The Valley Girl Nation

I was watching older episodes of "Super Soul Sunday" that I had recorded and started thinking about a collection of things today.  The first was a two-part interview with Dr. Maya Angelou and then Dr. Brian Weiss on reincarnation.

I find one thing I like to do when I watch these interviews, is listen to the question and then pause the viewing so that I can answer for myself and then press play and see what the guest had to say.

Oprah always asks such meaty questions that I use it to help figure out ways of presenting the concepts in my life and also to learn how to speak in something shorter than my usual tendency to fill in too much detail, or at least that is what some friends have alluded to, ok came right out and said (I have been told that Thucydides was much briefer in his "History of the Peloponnesian War" and its eight leather clad volumes, so I am trying...). I do find though, that a 45 minute show, after you fast-forward through the commercials, can often take up to two or three hours to get through, partly because my ADD based nature kicks in (oh look, a butterfly).

I am looking at the beginning of this piece and catching myself doing it again, so STOP IT! :)

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I was crafting an answer for a question about reincarnation and why I believe in it when I went off on a tangent involving when I really started to become aware of the world's "reality", 1981 in Los Angeles and the beginnings of the Age of the Valley Girl (AVG), like oh my God!

Being a Hollywood kid at the time, we laughed at the way they talked, the way they dressed and the completely vapid way they related to the world around them, the was the Reagan era, shortly after his shooting.

What startled me, was when I finished my walk down memory lane (and deciding to watch "Valley Girl" later tonight for some laughs), was the realization that the rampant consumerism that we used to laugh about those "airheads in the Valley" have become a way of life, it's called America, gag me with a spoon!

In today's version of what it is to be an American, it is not about doing something, but about acquisition of things. The early period of the AVG was marked by the need to go to the mall, the central hub of all Valley life. The appeal is understandable, as Moon Unit Zappa said in the theme of the era:

Encino is like so bitchen
There's like the galleria
And like all these like really great shoe stores
I love going into like clothing stores and stuff
I like buy the neatest mini-skirts and stuff
Its like so bitchen cuz like everybodys like
Super-super nice...
Its like so bitchen...

Frank & Moon Zappa, "Valley Girl" (italics mine)
We humans like to gather things, it's a pre-programmed norm of our species, and we like to go places where "everybodys like super-super nice" (sic) since "its like so bitchen". It seems that somewhere along the way, these went from being niceties of the retail industry to a cultural norm.

Slowly, we are transferring from a culture of doers to a culture of observers and purchasers. I have written before about my frustration about how difficult it is to get people to take action and those who seem to take advantage of this tendency to accumulate power for themselves.

We suffer from the mistaken belief that we are what we have, you are not your Gucci bag, but your things can often actually own you. It's not that it is "bad" to buy or have things, but when it becomes more important than doing things, we can see that we have begun to lose our way somewhere.

So the next time that you find yourself needing some trinket you did not know existed 30-seconds ago, take a moment and ponder the possibility that maybe there is some place better for you to spend not only you time and money, but your attention and intention.

Spirituality vs. Religiousness

In today's world we see many anti-religious sentiments, like Bill Maher's "Religulous" amongst many others, and as much as those on the receiving end like to bitch about it, can anyone really blame the detractors of (so-called) Organized Religion? Religion, by definition, is about "re-linking with God/Deity/Source" and becoming better people for it, but most seem to use it as a justification of their general antisocial behavior to anyone or anything differing with their way of doing things.

I ran across this on Facebook and thought it was an excellent example of why I am perceived as tough on organized religion. Sadly, this is not limited to Christianity, I see similar trends in Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, etc.

Pastor Jeremiah Steepek (pictured above) transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the 10,000 member church that he was to be introduced as the head pastor at that morning. He walked around his soon to be church for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for service, only 3 people out of the 7-10,000 people said hello to him. He asked people for change to buy food, NO ONE in the church gave him change. He went into the sanctuary to sit down in the front of the church and was asked by the ushers if he would please sit in the back. He greeted people to be greeted back with stares and dirty looks, with people looking down on him and judging him.

As he sat in the back of the church, he listened to the church announcements and such. When all that was done, the elders went up and were excited to introduce the new pastor of the church to the congregation, "We would like to introduce to you Pastor Jeremiah Steepek." The congregation looked around clapping with joy and anticipation. The homeless man sitting in the back stood up and started walking down the aisle, the clapping stopped with ALL eyes on him, he walked up the altar and took the microphone from the elders (who were in on this) and paused for a moment, then he recited:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ [editor: Matt 25:34-40]

After he recited this, he looked towards the congregation and told them all what he had experienced that morning...many began to cry and many heads were bowed in shame.... he then said....Today I see a gathering of people......not a church of Jesus Christ. The world has enough people, but not enough disciples...when will YOU decide to become disciples? He then dismissed service until next week.......Being a Christian is more than something you claim. It's something you live by and share with others.

Notes:

Highlighting, color and italics are mine

According to Snopes.com this is likely a fabrication and I remember a similar story about Thomas Jefferson and a hotel before and during his presidency, but the point is still valid.

To make matters worse, this lack of real spiritual growth in religion has become infused with politics, not only here, but also several  places around the world. Here is just one example of how this pseudo-religiousness is poised to destroy a country.

Since "God is on their side," freedom seems to have lost its meaning in the United States. "American Freedom" is slowly becoming the enforcement of one groups ideas overall and if the whole doesn't like it, well tough; or, we call it a "War on Christianity."

"Christian Sharia - The Dangers of an American Theocracy" (unpublished essay)
Robert Burgener
Freedom is about making one's own choices, taking responsibility, and dealing with the resultant repercussions and consequences.

If you believe that:
Same-Sex Marriage is wrong, then you should marry the opposite sex
Abortion is wrong, then you should not have one
Premarital sex is a sin, then you should live in abstinence till you marry
etc...
Point to ponder:

Many people think that morality is following a set of rules and regulations, if this is really the case, then lawyers are the most moral people on the planet (When you finish swallowing what just came up, give it a good thinking).

Becoming Human from Homo sapiens

I find the basic concepts of evolution to have some interesting aspects, especially when it comes to certain behavior patterns of Homo sapiens. Yes, I could use the term "Humans", but to my mind, Human or humanity is a state of mind and being, not a scientific classification of species (did that piss you off? Good, act human and earn the name).

So, I guess I should start with an explanation of what the difference is between Humans and Homo sapiens, since it is easier to discuss genus Homo and species sapiens, let us start there.

Scientifically, genus Homo, Latin for man (gender-neutral), includes several descendants of the Australopithecine, predominantly separated from one another by the size of the skull's brain cavity. Modern man, specifically species sapiens, Latin for wise, has been quite the evolutionary success, well, at least until recently...

To me, human and humanity are terms that identify the ability to go beyond a singular "me, mine, and our" mentality and see beyond the needs of only the groups that one associates with. To give you an example, ever see the movie "A Beautiful Mind"? One theme is what is called the "Nash Equilibrium" which is simply the theory that there are times when "every man for himself" does not lead to a maximum result, but a cooperative approach would lead to better chances of success.

