November, 2013
EMERGENCY…EMERGENCY…
EMERGENCY!
Your personal intervention is desperately needed at this very moment in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan’s devastation across the Philippines. Food and clean water still has not gotten to thousands in devastated areas. CNN’s Team Impact has been looking for ways that everyone can help. Please look at this list, and click on one or more of these links. We place this here with sincere acknowledgement of and deep thanks to CNN, which we hope and trust will not mind our republishing the list from their website, in the interests of humanity.
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
- Americares
- CARE | Catholic Relief Services
- Convoy of Hope | Direct Relief
- Habitat for Humanity
- International Medical Corps
- Philippine Red Cross
- Samaritan’s Purse
- Save The Children
- ShelterBox
- UNICEF
- World Food Programme | World Vision
Click here to link to the CNN site if you would like more information on this heartbreaking but important biggest news story of the day.
Preview the new CWG book What God Said now at www.WhatGodSaidbook.com. Released Oct. 1, this book explores and expands on the 25 most important messages of the 9-installment Conversations with God series and offers practical suggestions on how to apply each message in every day life. To read the first seven chapters and hear a one chapter sample of the audio book, click here.
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(This is Part I of an extended series on being part of the change, rather than simply observing the change, that is occurring on our planet right now.)
This is the most extraordinary time to be alive in the history of this planet.
Do you know that?
I said, this is the most extraordinary time to be alive in the history of this planet.
And you are here, alive, now, not by accident.
Do you know that?
I said, you are here…alive….NOW….not by accident.
What are you doing here? Do you have any idea? Yes, you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this. And that’s the best news this planet has had in a very long time.
Wow, grab hold of that. Hear that thought, and grab hold of it. You are the best news this planet has had in a very long time.
You’re good news because you are about to change this planet in very important ways. And the planet needs changing now, in important ways, more than it has in a very long time. In fact, if those changes don’t take place now, in the nearness of our short-term future, our long-term future may not be assured.
I am sure that I do not have to tell you that life as we once knew it no longer “is” on our earth. And life as we will know it “is” not yet. So we are living the In Between Time—what social scientist Jean Houston calls “the time of the parenthesis.” We are no longer one thing, and we are not yet the other.
This is the most wonderful and exciting time to be alive, because this is time Time of Pure Creation. There is no other time like it, and such a time comes along only once every several hundred years. In fact, it would be argued without much refutation that the kinds of changes we are going through now come along only once every several thousand years. And, to be totally accurate, we have never had a time like this on the earth—because the changes we are now about to make could not have been made before.
We are entering not only a new era, but a new experience—one never before known by our species. This is the Time of the Enlightenment. There are glories awaiting. Glories we could not even have dreamt of just a few decades ago.
Those who come after us will live these changes—but we will create them! And THAT is the wonder of this moment. For this moment holds for us the chance to experience ourselves as few humans have ever experienced themselves across the span of Time.
We are going to experience ourselves as the Changers and the Changed. Indeed, we are doing so right now. And so the question before us now is not, will there be massive change? The question is, what will be the nature of that change? And….what role will you play in creating it?
Now, as exciting as all this is, there’s one condition; there’s one catch:
You’ve got to decide now.
A 3-D printing company in Texas has announced that it has successfully created a process by which it can produce a fully operational metal handgun from a printout.
And both a long-time writer and his editor at a magazine catering to gun owners are out of work today because they dared to author and publish an article in the magazine inviting a discussion of reasonable gun purchasing requirements.
These are two developments in the news these days about guns and the obtaining and owning of guns — and they bring up, in the minds of many people around the world, questions about the gun culture in America.
The author of the magazine article, Dick Metcalf, had edited and written for Guns & Ammo magazine for years. But his longevity with the publication made no difference. His column in the December issue “sparked an online uproar from readers, gun bloggers, and other corners of the conservative movement,” writes David Sessions for The Daily Beast, an online news outlet.
“Metcalf’s back-page column was headlined ‘Let’s Talk About Limits,’ (PDF) and cautiously argued that gun enthusiasts should not oppose basic limits on firearm ownership,” Sessions reports. The column, Sessions goes on, “made the obvious point that all freedoms protected by the Constitution are regulated in some way, and that gun owners should stop acting as if any regulation whatsoever amounts to the ‘infringement’ mentioned in the Second Amendment.”
Gun enthusiasts did not take kindly to the comment, however. Especially when Metcalf wrote: “I don’t think requiring 16 hours of training to qualify for a concealed carry permit is infringement in and of itself. But that’s just me.”
