Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Children of a loving God are loving, too























Last week I had an unexpected encounter with a person who self-described as "Bible-believing." Taken by surprise by his loquatious desire to theologize, even pontificate, while admitting he gets "passionate" about his beliefs, I thought I'd take the safer position of listening.   

When he got around to telling me that we were all sinners because of "original sin and predestination" ( I didn't laugh, but it makes me sad to hear people throw around these antiquated theological arguments with little understanding of what they really meant or of the history in which they were presented,) I knew I'd be in deep water if I said anything, so I continued to listen.  He said that our fundamental human nature was sinful and we needed Jesus' sacrifice to save us from our essential nature which otherwise would cause us to enter into eternal damnation. 

Finally, I felt the need to offer some clarification.  He had said earlier in his soliloquy that "we were all made in God's image" and by that he meant that God actually had a body and our bodies were made like his - forget the fact that in his mind God was a man, so who knows how women came into being and who we must resemble?

So, when he said that we were fundamentally bad, evil, sinners, I just had to stop him.  I reminded him that psychologists say that our essential nature is one of pure love, pure goodness, creativity and even nurturing, selflessly. Underneath all the baggage we've accumulated by an abusive, violent world in which we live, is our sacred, beautiful, radiant self, which is only love. He had trouble accepting that.  I assured him that the Bible isn't the "infallible word of God."  I assured him that never has anyone of any scholarship ever said it was "infallible" - inspired, yes; infallible, no. While the Quran has always been deemed infallible by Islam, the Bible isn't.  

I reminded him that in the Gospel of John, Jesus said that God is Spirit and we are to worship God in Spirit and in Truth.  So, if, we are made in God's image, then could we also be spirit and made in  God's spirit? And, if God is pure goodness, pure love and absolute truth, eternally alive, and ultimate Beinghood, could we, in our deepest, uncorrupted, purest state of being, be also? 

He was listening intently, somehow understanding, maybe even hoping, that it made more sense that the Bible-believing brand of God he had been so eager to tell me about. I continued to suggest that psychologists are in business to heal people who have grown up believing that they are fundamentally flawed, sinful, bad, conditionally loved which means essentially not authentically loved for who they are. I can't even begin to find how grace fits into that picture. That kind of early childhood brainwashing does serious damage to a child's psyche, often very resistent to healing. I continued to tell him that sin, by his definition, was a non-reality.  It simply didn't exist.  In the light of the idea that we are all loveable and loved, dearly, precious children of an All-loving God who loves us beyond our ability to love ourselves, the idea that such an all-loving, compassionate, merciful God could or would punish His children for their ignorance, is absolutely impossible, I said to him, "in such a light, sin is absolutely powerless.  It has no reality and therefore no real power." 

I told him, the ability to twist and corrupt a child's mind into thinking it is sinful has centuries-old repercussions. We all make mistakes in judgment, follow our hearts down wrong paths, etc., but does that make us bad, or just flawed, just lacking knowledge? In a sense we may be ignorant, rather than sinful. Ignorance is not a moral character flaw, whereas the idea of sin, is.

The world is full of, and in too many cases malevolently governed by, people who act out their childhood negative self -identity brainwashing caused by parents who instilled in their children that they were essentially bad and deserving of punishment.  Where would children who grew up believing such a violent, heinous thing about themselves direct their own deep-seated,  buried psychic anger?  Where would they project their psychic pain at this terrible untruth?  Will they live into and out of the identity bestowed on them?  Will they act out, lash out, with hatred and anger, violence and even rage - pouring it into their personal relationships, schools, workplaces, communities, or even onto the world stage?  And, in fact, isn't that the problem with our world history stretching as far back as the written word?  

