Prayer for Peace

Most beloved Divine Father-Mother, whose radiant presence is cast in unlimited expressions across your universal canvas, please bless us with your deep abiding peace and heal our world.

You are being itself, ultimate consciousness, genius creator of everything - from life on our precious planet to galaxies and star clusters, supernovas, and physics beyond our most brilliant scientists' knowledge - even to the tiniest particle of quanta light.

You are more than we can imagine or understand. Yet, even in our dim awareness, we know you are within, among and even beyond us. We are finally grasping - even in the tiniest way - who you are. We realize now, finally, that in our primitive state of spiritual blindness we misunderstood who you are. We had fearfully misplaced our worship and allegiance on the phantoms of power in our world, rather than in trusting your love felt and experienced within us. We worshiped that which we feared, rather that which we loved, which is you - love itself.

We need you now more than we may have ever needed you in our history. We ask you, in your great love and benevolent goodness, to fill our world, our hungry hearts and minds, and wounded planet - torn apart by war, violence, fear and hatred - with your beautiful conscious light and all its radiant power and wisdom and profound life force. Please guide us onto the next step in our evolution and save us from the consequences of our violent fear.

You, whose very substance is embedded throughout and within creation, whose incomprehensible selfhood transcends time and space, are all we need.

You alone comprehend the vast expanse of silent space even to the imperceptible flickering of a fraction of the time between our thoughts, which fire like machine guns on a battlefield. They disrupt our consciousness, violently screaming out in fear and for attention. Without the guidance from your greater intelligence, we would remain lost amid the noise and confusion of our current state at this still early point of our spiritual evolution here on Earth. Without you, we might destroy ourselves.

Please, fill us with greater understanding and wiser intuition, and a more enlightened awareness to avert our current destination. We need your peace, the peace that comes from the secure knowledge that all is well, despite how tumultuous it all seems right now.

Make each and every one of us instruments of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
Where there is injury, let us pardon;
Where there is doubt, help us to find faith in your great benevolence and love;
Where there is despair, guide us into the vast sea of hope;
Where there is darkness, shine your light and help us to see, remembering that the darkness doesn't understand the light and therefore cannot and will not control it or subdue it;
Where there is sadness, remind us to surrender it to You, by accepting it, and therein, find joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console. Help us to remain mindful that the way out of our discomfort it to comfort another.

Grant us an ever increasing awareness that it is far greater to understand another than to insist on being understood.

Teach us to offer mercy to another, and thereby bring more of your love and mercy into ourselves, and increase our soul light in the dimmer regions of unawareness in ourselves and others.

Help us to focus our intentions to brighten the entire world even a little bit more with every thought and breath.

Help us to love always, first and foremost and remind us,

It is nobler to love than to insist on being loved.

It is more generous to give than to take, and it is in giving that we receive.

It is in forgiving that we are freed from the control of our oppressive judgmental systems, and harsh, soulless egos.

Divine Father-Mother, we invite you to take up greater residence in our hearts, increase in us your great presence which is peace, power, wisdom, compassion, love, joy and life itself, reaching fully into this life and out beyond the limitations of our mortal existence.

Divine Lover of all that you have created and are creating, we thank you for our lives, including the challenges of both joy and unrest as we move through this most recent stage of our collective existence on into a newer, brighter, wiser and more joyous stage of being.

Please bless us with your peace that passes all understanding and bring us into your infinite presence and strengthen us to love each other unconditionally for the rest of our lives and forever.

Amen

(inspired by and includes the Prayer of St. Francis)

Making room for the Divine

                                    

                                     I know that for the right practice of it, the heart must be 

                                     empty of all other things; because God will possess the 

                                     heart alone;  and as He cannot possess it alone, without 

                                     emptying it of all besides, so neither can He act there, 

                                     and do in it what He pleases, unless it be left vacant to Him.

