I would bet that at one time or another you received an envelope in the mail labelled "Urgent", "Important Information", or something like that. When these items appear in my mailbox the first question I ask is; Important to whom?Not to me. But this brings up a point worth expanding upon: Importance. The Truth is that nothing in the world is important at all, save food, clothing, and shelter. I kid my friends by adding another "basic need": a good tan, but that's me! Anything else has an assigned value: one that is attached to it for a variety of reasons. I used to have a black luxury sedan that I fawned over, until I wrecked it. It always had a brilliant shine, whitewall tires immaculate: these things were inmportant because that car made up a significant part of my self image. I had a nice car, nice clothes, a fine watch; I was somebody! Don't believe me? Why, just look at all the stuff I have!The Treasury Department reports on economic conditions in this country; the key indicator in their analysis is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It's currently down and one reason given is that people aren't spending as much money as usual. Much of the GDP is comprised of consumer spending - getting stuff. And is there ever a lot of stuff to get; satellite TV, SUVs, cell phones, Ipods, Xboxes, and other such. This mania for buying stuff has led to high credit card debt, mortgages for homes a lot of people can't really afford, and other forms of debt. The savings rate among Americans is abysmal, most people live from pay check to pay check, and in most cases the money is already spent before it comes in. But that's Consumerism for you. A stable economy stands on two legs: Production and Consumption. When one leg is shorter than the other the economy stumbles, short enough and it falls. With all the outsourcing of jobs overseas and to Mexico, Latin America, and Haiti, the production component is at its weakest in years. That means that the Consumer is the target of such unprecedented attention that the mask has come off in some instances: Dow Jones money reports dealing with retail sales have stated the case clearly: getting the consumer to spend money. That's it! Just spend money - on anything, everything: therin lies the Urgency. Spending money is, well...patriotic!No. It's idiotic, the way we Americans do it. And there is a multi-billion dollar business out there geared to getting consumers to spend money: Advertizing. How many times have you heard a product being touted, the pitch closing with the offer to send you "free information"? What is that if not free advertsizing and promotional material? Send for this "free information" and your name goes on a list that's sold to marketing firms; then watch your snail- and e-mail boxes fill up! I don't bite but still get promotional (junk) mail. I must have gone wrong somewhere along the line.And it's nothing new. Highland Park is an island community near the heart of Dallas, Texas; it's where the well-to-do live. The zip code is 75205, possibly the most sought after in the United States when it comes to promtional material. I lived there, in a one-bedroom apartment; the junk mail I got was mostly from stock brokers, mutual funds, portfolio managers, financial advisors, and the like. I was a software developer and teacher at the time, comfortable, but not flush (or dumb) enough to invest in stocks, bonds, CDs, mutual funds, et al.. But I still got all this stuff because...my zip code was 75205.Targeted? What do you think? Everything's being "targeted" these days; notice? In Iraq and Afghanistan we are targeting "suspected" Al Qaida or Taliban enclaves and a lot of innocent people die. One would think we value our paranoid suspicions over the lives of our fellow beings on this insignificant mote of dust in the infinite universe. Is that the kind of world we want; to live in perpetual fear, to lash out at anyone who doesn't want to drink the water from our poisoned well? Richard Nixon had ann "enemies list"; remember? And whose names were on that list? Fellow Americans: political rivals, dissenters, and anyone else who threatened his royal ambitions. But that's history: "Get over it!"
The foregoing is a quote, the source is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in an interview that may still be on YouTube. The subject of the 2000 election came up and that's what Scalia said: "That's history, get over it." The Supreme Court usurped the electoral process, ordered the re-count of the disputed votes to stop, and appointed one of the most morally corrupt creatures on the face of the earth president of the United States. And we're supposed to "get over it"? How about we tell the Iraqis whose nation we have destroyed to just "get over it"? Chile? Hey, we made a boo-boo when we overthrew the democratically elected Allende administration and opened the way for seventeen years of terror and "disappearance" under Pinochet.Guys? Hey, look, get over it. Why don't we go to some grief counselling sesions and tell that to the folks there, people who have lost loved ones. Daughter raped and murdered? Get over it! I guess we just say that to everybody we've dealt with in our toxic foreign policy.
No wait! Israel! Remember the Holocaust? Er, maybe you don't as most of you weren't even born when that happened. But I'll bet you know something about it; at least you've heard about it, I'm sure. No? Well, the just visit a Holocaust Museum - and while you're there just tell the people running the place to get over it.It's history! If Justice Scalia thinks we should get over something that happened eight years ago, shouldn't we tell the Israelis to get over something that happened over SIXTY YEARS AGO to "get over it"? And it didn't happen only to Jews, this terrible experience they cling to so tenaciously; gypsies, slavs, homosexuals, the metally retarded, anyone who spoke against the regime, or were suspected of doing so. Sound familiar?
So, what is truly important? Are you happy? Are you secure? Do you feel worthwhile, loved? If not then turn off your electronic toys and get out into life. Surround yourself with the beauty of nature, find something that needs doing and do it, and above all be open to personal contact with your fellow men and women. Stop buying into the warped reality that the media presents to us with such urgency. You are so much more than your station in life, your credit score, or any of the other ways in which society measures us. You are not a sheep and Jesus wasn't the "good sheperd"; he was a Master of Life, and he tried to teach us how to live in peace, happiness, and contentment. He told us that the Father "who sees in secret will reward yu openly"; isn't that better than wiretapping, airport searches, Internet snooping, and all the rest of the devices that the paranoid, delusional cockroaches driven by fear and suspicion use? Is there any doubt about that?
I don't think so. Turn inward to your Father who awaits you, to do the works, and without which you are notihing. "Be still and know that I am God," says the little voice that speaks to us through our thoughts. "Be in the world, not of it." "Think not what you will eat or wear...the Father knows ye have need of these things." Do these simple things and you will find happiness.
At least, I suspect so.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Facing the Problem
Pastor Jeremiah Wright raised some hell with the Obama campaign when his destructively edited remarks were aired a couple of weeks ago. "Our chickens are coming home to roost," was the essence of his remarks reflecting, as anyone with the intelligence of a turnip understands, the idea that the United States brought on the WTC attack in the form of retalliation for the many excesses of our toxic foreign policy. Well, it seems that FOX (Fascist Obsessive Xenophobia) News didn't air the whole story. The good pastor was actually quoting former Ambassodor Edward Peck, a white man - the full video is available on YouTube. It's what he went on to say that inspires this installment because he is so right!
