And so now we are being invited by Life Itself to take the next step.

We are experiencing right now what I have called The Overhaul of Humanity, and I talked about that in my last entry here.

This process is going on right now—from the sidewalks of Missouri to the fields of Iraq to the roadways of Ukraine to the streets of Syria and many places in between, we are seeing the slow but sure dismantling of our old way of life in this world.

And in the days and weeks, months and years ahead we will see the reassembling of our planet’s political, economic, ecological, educational, social, and spiritual systems. The question is not whether this process is underway, the question is, who will bring it to its most fruitful end?
Will you stand by and simply watch it unfold? Or will you be an Architect of Healing and a Builder of Paradise on the Earth?

I invite people to join a Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its belief in a vengeful, violent, and vindictive God, and releasing our species from a global doctrine that creates separation and vicious competition, replacing it, finally, with an ethos of unity and cooperation, understanding and compassion, generosity and love.

Is it possible for individuals such as you and me to create such an outcome? What can one person, after all, really do?

Well….have you been reading the comments in the string below the last entry in the headline story on this website? Did you see this little tidbit from Sander Viergevertin The Netherlands….?

“I have initiated the Dutch official website for Neale Donald Walsch. I want to work for peace, awareness and spiritual evolution. I want also on my website to have the evolution-revolution… really take action! for peace, and that the important influencial people in the Netherlands will stand up against violence, religieus rages, violence of dictators and religieus fanatism… and for deforest the planet and so on. (sorry my english is not extreme well).

“I have even published promotion cards to hand out to people in my communitie, with listed the 5-Steps-to-peace on it + cwg books name listed on the card. And because of me a lot of people have read ‘An uncommon dialogue with God’.”

When I read that, my heart sang. Then I saw this, posted by Rahinatu Adamu from Nigeria…

“I am just starting on this site, but I have read all the series in the CWG, and I am now reading What God Said. I have read A New World by Eckhart Tolle and they all seem to be pointing to the same thing…our old beliefs are not working, there is so much dysfunction in the world today.

“I have had so many questions for so long that reading Neale and Eckhart books have help me to answer and to be at peace with my self.

“I live in an environment where the mere mention of spirituality or religion sparks tension; an environment where poverty stares at you right in the eye; an environment where corruption rules the day and children are lost in hundreds to avoidable conditions! It pains me.

“I have joined Humanity’s Team, and I am part of the coordinating body in Nigeria. We are working in a very peculiar environment where the consciousness of the people is so low, people don’t want to ask questions, nor even think about what is wrong with our old beliefs. I believe it is a start for us and I believe something will come out of it.

“Our focus for now is to work with young people. It seems they are the ones willing to take in new information, and they are the ones willing to move from the norm. It is sad that the so-called development agencies and non-governmental organizations from the so-called developed countries have done nothing but to create a hunger of demand and looking outwards for solutions rather than inwards and communal, but this is just one of the numerous challenges that we are up against.

“But the conversation has started and it will continue…let’s talk.”

Imagine that! Rahinatu Adamu joined Humanity’s Team! She’s decided to do something about what she sees in the world!

When I read entries like this in the Comment String here, I am encouraged and inspired. I have always known that there IS something that individuals like you and me can do, and now I see that more and more people are doing it!

All of us can contribute, each in our own way, toward the producing of a new way of life on this planet. And one of the things we can do is join the Evolution Revolution sponsored by Humanity’s Team (see the blue box on the Home Page of this website; you can’t miss it) and become an Architect of Healing and a Builder of Paradise.

All it takes is the willingness to start a conversation. For it is not only in one country, but all over the world that “We are working in a very peculiar environment where the consciousness of the people is so low, people don’t want to ask questions, nor even think about what is wrong with our old beliefs.” Yet people with the willingness and the courage to talk about what nobody wants to talk about is what will make a difference as our species faces its collective tomorrow.

To give yourself all the tools you will need to start such a conversation in your corner of the world, I encourage you…please, please read The Storm Before the Calm, which I have placed in full on this website. (Again, you can’t miss it. Just go back to the Home Page and look to the left beneath this headline story.)

This book tells you not only everything you need to know to understand what’s happening in our world right now and why life on earth is the way it is, but also, what we can do about it—each of us, individually.

Yet we must be clear that the transformation of Life on Earth will not come only from our engagement in doingness, but also (and this is critically important), from or deepest commitment to beingness. Indeed, the first must be rooted in the second, or it will mean nothing.

So in addition to reading The Storm Before the Calm, I urge and encourage all of you to also read The Only Thing That Matters, an amazing book that puts everything into context, and allows each of us to see that it is the Journey of the Soul that we are invited by Life to take — and that it is only this journey that will lead humanity itself, as a species, to create, experience, and express “heaven on earth,” as we were intended to. I can call this an amazing book because I experience it to have been inspired by God.

And so I was not surprised to see that another person who posted a comment here under our last entry said:

“Dear Neale, I just want to say: THANK YOU. In 2002 I read “Conversation with God” and it was a long way from there to now. I’ve read many of your books and some of them did speak directly to me. I had the feeling as if they have been written for me. Nevertheless, I often forgot and couldn’t remember what my life was about, was headless and clueless how to go on. 
Now I read THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS and guess what? I’m arrived. This is my book. Things are falling together and I’m connected with my soul.

