Just a little rant about education

I got not one, but two, mailings this past week from my local school district, which faces severe funding shortfalls and has four funding requests up for approval on November 6th. If all four pass, property taxes will rise on my own relatively modestly priced home roughly $500 per year. Why is this necessary?

Well, first we need a little history lesson. There was a lot of back-patting a few years back when the State of Minnesota announced that it was taking over all funding for k-12 education. The idea was to alleviate the burden on local districts to raise funds through referenda and thus alleviate the burden on local property taxes, AND, the disparities in educational possibilities for those districts not filled with $400,000 plus homes – which is to say a LOT of Minnesota outside of the greater metropolitan area. The “joy” was short-lived as the Bush boom years went bust and the legislature failed to index educational funding for anything like the actual rate of inflation. Inflation has ranged between 4% and 4.5% each year and the legislature has been able to persuade our “no new taxes” Governor Pawlenty, and his henchman, David Strom to increase educational funding at 0.9% a full report of the catastrophic effect this has had on property taxes in Minnesota can be found at the Minnesota State Auditor’s report

What this “means” in real terms in just my own district, which serves 41,000 students, if the questions fail is that up to six elementary schools will close, up to two middle schools and one of five high schools – one of which is brand spanking new. We will lose up to 500 teachers, programs in art, music and physical education will be eliminated, we will lose the positions used for advanced students, those with special talents will no longer be able to fully develop them. Fees for extracurricular activities will average $500 – which will effectively price most middle and lower income students out of them completely. The number of courses a high school student can take each year will be reduced from 16 to 12 (that will really help prepare them for college!) meaning core courses only, such frills as industrial technology, business, family and consumer science, music, languages, career and technical education, music, English (hey they have to READ word problems in math people!), although that won’t be as much a difficulty as it might at first seem because also cut will be advanced math and sciences. They will, however, get more study hall time – to work on what is not clear. What does this mean? Kids will be graduating less prepared for college, technical schools AND entry level jobs. Some will not make it into college because they will not have had the advanced placement course work necessary for acceptance.

Frills like pools and swimming lessons, have been long gone, they won’t be offered again anytime soon, computers won’t be upgraded OR repaired, so kids will miss out on learning how to use the technology that is currently being outsourced to India mostly anyway, so no problem there, this district will continue to have the highest cost for athletic and other extra-curricular educational opportunities in the entire metro area and of course, with no money for textbooks, they’ll have to make do with outdated information in all classes as well. Oh, and with more kids in every classroom, none of them will have to worry about coming under the individual attention of a teacher either. They’ll be able to slide through the educational system like the ghosts our governor wishes they were.

Now for the rant. What ever happened to the idea that a well-educated populace is a good thing for this country? There was a time when we believed that it was in everyone’s best interest to educate our children. Those children are the ones who are going to be paying the taxes that support those self-centered, SUV driving, no-tax-is-a-good tax, in their dotage. If they can afford to. Which at the moment is looking just a bit doubtful.

When kids are educated well, we all win. This is such a no-brainer, that I find it impossible to understand how the great State of Minnesota, and we are NOT alone in this idiocy, has decided that NOW is the time to abandon children’s education, to in effect, throw them to the wolves, I’ve mentioned a couple times before here. I mean, come on, just how many janitors can those $500 million a year CEO’s possibly need anyway? Because that is all they are equipping this generation of students to do. Those same businessmen who loudly complain that they need more “guest worker” visa’s AND who are outsourcing every job that pays more than what a french fry cook at Mickey D’s makes, are unwilling to pay a nickel toward educating all of our children. Of course, THEIR children are fine, they’re all in charter schools learning how to NOT love their neighbors as themselves.

Hypocritical is by far too generous a word for this modern day wolves. They are eating our children alive with their refusal to understand that what is good for kids is what is good for America. Not what is good for General Motors. Kids. What is good for kids is what is good for America. That means health care, housing and education. That requires an investment in those children’s future, those children ARE our infrastructure, ignore them and we rot from within, just as a building untended within will eventually collapse on itself, just like the Washington Avenue Bridge. If you do NOT take of the infrastructure, you soon have NO structure at all. And kids are the most important asset we have. The better educated, fed, house and clothed they are, the more opportunities they have to be taught, challenged and developed, the stronger America becomes.

But we have abandoned our children. It has been a slow steady decline but it has now picked up speed. READ that report I cited above. Property taxes are NOT the way to ensure a quality education for all children all over this state. Income taxes are. The income tax is the fairest tax we have, it is progressive and based on ability to pay. It should support education fully. No more funny books, no more hiding taxes by calling them fees. Let’s see some statespeople rise and tell the truth about this issue. If Minnesota wishes to lead the nation in “leaders”, attract businesses, raise the standard of living, then the way to do it is to give our kids the best education money can buy.

And, I’d go farther. Higher education is rapidly becoming completely unreachable for all but the very richest and very brightest. Why can we not see that k-12 is only the beginning? We could fund fully a four college degree for every child who can handle the curriculum, or a technical school degree for those who can’t, for a pittance in income taxes, yet reap huge dividends because our children would be entering the workforce prepared to make real contributions. I think that “free” public education should be made available k-16, with strong assistance for those capable of going on past bachelor’s degree’s. There is no “lose” in this idea. Smarter, better educated, more well-rounded children turn into smarter, wealthier, more well-rounded adults. We ALL win under this scenario.

