The kingdom within

Inside that universe of inexplicable peace and love you encounter as you slip through the stargate, is more than your little limited life could ever grasp and yet you feel compelled to stay and explore. 

This love (for lack of a better word) is an inside job and it only asks for your courage to set sail in your imagination to find it - not out there somewhere - but within the cave, deep underwater, just below your very human, physical heart. God is found through that inner portal, that spiritual gateway. The real stargate is finally discovered at the end of your exhaustion, when you finally put down the sword defending your false self, stewing in a deeply profound sense of separateness. It was a false-life, a mask which you once donned to appease your parents or school tyrants or our society as a whole.

But, it was a false identity generated out of that initial rejection by your parents and other "gods" of your early world. In your own defense, you didn’t know it was a self-defense mechanism to allow you to survive in the beginning. Later, your authentic being railed against it in all kind of life-sabotaging ways that spun you mercilessly all of your life.

You became a slave to those who first instilled the need for you to be other than that beautiful, innocent, loving child of light who you were born to be. Later you became a slave (enabler) to others who resembled the original offenders. If those original offenders taught you to be a slave to their selfishness, then you were taught to be a slave in general. The world hates slaves in its love of pride, greed, power and control, and so it hated you.

The pain grew so intense that it finally broke open the mask's shell, allowing the child to finally step into life. This child, is the christ self born in that moment of awareness. Perhaps in a stable on a cold night, hunted by the power brokers of your life, but it is life, real life and in it is your truth, your potential and eventually, your joy and creativity.

True integrity and integration finally comes when that original self awakens and takes the helm of your life, at the birth of the child. At the revealing of your true courage and light and power, you defeat or foil the plans of all those who had required you to wear the mask of the false self. They run like rats back into the walls of their safe coffins of spiritual paralysis. But, this doesn't come easily. The birth of the real self may be like the birth of your first child. It comes after what seems like ages of spiritual labor. There is no other way into heaven, however.

It comes when you are finally sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. It finally arrives when you tire of the game played and fought among others who also have blindly sought life among the dead, when you surrender. By grace, you are defeated at that useless pursuit and in that moment of agony, as your false self lay writhing and dying on the battlefield of your life, a soft whimper arises from somewhere deep within you, yet you are too lost and forlorn to hear it or to attend to it. Then, a prayer explodes within your hope. In one last final gasp, you cry out to heaven for help.

Now the real journey begins. Blindly you surrender, you offer up your dead self in exchange for peace, for relief of the agony of searching. The false self cannot carry on the fight any longer. Even shame and pride have lost their power and appeal. If you are even dimly aware, perhaps even still a bit blind, you can see, through your tears, an inner ghost, a dim, unfocused someone holding out his hand to you.

Blinking away the tears, maybe you doubt what you just saw within, but someone even deeper within you has seen it and bows before this beautiful presence who has come to welcome you through the gate, through the portal into all that is real, all that ever was and ever will be real. He says to look for the gateway, which he has previewed for you, in that imaginal space behind your heart and slightly below it.

It's a soft place your mind sounds out. You are still blind, yet you see. You realize there is so much more than you ever knew. You gently press against it as it slowly opens like doors on Star Trek's starship Enterprise. As you slip through it into the vast starlight stretching endlessly before you, you feel electric and completely unafraid. Perhaps it's the velvety blanket of quiet into which you submerge yourself that softly wraps you in its love. You know that all our hearts open into this same universe. You know that we are all one with this Oneness.

While you know you must eventually shift your mind back into the outer dimension, the stage on which we all are stars, you will return back to this space within. You make a mental note to come back often. It is the new frontier and a very compelling and real one. You wonder if your parents, grand parents, old lovers and others, are there too, within that sea of consciousness that stretches forever. But, for now His presence is there and that is more than enough.

The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'here it is,' or 'there it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you.

