Other, and to honestly ask ourselves, “Have our beliefs been working? Are they producing the results for which we have yearned?”

    3. I would invite local HT groups to join in spiritual activism at the local level in other ways as well, in addition to regular weekly or bi-weekly meetings discussing and sharing the New Spirituality. These other ways could include sending Letters to the Editor of local and regional publications, posting the Five Steps to Peace (mentioned in Part I of this 4-part series of commentaries) on community bulletin boards, natural food co-op boards, new age bookstore notice boards, etc. throughout their region, all on a given day (Oneness Day?) around the world….so, suddenly, the Five Steps to Peace “show up” everywhere, simultaneously!

    4. Local Humanity’s Team Speakers Bureaus could be established, making persons available to give short talks before Kiwanis Clubs, Rotary Clubs, Lion’s Clubs, Exchange Clubs, etc. throughout the year (these clubs generally meet once a week and are always looking for speakers and topics to fill their calendar), as well as longer Thursday Night Lectures offered within the community, on the topic A Civil Rights Movement for the Soul.

    5. Bumper stickers could be made and distributed, saying:
    JOIN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT FOR THE SOUL
    and
    ARE YOU A MEMBER OF HUMANITY’S TEAM?

    6. The Spiritual Activist Project of Humanity’s Team could send members every Saturday to local shopping centers, flea markets, sidewalk shows and galleries, etc. to hand out booklets titled: Humanity’s Team and the Civil Rights Movement for the Soul The booklets would alert people to the amazing opportunity now within the grasp of all of us to recreate ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are. It would talk about the Five Fallacies About God and the Five Fallacies About Life that stop us from doing that (also highlighted in Part I of this series of commentaries), and it would then list the Five Steps to Peace and invite people to embrace them — and to join and support Humanity’s Team in its work.

    There is much more that could be done as well, as the project team gets rolling and moves deeper into the year, leading up to Oneness Day 2013. These are just some beginning thoughts and some opening ideas.

    If you have an interest in joining the project team, simply write to me and tell me what you are moved to offer in terms of assistance. My address for this project is: neale.walsch@HumanitysTeam.org

    All of this is part of what I hope will be a constructive, healing response to the event in Newtown, Connecticut — and to violence all of the world. I send you all at this very special time of year my personal wishes for a special holiday season.

    Love and blessings…Neale.

  • NRA SAYS THAT WHAT WE
    NEED ARE MORE GUNS

    This is the third in a 4-part series of commentaries on the Connecticut events, and the larger implications of them.

    In Part II of this series I made the statement that there is no end to life, and no revenge or punishment (Who would That Which Is punish? Itself? There is nothing else in existence but Itself). There is also no such thing as Right and Wrong, and for the same reason. That Which Is is always That Which Is, and there is nothing else except That Which Is. In other words, nothing stands outside of The All. Nothing stands outside of God.

    Because this is true, in Ultimate Reality the conditions of “rightness” and “wrongness” do not exist. There is only what works and what does not work, given what it is that any individual aspect of The One is trying to do. There is no judgment in this matter, there is only the individual assessment of every sentient being as to whether a particular activity, choice, decision, or behavior is producing what that sentient being (or species) intends, wishes and chooses to create.

    Applied to the event at Sandy Hook Elementary School — and the shooting events that have occurred since then (there have been 117 gun deaths in the week following the shooting in Connecticut, according to the Twitter feed @GunDeaths) — we see that our present social system is not working.

    Actually, nothing is working. Not one of our systems. Not our political systems, not our economic systems, not our ecological systems, not our educational systems, not our social systems, and not our spiritual systems. None of them have produced the outcomes for which we have been yearning. In fact, it’s worse. They have all produced exactly the opposite.

    This tells me that the problem in our world today is systemic. It has to do with more than simply our actions. The problem in the world today is not a behavioral problem, it’s a spiritual problem.

    One’s behavior and one’s spirituality are not the same thing, of course. The first — hopefully — springs from the second. So if we reflect deeply on the school shooting in Connecticut we see that there is something amiss here that has to do with much more than just the unstable, imbalanced mind of a single individual.