But we continue to be penny wise and pound foolish. We continue to make school districts come begging for handouts every couple years because we don’t have the courage to stand up and say what we have done is WRONG and it is time to fix it, for ALL of us, not just the children of the wealthy, but for all children. Does anyone really believe the next Einstein, or Najarian or Gates is only to be found among the children of the wealthy? The kid who can cure cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s is among the children being denied the basic education every child in this country should be, at one time WAS, guaranteed.

If there is ANYTHING we should be proud to invest in, in this country, it should be our children. Not bombs. We are not only not going to have smart kids we aren’t going to have kids smart enough to make the smart bombs we currently use to bully smaller nations around the globe with. Who are we going to outsource THAT work to? And where will we get the money to buy those “defensive’ weapons anyway? At the rate we are going, this next generation won’t make enough money to support unemployment taxes for half of them, let alone anything else this country needs. People, wake up. Please. CWG asks the question often, What Would Love Do Now? The answer in this instance is give the schools what they need through referenda and then elect politicians with the foresight and intelligence to realize that education MUST be a priority of the State of Minnesota. Not fancy trips to $455 a night hotels in India. We need that help here right now. We needn’t be looking for “sister cities” in India, we have a LOT of cities and towns in this state who need our help desperately. Vote yes on your referendums next week and support legislative candidates who promise to FULLY fund education for ALL children. They thank, I thank you, for your support. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Ennui – part deux

It still isn’t ennui, but hey, that’s where this started so I may as well continue with the, ummm, continuation under the same title. Then again, nothing I’ve ever read, or seen, that had part deux in its title was worth reading, or seeing, so caveat emptor, even if you aren’t paying for this privilege, that is, if this is a privilege. :^) Where I left this yesterday was:

Neale: “You’ve made this point before.”

God: “Yes, and you’ve done this thing before – not once, but several times.”

Neale seems a bit put out that God is being consistent since, he then says, “Sometimes this book seems to be going in circles, making the same points over and over again.

God responds: “Sort of like life.”

Neale: “Touche.”

God: The process here is that you’re asking the questions and I’m merely answering them. If you ask the same question three different ways, I’m obliged to continue answering it.”

Neale: “Maybe I keep hoping You’ll come up with a different answer. You take a lot of the romance out of it when I ask You about relationships. What’s wrong with falling head over heels in love without having to think about it.”

God: “Nothing. Fall in love with as many people as you like that way. But if you’re going to form a lifelong relationship with them, you may want to add a little thought.

On the other hand, if you enjoy going through relationships like water – or, worse yet, staying in one because you think you “have to,” then living a life of quiet desperation – if you enjoy repeating these patterns from your past, keep right on doing what you’ve been doing.”

Neale: “Okay, okay. I get it. Boy, You’re relentless, aren’t You?”

God: “That’s the problem with truth. The truth is relentless. It won’t leave you alone. It keeps creeping up on you from every side, showing what’s really so. That can be annoying.”

Neale: “Okay. So I want to find the tools for a long-term relationship – and you say entering relationships purposefully is one of them.”

God: “Yes. Be sure your and your mate agree on purpose.
If you both agree at a conscious level that the purpose of your relationship is to create an opportunity for, not an obligation – an opportunity for growth, for full Self-expression, for lifting your lives to their highest potential, for healing every false thought or small idea you have ever had about you, and for ultimate reunion with God through the communion of your two souls – if you take that vow instead of the vows you’ve been taking – the relationship has begun on a very good note. It’s gotten off on the right foot. That’s a very good beginning.”

Neale: “Still, it’s no guarantee of success.”

God: “If you want guarantees in life, then you don’t want life. You want rehearsals for a script that’s already been written. Life by its nature cannot have guarantees, or its whole purpose is thwarted.

Neale: “Okay. Got it. So now I’ve got my relationship off to this “very good start.” Now, how do I keep it going?”

God: “Know and understand that there will be challenges and difficult times.

Don’t try to avoid them. Welcome them. Gratefully. See them as grand gifts from God; glorious opportunities to what you came into the relationship – and life to do.

Try very hard not to see your partner as the enemy, or the opposition, during these times.

In fact, seek to see no one, and nothing, as the enemy – or even the problem. Cultivate the technique of seeing all problems as opportunities. Opportunities to…” (gene notes, God sounds a lot like some people I know, giggle)

Neale: “…I know, I know – “be, and decide, Who You Really Are.”

God: “Right! You’re getting it! You are getting it!”

Neale: “Sounds like a pretty dull life to me.”

God: “Then you’re setting your sights too low. Broaden the scope of your horizons. Extend the depth of your vision. See more in you than you think there is to be seen. See more in your partner too.

You will never disserve your relationship – nor anyone- by seeing more in another than they are showing you. For there is more there. Much more. It is only their fear that stops them from showing you. If others notice that you see them as more, they will feel safe to show you what you obviously already see.”

Neale: “People tend to live up to our expectations of them.”

God: “Something like that. I don’t like the word “expectations” here. Expectations ruin relationships. Let’s say that people tend to see in themselves what we see in them. The grander our vision, the grander their willingness to access and display the part of them we have shown them.

Isn’t that how all truly blessed relationships work? Isn’t that part of the healing process – the process by which we give people permission to “let go” of every false thought they’ve ever had of themselves?

Isn’t that what I am doing here, in this book for you?”

Neale: “Yes.”

God: “And that is the work of God. The work of the soul is to wake yourself up. The work of God is to wake everybody else up.

Ahhh. Mmmm. That is soul-satisfying. Or soul-stirring. Or perhaps both. Don’t you think?