Luke 17:21

Stargate to a dream

An ancient cosmic stargate opens, revealing a magnificent array of universal light, love, joy, power and an abounding, outpouring of potential, an opportunity unlike any other to step into authentic life and real peace. 

Open before us is the great awakening, stretching through our collective history far into the deepest reaches of time in a softly, invisible, even subtle syncopation of breath, rhythmically surging, spiraling us forward, together and individually.  We have sought this, together and individually, from the beginning.  We looked for it in the stars.  We sought it in our poetry, art, music, and in all our human relationships.  Something inside us, perhaps a kind of innate spiritual program, hummed within us throughout our time here, but we thought it was somewhere else, out there somewhere, and we built rocket ships to the moon, space probes to find that unnamed someone or something, out there.  We felt alone, very alone. 

But, we were looking in the wrong place.  It's just that simple. We are not alone.  We were never alone. We are all together on this gorgeous ride through time-space and yet the journey is not what you think.  It's not a space shuttle to another galaxy.  It's a plunge down through the inner rabbit hole of your heart, through a very real stargate within your own soul, awaiting your discovery just behind and slightly below your own physical heart. 

It lies within your spiritual (causal) body, which is one with your physical body while you are alive  It's a soft place your mind sounds out.  You are still blind, yet you see. You realize there is so much more than you ever knew. You gently press against it in your imagination and it slowly opens like doors on Star Trek's starship Enterprise. 

As you slip through this imaginal stargate, which is very real on a spiritual level, you enter a vast universe stretching endlessly before you. You feel electric and completely unafraid.  Perhaps it's the velvety blanket of quiet into which you immerse yourself that softly embraces you in its love. You know that all our hearts open into this same universe.  You know that we are all one with this Oneness. 

This inner universe, accessible through that stargate, is another kind of space, twinkling with a billion stars, in the presence of authentic being, a being in which we are all intimately woven together, yet distinct, who you sense you will come to know more with each subsequent imaginal crossing through that stargate.  While suspended in an inner sea of love, you encounter your own reality as one with the whole.  You never were alone and in that fleeting awareness, now only begun, you realize you are loved more tenderly and compassionately than you ever knew possible.  

Starlight dance

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness 

was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God 

moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, 

"Let there be light: and there was light."

Genesis 1

We all may be familiar with these stirring opening sentences to Genesis, yet there is something so profound right there pointing to the scientific veracity of these ancient words describing how life began. Yes, God, created it all, but it's how God created life here that just overwhelms me.

Ancient and modern mysticism has revealed that God's love, God's creative, powerful love is the source of light and is comprised of God's wisdom and spirit / will. Light has an energetic (creative) quality and that energy is comprised of love. In short, love has a power to it and that power radiates as light. Certainly that light is not the light of the sun, yet surely it lit the sun which continues to bring life to our earth. It penetrates every atom, every subatomic particle, creates photons and leads to photosynthesis. It makes life. That seems so simple and yet really it transcends our minds ability to comprehend something so awesome. God's creative power is a love which is even brighter than the sun. 

For us, life always was and always will be nothing short of an awesome miracle. Yet, love is even more a miracle. Love is a miracle begetting the miracle of life. In creation is both action and substance, born of spirit and power coalescing, male and female polarities each essentially co-creating, together. Love is both the means to creation and the gift of creation. It is the way, the truth and life itself. And, even if we may not really understand love or life, we can feel it, touch it, hold it, experience it and even become it. 

Despite this awesome, gorgeous life all around us that we all share on this earth, there are too many times when we don't stop to gaze up at the starry canopy in childlike awe and wonder gratefully at the miraculous cosmic light show dancing quietly above us. 

Why are we too busy, too worried about things that we miss it? Why are we unwilling and unable to enter into God's great miracle of love, the doorway through which we enter authentic life, that tangible experience of starlight? What could be so important in our lives that we would miss this light show going on both above us in the cosmos and within us in our own hearts, where the essence of life sleeps awaiting our entrance to the dance floor of life? We all seem so serious that we lose the sweetness of engaging in the experience of awe we might feel, the magic, the joy, the beauty, the sheer thrill to be alive. We don't dance wildly in love by the moonlight anymore, do we? Our ancient forebears gathered at the end of the day together, around the fire, and danced, and sang and celebrated life in love together.