I wondered aloud what it would be like if everyone realized they were essentially good, essentially loving and lovable, creative and generous, quick to share and able to help.  What if children were taught that they are really eternally alive, crystal light beams of pure love and creativity?  I can barely imagine how different the world would have been these long two thousand years if the early Church and the later church had not distorted Jesus' message that we are essentially more angelic than demonic?  Would the church have killed millions of women for witchcraft or burned thousands and thousands at the stake for differing beliefs?  It is a terrible unimaginable corruption of the Gospel of what the church did in its ignorance and arrogance, always believing that God is a judge, rather than a lover, quick to condemn rather than forgive us, and send us to eternal punishment, rather than hold and love us and help us to realize how very much we are loved?  There is room on the Earth for all of us and everyone one of us understands God a little bit differently if only because how we see things and understand things is partially influenced by our own individual history, and everyone has a different history.  God is so much bigger than anything we could ever think of or dream up and there is plenty of room in God's heart for all of us. 

Before I left, I said to him that the idea of sin which the church had taught him is not real, is in itself a travesty, even heresy,  and that in the light of truth and God's great heart, it has no power.  He blurted out that sin had caused two thousand deaths earlier that day, but then he paused, and looked at me curiously. Maybe somewhere inside him he needed to hear that he wasn't a bad person, that he was indeed a very good person.  What a crucible of truth that spins on such an axis!  What a big difference such a radically different viewpoint could have on an individual's life and the entire world! For just a moment, I saw flash behind his eyes a young child wishing what he'd heard was true and wondering what it could mean to him personally, if only just for starters. 

God has always loved us, but how it must have wounded His great heart to think that we would kill, reduce, prejudge and injure each other claiming that we were anything less than the magnificent children He created us to live and move and be, filled with His own Spirit, made in His own image, empowered with a power to create and love in ways we've only just begun to understand and experience.





Thursday, May 13, 2010

"A Great Urgency"



"To restore harmony and balance to the Earth, our Mother, we must learn 
that Mother Earth is not a resource, but the very source of life itself."
 - Chief Arvol Looking Horse 



A Message from Chief Arvol Looking Horse
to All World Religious and Spiritual Leaders:


My Relatives,

Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their Leaders. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together from the Spirit
of your Nations in prayer.

We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great message for the World; we are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing their sacred color, which have been signs for us to pray for the sacred life of all things. As I am sending this message to you, many Animal Nations are being threatened, those that swim, those that crawl, those that fly, and the plant Nations, eventually all will be affect from the oil disaster in the Gulf.

The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit. The catastrophe that has happened with the oil spill which looks like the bleeding of Grandmother Earth, is made by human mistakes, mistakes that we cannot afford to continue to make.

I asked, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in prayer with the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these serious issues will continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our Ancestors have warned us of in their Prophecies.

I know in my heart there are millions of people that feel our united prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth. As we honor the Cycle of Life, let us call for Prayer circles globally to assist in healing Grandmother Earth (our Unc¹I Maka).

We ask for prayers that the oil spill, this bleeding, will stop. That the winds stay calm to assist in the work. Pray for the people to be guided in repairing this mistake, and that we may also seek to live in harmony, as we make the choice to change the destructive path we are on.

As we pray, we will fully understand that we are all connected. And that what we create can have lasting effects on all life.

So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer. Along with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember June 21st, World Peace and Prayer Day/Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether it is a natural site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your own sacred space, let us
make a prayer for all life, for good decision making by our Nations, for our children¹s future and well-being, and the generations to come.

Onipikte (that we shall live),

Chief Arvol Looking Horse,
19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe





(Chief Arvol Looking Horse began the Wolakota Institute in the Sacred Black Hills of South Dakota after launching the annual World Peace and Prayer Day Celebrations in 1996.  When he was 12 years old, Arvol was designated as the 19th Generation Keeper of the Tradition of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe for the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Nations.  People of these nations believe White Buffalo Calf Woman appeared to the tribes hundreds of years ago, bringing instruction in sacred ceremonies of how to live in balance with all life, and leaving behind a sacred bundle containing a sacred pipe of peace.  She left prophecies about a time in which she would return again.  The 1994 birth of a white buffalo calf is believed to have been the sign that these times were now at hand.)

