Divinity in disguise

Love ....

by the way you walk,

by the way you sit,

the way you eat.

This world very much needs love.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Flowers, elegantly scattered among us, are sacred signs from heaven.  As delicate living vessels serving as iconic conduits to the divine, they are tangible evidence of heaven's dusting of itself everywhere on Earth. Gentle, colorful, yet brilliantly detailed in their exquisite design, the flowers are here on Earth to remind us from where we came and where we will return.  Even among the trees, and mountains, in harsh desert or tundra climates where virtually nothing grows, a fragile delicate tiny white edelweiss thrives.  Everywhere nature speaks to us, calling us to remember our true home.

Heaven has been described by those who have gone and returned as a place of incredible color, brighter than any colors we know here, where  flowers are abundant.  Eckhart Tolle says that flowers are native to heaven and are planted on Earth as reminders to us when we forget, as we all do inevitably, of the perfection and beauty of our real home, our eternal home. So, it is no wonder that roses and lotus are symbolic of that perfect spiritual state of communion with the divine.  

Beauty and love are so intimately wed they beget each other.  Beauty is a reminder of love and love creates beauty.  When we meditate or look at flowers, our minds are gently enveloped by the beauty that is love and inspires love and helps us to love more.  And, clearly love is a divine act that heals our world, evolves our souls and brings us closer to heaven.

All the great spiritual masters have invited us to step into our highest spiritually evolved state by meditating, thinking upon love and beauty.  If we did nothing else spiritually but look at a beautiful flower, we would have entered into a spiritual inner sanctum.  But, the reverse, sadly is also true.  If we killed all the flowers, all the beauty in our world, we would have reduced the love, the life force itself, the nourishment for our souls and we would have lowered our divine ability to create and to live.  We would have stifled the prana, the spiritual air we need to live, in our world.  

Dr. Masaru Emoto, a well known Japanese scientist, has done extensive research on water, frozen and then viewed in its crystaline state (i.e. snowflakes) and found that focused intentional human thought affects the water crystals profoundly.  Thoughts of love and thankfulness, when directed at water, result in a beautiful, perfectly designed lacey snowflake, many of which seem to display a double tetrahedron* (star of David) at its center, which is the universal pattern of creation.

Creation's life-force, which we now know builds in a kind of lacy pattern, makes everything in the universe. It is the ultimate power. Obviously, a substance that is without that creative power, is in a weakened state and cannot create.  In other words, it is powerless in itself. Therefore, non-creation is non-power. So, never underestimate the power of love to create. We all have that power, seeded within us. We just have to decide to use it.

You can only imagine how wonderful your life would be if you chose more wisely, to love yourself and everyone and everything in every moment. The more love you invite into yourself, the more powerful you become and the more able you are to love others and help them know this truth also. Love makes you powerful - even if it is gentle and kind as a beautiful water lily.

On the other hand, when loveless, condemning, critical, destructive thoughts are directed to water, a chaotic mess emerges, formless, without the lacey design for creation. The following photo is of a water to which was directed hate-filled thoughts and a threat to kill.

But, the good news in Dr. Emoto's research reveals that polluted water, which under the microscope is dark and chaotic, can be changed into the beauty of a love crystal through prayer, as the following photo displays. 

In short, we can change our water from lifelessness to the essential life-giving, vital substance for all of life. Dr. Emoto's research suggests the awesome effect love-sent water could have on the Earth - to heal the planet, all species and us. Since all animate life is comprised primarily of water, the power of prayer could be magnified all over the world if we all consciously sent prayers -intentional focused thoughts - inviting heaven's love into all the water everywhere and into ourselves, our own minds and hearts and chose actions of love.  

On some level, all of this is a mystery, as is all of life, but if we can remember and in that remembering reconnect to the divine within us and live out of that fountain of love, we will transform ourselves, each other, our entire world into a living sanctuary, mirroring heaven - even if just a bit.

Maybe we can make every thought, every deed, every action, everything like a flower - a thought flower, full of love, remembering heaven and of the transformed crystalline water, flowing out into all the water, then life, the earth everywhere might be healed.

Then we might also heal our own bodies, our own lives, our communities, our countries, our entire planet, if we all would consciously focus our thoughts on being love, of being human flowers - beautiful, elegant, compassionate, magnanimous, serving mercy to all - absolutely unconditionally, since love itself is unconditional.  It's simple really.  We just have to remember who we really are and the flowers are here to remind us.

 * double tetrahedron:

Increased violence may be due to pole shifting

A few years ago there was a strange, eerie, report of thousands of black birds found dead in Alabama.  Scientists at the time couldn't figure out what had happened. Then, there were stories of flocks of Canada geese, who normally arrive in the spring in a certain pond every year like clockwork, but they were now landing in the center of a playground.  And, saddest of all, I think is the rapid decline of bees.  Without bees, the entire planet would starve.  Seriously? Seriously!

Then, the increased frustrations in the Middle East and all around the world.  It's like everyone everywhere has blown a gasket.  The massacre in Connecticut, the random killing of firemen outside Rochester, NY, and the list is endless.  So, what is going on?  It would be too simplistic to say it's an ancient prophecy that's coming true and the end is near.  Sorry folks, that doesn't work for me.  So, like so many others, I just wondered about it all, while praying for sanity to arrive to our tumultuous planet.