To put it another way, if Ayn Rand would find it dubious from her perspective of "Objectivism" and its current incarnations amongst the Conservative Right where they would say yes on Sunday, but no the other six days, it is likely to qualify as Human.

“Human: That which recognizes and applies Spirit as a guiding principle to the biological entity that carries many aspects of earlier states.”

Robert Burgener

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So from an evolutionary perspective we have inherited many "norms" that seem to be inborn into our natures. We want to be accepted by the majority, we have a bit of a herd mentality, we follow the leader, we often strive to pound our round "originalness" into the square hole of the norm.

Just how much of that is inborn and how much of it is cultural, I cannot say. In the vast majority of cultures we find originality somewhat discouraged, so I am inclined to think that the cultural aspect is just a continuation of the evolutionary trait.

Presuming the evolutionary concept, these traits make perfectly logical sense. Traveling in groups, cooperation, and not standing out make survival much easier for the individual. We are no longer running from predators that want to make us lunch. These traits are becoming less valuable to the whole and in many ways they are becoming stifling and potentially detrimental to the future growth of Homo sapiens as a species, evolution continues and older traits may need to be discarded.

It is inevitable that at some point awareness should surpass that whence it came, it will involve changes and if one lesson from evolution is more prevalent than most, it is our dread and near hatred of change.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You were born an original. Don't die a copy”

John Mason
It is becoming time for Homo sapiens to begin to assess the past and begin the process of awakening to the awareness that is inevitably the future unless we wish to devolve as a species. Though it is only my personal opinion, I suspect that this is a process that we need to get onto quickly, we appear to be creating potential damage and it is likely to take substantially longer to undo what we have already done.

Blessings in Disaster

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson
As citizens, we often look at the documents of the founding of our country as if they are not part of the world that we live in, they are separate from our day-to-day lives. Yet, it is the direct and simple truths of many of them that make them so special in the annuls of time and writing.

Recently I have been going through a life lesson that has been a direct assault on some of my personal biggest fears. I saw it coming, I knew I was going to need to deal with it, and yet, I put myself through two years of, probably, unnecessary pain and anguish.

Nearly three years ago, I panicked. I was in a place of no money, about to face the real possibility of eviction and a car that was not currently functioning.

In late October two things happened; first, a friend wanted to leave a living situation with two other friends and on paper, well, it looked like it would cut the expenses nearly in half (later I would find out the difference in the utilities would demolish that theory). I had also been looking for a job, and though I really did not want to reenter an industry that I had been in previously, I can always get a job in it. If the job had been acquired just two days earlier, the fiasco of the living arrangement could have been completely avoided.

I was aware that the new employer was a good man, but, as we all do, had a few issues and was known to be a bit volatile. With my past experiences, I thought I could handle it, right…

The new roommates were friends and while living with others always has its challenges, worst case, you go hide in your room for a bit and let whatever pass, sure…

If I had known what the Universe was planning for me, I would have run away screaming like a maniac and considered finding a pretty monastery to cloister myself in.

Instead, I was in a self imposed illusion of safety, at best. The fools paradise started to show its true colors; one roommate was a disaster, so much so that when they gave notice before Christmas, I was elated and thought about throwing a party at the very idea (you know those moments, polite behavior requires you to say "are you sure this is what you want?" But, inside you are doing the Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy-Dance).

A few days later, during a discussion of what we wanted in a replacement, the other roommate gave me notice that he was moving as well, well that sucks! Now there are any numbers of reasons I could list that would make it obvious that neither was going to be any help finding replacements and I was working my butt off on the new job.

So on February 1^st I was holding the bag on just short of $1900 a month in rent, work was showing what the reality of the situation was, but I was now stuck. I was working six days a week, plus taking in extra work whereever I could get it.

It was not a complete disaster, the electric bill dropped from over $300 to about $45 (LA DWP stock dropped substantially), a friend ended using one spare bedroom to finish recording an album, some other friends rented the other bedroom for a couple of months while visiting from Europe. It was hard work, but it had some great times.

It took seven months, but when I moved out, I paid the final rent, 1^st and last on the new place, and for the first time in my life, paid movers instead of doing it myself, I consider that to be a major success!

Now that Phase One was complete, it was time to learn the other part of the lesson, Oh, you did not get part one? Stop freaking out! The Universe knows what you need and will provide if you will just let it.

Phase Two was going to be more than just working through it, it would require entering the dark caves of my being and facing some of what have become surprisingly powerful issues with me, the Job (cue dark dramatic music)!

I was quickly aware that this was not a good situation to be in, there were major clashes between my personality and that of my employer. As it was to turn out, it was to be a question of how much a "paycheck" was worth and just what was I willing to participate in to acquire one. As it turned out, I have become quite surprised at just how much!

In the last few months I have been trying to work on other projects while dealing with the issues at work (I really do think "work" should be added to that list of four-lettered words not used in polite society). I saw things deteriorating around me and I began desperately looking for alternatives, should I just get another job in the same industry, pays the bills but not likely to be particularly fulfilling. Should I go into another industry, or maybe the Universe has something else in mind.

I must have been ready, not that I necessarily realized it, as the whole situation finally collapsed in on itself, or in laymen's terms, I got fired. When it happened, I was pissed! After I cooled down, I was predominantly relieved and now a couple of days later, I actually want to thank my former employer for it, I am off the fence, a direction toward tomorrow has been placed at my feet and I will see where it goes.

So back to where we started, The Declaration of Independence, or more directly, when the Universe or Spirit guides you toward things, be willing to pursue them for often one has to declare independence from the now to create tomorrow. The alternative can be a very uncomfortable drop kicking, just saying.

September 11th - Some Thoughts

Sorry for the delay, I was working on my post for Monday and it suddenly hit a brick wall. Sometimes that happens, I get writing something and it just fades into the darkness, sometimes permanently, other times just for the moment.  I find it most often means that I have something else to do first. So, I will put the entry on the back burner and come back to it at another time.

So what is it that I want to write about today? What has been on my mind all day has been that tomorrow is Wednesday, September 11^th, the anniversary of the "terrorist attacks" on New York City and Washington.

I think that such days, while important to remember so that we do not repeat them, are often used for their emotional attachments in attempts to manipulate the populace to a particular perspective or ideology, not necessarily in their own best interest.

Sadly, I expect Fox and the Conservative Talking-Heads to play the dramatic side of the anniversary to its hilt, on one side they will play the sorrow of the anniversary and on the other side, they will likely crow their claims of being the party of national safety.  Is such a claim deserved, honestly, I do not know, but I doubt it.

As much as I would never want to see such an event happened again, I am concerned what it bears for the nation's future when it has become nearly exclusively reactionary, instead of taking the time and energy to discover the truth of a situation, use reasonable judgment, and make an informed decision.

In the current political landscape there is a tendency, particularly amongst the Conservative Right, to play the drama card to manipulate their base. This is America, we allow people to think and believe as they please, but to take such a tragedy and smear it for political gain, personally, I find that deplorable.