It's amazing sometimes how two widely disparate movements can intersect so perfectly; in this instance Pastor Wright enunciated the point I intended to make, and will make in this essay. "Self examination," he said. "What is my personal relationship with my God?"
Perfect!
When the pain of living became too great, when there was no one else ot blame for my misery, and when all else failed, I was alone. Talk about keeping bad company! While it is true that many of my problems originated with a dysfuntional family when I was too young to deal with them, it is also true that the means and methods I employed to deal with life were destructive. I couldn't see it, so pervasive was the fear I mentioned in the last post that I was blind to the Truth: that my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, were wrong and the root cause of all my suffering. Was it my fault that my life became a living Hell?
Good question. Alcoholism is a disease, and I have it. The difference is that today I can have it without suffering from it, and the key to understanding is Self Examination. We call it "taking inventory". Self examination. By at long last embarking on this adventure I soon discovered the one thing that drove me.
Fear. Plain and simple, but like a cancer, if left untreated it spreads. Fear is a corrosive thread and my soul was shot through with it, but for many years I tried to deal with life according to worldly standards: be tougher, smarter, and quicker than everyone else; people are out to get me, to own me, to control me; everyone is out only for himself, beat them to the punch or back off and bide my time; don't get mad, get even, and most important - be a survivor! Something had to change.
Me.
When I finally "hit bottom" (what I call my Final Judgement)some loving friends told me that I wasn't a bad person trying to get good, but a sck person trying to get well. I had a lot of help, which I needed badly, and finally started coming to terms with my arch-enemy: myself.
But then there was the God thing; you know. I spent my formative years in a Catholic parochial school, where spinsters in way-out-of-style wardrobes filled my head with a lot of religious nonsense about Heaven, Hell, and Jesus. That angry son of a bitch in the sky wasn't my friend; by sixth grade I was a confirmed atheist - and rightly so, because it wasn't God I turned my back on but, rather, my CONCEPT of the Spirit of the Universe. I told my friends that I was having trouble with the "God thing" and they handed me a key.
"Design you own God," they said. "Make a list of everything you want God to be."
What a revolutionary idea! Galileo once posed a question: If you offered a man the choice between a handful of perfect diamonds in one hand, and a glass of cold water in the other; which would he choose? A No-brainer; right? But then the inventor of the telescope said: Now suppose that the man had spend three days in a desert: THEN which would he choose? This was my spiritual glass of water. Design my own concept of God?
Worth a try? You bet! I did and the list was relatively short. I wanted God to be my friend, my protector, my guide; I wanted peace and happiness, to feel useful, to be a part of life instead of apart from life. Over time that single sheet of paper morphed into a ream, and that isn't enough still: each day brings a new awareness. Today the Spirit of the Unverse (the term "God" has been so corrupted) is my Father Hey! Jesus had some good ideas after all! Once I got all the ideaological crap out of the way things started making un-common sense. It's a simple idea.
But it isn't easy. After forty-two years of sinking into the qicksand of my own polluted soul there was a momentum, a habit pattern that had to be broken. A freight train loaded with pig iron doesn't stop on a dime. For me it was like carving the faces on Mount Rushmore with a nailfile - but that doesn't matter! Getting on with it is all that matters. If my mind is roaring, my thoughts scattered and confused one day, and the next I have five minutes of peace, that's an improvement! It's a lot more than just coming down front for the "laying on of hands" though that's part of the process. Today people touch me, pat my shoulder in passing, hug me, sometimes even kiss me - and I love it. It's a new world.
But it took work to get here, lots of work. I had to understand that I was driven by deeply embedded forces of which I was totally unaware, so ingrained in my personality had they become. It was a "war in heaven" and I fought it all alone: there is no other way. I had to come to understand that whatever I perceived to be wrong with the world was actually wrong with me. Not that the world was alright, it isn't. The problem was that I had imported the misery and suffering of the world into my Secret Place of the Most High; the Father "in me which doeth the works" was there alright, under siege. My fear-driven motivations led me to a number of life-threatening situations that my escape from them were, in some instances, nothing short of miraculous. I attributed these rescues to "luck" but now I see it was much more than that. Then my luck ran out.
I was defeated, utterly and completely. The pain of living became too great and I came to the ultimate crossroads: do away with myself or find a new path to follow. It was my personal Final Judgement; on the one hand, Perdition, on the other, Hope.
The rest is history.
The world is still a deadly, dangerous place, and I wish it could be different, but that doesn't matter: I must be different! I stopped wondering about the Underworld when I realized that this is it! Purgatory: a little bit of Heaven, a little more Hell, and a whole lot of In-between. My job is to follow the Inner Leading of the Father; to allow Him to edit my remarks and guide my steps; to see others as my fellow travellers along the Highway of Life, not enemies and spoilers but ones who struggle with their own inner turmoil.
So, in the end, it isn't the world that's right or wrong, but my place in it. I am reminded of a song sung at the Unity Church; it begins with the words, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me." Turn inward and find your true source of strength.
The world needs you.
It's amazing sometimes how two widely disparate movements can intersect so perfectly; in this instance Pastor Wright enunciated the point I intended to make, and will make in this essay. "Self examination," he said. "What is my personal relationship with my God?"
Perfect!
When the pain of living became too great, when there was no one else ot blame for my misery, and when all else failed, I was alone. Talk about keeping bad company! While it is true that many of my problems originated with a dysfuntional family when I was too young to deal with them, it is also true that the means and methods I employed to deal with life were destructive. I couldn't see it, so pervasive was the fear I mentioned in the last post that I was blind to the Truth: that my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, were wrong and the root cause of all my suffering. Was it my fault that my life became a living Hell?
Good question. Alcoholism is a disease, and I have it. The difference is that today I can have it without suffering from it, and the key to understanding is Self Examination. We call it "taking inventory". Self examination. By at long last embarking on this adventure I soon discovered the one thing that drove me.
Fear. Plain and simple, but like a cancer, if left untreated it spreads. Fear is a corrosive thread and my soul was shot through with it, but for many years I tried to deal with life according to worldly standards: be tougher, smarter, and quicker than everyone else; people are out to get me, to own me, to control me; everyone is out only for himself, beat them to the punch or back off and bide my time; don't get mad, get even, and most important - be a survivor! Something had to change.
Me.
When I finally "hit bottom" (what I call my Final Judgement)some loving friends told me that I wasn't a bad person trying to get good, but a sck person trying to get well. I had a lot of help, which I needed badly, and finally started coming to terms with my arch-enemy: myself.