More recently, I've read about the imminent north / south pole reversal.  Attached to that are also all kinds of doomsday stories, but it's more likely that it's a natural part of the Earth's lifestyle, having happened before many times.  The magnetic circumference of the Earth has been changing rapidly over the last 200 years and recently has shifted just enough that birds, bees and whales who sound out their global patterns based on those magnetic lines are being led into strange places.  

The poles are shifting.  That's all.  

Well, that's not all.  While no one really knows how a total reversal could effect us, there is another phenomenon that we need to be aware of - for our safety and for our sanity. As the full moon effects tides, that same pull on our Earth's magnetic web has strong effects on people emotionally. Those who are sensitive or mentally / emotionally unbalanced will be affected by this shifting of the poles. Even you, a perfectly sane and healthy person emotionally, may even feel a bit weepy at times.  

The shifting of the magnetic pull on the earth will affect us emotionally.  If you're romantic, you may find yourself proposing to the love of your life.  If you're angry, you may find yourself flying off the handle at the slightest thing.  We are emotional beings and our emotions are going to be affected by the pole shifting.  It's not so much that something dramatic is going to happen that's going to hurt us.  It's more likely that our tempers will be stretched to the brink and we may do things we never could have imagined doing.  

This is a time, unlike any other in our civilization's history, that we need to be mindful and listen to our emotions, give each other a break, love our neighbor as we've never loved before.  Be kind, be patient, and remember that we are all in this shifting time together and the person who has been rude to you today is under the same influence as you are.  The only difference is he or she may not be aware of why.

We can be aware of this and take extra precautions to be safe. We don't know where the next random act of violence is going to break out.  So, be careful, be wise, be gentle on each other and hug your children and your spouse and thank God that we all have another day to love each other. Pray more.  Meditate more.  Expand your consciousness more and don't put off doing the things you love for another day.  Today is the day.  Live it loudly and joyously.

See also:  http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/26/us/new-york-beached-whale/index.html

A child shall lead them

O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

thank you for hiding these things

from those who think themselves wise and clever,

and for revealing them to the childlike. 

Yes, father, it pleased you to do it this way.

  Matthew 11:25-26

from Alex* -

Heaven is not the next world; it is now.

Heaven is not up in the sky; it is everywhere and nowhere.

Heaven is a place that is not a place.  It's eternal.  All other places end.

Heaven is a time with no past, present, or future ... it is always now.

When I was in the car, I tried to move my legs.  I realized that they would not move.  I went through a light and I heard music. Then I was in the presence of God.  He had a body that was like a human body, but it was a lot bigger.  I could only see up to his neck because, like the Bible says, nobody is allowed to see God's face or that person will die.  He had on a white robe that was very bright.  I looked down at my legs and I could move them again.

Even right now as I tell you this, I feel in my heart just like I did when it happened. 

Everything was perfect.

*The boy who came back from heaven by Kevin & Alex Malarkey, p. 48.  ( Tyndale: 2011) A true story about Alex Malarkey who was in an almost fatal car crash and visited heaven while in a coma.  His recovery is nothing less than miraculous.

Winter Solstice

Giant Sun Eruption Captured in NASA Video*

Today's Winter Solstice was a bit uneventful on this typical bleak late-December day. Raining in Portland, blizzards in the Midwest and heavy snow in the eastern U.S. are all seasonal events which block the sun while all the other news distracts our attention from the sun's important day. 

The ancients built special structures to catch a glimpse of the sun on this darkest day of the year.  They realized the awesome life power of this great majestic star in our sky.  They knew, as we do also, that this day has always been about the sun. They sensed the mysterious nature of this great energy source that causes all life on the Earth to flourish.

                                 Newgrange in Ireland, built approximately 6,000 years ago,
                       welcomes the sun's alignment at exactly its longest point of the year.**

But this season's solstice reveals a surly sun, as stormy in sun power as the Midwest is in snow power, curling, swaggering and staggering tall fiery plumes into the solar system.  

"Although it didn't unleash a killer solar flare or devastating coronal mass ejection, but it is undergoing a fascinating period in its solar cycle," according to NASA which finds the sun's activity especially interesting.

"As can be seen from the SDO image above, the solar magnetic field is twisted and warped, channeling million-degree plasma high into the sun's atmosphere in the form of beautiful coronal loops. This is all because the sun is fast approaching "solar maximum" -- an exciting time when the sun's magnetic field is most stressed.

"We can expect a lot more flares and CMEs from now and through 2013; although these events can damage satellites and threaten power supplies, they're not the flares described in doomsday myth."

Sometimes we take it all for granted - the sun, the moon, the stars and life itself here on Earth.  But, it's all an amazing synchronization of creative power, moving in a kind of cosmic choreography. The storms predicted on the sun in 2013 may mean some flare effects here - maybe some satellite systems will not work, or phone calls will drop, but seeing the sun this late into the year makes me happy that we're beginning to return to shorter days until finally we can bask in the sun on a beautiful beach in July. It's all wonderful and perfect,  this great powerful radiance up there.