Of course, it is possible that the media in general will present a particular image or mentality with an undisclosed purpose in mind (God, I sound like a conspiracy nut).

I guess it is inevitable that in time the anniversary of September 11^th will eventually fade into history much as the anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day. For "a date which will live in infamy", it has faded into a memory, remembered mainly through a questionable movie starring Ben Affleck (President Franklin D. Roosevelt would be so disappointed).

Yet, there is the potential, as with all actions, for good to come out of them eventually. Only history will tell, but it is the now that makes history eventually.

Syria, 9-11 and Growth

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

“A man's memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interests in the present.”

George Santayana
In our own national pride and belief in American Exceptionalism we refuse to look up from our narrow view of the world and realize that we just cannot fix the world. Oh, we can punish, maybe we can slow the problem for a moment, but create a long term solution, not with guns or rockets, troops or covert missions.

The problems of the Middle East have been brewing and stewing for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and the festering of what started as local issues has become a collection of cultural hatreds that can only be solved by the people involved.

Look at the aftermath of the Iraq war, peace is not really known there, Shia and Sunni are still fighting, cultural minorities are hardly safe and welcome in the country, was this the goal of all those years of blood on our hands as a nation, is Iraq better than it was before?

Now we have Syria. We are banging the war drums and it is beginning to look like the politicians may just give the go ahead, will it solve the issue?

Bashar al-Assad, presuming he authorized the chemical attacks, has shown that he is a desperate man and is not interested in any kind of justice. You can attempt to punish men like that but they just get more desperate, and desperate men are capable of atrocities that our minds cannot wrap themselves around.

Sadly, as much as I mourn the loss of life that has and is likely to come, if you hand power to someone else without them being actually ready and prepared, you have not solved the problem, at best you have put a Band-Aid on it. The problem will return in a cultural conflict, it cannot do otherwise.

It seems that if power is handed to someone, they are rarely aware of just what a potentially dangerous and deadly responsibility it truly is. Sadly it takes going through the crucible to burn away the lust for power and make one appreciate peace, not pretty, but true. By going through the crucible, the emergent leader(s) are in a much better place to know the value of what they do, their friends and comrades were sacrificed to "win" the goal so the power has an extremely personal value.

When countries like ours insert themselves into the conflicts of others, especially cultural ones, we create an illusion we like to call stability, but our history of cultural insertion has not shown that we make good choices. Our people who supposedly "know" what they are doing actually come off in the rear-view of history to appear something akin to gullible.

Just because someone supported us in fighting their battle, does not mean that they are the leader that needs to rise, or that they have any interest in following the path that we would want them to, not that I find that to be a particularly brilliant motivation. Look at our history of imposed leadership in the Middle East, the Shah of Iran (that turned out well), Saddam Hussein (another success).

We like to say that our involvement is over the support of Israel, and somewhat it is, but if we take an honest look, it is about money as oil. What is really sad, is that about a hundred years ago, the people of the region felt, 'Americans were seen as good people, untainted by the selfishness and duplicity associated with the Europeans'^[1] and now we have become the selfish and duplicitous.

I like to think that under all the greed for oil, that part of it is that as a nation we see a collection of our fellow humanity in pain and are just clueless how to help them, but instead of sitting back and figuring out the big picture and actually creating long-term solutions to the benefits of the residents, we see a place where we can charge in like General Custer and in our pride just make it worse.

Every time someone talks about the US entering some country's civil war, I think of an old "Doonsebury" cartoon from the Vietnam era. B.D., our pro Vietnam War Conservative has managed to get lost in the rice paddies of a foreign country and be taken prisoner by Phred, a Viet-Cong "terrorist". In the strip I am thinking of, they are discussing the early years of the war and B.D. just is not getting why Phred doesn't see American involvement into the war his way, so Phred asks him, what would he think if the Vietnamese had shown up in Gettysburg and started handing out chocolate and chewing gum?

Now we have Syria, as much as the questions being asked are about chemical warfare and the response that should be made, once again America is threatening to react instead of thinking. For sure the Military-Industrial Complex is lobbying hard for the war, war is BIG business. What frightens me the most is that being so close to the anniversary of September 11^th, can our slow minded politicians separate the two? I would love to be able to say that I am sure they will make the right decision, but now all I can do is hope.

What is that decision? That is the question. Do we really currently know enough about what we are getting into? Are we seeing, or can we see, the big picture? What happens if we take the path being placed before us and President Assad does it again, are we ready to go round two, or three or all out war?

Large chunks of the Middle East are going through amazing growth now, it is violent and painful to be part of and to watch. If we have any hope of lasting success in the area, I think we may just have to sit back and let them do it, on their own, without big-brother walking in and forcing solutions that they are not ready or willing to accept. Left to themselves, they will likely come to them on their own. Can we have the faith, that as human-beings, they will learn an extremely hard lesson on their own, as it should be.

Footnotes:

1. Fawcett, L. (2005) The International Relations of the Middle East UK: Oxford University Press p 285

Labor Day, The Secret, and Today's Labor

Monday, my usual day off, but it is also one of those Monday holidays, Labor Day (sorry Phyllis, it has nothing to do with childbirth), so I figured my schedule would get trumped, so far no, strange events are afoot!

I have five or six partial blog entries I could finish up and make a quick and easy dash to the beach having finished my Monday duties of finishing and publishing an entry on Monday. I guess I could postpone the entry till Tuesday since it is technically a Federal Holiday in the States. Ha...

It has been a very intriguing week, I have been so humbled by what a reminder that the Universe will take care of us if we will just give it the opportunity and stay the "f" out of its way.

Last week, I preempted my usual writing with the eulogy for one of my cats, Ms. Birdie, she passed the following morning about 10. I am sad that she felt it necessary to leave, but knowing that Spirits tend to travel in groups so I will see her again in another of her lives. Spirit is not constricted to linear time as is most of consciousness, so she may actually be in my life already, I may have to watch over my shoulder, she had vicious claws that drew blood on more than one occasion.

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I have had this idea for a book running around in my head for a while, I had started writing it but really did not like what I was getting, it was boring as bat-shit (such language, shame on me...), but I had an inspiration as to this new scene and realized that it would make the coolest opening.  So I wrote it up, edited it about 40 ways from Sunday and sent it to a select group of friends to see what they thought.

My proof-reader, aka the Grammar Cop, sent me a collection of edits, some of which I had done already in a later rework, several liked, but questioned, a reference to Danny Kaye from a personal favorite 1955 film. The one thing that was most relieving was that EVERYONE said one thing in common, "what happens next?" That is exactly what I was looking for.

The story has been coming out in scenes, somewhat disjointed and randomly dispersed, a kind of wordy jig-saw puzzle. I knew basic plot lines and the general direction of it, but I really had no idea what direction to go to put it into order, in steps the Universe.

I stopped by this neighborhood thrift store and was going through their abysmal DVD selection when I came across a phrase that caught my attention, "Hero's Journey". Was ist das?

