Yet, at the same time, I believe that this January, indeed until the spring, the bottom will solidify as the short term thinking which has been a large part of the cause of our recession continues — layoffs, contraction, fear.
We need to live in the hope. It will neutralize the fear. It will let us stay calm, faithful, knowing that spring will come, and in the spring, the buds will open, the crocus will bloom, the growth will slowly begin again — in our hearts, in our country, in our economy.
We have to hit bottom to be willing to change. We have been making decisions based on more and now for too long. We have to invest, be patient, and develop long term strategies and visions. This is just as true in our personal lives as it is for our businesses and our government.
Patience and faith. Know the spring always comes. And when this one does, we will have learned something valuable — that we are in this all together, all the people of the earth, that love is the answer, that service is the answer, that peace is the answer. That a culture based on greed, fear, and materialism will not serve us. A culture based on trust, hope, and tolerance will.
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]]>This may be the most important election any of us ever vote in — certainly the most important election in my lifetime so far. Dick’s perceptions, while many won’t necessary agree with them (although I certainly do) are important to consider as we make well informed choices.
A responsible vote is our moral responsibility, and perhaps the most important action we can take for ourselves, our children, and our world.
]]>I’m not sure where this story came from, it’s an improbable embellishment yet a wonderful discussion which contains a nugget of great truth. It moved me, and I hope it moves you.
God Versus Science
‘Let me explain the problem science has with religion…’ The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.
‘You’re a Christian, aren’t you, son?’
‘Yes sir,’ the student says.
‘So you believe in God?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Is God good?’
‘Sure! God’s good.’
‘Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?’
‘Yes’
‘Are you good or evil?’
‘The Bible says I’m evil.’
The professor grins knowingly. ‘Aha, the Bible!’ He considers for a moment. ‘Here’s one for you. Let’s say there’s a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?’
‘Yes sir, I would.’
‘So you’re good…!’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘But why not say that? You’d help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn’t.’
The student does not answer, so the professor continues. ‘He doesn’t, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?’
The student remains silent.
‘No, you can’t, can you?’ the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.
‘Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?’
‘Err…yes,’ the student says.
‘Is Satan good?’
The student doesn’t hesitate on this one. ‘No.’
‘Then where does Satan come from?’
The student falters. ‘From God’
‘That’s right. God made Satan, didn’t he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Evil’s everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything, correct?’
‘Yes’
‘So who created evil?’ The professor continued, ‘If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.’
Again, the student has no answer… ‘Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?’
The student squirms on his feet. ‘Yes.’
‘So who created them?’
The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question. ‘Who created them?’ There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. ‘Tell me,’ he continues on to a second student. ‘Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?’
The student’s voice betrays him and cracks. ‘Yes, professor, I do.’
The old man stops pacing. ‘Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?’
‘No sir. I’ve never seen Him.’
‘Then tell us if you’ve ever heard your Jesus?’
‘No, sir, I have not.’
‘Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?’
‘No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t.’
‘Yet you still believe in him?’
‘Yes’
‘According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?’
‘Nothing,’ the student replies. ‘I only have my faith.’
‘Yes, faith,’ the professor repeats. ‘And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith.’
The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of His own. ‘Professor, is there such thing as heat?’
‘Yes.’
‘And is there such a thing as cold?’
‘Yes, son, there’s cold too.’
‘No sir, there isn’t.’
The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain. ‘You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don’t have anything called ‘cold’. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees.’
‘Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.’
Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer.
‘What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?’
‘Yes,’ the professor replies without hesitation. ‘What is night if it isn’t darkness?’
‘You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it’s called darkness, isn’t it? That’s the meaning we use to define the word.’
‘In reality, darkness isn’t. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?’
The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. ‘So are you making a point, young man?’
‘Yes, professor! My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed.’
The professor’s face cannot hide his surprise this time. ‘Flawed? Can you explain how?’
‘You are working on the premise of duality,’ the student explains… ‘You argue that there is life and then there’s death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can’t even explain a thought.’
‘It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it.’
‘Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?’
‘If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do.’
‘Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?’
The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.
‘Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?’
The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided.
‘To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean.’
The student looks around the room. ‘Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor’s brain?’ The class breaks out into laughter.
‘Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor’s brain, felt the professor’s brain, touched or smelt the professor’s brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir.’
‘So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lecture, sir?’
Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable.
Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. ‘I guess you’ll have to take them on faith.’
‘Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life,’ the student continues. ‘Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?’
Now uncertain, the professor responds, ‘Of course, there is. We see it everyday It is in the daily example of man’s inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.’
To this the student replied, ‘Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.’
]]>One of the things I strive for in my life is to integrate from within — to merge my perception of myself intellectually, my perception of myself spiritually, with others perceptions of me. My friends often tell me things they see in me and I am surprised. My own perceptions, at least initially, are not the same. So my task is to take these observations inward, to feel them, see if they resonate with truth.
And they do. I find that my own intellectual voices are often really not mine — they are learned, old ideas — from our culture, from my family, from my teachers, perhaps from some painful past experience only dimly remembered. My perceptions are often really the judgments of these voices. Unless I think deeply and reflectively, I don’t realize these voices are not mine, these opinions really not what I beleive.
