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

God save the people

Flowers of thy Heart, Oh God, are they

let them not pass like weeds away

Their heritage a sunless day

God save the people  ..

Last week, my sister sent me a beautiful photo of tiger lilies growing in her yard.  She admired them and wanted to show them to me.  Francesca is a sensitive lover of  poetry, art, animals and natural beauty. She saw the flowers and wrote me that they reminded her of this Tiger lilies blog.  And, then, this morning, she wrote me that someone had cut down all her tiger lilies, and sent a picture of the flowerless stalks.

I was sad to see they had been cut down. Only an innocent child would do that, I thought. They might have been thinking that flowers are there for the picking, not realizing that they were killing a beautiful life. I couldn't help thinking, that we are like those flowers, as the poet of the famous God Save the People, made famous in Godspell.  

We are flowers of His Heart, and yet lately the blood of the innocent, Israeli, Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian all are passing away like weeds. I wept at the news that the three Israeli teens were killed.  We had all hoped somehow miraculously they would have been found alive.  

Suddenly, in that news, the flowers in my heart felt more like the dead stumps of my sister's decapitated flowers.  The words to this song from Godspell are stinging my heart.  I am brokenhearted at this news and find the only solace is to cling to the image of my sister's lovely flowers.  

God Save the People

When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they;
let them not pass like weeds away
Their heritage a sunless day
God save the people

Shall crime bring crime forever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it thy will, O Father,
that men shall toil for wrong?
No, say thy mountains; No, say thy skies;
man's clouded sun shall brightly rise,
and songs be heard, instead of sighs,
God save the people!

When wilt thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
God save the people; thine they are,
thy children as thy angels fair;
from vice, oppression and despair,
God save the people!

by Ebenezer Elliott, 1850

---

Universal power

"Let your light shine before all people . . .

A beautiful green field with gently rolling hills was spread out before me. A soft humming filled the fragrant landscape with a comforting presence, exquisitely welcoming, and vibrantly alive. 

I spanned the picturesque hillside meadow that rose to meet the base of a mountain slope edged in tall pines. The fresh mountain air felt clean and invigorating against my face. I wanted to run, dance, spin and sing. I felt intoxicated by the beauty and presence around me. 

Then, suddenly and fleetingly, as visions usually are, I saw a stunning huge monolithic crystal almost as high as the pines, shimmering before me in the meadow.  As I looked at it, I saw it was broadcasting a radiance, a power, which I can only describe as love. I must have blinked at its sheer brightness glistening in the beautiful sunshine because in a fraction of a second, it was gone. And the vision was over.

I looked down at my big grey tiger cat still sleeping stretched out on the couch. Outside, a torrential rain storm was streaking the windows with buckets of rain water.  My cat's purring seemed to harmonize with the sound of the rain dancing down the windowpanes. I stroked his silky fur and listened to the summer rain storm as I reflected on the vision. I knew instantly what the vision meant. It's what I'd been thinking about for days, weeks, even months so perfectly encapsulated that it could only have come from the angelic realm. And, so, I will share with you what it means.

We human beings are not what we think we are.  We see ourselves in three parts: body, intellect and something spiritual.  But, even those definitive categories are like cardboard stand-ups, lacking the depth of real understanding.  They barely even come close to scratching the surface of what we really are. 

That "something spiritual" is who we are.  It has a depth and multidimensionality that expands outward exponentially, potentially filling the entire universe.  It is the field that I saw. That is the "heart." It is the innermost realm of your total being in which your spirit nests. We've always been told that we have within ourselves an inner light.  We know this and many of us haven't ever seen that light within our minds. Some believe it's there anyway and some don't.  I have seen it and I believe it's there. I believed it was there before I ever saw it. For me it is a very bright sun-like glow at the top of my inner vision horizon.  

This monolithic crystal that was broadcasting radiance was not the same thing, but it might have been.  It is divine love within your soul-mind that is within your consciousness. In a sense that crystal is your soul light. It is your power source. It is solid light that emits a radiant power that is the strongest substance in the universe and yet it is visible light that is clearly palatable.

Because we don't realize who we are, we run around like little ants in a flurry of activity of doing, doing, doing. We are the most magnificent beings who have this universal power source within us all the time, even when we don't see it or know it's there. Unfortunately, too often we don't know it's there and so we think we are powerless and  live our lives steeped in fear and hostility. We negotiate exclusively in materiality, attempting to store up money, wealth, prestige, power as bastions of protection.  

Yet, all that time we could have been living powerfully, creatively and courageously healing and uplifting our lives and all those around us simply through the power of that inner radiance.  It is magnetic, resonant, electric and life generating.  If we all, all of you who are reading this, allowed this powerful love broadcast to radiate out of us, it would do all the work of healing the world. It only asks that we let go control, allow the power to flow and let it carry us into supreme states of sheer joy and love. 

Our light would light the world if we would let go of our fear and surrender to who we really are and let that broadcast of love, light the world as it flows through us.

We can cooperate with the broadcast by intentionally remaining mindful of it, and choosing to love, until it actually changes our thinking patterns and raises our vibration and enlightens and expands our consciousness so that we outwardly become more like what we really are inwardly.

We are love, made of love and made by love.  That love, as I said yesterday, is not a romantic, sentimental Hallmark card kind of love. It is the power of the universe, made of a substance of divine creative power.  It is all that is real. If we knew who we are, fear would dissipate in a second and we and our world would change.  