It seems an epidemic of apathetic, dull seriousness has become a plaque upon our houses, all neighborhoods and nations, cultures and religions. Long, tightly drawn faces, of those would-be religious devotees, striving to follow the laws of their religions, trying to pour their magnificent beautiful fluid spirits into tiny frozen boxes formed by laws written thousands of years ago until their hearts are so hard, their minds so dim, their lives so barren, so devoid of light, too stern to smile and laugh and sing that they can no longer gasp in awe at the beauty of all this light and life and love above and around and within them. 


Since the very essence of the law flows out of God's great wise heart, out of God's love and light, to meet the requirements of the law, to even enter into the most sincere obedience, we would follow with courage, rather than with fear-based control. (However, this is of a higher school of human spiritual development and does not imply that we should fall away from those guidelines the law sets up, but rather to embrace the great creator / lover beyond the laws.) 


It's a matter of perspective.  Love is expansive, legalism is reductive and diminishing.  Love wouldn't throw away or deliberately disobey the law, yet it would reach to the source of it. St. Paul suggests that to live in love would result in obeying "the law." Even though the goal is to love, the result would include the result legalism seeks as well, only it takes the human spirit into a realm to which law - or the subservient spirit of blind obedience -  doesn't open.

Millennia ago, we learned that love was a higher, more evolved revelation, the awareness of which stemmed from a kind of "higher heaven" which trumped and cancelled out religion's stern, rigid, fear-based controlling law. Love is the substance of consciousness. All of life, right down to a single cell, is created with and by that consciousness. It is both the means and reason for life itself. The gift of love and authentic life can only be received in a state of perfect freedom at a higher consciousness, a higher frequency. Clearly perfect freedom is a result of living without fear and so it follows that the joyous experience of love requires a great deal of courage. This life of love which we all seek asks a lot of us, but most of all is an openness to facing the fear that inhibits our courage. 


Yet, even more wonderfully, it seems that love is so gratuitous, so creative, so powerful and alchemical that with only a tiny bit of it in our consciousness, perhaps only with a flickering faith in the possibility of that love, which we may only imagine right now in this moment, we would be able to sift through and slip out of the grasp of that old fear-based religiosity and world view that holds the world frozen and lifeless in spiritual / psychological / economic poverty, slavery and war.


The letter of 1 John (4:18) says, "There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love." 

Simply, fear stems from the idea that one will be punished, tortured, killed if he follows his heart that might challenge the status quo, enforced ruthlessly by the world's power brokers.  Which is a worse death: to live bound and shackled in a living death or to walk head up, courageously to the tune of your own heart?  You decide.  As long as we live oppressed and kept low by those who we allow to control and enslave us by our fear of their reaction to us, we are never going to grow up into the full stature of our inborn, innate divinity that is begging to be born in us and across the planet today.

If we could live by the light of God's awesome love, which he has given to us out of his great cosmic heart, poured into our human hearts to share with each other - heart to heart - arm in arm - in a smile, in a handshake, from a kiss to passionate love making, we just might taste heaven on earth. It's all there and it's all love. Pure joy. What a magnificent gift this love is that makes us want to sing in the rain and laugh in the sun. Just to feel life coming and going, to hold an elderly man's hand as he passes out of this life and to caress a newborn entering it, is a cosmic honor, a gift of God whose love has given us the light of consciousness along with the promise that this is all unending, the light cannot be extinguished, nor can the light of our souls.