“I can’t express in words what I feel, English is not my language. I’m not through the whole book yet, but I couldn’t hold back to state that I’m back on the path. So grateful I am!

“Love&Namaste,
Angelika from Germany”

You can’t get a better endorsement than that, from a person who is actually experiencing it.

So, if you are among those who have become frustrated looking at our world and have wondered what you can do about it, even as you beg to know how you can change your own life, these two books, taken side-by-side and read one-after-the-other, can give you all the tools you will ever need to transform your own day-to-day experience, and also become a vital part of transforming your world.

Both books are available at no cost on the Internet. As I said, The Storm Before the Calm is printed in full right here on this website, and The Only Thing That Matters has been posted in installments, to completion, three times on my Facebook page—where it being posted again, even now. (You can also, of course, obtain the books from any online bookseller such as Amazon.com, should you wish to have a copy of your own to cherish and to take notes in.)

When you’ve finished reading those two books, go to the blue box on the Home Page of this website and join the Evolution Revolution, which is the spiritual outreach component of the worldwide work of Humanity’s Team.

Okay, there you have it: the tools you need and the things you can do.

Are you in?

My Dear Sisters and Brothers on this Journey of the Soul…

I’m going to take a different tack here as we forward with my Open Letters to the World. I’ve given a lot of thought to what I feel the impulse to share here — and what I really wish to share, and to get even more “out there,” is what I have come to understand how what’s going on for all of us in our world right now, and how we can best deal with it.

This is why I wrote the book The Storm Before the Calm, and it is why I have placed the entire book here on this website, to be read by free by anyone who chooses to do so.

I’m going to highlight here, in these headline letters to all of us, much of what I was told, of what I was given to understand, in that text. So there is going to be repetition here between what you find in these headline letters and what you find in the book itself.

I have decided to do this because not many people are reading the actual book. (We can tell by the stats showing us the number of “views” that it gets.) The material and the message is here on the website, but you know what? People are more interested in snappy, relatively short headline stories than they are in coming here to read an entire book.

That’s understandable. We all have only so much time.

So the obvious thing for me to do is turn what I was given to share in The Storm Before the Calm into brief headline stories, then see if we can generate Global Conversation around that — one item or passage at a time. If you then find that you want to read the entire book, it’s up here on the website for you.

We’ll start our headlining of this content here today with this opening statement: We’re experiencing something quite extraordinary on the earth right now. I’m going to give it a name here. We are experiencing The Overhaul of Humanity.

This is not an exaggeration. This is reality. It is observable at every turn. Yet here is something that is not so observable: Things are not as they seem.

And I think, before the world and its people get too far along this road, we all need to be aware of that.

We also need to be aware that there’s nothing to be afraid of in our future if we will all but play our role in creating it. And that role—the role we are being invited to play by Life Itself—is going to be very easy to play.

I have more that I want to share with you around all this. Let me give you a summary of everything I have come here to say:

* A major shift is occurring on our planet

* There is nothing to be afraid of if we all play our role in this shift

* Our role is easy to play, and it can actually be fun

* It involves having fabulous conversations revolving around seven simple questions

* The asking and answering of these questions can result in the creating of solutions to humanity’s biggest problems

* It is time for us to place before humanity a New Cultural Story, sending us in brand new directions in politics, economics, culture, education, relationships, work, marriage, sexuality, parenting, and every area of human endeavor; a manifesto created by all of us, working as co-authors.

* There are some exciting opening thoughts about what that document could contain that I think you should hear.

And that is what these headline stories are going to be all about in the days and weeks ahead. You may find this not at all interesting, and so may discontinue reading these headline stories. That is, of course, your free choice. I hope that what we have to say here will be sufficiently intriguing (and, for that matter, spiritually important) for you to decide to explore it with me here.

We’ll see. If we have a good response, we’ll continue the exploration. If we have virtually nor response, we’ll simply shut the website down. I have no need to offer what people have no interest in receiving. It’s really just as simple as that.

So…If you wish to explore the process that I call The Overhaul of Humanity that is going on right now, and the role — the spiritual role — we can all play in it, I’ll see you here in the days and weeks ahead.

Welcome. You could be the vanguard of the Evolution Revolution.

Lovingly, Neale.

My dear Brothers and Sisters on this Journey of the Soul…

On Aug. 14 I posted an open letter here saying that as much as I don’t want to pre-judge, it seemed clear to me that the police officer in Ferguson, Missouri made a terrible mistake. I said I didn’t know how else the police department could explain it.

Today, the department released surveillance videos from a convenience store a short distance from where Michael Brown was stopped by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer now identified as Officer Darren Wilson, and have claimed that Mr. Brown was a suspect in the “stong-armed robbery” from the store of a box of cigars.

The video appears to show a person looking very much like Michael Brown roughing up a store sales clerk, who alleges that Mr. Brown, accompanied by another male, was leaving the store with a box of cigars without paying for them.