*The sun as seen through the SDO's 171A filter. Credit: NASA/SDO

**http://www.mythicalireland.com/astronomy/ancientastronomers.html

A return to innocence

The beauty and power of this holy season has an inextinguishable light to it, a kind of silent effervescence that whispers to our hearts to hold up, to have hope, to once again allow the mystery and magic of that long-ago star-canopied night to awaken our hearts.

As you survey the landscape of your inner mind, traversing the endless sprinklings of a million stars, can you see a light, a tiny light growing and expanding in the far distance? As you draw closer to it, can you see the radiance expanding until you find yourself looking at the same thing the others gathered there are also seeing?  Can you see what they see?  That tiny light is a gathering of a hundred bright angels encircling around a precious beautiful baby.  

Stay there for a moment, let that beauty fill your heart and mind with the wonderful sight.  Let it filtrate all your senses, wordlessly, with the essence of all that is beautiful, holy, wonderful, perfect. Let the words fall away, and listen.  Can you hear them?  Can you hear the top notes of the angelic choir.  You are in the circle now, you are standing there with them.  Can you see this radiant baby? His eyes are closed, yet he seems to be lighted from within.  Have you ever seen such awesome love right before your eyes?

The world is at war, but when wasn't the world at war? Even then, it was immersed in heinous crimes at the time of His birth whenever that really was. Yet, despite that or perhaps because of it, heaven sent a special baby to remind us that the spirit is awakened in those who are free, humble and as spontaneous as a child.  Then, as now, children were being killed by the dark forces.  

How terribly ironic that at the birth of Moses, the dark powers were so threatened by the power of such innocence that they killed the children, and also at the birth of Jesus.  Now?  What does it mean now that "the child" is in peril, everywhere?  Could it mean that a great leader will be born now?  Could it mean that the time of the ages has come and a great shift is going to occur again and with it the birth of a kind of savior who will unite us all, under heaven's banner of real love?  Isn't it time that we awaken and realize that we are all loved equally and inside our hearts we can all traverse the starry night to the center of all that is and see the birth and rejoice at the awesome beauty of that luminescent child?

It is the age of the child.  Today, this very moment, it is the age of the child - the child within all of us.  That baby seen in the midst of angels is also within you - as you realize - and is you.  As you embrace that beautiful radiant baby within your mind and imagination, you embrace that child in all people.  As you allow him/her to grow up, you are transformed.  You are a different adult because of him/her than you think you are now.  

That imaginal experience will not leave you unaffected.  Allow yourself the full emotional experience of it and then allow the love to flow out of it and spill out into your world and our world.

No Words

There are no words to express the shock and horror of the tragedy in Connecticut, the incomprehensible insidious evil that snuffed out the lives of 20 children and six beautiful adults who taught and cared for them.  The slaughter of these precious innocents on top of a list of other horrors against children in this country and world-wide is impossible to endure.  So, there are no words, only tears, only prayers of comfort to the parents which so many loving people are offering them.

This morning, very early, I awoke to a vision of Jesus with arms outstretched, wearing his red tunic - as seen above - and I knew he had been there that day to receive their precious innocent souls into his most loving arms to be safely carried into paradise.  It was comforting to know that.  It was comforting to be reminded that he met them and carried them into the arms of our father.  They are safe, now.  The terrible loss is now that most unimaginable pain.

Yes, there is much for we as a  nation to do in the days ahead.  I would love to see "gaming" censored to eliminate the insane violence of it all. Yes, I would love to see stricter gun laws, but what are we to to about these random acts of madness, violence and killing?  While we must protect our children, I don't know if we can and that's the part that terrifies me the most.  

But, today, the darkness of these days is oppressive and while it does seem hopeless, we have to wake up - again and again, more and more until we are all awake - and stand as one on behalf of all that is good, loving, healing and whole.  

I offer my prayers and love to these dear childrens' parents and the family members of the six adults who were killed.  

Teary day

It's raining in Portland this morning. Almost in response to last night's terrible act of violence, today's dark overcast sky is filled with December's somber tears from heaven.  When a still unnamed gunman opened fire in a busy shopping mall yesterday, bustling with Christmas shoppers, he had already made a clear decision to be just another blind follower of this rapidly deteriorating culture of death rampant across our once lovely planet.

Any act of violence that violates the fundamental law of God that has asserted since antiquity, "Thou shalt not kill" is an act of utter powerlessness. This poor desperate man, so utterly empty of any light, of any power, revealed to us all on the grand stage of the local and national news what was already secretly buried in his heart - fear, anger, suppressed creative potential and a sense of utter powerlessness and hopelessness.  We don't need to know much else - what his childhood was like?  what drugs he may have been on, what happened in his job or lack thereof.  We know that his soul had been blemished terribly.  He, like the other two he killed, was a victim of his own impotence as a human being.  His frustration screams out in the blood he spilled.

We can't be reminded enough that we all have an awesome power within us and we exercise that power (or false belief in powerlessness) in every thought we think, action we take - smile or frown we offer externally.  I've often wondered if what we do shapes what we think or if what we think shapes what we do. But, I do know that we all have the power to be deciders of our fate and fortunes. If we can see that our lives reveal a low state of imagination and simply don't measure up to our highest hopes and dreams for our lives, then we are thinking wrongly.  