I want to close this bit with a last quote as chapter 8 ends. Believe me, I have barely touched on chapter 8, it is filled with wisdom and light. And wonderful advice. I have said often, that I recommend only books 1 and 2, in truth I don’t know how many Neale has actually written by now, though I own at least three others, two of which I’ve read once, one of which I’ve not opened, and doubt I ever will, my jenna is a demanding taskmistress, giggle. Okay, not that, but she knows what is “right’ for me to see and when, and I have been taking, mostly, okay almost mostly, her advice long enough now to trust her when she tells me to stay out of something, to at least attempt to stay out of it. A quick example, for some reason, months ago, a movie caught my eye while I was trolling the movie channels, Lovers of the Arctic Circle, it said it was a hauntingly beautiful love story of two people whose lives had been intertwined since they were 8. It was in spanish, I didn’t know that part, subtitled, I set my dvr to record it and have had it there for months. Now something has happened with my dvr, the color red seems to have disappeared and I am going to have it replaced, so I need, I thought, to watch these things I have recorded and never watched. So the other night, I watched that movie and found out why jen had never let me really do that. It was hauntingly beautiful and an odd love story, but the flipping thing ended with her getting killed by a bus JUST after they’d flown thousands of miles from different countries to meet each other in a place they treasured as children. I was aghast. I couldn’t believe I had watched that whole thing waiting for them to finally get together to have it end like that. I HATE endings like that. I just hate them. I won’t watch movies that have bad endings. I just want everything to ALWAYS turn out well, and it just so hurts within when it doesn’t. I just sat there stunned, unbelieving I had just given 108 minutes of my life over to a movie that ended so horribly. Life can’t be that way. I know it can’t always be happy endings, but damn it, my MOVIES can be! All jenna said was, this is why you never had the impetus to watch that movie, honey. And why you should have listened to me in the first place. But, I swear, sometimes her voice is so soft, or my determination so loud, I blow past what I should have heeded. Tricky thing this sort of guidance, this listening for the small still voice within. Sometimes we have to shut our own voice down in order to hear it. And engage in the conversation within to understand it. Being stubborn has just never been a good tactic for me, giggle. I don’t know why I don’t seem able to get that. Anyway, back to the books, out of book 3, the only thing I really “liked” were the vows Neale and his new wife wrote. I barely remember them and I do remember parts of them were annoying to me, but parts of them incorporated what God talked about above. To heal every small or false thought each other has ever had about themselves, together, well, that seems to me to be a very good beginning indeed. And He’s right, of course, if you want guarantees, you don’t want life, you want a script. And, here? There isn’t one. None but that which we ourselves write each day with the choices we make and don’t make. Sooooo.

Chapter 8 closes cutely. I like cute. So bear with me. I think you’ll like this too. :^)

God: “…Why don’t we end this chapter with a joke?”

Neale: “Good idea. You got one?”

God: “No, but you do. Tell the one about the little girl drawing a picture…”

Neale: “Oh, yes, that one. Okay. Well, a Mommy came in the kitchen one day to find her little girl at the table, crayons everywhere, deeply concentrating on a freehand picture she was creating. “My, what are you so busy drawing?”, the Mommy asked. “It’s a picture of God, Mommy,” the beautiful girl replied, eyes shining. “Oh, honey, that’s so sweet, ” the Mommy said, trying to be helpful. “But, you know, no one knows what God looks like.”
“Well,”, chirped the little girl, “if you’ll just let me finish…”

God: That’s a beautiful little joke. Do know what’s most beautiful? The little girl never doubted that she knew exactly draw Me!”

Now, I’ll tell you a story, and with that we can end this chapter.“

Neale: “Alright.”

God: There once was a man who suddenly found himself spending hours each week writing a book. Day after day he would race to pad and pen – to capture each new inspiration. Finally someone asked him what he was up to. “Oh,” he replied, “I’m writing down a very long conversation I’m having with God.”
“That’s very sweet,” his friend indulged him, “but, you know, no one really knows what God would say.”
“Well,” the man grinned, “if you’ll just let me finish.”

Okay, I found that amusing. It isn’t the only giggle in these two books, I don’t mean to paint them as nothing but toil and trouble either. What I find in them is truth. Or at least what resonates within me as truth. And, of course, I have jen, giggle. So, there are things in both books that she tells me are not so, but I’d say, and she agrees, 90% of what is in these two books is worth the trouble of reading AND thinking about. And, gasp, perhaps, even trying to incorporate into one’s life. That is the hard part. Not only discovering, uncovering, re-membering one’s own truth, but then living it. It is a goal worthy of aspiring toward though I think. We humans live in such chaos. Sometimes I wonder how we ever got foothold on this planet, let alone came to be the dominant species on it.

I have “stuff” in me about that, but that is for another time, maybe a long way off time, giggle. But what I want to close with is just to say, that what God talked about up there, living a life of “quiet desperation”, isn’t really living at all. And that is the state most of our world exists in day to day. Even here in the exceptionally well-fed and over-stimulated United States, far too many of us live lives of quiet desperation. Afraid of rocking the boat. Afraid of what lies beneath it. And, if we here can feel this way, so many of us, so unnoticed, imagine what life must be like in so many other parts of the world, where the very real possibility of having not only your lunch, but your entire restaurant blow up with you in it, exists as a daily possibility. What of they? Those souls? What sort of desperation must they feel? What happens to children born there? Whose mothers lived in constant fear while those babies were developing within? The book I’ve mentioned before, the Biology of Transcendence, by Joseph Chilton Pearce, poses some very interesting, sobering thoughts about that.