But then there was the God thing; you know. I spent my formative years in a Catholic parochial school, where spinsters in way-out-of-style wardrobes filled my head with a lot of religious nonsense about Heaven, Hell, and Jesus. That angry son of a bitch in the sky wasn't my friend; by sixth grade I was a confirmed atheist - and rightly so, because it wasn't God I turned my back on but, rather, my CONCEPT of the Spirit of the Universe. I told my friends that I was having trouble with the "God thing" and they handed me a key.
"Design you own God," they said. "Make a list of everything you want God to be."
What a revolutionary idea! Galileo once posed a question: If you offered a man the choice between a handful of perfect diamonds in one hand, and a glass of cold water in the other; which would he choose? A No-brainer; right? But then the inventor of the telescope said: Now suppose that the man had spend three days in a desert: THEN which would he choose? This was my spiritual glass of water. Design my own concept of God?
Worth a try? You bet! I did and the list was relatively short. I wanted God to be my friend, my protector, my guide; I wanted peace and happiness, to feel useful, to be a part of life instead of apart from life. Over time that single sheet of paper morphed into a ream, and that isn't enough still: each day brings a new awareness. Today the Spirit of the Unverse (the term "God" has been so corrupted) is my Father Hey! Jesus had some good ideas after all! Once I got all the ideaological crap out of the way things started making un-common sense. It's a simple idea.
But it isn't easy. After forty-two years of sinking into the qicksand of my own polluted soul there was a momentum, a habit pattern that had to be broken. A freight train loaded with pig iron doesn't stop on a dime. For me it was like carving the faces on Mount Rushmore with a nailfile - but that doesn't matter! Getting on with it is all that matters. If my mind is roaring, my thoughts scattered and confused one day, and the next I have five minutes of peace, that's an improvement! It's a lot more than just coming down front for the "laying on of hands" though that's part of the process. Today people touch me, pat my shoulder in passing, hug me, sometimes even kiss me - and I love it. It's a new world.
But it took work to get here, lots of work. I had to understand that I was driven by deeply embedded forces of which I was totally unaware, so ingrained in my personality had they become. It was a "war in heaven" and I fought it all alone: there is no other way. I had to come to understand that whatever I perceived to be wrong with the world was actually wrong with me. Not that the world was alright, it isn't. The problem was that I had imported the misery and suffering of the world into my Secret Place of the Most High; the Father "in me which doeth the works" was there alright, under siege. My fear-driven motivations led me to a number of life-threatening situations that my escape from them were, in some instances, nothing short of miraculous. I attributed these rescues to "luck" but now I see it was much more than that. Then my luck ran out.
I was defeated, utterly and completely. The pain of living became too great and I came to the ultimate crossroads: do away with myself or find a new path to follow. It was my personal Final Judgement; on the one hand, Perdition, on the other, Hope.
The rest is history.
The world is still a deadly, dangerous place, and I wish it could be different, but that doesn't matter: I must be different! I stopped wondering about the Underworld when I realized that this is it! Purgatory: a little bit of Heaven, a little more Hell, and a whole lot of In-between. My job is to follow the Inner Leading of the Father; to allow Him to edit my remarks and guide my steps; to see others as my fellow travellers along the Highway of Life, not enemies and spoilers but ones who struggle with their own inner turmoil.
So, in the end, it isn't the world that's right or wrong, but my place in it. I am reminded of a song sung at the Unity Church; it begins with the words, "Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me." Turn inward and find your true source of strength.
The world needs you.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
I Am Perfect!
This might sound like the boasting rant of the supreme egotist. After all, nobody's perfect; that's what you hear all the time? Religion has indoctrinated people into feeling less than perfect, although it professes that we're "created" by a Perfect Being. God. In my debates with the Evangelical pastor I asked the question; How can a perfect being create anything that is imperfect?"Because God chooses to make us imperfect," came the reply on one occasion.Why? "Only God knows."
Well, the fact is: Everything is perfect, but just because this is so doesn't mean that it's all good. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki worked perfectly, but I don't think anyone would want to achieve that kind of perfection again. A well aimed rifle shot will hit the bull's eye perfecly but I don't think anyone is his right mind would want to be standing in front of the target. So, things can either be perfectly good or perfectly awful. It's all a matter of interpretation. People are sometimes heard to say, "I'm not perfect" but this is merely the feeble attempt of Ego trying to sound humble. All Creation is perfect, otherwise it wouldn't have remained in existence for so long. The Spirit of the Universe and the Laws of Nature that comprise the Divine Mind are all perfect. That's what Jesus meant when he said, "In no wise shall this generation pass until evey yod and tiddle of the law be fulfilled." He underscored this thought be telling us in John[5:48]: "Be thou perfect as the Father is perfect."
So, just what is perfection?
There are two ways of looking at it: static and dynamic. In the former sense everything is as it should be. But it keeps changing. The changes are brought about by actions that originate from conditions of stress or imbalance: moisture accumulates in the atmosphere and when there's enough, it rains; the eruption of a volcano happens when the internal pressures of the earth build to sufficient levels. People stand in the rain all the time but wouldn't want to be standing anywhere near an erupting volcano.The dynamic origin of perfection refer to volitional acts: someone is trying to do something. Every morning local radio stations issue traffic reports focusing mainly on congestion and accidents. Congestion occurs when too many people try to get somewhere by the same route; accidents (or what we deem accidents) occur when someone tries to ignore the natural laws of velocity and momentum.
Returning to the original proposition: I am a perfect record of all my experiences. Deep withing me, at my Heart of Hearts, is the sum of all the results of the choices I made both as the originator of change, or in response to changes that took place. For many years I made bad choices based on self; fear of losing what I had, of not getting what I felt was my due, of being outdone is some regard, of being disliked, rejected - you get the idea. And these were all perfect resolutions of the state of my soul; I was ruled by fear but didn't realize it. But as fear was my prime motivator, working at the sub- or unconscious level, my actions inevitably led to consequences: jails, mental institutions, a Grand Jury indictment on one occasion, and the mental anguish that accrued to these outcomes. Why do things keep working against me? I would ask, not knowing that my focus on the Realities of the world hid the Truth of my own condition from me. As the Bible says, "As within, so without." My outward demonstration expressed my inner being (ex-pressed: pushed out) perfectly but as long as I focused on the Realities I was lost. One of my commonest realities was that I had bad days.
I have never had a bad day! That's the Truth. I have had a bad attitude, though, and the personality disorders that worked in and though me were seldom limited to a single day: I could carry grudges for years!
Then something happened. In a moment of perfect clarity I saw myself as I truly was - and didn't like it. What happened?
Stay tuned.