Top Photo of a White Buffalo Calf is from the gallery on the Wolakota Foundation website: (Wolakota.org










Saturday, May 8, 2010

"You are in the World to Heal the World"



Some days we're stronger than other days.  Some days the sun shines just bright enough and long enough that you can kind of get a handle on things enough to have the vision to understand what's happening around you, what's coming at you and how you're feeling about that. 

By nature, I'm a happy person, pretty upbeat and enthusiastic about things, but living in a cool, northwestern rain forest, where the sun only shines in the summer, the lack of sunshine definitely affects me.  I find myself being bluer than usual. Believe it or not, Buffalo is a lot sunnier than Portland.  Snow reflects light, remember? Sometimes I react when I know better.

Weather, climate and all other physical events aside, stuff happens in our lives.  Someone says something that just hits you wrong and then you feel a bit badly. You try to bite your tongue, but man, those harsh responses get out anyway, and next thing you know there's an unfriendly exchange between you and someone. Before you can stop it, it's like watching a glass of wine fall to the floor. You see it going, but you can't stop it.  What a mess and worse of all, the loss of great wine!

That's where the gift of apology really is a grace and a blessing.  But, there's something more.  I have to remind myself when this happens that I have one single purpose in life and the Course in Miracles states it perfectly, "We are in the world to heal the world."  

Every time I stop and listen to my feelings when someone is saying something or doing something that triggers an inner reaction, I can slow down that glass of wine falling to the floor.  I can slow down a knee jerk response that may contain bitter biting comments.  While I have tamed that inner tiger cub a bit, there are times when I find myself wanting to recoil into a cave. Life isn't easy.  It never was meant to be easy.  

St. Thomas More said so wisely, "You can't get to heaven on a feather bed."  The way to heaven is right through all those difficult situations, right through those moments that take us unaware into the shadow, the darker side of ourselves, to the buried memories of childhood stuff, of angry, tired parents who may have hurt us when they were only trying to deal with or cope with stuff that felt too big for them.  

There is only one key to unlock all that pain and hurt and reaction and harsh biting responses to people, and that is by slowing down what you're hearing when it's happening, listening patiently to what they're saying and what you are hearing and attend carefully to how you're feeling about what's going on.  Try to target your feelings and then try to target where the other person is coming from.  The next step is to try to identify why you are feeling the way you are. What does it remind you of in your past?

The Course in Miracles says there are only two real reactions in life - one is to give love and the other is to ask for love.  All hurt that is inflicted onto another is a cry for love, but a cry for love stems from a person whose love tank is low so their cry for love is usually not very lovely.  The other is to be loving.  Loving behavior, loving words come from a person who is filled with love, coming from the only source of love which is the divine Source. But, even the most loving person has some dark stuff buried in their subconscious and life has a funny way of knowing just how to trigger that dark stuff.  Remember that it is being triggered for healing.  Isn't it possible that the angels allow things to come at us in order to spiritually target those areas that need to come to the light and be forgiven and transformed? 

We are all at different places with both.  We are all capable of so much love and we all are also carrying around wounds from our childhoods or lives that need love to be healed.  We all need to settle down and give ourselves and others a break. Forgive them, forgive you; love them, love you.  It is hard to say you're sorry to someone who has hurt you while you are still feeling hurt by them but you know that their actions were a cry for love that just zapped you where you are most vulnerable. 

Whenever you're wondering what this is about, remember that everytime someone hurts you or you feel hurt by someone or something, stop.  Just stop. Remember that it is a gift from heaven to heal something inside you that has gone unhealed for a very long time.  

It is important that we heal all that stuff from our past because it's going to crop up over and over again in our lives today and will either trigger other people's stuff or be triggered by other people.  As we slow it all down, think about things, feel what we're feeling but choose NOT to be controlled by those feelings, we can take a huge couragous step into the light of healing.  We can heal ourselves and consequently help others release their stuff in a safe environment of love and compassion.