MSNBC reported earlier today that the lawyer of the second man, identified by police in the surveillance video as Dorian Johnson, confirmed that Michael Brown had taken the cigars from the store.

Mr. Brown allegedly left the store, allegedly with the cigars still unpaid for. The store clerk said he called 911 and the Ferguson police subsequently put out a radio alert for its officers to be on the lookout in the area for the suspect. That alert contained a description of how the alleged suspect was dressed.

In the information given to the press by the police today (Aug. 15), it was indicated that the officer originally responding to the store’s 911 call (that officer was not Darren Wilson) also responded to the later police call to the site of the shooting, and identified Mr. Brown, from his review of the surveillance video from the store, as the person allegedly involved in the cigar-stealing and store-clerk-assault incident.

If Officer Wilson stopped Mr. Brown on the street to question him about the store incident, and if Mr. Brown, as the officer asserts, became physically threatening in an altercation with the officer, reaching through the police car window for the officer’s gun, then the officer would have a legal right to defend himself, and the firing of the gun at the window would be both understandable and legal.

But the Ferguson police chief said today that Officer Wilson did not know that Mr. Brown was a suspect in the robbery when he stopped Mr. Brown, but that he stopped to tell Mr. Brown and the man who was with him to move out of the middle of the road, as they were blocking traffic. So, the police chief said, the two incidents were unrelated.

What happened next appears not to be in dispute in the statements of three alleged witnesses to the ensuing events (one of whom was Dorian Johnson, who was accompanying Mr. Brown) and the account of the police officer. Mr. Brown apparently turned and ran from the vehicle.

Now we are waiting for more information from the police department on what the officer did next. Witnesses say the officer got out of the car and ran after Mr. Brown, shooting as he ran. Mr. Brown was apparently hit. With this, multiple witnesses said Mr. Brown stopped, turned, and faced the officer, putting his hands in the air.

Those witnesses say that the officer then fired multiple shots at Mr. Brown, who crumbled to the ground and died. He was found to have been unarmed.

According to police, Mr. Brown lay dead approximately 35 feet from the police cruiser, seeming to corroborate all reports that he was running from the officer when he was shot multiple times. There may be some question — we have to wait until we hear Officer Wilson’s personal account in full — as to whether Mr. Brown had his hands in the air when he was shot, although multiple witnesses — one person looking on from a building window above the scene — indicate this was the case. Could he, instead, have been advancing on the officer, his hands in a menacing gesture?

I have tried and tried and tried to think this through, to figure out why a police officer would do what this officer is alleged to have done. Did he fear for his life when Mr. Brown turned around? Did he think that Mr. Brown might have had his own weapon and was turning around to use it? Did he not know that one of his shots had already hit Mr. Brown and that his runaway suspect was already wounded? Did the officer feel threatened at the highest level, such as to cause him to fire multiple rounds at Mr. Brown? My rational mind is telling me that he did.

Yesterday I asked, why would an officer shoot at a runaway suspect in any event? If the officer had no idea that Mr. Brown was a suspect in a criminal assault at a nearby store, but if Mr. Brown attempted to assault the officer who had stopped to tell him to move out of the middle of the street, and did, in fact, struggle with the officer for his gun, it would have been legal for the officer to have fired a shot at Mr. Brown as he ran away, in a legal effort to apprehend him.

But again it must be asked, why shoot multiple times—as the officer is alleged to have done—if the man turned and raised his hands? Reports have it that as many as seven or eight shell casings were collected at the scene from near Mr. Brown’s body. Police concede that all came from the officer’s gun.

I hope the officer’s full report will reveal his reason. Yet the community will always wonder, was the officer’s reasoning the best demonstration of the kind of judgment call we hope that law enforcement officers, given their training, can and will make in moments such as these?

As I have watched the events in Ferguson unfold, I have gone deep inside to quietly and purely explore: What is my highest spiritual reaction to this event? And what, for that matter, is my spiritual reaction to the horrific events taking place in Iraq at the hands of ISIS, which has beheaded and crucified its begging-for-their-life victims, and posted videos on social media to boast about it? And, for that matter, what is my highest spiritual reaction to the events in Gaza, where two sides in an ongoing battle of nerves, rockets, and bullets can’t seem to stitch together a cease fire lasting more than a few hours, even as people are dying every day as a result of their intransigence?

My reaction is compassion. And deep sadness. Sadness that we apparently insist on evolving this way as a species, when there could be other ways to do it. Compassion for all of the misguided people involved in these and other misguided events of our day and age. And then, a move to deep inner knowing…and deep, earnest prayer. Prayer for those on all sides of these experiences, that all might find their way to inner peace in the midst of the outer turmoil of their lives. Prayer that all might find God. Not the God of retribution and violence of which so many have heard, but our true God of love unconditional, who would never sponsor or encourage violence of any kind against another living thing — and who would bring us self understanding and self healing even in the midst of our own violence as a species.

My knowing is that our species will find its way out of this maze of blind confusion about what it means to be human, what the purpose of life is, what our relationship to God is, what our relationship to each other is. That knowing is accompanied by an internal setting of searing intention that our human species will rise at last to its higher awareness, and then demonstrate its larger purpose, its true identity, its greatest possibility.

