Hope for the world

As an oyster on the ocean floor, a radiantly beautiful new world is opening before us.  This new scene on an old stage brings an entirely fresh hope to the weariness of our lives, tossed tempestuously for millenia against the illusive reefs and rocks of uncertainty and lost meaning. 

Today the despair and fear of those ages are only damp ashes from a former firestorm. It is over. The war is won and we are here now to rebuild our world with a brand new arsenal of medicinal tools. It is akin to a bright sunny morning after a terrible night of winds and storms that wiped out a third of the world in its fits of fury and oppressive control. The angels have won and today, if only for a day, we can rejoice and rest in this news. Tomorrow the clean up begins.

Our tears will dry, lives will be restored and those precious souls who lost their lives at the hands of those enslaved by the dark soulless structures will be elevated to heavenly places of light and endless life. In some incomprehensible way, they helped birth this new world.

Perhaps it is a kind of New Jerusalem, gilded in crystalline light, sparkling, glistening, softly now appearing amid the rising mists in the warmth of this new day. It may be more palpable, sensory, than visual at first as it profoundly radiates love's resonance deep into the far reaches of our interiority. Stirring, awakening, our hearts, this love nurtures us with its own unique and breathlessly beautiful joy and peace. Like the gorgeous colors of a rainbow, it cannot be described, only experienced.  

Today, in the drying tears and dying winds of a thousand centuries of misery, the rainbow of love rises before us, shimmering in its technicolor promise and gift of restoration and life. It is sweet with the vision of a spiritually vibrant spring after a long, dark and frozen northern winter.  In its tender promise is a hope and the assurance that things have finally changed.

The dark lords are gone.  As the ancient dinosaurs, beasts who once stalked the Earth, were gone one morning, so are these dark fearsome forces. After ages of oppression, twisted manipulative insanity which consumed the bodies and souls of our brethren, they are gone.  All that remains of their vain Godless structures, are ghosts, powerless phantoms, now dimming out of our memory.They are not here in this new world.The stench of their tyrannical blood thirsty greed, their exhausting terror, endless world domination, their dark charade - is over!

While we are left to clean up the planet, aided by angels and light beings from throughout the cosmos, it is an honorable opportunity of great joy.  Yet, as we greet it with relief, tears still linger, and may for awhile, for those who suffered as unwilling victims at their hands, plyed by their vast global predations, campaigns which fed on the lives they selfishly weakened  before consuming completely.  Those who perished are safely in the arms of God now, and lovingly restored into new lives of light and their nightmares forgotten.

Perhaps the skeletal remains of the dark lords' crimes against God's children will sink like ancient Atlantis deep into the bottom of our great oceans, never to be seen again.  And, maybe only as a warning, reminding fuure generations of what once was, they would be found a million years in the future by some intrepid archaeologist.  

But, as for today, only the fresh florid scent of roses, the songs of the birds rejoicing in their own free abandon among the softly drifting leaves on the large gentle trees are here, now. And, for those of you courageous enough to embrace this vision I share now with you, sing with them as we are all freed together from the great and terrible lie that held us in its dark grip for so long.  As you believe, you are freed from its fallacious hold.  

Here is the promise and the keys to this new age:  You are free to dream, to fearlessly and joyously unleash your passion for life, drink deeply of your life and spare no time whatsoever in living and loving as loudly as you are capable. And, tomorrow, your power will be fully restored to you and your joy abounding beyond your current ability to contain it. It is with that power together we will build our new Earth.

Silent no more

I wonder what were her thoughts as she walked hand-in-hand with her husband on that warm May evening? I wonder if her last thoughts were of her unborn baby, her beloved husband and the hope for a new life together? I hope her death came quicker than the awareness that it was her own father who cast the first brick to her head, killing her.  

The world's oppression of women, especially in heavily patriarchal cultures, is desperately calling out to us, begging us to all awaken to the oppression in our own lives and those of our sisters, mothers, grandmothers and daughters. Nothing will ever be the same again. Once you realize your soul has been in bondage, a funny thing happens.  It's suddenly not in bondage anymore. That awakening has to spread across the world, into every pocket, enclave, home and community.