Well, the fact is: Everything is perfect, but just because this is so doesn't mean that it's all good. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki worked perfectly, but I don't think anyone would want to achieve that kind of perfection again. A well aimed rifle shot will hit the bull's eye perfecly but I don't think anyone is his right mind would want to be standing in front of the target. So, things can either be perfectly good or perfectly awful. It's all a matter of interpretation. People are sometimes heard to say, "I'm not perfect" but this is merely the feeble attempt of Ego trying to sound humble. All Creation is perfect, otherwise it wouldn't have remained in existence for so long. The Spirit of the Universe and the Laws of Nature that comprise the Divine Mind are all perfect. That's what Jesus meant when he said, "In no wise shall this generation pass until evey yod and tiddle of the law be fulfilled." He underscored this thought be telling us in John[5:48]: "Be thou perfect as the Father is perfect."
So, just what is perfection?
There are two ways of looking at it: static and dynamic. In the former sense everything is as it should be. But it keeps changing. The changes are brought about by actions that originate from conditions of stress or imbalance: moisture accumulates in the atmosphere and when there's enough, it rains; the eruption of a volcano happens when the internal pressures of the earth build to sufficient levels. People stand in the rain all the time but wouldn't want to be standing anywhere near an erupting volcano.The dynamic origin of perfection refer to volitional acts: someone is trying to do something. Every morning local radio stations issue traffic reports focusing mainly on congestion and accidents. Congestion occurs when too many people try to get somewhere by the same route; accidents (or what we deem accidents) occur when someone tries to ignore the natural laws of velocity and momentum.
Returning to the original proposition: I am a perfect record of all my experiences. Deep withing me, at my Heart of Hearts, is the sum of all the results of the choices I made both as the originator of change, or in response to changes that took place. For many years I made bad choices based on self; fear of losing what I had, of not getting what I felt was my due, of being outdone is some regard, of being disliked, rejected - you get the idea. And these were all perfect resolutions of the state of my soul; I was ruled by fear but didn't realize it. But as fear was my prime motivator, working at the sub- or unconscious level, my actions inevitably led to consequences: jails, mental institutions, a Grand Jury indictment on one occasion, and the mental anguish that accrued to these outcomes. Why do things keep working against me? I would ask, not knowing that my focus on the Realities of the world hid the Truth of my own condition from me. As the Bible says, "As within, so without." My outward demonstration expressed my inner being (ex-pressed: pushed out) perfectly but as long as I focused on the Realities I was lost. One of my commonest realities was that I had bad days.
I have never had a bad day! That's the Truth. I have had a bad attitude, though, and the personality disorders that worked in and though me were seldom limited to a single day: I could carry grudges for years!
Then something happened. In a moment of perfect clarity I saw myself as I truly was - and didn't like it. What happened?
Stay tuned.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Building Spirituality - Summation
It's Spring again, a time when most folks engage in the traditional Spring House Cleaning. Mop, vacuum, wash the walls and windows, and when you're done go around the neighborhood and gather up all the neighbors' trash and garbage and scatter it around the house.Of course you don't do that. Not with respect to your physical house. How about your spiritual house? That's a different story, isn't it. The world dumps its cares on you every evening via TV news; pick up the newspaper and read about the human tragedies in your own city or town. It's pretty depressing, and unless you're a masochist I would propose that you don't care to be depressed.
Depressed. Interesting word and in this context there is a peculiar irony to be found. Roughly, the word means to be "pushed in" and therein lies the irony and the choice: where you want to be pushed into. If you've been following this series of articles then you know that the Real World offers no security or peace of mind. The irony I mentioned is simply that the forces of Evil (Reality) are bringing about that which they fear the most: that you will retreat to your Center of Being, your Heart of Hearts where the Father dwells and awaits your pleasure. The key to happiness lies within you - and nowhere else! Oh, you can look up at the sky all you want; in the daytime you'll see clouds and a sky that used to be bluer, at night you'll see stars. That's all there is up there. Jesus wasn't kidding when he said, "Think not what you will eat of wear...the Father knows ye have need of these things." Did you get that last part? Your father. Maybe this sounds too much like religion, though it doesn't have to. Call it your better judgement, instinct, intuition, whatever; the point is that it's there and you KNOW it! Just think back to some crisis in your life, a time when you thought it was all over. At the last moment you found a way out; someone gave you the right thought, a material resource, or simple friendship, or more than likely you got an inspired thought, a brilliant solution to your problem - and it seemed to come from nowhere. Bulletin: It wasn't from nowhere!
Unfortunately, many people have to hit rock bottom before turning inward. Some never do, and a high percentage of these commit suicide, others are incarcerated for life in mental institutions, none knowing that each and every one had within himself the key to salvation. It's true. This is not a theory but my own personal experience.
For many years I was lost in an alcoholic fog as I tried to make my way through the Real World. Several childhood issues mandated that life would be hard for me: I was soul damaged but didn't realize it. I went to a Catholic parochial school and received a great education along with heavy doses of indoctrination into a toxic belief system that only served to feed my fear and confusion. I got drunk the first time at the age of seven years and that seemed to give me a way out. The euphoria was irrestistable, I felt there was nothing I couldn't do. Alcohol erased any bad feelings I had about myself; it helped me overcome the feelings of uselessness, self pity, and unworthiness that were so deeply ingrained in my psyche. It was my best friend. It led me down the primrose path to self-destruction, but the problem wasn't alcohol: the problem was my warped view of God, the world, and my place in it. Today I enjoy a life that I couldn't have dreamed for myself.
I went all the way down. At 4:00AM on March 1st, 1981, my eyes were open. The past, which had been a source of guilt and remorse all my life, suddenly became the basis of my recovery. I spent a years doing dangerous things, in dangerous places, with dangerous people. In my life I have known five murderers and two of their victims. I have had loaded weapons pointed at me on four different occasions; three of the parties were angry (one was a cop who was as drunk as I was), and one was a friend who was horsing around with a .45 Colt 1911A automatic pistol. That was the only time the weapon in question went off - at point blank range - and missed! Other instances of personal peril occurred to me, and each time I was spared by some power that I couldn't identify and largely ignored: I was just lucky!Lucky? Hmmm. The greatest reminder of this "luck" involved a miracle that took place sometime in September of 1958. I was in the army, training in New Jersey, and four weeks into my enlistment I started bleeding profusely from the nose. I was rushed to the hospital where I spent three days awake: I couldn't fall asleep because the dctors couldn't figure out why I was bleeding so. If I fell asleep I would never wake up again: that was quite clear. On the morning of the fourth day I was exhausted, fifteen pounds lighter, and suffering a monumental depression. There was only one place to turn.