Even if we don't know how to change what's going on in our lives, we are never completely without resources.  Pray!  PRAY! and Pray some more!! Even if you don't believe, pray!  Even if you're a died in the wool blind atheist, pray!  Pray even for more faith and more will to pray. Pray as if your life depended on it, because your life does depend on it.  And, not only your life, but all our lives.

We are all connected on this great web that stretches across our globe and every thought you have affects every action you take and every action you take affects those around you - like the butterfly affect.

If you are troubled by the news and what's on your television, change your mind.  make a choice to be loving to a stranger.  Buy groceries for the local food pantry, put a dollar in the Salvation Army red pail outside the grocery store.  Every act of kindness, is a spot of light added to our fabric of light that also sweeps across the planet.  

Maybe we can't make North Korean stop its insane weapons machine, or stop the heinous civil war in Syria, or urge Israel and Palestine to find some kind of amicable solution to their sad relationship. Maybe we can't really do anything about the rape and violation of women in Africa, or the child slavery in India or the other corrupt and genocidal terrorism among Uganda's Lord's Resistance army or even about what is being produced in Hollywood that's affecting the minds and imaginations of our children and all people in the world, but we can choose - each and every one of us - to be and do goodness, be love and be truthful with ourselves and others in our lives. 

If we can take a determined stand to be part of the great wave of light and love, truth and goodness that is also sweeping the planet, our hearts will rise up and fill with the power of creative solutions to these problems.  we cannot be passive today or any other day.  We cannot just get up every morning, go to work like any other day and not take a stand either for or against being consciously aware and part of this great humanity. 

We all have the power to be light in this world. We are divine beings with the power of choice.  We can choose and we do choose.  Today choose to love your neighbor, support the poor, care about what's going on and expand your potential and your own personal power by choosing to be strong and be strong in the love that is buried deep within you.  Love yourself.  Love yourself enough to release all that awesome power within you to be a powerful warrior of light.

The way of the light warrior

Pure ecstasy.  Soaring free, skybound, alive, untethered, carried aloft by the expansiveness of all that is - all that is real - immersed in the gentle essence of the great spirit of freedom and love.  In this pure state of essence, your eternally young spirit experiences itself as awesomeness and unbounded joy.

But, today, on earth, heavy drug usage is common, sadly seducing users into an attitude of apathy while hopelessly stagnating many - young and old - everywhere except in war torn countries.  It seems that those who seek to experience a sense of freedom, expansiveness and a kind of other-worldliness turn to drugs for that experience, rather than untether themselves from all that weighs down their beautiful spirits, and explore the true path to that experience.

Sometimes when we talk about the spiritual life, we describe it in lofty terms of flight and light and expansiveness and joy, love and peace. When we hear a call to enter that realm - that inner realm - it can be almost frustrating if we don't understand how.  It's one thing to hear the call but it's useless if we don't understand the practicality of how to do it.

Imagine your spirit is a feather - a beautiful white feather of a seagull.  It floats up and drifts wherever the wind sends it, soaring up and away.  In a way, the spirit is like that feather. It is very light and it's that lightness that is joyous.  We are by nature joyous, loving, gentle, strong, peaceful and incredibly creative and wonderfully relational.  Yet, our lives have burdened us so heavily, for so long that we don't even realize how to fly anymore.

So, who wouldn't want to be as free as a bird, soaring above all the heaviness of our world here?  The single one thing that weighs our spirits down the most is criticism, condemnation and a sense of isolation and separateness from each other.  Usually that pattern of criticism and judgment stems from childhood. We are taught to be self critical and we teach our children to be self critical, measuring ourselves against the peer group, the dominant culture or our traditional culture.

Our nagging worry that we're not good enough weighs us down tremendously. It becomes almost habitual and serves as an unconscious force that sabotages all our joy and peace.The negative opinions of the status quo police also weighs us down.  This conspiracy to imprison all our souls to this "consensual matrix" is as old as the human race and is founded on fear. The source of that fear has many faces. Some might say the fear of God is a primary source. Yet, the truth is just the opposite.  God has always - through prophets and wise people - called us to be free. God isn't fear. Fear isn't creative, nourishing, uplifting, expansive or life-giving.  Fear is stiflying, reductionist, smothering, controlling and diminishing. 

God is Love.  God is who is calling us to lighten up, lose the fear and have the courage to be true to your own heart, let go of all that anchors you, holds you down, reduces your self esteem and clips your spiritual wings. You may want to do some personal inventory and release all the fear that's holding you down, tethering you to this dark age.  We may even be afraid to let go of our fear.  We may find it is so habitual and so deeply intrenched that letting it go is a major feat of mindfulness. You can pray for help and the effort will be won.

There's an ancient line that has been repeated on pyramid walls and ancient papyrus that says, "As above so below."  That beautiful phrase can be interpreted many ways.  But, it suggests that our  outer lives are a reflection of what is going on inside our minds.  If our lives are full of judgment and condemnation, poverty and pain, that is a fairly good reflection of what's going on in our minds.  If your life is calm, free of drama, full of joy and love and peace, creative, your mind is also. 