Yet I want to be honest and tell you that as I move to this place I nevertheless keep finding myself asking: What is happening to our world? And are we really — really and truly, totally and completely — unable, even as we declare ourselves to be a species of evolved sentient beings, to stop any of this?

But most of all I keep asking myself: Why do not all the people of our planet rise up and say, “How much more? Oh, God, how much more of this insanity are we as a global species willing to suffer before we stand together as a collective and challenge ourselves, call upon ourselves, beg ourselves to join together and find a way to stop it?”

I believe people are looking for, searching for, hoping for a way to stop it, but can’t seem to coalesce enough collective energy to do it.  Conversations with God gave us one answer. No one, least of all me, is saying that it is THE answer, but it is at least one answer that certainly couldn’t do any harm. Is anyone willing to listen? Is anyone willing to join together and do something about all of this? Does anyone think that anything can be done? Who’s willing to try?

Let that be our question for the day: Who’s willing to try?

Why bother? Does it matter? In the evolution of our own individual Soul, does any of this “other stuff” matter? Is there any place where Individual Spirituality and Communal Life On Earth mix? Can the first serve the second in any way? Does one even have anything to do with the other?

Is it time for an Evolution Revolution?

Offered in sincerity,

Neale Donald Walsch

My Dear Sisters and Brothers on this Journey of the Soul…

I can’t get around saying it. As much as I don’t want to pre-judge, it seems clear to me that the police officer in Ferguson, Missouri made a terrible mistake. I don’t know how else the police department can explain it.

I could be wrong. I’m willing to be totally and completely wrong. In fact, I hope I am. The last thing we need right now is another terrible error, another horrible misuse of power, by the very people charged with the responsibility of keeping us all safe. So I’m hoping that I’m wrong. But I fear not.

And the sad thing is, no one will offer up anything that will allay my fear, and the same fear that rests today in others. All that the police chief in Ferguson keeps saying is that the incident started with a physical incident between Michael Brown and the officer, with Mr. Brown outside the officer’s patrol car and the officer inside, at the wheel.

This part of the narrative seems not to be in dispute. All witnesses to the event — and it turns out there were several — agree that Michael Brown and the police officer were engaged in a physical confrontation at the door of the officer’s police cruiser. What, or who, started it is in question, but the fact that the two struggled through the window of the cruiser is not.

The police say that Michael Brown was trying to get the officer’s gun. The witness closest to the scene — the man who had been accompanying Mr. Brown as they walked down the middle of the street just before the incident — said that Mr. Brown was trying to pull away from the car window, and the police officer seemed to be pulling him in. Whatever the case, it does not appear to have material relevance to what happened next. And about what happened next, there — so far — has been little dispute.

What happened next is that as Mr. Brown and the officer arm wrestled at the car window, a shot went off and Mr. Brown broke free. He then turned and ran from the vehicle. The officer got out of the car and ran after him, shooting as he ran. Mr. Brown was apparently hit. With this, multiple witnesses said he stopped, turned, and faced the officer, putting his hands in the air. Those witnesses say that the officer then fired multiple shots at Mr. Brown, who crumbled to the ground and died. He was found to have been unarmed.

Mr. Brown was shot more than 20 feet from the police cruiser, seeming to corroborate all reports that he was running from the officer, not attacking him, when he was shot multiple times. There seems little doubt, as well, that Mr. Brown had his hands in the air when he was shot. Again, multiple witnesses — one person looking on from a building window above the scene — indicate this was the case.

Even if the police officer feared that Mr. Brown was armed, when Mr. Brown turned to the officer and put his hands in the air, it seems to everyone hearing the story that this should have been the end of it.

He had already been shot once, don’t forget. According to witnesses, the officer shot Mr. Brown as he was running away. Realizing that he was hit, Mr. Brown, witnesses say, turned to face the officer and raised his hands. That is when, allegedly, the officer shot several more rounds in his body.

I have tried and tried and tried to think this through, to figure out why a police officer would do what this officer is alleged to have done. Did he fear for his life when Mr. Brown turned around? Did he think that Mr. Brown might have had his own weapon and was turning around to use it? Did he not know that one of his shots had already hit Mr. Brown and that his runaway suspect was already wounded?

Why would an officer shoot at a runaway suspect in any event? If he thought Mr. Brown was carrying a weapon and was threatening the safety of others, the officer might have felt justified is firing bullets at a man running away from him. But why do it multiple times after the man turned and raised his hands? Could his reasons for all of this have been a combination of all of the above? If so, was the officer’s reasoning the best demonstration of the kind of judgment call we hope that law enforcement officers, given their training, can and will make in moments such as these?

As I said, the police chief in Ferguson, Missouri to this date (several days after the fatal encounter) refuses (I think, unadvisedly) to make any informative statement whatsoever about what happened. He won’t even say how many times Mr. Brown had been shot — although he acknowledged that it was more than a couple of times. The chief says he doesn’t want to compromise the official investigation of the incident. At this writing, he has even refused to name the officer involved, pointing to social media threats against himself, other members of his department, and the unnamed officer.