If this world is to have a chance, if our species is to ever be able to not only dominate this planet but co-exist with it, the conditions much of the people of our world must improve. Fear must no longer be the constant companion of the world’s population. How do we do that? By lifting our lives to their highest potential, by healing every false thought or small idea we have ever had about ourselves OR others, by entering into relationship with each other, I am not speaking of marital relationships here although they are included, but of enduring respect and friendship, by reaching out across our oceans of despair with loving arms and enfolding each other in opportunities for growth and healing. By expressing the truth of Who We Really Are in each moment that we can, and seeing our own reflection in all we meet, regardless their color of skin or cultural tradition, by recognizing that under those multi-hued skin suits, we are all children of a living God, a creator who has not abandoned us, but who has given us the opportunity to create ourselves here, to define ourselves here, to recognize Her in each others eyes. We can do this. There are people here now, trying very hard to do exactly this. And some of them are succeeding.

If you wish to distrust someone, distrust the one who tries to sell you the truth of you. That which is given by God to us as free gifts, should never be for sale. Jesus never passed the offering plate. People gave freely to support His “ministry”, he did not charge for what God gave Him freely. I will grant people the right to make a living. But to withhold a gift given by God, for money, isn’t truth-sharing, it is spiritual extortion. And that is not of God. I’ll talk more about THAT topic another time, it tends to fire me up a little, giggle. And a day is coming when I will have quite a lot to say about that, but for the moment, those who ask you to open your wallet that they might live lives of quiet ostentation, are not coming to you in the name of God, but of man. And man has a sorry record on this planet.  Read a book, you’ll see. Read the bible, you’ll see. You needn’t buy Neale’s books, I don’t deny him the right to make a living either, neither does God as you’ll read in his books, but they’re available at libraries as well as book stores.

I am not criticizing those who have something to share, I am saying one does not sell what God gives us. If people wish to support it, they will. Freely. Making commerce out of spirituality is, to me and for me, something I, in my own definition of who I am, find “wrong”. Is that judgmental? It is indeed. But as God explains in book 1, we come here to make such judgments, by that which we judge “right” and “wrong” do we define Who We Really Are. And I am not a huckster for God. Or anything else for that matter. What I share here, is inspired from within, not all by Neale’s books, as I explained on my main site, once I got past my “lutheran” tradition, I didn’t find an idea in them that I did not already know and believe. Neale just put those ideas together in a way that made a huge impact on my life, at a time when I needed a huge impact. I am happy to have supported his effort by buying his books. I have bought and given away many more than I care to admit here, giggle. Because truth is where you find it, and sometimes you need to start that search without, before you understand that the truth is where it always has been, within. On that note, back into the night for me. I have some reading I need do, want to do. And won’t write again for a couple days at least. So, ttyl (talk to you later), giggle, much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Ennui

I’m not sure ennui can be properly called writer’s block, for one thing, first one would have to be a writer, and I am not. Of late, I’ve been more of a reader, but it isn’t what I’ve been reading that I want to talk about tonight. Recently reading, I should say. :^) I want to come back to something from a couple posts ago, that I have been thinking about, as I have been reading. I referred to book 1 p. 41 where Neale asserts that without fear, of hell, of heavenly retribution, of God, that anarchy would be the result, and God responds, “is it fear you need to be good?”. A discussion ensued. Sounds like minutes from many of the meetings I’ve attended, the too many meetings, I might add, lol. But I want to take this a step further, because in truth it is not fear that we need to be “good”, and by “good”, I mean to one another. Each other. All the time. So I’m going to move on a good bit into book 1, into chapter 8 which is on relationships, of the human kind, but of the soul kind too, and for the moment I am going to move past human relationships, what their purpose is, what relativity IS, and engage, with God, another idea of relationship.

First, in preface, this section HAS been about human relationships and the “rules” we make to play that particular role, how we define ourselves in terms of how others see us. That is an interesting exchange and I’ll come back to it another time. I am going to have to figure out how to search these archives, lol, if I keep skipping around these books like this, so I don’t repeat myself, too often. Some of these ideas do indeed bear repeating, but given my advanced age, I don’t want you thinking I am repeating myself because I have forgotten I already told you a particular story. Which is not to say I won’t do that or that I’m not capable of that, but there ARE many stories which sort of circle back in on themselves. And, in all honesty, as we talked about in an earlier post, the way to “undo the teaching” of our prior lives, is to read and reread books 1 and 2, until we can call them to mind in midst of our darkest hour and recover our balance through this wisdom. Okay not an exact quote, but if you want the rest of it as God said it, find that post, or read page 120, giggle. For tonight, I want to start with a question from Neale, remember these book ALL began with an angry question from Neale. I wonder if I have ever reproduced that first page? If I haven’t, well, another time, tonight we’re going to talk about THIS question, from the bottom of page 134.

Neale: “So I don’t have to be the long-suffering wife or the belittled husband or the victim of my relationships in order to render then holy, or to make me pleasing in the eyes of God?”

God: “Good grief, of course not.“

Neale: “And I don’t have to put up with attacks on my dignity, assaults on my pride, damage to my psyche, and wounds to my heart in order to say that I “gave it my best” in a relationship; “did my duty” or “met my obligation” in the eyes of God and man.’

God: “Not for one minute.“

Neale: “Then, pray God, tell me – what promise should I make in relationship; what agreements must I keep? What obligations do relationships carry? What guidelines should I seek?”

God: “The answer is the answer you cannot here – for it leaves you without guidelines and renders null and void every agreement you make in the moment you make it. The answer is: you have no obligation. Neither in relationship nor in all of life.”

Neale: “No obligation?”

God: No obligation. Nor an restriction or limitation, nor any guidelines or rules. Nor are you bound by and circumstances of situations, nor constrained by any code or law. Nor are you punishable for any offense, nor capable of any – for there is no such thing as being “offensive” in the eyes of God.”