The new year waxing in today is rich with promise, abounding in hope for a greater abundance of authentic living with more joy for every stage of our lives, for all of us, equally. Although just an imaginary time line, this sense of new beginning is deeply embedded in our collective awareness. Here - now - is the opportunity to look forward to a newborn opportunity to live more joyously, more abundantly, less materialistically, more authentically in love with all of life, large and small, macro and micro cosmically.

Maybe we could laugh more, sing often, tell our children nursery rhymes again and sing them to sleep with lullabies. We could turn off our televisions and cut back on our time on the computer. We could play games, go for walks, talk to each other, play with each other and love each other. We could do with a lot less guilt and fear and with a lot more free abandon. 

Maybe this year we could all take a deep breath, exhale all the heavy stuff that drags our spirits down, turns smiles into frowns, replaces the buoyancy of a happy day with a grievous burden. 

It's a choice. Joy is a choice. Laughter, play, happiness and love are all choices. We can each choose our thoughts. We are not victims. We can free ourselves of those heavy thoughts and replace them with beautiful hopes and dreams. We are all free - no matter where we live or under what conditions. We are all free to choose our thoughts and in that choice, in that very simple one-second choice, we choose life or death. I know that we all know this, but today as we embrace the hope a new beginning offers us all, a little reminding is always welcome. We can embrace the awe, receive the light and allow more creation into our lives. 

Today and everyday, we can choose joy and freedom and love and light. And for that choice, I am most grateful, most joyfully, radiantly grateful to our creator for this grand adventure, this poetic, romantic, beautiful journey of life through time on this radiant earth and this graced opportunity to love with all my heart even as I sing in the rain amid the wild quacking of ducks in the creek where I walk. My only hope is that we all would choose to be less serious and just a little bit more lavish with our laughter and joy.

Pardigm shift

Imagine a Better World

(rerun from February 2, 2010)
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 and day before, 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 usual 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 embarrassing 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 humanity, regretting his choices from a less lucid state the day or night before. The entire human race is sobbing in a kind of perpetual state of 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.

Journey into the Night

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; 

on those living in the land of the shadow of death 

a light has dawned." 

Isaiah 9:2 (New International Version)

The darkness of these days is becoming increasingly more evident even to the least observant person.  As the spiritual journey goes, one must enter into a "dark night of the soul," before emerging into the light of spiritual consciousness.  This is true for the individual, and now - as is obvious to many of us - is true for the collective, the world. 


The very earliest church knew this and made this truth first and foremost among all the other truths Jesus would teach.  The "birth of Christ" occurs at night, set in the darkest period of the year and seen first by the poorest of the poor.  The mythic dimension of the story can be unraveled to discuss the birth occurring to a virgin. While I truly believe the Blessed Mother was a virgin, a virgin soul is one who has no darkness within, whose inner hidden brokenness has been repented of, healed, cleansed, purified (made holy) and can give birth to the true self, that child within who will lead us into the eternal light of life, immortality. The Christ is within all of us - not just Christians.  It is the ultimate truth of our a priori condition as human (divine) beings.


In order to emerge from that dark night, washed and born anew (as in "the old has passed away") as spiritual beings, equipped with the gifts of the spirit, conscious and aware, fully alive in our beloved relationship with God (Divine Father/Mother) we must die to the world after a long sojourn in the desert, into the darkest parts of our soul. Even the Jewish Exodus story is a reflection of this deeper, more eternally real spiritual journey from slavery, through darkness and despair, into an internal spiritual promised land. While it actually happened, it's eternal application is on a mythic dimension.


Those who argue for the historical authenticity of the Christmas story in a search of the historical Jesus will miss the message.  This is not meant as a historical record.  It is a spiritually eternal truth buried in a parabolic story, and yet, I truly believe it was real and historically true as well. 


These hard economic times may be an outward expression of our collective inward reality.  They mirror the poverty and darkness of our collective cultural soul which Mother Teresa called  a "culture of death" in which our externally-directed consciousness that once sought after wealth, even at the expense of our souls, now reveals a spiritually dying world.  