The writer was summarily fired after the magazine received a raft of subscription cancellations and a deluge of negative commentary and boiling criticism on internet blogs and social media, including the magazine’s own Facebook page.
And Mr. Metcalf’s boss, a man named Jim Bequette who manages the editing of the entire magazine, resigned his position early (he was planning to leave in January) in an effort to quell the rising tide of hostile response from people across America.
Wrote Bequette in a statement: “I made a mistake by publishing the column. I thought it would generate a healthy exchange of ideas on gun rights. I miscalculated, pure and simple. I was wrong, and I ask your forgiveness.” In publishing Metcalf’s column, Bequette said he was “untrue to” the “tradition” of Guns & Ammo magazine.
So it would appear that there is, among a huge swath of Americans, no room for even a discussion of any limits whatsoever on gun purchase and ownership in America. This is a land with a huge gun culture. Americans by the millions love their killing weapons.
So for them it may be good news that now a 3D-printing services company Solid Concepts has developed a sintering process (the dictionary defines that term as “making a powdered material coalesce into a solid or porous mass by heating it, usually also compressing it, and without liquefaction”) that creates a gun using powdered metals for the firearm’s material.
“The weapon’s design is based on a classic 1911 handgun and is made up of 33 different stainless steel and Inconel components, along with a carbon fiber filled nylon handgrip,” according to a report by Dara Kerr for the Internet site CNET.
Solid Concepts vice president of additive manufacturing Kent Firestone said in a statement: “We’re proving this is possible, the technology is at a place now where we can manufacture a gun with 3D Metal Printing, And we’re doing this legally. In fact, as far as we know, we’re the only 3D Printing Service Provider with a Federal Firearms License. Now, if a qualifying customer needs a unique gun part in five days, we can deliver.”
Kerr’s report at CNET said that “The first known 3D-printed gun was made by another Texas-based outfit called Defense Distributed. The gun, called the ‘Liberator,’ is made entirely of plastic, except for a nail used as a firing pin and a six-ounce piece of steel designed solely to allow the gun to be detected by metal detectors.
“The Liberator can be instantly downloaded and anonymously printed by anyone who has access to 3D-printing technology. While the gun debuted amid much fanfare, it has since been said the firearm rarely works,” Kerr’s report went on.
The ability to print out a metal gun presumably solves that problem.
The United States is virtually the only country on Earth where a high percentage of citizens are so fixated on guns. Apparently, those enthusiasts see little or no connection between the easy availability of guns in America and the ongoing stream of heartbreaking news stories about mass killings and shocking murders involving guns making headlines every day in the nation’s media.
Mr. Sessions, in his article for The Daily Beast, quotes a man named Robert Farago of the website The Truth About Guns, who is reported to have posted a PDF of the offending Guns & Ammo column. “Anyone who says ‘I believe in the Second Amendment but—’ does not believe in the Second Amendment,” Sessions quotes Mr. Farago as writing. “They are not friends, they are not frenemies, they are enemies of The People of the Gun.”
The People of the Gun?
Really?
Please read Naomi Klein’s recent article in New Statesman…How Science Is Telling Us All To Revolt… on the reason why human life on the planet is in deep danger that must be addressed immediately.
Her article contains this observation…
The fact that the business-as-usual pursuit of profits and growth is destabilizing life on earth is no longer something we need to read about in scientific journals. The early signs are unfolding before our eyes. And increasing numbers of us are responding accordingly: blockading fracking activity in Balcombe; interfering with Arctic drilling preparations in Russian waters (at tremendous personal cost); taking tar sands operators to court for violating indigenous sovereignty; and countless other acts of resistance large and small. In Brad Werner’s computer model, this is the “friction” needed to slow down the forces of destabilization; the great climate campaigner Bill McKibben calls it the “antibodies” rising up to fight the planet’s “spiking fever”.
It’s not a revolution, but it’s a start. And it might just buy us enough time to figure out a way to live on this planet that is distinctly less f**ked.
The entire article can be found here…
And would you then please read the proposed Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the ESRA) at www.tikkun.org/ESRA and read the Spiritual Covenant with America at www.spiritualprogressives.org? These present a strategy for dealing with the issues raised by Naomi Klein.
In practical terms, the ESRA is a major step toward reversing what Naomi Klein is describing in her article.
Unrealistic? No, what is most unrealistic is to not take these kind of major steps before it is too late to save life on earth. Can it pass? Well, the Equal Rights Amendment (the ERA) never passed, but the struggle for it changed public opinion dramatically and took feminism from being a side-show to mainstream acceptance.