This may be why St. Francis of Assisi welcomed "Lady Poverty" because the simplicity of our singular love of God, each other and ourselves would result in a diminished need to consume quantities of goods.  Maybe this is why the great mystics and saints fasted.  In emptying themselves, their spirits gained altitude and soared into ecstatic states.

It is letting go of all our fears, all or anxieties, all our self doubt, our perfectionisms, our greed and jealousy, that allows us to slip out of the handcuffs of fear and soar. By letting go of all those negative attitudes that result in conflict, that threaten our free imagination and our sense of personal love of self and others, we can experience joyful surrender and awaken to the awareness that all we need is God and love of each other.  True freedom is in that beautiful, bright new awareness that nothing can separate us from each other in love if we are free of all the stuff that had imprisoned our souls.

Maybe the best place to start is to look at what frightens us the most and listen to what's going on in our lives.  What does it say about what's going on inside you? The outer world is only a mirror of our inner kingdom. We can't clean up the exterior without first cleaning us the interior. 

For each of us, this may be the beginning of a journey that has no end.  As we lighten our loads, we will always find more and more inside us that limits our creative freedom and our awesome abundant power to move mountains and cure lepers. It is a process of lifting the veils that obscure the light within. A true warrior of light will be willing to face his or her own inner fears and begin the journey of  on-going spiritual evolution. It is the only way to real life and ecstatic joy.

Not of this world

As spiritual beings having a physical experience, we are like angels in human bodies.  But, unlike the angels, we too often forget who we really are. 

Spiritual masters since ancient times have described our dense third dimensional world as the lowest level a divine spirit can descend.  As divine spirits in material bodies, we are truly strangers in a strange land while on Earth.  In our truest state, we are beautiful light beings of incredible power, radiance and love encapsulated in these earth bodies. We are powerful beyond our limited minds have ever allowed us to imagine. Here, we are imprisoned in narrow limited imaginations about who we are and what we are capable of becoming.

Since our senses are so strong, and our spirits so light, our spiritual intuitive guidance is often drowned out. Consequently, we have to be reminded of this fundamental truth of who we are. When we can remember who we are, we are able to listen more intentionally and activate our miracle-making ability within our souls.

Today, many have forgotten who they really are and are completely immersed in the planet's dark confusion, caught up in the power plays and the violent, fatal attraction of the control/victimization power plays that engulf life on Earth.  More than ever, we have to remember and remain mindful of who we really are. 

We need to walk through Earth's smoky battlefields and remember who we really are. We can choose to be here and yet not let what is going on around us dissuade our peace, nor lure us into the tempestuous storms that have taken the entire planet hostage.  We can walk in the light, be at peace, emitting the most beautiful holy light of heaven that radiates into and through us out into the world, regardless of what is going on outside us, around us or to us. We can do this if we can look for heaven within ourselves and focus with a renewed commitment to this consciousness and attention to what is beautiful, radiant and loving.

This is not easy.  It is the hardest thing anyone with any sensitivity, any heart, can do.  But, to survive, we must do this. 

The following are just a few thoughts shared by those wise ones who were once also in dark challenging times.

Jesus tells us in The Gospel of Thomas not to do what we hate and to "Be Passerbys."  He also reminds us often that, "You are in the world, but not of the world."

And, one of the most beautiful writings on this is from the Bhagavad Gita:

"When your mind has overcome the confusion of duality, you will attain the state of holy indifference to things you hear and things you have heard. When you are umoved by confusion of ideas and your mind is competely united in deep samadhi,* you will attain the state of perfect yoga."


*Samadhi is full communion with the divine in a state of perfect peace and detachment from all that is going on around us.  The Christian definition might be "the kingdom within."

The Promised Land

Joining our voices with angels and archangels 

and all the company of Heaven

Beloved children of Patriarch Abraham, whose very seed has filled this beautiful earth, you who were once called out of the wilderness, out of that place called Ur, who once gathered in tents to hear our One God's call, now hear again to what the spirit is saying to all of us.

Our God, the One whose being is all being, whose self is the all in the all, who is both creator and lover of us all, who made us for communion with each other and himself, is asking us to listen again to His ancient call to us.  He made us as vessels into which His great wisdom and spirit would flow to continue His great on-going, ever-living, ever-new creation. He, by whom we sing ourselves into being, is inviting us again onto the journey to that long ago Promised Land.

We were first called out of the wilderness, out of the vast desert of unknowing, to gather as one people. At that first calling, we were gathered into one great communion, but that union was broken by fratricide and jealousy which caused us to fall into slavery.  For 500 years, we staggered under the heavy burden of slavery until another was sent to guide us out of slavery, back into the desert and on the way toward a Promised Land.

We grew in wisdom over those two generations in the desert, listening again to words which would inform and form our hearts and minds for the next leg of our journey. Finally, we were ready. Together, as a nation of people, we crossed the River Jordan. Once a sacred river, yet now a terrible divide, we crossed over with the hope we were entering a land "flowing with milk and honey," rather than the place of terror it is today, with bullets and bombs shattering throughout this once holy land. We didn't understand that it was always meant to be a mythic journey and the beautiful River Jordan, a symbol of the river of life, was a place of new birth into wholeness and union, not a great dividing line.