Neale: “I’ve heard this before – this “there are no rules” kind of religion. That’s spiritual anarchy. I don’t see how that can work.

God: There is no way it cannot work – if you are about the business of creating your Self. If, on the other hand, you imagine yourself to be about the task of trying to be what someone else wants you to be, the absence of rules or guidelines might indeed make things difficult. Yet the thinking mind begs to ask: If God has a way She wants me to be, why didn’t She simply create me that way to begin with? Why all this struggle for me to “overcome” who I am in order for me to become what God wants me to be? This the probing mind demands to know – and rightly so, for it is a proper inquiry.

The religionists would have you believe that I created you as less than Who I Am so the you could have the chance to become as Who I Am, working against all odds – and, I might add, against every natural tendency I am supposed to have given you.

Among these so-called tendencies is the tendency to sin. You are taught that were born in sin, that you will die in sin, and that to sin is your nature.

One of your religions even teaches you that you can do nothing about this. Your own actions are irrelevant and meaningless. It is arrogant to think that by some action of yours you can “get to heaven.” There is only one way to heaven (salvation) and that is through no undertaking of your own, but the through the grace granted you by God through acceptance of his Son as your intermediary.

Once this is done you are “saved”. Until it is done, nothing that you do – not the life you live, not the choices you make, not anything you undertake of your own will to improve yourself or render you worthy – has any effect, bears any influence. You are incapable of rendering yourself worthy, because you are inherently unworthy. You were created that way.

Why? God only knows. Perhaps He made a mistake. Perhaps He didn’t get it right. Maybe He wishes He could have it all to do over again. But there it is. What to do…”

Neale: “You are making mock of me.”

God: No. You are making mock of Me. You are saying that, I, God, made inherently imperfect beings, then have demanded of them to be perfect, or face damnation.

You are saying then that, somewhere several thousand years into the world’s experience, I relented, saying that from then on you didn’t necessarily have to be good, you simply had to feel bad when you were not being good, and accept as your savior the One Being who could always be perfect, thus satisfying My hunger for perfection. You are saying that My Son – who you call the One Perfect One – has saved you from your own imperfection – the imperfection I gave you..

In other words, God’s Son has saved you from what His Father did.

This is how you – many of you – say I’ve set it up.

Now who is mocking whom?”

Neale: “That is the second time in this book you seem to have launched a frontal attack of fundamentalist Christianity. I am surprised.”

God: “You have chosen the word “attack”. I am simply engaging the issue. And the issue, by the way, is not “fundamentalist Christianity,” as you put it. It is the entire nature of God, and of God’s relationship to man.

The question comes up here because we were discussing the matter of obligations – in relationships and in life itself.

You cannot believe in an obligation-less relationship because you cannot accept who and what you really are. You call a life of complete freedom “spiritual anarchy”. I call it God’s great promise.

It is only within the context of this promise that God’s great plan can be completed.

You have no obligation in relationship. You have only opportunity.

Opportunity, not obligation, is the cornerstone of religion, the basis of all spirituality. So long as you see it the other way around, you will have missed the point.

Relationship – your relationship to all things – was created as your perfect tool in the work of the soul. That is why all human relationships are sacred ground. It why every personal relationship is holy.

In this, many churches have it right. Marriage is a sacrament. But not because of its sacred obligations. Rather, because of its unequaled opportunity.

Never do anything in relationship out of a sense of obligation. Do whatever you do out of a sense of the glorious opportunity your relationship affords you to do decide, and to be, Who You Really Are.”

Neale: “I can hear that – yet over and over in my relationships I have given up when the going gets tough. The result is that I’ve had a string of relationships where I thought, as a kid, that I’d only have one. I don’t seem to know what it’s like to hold onto a relationship. Do you think I will ever learn? What do I have to do to make it happen?”

God: “You make it sound as if holding onto a relationship means it’s been a success. Try not to confuse longevity with a job well done. Remember, that your job on the planet is not to see how long you can stay in a relationship, it’s to decide, and experience, Who You Really Are.

This is not an argument for short-term relationships – yet neither is there a requirement for long-term ones.

Still, while there is no such requirement, this much should be said: long-term relationships do hold remarkable opportunities for mutual growth, mutual expression, and mutual fulfillment – and that has its own reward.”

Neale: “I know, I know! I mean, I’ve always suspected that. So how do I get there?”

God: “First, make sure you get into a relationship for the right reasons. (I’m using the word “right” here as a relative term. I mean “right” relative to the larger purpose you hold in your life.)

As I have indicated before, most people still enter relationships for the “wrong” reasons – to end loneliness, fill a gap, bring themselves love, or some to love – and those are some of the better reasons. Others do so to salve their their ego, end their depression, improve their sex life, recover from a previous relationship, or, believe it or not, to relieve boredom.

None of these reasons will work, and unless something dramatic changes along the way, neither will the relationship.

Neale: “I didn’t enter into my relationships for any of those reasons.”

God. “I would challenge that. I don’t think you know why you entered your relationships. I don’t think you thought about it in this way. I don’t think you entered your relationships purposefully. I think you entered your relationships because you “fell in love.”

Neale: “That’s exactly right.”

God. “And I don’t think you stopped to look at why you “fell in love.” What was it to which you were responding? What need, or set of needs, was being fulfilled?

For most people, love is a response to need fulfillment.

Everyone has needs. You need this, another needs that. You both see in each other a chance for need fulfillment. So you “agree” – tacitly – to a trade. I’ll trade you what I’ve got if you’ll give me what you’ve got.