That is what the ESRA is meant to do for the idea of seriously challenging corporate power by establishing democratic control or review of their impact on the environment and on the values of the society.
It is actually evolutionary, but at least it speeds things up enough so that more complete steps at global restraints on corporate destruction of the environment can be taken seriously.
One part of it, the “Money out of Politics” clause, not only overturns Citizens United but goes much further by requiring that state and federal elections must be publicly financed and no other source of money (from corporations OR from individuals) will be permitted; thus the ESRA democratizes both the political system and a major part of the economy.
We are inviting you to come to our Transformative Activist Training so that you can have the skills to bring these kinds of ideas into the public sphere. For info: www.spiritualprogressives.org/training. Please join us.
Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, Tikkun and co-chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives
NOTE: Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, now out in paperback. Her earlier books include the international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (which has just been re-published in a special 10th Anniversary Edition); and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002). To read all her latest writing visit www.naomiklein.org. You can follow her on Twitter: @NaomiAKlein.
Bill Clinton said that, and he was right. So why do I bring this up now, almost 21 years later? America has a new cash crop, hemp, also known as marijuana. Legal to farm for the first time since 1906, hemp farming is off and running. Hemp is slightly different than marijuana, the difference being that hemp is bred to not include Tetrahydrocannabinol, THC. Cannabis, otherwise known as pot, is also being harvested for the first time in the US.
With the evolution of the medical marijuana laws now moving towards legalization for recreational use, we now have a new form of income that was previously only available on street corners and back alleys. In theory, this should help to eliminate some of the drug-related violence as it pertains to marijuana sales.
So this begs the bigger question for our society: Why not legalize all drugs? Why would we limit the huge profits being made to criminals only? Could our bureaucracies come up with a system of regulation that would be acceptable in a civilized society? It is my opinion that the way some municipalities, like Venice, California, for example, regulate the sale of pot is not acceptable.
The glamorization of drugs is dangerous to children. This has been proven to be the case by the results of lawsuits against big tobacco. Any advertising or “in your face” sale of drugs is not responsible for a society that calls itself civilized.
Commonsense spirituality would tell us any behavior that negatively impacts others is not coming from who we really are. The economy can benefit from our allowing our fellow man to choose freely what he or she puts into their body. The economy should not be the primary reason for legalization; our inalienable right to choose should be. Ultimately, allowing for free choice in society will increase the speed in which we evolve into our next grandest form and vision.
Having a flourishing economy will also expedite human evolution. As it stands, the wealth being created by the sale and distribution of illegal drugs is being hoarded by the ruthless, dark side of mankind. Once mainstreamed, the profits and tax money will help our governments provide more services to more of the world’s people in need.
The financial impact from this alone could create the space for the majority of our population to experience financial security or at the very least giving us the upper hand in eliminating poverty and malnutrition.
Some will say that we are not responsible enough to manage this without it becoming the downfall of society and having everyone strung out on drugs. May I point out that alcohol is legal and nobody seems to have a problem with that?
I trust that by giving the people freedom to choose and experience the results of their choice we tend to find our own power. When we remember that we are the source of our choices and the resulting consequences, we begin to see the world in a new way.
Money is the method we have chosen to be our energy exchange for goods and services. It is not the root of all evil, as some would say. It is merely the means for us to experience some of the opportunities life has to offer.
Bill Clinton had it right, it is the economy. When the people experience abundance our happiness, the group is lifted. When we are happy and abundant, we tend to be more giving of our abundance to others. We have been in this period of greed and hoarding known as recession for far too long. It is time to experience the truth – we have enough for everyone.
(Kevin McCormack, C.A.d ,is a certified addictions professional and auriculotherapist. He is a recovering addict with 26 years of sobriety. Kevin is a practicing auriculotherapist, life coach, and interventionist specalizing in individual and family recovery and also co-facilitates spiritual recovery retreats for the CWG foundation. You can visit his website here for more information. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)
A good friend of mine is going through some major changes in her life – angry separation from family, decrease in career/income, and her gentleman friend called and told her he’d found someone new.
She’s in a panic and turning to me and another good friend for support. I offered her the WECCE book, which she started to read and then put down. At this time she’s in no mood to hear that these changes may be for her own good and/or that she created them.