I turned out to be a three CD (one disk missing, but what do you expect for $2.00) recording of "The Hero's 2 Journeys", a lecture on story analysis based on Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". Now I have been a huge fan of Joseph Campbell ever since I first saw "The Power of Myth" (sorry the link is for the book and not the video, Amazon doesn't have the DVD? Who'd have thunk). I have used "The Power of Myth" as a study aid for years in my studies of comparative-religion, but that it was actually about storytelling and its structure had completely missed me.

Interesting side-note, I have had a DVD rip of "The Power of Myth" for ages from the local library's collection, but the disks were so badly scratched that it was nearly unwatchable in places. About the time I started thinking about this story, I had just bought a copy of it from an online dealer and had been watching it again and still did not get that my answer for structure was right in front of me. It is amazing how blind we can be at times...

Note to any copyright detectives reading this:

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I have a standing policy, if I make a dub, copy or rip of any copy-written materials, if I watch/listen to it four or more times, I will buy a copy as soon as I find one, otherwise it will eventually be erased.

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I, like many people, are fans of the Law of Attraction, it has become a big industry in the last few years, films like "The Secret" and "What the #$*! Do We Know!?", as well as more books than I care to count, including my own "10 Secrets to the Secret" (which I will publish if I ever get it to a place that I am willing to put my name on--long story).

One area that many people seem to miss is that the Law of Attraction can be, but rarely is, instantaneous. On occasion, the manifestation of ones dreams and hopes are pretty quick in their arrival, but I find that more often then not, you are given inspiration what directions you need to go in to bring about the manifestation.

For example, you might want to manifest $7,000,000, now it is possible that you may just win the lottery with that ticket you bought (even with the lottery you have to put action into it; buy the ticket), but more likely you will start receiving ideas and inspirations that give you an actual charge to contemplate.

Lynn Grabhorn, in her amazing book "Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting: The Astonishing Power of Feelings", calls it "the warm and fuzzies"; when you are being given an inspiration toward some goal you are trying to manifest, whenever you think about it, you get a warm and fuzzy feeling. My personal experience is that you get the "warm and fuzzies" even when you really do not want to do "it", we so often want to get to the end without taking the journey, but the growth needed for the destination is in the journey.

So while I work on my new journey of writing my story with its "Hero's 2 Journeys", start on your own Hero's Journey and may you be blessed with whatever you manifest for you and yours. This is your Labor for today.

P.S.
     I did find a copy of disk 3 so I have the entire lecture, no worries!

A Eulogy for Ms. Birdie

OK, this is not the blog entry I was planning to write today, I will finish and publish it later, but today, I am in a dark space, I saw it coming, but I ignored it, we all tend to.

There is one thing that we all tend to avoid, the passing of friends, loved ones and family. Many do not accept the idea that pets can be friends, loved ones and family, they obviously have never loved an animal that does nothing but love you back, even when you probably do not deserve it.

My oldest, Ms. Birdie, is on her way to her next life.

I find myself going through all the questions about what to do, how to react, what to respond as we all do when these times come up. It is a fact of life, as Wayne Dyer quotes Deepak Chopra:

“Life is a sexually transmitted incurable decease”

All living things in time pass to be returned to the star-stuff of which their bodies are made and Spirit continues to advance on its journey of education and experience on its way back to Source.

I ask myself if I should do this or that, what is most helpful, what is respectful and appropriate? My two girls are the closest thing I expect to ever have in the realm of children and at my age, possibly the closest thing to a lover.

I have a good day and they are waiting for me to share it, I have a bad day and they are waiting to help me get a grip and give me an outlet for whatever I need to expel.

It is a shame that people spend so much time "not loving", it is such a gift. I am currently working on an inspirational piece and in one of my notes I was contemplating the difference between angels and humans;

Angels are designed around Service at their core while Humans are designed around Love. For an Angel, fulfillment is found through the performance of whatever task has been handed to them. Humans find fulfillment through the manifestation of the Love that is at their core.

I spend so much time writing and talking about how much time and effort we put into judging EVERYTHING! Imagine how much joy we would have time for if we lived life like our pets, loving everything and just being what we are at our core?

Oh, I know that the religions like to tell us that we are evil at the core, that darkness is our nature, and that God will only love us if we live by ideals that even most of his teachers (little less their followers) can live up to. Even Jesus has his moment of doubt, look at the Garden of Gethsemane. If that were not enough reason to question the "official" proponents of the assorted gods of hatred, sadly, that is where a lot of the followers are taught to take their religion.

Love just is, it has no strings attached, no rules to be followed, no "things" that earn it, it is eternally free and is not only abundant, but in unlimited supply. The more of it that you give away, the more that it will find its way back to you and the more avenues you allow it to enter, the more unique places you will find it.

Like a pet who is at the door, love just wants to be let in, love will never desert you, it will never turn its back on you, only you can turn your back on it and I think the biggest travesty is that those who should be telling you this, instead, hold it out like the gold ring on a carnival ride. That is not love, that is a power grab.

So Ms. Birdie, please forgive me for those days I was not the loving being that you were so trying to teach me to be. Thank you for spending such a large piece of your life trying to get through my hard-assed head and thank you for sharing my life, know that you go with love.

Is Gay the new Jew?

Not long ago, while DOMA and California's Prop. 8 were being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, there was also a collection of stories in the news from around the world, same-sex marriage bans, criminalization of saying anything pro-gay and in some places, the possibility of being imprisoned for life for being honest about it in one's own life. Russia has since declared open season on gay men.

About the same time, I saw a collection of stories that asked the question, "Is Gay the new Black?" The population of Americans of African Ancestry sometimes come across as if they hold some unique history of suffering in their past, similar to speaking with Jews about the Holocaust, as if only 6 million Jews were killed and not 5-6 million non-Jews as well. We really seem to love and take pride in our pain.

While I was working on the previous blog entry, "Judas Iscariot & Adolf Hitler", I was really re-awakened to how the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler used longstanding cultural hatreds to persuade people to do and allow despicable things to be done to others.

I am often amazed at the things people are willing to justify to validate their need to demonize those who think, feel, believe or love differently then themselves. There seems to be a nearly pathological need in the human ego to be right and to make others conform to its view of rightness.

While thinking about the one and hearing about the other, I started to compare the three: Black, Jew and Gay. In many ways I found them to be surprisingly similar from a "haters" perspective.

All three have collections of people who deny their personhood because of aspects of themselves, the hated, are not in control of; yes, it is possible to convert your religion, but Germany was interested in bloodlines and you can deny your sexual orientation, but I cannot imagine that is ever a happy and fulfilling relationship for either party.

From the specific view of the fight for civil rights, Black and Gay have many similarities, but I think in many ways, Jew and Gay are much more in alignment. Race, somewhat cannot be hidden. A light-skinned person may choose to pass for whatever reason, but most do not have that option open to them.

Jew and Gay are both things that in the "predominant society" can be kept quiet and hidden away into those secret places, both require a statement of self to make others aware.

Both have suffered from cultural and historic misunderstandings and persecutions for standing up for who they are. In many places, it takes serious personal strength to admit to those around you what you are, and if you come from a more Orthodox background, to wear the clothing that will mark you as an outsider, how much less to be a "girlie-boy" and just be what God made you.