I had a friend once in San Diego who used to say “are the voices in my head bothering you?” These days, I find that the voices in my head often are bothering me! Keeping me bound fast to old ideas. I don’t have to listen. I can instead, listen with my heart. Decide what is true for me. Act on it in love and service.
We are alive, deep within. Our creator, “the spirit of wisdom and love” as my teacher Father Terry says, lives so closely within us that we can’t see Him. But we can feel Him, deep within our hearts. And from that place, ever so slowly at first, we can begin to live.
]]>I know today that I must embrace change and trust that positive results will always happen as long as I am doing my part. So thankfully, I can move past my fear-based thinking very quickly now. But still it comes — the pattern I am so familiar with — anticipating a future reality created from fear based thinking, making that reality “true” through negative projection — and then actually making decisions and acting on them based on these negative realities that haven’t even happened! And guess what happens — negative outcomes.
My mind still naturally drifts towards fear when changes come. I can always stop the actions that can seem like real solutions when I am thinking this way, because I learned to recognize the pattern. With practice and faith, my thinking gets better too.
Perhaps some day I will truly welcome all change without first having a fear-based reaction. A worthy goal. But I’ll be satisfied with progress towards it.
]]>We all accept that dolphins have a language and a higher form of intelligence. Those of us who love and live with animals know they have spirit and intelligence and beautiful personalities and souls.
This video will change the way you think about what is really happening in the world of animals — watch and let it shift your thinking in new and wonderful ways!
]]>When I am really in touch with this, sometimes I can even observe myself — this is really a separate topic for another day — which is a very powerful tool for me to calm down, stop reacting and judging, and just be.
Airports are wonderful places to watch people. What a miracle life really is, all of us in one place, separate yet together, each person a unique spirit, with so many stories to tell.
I tried a little experiment at the airport the other day. We flew in at night, and I love, when there is no cloud cover, watching the tiny points of light on the earth below and trying to imagine where they are, what is happening, see them as proof of our existence, in perspective with the enormity of the earth and sky. This can be a magical view and I got off the plane feeling light and full and connected to the vastness of Creation and our Creator. Feeling love.
I’m also sure part of this expansive feeling was a book I’d been reading on the plane, “The Invitation,” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. It had opened my spirit up to authenticity and I was really in the joy of just being me, a human among humans, feeling very grateful.
So my experiment was to observe, detached and with love, every person I could while I was walking. And instead of inventorying the negative, I concentrated on finding something of beauty about each person. How one woman had beautiful hair. Or smooth skin. (One very cute guy had a very cute walk! Not hard to be appreciative!) Tried to look at people who appeared ordinary or even flawed, and pick out one beautiful thing about them and focus on that. Once I got going I was able to quickly see something beautiful in many people passing by. And I was amazed at how my attitude towards them turned to love, kindness, empathy, connectedness.
The next natural outcome of this experiment was that I became aware that I was smiling. And people smiled back. I did a thoughtul gesture or two — held a door, said hello, chatted with a woman pushing her daughter in a wheelchair.
By the time I got to the elevator from my gate I was feeling full of love and very happy. A nice, pervasive, warm happy.
I promptly fired up the car, cranked up the new Eagles CD, and sang all the way home.
We are those tiny points of light we can see while we are flying high over our Earth. We can be tiny points of light in our own lives and the lives of others. By doing simple, unnoticed, unconditional small things.
Try it. I have a goal of trying to make this a daily practice. How much beauty is around us if we look.
I’ll update later on the results!
]]>I had the benefit of long tenures at major corporations, but in work that often changed. I’d work on major customer accounts, and those assignments changed frequently. So I’d get the benefit of a new “job” with the same company, often learning entirely new industries, every year and a half or so. This was good, as I learn quickly and bore easily.
However, as I got promoted and more senior, I began making those should decisions. Or I’d develop a resentment against where I was for some reason, and decide I needed to move to a different position.
Since my ego was making these decisions, often they weren’t really optimal for me, or for my employer. I’d normally succeed anyway, but often without really being fulfilled or happy, and I’d wonder why. And I’d make decisions chasing the money, or the prestige, and often not feel like I’d made the right decision in retrospect.
A few years ago, I made a conscious decision to change this behaviour. I decided to get off the campaign trail. Decided to stop chasing money. I realized I often did not know what was really right for me, since my ego just would not get out of the way. I decided to just focus on doing absolutely the best possible job I could do, and allow things to happen. To get in the flow. To stop resisting — cease fighting — and just be.
Since then, I have never had to campaign for a job. They come to me. And they are always better than anything I would have thought to ask for. I stopped worrying about money. And now there is more than ever. And it comes easily.
I stopped resisting. Started allowing. Stopped trying to “get.” Started “receiving” instead.
Now I am happier, less stressed, more successful, and wealthier too! Just from changing my attitude, and letting go.
I saw a quote the other day (the “Universe” mailed it to me as a matter of fact) that sums it up for me:
“You will be carried along by life’s current once you stop struggling against it.”
Get in the flow!
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