There is another scripture in which Jesus says that which is hidden in the dark will be revealed or uncovered and made visible in the light.  This isn't to condemn us.  It is for us to see who we have become, or rather to see who we are so we can alter our paths.  It is an invitation to change, to transform our consciousness from being focused on material gain to being focused on what is real and lasting, which is the eternal soul both individually and collectively. The early church called this altering of our path, this call to change, "metanoia," or more commonly called "repentance."  Try to hear this call to repentance in the voice of a gentle mother who truly, dearly loves you and wants to guide you into safety and growth.


As in that first century, today the poor are among us, perhaps more so than we ever realized. I once knew a beautiful Maryknoll missionary priest who worked with the poor in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, who remarked that in America the poor kept out of sight - in inner cities while the wealthy moved further away into rich rambling suburbs, bordered by sprawling malls.  In Rio, he said, the poor are everywhere in sight, often attending the same churches on Sunday as the wealthy.  There they can't be ignored nor are they invisible.  


Maybe we're all aware the times are changing.  Maybe we're all aware that everything as we knew it, is radically fading into the background of time, while something new and unsure is emerging on the landscape of our collective consciousness here and throughout the world.  


Maybe we're also in denial, hoping to beat the prevailing hurricane of economic decline and eventually get that great job, make enough money to buy a bigger house, send the kids to a top notch college - all dreams of that fast fading old paradigm of American life. Maybe we don't want to see the old pass away. Maybe we don't know how to understand this shift in the ages, this shift out of a material age into a spiritual age.

Some of us can smell the smoke of a distant fire. Things are never going to be the same. Somehow we know it.  The economists are predicting a "double dip" to this unending recession. I have no clue what that means.  I've asked those who know about the economy and even they don't know what it means, really. It feels totally useless to even try to succeed by the old standards.  

Here in rural Oregon, the poor are more visible than in the larger cities.  Lately, I've seen many people in the early morning heading - not to work or waiting at red lights in their Mercedes as in more prosperous times - out onto the streets with old blankets rolled up on their backpacks, dirty hair, some with toothless smiles, wearing old clothes - headed to the nearest coffee shop or food kitchen.  As others might arrive at work, they find their usual street corner, pitch their backpacks - some even with their dogs - and hold up their cardboard signs asking for donations. Their work day has begun.

Maybe these precious souls are the silent voice of these changing times.  I can't help thinking that even Jesus might not be a success by today's standards.  His radical spirituality would not have been embraced by the church and certainly His refusal to sell out for a buck wouldn't have made Him a golden boy in the corporate heirarchy of greed and exploitation at the expense of the innocent consumer.  In areas of America, like these in rural Oregon, where there is no industry, downward mobility has almost become a cultural accessory to a pre-existing counter-cultural millieu.  


All these folks remember warm beds, food on the table, hopes for a good job and a productive, creative career.  As you know, the reduction of a middle class forced a large percentage of middle class into abject poverty.  They have - with what little dignity they had left mixed with their instinct to survive and creative aculturation - created a village down by the creek where tents line the creek which winds out of town for miles.


These precious souls are both symptomatic of the changing times and archetypal of who we really are spiritually.  That which was hidden is coming into view.  We were - and still are - spiritually poor - as Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas.  This deep inner spiritual poverty has been a cultural cancer growing in our collective soul for a long time and now it is evident on the streets, in the inner cities, in the growing unemployment rates, in Europe's struggle to remain economically solvent. 


Those folks who walk among us in the predawn darkness, who've packed up their tents and blankets to emerge from the creek beds they call home, may be like those to whom He came in the first century.  Like the shepherds who first saw the star, they may be able to see many stars at night and may again be the first to meet Him in their own agony, in their emptiness and in their longing. They've at least cleared the way to embrace the spiritual journey, which may lead them to the star within which points them closer to the Christ light.