I want to support her, but am unsure what to say to her or do for her. I cannot in honesty say “poor dear”, because I DO believe WECCE (it’s worked in my life many times). I can agree with her that it’s a frightening and sad time for her, but she’s not ready to hear that the choice not to be frightened and sad has to come from within herself.
I’ve told her that I know (from experience) that there’s really nothing I can say to make her feel better, that’s a decision she must make for herself. But that I will support her totally in her choices to create the life she really wants, and that I love her.
At one point in WECCE Neil says to stay with a feeling until it no longer serves you. Maybe that’s what she’s doing – staying with the saddness, anger and fear until it no longer serves? Then when she asks for help, what does a friend say?
Thanks, K
Dear K,
You have given her the book, and when/if it is time for her to read it, she will. How lucky she is to have a friend like you who cares enough to not just talk, but to give tools!
There is nothing wrong, by the way, with saying, “poor dear” to her at this point in her changes, K. This human experience is all too real and all too painful, more so for some than others. Saying “poor dear” now, does not mean that you must continue to do so, which would, of course, be enabling her to not even consider changing her mind about what is going on. So, yes, for now she must experience sadness, anger and fear until it no longer serves her…but, of course, everything does eventually serve.
The mistake that your friend may be making, regarding the “she created them” statements in the book, is forgetting that we are co-creators…and even then we are co-creating on a Soul level, and for a Soul purpose! We most often have no direct control over the total picture, because we are rarely alone in that picture! However, and this is the big “however”, we do have control over our own reactions to the events of our lives. The big lie, if you will, is that we can not consciously control who we are, in any given situation. WECCE, as you know, gives us tools on how to do just that. It gives us tools to overcome past data and become conscious co-creators and not victims. The biggest example I give is Nelson Mandella. He was in prison for many years, unjustly, and yet he knew that this was just his external circumstance, and that it had nothing to do with who he really is. The same can be said of Jesus, or Ghandi, and many others. There were surely people in that same prison with Mandella, imprisoned falsely, who thought of themselves as victims. The two thieves on the cross with Jesus…one found gratitude and love, the other stayed in victimhood. They each made a choice.
You might consider, when you are around your friend, and she is negative and in victim mode, asking her gentle questions and gently pointing out different ways of looking at things. For instance, when she points out how horrible her boyfriend is, you might ask her if it isn’t a good thing that he isn’t lying to her any more so she can move on with her life in truth…or if it isn’t a good thing that she isn’t taking any more risk of disease. I am sure you get where I am going. There is always a positive side, if one is willing to change their mind.
Of course, if the negativity continues, it may come to the point you refer to above, and you simply have to say, “I can see that you are hurting, but I can also see that none of the things that I have said mean anything to you right now. I would like you to find the help and support you require, but it is clearly not coming from me right now. I love you, and will be here when you think I can really be of help to you, but I can’t just sit here and let you live in misery and enable you to do so.”
I would encourage you to encourage her to look at what fear (panic) is doing to her, and see that it doesn’t really serve her in the way she might think it is serving her. Those are emotions that only cause us to stay in place, whilst looking backward with longing…but she can change her mind about her future!
Thank you for coming here, and thank you for being a good friend, K!
Therese
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)
An additional resource: The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services. The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions. What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God. It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.
In August of this year, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his plan to improve humanity by expanding internet access into the developing world, touting it as “one of the most important things we will do in our lifetimes.” He published his thoughts and visions in an online document where he asks the question: “Is connectivity a human right?”
Zuckerberg goes on to say, “I’m focused on this because I believe it is one of the greatest challenges of our generation. The unfair economic reality is that those already on Facebook have way more money than the rest of the world combined, so it may not actually be profitable for us to serve the next few billion people for a very long time, if ever. But we believe everyone deserves to be connected. The internet not only connects us to our friends, families and communities, but it is also the foundation of the global knowledge economy.”
However, Microsoft mogul Bill Gates has reacted publicly with some harsh criticisms about Mark Zuckerberg’s plan, calling the Facebook entrepreneur’s mission “a joke.”
“As a priority? It’s a joke,” Gates told CNBC in an interview. “I certainly love the IT thing. But when we want to improve lives, you’ve got to deal with more basic things like child survival, child nutrition. Take this malaria vaccine, [this] weird thing that I’m thinking of. Hmm, which is more important, connectivity or malaria vaccine? If you think connectivity is the key thing, that’s great. I don’t.”
Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and someone who has been labeled the richest man in the world, has devoted himself to humanitarian causes since stepping down from a full-time role at Microsoft in 2006, personally investing millions of dollars from his own personal fortune into efforts to eradicate illnesses such as polio, HIV, and malaria on a global scale. His website www.gatesfoundation.org thoroughly outlines many of the other social issues Bill Gates and his wife Melinda are getting in front of, including extreme poverty and poor health in developing countries and the failures of America’s education system.
At first glance, it is easy to mock Zuckerberg’s “get the world online” plan when contrasted against the sobering perspective offered to us by Bill Gates, who also blasted Google’s dream to bring the internet to the world’s unconnected population by floating hundreds of weather balloons equipped with solar-powered radios in an attempt create an aerial wireless network with up to 3G-like speeds. “When you’re dying of malaria, I suppose you’ll look up and see that balloon, and I’m not sure how it’ll help you,” said Gates. “When a kid gets diarrhea, no, there’s no website that relieves that.”
But setting aside for a moment the disapproving commentary by Bill Gates, is it quite possible that Mark Zuckerberg is onto something here, too? He believes that “bringing everyone online will not only improve billions of lives, but we’ll also improve our own as we benefit from the ideas and productivity they contribute to the world. Giving everyone the opportunity to connect is the foundation for enabling the knowledge economy. It is not the only thing we need to do, but it’s a fundamental and necessary step.”
No stranger to philanthropy himself, Zuckerberg and his wife were the second-biggest charitable donors in the United States last year, giving roughly half a billion dollars to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a charitable organization whose causes in 2012 ranged from programs to teach immigrants English, to groups providing food and shelter to the needy, to funds for victims of the California wildfires. In addition, he donated $100 million to help schools in the U.S.
Can the crises humanity is facing right now – hunger, poverty, homelessness, illness, lack of education – be alleviated by both of the innovative ideas of these two powerful men who are more than willing to put their money where it matters?
Are we willing to risk an extraordinary opportunity for significant positive change to occur while we sit back and debate with each other who is right and who is wrong? Isn’t the biggest obstacle we currently face — the one thing that stands in the way of real, positive, and beneficial change taking place — our inability to embrace each other’s perspectives as “another way,” not a “better way”?
Can the internet be counted as a fundamental and basic necessity for everyone in our world? Or is it a tool, a resource, a luxury that should be reserved for those who can afford it? If the latter is true, are we simply playing into the continuing the cycle of “those who have” and “those who do not”?
Do people who have no running or clean water, families with barely enough food to sustain their bodies, and those who struggle with life-threatening illnesses on a daily basis really even care about having internet access? Is the information superhighway, as Gates contends, just not, “in the hierarchy of human needs, in the first five rungs” and instead we should be placing our intentions and financial wherewithal elsewhere?
According to a senior United Nations official, “Helping developing countries build their citizens’ access to the Internet is akin to giving them a tool that boosts their chances of achieving sustainable economic growth.”
Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to be one or the other, this or that, yours or mine? Can you imagine a way these two humanitarian giants can work hand-in-hand, supported by a new framework of understanding, clarity, and wisdom which would give rise to the harmonious implementation of both of their powerful visions and creative ideas?
Personally, the prospect of that level of collaboration and heartfelt cooperation is something I would definitely hit the “like” button for.
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
At 12:19 two lives in my community changed forever. One 17-year-old dead and another 17-year-old under house arrest, charged with intoxicated homicide while driving.
Intoxicated. Tested an hour after the crash and still three times the legal limit. Allegedly, her step-father gave her the alcohol. Allegedly, the young man’s grandmother, with whom he lived, was at a club, and his parents lost in their own addictions.
Men in many countries not considered good businessmen if they don’t go out and drink in the evening.
The apartment across from me installed their wine refrigerator weeks before they moved their furniture in when I lived in Denmark.
The examples of how alcohol has become a pillar of many cultures are boundless.
How can this happen? What are we doing to ourselves?
All around the “civilized” world, it is considered not just acceptable, but encouraged; and if one does not drink, you are suspect.
CWG says that nothing is wrong, only not working, and it is up to us to decide if it is working for us. God says that one day we will simply choose to not abuse our bodies with drink, drugs and food that doesn’t belong in our bodies. God also says that if we destroy the world as we know it, the world will still go on…just in a different way.
The 17-year-olds’ worlds have been destroyed and will now have to go on in a very different way. Life after life is being destroyed because of alcohol, but why?