The lies of Jewish persecutors have ranged from the ridiculous to the laughably insane, with the need to demean another to justify the hatred and invalidation of another; Christian babies are slaughtered for their blood for Jewish religious rituals, get real. Homosexuals have likewise been slandered in the need of an unquestioning majority to justify the ability to validate bashing; Gay men cannot procreate so they must recruit your children. Gay men cannot be near small boys as they will want to molest them, but the fact that most men on boy sexual assaults take place by self-proclaimed heterosexual men.

As far as Germany goes, in the concentration camps, Jews were given the golden Star of David to demarcate them from the other populations, but in the hierarchy of the social structure, as much as the Jews were hated by Germans and other prisoners, there was a group of lower status, they wore a pink triangle to show them as homosexual.
Either way, Black, Jew or Gay, the simple fact is that "if you can hate one, you can easily hate another" (if you know who said that, please let me know) and yet:

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.”

Herman Hesse
I often wonder what aspect of race, religion or orientation triggers within ourselves and what place that self-love/loathing inhabits? I firmly believe that to be truly human, will eventually require each of us to look within and find those self-loved spots that we have been taught to feel shame for that allows us to deny personhood to another, whatever the reason.

“In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.”

Michael Jackson

Judas Iscariot & Adolf Hitler

“You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.”

“A Late Delivery from Avalon” Marcus Cole
Babylon 5 Season 3 Episode 13
22 Apr 1996, Television
It has been an ongoing discussion that probably the hardest part of following the pathway back to Source or allowing the Law of Attraction to work in our life is the lesson that WE are responsible for EVERYTHING that happens in our lives. We either caused it, or chose it. Since we live in a state of self-induced amnesia, we usually do not remember these choices, actually it is our avoidance of this fact as to WHY we live in that state.

Unless you are a Sociopath or a Psychopath (I can never remember which is which), it is part of human nature to do what one thinks or believes is right. Throughout history, there have been many people that have been tagged by the world as dark and evil and from the common perspective of things, they were; so let us look at two of them.

Judas Iscariot

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In several pieces of scripture, mainly from the east, there are examples of people that have been asked to be the "Bad Guy" at the behest of God or some advanced being so that other good could come out of it. We could look into them, but since they are unfamiliar to most of my audience, let's start from one of Christianity's most despised characters, Judas Iscariot.

The version that most people know is that Judas, one of the original 12 Apostles, was the money-keeper and later betrayed Jesus to the Jewish leadership for 30 pieces of silver and after the crucifixion, hung himself.

Among the Christian Gnostics, there has long been a tradition that Judas and Jesus were very close friends since childhood. The story goes that when Jesus was in Egypt, to escape the slaughter of the innocents by Herod, that a possessed child, Judas, was brought before him and after removing the demon, they became fast friends.

Many years later, back in Judea, they reclaimed their friendship and Judas became a close follower and later announced to be one of the chosen 12 Apostles.

The Canonical Gospels all agree that Judas had met with the Jewish Leadership before the Feast of Passover and made the arrangements to turn Jesus over to them, as Matthew says:

Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

Matthew 26:14-16 KJV
According to the Gnostic tradition, at some point Jesus had asked Judas to do what he did, hence the calm and supportive statement at the last supper, when Jesus announces that someone will betray him, but John gives us an insight when Jesus says to Judas:

That thou doest, do quickly.

John 13:27b KJV
A surprisingly supportive and encouraging statement for what Jesus knows is about to begin.

I have always wondered about the statement in each of the Gospels where the writers attribute Judas being possessed by Satan, I guess the writers needed to explain why he did it. It may have also just been a judgment and a need to demarcate "him" from "us". This brings us to what Jesus had to say about passing judgment in general:

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

Matthew 7:1-5 KJV
Keep these verses in mind, we will be coming back to their content in a few moments.

Adolf Hitler

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The vast majority of people in today's world do not think that there is much one can say about Adolf Hitler, as far as the "PC" crowd goes, anything in a remotely positive light will basically cause the doorway to Hell to open and swallow you whole. (Since I am about to say less than hateful things, I went to the store and bought dogs and marshmallows, just in case they are right.)

When we look at European History, we find a long tradition of anti-Semitic thought, yet we are still inclined to think that Hitler created this hatred out of thin air as a political ploy. Sadly, it was actually the re-emergence of longstanding animosities between European Christians and their Jewish neighbors taken to drastic and dark new heights of action, though even the killing of masses of Jews was not a new idea in Europe, by both Christians and Muslims.

Adolf Hitler, along with much of Germany, despised the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War with its economic sanctions and crippling reparations. The declaration in Article 231 which placed the blame and responsibility on Germany as the cause of World War I was seen as a national humiliation.

One oft overlooked fact is that the National Socialist German Workers' Party, then called DAP, started as a response to the Treaty of Versailles by a cadre of people who already had;

"...antisemitic, anti-monarchist and anti-Marxist views, as well as believing in the superiority of Germans whom nationalists claimed to be part of the Aryan "master race" (Herrenvolk), but he [Anton Drexler, founder of the DAP] also accused international capitalism of being a Jewish-dominated movement and denounced capitalists for war profiteering in World War I."

"National Socialist German Workers' Party" Wikipedia.org
The point being that Adolf did not create these mentalities, but used them to his advantage later when he came into power in the party. Sadly, these thoughts were not that uncommon in much of Europe at the time and specifically in Germany. Add to this mix the whole "Master Race" silliness and you have a recipe for a disaster of immense proportions and that is exactly what it turned into, as some 11-12 million plus people would attest to.

A Larger Perspective

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(OK, for those of you with delicate constitutions, brace yourself...)
From the common perspective, Hitler and his associates turned into one of the deadliest examples of man's inhumanity to man and we tend to pass that completely sane judgment onto the events in Europe under the Nazi Party as well as on the actions of Judas Iscariot toward Jesus.

"A Course in Miracles" has an interesting statement when it comes down to the whole judgement thing:

1. When you lack confidence in what someone will do, you are attesting to your belief that he is not in his right mind.
2. This is hardly a miracle-based frame of reference.
3. It also has the disastrous effect of denying the power of the miracle.
4. The miracle perceives everything as it is.
5. If nothing but the truth exists, right-minded seeing cannot see anything but perfection.
6. I have said that only what God creates or what you create with the same Will has any real existence.
7. This, then, is all the innocent can see.
8. They do not suffer from distorted perception.

Schucman, Helen, A Course in Miracles
1996, 2^nd Edition, "Text" Chap 3 Sec II Par 3
New York: Viking: The Foundation for Inner Peace
If we expand our view to include the perfection of all things in their time and place, as difficult as that seems (especially from our limited perspective), the actions of both Judas and Hitler must be perfect as well.  This will drive many to very angry places, we thrive on our ability to judge ourselves superior and others as inferior. We could almost call this "Nazi Light" in that it is in the diminishment of others that we plant the seeds that history has shown us we are capable of.