The tears of billions of women in varying stages of liberation are giving birth to a new generation of feminine liberation. The voices of those weeping alone tonight all over the world - from heart break, soul loss or physical torture, silently suffering in a million different ways - are being heard at last.

This includes the more than 200 Nigerian school girls being held captive by Boko Haram. Their fate remains uncertain and who can imagine what they are suffering presently? I pray God is protecting them.

This week, when I first read about a young Pakistani woman, three months pregnant, who was stoned to death by her own father, brothers and their male accomplices, while her beloved newlywed husband stood by helplessly unable to save her, I was shocked.  I couldn't breathe.  My heart was profoundly wounded by that unbelievable cruelty. As an unbearable deep ache within me took my breath away, I felt physically sick. I quickly turned the page of the newspaper. I didn't want to know this could happen anywhere. I attempted to turn away, pretend that it wasn't true as I have so many, many times when I've read or heard about the unbelievable injustice, exploitation, use and abuse of innocent women virtually everywhere - Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, America, even Portland. 

From sex trafficking in America to the sale of pre-pubescent girls by their families into marriages to much older men in the Middle East, it's too hard to comprehend such things can happen, much less speak up, stand up and wake everyone else to this great evil.

But, earlier today, headlines on CNN made an even more disturbing revelation unavoidable.  I read the incomprehensible. This woman's husband had killed his first wife a few years earlier so he could marry her. 

At first, I wondered if she knew that and what kind of man would do that and how could she love such a man and risk her own life to be with him. Then came the realization of the terrible tragedy of it all. Women who are caught in such a culture don't know any better. As much as they are victims, so are their oppressors. They participate, unwillingly perhaps, in the continuation of the ultimate dysfunctional culture. They accept their lower status and attempt to navigate among abusers as part of their everyday lives. This young wife, soon to be a mother, had traded one family of abusers for another.  Her husband like her own father and brothers are all victims of this hideously ugly ignorance.  Under the spell of this dark systemic evil all is lost - body and soul. Life itself will not endure this silently any longer.   

Have all their souls been silenced, numbed by fear and ignorance? I can't comprehend what causes a father to put a noose on his daughter's neck and cast bricks against her skull until the life in her is cast out.  What kind of cultural brainwashing could go against the natural loving bond of a father and daughter? In other parts of the world, fathers die everyday protecting their wives and children.That has been how it always has been.  What would allow this to happen? 

And if, as some say it has, this has happened for over a thousand years why are we only waking up to this obvious evil now?  I would suggest that we have collectively, finally, evolved to a place of absolute non-acceptance.  We cannot stand by and watch this happen as we've watched the dictator Bashar Assad torture and commit genocide against his own people in Syria, a once beautiful country long touted as an Eden, as one of the most fertile and vibrant countries in the world.  

As this long foretold, newly emerging Golden Age is calling us all to the awareness of our unity as a human race, slowly, yet virulently, it will not tolerate this kind of prejudice against women or the cruel, merciless exploitation and oppression of any who are marginalized victims. The new age will not be silent. Our tears will be heard and are being heard. If the world is silent, nonchalant, unresponsive to such cruelty, the angels of justice, those invisible hands that orchestrate life itself, will give back to those what they have given.  

"Justice is mine," they say, the Lord has declared.  And, while I don't believe in justice, it seems this Pakistani husband had his beloved wife taken from him as he had taken his first wife's life.  While that isn't justice, because justice cannot restore the lives of those two innocent women, it clearly makes one sit up and listen.

With all that in mind, I share the following that I received in my e-mail this morning.  It seems fitting, especially, given the great birth pains of the divine feminine, today. She, who has been silenced into subservience, self-exiled from her own creative life, murdered, beaten, tortured, rejected, abandoned to die at the hands of those she trusted, will not be silent any longer.  She is us as we are all one with each other.  If a woman suffers as this woman did, or as the 200 school girls, or the shakled and brutally tortured imprisoned person in one of Assad's dark prisons in Syria,  or the missing girls in America or the countless women who are sexually traded, assaulted, raped and abused everywhere, everyday - we all suffer.  