It’s a transaction. But you don’t tell the truth about it. You don’t say, “I trade you very much.” You say, “I love you very much,” and then the disappointment begins.“

Neale: “You’ve made this point before.”

God: “Yes, and you’ve done this thing before – not once, but several times.

And this is where we’re going to leave this for tonight. :^). I’m not done with this quotation yet. A couple more pages. But what’s been said here is worth cogitating about for a day, or two, don’t you think? Where they go next is to the crux of relationship, why, how, and what. God actually has suggestions for we, His children, on how we might not only make better choices in selecting our relationships but in how we might actually learn to sustain them, to make them the glorious vehicles of self-growth He intended them to be for us all. Not in any sort of gender way. Gender is not relevant to this discussion. In truth, it is irrelevant, in that the principles I’m going to put forth tomorrow night, follow no gender path, they follow a path toward creating successful and sustainable relationships, friendships, and beyond, irrespective of gender. If God is not making an attack on fundamentalist christianity, or for that matter dogmatic, exclusionary religious proscriptions on human behavior, in what He has to say next, well, then, I am. Because that IS Who I Really Am and a statement of what I believe and an expression of who I choose to be as I create myself in this world relative to this world. Had I my way, I’d turn this place on its ear and give it a good spin, giggle. I might do that anyway, after tomorrow’s reading. Until then, much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

In memorium of Kelly Ryan

I’m not going to be writing tonight other than this little piece. My remaining son is in process of divorce with his wife, they’ve been separated over a year, sharing custody of my grandchildren, who are 7 1/2 and a bit over 5. They’ve all experienced a loss this week that I know all too well and that saddens me. Kelly Ryan, the older brother of my daughter-in-law died in his sleep Monday night at the age of 33. He was the second oldest of four children in that family. He battled his demons all his life, addictions of many kinds, but was always the cheerful fun-loving uncle to my grandchildren who are for the first time in their lives experiencing this sort of loss. His girlfriend is 7 months pregnant with their first child, another little one who will grow up never knowing his father. My heart goes out to the Ryan’s tonight and though I know no words can be of comfort to them, I want to link to a song that has special meaning to me and say a little prayer of blessing for Kelly as he goes home.

One Sweet Day, the only song I requested for my own son’s service. May you find the peace there you so struggled to find here, Kelly. much love, gene

Free will, Fear and Consequences

We’ve talked, okay I have, a lot about the “illusion” we call life here in the relative universe. I’ve talked about my certainty that life does not end when we end/die here. I’ve also addressed what that can mean for us as we exercise the greatest gift given us here in this place, free will. The question arises then, well if there are no eternal consequences for bad behavior, what incentive is there to be “good”? We address that by uniting. We address that by agreeing on rules here that we all live by in order that we all have the same opportunities and choices. We have the right, as a group, to establish boundaries of behavior within which we might all live safely and without taking unfair advantage of others by virtue of size, intellect, power, etc. Our behavioral code we call law.

I’ve talked about what CWG says about this too, in an earlier post, “Hell? Says who?” in late August, where Neale asks God if he may do anything he likes since God has told him there is no such thing as hell, implying if not stating explicitly that no eternal consequences for human behavior would result in anarchy. And God responds, “Is it fear you need to be good?” I love that passage, p. 41, book 1. But God also goes on to say that while we may do anything we wish here we also need be aware of the law of consequence. Some actions have natural consequences. If you jump off a building in the belief that you can defy gravity, well, there will be a consequence to that act – and you will have the opportunity to reflect on the wisdom of that choice when you are safely home again, as well as an infinite number of lifetimes within which to create new versions of yourself, perhaps even one in which you learn you CAN fly. :^). What I want to talk about here tonight though are the consequences, natural consequences of our choices. What that means in terms of free will. So, we’ll begin with a quote, and then I have a couple ideas I’d like to share about this. :^)

Book 1, p. 42. God says: …Should I therefore punish you for making a choice that I Myself have laid before you? If I did not want you to make the second choice, why would I create other than the first?

This is a question you must ask your self before you would assign Me the role of a condemning God.

The direct answer to your question is, yes, you may do as you wish without fear of (gene inserts, divine) retribution. It may serve you, however, to be aware of consequences.

Consequences are results. Natural outcomes. These are not at all the same as retributions, or punishments. Outcomes are simply that. They are what results from the natural application of natural laws. They are that which occurs, quite predictably, as a consequence of what has occurred.

All physical life functions in accordance with natural laws. Once you remember these laws, and apply them, you have mastered life at the physical level.

What seems like punishment to you – or what you would call evil, or bad luck – is nothing more than a natural law asserting itself.

There is a good bit more that I want to quote from in this section, and I will, in days to come, but for tonight, this is enough. Because what I was talking about earlier is how we have duplicated in our creation of human law, that which God did in creating the relative universe. We may act with impunity as an exercise of free will, but should our act disrupt or harm another, we will face a consequence. We begin learning about human consequences from that first slap on the rump that elicits our first breath in our new atmosphere have just tumbled from the relative safety of the closed universe, our mother’s womb, within which we all begin life. The lessons of act and consequence don’t get any easier as we grow older either, from those first “no-no, don’t touch that” to our last breath, we live within a world of action and consequence. Not all consequence is bad, of course, the act of leaning in for a first kiss, for instance, can be quite rewarding, or not, depending on the particular circumstance, giggle. The smile of pleasure on a teacher’s face when a correct answer to a question is presented is a pleasurable consequence too.