Here in the United States we like to think ourselves to evolved for such insanity, but are we really?  At the same time Hitler was incarcerating anyone he saw as an impediment to his holding of power, what were we doing? We had started rounding up anyone of Japanese descent and putting them into internment camps under the guise of self-protection, albeit Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, but we did not round up German descendants even when it became clear that war with Germany was likely, if not imminent.

Very shortly later, it was not biology but an ideology that we deemed as being less than "us" during the "Red Scare" of McCarthyism. As a nation we had decided that anyone of a differing opinion on the subject of Democracy was a threat and therefor less than, leading to Senator McCarthy's "Black Lists".

Of course we justified it, there were "very good" reasons, it made sense and as a nation we convinced ourselves that it was the right thing to do. We did not think of ourselves as anti-social, we believed that it was correct.

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All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

William Shakespeare, As You Like It Act II Scene VII
Shakespeare wrote this as part of a piece describing the seven acts, or stages of life, ranging from infancy to old age. Many have also used it to describe the basic framework for explaining reincarnation of a single Spirit into multiple lives over the span of time.

There is a certain logic to the idea of reincarnation, that the eternal Spirit continues to learn beyond a single life. In traditional Christianity the idea is dismissed in favor of the idea that one has a relatively short period to make the right decision and if not, an eternity to pay for it. To me, that seems to make the Christian God excessively vindictive for a lack of understanding and acceptance. Of course there is the part of me that would find the traditional view to give credence to the verses where it speaks of the punishments for those who mislead others.

There is the old expression about not judging someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes, it gives you an insight into what is behind the reasoning for their actions.

An Example

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One example comes from the "broader view" of sexual permissiveness; in the U.S. we have a large collection of people who just cannot get over the fact that some people have sex outside marriage, as someone once wrote, "Promiscuous is anyone getting laid more than you are."

Now I am not saying that sleeping around is necessarily a good thing (albeit, more fun and better entertainment than most network programming), but what people are really searching for in this activity is happiness, and eventually they will realize that though enjoyable, the joy is fleeting and cannot be made permanent. Ironically, it is the attempt to hold onto these happy, pleasant and enjoyable experiences that make us even more miserable in that as the Buddha said as his 2^nd Noble Truth; attachment to impermanent things breed sorrow (OK, technically the 2^nd Noble Truth is that sorrow is caused by attachments, but in his later discourses he clarifies the previous statement's meaning. An example of this would be the old adage; even the best sex becomes commonplace after a while).

Some of us learn from our pain quickly, others take longer and some seem to be as addicted to their pains and sorrows worse than any addict to Crack or Heroin.

Fear and Laughter in the Apocalypse

I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church on the northern edge of the Bible Belt, St. Louis, Missouri.  Sometime in the late 70's, I was introduced to the Christian Apocalypse films and then in '81 the Jack Chick tracks and comics (I still read "The Crusaders" series on occasion), and the "End of Days" writings of authors like Hal Lindsey with his "The Late, Great Planet Earth" and other such media.

What is the Christian Apocalypse?

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The basic theology of the Christian Apocalypse is that the prophesies of the books of "Daniel" and "The Book of  Revelation" with a spattering of other verses from around the Bible that foretell the end of the world and the beginning of the new kingdom of Jesus for a thousand years.

If you read any of the "Left Behind" Series or saw the films (the first was pretty good, the second was OK, but the last one SUCKED) then you have some background in the Apocalypse as they did tell the most popular view of the Christian End of Days.

In short, you have the following events taking place:

• The Rapture - the followers of Jesus will be removed from having to experience the seven years of the tribulation. (Some believe that the rapture will occur either 3.5 years into the seven years or later)
• The rise of the Beast/Antichrist a world leader who ushers in a one world government
• Signs a peace treaty between Israel and its enemies for seven years
• The Beast will rebuild the Jewish Temple then blaspheme in it by declaring himself to be God
• The above-mentioned peace treaty will fail after 3½ years
• The armies of the world will meet on the plain of Megiddo, often called the Battle of Armageddon, and attack Israel to end mankind, except...
• Jesus will have his Second Coming and save mankind, set up his kingdom for 1000 years and have the Day of Judgment for all mankind

Apocalyptic Fear

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People frighten me more than the idea of the apocalypse or the end of the world, actually. What does frighten me though is the collection of people that think if they destroy the planet enough, they can hasten the Second Coming.

Somehow, I really doubt that it works that way, but I have heard a few preachers allude to it, which would explain so much of what we see in the world around us.

Many self-proclaimed Christian Republicans fight tooth and nail to remove all restrictions on business and any type of oversight on environmental destruction. It is very likely that a lot of this mentality is just good old-fashioned greed, but I cannot help wonder what stops a person from destroying the world around them when they believe that their God will rescue them from dealing with the repercussions of their actions, frightening thought that.

Apocalyptic Laughter

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One of the more humorous and interesting trends in popular Christian Apocalyptic stories is the idea that in Post-Rapture society, those Christians that were not "real Christians" and those who accept Jesus during the Tribulation will be social pariahs. One of the best examples is Cloud Ten Pictures 4-films series "Apocalypse" where they are constantly referred to by the masses as "Haters".

I find this label of "Haters" for the Christians to be humorous when one looks around at the world of today and we see, self-described Fundamentalist Christians hating anyone and everyone that they do not agree with while trying to create a Christian Theocracy to enshrine their beliefs as the law of the land (yes, it is a bit redundant).

I am so often saddened by the behavior of (self-proclaimed) religious people and the directions they choose, or are guided toward, to show their faithfulness. We see those who claim to follow a teacher that taught Love demonizing others for having the audacity to love in a different way. We have people willing to kill others for every perceived slight, no matter how small, of a teacher or prophet. The saddest to me are groups that teach their children to kill themselves and others in the name of God for their faith.

So I wonder sometimes if these authors are actually making a statement about the failings of their churches or if they are just oblivious to why people might look back and ask if their religion should be abolished?

A Constitutional Preamble for the 21st Century

Today is the 4^th of July, also known as Independence Day.

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Wikipedia - Independence Day (United States)
Sadly, as the years have gone by and the dumbing-down of the masses has continued, Independence Day is quickly becoming the American equivalent to "Cinco de Mayo" with bar-b-ques and fireworks. Yes, I do know that Cinco de Mayo is not the Mexican Day of Independence, but in the U.S. it has become the Mexican equivalent St. Patrick's Day, basically a reason to get plastered, but since it is a federal holiday many get holiday pay for it.

As much as that is somewhat to be expected, what is actually much more sad is that the promise that many aspects of the foundation of the United States foretold, freedom, justice and this wonderful experiment in Representational Democracy, is in danger of falling to the wayside in the near future.

As a nation, there is what appears to be a very dangerous formula in the works and the outcome would be the destruction of the shining beacon that is the potential for a nation.

I was recently re-reading Baird T. Spalding's "Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East" and I was touched by how one of his guides on the trip was so enamored with the United States and its promise to the world for the future.