We cannot be silent anymore.  Everyone of us has to reach for our soul and speak out, dream our biggest dreams and rekindle our own souls, breakout of the closet our too long repressed  passion for our lives.  Together we are one and only as one will we rise into the full stature of our collective humanity.  

Eve has tasted the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and she will never be silenced again.  Taste it.  It is life itself.

    

This post comes from a friend of the "Standing on the Side of Love Campaign" and contains personal and community reflections and resources about sexism, patriarchy, and sexual assault. Trigger Warning for sexual assault and violence. There is no greater agony than  bearing an untold story inside you. -Dr. Maya Angelou This past week, another tragic mass shooting occurred in Isla Vista, California. This time, the shooter released several videos and a manifesto that made clear his distaste for many people, especially, but certainly not limited to, women. In these materials, the shooter expressed his beliefs that women should be judged on their appearance and that he was owed sexual experiences from women. Also this past week, we also lost a great American hero, Dr. Maya Angelou. Assaulted as a young child, Dr. Angelou did not speak for five years, believing her words brought on the death of her perpetrator. She later found her voice and used it to raise awareness about the many times she experienced sexual violence and assault throughout her lifetime in over 30 works including autobiographies, anthologies of poetry, books for children and more. She taught countless women the importance of sharing our stories to release the guilt and shame we might otherwise internalize after experiencing sexual violence. And on a personal level, this past week I was sexually assaulted.  Shortly after the Isla Vista shootings, the #YesAllWomen Twitter hashtag sparked a nation-wide conversation on misogyny and patriarchy, and I had a burning desire to share my story. These milestones all occurring this week make it so clear to me that patriarchy still rules our society, that sexual assault and misogyny are not limited to one incident but are a ubiquitous threat, in varying levels, to all of us. The humanity of every person is threatened by this reality. I wanted to share my story both to help me heal personally, and to provide information that yes, all women, and all people of all gender identities might find useful. Immediately after the assault, friends and family pointed me to resources that have helped me profoundly. I hope all of you reading this have never experienced, and will never experience sexual assault or violence. Sadly, statistics and personal experience force us to acknowledge and bear witness to the fact that far too many women, far too many people, will have to suffer through this as well. If you, or a loved one, experience sexual assault, here are some points you may find helpful: • Ask for and accept help as you are able and willing: This might be something that is usually hard. I realized early on I needed to be honest with a close circle of people about what happened so that I could have their support. I also reached out immediately to a local rape crisis center and survivor’s advocacy network. To find information on your own local resources visit: RAINN and the National Center for Victims of Crime. • Be prepared to make difficult decisions: The circumstances of every assault are different, but in my case, like so many others, I knew my assailant. There were many things that needed to happen immediately so I could be in a safe space away from harm, and that was the most important thing I needed to focus on. You or your loved one might also be confronted with many other immediate decisions, like whether to go to a hospital to get a “rape kit” done, when to reach out to sexual assault detectives, or deciding to press charges. People will likely give you conflicting advice, something I experienced over and over. I was also told: “ultimately it is up to you to decide”, as if that would be comforting. It wasn’t. I didn’t ask to be assaulted in the first place, and it felt like I had this huge burden of making all of these deeply uncomfortable decisions that felt overwhelming. I got through it by practicing self-care while journaling to see what felt like the right things to do for me. You may find creative expression might be something that helps you as well. • Remember that ending patriarchy and misogyny will take work: Transforming the way we treat ourselves and each other will take lots of love, compassion and time. But we have to take action today to ensure that the normalization of violence against cisgender and transgender women, genderqueer and gender non-conforming people ends. For more information on transformation check out Black Feminism Lives, Against Patriarchy: 20 Tools for Men to Further the Feminist Revolution and the UUA Reproductive Justice Curriculum for Congregations. For a few days after my sexual assault happened, all I wanted to do was scream with rage. In fact, one day I had to do just that. I parked my car in an almost vacant lot, turned a warrior women song on full blast, so loud my car shook, and I screamed. I screamed until my face hurt, until I let all that rage and anger and fear out of me, so it wouldn’t stay inside and become toxic. Then I made a very conscious decision to stop screaming. I turned off the music, and sat very still. Later, I wrote some words from Dr. Angelou in my journal: You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them. One thing you might consider doing is sharing this story with others in your lives, so they have access to these resources. You might also want to share your own story, perhaps anonymously like me, or with your own voice—whatever feels most comfortable and safe to you. In the words of Dr. Angelou: History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. I ask you to join me so that collectively we can change the long history of sexual violence in our communities. Listen to the stories shared by people directly impacted by violence. Our collective future of love and liberation depends on it. Signed, #YesAllWomen PS: #YesAllWomen has acted as an important rallying call in recent days as people share stories of systemic and personal violence that is normalized. We recognize that people with many gender identities are impacted by violence. Let us begin with working for the human rights of all people to be respected.