We learn as we grow which actions bring which consequences. Are these consequences restrictions of our free will? Yes, we have collectively, sometimes in groups as small as two, sometimes in groups as large as 6 billion, determined that some acts are simply unacceptable. Yet, the fairness, the justice, of the consequence sometimes depends on who is doing the acting. Nations, if they are strong enough, have throughout history, been able to act as if consequence did not apply to them, doing unto others as they would not have done unto themselves. Groups within nations have, at times, acted with impunity in the same way. But when I look at the totality of our history, I see growth. Yes, there are terrible things still happening in the world, some of which are being perpetuated by the land I was born in and love dearly. But, overall, I see progress, I see a willingness to learn from our history and to move forward with greater love, understanding and forgiveness. There are movements around the world, as Jennifer pointed out in her links, by people seeking to draw us all into the light.  There are many here now dedicated completely to doing just that.

We are slow learners, and there are many obstacles yet to overcome, but I believe in the end, love will win out. What was acceptable behavior even 50 years ago is no longer. We no longer wink at crimes against humanity. We aren’t stopping the “wolves” in their tracks as of yet, but we are moving in that direction.  And yes, sometimes it will be one step back for two forward, we can live with that, as long as we don’t lose sight of the truth of us.  We ARE beings from the light and to it we will return. Then we’ll come back here again, enriched, enlivened, and ready to help humanity reach its most glorious moments. THAT is what is in me as the future of this planet. The story is far from written, but one day, this place will bathe in the light of love and leave the darkness for other parts of the universe to overcome. In the meantime, don’t jump off any buildings, giggle. Use the stairs, keep your light shining, and share the love you are with all of us. That’s how love wins, one soul at a time. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Two small things tonight.

The first is by far the most important. I used a horrible metaphor in my response to Jennifer’s comment the other night, when I said, “now the gloves come off”, which she took to mean, my fists were up and ready for a fight. That was NOT my intention. This is not a site wherein fighting is allowed. On the main page, About My Blog, sets the ground rules, and I said there that dissenting opinions are welcome so long as they are politely stated. I do welcome an exchange of ideas here and I intend to fight with no one. Differences of opinion are not fights. Not to me. Can they be? Of course, but Jennifer and I have a long history and fighting is not part of it. We are on the same page more often than not, and when we aren’t? We usually will eventually end up there. Discussion is how we do that and mutual respect. It is okay to agree to disagree too. I do not have a monopoly on the truth. In fact, I believe that truth, ultimately is something we all define for ourselves. I have a LOT in me. A WHOLE lot in me, some of which will come out here over time. I said that on my main site a few times too. But do I know that is truth? No. Not even for me. Not yet. At least not in my experience, and it is must, for me, be palpably IN my experience for me to know it as truth.

What truth I DO know? Is in the lights, and what I felt then, and in the awakening experience, those were physical things that happened to me. I KNOW them as truth, though metaphysical they may have been, they were in my eyesight and in my body and I FELT them and SAW them, as I wrote about them on the main site. So, there is my truth. The rest that is in me? Comes from Jenna, some of it has been realized, in small ways, a lot of it, most of it has yet to materialize. She simply says it is all coming and I simply wait. Until then, until I LIVE what is in me, those things are no more than ideas and no more true than anyone else’s visions of the future, theirs, mine, collectively. What shows up, I’ll choose. I am not sure I have choice about that, giggle. Though choice is always part of the experience. I guess what I mean to say is that if/when those other things show up? I’ll choose them with love and thanksgiving. I do not fear them. I do not fear Jenna. I do not fear what is to come. I am SURE this ends with me safe again in what I KNOW is my true home. If this be illusion? Matters not. I don’t care. This IS all I know here and I can’t travel out of my body, I can’t foretell the future and I can’t keep from stubbing my own toe. So I don’t care about the whole idea of this being an illusion OTHER than in sharing with others that I KNOW this is NOT all there is. That is why the main site exists. Just to share that idea. Hope. No matter what one’s lot in this life, we are all safe in the long run, we all go back to ultimate love. And I have seen just enough of it to promise all of you that it is wonderful. There is no fear there, no hatred, no envy, no inequality, no servitude, only love, all encompassing, all pervading love. THAT is our heritage. And why I put up the main site. That does not mean that I think this world is of no consequence, because I do. I think our experience here helps us appreciate our lives there even more. And I think we can find what we do here, rewarding to reflect on when we are back there. Even those of us who came here to show the rest of us what we are not. Book 1 talks about this in a story called “the little soul and the sun”, which I do NOT like, but which I believe is mostly true. I do not like it from here. I may well love it from there. From here, I experience it as horror, from there I suspect I understand it as love. It has been hard for me to reconcile those two feelings. I have not yet done so successfully and were it possible for me to make changes in the fabric of reality here, there are some I would make, lol. So it is probably a good thing I don’t have that sort of power. I might make something important go poof. So I accept what I am here, while believing this is not all there is, no not believing, KNOWING. I do KNOW it. THAT much is my truth. Would that I could give each of you that same glimpse, I think it would change the world forever. I hope I’m not running out of time to do that.

Anyway, what I meant to do here was apologize to Jennifer for having given her the idea that my silly attempt at metaphor didn’t mean I wanted to box, lol. I gladly accept her outstretched hand and believe firmly that without gloves on, hand to hand, we, the people, can feel the essence of each other flowing through our hands and each other and in that feeling find the will, the strength and the faith to be bringers of the light. So, I’m sorry Jennie, for having created such a false impression with that silly phrasing.