    After something as horrific as Sandy Hook, many (especially the NRA) want to say: “Terrible as it is, it is just the out-picturing of one twisted, distorted individual. There’s nothing you can do about that — expect maybe, arm everyone else in the country.”

    The National Rifle Association actually has just released a statement at a press conference in Washington saying that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” and calling for an armed guard to be stationed at every school in America. This, it says, is the solution to gun violence in schools.

    The NRA spokesperson said nothing about the solution to gun violence in America away from schools; about gun violence in general. It is too bad he did not, because, as reported by the Internet site Gawker, “While the NRA Was on TV Talking About the Need for More Guns Some Guy Was Walking Up and Down a Road in Pennsylvania Shooting People.”

    It’s true. According to a report in the Altoona Mirror: Four people are dead—including the shooter—and three state troopers were injured this morning in a shooting incident in Frankstown Township, Blair County District Attorney Richard Consiglio said. The gunman and two other men and a woman are all dead, Consiglio said.

    And so we are faced with the supreme irony: National Rifle Association CEO and executive VP Wayne LaPierre is telling us more guns are needed out there, not less, just moments after —  unbeknownst to him — more innocent people two states away were shot by a man running around with a gun.

    The challenge here: We just don’t get it. We just don’t get that the problem is not guns. And the problem is not violence. And the problem is not our mental health system. The problem is not a physical problem, it is a spiritual problem. It has to do with what we hold to be true, about ourselves and our world.

    Let me give you another example. The online news source Common Dreams reported on Dec. 21 that “We just passed the 333rd consecutive month of global temperatures above the 20th-century average. Climate scientists now say it’s growing worse faster than any of them predicted even a few years ago.”

    How is it possible that such a thing is occurring, and nobody in the corridors of real power on this planet is doing anything about it? Further, how is it possible that millions of regular people living their regular lives in the world are not making those in the corridors of power do something about it?

    Simple. The “regular people” are not yet affected by it. At least, not enough of them. It is projected that in 20-30 years half the world’s people will be suffering a water shortage. Then there will be some voices raised. Yet what good will that do? Voices are being raised right now about half the world’s people suffering a food shortage. Over 400 children die of starvation every day on Earth. Is the power elite doing anything about it?

    Does it matter that there was another killing of a group of innocent people just before that NRA press conference? Or that there have been 117 gun deaths across America since Sandy Hook? Will those in the corridors of power do anything about that?

    Not likely. Not unless and until there is a huge shift in our collective consciousness, a huge altering of our collective spiritual reality. Presently, most of the humans on Earth do not believe the first message of Conversations with God, a four-word announcement that, if embraced and placed into social, political, and economic policy, would change the world overnight. That message: We Are All One.

    If we implemented this policy this very day, much of what is predicted to become part of our dire future will never happen. If this idea were adopted and embraced as a functioning reality by humanity, much of what is going on right now would never occur again.

    But until enough people “get” that what is happening to anyone is happening to everyone, there will never be sufficient energy behind any effort to reform our way of being and our way of living on this planet such that Life Itself suddenly (and at last) begins to make sense.

    That’s why I founded Humanity’s Team, a global spiritual activist organization devoted to placing one message before the world — We Are All One — and producing one outcome in our collective experience: a life worthy of a highly evolved species.

    There is a way to bring an end to not just the violence in our schools, but the violence in our homes, on our streets, in our politics, the violence that we perpetrate through our global economics, and yes, the psychological, emotional, and even physical violence that too often emerge from those practicing our religions.

    We don’t even have to search for that way. We don’t even have to try to figure it out. One way, at least, has been given to us, articulated for us, spelled out as clearly as can be, in the Conversations with God series of books. This may not be the only way. It may not even be a better way. But it is one way that we know can be no worse than what we are doing now (to position it as safely as possible), and that certainly stands a chance of proving itself to be very effective at uplifting our collective life experience.

    It is important, I think, that we begin to at least open discussions about this. We need to have conversations ABOUT conversations WITH God. Each of us can engage in this process, creating a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its belief in a vengeful, violent, and vindictive God, and releasing our species from a global doctrine that creates separation and vicious competition, replacing it, finally, with an ethos of unity and cooperation, understanding and compassion, generosity and love.

