Imagine a Better World

Over the dim roar of the newsroom, running feverishly on deadline, I heard the phone ring, followed by the editor's attentive silence.  I looked over, caught his wrinkled brow and waited.  He glanced back with an expression I knew all too well.  There's a kind of coach - team rapport among editors and reporters. On this particular morning, that relationship was going to change my life forever - not in a big dramatic way, rather as a subtle awareness that would open a door through which I would never return.

The day after Christmas was often bleak, even dismal, in the declining old industrial city, with its weary store fronts, various bars, lower income housing dating back a century or more. It had a kind of morning-after feeling to it,  that had spilled into the streets from the holiday before. A rancid silence hung in the air as I drove past empty liquor bottles, an occasional McDonald's bag, cigarette boxes and butts on my way into the police station at 5:30 a.m. 

It was the beginning of a typical day at the paper.  After the usual, perfunctory chat with the officer at the counter, I was ushered into the inner sanctum to gather the police reports from the night before, including Christmas Day.  

I wrote down all the details from the day's and night's activities.  Since reporters are no stranger to humanity's depravity - especially depravity from binging on alcohol and drugs, too prevalent in decaying old cities - I wasn't particularly alarmed or really even interested in the low-level behavior of the town over the holiday weekend.

I turned away from my editor's phone conversation and returned to writing up the boring police blog.  It's easy when you don't care.

When my desk phone rang from an inside line, I looked over as my editor nodded to me to answer my phone.  

"Can you take this call?  This guy's pretty upset.  He says he got arrested last night for a domestic and he doesn't want it to go in the paper,"  my editor said, with a slight, only barely distinguishable hint of concern in his voice.

"I have the reports from last night here.  Do you know which guy he is?  There's a lot of them," I said, wincing at the thought of what I was going to have to deal with.

"I think he's the guy who smashed in his wife's car with his fist," he said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, I got it. I'll talk to him," I said, as my editor backed out of the call leaving a very distraught middle-aged sounding man on the line.

In the course of that conversation, some of which my editor listened in on from across the newsroom, I went from complete apathy to a deep concern for this man's plight: alcoholism, possible mental illness and probable domestic violence.  He didn't beat his wife, only threatened her and was possessive and jealous. I didn't know how to deal with this angry, sad man.  I felt completely at a loss. He begged me not to run the incident from the night before.  He didn't hurt anyone and it was too embarassing to have his friends, and the other guys at the local VFW Post, see what had happened.  I put him on hold and went over to my editor.

"Is it possible to not run what happened?"  I asked him.

"No," he said, unequivocally.

"Do you think we could make an exception just this one time?"  I heard myself pleading, unaware that I'd picked up the caller's cause and wanted to run with it for him.

"Sorry.  No.  We can't.  I get calls like this all the time and if I did it for him, we would have to do it for everyone, and that's not journalism.  Journalism is telling what happened regardless of how remorseful people feel after the fact."

I really heard that.  He was right. 

I went back to my desk. As I told the caller I had to run the story, he began to cry, sobbing, and then my heart broke for him.  This man was so broken, so low, in so much despair that he was begging a reporter at a small daily newspaper in a very dismal town not to tell his story.  I wanted to just accidentally leave him out of the blog, but I had to run it.  It was not my problem.  

A few minutes later, my editor looked over at me again, must have seen my drawn face,  and came back over.

"You can't weep with 'em," he said.  "Tell him that you have to go.  We've got a paper to get out this morning."

For days, I reflected on that man's sorry existence.  While I wished I could help him, I couldn't.   Even then, I knew he had to help himself.  

That man's cry still rings in my heart.  He was the voice of all humanity.  The entire human race is sobbing in despair, without any hope, living in what has become one big, corrupt, dismal old town.  Where is our hope? 

I know now that we can change our lives and our world simply through our will to change our thoughts and words.  We can take a small, dark, broken life and become a lighthouse of vibrational energy and love for our own lives and those all around us.  We have the power to live our lives as large and as beautiful as we choose. We can also, alternatively, focus on the small, dark, nasty things that happen in the world.  It is as simple as a matter of choice.  We can stop and think about what we're thinking about.  We can stop the madness and think differently. Each time we choose to look up, pray for, wait for and expect help, it will be given to us. 