I'm offering you this vision for you to realize that awesome crystal is inside you.  It might have a personal hue, it might be in a different setting within your mind and imagination. You create the scene. It is your home. It is a gift left there within your heart by your creator for you to share in the power and responsibility of creation. You need to know you are love and you are loved and you are so much more amazing and brilliant and powerful than you can ever imagine.  But, do try to imagine it and let your light shine and heal the world.
_____________________

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matthew 5:16 KJV

Our only hope

A radiant morning opens a gorgeous new age. The wars are over, the prisoners freed, the children are singing and playing in beautiful garden playgrounds, the world is alive and thriving in joy. The knowledge of anything else is long forgotten.

Maybe that's a 100 years from now!

Stop. Wait. Before you flip on another day's sad news, which the media feeds us daily, hourly, seducing our minds in the way a drug dealer sucks in a new customer, consider for a moment there is a "more excellent way." *  

There is an antidote to the global virus of hatred and fear that has infected us all. While it seems the world has gone pica, which is a distorted sense of real nutritional need which creates an addiction to the very thing causing an illness, there is another way, a simple solution.  But, as anyone who has ever attempted to change an unhealthy habit knows, it may be simple, but it isn't easy.

While the body may actually be starving for a nutrient, pica causes an addiction to the very condition that is causing the need.  An anorexic will have a strong aversion to food, people who are allergic to wheat will crave bread, children who are malnourished for calcium will eat lead based paint.

Has the world become addicted to war and the unimaginable, unwatchable, news coming out of every sector of the planet? Is that addiction leading us away from a healthy response which would heal our world. Are we, the blind codependent victims of violence, becoming its perpetrators through our vacuous complicity?  

There comes that moment in spiritual awakening when you realize you are completely powerless against the furious winds of hatred storming the planet, degrading the quality of life everywhere. People have forgotten it is evil to kill, steal, lie, covet, curse, disrespect your parents, violate the sacred rights of another; and trespass on the hearts, minds and pocket books of others, abuse animals and the earth, cleverly manipulate and devise complex psychological strategies and methods to control the minds of innocent victims by the predatory capitalist marketplace for selfish gain.  Who has not been touched by this, infected, weakened, stung in some way? 

The global agony is so vast, so out of control, you realize anything you could possibly ever do wouldn't so much as make the slightest difference in tipping the planet back onto the axis of sanity.  But, to do nothing feels like the most ungrateful response to this great gift of life from our loving creator. 

The call to "fight the good fight" has never been more urgently needed.  It is heard in our on-going  reach for global peace, humanitarian feeding and clean water projects throughout Africa, lobbying in Washington for the ever expanding rights and recognition of the diverse groups of the American population which fragments further each year, the desperately needed environmental efforts and scientific search for clean energy, and the loud cry of the innocent victims of tyranny in the Middle East and the Ukraine. The call is pounding in the hearts and minds of every conscious human being. 

It is a global call to arms, heard by each one of the 7 billion (and rising) to work, dream, create in whatever way one is able to leave the world better than the place they found it.  If we each did this, things would change in a moment, in a single second of time. But, the task is overwhelming, and the path is dark and overgrown.

To love is the only way out of this nightmare. It is "the good fight." And, it's not a Hallmark card. It's not romantic. It's not sentimental and it's not weak. It is the ultimate power of the universe. It's just too bad the word itself has been so degraded in meaning. It too has been corrupted as has everything else that's beautiful and sacred.

It is the power of God in your imagination, in your dreaming, praying, and in genius visionary planning.  It is the light of divine wisdom streaming into your mind and then down the 100 yard line into your well barricaded heart. It is hope, and is often born out of a form of righteous indignation, a passionate cry to God for mercy, for help, for redemption, for healing, for enlightenment, for life - again and again and again until finally the creaking rusty ancient steel door of your precious sacred heart begins to slowly budge open.  

You might push against it with all your might for a long time until a single thought flings it open. You suddenly awaken and are enlivened by the awareness that you are loved and you are loving and there is no one there who judges, condemns, or punishes you. There is only love, flowing like a crystal clear river, inviting you to flow with it. That love, like a radiant sunrise within your being, is the antidote to everything that haunts and spoils life on our once beautiful planet.

It is the hope for the children, for the aged, for the prisoner, for the animals, for all of life. It is the only hope. And, it is not of our own making, our own doing. We cannot roll away that massive stone gate opening into heaven from within our own hearts, unless we ask the angels to help us. Unless we are completely in tune with God whom we encounter within our most sacred chamber, we are powerless. 

This is that great moment of grace. Only God can open our hearts. We can only ask, and wait. As one waits in a Japanese garden for the master to invite him into the tea house, we wait for God's angel to unlock the gate to our hearts.  There is no other way, but it is the only way.  And, even that way is easy. All we have to do is simply ask and it is done.  Period. From that moment on, all of our power is hinged to our intention to love, to remain in perfect union (communion) with divine love within us.  If we don't have time to meditation or pray formally, the intention alone is sufficient to keep the heart open and flowing with the love light of the divine, making us powerful enough to reverse all that plaques the world.  

And, just in case we have forgotten what love is, I'll close with the immortal words of St. Paul:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, 

but do not have love, 

I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy 

and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, 

and if I have a faith that can move mountains, 

but do not have love, I am nothing. 

If I give all I possess to the poor 

and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, 

but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient 

Love is kind 

Love does not envy

Love does not boast 

Love is not proud 

Love does not dishonor others 

Love is not self-seeking 

Love is not easily angered

Love keeps no record of wrongs 

Love does not delight in evil 

Love rejoices with the truth 

Love always protects  

Love always trusts 

Love always hopes 

Love always perseveres
Love never fails 

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthinas 13, NIV)