    This is what it will take to shake the corridors of power. Words are more powerful than any weapon. It was Victor Hugo who famously said: All the armies of the world cannot stop an idea whose time has come. Let’s do what it will take. Join me in this project of Humanity’s Team. In the final installment of this series, I will explain more of what that could “look like.” Stay tuned.

  • Tune the Media Out, and Tune Your Soul In

    I am going to use my time in this blog to stray off the topic of addiction and recovery and share my passionate feelings on one aspect of the Newtown tragedy that I feel is not being talked about.  I am going to direct my comments specifically at those in the news media, for I see that they have yet again taken to the airwaves with around-the-clock sensationalism. They seize every opportunity to capitalize on ratings without the slightest thought that what they are doing may be setting the wheels in motion for the next big attack.

    Last Friday, as word was coming out of what had happened, I found myself in places where people had the news on so they could receive the latest information.  Most of the information that came out ended up being incorrect, distorted, and sensationalized.  For crying out loud, they didn’t even get the killer’s name right!…the very name that they will use every time there is a horrific event such as this going forward.

    Each member of the media wasted no time applying their own agenda to the tragedy:  gun control, security measures, mental illness, politics, bullying.  The list goes on and on.  What was missing?  The media never focused on themselves.  I am willing to bet that not once have the words “we in the media are a huge part of this problem” been uttered over the airwaves.  I will also to go out on a limb and say that that the media would not be willing to admit the possibility that they are urging on the next killing spree by continuously letting us know who the current leader in mass killing is.

    There are mentally challenged, socially inept, psychopathic people living in our society, sitting in front of the cable news shows all day and all night while the overly dramatic tones of the newscasters drone on and on about the same topics.  Have you noticed that they are on loops?  Every hour the same stories over and over, just adding a little more drama disguised as information to keep you sitting in front of the television to get the latest tidbit of misinformation.

    These deranged, lonely, isolated people are far too easy prey for the good-looking, intelligent-speaking commentators on the screen.  They see their opportunity for fame.  They are very aware of the notoriety the other socially disabled psychopaths have received.  Every time something like this happens the news networks start blaring the names of the killers at Columbine and Virginia Tech, reminding us what their kill totals where and what the new bar has been raised to.  These killers live in infamy due to the media’s unrelenting worship.

    Many prominent figures have weighed in on the Newtown massacre, each offering their own solution or thoughts on how we got here and how we can get out.  I believe this is a “we” problem — we see this happening, we sit in front of our high-definition televisions and pad the news show ratings, we beg them for more information.  Do we really need to know anymore than “a deranged person stormed a school and took the lives of innocent human beings?”  We don’t need to know the who, what, where, how, and how many.  We just don’t.  It does not matter.  What matters is it happened.  Now we have to decide who we are around it and what we want to do about it, if anything.

    I had made a decision a year or so ago to turn off the news.  We stopped watching the morning news, nightly news, breaking news, live-team-coverage news, hurricane-watch news, the all of it.  The level of peace and serenity I felt increased exponentially.  I had had a similar awakening a few  years prior to that.  I used to be a faithful listener of talk radio.  I had the whole day lineup from the morning guy, to the midday guy, to the afternoon-drive guy.  I let them have space in my head for free.  And by the end of each day, I had the talking points memorized.  One by one, it became clear to me that the sounds they were sending my way were not who I was, nor who I wanted to be.  When I turned the talk shows off and turned on the sounds that felt more in line with who I was, I found a higher place of beingness.  I found that my head became filled with my heart messages and not someone else’s words.  I was in control of my beliefs.  This is a powerful place, friends.  I invite you to join it with me.

    Tune out and tune in.  You will not be missing anything.  You will hear about the important events that happen in the world.  You will still have the opportunity to express and declare who you are and what you believe about them.  You will actually be much clearer about who that is without all the mis-information the media provides.  You can find news outlets that you can regulate.  You can stay informed and create your own thoughts and feelings around the information you choose to give priority to.