Brother Lawrence, 

The Practice of the Presence of God

The Divine pours itself into our heart, breathing into us a profound joy and eternal aliveness. It is the center of our being and conduit through which the Divine connects with us, empowering, embracing and loving us. It is also where we connect with each other and gives us our meaning, joy, and identity.

Divine love contains all that we need and all that we long for. If only we could feel and experience it! The single most inhibiting obstacle to that inflow of Divine power, love, wisdom, consciousness is judgment's cruel blockage. Judgment is an insidious force that guards and blocks the heart like a watchdog. It builds walls, creates a million distractions and false liaisons, all blindly recruited by its terrorizing instruction to avert our consciousness from the vulnerability and sensitivity of the heart, which the ego perceives as weak. It keeps us feeling separate from others through induced guilt or a sense of unworthiness.

Since Divine consciousness is perfect love, it is without judgment, without prejudice, condemnation, and criticism. Obviously, it is not like our government rulers or oppressors who are driven by control, stemming from a selfish lack of love.

Love is freeing, going where it wills, honoring and uplifting, surrendering, rejoicing in simply being and allowing self and others to also just be and to move along their own life paths. That honoring means love is without judgment and is unconditional. Anything conditional, is, quite simply, not love.

To empty the heart of judgment - especially self-judgment which is comprised of a million scattered thoughts, each with a criticism - is the first step to an authentic encounter with divine reality, the only reality.

Honestly, it is that simple.

We've been taught to love others and deny ourselves. But, that wisdom has been so sadly misinterpreted. That which we call our "self," has been our ego, that which actually blocks our intuitive, life-giving, divine heart.

When the pain of living disconnected from the heart mounts to an unbearable level, finally we will notice that without its sweet wisdom and connection with the divine, we will die. Then, and only then, can a change occur and not one moment sooner.

Then, we decide to stop fighting and accept the pain of the expiring ego and invite God in, surrender and wait for the Divine. We also will realize that to choose to love ourselves and remain mindful of whatever it is that is condemning us will open the door to the heart. The first step is mindfully hearing what the ego - the inner critic - is saying and then choosing not to listen to it. In that first step is the beginning of our salvation from the tyranny of the ego or the inner critic, or all those controlling ideas that sweep through our minds.

If we listen carefully, we will hear the ego reminding us of all our mistakes and errors, which slowly erodes our sense of value and creative power. It makes us feel unworthy. It calls us sinners. It tells us we are without value. That is the victim's way, not the way to God. We can loosen its grip through a loving petition to God to forgive us until we feel emptied of its nagging criticism. Things that will fill our hearts are art, music, nature, walking until we are silent inside, gratitude to God for the sheer honor and joy to be alive in this moment.

Loving ourselves purely, praying for the in-pouring of God's love is the next step. And, if we become aware mindfully of the inner chatter that condemns and criticizes us, we can choose to chase those thoughts out of our minds. Under the tutelage of the inner critic we have been led to forfeit, abandon, forsake, even betray own heart and our own authentic self. It is that abandonment that causes us to feel alone.

It is not another person who will fill the inner need of the heart. It is the heart itself that needs to feel honored and welcomed and listened to by a conscious intention to love it. When it feels loved, it will sing to us. It will leap and dance and delight in its recognition and joyful reunion with us. It may even allow our real self, buried under years of judgment and condemnation, to step forward.

Finally, with awareness, we realize the divine chased away our ego - usually causing us enormous pain in the process. It doesn't go without giving a strong fight. But, after the fire fight with the stubborn, persistent, terrorizing ego, there is finally peace - a profound, deep, pervading, rich, velvet, radiant PEACE.

To love ourselves until we are healed and enriched with the divine presence, and then to love others with that same love, is truly the way to authentic and abundant life. First we have to believe that despite anything - anything - we must love ourselves. It is the first step to removing the ego and allowing space for an authentic divine encounter, which pours into our sacred chalice, the light, power and ineffable love which are the life force itself. It all can begin with a simple breath of intention to love oneself, first, and then another reciprocally.