Later, after several thousand years of on-going fighting in the name of our One God, we sought and were led to another promised land, again a place of hope and promise of freedom from oppression. Yet, soon after stepping onto that new soil we again found ourselves fighting over many issues, religious and political, under the banner of "One nation under God," again slaughtering those who lived there in order to found a place of peace and prosperity.

But, the Promised Land is not a country, a parcel of real estate. Rather, it is a magnificent kingdom within us. It is a place of peace, compassion, hope manifested in radiant technicolor out into our collective life together.  Unless we understand this ancient truth, now, we will always be people seeking and never finding.

While Abraham led us out of the wilderness and Moses led us back into the wilderness and on the way into the promised land, it was Jesus who led us on the way to the real promised land and taught us how to enter it. This is a real and authentic inner spiritual realm of perfection, a realm of light and love and hope and ever-living creation, energy, power and joy. It is all that is real.

It was always supposed to be a spiritual journey, but back then our young spiritual eyes and ears were closed.  We could not hear nor see what the Spirit was saying to us through Abraham or Moses and sadly not even through Jesus who was killed for this message.

In fact, Jesus' own baptism in the River Jordan is a powerful iconic image of this message:  the sacred river of life, which this river symbolizes, unifies all people as Jesus' own message calls for - the love of neighbor - even enemy - as we love God. To Jesus, the river of life calls us all together: Jew and Palestinian - all people - because all people are made in God's image, all people have within them the kingdom - the universe within, the universal mind -  which is visibly within them.  Clearly, this ancient and sacred River Jordan was never meant to serve as a boundary, a dividing line separating brother peoples.

Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you."  It is not a place out there somewhere on our Earth.  It is beyond the river of this world, beyond the River Jordan.  It is in us - it is the whole universe with us and that entire universe is for all time, all dimensions, all that is, and it is within our minds and hearts.

Love is the key that gently opens the door into that inner kingdom, that very real Promised Land. It is in that soft place of your heart which has the strength and courage of an entire army, more power than an arsenal of weapons. To love your enemy, to hold the dying man in your arms who was killed by your own weapon, and weep at the sad realization of ages, of the madness accumulated into that one moment, is the kind of courage that opens that door.

Today, we can understand what God was saying to us all those years ago. We are Jews, we are Christians, we are Muslims, we are the people of the land and people of the heart, we are all chosen because all human beings are chosen. We have all been called to participate in this great adventure and listen to the Spirit and join our voices together to lift up this great creation and experience this great encounter. 

We can join our voices today with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven circling that great tree of life that rises up out of the Garden of Eden, watered by the river of life. We can do this.  I know we can.

The Fugitive's Eyes

Ancient olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane

... more on The Middle East: A New Design:

"I agree about getting them all to sit down together to work out a plan.  Some of the most promising work along those lines has been groups of bereaved parents of children lost to a conflict coming together with love  and empathy. The core of all that I do that I most prize is bringing people together so they can and have to look into each others eyes.  They touch and are touched that way without hesitation or  shame.  And wounds can start to heal and divides can be crossed.  It brings to mind one of my favorite pieces of Henry Nouwen: Looking into the Fugitive's Eyes." 
                                                       - James O. Whitlock

Looking into the Fugitive's Eyes

One day a young fugitive, trying to hide himself from the enemy, entered a small village. The people were kind to him and offered him a place to stay. But when the soldiers who sought the fugitive asked where he was hiding, everyone became very fearful. The soldiers threatened to burn the village and kill every man in it unless the young man were handed over to them before dawn. The people went to the minister and asked him what to do. The minister, torn between handing over the boy to the enemy or having his people killed, withdrew to his room and read his Bible, hoping to find an answer before dawn. After many hours, in the early morning his eyes fell on these words: "It is better that one man dies than that the whole people be lost."

Then the minister closed the Bible, called the soldiers and told them where the boy was hidden. And after the soldiers led the fugitive away to be killed, there was a feast in the village because the minister had saved the lives of the people. But the minister did not celebrate. Overcome with a deep sadness, he remained in his room. That night an angel came to him, and asked, "What have you done?" He said: "I handed over the fugitive to the enemy." Then the angel said: "But don't you know that you have handed over the Messiah?" "How could I know?" the minister replied anxiously. Then the angel said: "If, instead of reading your Bible, you had visited this young man just once and looked into his' eyes, you would have known."

  

From the introduction to Chapter II of:

The Wounded Healer

By Henri J. M. Nouwen

*above photo:  http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17985&p=114448&hilit=olive

Soulful Presence

Bethlehem, Palestine

Photograph and article by James O. Whitlock

This ancient olive tree in Palestine has seen a lot. It speaks of strong hope and faith, of tenacity and persistence, of enduring
struggle and acceptance, and of an indomitable will to survive and live as fully as possible regardless of circumstances. 