    We do not need the cable news shows telling us what to think and feel.  They use fear as a tool to keep people listening.  When was the last time the news gave you anything you needed or protected you from harm?  Why not turn off the TV and turn on some music that will bring a smile to your lips or a tear to your eye?  Let your Soul hear something that welcomes it into your living room.

    So this is my soapbox around the Newtown tragedy.  What is yours?

    (Kevin McCormack is a Conversations with God Life Coach, a Spiritual helper on www.changingchange.net, Addictions recovery advisor.  To connect with Kevin please email him at Kevin@theglobalconversation.com)

  • So You Want to Change the World? Series Part One

    Part One: Sharing Love in Newtown, and Beyond

    Last week, an incomprehensible tragedy occurred in Newtown, Connecticut. The effects of this devastating event could not only be felt in the community of Sandy Hook Elementary, but in the hearts and minds of teens all across the nation. I have heard my friends repeatedly ask and wonder, “Why did this happen? What made Adam Lanza do it? How can we stop this from ever happening again?”

    Though these questions have no easy answers, we do easily notice that teens don’t want to become a product of their society – we don’t want to align ourselves with a world filled with acts of thoughtless violence. We teens know that life can be so much more than what is now, but most of us just aren’t sure on the way we will achieve it. We want to change the world, but how?

    Changing the world sounds like a pretty difficult task, not to mention a HUGE burden of responsibility. But it doesn’t have to be. It CAN be incredibly simple, if we choose it to be. In our first steps towards creating a New Cultural Story, we don’t need to change the world; we just need to change a few things in ourselves. In Conversations With God For Teens, Neale presents the Three Way Path: Have fun. Spread joy. Share love. By just applying these three simple ideas in our own thought, word, and deed, we will bring more change in our world than we could have ever hoped for. By being the embodiment of fun, joy, and love, we can be the change we wish to see in the world.

    So, it’s not so tough after all. Teens across the nation are already changing the world, and they are doing it by sharing love with the residents of Newtown. One of the largely unpublished stories of the Sandy Hook Tragedy was a photograph from Reuters from the memorial of a floor-to-ceiling printout entitled “Stay Strong Newtown: 10,000 Teens Send Their Text Messages of Support.” For the single act of violence, 10,000 messages of love, comfort, and empathy were sent by these teens alone. These teens shared love, when love may seem hard to find. For the families involved in the tragedy, they are receiving and feeling that love. And that has made all the difference.

    I thank not only those teens, but every teen who has sent their messages of love to a world that so desperately needs more of them in its inbox. Sharing love has shown that our generation truly believes in a new path with a new direction. We just need to forge on.

    (Lauren is a Feature Editor of The Global Conversation. She lives in Wood Dale, IL, and can be reached at Lauren@TheGlobalConversation.com)

     

  • DO ALL SOULS ACT IN
    SERVICE TO THE WHOLE?

    This is the second in a 4-part series of commentaries on the Connecticut  events, and the larger implications of them.

    (WARNING: This is not a small subject. Therefore, it may take you as long as 5 minutes to read this full commentary, and perhaps another few moments to offer your own Comment on it, should you choose to offer one (and we hope that you do). In our 120-character, read-it-in-7-seconds Twitter World, only you can decide if this is a worthwhile use of your Mind’s time.)

    As I said in Part One of this 4-part series of commentaries, the horrible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Dec. 14 leaves every sensitive, caring, compassionate human being who describes herself or himself as “spiritual” with deep sadness and searing, penetrating, urgent questions.

    What is true about God? What is true about Life? What is true about who we are as creatures on the earth calling ourselves sentient beings? Is there a purpose and a meaning to all of this?

    I believe that yes, there is a meaning and a purpose to it all that is going on during this time of turmoil on our planet. Conversations with God had caused me to believe there is a reason and a purpose to all of life, exactly as it is occurring. I’d like to explain that…but first, a word to the grieving and to those left wondering about the big questions of life in the aftermath of the school massacre at Newtown…

    What is true about God is that God is real, God exists, and God is both the source and the essence of all the compassion, love, understanding, and wisdom in the Universe.

    What God is not is what may be even more meaningful. My clarity and my understanding is that God is not what many — so very many — have said that God is. God is not a despot. God is not a punisher. God is not a vengeful, angry Super Being who needs certain things to occur in the Universe in order to be pleased.