My prayer for all of us, as we go into this new year, is to know the power and love of the Divine, and allow the Divine to fill our hearts with each beat and breath of authentic being.

Christmas light is everywhere

Cleave the wood, I am there.
Lift the stone, and thou shalt find me. 

Gospel of Thomas, verse 77

It's not science fiction.  While it may seem like a new idea, it's as ancient as the craggy rocks and the water flowing around them, or the soft luminescence of the tree branches lingering vibrantly over it all.  

It is the light of the life force itself that's everywhere.  It is the light of life. It may seem illusive to us as we run madly through our lives chasing and playing this huge collective global board game of economics, politics, poverty and wealth, sickness and health. All that is not real, really. We are so heavily invested in it, controlled by it with all its rules, all about who's winning and who's losing and what that means and what that feels like.  It is indeed the Matrix.

What is real is this effusive, luminescent life force, so subtle to our blind vision that we rarely see it.

Yet, it is there, spread out before us, if only we had eyes to see. If it is there to see in nature, certainly it is there in us and it would flow through our creations - even this tired old board game.  It is everywhere, whether or not we stop to take notice. It is our power source and it is something I don't dare frame within any religious language.  It is life, simply.  It flows where it wills, but it seems that it flows where it is least impeded.  

Why don't we see it? Why does it seem only visible under a microscope or special lighting arrangements to heighten it? I think it's because we're not looking.  The power of human consciousness is so strong - if only we all knew that - that it can amplify what we perceive only faintly.  While it may be able - according to a lot of scientific studies - to make a plant grow larger and heal someone of an illness, it is relatively not acknowledged in ordinary life, and rarely if ever in the mainline media.

How can we see it?  I think we need to cultivate a sensitivity to life itself a bit more, slow down our minds just a bit. Turn off the loud voices, noise and demands of our outer world, and adjust our minds to the silence within. Eventually that silence becomes more alive than what's outside of us. 

I used to hike a beautiful natural five-mile stretch along a creek. I would block out a couple hours and head out on it. In a short while all the thoughts of work and the kids and all the ordinary things in my life would slowly pass out of my mind. Gradually, I began to hear the birds, frogs. A spectacular sight of a beautiful blue heron sweeping above would hawk his annoyance at me being there.  Suddenly everything burst into life.  It had always been there, but I hadn't.   

My mind had been on everything else. When I realized I'd stepped into a beautiful symphony of song and dance, of absolute beauty, then I could see the luminescence of the tree branches. I brushed one long branch that hung out over the trail, lovingly, and acknowledged it. Suddenly, it seemed like all the other branches wanted the same acknowledgement. There was no doubt there was a pervasive consciousness to all this. 

And, then I saw it.  I saw their light.  It came as I began to feel so much love for all of them, for the birds, the heron, the frogs, the clear water of the creek, the rocks and pebbles, the trees.  It was beyond beautiful.

Then, a car drove by on the bridge where I was standing watching the heron.  It sounded like a thunderous clap of horses' hooves.  Everything went silent.  It seemed like this beautiful, vibrant world that I had been in, screeched to a halt as it held its breath at the loud intrusion of a single car crossing the bridge. I was surprised at how loud an ordinary car, driving across a bridge, could sound. 

Then, after it left, slowly one by one the birds returned to their chirping and singing. Life at the creek came back alive, the tree branches began conversing with me again and there was light everywhere.  As I slowly started back on the trail, I wished I had wings on my feet because even the sound of my sneakers, as lightly as I walked, sounded loud. Wonderfully and awesomely, I had made friends with the life around me, and they continued to teach me all about it.  

When I finally got home, I was ecstatic.  It all had been so beautiful, so powerful, so alive, so radiant and so wonderful. That is the light of life.  And, this light is in us and in our lives also, if we can only listen for it by softening our noisy imprints in life.