I met this tree on one of my lunchtime walks, near the new checkpoint terminal on the Hebron Road from Bethlehem
to Jerusalem and not far from Caritas Baby Hospital where I spent so much time that year. The Israeli security fence is immediately behind it and the Har Homa settlement is on the hilltop in the background. I felt a soulful presence in this tree and had no doubt at all that it has wept equally for all the disputants in the tragic conflict that surrounds it.

Presented to Riverside-Salem UCC, February 17, 2008

Middle East: A New Design

They lived there peacefully for thousands of years, surviving despite the harshness of an arid climate and centuries of foreign invasions and cruel oppression. 

In their pastoral homeland, flourishing with thousand-year-old ancient olive groves, the people of Palestine, who typically  passed their homes down through generations, have grown their food, raised their children, buried their dead, married, and prayed solemnly since antiquity. 

This idyllic, yet hard, life of theirs, challenged by all that typically challenges human life, was terribly ripped away from them, usually at gunpoint, when their native lands were subdivided to make separate nations to accomodate the World War II war-weary Jews. Victims of Hitler's genocidal holocaust, they sought a return to their own ancient homeland to heal from centuries of prejudice and discrimination in Europe.

Like today's Palestinians, they had once been oppressed, subjugated until they were exterminated by Roman persecution at Masada circa AD 70. Those Jews who survived Rome's fleecing fled east into less hostile lands. They became, once again in their history, strangers in strange lands.

During the 1940s, political decisions made by a powerful multi-national leadership who would never be personally impacted by their dividing up of families, tribes and homelands like cards in a poker game, stirred up a hornet's nest in the whole Arab world.

The people of this ancient land did not go quietly into this new boundary design of their sacred homelands when the British Empire sliced up the Arabian penninsula after World War II.

It wasn't just that the "most agonizing aspect in the history of the Middle East (for the Palestinians) is the establishment of the Jewish State Israel in Palestine," according to Sahih Iman, but it came with a sense of betrayal by Jordan's King Abdullah I who "played a key role along with British and Jews in its formation." The king supported the Peel Commission (1937) which proposed Palestine be split for the Jewish state Israel. When that happened, Palestine was subdivided between Israel and Jordan.  Since, that separation, there has been continual unrest among the Palestinians in the West Bank, the region of land sandwiched between Israel and Jordan.

It seems, given the current waring between Palestinians and Israelis, the region might do with another redesign.

First point:  Nationalize the West Bank and Gaza and any other strong Palestinian lands or change Jordan's borders to include the Palestinian lands.

Second point:  Currently the population of Jordan, which is approximately 6.5 million and includes 1 million Iraqi refugees and 2 million Palestinians, staggers under an unemployment rate close to 22 percent, plunging the country into terrible poverty.  About 40 percent of the poplulation lives in poverty earning about $300 - 400 per month. Recent uprisings in Amman reflect a collective frustration from decades of an increasingly intolerable situation - politically, economically and culturally. King Abdullah II, who's net asset value is not known publically but is estimated to be among the world's highest at close to (if not exceeding) $18 billion, would be wise to lighten the load the people are bearing.      

When the recent gas prices tripled, the king did nothing to soften that blow to his already struggling people.  He would be wise to realize that a collective population, oppressed by poverty, will rise up against such a heavy burden.  If he fails to respond sensitively to this escalating mood among his people, he could face a dire situation.

Perhaps he would consider sending out treasury checks from his immense wealth to his people.  If he is worth $18 billion, why not issue treasury checks to his suffering 6 million people to stimulate the economy, relieve tensions and prove that his heart is with his people.

It seems a redesign of Israel's national boundaries to allow for an independent Palestinian nation or include the Palestinian lands in Jordan in combination with King Abdullah-II's outreaching financial support could help his suffering people. These two actions might be a wise, compassionate and reasonable response to a potentially explosive situation.  This might offer an alternate outcome than any of the other countries in the Middle East have experienced thus far in their transitions into freedom and justice.

Background:
     In 1946 - 48, Abdullah-I participated in the partition of Palestine. Before Arab Israeli conflict, the British had essentially withdrawn their troops. The situation pushed the leaders of the neighboring Arab states to intervene, but their preparation was not finalized, and they could not assemble sufficient forces to turn the tide of the war.
     The majority of Palestinian Arab hopes lay with the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan's King Abdullah I, but he had no intention of creating a Palestinian Arab-run state, since he wanted to annex as much of the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine as he could.
     He was in contact with the Jewish authorities as with the Arab League. He met with the Jewish Agency (future Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was among the delegates to these meetings) that came to a mutually agreed partition plan independently of the United Nations in November 1947.
Result:
     A part of Palestine was occupied by Israel and the remaining part was occupied by Jordon when Israel was formally created by the United Nations in 1948. Today, 60 years later, the entire region is bristling violently while Jordan absorbs a rapidly growing population of refugees from the West Bank and Syria.

Allowing life to happen

The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love. They think about love, and express their love in every action.They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe.”
                                                                                         - Deepak Chopra

God is life, in life, and creator of life. The essence of that life, is love.  Life is love, as God is love, and both are actualized in trusting and allowing the on-going happening of everything.  Life is not just a random continum of actions on a lateral timeline.  It is a mysterious awesome intelligent design. 