Help comes when we ask for help, especially when we ask for the help to change our small, dim lives of pettiness or not let our anger take control of us, or think or speak negatively about a neighbor, engage in gossip, or even focus generally on the negative rather than the positive, bright and creative.  

We can also choose to stop worrying and thinking about what we don't want to have happen and consider what we do want to happen, ask for it and then have trust and have faith that love is all around us and we can have what we want.  We completely flip our minds around, from hell to heaven, when we think about what we do want, about what is beautiful in another human being, and realize that any act of violence or hate is only a cry for more love.  Love stops violence and brokenness; defensive rage only propagates it.

Hate and violence are weaker customers than love and creativity.  By raising your own spiritual vibration by thinking and speaking positively, you strengthen your mind where the disease of negativity cannot thrive, and you magnetically attract into your life positive, loving and creative events and friends. And, just in case you don't believe me.  Try it.  Try it for just one week as an experiment and see what happens.

What if we did that?  What if every time someone said something unkind, you realized instead that they were asking you for love, then you wouldn't react to them. Instead, you'd respond to them with kindness, compassion, even forgiveness. 

I believe we can choose to care, to look at what is beautiful and bright, healing, hopeful, noble and dignified.  We can choose to be kind, to reel in our tempers, disappointments and hurts.  I don't mean not to feel them.  I mean not to give them the power to bring us down.  It may be the hardest thing some of us will ever do.  But, we must. To find deep within ourselves the light of our divinity, is to get up out of the gutter, turn off the nightly news, put down the evening newspaper, and listen to what is beautiful. 

Imagine a better world.  Whenever you can, at every chance, when you meet someone, speak kindly, send them joy and love in just a smile, with a positive intention.  That man back at the News could have turned his life around.  I'll never know if he did, but his misery can be a lesson for our abounding joy. 

I believe we can evolve into noble beings of light, of immeasurable value, so greatly loved, if we would only try.  Our Creator loves us and waits for us to receive His love and live in the sunshine of that love, allowing it to heal our lonely hearts, and make us the magnificent beings we were always meant to be and restore our Earth home into a paradise.The choice is simply ours.  I believe we can do this. I believe in us.

Magical Misty Morning

A light mist blanketed the old fishing harbor in the first light of morning. Sleepily I slipped out of bed, threw on my favorite frayed cut-offs, t-shirt and hoodie. It was a cool, damp morning, and for some a morning more suited for sleeping in than sailing out into the bay.

Careful not to wake my sister with whom I shared a room, I quietly pulled the heavy sail bag out of the closet, tossed a water bottle and apple in my backpack, tip-toed through the kitchen, still reeking of the onions and garlic from last night's dinner, and out the side door into the morning air.

Outside was alive, singing. It was like entering another world completely wide awake that had already been busy preparing for the new day. It was already buzzing, enraptured with itself when I entered from the sleeping household. The sweet morning air embraced me, waking me even more fully. It was vibrantly fresh, pulsing with just the thrill to be another day.

This morning, in particular, seemed to hold an invitation to breathe more deeply, with more purpose merging with the life pulsing around me as I made my way down the sandy path, carved into the high grass leading down to the harbor. I saw the graceful heron perched on the old rotted dock sticking its head out of the murky canal. I held the morning lovingly, as a returning lover embraces his beloved after being away awhile.

I felt sorry for the rest of my sleeping family, dreaming away when all this crazy life was begging them to come away from their warm beds, and feel the cool breath on their faces, the wet sand below their feet, the symphonic bird song. Life was holding a concert. How could they miss all this? 

My mind flashed back to a line gasped by St. Thomas More while imprisoned in the tower of London, awaiting his execution for simply speaking his conscience to the mentally ill King of England.

"One does not get to heaven on a feather bed," he said to his daughter, his dearest disciple.

"What a strange thought to have this morning," I reflected.  The comfortable life cannot compare to the beautiful, radiant, vibrant life Heaven has spread out before and all around us, like a spiritual banquet. If only we would just get out of our warm little beds to experience it.