Recently, at work, I was feeling a bit badly about something related to one of our disabled people. I really just wanted to cry. When a coworker, who noticed, said something sweet to me, I literally felt her words.  I physically felt the light and life in them.  It was simple, but I was stunned and absolutely delighted when I saw light in her words. I knew in our words of kindness and positive intention, like the beautiful life along the creek, is life also.  

I think another example of seeing life's light is what happens when we turn off the lights.  At first we can't see anything in the dark, but slowly our eyes adjust and soon we can literally see in the dark.  I think the "Kingdom of God," is found like that. It is an inner realm of life that is there all along, but when we're focused on everything else, we miss it.  I truly think Jesus came to help us focus our eyes in the dark to see the light that is always there - in us and around us.  We just have to tune in, I guess.

Let the children come

In July, we shared the Tiger Lilies post, America, Remember Who You Are! with President Obama. 

Then, as now, I felt passionately that we, as a nation, must accept the children from Latin America who had struggled through dangerous territory and life-threatening circumstances to come here. I was terribly saddened a town in Texas would reject the children. 

On September 26, I received an email from President Obama assuring us of his commitment and promise to help the children from Latin America. 

This week, he kept his promise with his courageous legislation to protect the children.

This is not a partisan issue. It is a bold opportunity to reach out with the same spirit that has sustained America through wars, floods, hurricanes, terrorism, civic unrest as she has grown into an ever brighter and better nation. 

This legislation also sends a powerful and courageous message to the world.

America still offers hope, promise and freedom to the oppressed, which is the initial driving vision of our founding fathers. It is who we are, regardless of politics or economics.  That vision has, and I hope always will, prevail over any and all challenges.  It is who we are.  President Obama has demonstrated a rare courage to stand by America's profound identity and mission to our country, our people and our world.

Thank you, President Obama.

From President Obama on September 26:

Dear Victoria:

Thank you for writing. I am deeply concerned about the unaccompanied migrant children arriving at our border. This is an urgent situation, and it underscores the need to drop the politics, respond quickly and effectively, and fix our broken immigration system once and for all.

My Administration continues to address this situation with an aggressive, coordinated Federal response on both sides of the border. We’re making sure we have sufficient facilities to appropriately house and process those who cross our border illegally. We’re also working with Central American leaders to publicize the dangers of the journey and to reinforce that apprehended migrants are ultimately returned to their home countries in keeping with the law. However, it is our legal and moral obligation to treat unaccompanied children with care and compassion while they’re in our custody.

Since the beginning of July, we have seen some initial signs of progress along our Southwest border—thanks in part to my Administration’s response. We are not declaring victory, and we must continue our intensive efforts on both sides of the border. We will keep taking aggressive steps to surge resources to our Southwest border, deter both adults and children from this dangerous journey, increase capacity for enforcement and removal proceedings, and quickly and safely return unlawful migrants who do not qualify for humanitarian relief to their home countries. And I’ve asked Congress to provide the funding these efforts need.

In the long run, though, the best way to truly address this problem is to fix our broken immigration system through comprehensive legislation like the bipartisan bill passed by the Senate last year. It would have strengthened our border security, equipped us with better technology, and bolstered the resources and personnel vital for an efficient removal process—including additional Border Patrol agents, asylum officers, immigration judges, and access to legal counsel. It would have also combated transnational crime and cracked down on criminal networks.

Again, I appreciate your perspective. I am working diligently to bring an end to this situation, and we intend to do the right thing by these children. But I have repeatedly made clear that parents need to know this is an incredibly dangerous situation, and they should not put their children in the hands of criminals.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama


The following is the post from July 17, 2014:

America, Remember Who You Are!

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless,
Tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

- Statue of Liberty

Waves of children, tidal waves of humanity, pour into the United States after a more than 500-mile trek through some of the world's most inhospitable and dangerous landscape.

These precious children, of all ages, are tired, poor, homeless and all are tempest-tossed by war, poverty, and unbearable cruelty in their home countries. They are the innocent of the world, as are the children of Gaza and Israel. These are God's precious little ones, the very ones who Jesus called to himself, begging for their protection.