"God, whatever you are, wherever you are," I said in extremis. "I have this problem and don't know what to do. I want to sleep so badly, but I don't know if to give up would be suicide." The reason I had to remain awake all this time was because I had to keep finger pressure apllied to the side of my nose to slow the bleeding. Even so I had to be wheeled to a latrine every three hours to evacuate a stomach full off blood. So, with whole blood flowing into one arm, glucose and water into the other, I turned my to the last refuge I could think of. "In my twenty years I've never done anything worthwhile," I concluded. "This might be my last chance to do the right thing; so I'll do my best to stay awake - the rest is up to you." Shortly thereafter a nurse and an orderly pushing a wheelchair rushed into the ward and whisked me off to another part of the hospital. A doctor, a major was waiting for me an an examining room where he started running some tests. One of these was a simus test so painful that I passed out. I was told later that an officer's wife came into the room and went into hysterics: she thought I was dead. I thought so too when I returned to consciousness; I was being wheeled down a corridor with a cloth over my face. The first thought that came to mind: "I didn't make it." The next thing I knew the same doctor, now in scrubs, fanned the cloth away from my face and told me they knew what was wrong and that he was going to fix it. And he did.
I found out only later what had happened. After the operation I was taken to the recovery room where I slept for a day and a half. WhenI awoke a nurse who'd stayed with me through one night was there. I asked her what happened and she told me that it was the strangest thing she'd ever witnessed. While I was talking to "whatever you are, wherever you are" an air force lieutenant was being admitted to the hospital with the EXACT SAME CONDITION! They figured out what was wrong with him (cartilage growing through the sinus membrane, the result of an earlier accident: broken nose) and somebody remembered me - four days later.
That, friends, is what I call a miracle. I was still a lost soul relying on "luck" which some years later ran out. It was on that early morning in March of 1981, when I was at my lowest, deepest and darkest despair that I was reminded of that time in that army hospital when I faced death. The voice that speaks to me through my thoughts said, "Remember when things were really hopeless, and you turned to me?" For the first time, I actually heard it.
I've been listening ever since.
Depressed. Interesting word and in this context there is a peculiar irony to be found. Roughly, the word means to be "pushed in" and therein lies the irony and the choice: where you want to be pushed into. If you've been following this series of articles then you know that the Real World offers no security or peace of mind. The irony I mentioned is simply that the forces of Evil (Reality) are bringing about that which they fear the most: that you will retreat to your Center of Being, your Heart of Hearts where the Father dwells and awaits your pleasure. The key to happiness lies within you - and nowhere else! Oh, you can look up at the sky all you want; in the daytime you'll see clouds and a sky that used to be bluer, at night you'll see stars. That's all there is up there. Jesus wasn't kidding when he said, "Think not what you will eat of wear...the Father knows ye have need of these things." Did you get that last part? Your father. Maybe this sounds too much like religion, though it doesn't have to. Call it your better judgement, instinct, intuition, whatever; the point is that it's there and you KNOW it! Just think back to some crisis in your life, a time when you thought it was all over. At the last moment you found a way out; someone gave you the right thought, a material resource, or simple friendship, or more than likely you got an inspired thought, a brilliant solution to your problem - and it seemed to come from nowhere. Bulletin: It wasn't from nowhere!
Unfortunately, many people have to hit rock bottom before turning inward. Some never do, and a high percentage of these commit suicide, others are incarcerated for life in mental institutions, none knowing that each and every one had within himself the key to salvation. It's true. This is not a theory but my own personal experience.
For many years I was lost in an alcoholic fog as I tried to make my way through the Real World. Several childhood issues mandated that life would be hard for me: I was soul damaged but didn't realize it. I went to a Catholic parochial school and received a great education along with heavy doses of indoctrination into a toxic belief system that only served to feed my fear and confusion. I got drunk the first time at the age of seven years and that seemed to give me a way out. The euphoria was irrestistable, I felt there was nothing I couldn't do. Alcohol erased any bad feelings I had about myself; it helped me overcome the feelings of uselessness, self pity, and unworthiness that were so deeply ingrained in my psyche. It was my best friend. It led me down the primrose path to self-destruction, but the problem wasn't alcohol: the problem was my warped view of God, the world, and my place in it. Today I enjoy a life that I couldn't have dreamed for myself.
I went all the way down. At 4:00AM on March 1st, 1981, my eyes were open. The past, which had been a source of guilt and remorse all my life, suddenly became the basis of my recovery. I spent a years doing dangerous things, in dangerous places, with dangerous people. In my life I have known five murderers and two of their victims. I have had loaded weapons pointed at me on four different occasions; three of the parties were angry (one was a cop who was as drunk as I was), and one was a friend who was horsing around with a .45 Colt 1911A automatic pistol. That was the only time the weapon in question went off - at point blank range - and missed! Other instances of personal peril occurred to me, and each time I was spared by some power that I couldn't identify and largely ignored: I was just lucky!Lucky? Hmmm. The greatest reminder of this "luck" involved a miracle that took place sometime in September of 1958. I was in the army, training in New Jersey, and four weeks into my enlistment I started bleeding profusely from the nose. I was rushed to the hospital where I spent three days awake: I couldn't fall asleep because the dctors couldn't figure out why I was bleeding so. If I fell asleep I would never wake up again: that was quite clear. On the morning of the fourth day I was exhausted, fifteen pounds lighter, and suffering a monumental depression. There was only one place to turn.
"God, whatever you are, wherever you are," I said in extremis. "I have this problem and don't know what to do. I want to sleep so badly, but I don't know if to give up would be suicide." The reason I had to remain awake all this time was because I had to keep finger pressure apllied to the side of my nose to slow the bleeding. Even so I had to be wheeled to a latrine every three hours to evacuate a stomach full off blood. So, with whole blood flowing into one arm, glucose and water into the other, I turned my to the last refuge I could think of. "In my twenty years I've never done anything worthwhile," I concluded. "This might be my last chance to do the right thing; so I'll do my best to stay awake - the rest is up to you." Shortly thereafter a nurse and an orderly pushing a wheelchair rushed into the ward and whisked me off to another part of the hospital. A doctor, a major was waiting for me an an examining room where he started running some tests. One of these was a simus test so painful that I passed out. I was told later that an officer's wife came into the room and went into hysterics: she thought I was dead. I thought so too when I returned to consciousness; I was being wheeled down a corridor with a cloth over my face. The first thought that came to mind: "I didn't make it." The next thing I knew the same doctor, now in scrubs, fanned the cloth away from my face and told me they knew what was wrong and that he was going to fix it. And he did.