All of this has led to suspicion of a cover up by the department. Michael’s Brown’s family and others are saying that the police are using the time to try to figure out how to justify one of its officers shooting an unarmed man in the back as he was running away — and, more urgently, how to justify shooting a man facing an officer with his hands in the air. And then, how to justify shooting him multiple times, pumping round after round after round into his body. Reports have it that as many as seven or eight shell casings were collected at the scene from near Mr. Brown’s body. Police concede that all came from the officer’s gun.

As I have watched the events in Ferguson unfold, I have gone deep inside to quietly and purely explore: What is my highest spiritual reaction to this event? And what, for that matter, is my spiritual reaction to the horrific events taking place in Iraq at the hands of ISIS, which has beheaded and crucified its begging-for-their-life victims, and posted videos on social media to boast about it? And, for that matter, what is my highest spiritual reaction to the events in Gaza, where two sides in an ongoing battle of nerves, rockets, and bullets can’t seem to stitch together a cease fire lasting more than a few hours, even as people are dying every day as a result of their intransigence?

My reaction is compassion. And deep sadness. Sadness that we apparently insist on evolving this way as a species, when there could be other ways to do it. Compassion for all of the misguided people involved in these and other misguided events of our day and age. And then, a move to deep inner knowing…and deep, earnest prayer. Prayer for those on all sides of these experiences, that all might find their way to inner peace in the midst of the outer turmoil of their lives. Prayer that all might find God. Not the God of retribution and violence of which so many have heard, but our true God of love unconditional, who would never sponsor or encourage violence of any kind against another living thing — and who would bring us self understanding and self healing even in the midst of our own violence as a species.

My knowing is that our species will find its way out of this maze of blind confusion about what it means to be human, what the purpose of life is, what our relationship to God is, what our relationship to each other is. That knowing is accompanied by an internal setting of searing intention that our human species will rise at last to its higher awareness, and then demonstrate its larger purpose, its true identity, its greatest possibility.

Yet I want to be honest and tell you that as I move to this place I nevertheless keep finding myself asking: What is happening to our world? And are we really — really and truly, totally and completely — unable, even as we declare ourselves to be a species of evolved sentient beings, to stop any of this?

Why do not all the people of the world rise up and say to ISIS: “We don’t care how justified you believe your movement to be, we will not allow this behavior to go on!”, and then ask all the governments of the world move in and put an end to it? Are we really willing as a species to continue seeing the tail wagging the dog?

Why do not all the people of the world say to both Israel and Hamas, “We don’t care how justified you believe your actions are, we will not allow this behavior to go on!”, and then ask all the governments of the world to move in to stop it?

Why do not all the people of the United States say to the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, “We don’t care how justified your department feels in keeping the details of this shooting quiet, we require an immediate and full explanation of what happened and we require it now, before continuing protests and angry response to this killing of another unarmed man by police produces even more violence and killing. Just tell us what happened, and why.” If a mistake occurred, admit it. If you believe every act of the officer to have been justified, explain it. Do what it takes to heal this community. Silence is not it.

But most of all I keep asking myself: Why do not all the people of our planet rise up and say, “How much more? Oh, God, how much more of this insanity are we as a global species willing to suffer before we stand together as a collective and challenge ourselves, call upon ourselves, beg ourselves to join together and find a way to stop it?”

I believe people are looking for, searching for, hoping for a way to stop it, but can’t seem to coalesce enough collective energy to do it. Unlike ISIS, which seems to be having no trouble at all collecting enough energy for its purposes. Unlike Hamas and Israel, which seem to have no trouble at all gathering enough energy to keep a war going for 25 years. Unlike law enforcement officers in cities across the United States, who seem to have no trouble at all producing enough energy to keep confronting the public in incident after incident of what looks to all the world, far too often, like abuse of power and police brutality. How many incidents have to be reported, witnessed, and captured on video before all of us say, “Enough. Enough of this!”?

What will it take to civilize civilization?

Conversations with God gave us one answer. No one, least of all me, is saying that it is THE answer, but it is at least one answer that certainly couldn’t do any harm. Is anyone willing to listen? Is anyone willing to join together and do something about all of this? Does anyone think that anything can be done? Who’s willing to try?

Let that be our question for the day: Who’s willing to try?

Why bother? Does it matter? In the evolution of our own individual Soul, does any of this “other stuff” matter? Is there any place where Individual Spirituality and Communal Life On Earth mix? Can the first serve the second in any way? Does one even have anything to do with the other?

Michael Brown’s family and friends urgently ask us…the Yazidis of Iraq urgently ask us…the people of Gaza and Israel urgently ask us: Is it time for an Evolution Revolution?

Offered in sincerity,

Neale Donald Walsch

(UPDATED AUG 11)

My Dear Brothers and Sisters on this Journey of the Soul…

I want to comment about two things in this letter, please. First, the shocking news of the death of Robin Williams on Aug. 11 in what was labeled in early media reports as an apparent suicide.

Second, a recent news story about a Christian pastor at a Baptist church in Tampa, Florida, the Rev. T.W. Jenkins, and the teachings of that church in general, as Pastor Jenkins understand them…regarding God, and What God Wants.