    God is not angry with us, and God does not become “angry.”

    God is the essence of Life Itself, the Original Energy, the Prime Source, the Creator and the Created. God has bestowed upon everything God created the gift of Free Will. This means that there can be no punishment for anyone or anything, otherwise the idea of “free will” would be a sham, a fraud, a counterfeit notion. What “will” is “free” if it can and must only do what God wants or it will fry in hell in eternal damnation? That is not “free will,” that is “choice by coercion.” That is “decision by intimidation.” Under the legal system of most countries such “free will” would be called “duress.”

    So we know that God is an all-loving, non-judgmental, non-avenging Deity. What, then, is true about Life? Is there no justice? Is there no system of Right and Wrong? Do people such as mass murderers simply go unpunished? And what is the point of Life Itself? Why are we here, and how are we expected to know how to act, how to behave with one another, if there is no moral law, no code of ethics — and no punishment even if there was one?

    Okay, one thing at a time.

    What is true about Life is that it is an ongoing, never-ending process, not a one-time experience. It is an expression of the Essential Essence, or, if you please, an out-picturing of God in physical form.

    The point of Life is to give That Which Is (an energy or essence that I call “God” and that others call, variously, Adonai, Akshar, Allah, Brahman, Brahma, Deus, Divinity, Divine Mother, Ekankar, Elohim, God, Hari, Indra, Jehovah, Krishna, Lord, Mahesh, Manitou, Ormuzd, Parameshwar, Purush, Purushottam, Radha Soami, Ram, Rama, Theos, Thor, Varuna, Vishnu, or Yahweh, depending on their culture, background, belief or religion) a means by which to experience Itself in fullness.

    Because there is no end to life, and no revenge or punishment (Who would That Which Is punish? Itself? There is nothing else in existence but Itself.), there is no such thing as Right and Wrong. There is only what works and what does not work, given what it is one is trying to do. There is no judgment in this matter, there is only the individual assessment of every sentient being as to whether a particular activity, choice, decision, or behavior is producing what that sentient being (or, it the case of Earth, our species) intends and chooses to create.

    Having said all of that, I think it is important at this time of national mourning and global self-reflection not to fill the air with too many articulations of fine print regarding the esoterics of life. So I will stop with this for now, and say simply that God may be called on in this moment to bring all of us wisdom and clarity, understanding and compassion, healing and even an eventual return to joy.

    I have been told in the dialogue published under the title HOME WITH GOD in a Life That Never Ends that no death is ever in vain. Every life and every death has an impact upon, and a deep meaning for, every person who has come to know of it. That is why they have come to know of it.

    It turns out that Life is a process that informs Life about Life through the process of Life Itself. And so, everything that happens, happens for a reason, for a purpose. Its purpose is to inform All That Lives about how that living is being done — and then to give All That Lives another chance, another opportunity in an eternity of opportunities, to change that; to make whatever alterations in Its experience of Itself that All That Lives may decide is desirable.

    It is for this reason that no part or aspect or individuation of All That Lives would or ever could be punished for doing what it has done, or for playing the role it has played, in the larger process of Life informing Life about Life through the process of Life Itself. Life will not punish Itself for telling Itself about Itself through the expression of Itself. That would be Self-defeating.

    It is for this reason that Conversations with God observed that even Hitler went to heaven. First, there is no place but “heaven,” since everything and everywhere is the “Kingdom of God.” Second, there would be no reason to punish Hitler or anyone else for behaving in a way that told us about ourselves collectively, such that we made alterations in the way that we continue to express Life in us, through us, and as us. (Unless we do not. Whether we change our behaviors based on past behaviors is up to us. Will we do so now, in the aftermath of Connecticut? That is the question, isn’t it. Will we, for instance, do something about taking assault rifles off the streets, and big-load ammunition clips out of the hands of people who simply don’t need them?)

    Some Souls take on the task of teaching us about ourselves and about where our individual and collective behaviors are leading us. They do so in ways that we call both horrible and heroic. Hitler was such a Soul, and we called him horrible. The children of Connecticut and the courageous adults who died trying to save them were such Souls, and we shall call them heroes.