I could see up ahead the mist lifting.  There were only a couple veteran sailors out trimming their sails for the race later that morning.  They, too, were immersed in the sweet morning, whispering to them.  We all knew its sacred liturgy. Awed, we moved gently in this rapture, in a kind of tai chi.  Aware, feeling every muscle in our bodies, the numbing toes from going barefooted down the cool path, observing every drop from the mist cresting on the bow of our boats.  

In an hour the mist will have lifted, the harbor would be boistrous, laughter would replace that breath of God that had sung all around us.  I, too, would forget, just for a few hours, as I sailed into the wind, feeling its passionate breath against my sunburned face.  Tossed against the rising waves on the lake, and then dropped carelessly into its wake, I felt a rush. Life was so rich, so full, and I was so grateful to have witnessed so much of what she had to teach me.  I was grateful that my feet were cold, my sides ached from holding down the sail from the stiff breeze which later that morning would topsize my small sail boat.  But, then, with the help of others, I would rise up again and again, until the race was over. The joy was in all of it.  All of it.  It was magical.  All of it.  How sad that my family slept through it.  They missed it.  And, it was too wonderful to miss.  I was grateful for all of it.

Run, Pass and Win

 

Life's a team sport and we play all positions.  There will be days when you make the passes, days when you get your team to the 22 yard line, times when you fumble the ball and days when you touchdown.  

Shakespeare said life's a stage and we're merely players on it.  I would add that life is a Superbowl and we each have a position in the game and while we do play to win, it's the playing itself that makes it a great game. While the win is awesome and the lose disparaging, the game goes on and how we play the game makes all the difference in the end. Life is fair, regardless of what some say, and there are rules - universal rules.  One of the rules is to stay aware and move together as one.

While we are all in the game, playing various positions, each trying his best to win, we are also all playing our own specific position, positions we've trained for, we're familiar with and we even think we're good at - good enough to play for an NFL team, good enough to play football with the big guys. 

As you run, see the layout of the field, know where your team is, where the other team is, and keep your eyes on the end zone.  Keep your eyes focused on where you're going, run fast and run hard. 

But, each player knows one thing for sure.  A guard isn't a center.  Each man has his place in the game and if he plays it well, passes to his team member, watches, catches and runs, he can take his team to the end zone, touchdown and contribute to the big win. The team is only as good as the individual players ability to play well, cohesively, together on the field. 

While the individual players are each only as good as they've trained to be,  a team is only as good as how well it plays together. If they move as one man, watchful, careful and aware, then a clear shot at a win is within sight. The game is won play by play, yard by yard, but always moving together toward that touchdown. 

The cohesion of a team is welded together by the individual connections among the players with each other.  Each one builds a bond with another player until all the players are bound together with a common goal in sight.  I think the team loses - not when the score is down - but when a player is traded off the team or a player is down.  On my scoreboard, the real lose comes when the matrix of the team is torn, and the group's unity disrupted.

Look around now.  What game are you playing and what is your goal.  What would be a win? Who's on your team, where are you going together. How well are you playing your position and how well are you playing with your team.  It's not each man out for himself. There's no time for competition among your mates.  There's no time to second guess your moves.  Just go for it, reach with all that's in you and keep on going with all the gusto you've got. Trust your team members. Trust the cohesion. Together you win, but really, the competition is not the other team.  You are your own competition.  Remember, focus on your position and compete only against your own weaknesses.  Keep your eyes on your strengths and use them for the team.

Make a Date with your Inner Genie

Artists, scientists as well as all other magical people know that if they focus their attention in the present moment and search for answers and thoughts, while allowing their beautiful inner genius to connect the dots among those varying ideas, theories, themes and harmonics, something truly new emerges.

A new idea is born, a new theory is discovered. Buddha realized enlightenment from sitting still and thinking, meditating, for a long time. Think again about Mozart, Beethoven, Einstein, Emerson, Whitman, Shakespeare, Jesus - the list is infinite. They all entered into their own personal present moment and found waiting for them inside a beautiful concerto, a new scientific hypothesis and spiritual revelation to chase down, with a pen, computer, microscope, telescope or a team of others. 