How many beer/alcohol commercials are there during sporting events? Do watchers not see that this is in direct conflict with the healthy bodies they expect the athletes to maintain? Why are they surprised and outraged when an athlete gets into a fight in a bar and shoots someone? Why are they surprised when they take performance-enhancing drugs? Are they really worse than the legal drug of alcohol? As CWG says, helping someone who is on their deathbed die with dignity and releasing them from pain is illegal…but killing yourself (and possibly taking others with you) slowly, because it is legal, is perfectly acceptable. Huh?
I believe CWG is correct, once again, in saying it is because we do not know who we are, or are not taught it is okay to be who we really are. I believe it is because we are afraid of our greatness. If we didn’t medicate and actually faced the world as it is, what might change? Do you think that we would like what we see? Do you think that we might choose not to destroy our bodies, and our minds, and possibly our world?
If we took back our greatness…if we saw ourselves as individuations of the Divine…do you think we might see that we have become part of a collective Stockholm Syndrome? Will we see we have fallen in love with the very thing that enslaves us?
What do you think, beyond words, might be done to change this, to influence the collective, by us as individuals? I will throw out the first ideas…
Change the channel.
Or don’t drink…it is a choice, not an addiction, for the biggest majority of us.
Or write your television station requesting such ads be removed…it worked to remove tobacco ads from TV in the United States.
There are so many things I can think of that could begin to change this way of being in this world…tell me what ideas you can think of…
Tell me what you are already doing and how you are already demonstrating your greatness! Maybe others will follow if they know they are not alone.
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of, and Spiritual Helper at, the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
There is a New Thought teaching going around — actually, it has been going around for years — that can be both misleading and disserving (to say nothing of being dangerous) if it is not thoroughly explained.
This teaching is that “everything is perfect,” and that our job is the “see the perfection” in things being just the way they are, and not look at any condition as “not okay,” or as being negative in any way.
This disservice of this teaching has been exacerbated by some of the writing in one of the most widely read and best-selling books on contemporary, New Thought spirituality — namely, Conversations with God.
That book talks about the so-called Law of Opposites, asserting that certain conditions, situations, and circumstances arise in life that appear to be unwelcome, that appear to be opposing us, but that they are actually supporting us on our soul’s journey — and that should therefore not be judged as “bad” or condemned as “evil.”
I think it’s important at this stage — given where our species is today in its planetary experience — to go over this teaching very thoroughly, and to invite your reactions to it.
I want to begin by saying that what brought this all up for me was an entry in the Comment Section under the last article to appear in this top-of-page headline space on The Global Conversation — a story having to do with violence in our world, which asked if humanity would ever see or create an end to it. The Comments entry came from a reader named Tina Ashe Brown, and is republished here:
“I am wondering simply why we are judging these actions as good or bad? I have been so confused on this since reading the CWG books. There seems to be a message that either I am not understanding correctly or we are having a hard time understanding here.
“I understand that we were sent here because God wanted to experience herself and could not do that because there were no contradictions… opposites. In heaven, or at least in God’s world, all there is is love. Are we here to return this plane to the same? To a place where only love exists or instead are we here to remember and see love even in the face of the violence?
“To love those beings unconditionally even in the face of the thing we are calling bad. Can we experience if we turn this world into a place where there is only love? Isn’t this place just as much a part of God’s world as any other plane? Is there only love here, too, and we are not able to see through our ego and judgments surrounding good and bad?
“I long for home and for that place where there is only love peace and joy, that place inside of me. I do my best to create this here in this plane each and everyday despite the pictures I see. I know we are all one and connected and I send my love to all regardless of the pictures that I see that do not resonate me with me to the best of my ability.
“I chose to focus on this and not on perceived imperfections that might be happening in this world, for I have the faith that everything is just as it should be even if I don’t understand how!”
I would like now to respond to these very sincerely asked questions, and in so doing perhaps bring some clarity to the New Spirituality teachings about Perfection and the Law of Opposites.
Tina, you have said…“I am wondering simply why we are judging these actions as good or bad?”
I experience that simply observing that something is undesirable is not judging it to be ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and it is important to be clear about that. I personally find butterscotch flavored ice cream to be undesirable. I much more desire chocolate or vanilla. This does not mean that I have judged butterscotch as a flavor to be “bad.” It merely announces my personal preference in the matter of ice cream.
Speaking of violence as something that I find undesirable is not a judgment that it is “bad.” It is merely an announcement that I find it undesirable. Others may disagree. Others may actually desire violence as a part of human life, or think that it is in any event necessary, or natural to the human condition. Still others may think that it is required in order to create a Contextual Field as part of the Law of Opposites as described in Conversations with God.