I found out only later what had happened. After the operation I was taken to the recovery room where I slept for a day and a half. WhenI awoke a nurse who'd stayed with me through one night was there. I asked her what happened and she told me that it was the strangest thing she'd ever witnessed. While I was talking to "whatever you are, wherever you are" an air force lieutenant was being admitted to the hospital with the EXACT SAME CONDITION! They figured out what was wrong with him (cartilage growing through the sinus membrane, the result of an earlier accident: broken nose) and somebody remembered me - four days later.
That, friends, is what I call a miracle. I was still a lost soul relying on "luck" which some years later ran out. It was on that early morning in March of 1981, when I was at my lowest, deepest and darkest despair that I was reminded of that time in that army hospital when I faced death. The voice that speaks to me through my thoughts said, "Remember when things were really hopeless, and you turned to me?" For the first time, I actually heard it.
I've been listening ever since.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Building Spirituality - Part Five
As I have mentioned before there is a friend with whom I have been engaged for about three months in debates about religion and the Bible. He is a decent man, we like each other personally, and in essence I believe we are more alike than we are different. But it's the Realities that we seem to have trouble with. He is a Fundamentalist pastor and counsellor and clings tenaciously to the beliefs of "old time religion": that Jesus died for my sins, that God allows bad things to happen to good people, etc., and that only God knows why [He] does what [He] does. A typical exchange;
P: Jesus died for my sins. G: Who decided that was necessary? P: God. G: Why? P: Because God loves me, and [He] loves you too. G:Would you do the same thing if you were God? P: No. G: Why not? P: Because I'm not God. G: In view of all the billions of galaxies in the universe, each containing billions of stars, are you telling me you're THAT important? P: Yes. G: So this God of yours sends "the perfect man" to die for the sins of "lowly worms in the dust"? At this point my friend smiles but has no answer. This happens frequently: when I pose a question, the answer to which will directly contradict something he just said, he smiles knowingly and after a moment or so tells me that God loves me, and that one say I will know the "truth". "And that is...?" "That God loves you and Jesus died for your sins."G: How do I know it's the truch?P: The Bible says so. When I point out to him that my arguments are also rooted in the Bible, some direct quotes, my pastor friend then does a little verbal tap dance. "That's the wrong version," he tells me. "There are many versions of the Bible...all the others are wrong...you can only understand the truth if you read it in the original Greek."G: How do you know which one is right?P: I just know.G: How do you know???P: The Bible tells me so. So go these circular arguments that ultimately go nowhere; then a week or so later it starts again. The man is evidently quite shaky in his belief systems as I continue to point out the illogic and contradictions of his positions and he keeps coming back to the same arguments that I have already demolished. But he still professes to believe in them! "The Lord works in foolish ways to confound the wise," he rejoins. Why? I ask. (All together now): GOD ONLY KNOWS!It is this mindset that the website http://timeoftheend-faithandreason.net addresses. The epitome of ignorance and superstition, this crock of Medieval mumbo-jumbo is more than just fantasy: It's dangerous. The ideas this friend espouses were cooked up during the Dark Ages, when the flat earth was the center of a very small universe in which the sun, moon and stars revolved around it. The sky was a crystal canopy, studded with precious jewels that covered the flat earth like the lid on a cake dish. The [God] that lived "up there" was patterned after the Greek god Zeus and demonstrated some serious character defects, but since [He] was ]God] that was alright. Nobody could explain it. "Only God knows," they still say, and that's that. And this travesty of the spirit and of baseline intelligence has, through a relentless campaign of fear-based indoctrination beginning with youngest children, has persisted through seventeen centuries. And where has this trend led us?
Wake up and look around!
The world is more chaotic than ever before. Wars are still being waged, only there are more devastating than any in our six-thousand years of organized violence. There are countless religious movements, denominations, sects, and cults, all of which only serve to divide mankind. Our politics are in turmoil, our economy is in shambles.
There has to be a better way! There is.
P: Jesus died for my sins. G: Who decided that was necessary? P: God. G: Why? P: Because God loves me, and [He] loves you too. G:Would you do the same thing if you were God? P: No. G: Why not? P: Because I'm not God. G: In view of all the billions of galaxies in the universe, each containing billions of stars, are you telling me you're THAT important? P: Yes. G: So this God of yours sends "the perfect man" to die for the sins of "lowly worms in the dust"? At this point my friend smiles but has no answer. This happens frequently: when I pose a question, the answer to which will directly contradict something he just said, he smiles knowingly and after a moment or so tells me that God loves me, and that one say I will know the "truth". "And that is...?" "That God loves you and Jesus died for your sins."G: How do I know it's the truch?P: The Bible says so. When I point out to him that my arguments are also rooted in the Bible, some direct quotes, my pastor friend then does a little verbal tap dance. "That's the wrong version," he tells me. "There are many versions of the Bible...all the others are wrong...you can only understand the truth if you read it in the original Greek."G: How do you know which one is right?P: I just know.G: How do you know???P: The Bible tells me so. So go these circular arguments that ultimately go nowhere; then a week or so later it starts again. The man is evidently quite shaky in his belief systems as I continue to point out the illogic and contradictions of his positions and he keeps coming back to the same arguments that I have already demolished. But he still professes to believe in them! "The Lord works in foolish ways to confound the wise," he rejoins. Why? I ask. (All together now): GOD ONLY KNOWS!It is this mindset that the website http://timeoftheend-faithandreason.net addresses. The epitome of ignorance and superstition, this crock of Medieval mumbo-jumbo is more than just fantasy: It's dangerous. The ideas this friend espouses were cooked up during the Dark Ages, when the flat earth was the center of a very small universe in which the sun, moon and stars revolved around it. The sky was a crystal canopy, studded with precious jewels that covered the flat earth like the lid on a cake dish. The [God] that lived "up there" was patterned after the Greek god Zeus and demonstrated some serious character defects, but since [He] was ]God] that was alright. Nobody could explain it. "Only God knows," they still say, and that's that. And this travesty of the spirit and of baseline intelligence has, through a relentless campaign of fear-based indoctrination beginning with youngest children, has persisted through seventeen centuries. And where has this trend led us?
Wake up and look around!
The world is more chaotic than ever before. Wars are still being waged, only there are more devastating than any in our six-thousand years of organized violence. There are countless religious movements, denominations, sects, and cults, all of which only serve to divide mankind. Our politics are in turmoil, our economy is in shambles.