In recent years though, we have been witness to a fundamental shift in how America runs and the goals for which it appears to be pursuing, sadly from my perspective, they are as "Un-American" as anything Joseph McCarthy would have come up with.

I could go into detail on where we stopped being President Lincoln's vision of a "government of the people, by the people, for the people," and his belief that it "shall not perish from the earth." We have allowed ourselves to become a government of the Rich, by the Powerful Media Conglomerates and for profits at all costs without even thinking about the consequences of these changes.

So I have decided that the Preamble to the US Constitution, which was ratified nearly 12 years after the Declaration of Independence and is the highest law of the land, should be modified to address the view of those who have been given the country on a silver platter as follows:

We the [Rich and Powerful] People [and Corporations] of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union [for the protection of our profit margins], establish Justice [based on Christian Sharia], insure domestic Tranquility [through mind-numbing mass media], provide for the common defense [against the proletariat], promote the general Welfare [when we absolutely must or their labor is needed], and secure the Blessings of  Liberty  [Profitability] to ourselves and our Posterity [only], do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America[, Inc.].

How “Religion” can save the world

The current destruction of the world as we know it IS actually due to our turning our backs on Religion and/or God.

OK, I will be the first to admit THAT is something I never expected to write, but in some ways it is very true; though not in the way most people think of it.

How many times have I heard some "Hellfire and Brimstone" preacher go on about how the decline of America is due to our lack of reverence to God and our evils in allowing such things as abortion and homosexuality (kinda sounds a lot like Rev Phelps and his cast of [self-censored]). Sadly, he and his like in Christianity are not alone as we have all heard it from certain angry Muslim teachers as well.

“Just look at your life, everything is backwards, they call darkness light and light darkness. Abomination is overflowing just as it was in Sodom and Gomorrah.”

an unknown Street Preacher
Similar statements are heard from many of the world's religious fundamentalists and though not as they meant it, surprisingly true and accurate. Things are backwards, we spend our lives ignoring the Truth within ourselves and instead chase after money and things that cannot and will not make us happy in the long run.

Malcolm X really summed up a lot of this reversal in his quotes:

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

I find it funny that from a Jewish Mishnah (traditional scriptural interpretation) perspective, the Sodom and Gomorrah portion is right on target, but not because of "the Gay Agenda", but do to the hardness of men's hearts and the crime of Sodom and Gomorrah according to the Mishnah was the violation of the Hospitality Code, caring and compassion for others.

Whenever the times get tough and it becomes more difficult to get by, we try to figure out why, it is human nature to search for answers. There is always someone out there that has no issues with creating a "wicker man" for you to throw your hatreds at, to pile all your frustrations into and set ablaze to take them away.

The ego of man is one that will happily look outward for another responsible party instead of looking within and taking on the truth of what it has created.

So just how is it that turning our backs on religion and/or God/Source may the cause of the destruction of the world around us?

Those with a smaller world view, are inclined to say that the difficulties of the day are a collection of punishments from this judgmental deity that seems to take great pleasure in collecting the evidence to condemn its creation to an eternity of separation and damnation. Now this is just my not so humble opinion, but what a harsh place to live, no wonder they tend to be so angry.

A basic central tenet of all "Religions" is that there is a higher ideal that mankind can and should strive for and through one way or another can achieve. Though by turning our backs upon this idea, we become selfish and myopic onto our own lives and concerns and often do not care about how our actions affect the rest and this tends to make us extremely short-sighted in the long run.

This is the seed by which our destruction will be brought forth if we do not awake soon. The destruction of the world will not be the punishment of God on his creation, but the aftermath of OUR lack of forethought and attention.

As an example, we have a world economy that is based on something completely unsustainable, petroleum; a finite resource that we cannot create in a lab that poisons our environment and may eventually make this planet unable to support our life form.

Without even going into the whole "Global Warming" argument, we are knowingly poisoning ourselves, if you don't believe me, let me ask you this: "Would you sit in a running car in your garage with the garage door closed? Of course not, you know it would kill you." So you know you are putting poison out into your ecosystem that you NEED to survive.

This is only one of an insane number of ways we are setting ourselves up for our own self-destruction, and we do it for such silly reasons, like money, convenience and just not beng willing to be bothered.

We live in a collection of cultures that have always felt reasonably safe due to physical distance from the "other". With the birth of modern information and communication technologies, those barriers of safety are quickly disappearing and many are panicking. If our interactions were just limited to "Cultural Contamination" it would be one thing, but we have entered a world where the actions in one place can have direct consequences on the opposite side of the planet.

Has Religion and/or God/Source given us a way out?

When you sit down and look into the teachings of the greatest teachers in history, Krishna, Moses,  Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Confucius, Thoth/Hermes, Jesus, Muhammad, Guru Nanak Dev and Bahá'u'lláh, they all share something in common, the expression of a higher state, called ethos, morality, spirituality and/or God.

Religions are the codification of the teachings that are left by the founder in an attempt to keep them alive, but sadly, those who come later rarely understand the original source and the teaching goes from a living expression of Truth and into traditions, theologies and dogmas.

When ego becomes the driving force of religion, Truth is put aside for numbers, power and glorification.

Religions relate to God/Source in the same way that facets relate to a diamond, every facet shows you the glory of the whole, but the whole will always be more than any one, or collection of some facets. Yet we are willing to judge, condemn and kill in the name of our particular facet.

Underneath these schools of thought is a general idea of interconnectedness of all of us to each other, to all life on this planet, the cosmos and eventually to Source, Deity or God. This is where our self-imposed separation has begun to manifest our destruction.

Collins celebrated while Tebow ignored

I saw the following picture on the Facebook page for the church I grew up in.

Below is what started as a response to the page...

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You know, I've been thinking about this cartoon all day long and I know my parents are not going to appreciate this, but I just cannot sit back and say nothing.

If this were 300AD, then there would be something other than just a whiny claim of victim-hood here, but the truth is that this is nothing more than a attempt at claiming an inadequacy where none exists.

In 300AD, acknowledging that you were a Christian would have been dangerous to your future, even the Apostle Paul wrote about "soft", the real meaning of the word μαλακός (Strong's G3120), Christians, later we came to associate it with effeminacy.  Affirming your Christianity could have meant your imprisonment, torture and eventual public execution in the games by wild beasts.

In today's world Christianity is not persecuted in the US, oh I know some people thing there is a war on Christmas and this is "a Christian Nation" but this is nothing but a claim of victim-hood and an attempt at creating a Christian Theocracy, neither Jesus or the American Founders would have wanted that.

In today's world, one can still be terminated from their job, thrown out of their home and have a lifetime of loving relationship denied and trashed in the name of the person who said "Love each other as I have loved you." We seem to think that love should be limited to the pairing of 1 chromosome, otherwise that love does not count.

We have lawmakers creating laws that validate the attacks of others in the name of religion and then have the gall to name it for the victim of such a crime (though the first time a Muslim attempts to use it for a perceived offense of his religion, I suspect the tune will change). The saddest part is that we do these things in the name of Jesus when what it really is is nothing but our own fear run amok.