It is my belief that the violence we see on Earth is neither natural to the human condition, nor is it necessary in order to create a Contextual Field within which we can experience nonviolence. This latter knowing arises out of my awareness that the Contextual Field within which the Law of Opposites plays it effect is much larger than the environment known as Planet Earth.
But let us return to Tina’s entry, so that I may ‘contextualize’ my observations within her inquiries.
Tina, you have said…“I understand that we were sent here because God wanted to experience herself, and could not do that because there were no contradictions…opposites. In heaven, or at least in God’s world, all there is is love. Are we here to return this plane to the same? To a place where only love exists? Or, instead, are we here to remember and see love even in the face of the violence?”
Your first understanding, Tina, matches my own, as given to me in Conversations with God. We were sent here because God wanted to experience Herself, and God could not do that in the Realm of the Spiritual, just as you point out, because there are no opposites there.
The answer to your question is that we are here with an invitation to produce the experience of a world of Divine Love, Divine Peace, Divine Wisdom and Divine Oneness, so that God could know Itself experientially as all those things and more. Yet it is not accurate to suggest that we can only remember, and allow God to experience, those things “in the face of the violence” that we now see on Earth. Indeed, God invites us to create “peace on Earth, goodwill to humans everywhere.”
Yet how can we experience this in the absence of a Contextual Field that holds its opposite? Simple. As explained in Conversations with God-Book 3, all we have to do is understand that the entire Universe is the Contextual Field within which the Law of Opposites operates. Therefore, it is not necessary for us to place on Earth and endure, create or suffer the opposite of Peace and Love, Harmony and Joy, Wisdom and Clarity in order to experience it here. We merely need to know that it exists elsewhere.
Just as I experience and appreciate, more than ever before, the good things in life that I enjoy today by noticing that its opposite exists elsewhere on this planet, so, too, can I experience and appreciate the wonderful aspects of life by noticing that its opposite exists elsewhere off of this planet.
That is the reason that the Universe is so unfathomably large. And Highly Evolved Beings in highly evolved societies in our cosmos (yes, they do exist, CWG confirms) eventually create environments on their Home Planet that provide for the experiences of Oneness of All Life and the Reality of Unlimited Joy, Abundance, and Love by removing its Opposite from their local environment — and simply noticing that this Opposite exists elsewhere. (Including the planet Earth.)
All of this is explained in CWG-Book 3, Tina, and with your review of that material your confusion about humanity needing to continue experiencing violence locally in order to experience its opposite globally will disappear.
Tina, you have also invited us…. “To love those beings unconditionally even in the face of the thing we are calling bad. Can we experience if we turn this world into a place where there is only love?”
The answer is yes, by knowing that lack of love, the opposite of love, exists elsewhere in the Universe. Also, Tina, by using another remarkable device — a magnificent tool revealed to us in CWG-Book 3: Memory.
Our memory has been given to us, Tina, for a singular purpose: To create a Contextual Field within ourselves, allowing us to know about the opposite of what we wish to experience without having to recreate the experience of that opposite condition, situation, or circumstance physically, over and over again.
This is why we create memorials to the Holocaust, Tina, with signs on them saying Lest We Forget. We do not have to recreate a holocaust in order to experience humanity without one — and that is the whole point of these memorials, erected around the world.
Going on, Tina, with your very wonderful and soulful letter, you’ve asked… “Isn’t this place just as much a part of God’s world as any other plane?”
Yes.
“Is there only love here, too, and we are not able to see through our ego and judgments surrounding good and bad?”
Yes. All there is is Love, and human beings have simply not yet learned how to express it in ways that produce pleasure and joy, peace and happiness, without the additional (and unnecessary) experiences of pain, suffering and violence. It is possible for humans to do this, however, and that is what the process of Evolution is all about. And it is why I and others call now for an Evolution Revolution on our planet. (For more information about this, see the special Blue Box in the right hand column on the home page of this global newspaper.)
And then, Tina, you have said…. “I long for home and for that place where there is only love peace and joy, that place inside of me. I do my best to create this here in this plane each and everyday despite the pictures I see. I know we are all one and connected and I send my love to all regardless of the pictures that I see that do not resonate me with me to the best of my ability.”
Wonderful, my friend. That is simply wonderful. It is through such intentioned choices that our world will be changed into one of those places in the cosmos where only peace, love, and joy are experienced.
Finally, Tina, you have concluded by saying…“I choose to focus on this, and not on perceived imperfections that might be happening in this world, for I have the faith that everything is just as it should be even if I don’t understand how!”