This time, America, we cannot look away. We cannot pretend we do not see this great and terrible crisis at our doors. Life will never be the same. Don't you see this, by now? It is all ending faster than we can comprehend what is happening. If each one of us could lift our hearts to the border and welcome these children, the world's last breath would be lightened even just a little.

America, did we forget who we are? We are not our government, our corporations, our economy or domestic or foreign policies. We are the light of the world. We must open our hearts and arms to the children, here and everywhere.

We cannot expect our government to do this, and certainly no corporation would suffer itself such compassion. We as people must seek out a way to save these children. They are the children of the world. They are our children. We must save them. If we don't, who will?


WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN A HOLY COMMAND. WE MUST ACCEPT THE CHILDREN!!!

(This message has been sent to President Obama) 

Bright souls divine

Oh, bright soul of mine
please bless and shine
from heaven's source divine
her purest love and light sublime
into this human life of thine

There are times in life, even among the brightest and best of us, those with the most successful careers, happiest marriages, nicest homes, joyous relationships when a dark cloud passes across the heart and mind. A beautiful moment dims, tears come and the heart grows dark. A strange thought flickers into the mind from who knows where, challenging all that preexisting joy, and like a weed, chokes up the garden's perfection.

The news these days, if you're still one of us, who watches or reads it, is sure to breed weeds and heavy clouds, darkening our individual and collective consciousness. Adding to that is another, even more worrisome dynamic at work in our world that needs to be seen for what it is - not challenged or avoided - but simply seen and acknowledged by the collective mind.

The world as we knew it is no longer. Rather, a beautiful, bright, empowering new world is giving birth to a kind of new Renaissance, a Golden Age. We are in that dark and terrible transition between ages. The new is arriving and the old is quickly dying. However, it is not dying quietly. You know, "it will not go silently into that great night."

The old forces of control, which are that proverbial weed in the garden, are growing out of control due to the absence of love in our world today. Those forces of control have created a kind of fallow field, a stony, dried up spiritual wasteland in which nothing can live. In that environment, terror breeds terror, fear, and oppression all of which suck the life out of life, rendering whole continents so impoverished that nothing can endure, and life succumbs to an invisible virus.

It is like an old car spewing out dark, black exhaust fumes and everyone is choking on them. But, there is a beautiful bright shining new car in the garage that runs on solar energy, not gasoline. Let's drive that one, and send the old one off to the junk yard for parts.

If you are keeping track of ISIS' antics, Ebola casualties, the high suicide rates everywhere - especially in Oregon - you must be shaking your head asking yourself why. That's the old world dying, rotting right before our eyes. We must take our eyes off it. That does not diminish our compassion for those who are victims of those terrible plagues and oppressions.

In order to raise the garage door where the new car is waiting to be driven, we must stop driving the old one. We can do this because we are amazing beings. We are divinity in human bodies. We are light in clay vessels. Our minds can turn water into wine. The only reason we don't do it is because we are so deeply mired, so terribly disempowered by the news and the fear spewed out in the black exhaust fumes of a dying age that we are rendered literally powerless. We are allowing ourselves to be victims of a dying old age.

We are beautiful beings of light, living potentially radiant, powerful, creative, loving, joyous lives. In a sense we're here just to be here and radiate and experience being alive in love. Why would we want to diminish that experience, rather than allow it to fill us and raise us into states of sheer bliss, embracing each other and all of life in a kind of harmonic, resonating from heart to heart?

We each have a soul, maybe some of us share a soul, and our human lives are reflections of the light from our soul, which receives its light from the divine source. If we can remember who we really are, we will shine brighter. If we forget, the exhaust fumes of this dying age will block the divine light and all its life-giving power from coming our way. The little sonnet above reflects that awareness in its bid to remember from where we receive our lives.