So when you cry crocodile tears that the declaration of a sports hero as a Christian is ignored in a predominantly Christian culture, maybe you should ask yourself why it is perceived as being courageous to stand-up and be counted as one of the victims of that same culture's lack of understanding and in some cases hatred that has left many victims in its wake in the name of God and Jesus.

Ask yourself when the last time that someone was fired from their job for loving Jesus, attacked publicly for holding a Bible, or beaten and left for dead for being a Christian in America? In much of this country and, sadly, in many Christian minds, all of these can, and have, happened in the name of being publicly honest about being gay.

PS
Before you start throwing around the "claimed" anti-gay verses from the Bible, do your homework, don't just bird-talk what someone told you as you will make a fool of yourself.

• The story of Sodom is not about Homosexual rape, it's about the Jewish Hospitality Code
  
  
• Leviticus may or may not be as direct as you think (and to only enforce the parts that don't effect you while invalidating the inconvenient parts does nothing but make you a hypocrite)
  
  
• Paul's list uses one word that more likely refers to those without a backbone, μαλακός (Strong's G3120) and a phrase that is never found anywhere else, ἀρσενοκοίτης (Strong's G733) which is the conjunction of two words, male and couch/bed

You might consider looking at:

• King David's declaration that he loved Jonathan more than he would ever love a woman
  
  
• The culturally unheard of relationship between Ruth and Naomi
  
  
• Jesus' response in Matthew to the Roman who's servant, παῖς (Strong's G3816) which many scholars think would imply a sexual relationship between them, and Luke uses the the term δοῦλος (Strong's G1401) which can also carry a sexual undertone as in a sex-slave.

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I have often thought that if and when humans become the great masters of Love, that then and only then God might give us permission to determine what is acceptable as love. So far we can barely love those who are like us, little less anyone or anything that is different.

I suspect we have a ways to go before that even becomes a possibility.

Meditation: A Historic Cure for the ADD of the Human Mind

I had a chance to make it to Lake Shrine today, for those who live in Los Angeles, it really is a spiritual treat not to be missed.

I was sitting in the chapel meditating when I heard a mother and her kids outside. The young boy was apparently interested in entering the chapel since "it's not labeled private." Mom dissuaded him with the fact that it was a quiet place.

The following scene played itself out in my mind; I'm asked why the chapel is a quiet place and I say, "because we all hear so much all of the time. Listen for a moment to the world around you, the cars on the street, the birds chirping, the water in the lake.

"But that is not all, if you close your eyes and listen, you will hear the constant yattering of your mind with things like, ooh, that's pretty, I don't like broccoli, and Susie tried to kiss me, ick, girl cooties!

"We go into the chapel to help us quiet all the noise in our lives so that we can finally hear the most important voices, those of our Spirit and our big brother, God. Quiet places like the chapel help to make it easier to find that space."

So I guess we all suffer from a touch of ADD in our lives, it is just part of the human condition. Meditation; a cure for "One sheep, two sheep, cow, goat, Old MacDonald had a farm, Heyyyyy Macarena!"

I haven't been writing much, well publishing at least, lately.  I have been writing several pieces but never actually felt they were ready for the world.  That, is a cop-out, they are ready, to a degree, but I have not been sure I want to put them out.  Some are extremely personal, others are kind of dark, seeing the horizon is not always a happy-joy-joy thing.

So, with a little editing, I will likely put them out eventually, but lets start with this one from September 2nd, as I think it sums up a lot of what has been happening with me as of late.

Blessed Be!

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As a general rule, I am a pretty happy person, I let things roll off and do not really allow things to get to me. Of course, like everyone I have my bad days when I hold onto every little slight as if it were the biggest insult ever handed out since fish-to-face slapping.

There are areas in my life where this is completely reversed, "go there and die" would be an appropriate warning sign for the unwary and then on days like today, everything falls into this category.

I do not really like being in that space, it sucks at best and sometimes turns into a personal Hell that can feel inescapable. Before you go there, I am not suffering from depression and I do not need to up my meds, but I might if they gave me a decent high!  ;-)

I wonder where these feelings come from and why they happen more and more as of late.  In other areas of my life, I would assume they were symptoms of something I need to deal with, a lesson that I have been avoiding, so I thought I might approach them from this place. What a can of worms I opened up!

Human thought, feelings and emotions are in many ways like an onion, you think you know what you are looking at, but once you touch it the wrong way, the surface gives way and you find a completely new world to explore that is not as known as you might have thought.

We live in a realm of fear most of the time, anything not "me" is separate and out to harm me, "it's a dog eat dog world" and such statements really are what the majority of the people in this world live in, even when they try to wrap themselves in a cloak of spirituality or religion. Before you get all pissy and think I'm accusing you, only you can know the truth of that perceived slight, I freely admit to having my days where my attempts to take refuge in my sādhanā is complete bullshit and I'm just hiding from the truth.

As if the fact that I am a human with all that entails were not enough, being a "sensitive" (I hate that word but cannot think of a good alternative) there are days when the outright pain of this realm comes through and I feel as if Atlas stepped out and dropped the weight of the world on my shoulders.

During these times, I want to love and allow the growth of those around me to continue, but I sometimes want to run around and slap the living piss out of the world.

I used to be ashamed of feeling this way, I thought it was hate for the often sheer stupidity of the masses and more-so for those who intentionally manipulate those masses for their own greed and empowerment at the expense of everyone and everything around them.

Eventually I came to realize that it was not really hate, but compassion. I can often see the eventual outcome of the path the masses are on and I do not want to see them have to go through the pain and suffering waiting there. No truly "human" individual wants to see other creatures suffer.

It has recently become apparent to me that I have two major lessons to learn from this:

1. Do not fight what the world has chosen for itself, consciously or otherwise.
   
   All entities choose the time and places of their lives for their own growth, to interfere with those choices would be more cruel than the witnessing of them. Thea Alexander in her book "2150AD" gives an excellent analogy of this.
   
   Jon, our central character, has been going through hospitals and healing the patients, but eventually he becomes aware of their Spirits and they start to stop him from healing them. One is an old lady with debilitating arthritis who has lost the use of her hands due to the condition. When asked, she pleads for Jon not to heal her as she has chosen this methodology to learn from and to heal her in this moment is to condemn her to going through the lesson again.
   
   
2. Experience the moment of the pain and then let it go, as with all things, it will pass.
   
   Often I find the world around me to be like a horror/slasher film.  If you are thinking about what is happening, you know the killer is behind the door and hiding in the dark and waiting for the victim to stumble into the trap. You are sitting in your seat at the theater and everyone is thinking the same thing, "don't do that, the killer is going to get you," you start crawling up your seat and when the killer pops up, you jump even though you KNEW what was about to happen.
   
   Afterwards, you might think what a stupid S.O.B. the character was, but you release and get ready for the next episode.  It is a collection of moments and experiences, it is not the totality of the existence.

Between these two lessons, I cause myself a large amount of pain at times. I fight what I pick-up from the world around me, it is painful and who wants to experience that? The ironic aspect of it is that in fighting it, I increase the level of pain.