One thing all these people had in common was a passion for their art or science.  It was like a jealous lover, calling them day and night, stalking them, whispering to them all the time.  They were only happy when they were creating. The driving force behind the desire to formulate hypothesis, research and find answers to questions is that same kind of passionate pursuit.

  

Being busy may seem like a good excuse for not getting into that magical place of creation, but it is exactly the reason why so many people don't experience it.  Busy means just that - you're moving here and there, quickly consumed by a deadline, a task, all of which is future-focused. It may even be tedious and boring rather than joyful because it's not in the present and it's not your own joy you're pursuing. Rather, it's someone elses.

If you're feeling sluggish, tired and weary - even sick - it may be because you're focused too much on the past, and putting all your vitality and life-force energy on the past.  That's like sending your spirit down a black hole. We all have within us something I call our "inner tyrranical dictator," that inner voice that tells you that you must be out there serving, doing for others, making you virtually a slave to an external system - church, government, school, institution.

Of course it is good to care about others. Service to humanity is our most noble endeavor, but as we are filled with our own creative light and joy, we can then direct it outward to light the world and serve our human family. Without that kind of in-filling, outward directed service can become so all consuming of your time and your life, that you feel drained and even guilty if you spend an hour in your garage workshop, or in your spare room studio, or on the beach meditating or even reading.  It is that very negative force within us that actually blocks our inner creative flow.

So, if you hear your inner genie whispering to you and you find yourself struggling against it, resist it not and just go ahead and do what you're longing to do.  Don't tell them I said so, but call in sick and go do what you love, if only just to make a date with it and return to it after work another day.

What if you reached for your inner artist or your inner scientist and dove into whatever thoughts, ideas or dreams that you're interested in and really spent some time on them?  You would enter into the present moment, focused intensely on something that interests you and even brings you happiness and joy. You would find that childhood joy of play return.  You would feel energized and healthy.  You would even feel younger. You would feel alive again. You would feel happy.

If you are any sort of artist (scientist, too), you would engage in something Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced, "chicks send me high"), a wise and wonderful psychology professor and former chairman of the Psychology Department at the University of Chicago,  called "flow."  It is that creative flow into which we enter when we dive into our own creative inner genie. Csikszentmihalyi suggests it is that inner flow that we tap when we get into our creative passion. 

I would add to his thesis, that as co-creators with the Ultimate Life-Force Creator, we get in touch with the very life force and source of the universe when we get into our creative flow.  It is a most spiritual of all encounters and experiences. We enter timelessness.  We connect with the heartbeat of all of life.  We enter into a kind of Zen moment that is timeless and exhilarating, life-giving and joyful.  We enter life. 

Sometimes we  have to slow down our minds, focus, light a candle, put on some music in order to center our frenzied minds and then allow that interior focus to have his way with us.  And, then, our own inner music begins as our own inner candle is lighted and then we begin to slowly find ourselves lost in our art or research.

    

Also, just in case you're interested, 

Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has written several books, which are Flow; The Evolving Self; and Creativity, the Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. Published by HarperPerennial (a Division of Harper Collins Publishers); 1997.

Moonlight dreams

Quietly she rises in the northern sky, boldly whispering to the clouds to part for her. Lingering expectantly, she hearkens to her children to remember their fragile dreams and wish once more.

Softly, mysteriously, dreams and wishes succumb to her hallowed allowing.  Every child knows this. Every lover who has ever walked beneath her loving gaze, hand-in-hand with their beloved, knows the power of her luminescent presence.

Tonight she will begin her weekend journey, yet again this month, through our skies.  Hushed in awe, bravely, we  slip our most daring dreams, our bravest hopes before her magnificent midnight orb, and know, with a childlike knowing, that she will hear and answer. 

Our Earth mother is reflected in her great allowing that whispers back to all our dreams, "yes," and dream more and more.  Let yours dreams, hopes and desires grow larger until they burst through the veils of time and space which you have made real in the illusions, conflicts and barriers which punish dreamers, squelching their vibrant souls. 

Each wish is a prayer uttered into the limitless longing with hope, the fertile blend which gives them birth.

So, look heavenward tonight, and feel your own soul glowing in the presence of her magical incandescence.