There has to be a better way! There is.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
As I have mentioned before there is a friend with hwom I have been engaged for about three months in debates about religion and the Bible. He is a decent man, we like each other personally, and in essence I believe we are more alike than we are different. But it's the Realities that we seem to have trouble with. He is a Fundamentalist pastor and counsellor and clings tenaciously to the beliefs of "old time religion": that Jesus died for my sins, that God allows bad things to happen to good people, etc., and that only God knows why [He] does what [He] does. A typical exchange;
P: Jesus died for my sins. G: Who decided that was necessary? P: God. G: Why? P: Because God loves me, and [He] loves you too. G:Would you do the same thing if you were God? P: No. G: Why not? P: Because I'm not God. G: In view of all the billions of galaxies in the universe, each containing billions of stars, are you telling me you're THAT important? P: Yes. G: So this God of yours sends "the perfect man" to die for the sins of "lowly worms in the dust"? At this point my friend smiles but has no answer. This happens frequently: when I pose a question, the answer to which will directly contradict something he just said, he smiles knowingly and after a moment or so tells me that God loves me, and that one say I will know the "truth". "And that is...?" "That God loves you and Jesus died for your sins."G: How do I know it's the truch?P: The Bible says so. When I point out to him that my arguments are also rooted in the Bible, some direct quotes, my pastor friend then does a little verbal tap dance. "That's the wrong version," he tells me. "There are many versions of the Bible...all the others are wrong...you can only understand the truth if you read it in the original Greek."G: How do you know which one is right?P: I just know.G: How do you know???P: The Bible tells me so. So go these circular arguments that ultimately go nowhere; then a week or so later it starts again. The man is evidently quite shaky in his belief systems as I continue to point out the illogic and contradictions of his positions and he keeps coming back to the same arguments that I have already demolished. But he still professes to believe in them! "The Lord works in foolish ways to confound the wise," he rejoins. Why? I ask. (All together now): GOD ONLY KNOWS!It is this mindset that the website http://timeoftheend-faithandreason.net addresses. The epitome of ignorance and superstition, this crock of Medieval mumbo-jumbo is more than just fantasy: It's dangerous. The ideas this friend espouses were cooked up during the Dark Ages, when the flat earth was the center of a very small universe in which the sun, moon and stars revolved around it. The sky was a crystal canopy, studded with precious jewels that covered the flat earth like the lid on a cake dish. The [God] that lived "up there" was patterned after the Greek god Zeus and demonstrated some serious character defects, but since [He] was ]God] that was alright. Nobody could explain it. "Only God knows," they still say, and that's that. And this travesty of the spirit and of baseline intelligence has, through a relentless campaign of fear-based indoctrination beginning with youngest children, has persisted through seventeen centuries. And where has this trend led us?
Wake up and look around!
The world is more chaotic than ever before. Wars are still being waged, only there are more devastating than any in our six-thousand years of organized violence. There are countless religious movements, denominations, sects, and cults, all of which only serve to divide mankind. Our politics are in turmoil, our economy is in shambles.
There has to be a better way! There is.
P: Jesus died for my sins. G: Who decided that was necessary? P: God. G: Why? P: Because God loves me, and [He] loves you too. G:Would you do the same thing if you were God? P: No. G: Why not? P: Because I'm not God. G: In view of all the billions of galaxies in the universe, each containing billions of stars, are you telling me you're THAT important? P: Yes. G: So this God of yours sends "the perfect man" to die for the sins of "lowly worms in the dust"? At this point my friend smiles but has no answer. This happens frequently: when I pose a question, the answer to which will directly contradict something he just said, he smiles knowingly and after a moment or so tells me that God loves me, and that one say I will know the "truth". "And that is...?" "That God loves you and Jesus died for your sins."G: How do I know it's the truch?P: The Bible says so. When I point out to him that my arguments are also rooted in the Bible, some direct quotes, my pastor friend then does a little verbal tap dance. "That's the wrong version," he tells me. "There are many versions of the Bible...all the others are wrong...you can only understand the truth if you read it in the original Greek."G: How do you know which one is right?P: I just know.G: How do you know???P: The Bible tells me so. So go these circular arguments that ultimately go nowhere; then a week or so later it starts again. The man is evidently quite shaky in his belief systems as I continue to point out the illogic and contradictions of his positions and he keeps coming back to the same arguments that I have already demolished. But he still professes to believe in them! "The Lord works in foolish ways to confound the wise," he rejoins. Why? I ask. (All together now): GOD ONLY KNOWS!It is this mindset that the website http://timeoftheend-faithandreason.net addresses. The epitome of ignorance and superstition, this crock of Medieval mumbo-jumbo is more than just fantasy: It's dangerous. The ideas this friend espouses were cooked up during the Dark Ages, when the flat earth was the center of a very small universe in which the sun, moon and stars revolved around it. The sky was a crystal canopy, studded with precious jewels that covered the flat earth like the lid on a cake dish. The [God] that lived "up there" was patterned after the Greek god Zeus and demonstrated some serious character defects, but since [He] was ]God] that was alright. Nobody could explain it. "Only God knows," they still say, and that's that. And this travesty of the spirit and of baseline intelligence has, through a relentless campaign of fear-based indoctrination beginning with youngest children, has persisted through seventeen centuries. And where has this trend led us?
Wake up and look around!
The world is more chaotic than ever before. Wars are still being waged, only there are more devastating than any in our six-thousand years of organized violence. There are countless religious movements, denominations, sects, and cults, all of which only serve to divide mankind. Our politics are in turmoil, our economy is in shambles.
