Soar above the winds of war

Soar above the windswept night, into the light of love, into the shelter beyond the storm, where peace flows like a river and you are held in heaven's gentle arms forever.

Today's world is explosive.  The Middle East is waking up after sleeping through more dictators than even South America can boast of as the rest of the world watches breathlessly. Most likely every government in the world is praying its people are going to bed well fed tonight so tomorrow will be business as usual.  

Meanwhile everyone knows the economy isn't stable - in the U.S. or anywhere - and even if people everywhere do stand up or die for their right to self determination and self-government, the stage is set for some humble pie-eating years ahead for all of us. 

So, what do you do when the world is stirring insanely around you?  


Personally, I would find that place of love within to which I would surrender completely, like falling through a mile-high cloud.  I would let the love of God flood my interior world so completely that it would flow out into my life and embrace all who come near me.  

While, politically, yes, I believe in power to the people with all my being. I also believe in first receiving the power of God and then allowing the power of God move through me out into the world.  It seems to me that the only difference between a person on the street protesting and the man in the palace cowering, is that one has power and the other doesn't.  Would the one who doesn't act any differently in the future if he had that power he is seeking?  Unless he is surrendered to God, who is the One Power of the universe, he is just as vulnerable to the temptation to abuse power as those petty dictators like Egyptian President Mubarak.  

Humankind has always hungered for power and has always sought it where it is not.  If we listen to that still soft voice whispering within our hearts, calling us to its infinite reservoir of love and draw in that love, which is the only real power there is, we will find the power we seek.  It isn't in a palace or in an oil well, or on Wall Street or in your stock portfolio.  It is right here, inside you.  It is the calm behind the storm.  It is the stillness before the sound of gun shots ringing through the square.  It is in the peace that comes when you surrender to God's love, within you, and it will change your life and all of our lives, forever.

My spiritual quest began when I was 13 on a stormy Saturday night during Lent when somehow, in some incomprehensible way, the pure love of Christ outshone the chaos in my home, changing my life forever.  


While the household was spinning around me, I was there, but not there, and somehow remained completely untouched by the chaos that night. I know I often wanted to escape but the only escape was to go within, not in some soul-splitting way, but in a quiet reflective intentional way. From as far back as I can remember and throughout my life, there had always been this soft feeling in my heart that remained untouched by some of the brutality and chaos that stormed around me.  At times, when my turbulent childhood  felt threatening, somehow that soft quiet lovely place within me seemed to reach around my heart and hold me - sometimes all through the night as I sobbed away the fear that frightened me so badly then.  


That night was a cornerstone moment for me. Even today, as the Bahrain are in the streets seeking their freedom from tyranny and abusive power and Egypt is celebrating its victory marches of a week ago, and Wisconsin is stirring over a proposed anti-union bill, the March winds of Buffalo from that night still calm my frightened soul.  That long ago night, the winds off Lake Erie had been beating against the windows in our old drafty house all evening, almost like the approaching drums of war.  I realized then, as I know now and have always known since, that no matter what happens around me, it cannot and will not ever change the love I feel from our God within me.  


I didn't know then there was really another world, as I do now, or that there was a spiritual realm of such incomprehensible and ineffable beauty and power, as I do now. I didn't know then that this whole world is, as Shakespeare so perfectly described it, a mere stage and we but players on it.  It's probably the longest running non-Hollywood produced thriller.  It's epic.  I think that's all I can say about it.  It's epic. And, it's time that show goes off the air to make room for the ultimate reality show. I honestly think the ultimate reality show begins right there, in the center of your being, right there inside your beautiful mind, next to your tender compassionate heart.


I know our future is uncertain.  Maybe the world has never been as volatile as it has been this last month and still every day the news reveals more chaos.  So, maybe there never was a better time than right now to fall in love with God. There was never a better time to surrender to God's most passionate love for you and to allow yourself to give up your fear, your control, relax all your anxieties, let go of all your goals, agendas, ambitions, grievances, complaints and  plans - at least for an hour or two - and just let yourself feel God's love flow through you.  Maybe it's like learning to float on the lake when you were a child.  At first it was hard, then it was easy and then you could just float on the water all day, if someone didn't call you in.  


When I was a child, it was God's love that saved me.  Today, as an adult, it is still God's love that saves me. Only now, I share it with you.  I understand your fear.  I invite you into a world of peace, of love, where that's all there is.  It's beautiful and quiet and radiant and fragrant and it leads to a place of such power that nothing in this world even comes anywhere close to it.  Come away from the madness and let the love of God embrace you as only a great lover can. Stay awhile, as long as you can, and maybe, just maybe things will be different when you return to your life.