Today, Americas corporate crimes against our people is headlines and the poorest, the outcast - those literally cast out of their homes -  are those who are seeing the light of Christ within their hearts and minds first.  For them, there are no more illusions, the bubble has burst, and they are face-to-face with their own inner selves, tormented perhaps by the haunting voices of those who oppressed and formerly controlled them, and now out there to see the night stars and be reminded of the one true light that is constant within them. For them the light has come as has spiritual rebirth.  They will make the way for the new paradigm.


"According to U.S. Census Bureau data released the nation's poverty rate rose to 15.1% (46.2 million) in 2010, up from 14.3% (approximately 43.6 million) in 2009 and to its highest level since 1993. In 2008, 13.2% (39.8 million) Americans lived in relative poverty."*


I don't believe you have to hit this kind of terrible bottom to realize that the great illusion is cracking open.  I also don't believe that you have to become this bitterly poor to encounter Christ who lives within your own soul as a pearl of great price. But when the layers of American life are peeled away, it seems there is nothing else to block your vision - and now you don't seem to be able to pull the mask back on in order to live among the sleeping many who control and manipulate the world's grid. 


Someone once said that if Jesus were to be found in our world today, He would be found among the homeless.  If that's the case, then I would look for Him there. And He may be there in a very real spiritual sense.  He may be with the poor because He is all they have - unless they've managed to spare their food stamps for some meth or booze.  But, even among those, He is with them.  They are in the midst of their dark nights. Although they may still be asleep in their poverty, they are not swinging from corporate American trees squeezing yet another dollar from the poor through innovative clever marketing schemes.  They've surrendered to what is coming and may even be better prepared for the next economic shock wave that may wash upon our shores.


St. Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Sr. Francis and Clare of Assisi, among the many mystic voices who have gone before us, have all warned us of the perils of excessive materialism. They urge us to remove the masks of our culture of death and let go of our attachment to anything other than the light of God within.  This detaching and stripping of our artificial identities is the beginning of the journey to God and  to our real selves within.  This ancient message has always been externally ritualized as the Church's celebration of "Advent."  


Their guidance  applies today as much as ever as it crisscrosses all countries, cultures and religions. The mystics may represent the wisdom of western culture.  The East and Middle East have their wise men and women, who also sought and found the light in the dark cave within, where the light of heaven would be found in the discovery of that inner child, that Holy Child, who resides even deeper within your own authentic self.


Poverty isn't for everyone.  It may be only for those courageous enough not to, or are unwilling to,  or are just unable to, play by the rules of this quickly dissolving, transforming and reenvisioning of itself, hi-tech world.  If you're lucky, you may find yourself among them in so many different ways and interpretations of "poverty."  We all will experience this "dark night," in some form.  Usually it shows up discreetly, vaguely and through prayer you will discover that it is the nudging of an invisible Other who is lovingly leading you into a greater reality - Your true self which is the narrow gate, the stargate, into ultimate reality.  


But, for now the journey continues, pulling us in both directions until finally God wins and we find ourselves on our knees deep within the inner cave, before the light of lights, face to face with the truth - the timeless truth - that only God is real and God's love is the energetic creative force that still runs the universe.




Sources:


"Revised Government Formula Shows New Poverty High:  49.1 Million." Yahoo! News. November 7, 2011


"Poverty Rate Hits 15 Year High." Reuters. September 17, 2010

Symptoms of Inner Peace

The following is from Carly who is a most peaceful woman of the light.  Thank you for sharing this.  It's perfect for this season of anticipation of the birth of light who brings us that real and lasting inner peace.

Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner peace and it is possible that people everywhere could come down with it in epidemic proportions. This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now, been a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world.

Some signs and symptoms of inner peace:

• A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experiences.
• An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
• A loss of interest in judging other people.
• A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.
• A loss of interest in conflict.
• A loss of the ability to worry. (This is a very serious symptom).
• Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
• Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.
• Frequent attacks of smiling.
• An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.
• An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.

A Christmas Story (music by Enya)