I joined millions in finding myself deeply saddened by the news of Robin Williams’ departure for this life. Like so many of you, my life was made richer for Robin Williams having been here. And not just for his comedy, either. The expansiveness of his talent was evidenced in films like Goodwill Hunting and Dead Poet’s Society.

Many people find it hard to believe that another could end their own life — and especially a person who seems to have all the things that the rest of us dream of. Yet having such things is no guarantee that a person cannot or will not be depressed. And it is easier to understand how the desire to end one’s life can overtake someone — no matter how well their life may seem to be going — when we realize that…

“…a person living with depression does not always have the same thoughts as a healthy person. This chemical imbalance can lead to the person not understanding the options available to help them relieve their suffering.

“Many people who suffer from depression report feeling as though they’ve lost the ability to imagine a happy future, or remember a happy past. Often they don’t realize they’re suffering from a treatable illness, and seeking help may not even enter their mind.

“Emotions and even physical pain can become unbearable. They don’t want to die, but it’s the only way they feel their pain will end. It is a truly irrational choice. Suffering from depression is involuntary, just like cancer or diabetes, but it is a treatable illness that can be managed.”

The above information is from the website www.SAVE.org, where you will find insights about this tragic circumstance that could save another’s life. I found it very worthwhile to visit this site.

And may I offer a warning, please? If you know of a person who in your experience seems periodically seriously depressed, please take note if they are also using alcohol or drugs on a regular basis. Says the SAVE website:

“Alcohol is a depressant, so it can and often does make depression worse. Drug use alone or in combination with alcohol use for someone suffering with depression can be lethal. Too often people attempt to alleviate the symptoms of depression by drinking or using drugs which can increase the risk of suicide by impairing judgment and increasing impulsivity.”

Try to get them to seek help with this major challenge, if there is any way that you can. I was surprised to learn that, according to SAVE: “The majority of the people who take their lives (estimated at 90%) were suffering with an underlying mental illness and substance abuse problem at the time of their death.”

Of course, we all understand that those who commit suicide are suffering from some form of mental illness (i.e., severe depression, etc.) at the time of their death, or, one presumes, they wouldn’t have taken their own lives. But also a substance abuse problem? I knew, I suspected, that this number was high, but I wouldn’t have guessed that it stood at 90%.

In Mr. Williams’ case, he made no secret of his own addition to alcohol and drugs. He openly acknowledged his ongoing struggle with these substances. And his publicist said in a statement that he was dealing, once again, as he had before, with severe depression in recent months.

But now let’s look at the spiritual aspect of all this — not just in Mr. Williams’ life, but in the lives of all of us. People have been asking me about this.

The CWG book HOME WITH GOD in a Life That Never Ends devotes a fair amount of space to the question of suicide. It offers hope on several fronts.

First, it makes it clear that God does not “punish” the souls of those who end their own lives. Says God in this dialogue: “Comfort may come from knowing that the person who has committed suicide is all right. They are okay. But they will not have achieved what they set out to do. That is important for anyone who is contemplating suicide to know.”

Gods goes on to explain: “A wish to avoid that which is painful is normal. It is all part of the human dance. However, in this particular moment of that dance a person is trying to push herself or himself away from something that the soul has come to the body to experience, not to escape.”

God says those who end their lives will not elude the situation they were seeking to avoid—“nor do you wish to, because you have created your creations in order to recreate yourself. It will not benefit you, therefore, to attempt to sidestep them.”

So, says this powerful dialogue, “what you die with, you will continue to live with.” But the wonderful thing is that you will not experience this as painful. “I want you to be very clear here,” the dialogue goes on. “You will encounter yourself on the other side of death, and all the stuff you carried with you will still be there. Then you will do the most ironic thing. You will give yourself another physical life in which to deal with what you did not deal with in your most recent one.”

The good news is that you will not see this as a “punishment” or a “requirement” or a “burden,” because you will understand it to all be part of the process of self-creation, for which you exist. So you will actually be glad to return to the situation, and this time work it out in a way that further advances your soul’s evolution.

To use an example, it is like a dancer who stumbles and falls, but loves to dance so much that, even though the fall may have hurt a little, the dancer can’t wait to get up and go at it again.

I do not mean but the use of that example to make light of the intense emotional or physical pain that some people feel, which motivates them to end their life, but it does offer us a simile that might allows us to feel into what the soul of people who end their own life feels, and why they would decide, once on “the other side,” not to avoid what they thought they might elude, but rather, to return to physicality and experience life all over again, this time moving through it in a different way.

Normally, death is a tool with which the soul creates a new and different life. “Suicide is the use of death to create the same life all over again, with the same challenges and experiences,” the Home with God dialogue said.

So I know that the soul of Robin Williams is already happily planning to return to physicality and face the same challenges that he was confronting when he left, but this time in different way. By this process his soul will, in a sense, exuberantly pick up where it left off, then to continue on its eternal and joyous journey.