Above photo:  https://sites.stedwards.edu/andrewkf/2014/04/30/incarnation-and-the-dignity-of-women/

Blocking infectious negativity

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. 

I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.        

                   Matthew 10: 34 - 37

                                                                                    

The Columbia River crossing, dividing Oregon and Washington, is only half a mile wide and yet that half mile is as vast as my imagination. Each morning as I cross that beautiful river, I am reminded of The Peace Bridge in Buffalo, New York, which separates and connects the U.S. and Canada. That international boundary also contains a magical quality, but nothing quite like the Columbia in the early morning as the sun rises over Mt. Hood and the river is still blanketed by the early morning mist. There is an almost poetic surreal essence about the river in the morning.

As lovely as it is, it is yet a boundary, a division between two very different states.  With the frequent crossing, I could easily forget - if it weren't for the view and the long traffic jams on the bridge - that I was leaving one state and entering another.

The Columbia River crossing is a kind of sacred river for me. Each morning and each evening as I make that crossing, I leave behind in that other world all its cares and worries, its dramas and emotional turmoils. I shift my mind from one world to another. 

The Columbia River crossing is also a spiritual sword, a dividing marker, clearly separating two very different worlds as I work in Oregon and live in Washington. Work can be stressful. I am challenged by a supervisor who doesn't understand the spiritual life in the way in which I understand it and express it in my work choices and writing.  This job was not my best choice, but here I am anyway. How did this happen?  How is it that I find myself in such a place?  Nothing is an accident. Unaware, I attracted this situation to myself to be experienced and then healed and ultimately replaced by a new (and yet to come) situation that more closely reflects what I want to experience. 

I've realized that we all contain a kind of energetic system that has a magnetizing quality that draws to us a person, place or thing - or job - anything - that matches that same level of energy.  For example, a sad person will attract more sad people, news, events into their lives. So I'm a happy person, how did this happen?  Apparently, I had allowed my vibration to be lowered, unintentionally. So, when this job came into my life - and I use this job as an example of what happens to all of us - I hadn't yet been able to separate my mind from an infectious negativity that had seeped into my unconsciousness, until I reflected on the power of the sword to separate the world's diminishing value of  us and our incredibly awesome real self worth. We are priceless, lovable, and incredibly powerful, beyond our wildest imaginations.  

The sword is our mindful intention to clearly choose our thoughts - on all levels of consciousness.  Since we are constantly creating our life experiences through our thoughts, conscious and unconscious, these imperfect things in our lives point to yet unconscious negativity that needs remediation and transformation.  That, I think, we can do when we embrace - even love - that which repels us.  The sense of discomfort and angst is an arrow pointing toward something unconscious in us that can only be healed through self-love and the strong conscious decision to not allow your power - as in your emotional state and convictions - be defined, controlled or stolen. 

That is the only real power anyone has - what they are thinking and how they choose to respond to any given situation.  However, we truly have to be aware there are wolves in sheep's clothing and they do come to steal our power.  If we fight them, they win.  If we love them, we win, but in doing that we have to be aware of why we're doing it and remember that we are also choosing not to be controlled.  That sense of restored power will lead us to an even deeper and greater inner peace and joy once we've created what we want, but to get there we have to transform the obstacle that plaques us today. 

The sword is a powerful metaphor for that which separates - flesh from bone - human from human - and so it is a powerful and effective metaphor for separating our conscious thoughts and emotions from the world's onslaught of negative programing that seeps like poison from our news casts, our politicians, our banksters, our parents and our children.  We are all unwitting co-conspirators in this massive outpouring of all things anti-life, anti-creation, hugely negative and spiritually poisonous and emotionally disturbing.  There is violence in every breath.  We have all done this. We've all found ourselves gossiping, or listening to gossip or commenting on the latest round of news to pour off the front page. Negativity is infectious.  It is slowly becoming "the new normal."