And, if, when, we do just let it be, allow life to flow, to happen, we experience that intelligent design, which is designed by the greatest love there is. When we allow life to happen, without our fear getting in the way and blocking through judging, we can and will experience the most wonderful life. We can trust that life is good and can be trusted. 

If we stop judging ourselves, each other and everything down to the tiniest minutae of life and open our hearts, minds and lives to allow, embrace and choose to be open to what each encounter is saying to us, we will find our lives will move in a radically new direction. 

We can trust and embrace the greatest adventure of our lives.  If we take our hands off the steering wheel of our lives and allow life itself, which has a more profound intelligence than we, to lead us, it will steer us into the greatest joy, the most awesomeness that we can't even imagine right now.   

The only thing that prevents us from experiencing this greatest of adventures is our blockage of it through our fear and judgment.  If we in our fear, judge and attempt to control what is happening to us, we alter the paths of our lives. We do this - and I mean, we all do this, because we think we can make our lives somehow better than that which God - or life itself - would design.  I honestly think we do this innocently because most of us don't realize that God is really there in all the many big and little ways of life. 

If we listen to our own truth, to our own sense of joy or despair, we will find our way back onto the path that leads us into this perfect life, this awesome design.  We are part of it in a most remarkable, awesome way.  We just have to trust in faith and there's no judgment in trust.

Perhaps we do it because we were taught how to "discern" or judge any given thought, motive, happening and are also taught how we SHOULD respond.  All of this assumes a negative outlook on life.  It distrusts life.  It distrusts God.  In fact, it downright writes God out of the storyline.  Our ideas of God are very ancient and need some significant updating in order to experience this greatest adventure called life.

If we judge, we block life.  So, it is wiser not to judge. I think one of the most fundamental questions we can ask ourselves is, "Do we see God as lover or God as judge?"  Do we believe and trust life to be good or do we fear that it is dangerous, punitive, cruel.  Do we believe life is about creation, about being alive and do we see freedom as a part of that "aliveness?"  Or, do we believe in spiritual slavery.  Is God our lover, our friend, or a cruel taskmaster, slave master, judge?

We are happier because God will make our lives happy because, quite simply, God is love and love feels good and is good.  Life is good.  Life is sweet.  Life is the ultimate adventure, the ultimate experience.  It is what we came here to experience.  If we judge every single little thought or deed, blocking some and allowing others all because we were taught this or that is good or bad, then we aren't living an authentic or real life. We are living to a script written by someone else or an entire hierarchy of power brokers a long time ago for another time, another place, another occasion.

So, today, just for the fun of it consider how you are judging in this moment.  What are you judging against, what are you allowing to happen?  You may see even just a glimmer of how much life you are blocking.  Release all the life you are holding captive by your fearful judgment of it. What are you afraid of? What would happen if you did this that you are afraid of? Then, consider what would happen if you allowed life to happen. 

Certainly, as you allow life to happen, your life will bloom, come alive. It may become more challenging. Yes, and maybe even terrifyingly new and different, unpredictable, but alive in so many ways.  Life will steer you where you are meant to go.  It's not an intellectual endeavor.  It is a faith journey - faith in the goodness of life itself, faith in the love God has for you and wants you to experience, faith in joy, in love, and in the greatest adventure of all:  Life itself.

A dream for Peace

"Hush the noise, ye men of strife,

 and let the angels sing."

On this Thankgiving Day we - as a whole world standing together - offer gratitude to you, our God who is in everything, is everywhere and whispers deep into our hearts your great love song to us.  We thank you for all the blessings in our world today, especially the peace between Israel and Gaza. 

I have a dream of peace for all everywhere and am so very grateful to all those brave ones who have given so much to help build that great peace for our earth.

May this wonderful, blessed peace last and may it be the door that opens into an even more beautiful golden age and a renewed life for all on the Earth including the Earth herself.

Listen now as the angels sing open the timeless gate to the future ...

It came upon a midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,
From heaven's all-gracious King."
The world in solemn stillness lay,

To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessèd angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

For lo!, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

- Edmund Sears, 1849

(Original five-stanza hymn)

Love never dies

The following has been graciously shared with Tiger Lilies by Thaddeus who gave his homily Sunday, Nov. 18 in St. Joseph University Parish, Buffalo, NY. 

"Heaven and earth shall pass away

but my words will never pass away."

(Matt 24:35)

What are those words?

Jesus said all the law, prophets and writings are based upon the Great Commandment: love God with all your heart, mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.

Love is what we are called to search for in our hearts. The classic stories of the season highlight that, whether Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Horace P. Bogardus in The Bells of St. Mary or George Bailey, an ordinary person who discovers that this is truly a Wonderful Life!!!

Augustine said, "If you see love, you see the Trinity." Blake wrote, "I sought my soul, a soul I could not see; I sought my God, but my God eluded me; I sought my neighbor and there found all three."

And so I end with this little poetic reflection:

Our cars will rust and fall apart,
condos crumble to the ground,
and even our football team will every year

miss the playoffs.
Everything will go: investments,
worries, honors, pains.
Yet,
“My words will not pass away,”
you say to us.
Jesus, please fill us with your words

which will never pass away.

You are love and love never dies.