I wish — and I know we all wish — him Godspeed and God’s blessing on his travels through all the corridors of Time and Space. He gave us all so much joy, and I know that joy will be returned to him sevenfold, even as he faces the same challenges again and changes course in how he deals with them.

Now, please…on to that story about the Baptist church in Tampa.

In connection with that, I want to talk about Love. And Compassion. And Mercy. And Forgiveness. All of which I thought were qualities of a Christian life. Then, a few days ago, Rev. Jenkins set me to wondering about that. Could I have been wrong about God? Or could I have simply misunderstood how love and compassion, mercy and forgiveness fit into God’s plan?

Let me back up here just a bit and tell you a story. It is a sad story, and you are going to find it hard to believe that it is true. But it is.

Julie Atwood, of Tampa, was standing by the side of the casket of her son, Julion Evans, at the wake following his death in early August when her cell phone rang. Answering the call, she heard the voice of her pastor, Rev. Jenkins. Julie had been baptized at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church as a child, and several of her family members still worshipped there. It seemed natural to hold her son’s funeral there, in this House of God.

So the service had been arranged, and was to take place on the following day. A host of Julion’s relatives and friends were made aware of the time and place, and many planned to attend.

Then came the phone call as Julie stood at the side of her son’s casket during the wake. Inopportune as the time was, Rev. Jenkins couldn’t possibly have known that, Julie must have thought as she heard his voice. He’s probably calling to talk about some last minute arrangements for the next day’s service. Was there anything special she wanted him to say?, she imagined he might ask.

But that was not why the Rev. Jenkins was calling. He was calling to call off the funeral. It could not be held at his church, he said. Why-ever not?, Julie asked, frantically. Had there been a fire, a plumbing problem?, she must have wondered.

There was a problem, alright, but the problem had nothing to do with the church building. The pastor told Julie that he could not allow her son’s funeral service to take place in his church the next afternoon because her son was gay. Her son’s obituary, published in the newspaper, had brought that fact to public attention. A man named Kendall Capers was named in the obituary as “husband.”

The Reverend Jenkins said he had no choice but to cancel the funeral. Julie had to leave the wake and try to find some place where the funeral might be held on less than 24 hours notice.

Kendall Capers told the news media about all of this. He said he felt the public should know. I agree with him.

Mr. Capers said that he and Julion were partners for 17 years, and were married last year in Maryland. Julion died at home after a four-year battle with a rare illness which destroys organs in the body — Amyloidosis. The couple’s relationship and marriage were not hidden.

“Everyone who knew us knew about our relationship,” he said. “We didn’t keep secrets.”

When the media contacted the Reverend Jenkins, the comment he offered was this: “Based on our preaching of the scripture, we would have been in error to allow the service in our church. I try not to condemn anyone’s lifestyle, but at the same time I am a man of God and have to stand on my principles.”

My dear sisters and brothers, this brings up a huge question for me. Does Rev. Jenkins refuse to conduct funeral services for others whom he would have to consider, according to his preaching of Scripture, to be sinners? Is anyone, for that matter, without sin in the eyes of the Lord?

I want to ask all Christians everywhere: Was it Jesus who said, “Let those who are without sin among you cast the first stone…” ? Did I get that quotation from Scripture right?

I am personally not willing to go to a place where I hold that God feels homosexuality is a sin, but let us say that someone does believe that. Does this mean that even a sinner does not deserve a dignified funeral in the House of the Lord?

If you would like to let this congregation and its minister know how you feel about this decision — whether in support of it, or to offer your hope that a different decision in similar circumstances might be made in the future — here is the church’s contact information:

New Hope Missionary Baptist Church
3005 E Ellicott St, Tampa, FL 33610
(813) 236-3611

The church’s Facebook page, where you may also leave a comment, may be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/New-Hope-Baptist-Church/638296176239304?rf=111636415538246

It feels important to me, if our world is ever going to heal itself, ever going to embrace a New Cultural Story, that we stand up and speak — gently, and with love; compassionately and with understanding; but openly, and with clarity — in the face of what we consider to be that which no longer represents who we, as a species, choose to be. And, as well, if we support choices and actions about which we are made aware.

Many people do support Rev. Jenkins in his decision. I respect his choice, and his right to make it. I do not agree with it, and I experience the timing of it to be sadly insensitive (more than one friend of the deceased showed up at the church, not having been able to be gotten ahold of to hear of the sudden movement to the new location that was miraculously found, and so, they missed the chance to say this special goodbye, in God’s House).

And so, at this writing, I invite us all to send God’s love, flowing to us and through us, to Robin Williams, to his beloved family, to Rev. Jenkins and all who love him, to Julion Evans and all who loved him, and to all in our world as we each seek to find our way along this remarkable evolutionary journey of our soul.

As Tiny Tim said: God bless us all, everyone.

My dear Sisters and Brothers on this Journey of the Soul…

The subject of my letter to you today has to do with what is happening now in Gaza.

It would take—even by Internet standards, which allows for much more material to be presented at one time than any newspaper or magazine possibly could—voluminous screen space requiring endless scrolling through paragraph after paragraph of narrative for the reasons behind the violence in Gaza to be fully explored.