The Light of God warned us - through the wisdom of Jesus the very human man who was also fully filled with the light of God in His own spiritual maturity - about this.  He often said, "You are in the world but not of the world."  We have to, at his urging, become vigilant by consciously setting our inner minds to recognize what is toxic to the spirit and block it mentally.  We have to remember who we are and remain mindful of that at all times. It may be in precisely this context that He urged us to love our enemy, love those who hate us.  Why would we want to do that?  Because it will raise your power level to a higher vibration, making your own love stronger, and make you more effective creators, and also draw you closer to an authentic encounter with God. 

We can monitor our thoughts by watching our feelings, our emotions.  Our emotions are a thermometer to what is in our consciousness. So, when your boss is in your face, you can choose to respond humbly, kindly and openly, while reminding yourself that this moment is a sacred opportunity to expand your own creative ability, your own power.  The more you do it, the less often she'll show up at your desk shaking her head and the paper in her hand. We also maintain our power because we chose to be positive which refuses her the opportunity to downgrade our power, which is another word for stealing it. A co-worker occasionally leaves angry because his power is undermined every day.  If he could stay positive, despite anything our boss does or says, and stay focused on being joyful and mentally self-determining, he could stay free, liberated from another person's bad mood, and in joy. Joy is evidence the spirit is free of the negative influences of the world.

So, when we set our emotional gauge to joy or love or peace or healing - or even to the sheer power of pure unconditional love - we need to lock it there.  The world - of which we are not - will attempt to infect that peace, that joy, that love in an effort to steal our inner power, the only real power there is in an otherwise  power-hungry world.  When we react to anything outside our inner chosen realm of peace, we feed it and fan the flame of unrest. So, we need some kind of boundary in our mind that separates us from these two worlds.  For me, it's the river.  For Jesus it was a sword. He was never a proponent of violence and yet he knew the most vicious crimes are in our minds and so to separate our thoughts, the image of a sword may have been the better choice.  The mind understands what a sword does and so to separate two different realms - only a sword could do that.  

He also knew - as we have come to see lately - terrorism, evil, will suck us in through the abduction - either spiritually, emotionally, psychologically or sadly physically - of our children, our parents, our loved ones. The most insidious evil from the dark side attempts to draw us off our chosen path through the words and actions of our closest family members.  If, as in the case in Nigeria today, our children are taken, we have no choice but to go after them. Wouldn't we do anything for our children or our parents and siblings?  Of course we would.  

But, on another level, would we forfeit our own souls to follow them into the violence of the dark side?  That is where awareness is being called for. Do we care so much or need so much their approval that we would abandon our own resolve, our own inner choices to be accepted by them? Right there is where Jesus' sword comes down, separating us. He would say, "no."  

If we allow ourselves to be dissuaded off our path, away from our joy and love and light, we have nothing left to give, to shine out, with which to inspire others.  We have to manage our thoughts as well as if not better than how we manage our financial lives.  We have to be as careful about what we allow in our minds, even what we are thinking about, as we are not to consume toxic foods,

We have to draw up sides within our minds so when we see the news, we can see it but not allow our emotional natures be overcome by it.  There is horror all around us, sadness everywhere, crime everywhere, and yet there is also a watery, mystical garden in there also, blooming with radiant colors, brimming with joy and light-filled high places of love and peace.

We are called to a higher standard. We are called to the abundant life, that authentic promised land of inner peace flowing like "milk and honey." We are called to be a light to the nations.  We are called to be vehicles for the holy in an unholy land.  And, so, we are called to be very aware of our thoughts. I also think if we are very good at this, we may become able to enter the other side of the river, or the sword, that place of toxic thought and darkness, while remaining on the side of light by keeping our minds fully steeped in our love and joy and peace and forgiveness. I think that is what he is asking of us. Since "the kingdom" is an inner realm, I think this is what is meant and is urgently needed today.