There has to be a better way! There is.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Building Spirituality - Part Four
Greetings from Purgatory! If you're wondering where this fabled place is, just look around. We know it as the world but in spiritual terms it's Purgatory; a little bit of Heaven, a little bit of Hell, and a whole lot of In-between. It seems that the balance of the world is tilted more to Hell than anything, but that's fine; the state of the world is not my concern and it need not be yours. What truly counts is my place in this world, regardless how it may appear, and my willingness to move in the right direction, closer to Heaven. Heaven is where the Spirit of the Universe resides; if God is All Things Everywhere, then Heaven must be everywhere. It is. And it isn't necessary to die to get there, in physical terms; in piritual terms it is necessary. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," said one of the Masters of Life. "Be thou in the world, not of it," he also said. That's the message! Evil rules the world; it's Realities are frightening, there is much pain and suffering in the world, and the media screeches it's disfunction to anyone who will give ear to it. Turn it off, tune it out, because suffering is not our lot in this life. If it is "the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom" then there has to be something besides the turmoil of the earthly existence to turn to. There is. But first we must face a Truth that many fear to face: that each of us is alone in the world, each a spiritual being in the human condition, dealing with the Realities of the world as best we can. Jesus told us, however, that it is the Father in all of us that is the True Source of Salvation. But, one might ask; salvation from what? We are here for but a short time, and during this journey it is our task to learn the ways of Truth and grow spiritually; that the world and its people count for nothing in the grand scheme of Creation; that the "things that come to pass" actually do come to pass. Each age brings its own troubles to the forefront, fights its own wars, victimizes its own people, kills and maimms, destroys and rebuilds - and then passes on, soon to be forgotten and unlamented. In Revelation there is the reference to the "beast" being locked up for a thousand years, then to be loosed again. Accoring to the same text the Lords tell John that their voyage of 140,000 souls took that long. As they were in the City of Heaven at the time, we might safely assume that this was their vehicle; foursquare (three dimensional), well lighted, and secure behind walls 240 feet thick. and equipped with everything these people needed. Then they arrived here, a beautiful but hostile environment, and the "beast" was loosed "another season." The idea that the earth was visited or settled by beings from another star system is often greeted with ridicule. That they made the journey board a celestial ark is absurd to such as these; but why? The record shows that we started with dugout canoes and rafts, and progressed to present-day ocean-going luxury liners and cruise ships. Our space explorations are the equivalent of the dugout canoe, and we see ourselves, sometime in the future, going to other worlds. We will succeed, we are sure; others haven't? No one in the infinty of Creation, only ourselves can achieve this end? Hardly. Ridicule is the first sign of fear: make fun of it, then maybe you won't have to face the facts. But the Truth always comes to the fore. It is the Fundamentalist Bible-spinners whose Medieval fantasies are coming under closer scrutiny, who are scared. These proclaim that Jesus died for our sins, yet the world teeters on the brink of Hell; that Jesus is coming back to "fix" everything, though there hasn't been a sign of him for over two-thousand years; that God is only where [He] "chooses to be" ( a direct quote from my Evangelical friend ) and allows bad things to happen. Why? "Only God knows." This good friend whom I have quoted admits that much of what he believes doesn't make sense; his "faith" is strong because he believes it anyway! Christmas is when the birth of Jesus is marked, though there have been 125 other dates cited for this event. It's the season when we sing "Joy to the World", give to charities, and voice the empty platitude "Peace on earth, good will toward men." But what good does heartwarming sentiment do when nations still make war, when poverty and hunger still plague 80% of the world's population, when the corrupt power brokers engage in secretive criminal acts to justify unworthy ends? And it all seems so overwhelming!It is. But only when the majority of the people fail to see the Truth: that true strength comes from within, the Secret Place of the Most High, where the Father dwells and awaits the questing spirit. Men of faith have courage; the weak, mean spirited cowards who conspire in secret, run and hide in "undisclosed" places, mouth the empty rhetoric of the ideaologue who cannot be bothered with facts and who, in a fit of pure insanity, invokes the diety: God told me to... Insane? You bet! Rome had an emperor, Caligula, who actually demanded to be worshiped as God while he lived. He had a temple dedicated to himself, the centerpiece of which was a statue of himself, made of pure gold and dressed every morning in the same clothes that the emperor would be wearing that day. Gaius (real name) committed such atrocities, legislated such insanity (he had his favorite horse appointed senator), and demonstrated such erratic behavior (roaming the halls of the palace every night arguing with God), that the Praetorian Guard finally killed him as he was leaving the arena after watching the games one morning. Why did Caligula act the way he did? He chose to. Why did he choose to? Only Caligula knows. Actually the poor fellow must have suffered a brain tumor.When Jesus spoke of bing "poor in spirit" he was referring to the character defects that cause such misery in the world; Hatred, Lust, Greed, Anger, Sloth, and the whole menu of egotistical demonstrations. Surrender these things and inherit the Kingdom. So, we live in Purgatory. And however much it may appear to need changing, or however much we would wish to bring it about, it will probably always be the same. Throughout the infinity of creation there are countless worlds like ours, where the spark of life ignites and tiny creatures begin the process. As these have grown, are still growing, and shall continue to grow forever, they will develop skills for dealing with life. As they encroach upon one another and contend, the strategies they adopt for survival, what we would call wickedness, cast some as predators, others prey. In these circumstances might makes right; strength, speed, and cunning, are mandates for survival. That's just how things were once, but not how they must be any longer.The Lords came here about four-million years ago and promoted an early ancestor species of ours to their own genetic profile. They did this for the same reason: to survive as an alien race in a new environment with no ready supply of new genetic material. Thus the Lords created us in their own image, after their own likeness (meaning that they made us to be like them, not necessarily to look like them), and "man became a living soul."But the wickedness in mankind persisted. Man mistook dominion over the earth to domination of the earth and began to tamper with nature. As a race we turned paradise into a Hell of our own making. We destroyed the habitats of so-called lower animals that we needed to fulfill the Life Presence symbolized by the Great Pyramid and whole species died. Animals, the instruments through which energy organizes itself into the many facets of intelligent life, having no next level to grow into arose to our specie-level - animals became human! Just look around! Are there not people who bear caricature resemblances to lower animals, some cute and cuddly, others mean and predatory. These latter still profess that "might is right"; they are the war-mongers who victimize the weak, who destroy and plunder, and who seek to possess all the material wealth of the world. They are responsible for the six-thousand years of organized violence we call history.So here we are, in Purgatory, and it's the Millennium. We are just beginning the next thousand-year cycle and with 992 years to go who can look to the next ten years without fear and trepidation? The human population of the world is four times what it should be; we are exhausing resources and creating waste at rates that our planet cannot sustain. Eighty percent of the human beings on earth are starving or living in abject poverty; governments presided over by the lowest common denominators of our kind are powerless to affect the vital changes that would see us through. There are no less than twenty-six armen conflicts going on in the world today, and some of these have been fought for years, decades, with no end in sight.When all else fails the only place to turn is inward, to the core of life, the root of being - the Father in all of us that "doeth the works" if we will only listen to the still small voice and follow its gentle leading. It's my experience, it can be yours, to finally come to the Final Judgement and to change course and discover that Paradise isn't lost after all; it's there in the loving hearts of those with whom I share a spiritual kinship: true and lasting friends who are on the same journey as I am, following the True path. I recently heard a new Truth, one that I had never heard before through the course of many years, but it is so precious. Here it is;People may not remember what you do,People may forget what you say,But peole will never forget how you make them feel.