Ah! Now this gets us to this notion of ‘perfection.’
It is true, Tina, as Conversations with God tells us, that ‘everything is perfect.’ And God does invite us in this remarkable dialogue to “see the Perfection.’ Yet God makes it clear that this does not mean never seek to change anything.
God tells us that the very reason that everything that exists is perfect just as it is, Tina, is that it presents us with a condition, situation, or circumstance that allows us to know and experience Who We Really Are by expressing and creating whatever we wish to express and create in relationship to those conditions, situations, and circumstances.
This could involve changing a particular condition, situation, or circumstance in such a way that it reflects and demonstrates, evidences and reveals Who We Really Are. We don’t change it because it is ‘bad’ or ‘imperfect,’ but rather, because it simply does not represent (that is, re-present, or present again) Who We Are in the world and in the cosmos.
The famous injunction “Judge not, and neither condemn” did not say, “Change not, and neither alter.” It said judge not, and do not condemn.
The Master, therefore, is one who sees all of Life as perfect, because each moment and every experience, each condition and every circumstance, allows her to respond in a way that reflects and demonstrates every aspect of Divinity that she chooses to reveal, express, and experience in any given moment.
Again, Tina, so that it is very clear: Everything is “perfect” does not mean everything should remain “unchanged.” It merely means that the very existence of a situation or condition provides us with a wonderful Contextual Field within which to embark upon our next creation. The trick is to do it without judgment.
Now, Tina, I hope and pray that this somewhat lengthy response has helped to remove you from any confusion around the messages in Conversations with God as they relate to what you are seeing on this website. I hope you will share this remembering with your friends, so that soon, all the world will understand why the world is the way it is — as well as the spiritual reason we may have for changing it.
God sends Divine Blessings to you, Tina…and to all of you reading this…and, indeed, to all the world.
— Neale Donald Walsch
I’m Bernie Sanders, United States senator from Vermont, and, along with the organization Social Security Works, I started a petition to the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and President Barack Obama, which says:
No grand bargain in exchange for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.
Listen—they’re at it again.
Billionaires like the Koch brothers, Pete Peterson, Stanley Druckenmiller, and others are leading the charge to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
If they succeed, millions of senior citizens, working families, disabled veterans, and children will suffer. We must not allow that to happen.
Today, the middle class is disappearing, real unemployment is extremely high, poverty is increasing, and working families throughout the country are struggling to keep their heads above water economically. Meanwhile, the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider and the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well.
WE MUST NOT BALANCE THE BUDGET ON THE BACKS OF WORKING FAMILIES, THE ELDERLY, THE CHILDREN, THE SICK, AND THE POOR.
As Vermont’s senator, I have the honor of serving on the Budget Conference Committee, which will be negotiating a new federal budget over the next few months—and where I am fearful that a deal could be struck to slash Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
As the founder of the Defending Social Security Caucus, I’m asking you to please stand with me, our friends at Social Security Works, and our coalition partners in demanding: “No grand bargain in exchange for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.”
Let’s be clear. Despite right-wing rhetoric:
Social Security is not going broke. According to the Social Security Administration, Social Security has a surplus today of $2.8 trillion and can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible person for the next 20 years.
Social Security has not contributed to the deficit. Social Security is funded independently by FICA taxes, which are paid by workers and their employers.
The so-called chained CPI, which recalculates how cost of living adjustments are formulated, is not a “modest tweak.” If the chained CPI went into effect today, a senior aged 65 would receive $658 a year less in Social Security benefits when he/she was 75, and $1,100 a year less at age 85. Further, the average disabled veteran would lose tens of thousands of dollars in benefits over his/her lifetime.
Please stand with me today and demand that Congress and the president oppose any grand bargain that cuts Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.
When 1 out of 4 U.S. corporations pay nothing in federal income taxes; when Bush’s tax breaks for the rich remain in place for many wealthy Americans; when the U.S. spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defense, there are much fairer and more economically sound ways to address the budget than cutting programs desperately needed by the most vulnerable people in our country.
Please stand with me and Social Security Works in protecting the future of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.
Let’s go forward together. Thanks for your continued support.
Sincerely,
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders
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EDITOR’S NOTE: The letter above was not sent to this newspaper by the Senator. It was received by Neale Donald Walsch in his personal email box. The publisher of this online paper made the decision to place the appeal here, in this space, on the assumption that Sen. Sanders would want to this word to get to as large an audience as possible.
If you wish to sign the senator’s petition, click here.