    There have been others, both positive and negative (as humans would label them). The same is true of events, in the abstract. There are both positive and negative events, and all are designed to teach us about ourselves. Or, more accurately, to remind us of who we really are, and to produce a contextual field within which we can express and experience that — and then, enlarge that by recreating ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are.

    Within this context, in the eyes of God all Souls are sacred and all Souls are what we would call “heroes,” for the very act of entering into, and living within, the Realm of the Physical is an act of faith and courage — qualities of Divinity that life in physical form will call upon us to call forth and to demonstrate again and again, in ways large and small, throughout our experience on Earth.

    Physical life is also a great joy, and thus, an unspeakable blessing. Yet here is a great secret: It takes bravery to experience joy. And the greatest joy, which is the experience of Divinity Fully Expressed in you — requires the greatest courage.

    We see then that all Souls are acting at all times in service to The Whole. We each receive the invitation to carry for humanity the totality of its experience. Its pains, its sorrows, and the burdens of unknowing; its joys, its wonders; and the glories of knowing its Divinity. For it is the purpose of The Whole — that is, of Every Soul in Community — to know Itself, to experience Itself, and to be Itself through the expression of Itself in every conceivable form.

    I know that it is expected and perhaps even trite to say that the Souls who left physicality on Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School did not die in vain — but it is profoundly true. Their death is intended to awaken us, to show us many things about ourselves, so that we may decide many things about ourselves, thus to expand our experience of many things about ourselves. We fall to our knees not in sadness, then, but in honoring and in gratitude, as we see that the Souls of Sandy Hook celebrated their Continuation Day through the highest demonstration that physical life can offer of the meaning of love. For greater love hath no Soul than to give up a physical life that another may have theirs in greater knowing, abundance and expression.

    And so now, may you know and experience Divinity Expressed, with God’s Blessings flowing to you and through you all the days of your life, in tribute to those who have given all of humanity this opportunity.

    With love and caring eternal…Neale.

     

     

  • Why? Why? Why?

    This one-word question is surfacing in the minds for so many today, December 14, 2012, as the news of the school shooting in the small town of Newtown, Connecticut, quickly spread around the world.

    Why?

    A question which may never be fully answered.

    As we try to make some small amount of sense out of a situation that simply makes no sense, I join Neale in his invitation to feel, to talk, to share, to explore the way you feel around today’s events and to support those around you who could benefit from a mutual exchange of loving energy and a compassionate presence.

    So at this point, let’s set aside the “Why?” for now and give ourselves permission to feel what we feel…and feel it deeply; to allow ourselves to grieve fully and without conditions or limitations; and to experience the highest level of Love as it expresses through our sadness.

    Let us join together to connect with our brothers and sisters in Connecticut within the space of our hearts, drawing upon the essence of who we really are, and be a source of comfort and hope and unconditional love.  If ever there was a moment to decide, to declare, and to demonstrate who you choose to be, I can’t think of a better time than now.

    I will close with a reflection from Fred Rogers:

    “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation.  She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

  • A MOMENT FOR SHARING
    FEELINGS AND PRAYERS

    There is nothing useful or substantive to be said right now. Not right now. There will be time later for words of analysis. Now is a time for feelings. And for inner pleadings.

    We plead with the God of our understanding, each of us. We ask our God — if we believe in a God at all — please God, tell us: What do we need to know, what do we not understand? Is there anything, anything, that could change all of this?

    They will say, of course, that we are making something of it that is not there. They will say that, sad as it is, this is just another one of those cases of a deranged man (Why is it always a man? Do women ever pick up a slew of guns and head out the door to commit mass murder?) acting out his derangement. Yet I feel a nagging sensation. Do you? I have this vague sense that there is something more to it than just one more guy with guns, shooting his anger or madness out. Or at least there’s more to the conditions that create and produce such insane acting out.

    But this is not a time for analytical words or distant observations. This is a time for feelings. So go ahead. Go within. Feel what you are feeling. And, if it helps, share those feelings here. This may not be a time for analytical words, but this is a time to share feelings.