And without wishing to seem dismissive of the positions of either side in the long-simmering and too-frequently erupting dispute between Hamas (the quasi political/military organization which effectively governs the Gaza Strip) and the State of Israel, the situation can fairly be described as a case where both sides are “right” and both sides are “wrong.”

Sadly, both sides can acknowledge only the first case, and refuse to admit to even the slightest instance where the second case may be true. And so, while both sides endlessly pontificate on why they are “right” to do what they are doing (Israel bombarding the intensely crowded Gaza Strip in this most recent uprising with 4,600 air strikes, Hamas bombarding Israel with 3,200 rockets fired into Israeli territory), a reported 1,700 people—85% of whom have been civilians, including well over 500 women and children—have been killed in Gaza.

An article on Wikipedia quotes the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as saying that as of 3 August 2014 in the Gaza Strip, over 485,000 Palestinians had been displaced, of which 269,793 were taking shelter in 90 UNRWA schools. (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.)

“UNRWA has exhausted its capacity to absorb displaced persons,” the Wikipedia article said, “and overcrowding in shelters risks the outbreak of epidemics. 1.8 million people are affected by a halt or reduction of the water supply, 141 schools and 26 health facilities have been damaged, 945 homes (10,690 families) have been totally destroyed or severely damaged and the homes of 5,435 families have been damaged but are still inhabitable.”

“Throughout the Gaza Strip, people receive only 3 hours of electricity per day. The destruction of Gaza’s only power plant had an immediate effect on the public health situation and reduced water and sanitation services, with hospitals becoming dependent on generators. More than 485,000 internally displaced persons are in need of emergency food assistance.”

The article noted that 64 soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) have been reported killed in the current fighting, as well as two Israeli civilians and a Thai worker.

This violent conflict between Hamas and Israel has been going on for decades, as I noted earlier (and as I know you are all aware). Nothing can stop it but a change in consciousness. As Rabbi Michael Lerner noted in a commentary Aug 3 at www.Salon.Com:

“The basic reality is that most of humanity has always heard a voice inside themselves telling them that the best path to security and safety is to love others and show generosity, and a counter voice that tells us that the only path to security is domination and control over others.

“This struggle between the voice of fear and the voice of love, the voice of domination/power-over and the voice of compassion, empathy and generosity, have played out throughout history and shape contemporary political debates around the world. Because almost every single one of us hears both voices, we are often torn between them, oscillating in our communal policies and our personal behavior between these two worldviews and ways of engaging others.

“As the competitive and me-first ethos of the capitalist marketplace has grown increasingly powerful and increasingly reflected in the culture and worldviews of the contemporary era, more and more people bring the worldview of fear, domination and manipulation of others into personal lives, teaching people that the rationality of the marketplace with its injunction to see other human beings primarily in terms of how they can serve our own needs and as instrumental for our own purposes, rather than as being deserving of care and respect just for who they are and not for what they can deliver for us, this ethos has weakened friendships and created the instability in family life that the right has so effectively manipulated (a theme I develop most fully in reporting in my book The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country From the Religious Right on my years as a psychotherapist and principal investigator of an National Institute of Mental Heath study of stress and the psychodynamics of daily life in Western societies).”

Rabbi Lerner believes that the State of Israel, in its continuing attacks on Gaza that are killing civilians, including many hundreds of women and children, has stepped away from the fundamental ethics and spiritual principles of Judaism itself. You will find his complete commentary on this subject here.

For its part, Israel claims that Hamas is using civilians as “human shields” to ward off attacks by the IDF on what Israel has defined as important military or strategic-planning assets of Hamas. Hamas denies the claim.

Is there any way to end this cycle of violence that has engulfed Israel and Gaza for decades—and, indeed, has become a characteristic of life in many, many other places across the planet? Is violence and killing the only way we humans know how to resolve our most severe differences?

I know I keep asking the same question here, but I am asking you—all of you in the Global Conversation—to have your say here, to speak your truth, to add to the energy of An Answer that might then be heard, considered, spread, and shared by people around the world.

And while we are considering our response, may we gently ask…where are the spiritual leaders of our world? Where is the Pope? Where is the voice of the Archbishop of Canterbury? Where is the Chief Rabbi? Where is the statement from a globally respected Ulama? Can we do nothing but pray? Can these leaders do nothing but “urge peace”? Is there nothing more substantive that they can say?

The problem in the world today is not a military problem, and it is not a political problem, and it is not an economic problem. The problem in the world today is a spiritual problem—and it can only be solve by spiritual means. It has to do with what we believe as human beings about human beings…and about God…and about Life Itself, its purpose and its function.

Here’s a vital question: Is it possible—just possible—that there is something we do not fully understand here, about God, about Life, and about Who We Are…the understanding of which would change everything?

Who among the world’s most influential people will ask this question in a public forum? Where is our world’s spiritual leadership? Where is our world’s political leadership? Must the only ones speaking the truth, and publicly asking the vital questions, be Internet Bloggers????

Sincerely,

Neale Donald Walsch

P.S. Oh, and wait. You have to see this. You just really and truly have to. You want to know why our whole world is becoming more and more violent every day?  Read THIS.