So if strange unhappy things are occurring around you, (the many strange little tragedies everywhere - from the polar vortex to a friend's home being burglarized) and when times feel frightening, uncertain and confusing, rather than succumb to the fear, look into the sky and imagine your soul star and invite it to shine heaven's light and love into your human life. You might want to put St. John of the Light's little sonnet on your car dashboard or refrigerator or computer at work to remind you of the big picture of which you are an important and key part. Without you, the world would be darker. To complete the birth of the Golden Age, we need every single bit of light from every single one of us. You are a precious troubadour of light, a powerful knight. Remember who you are.

Thank you for reading Tiger Lilies.

A note: Our book, Only Love Remains, has been sent off to the literary agents for possible publication, which is why it is not on the blog any longer. If you would like a PDF copy, please email Amani at tigerlilieslife@gmail.com and he'll I'll send it to you, as soon as he gets back from Hawaii - any day now.

"I Am"

(I share this with one caveat, I want to differentiate between Jesus the Christ and God the Father. The song, in my opinion, is about the Father - the Universal Consciousness and Creator who pervades the universe to whom Jesus pointed,and from whom Jesus received his mission, awareness, vision, teaching and ultimate enlightenment, and from whom we also can draw our consciousness and power.  Often, non-Christians don't understand the differentiation. Sometimes Christians don't either)

The music is rustic, rock and roll, but the message sounds like Christian enlightenment. Yet, it is universal, beyond the bounds of any and all religions or cultures.  It is the story of the most profound love of the universe, the Consciousness of the One who created it all, that is our consciousness, that is Life and is Love.  To see the glimmering light of this profound awareness in early Judaism - with Moses' on the mountain who hears God say, "I am that I am," and then to hear that awareness developed more clearly in the early teaching of Christ shows us the awesomeness of the Father's love and patience.   

"I Am"

There's no space that His love can't reach
There's no place where we can't find peace
There's no end to Amazing Grace
Take me in with your arms spread wide
Take me in like an orphan child
Never let go, never leave my side.

I am,
Holding on to You.
I am,
Holding on to You.
In the middle of the storm,
I am Holding on,
I am

I am,
Holding on to You.
I am,
Holding on to you.
In the middle of the storm,
I am holding on,
I am

Love like this, Oh my God to find!
I am overwhelmed what a joy divine!
Love like this sets our hearts on fire!

I am,
Holding on to You.
I am,
Holding on to You.
In the middle of the storm,
I am Holding on,
I am

I am,
Holding on to You.
I am,
Holding on to you.
In the middle of the storm,
I am holding on,
I am

This is my Resurrection Song
This is my Hallelujah Come
This is why to You I run
This is my Resurrection Song
This is my Hallelujah Come
This is why to You I run
There's no space that His love can't reach
There's no place that we can't find peace
There's no end to Amazing Grace

I am,
Holding on to You.
I am,
Holding on to You.
In the middle of the storm,
I am Holding on,
I am

I am,
Holding on to You.
I am,
Holding on to you.
In the middle of the storm,
I am holding on,
I am
Songwriters
ERNA, SALVATORE P.

Open invitation to love

Video: Syrian refugees in Lebanon

It's a small world, and what happens in one country impacts the whole world. While geographically we're all divided and subdivided, we are one people, one heart, one humanity.  We cannot ignore what is happening in one country.  It won't go away by itself.   

The children . . . the elderly. . . the sick . . . the poor . . . the hungry . . . all the people need love.  Their suffering is an open invitation to us to open our hearts wider and be more compassionate. Theirs is a sacred opportunity. Is it their fault they found themselves in a war zone?  Is it the children's fault? God is merciful. God is compassionate, and we are God's hands and feet. We cannot say we love God if we abandon others to the suffering that's abounding in our world.  Today, you can pick which country and which cause to lift up another's suffering.  It's everywhere.

This group, Medical Teams International, has a local headquarters in Portland.  I've been to their site, met Jeff Pinneo, and left with a heart overflowing with hope for the world, just because they are in it. They are passionate about helping those who need medicine and healthy life coaching the most.

And, so I share their light with you.

Here's their website: 
www.medicalteams.org