The second thing I want to do tonight is talk just a little about Mother Teresa’s book. I am having such a hard time with it. Despite my ANSIR profile, there is within me a great deal of empath, there has always been, I can FEEL what another feels, as if it were happening to me. And in her book, I feel the awful twisted truth she was taught. And it hurts. I hurt for her. I don’t wish to condemn an entire religion, although I well may before I am done with that book, but they have got love so twisted as to believe that God requires suffering as loves equivalent. They believe, she believed, that Jesus WANTED her to suffer as proof of her love for Him. That entire religion is built on that premise. That suffering, that vows of poverty, celibacy and humiliation are what their Creator asks of them as proof of their love. It hurts to read such blather. Okay, that is strong, but it is the truth. They are SO far from what God asks, that they create an experience that is virtually the opposite of what He created this beautiful universe for. The work they do, with the poor, the sick, the needy is wonderful work but it needn’t be done to prove love for God, but love for each other which IS love for God. But they don’t see that truth. They scourge themselves emotionally and physically because they believe that they must feel what He felt on the cross or not be acceptable to him. Even if you accept the cross as the story that exists, He never intended everyone else mount it with Him, the whole point of the New Testament is that He sacrificed so that none other need do. Not so that all others must do. I have a long way to go in that book, but it brings to me tears every few paragraphs and so I have to intersperse it with other things, I can’t stay immersed in that darkness for too long or the darkness starts to fall on me, I am not that strong. Yet. But one of the reasons I am with that book at all is because Jenna says I must know what that experience is, the dark night of the soul, in ways I have not yet experienced, though I have had my own special version of it, I need broaden my understanding. So I am listening and learning and I think, I hope, growing. There’ll be more about that over time. But there’ll be more other things interspersed of cheerier nature. I promise. For tonight though, this is that. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Does God answer prayers?

Not a trick question. But the short answer is no. Not in the way we, here, on planet earth think. CWG has an explanation for this, one that makes sense, but which is, in another sense, quite convenient. Actually there is a lot about both spirituality and religion that is just a little more convenient for me. I am, by nature, suspicious of convenient answers. It is one of the reasons I look forward to going home, I mean, that I do not fear death. First, those light globes and what I felt in their presence, I’m not afraid of that or wherever that “there” is. I think, I hope, there are actual answers there. I suppose it could turn out like Contact though, we get to a place where the answer is, “No, we didn’t build this, it was here before we got here, whomever built it was already gone.” I really hope not, because there are questions that have niggled at me all my life and to which I really want answers, answers I know I will never have here. Not one of us has ever come back from this trip WITH answers, not one. Oh, I think we come back, I think that much is true, but as US, as this particular sentience with these particular memories. There may be something to past life regression, but you could not prove it by, or to, me. :^)

So, let’s see what God has to say to Neale about this. Then we can talk about it a little. Or I’ll talk, whether you chime in, or are out there at all, is up to you, my part is this chiming and here I am a one man band, giggle. Not at all unusual in my life, I might add, I seem to have always had my own drummer and only I hear that music.

So then this is going to need an understanding of the conversation Neale is having with God about prayer in general. God has just told Neale that the act of asking is a statement that whatever is being asked for is not present, that, in fact, such a statement produces the experience of not having whatever it is that was asked for. Because all statements are creative. Now, this sounds to me, like some other things I’ve read, that wanting something is incorrect, because by wanting you are saying you don’t have and you get what you say which is a state of wanting, not having. Sort of circuitous logic to me, but then what do I know? :^).

So Neale asks: “Does that mean that I cannot ask for anything I want? Are You saying that praying for something actually pushes it away from us?“

God replies: “This is a question which has been asked through the Ages – and has been answered whenever it has been asked. (gene injects, see? I told you I’d heard this before!) Yet you have not heard the answer, or will not believe it.

The question is answered again, in today’s terms, and today’s language, thusly:

You will not have that for which you ask, nor can you have anything you want. This is because your very request is a statement of lack, and your saying you want a thing only works to produce that precise experience – wanting – in your reality.

The correct prayer is therefore never a prayer of supplication, but a prayer of gratitude.

When you thank God in advance for that which choose to experience in your reality, you, in effect, acknowledge that it is there…in effect. Thankfulness is thus the most powerful statement to God; an affirmation that every before you ask, I have answered.

Therefore never supplicate. Appreciate.“

Neale: “But what if I am grateful to God in advance for something, and it never shows up? That could lead to disillusionment and bitterness.”

God: “Gratitude cannot be used as a tool with which to manipulate God; a device with which to foll the universe. You cannot lie to yourself. Your mind knows the truth of your thoughts. If you are saying “Thank you God, for such and such,” all the while being very clear that it isn’t there in your present reality, you can’t expect God to be less clear than you, and so produce it for you.

God knows what you know, what you know appears as your reality.”

Neale: “But then how can I be truly grateful for something I know is not there?”

God: “Faith. If have but the faith of a mustard seed, you shall move mountains. You come to know it is there because I said it is there; because I said that, even before you ask, I shall have answered; because I said, have said to you in every conceivable way, through every teacher you can name, that whatsoever you choose, choosing it in My Name, so shall it be.”

Skipping ahead a bit, because this is where I want to go with this discussion. :^).

Neale: “When you say that a prayer is a statement of what is so, are you saying that God does nothing; that everything which happens after a prayer is a result of the prayer’s action?”

God: “If you believe that God is some omnipotent being who hears all prayers, says “yes” to some “no” to others, and “maybe, but now now” to the rest, you are mistaken. By what rule of thumb would God decide? If you believe that God is the creator and decider of all things in your life, you are mistaken.

God is the observer, not the creator. And God stands ready to assist you in living your life, but not in the way you might expect.

It is not God’s function to create, or uncreate, the circumstances of your life. God created you, in the image and likeness of God. You have created the rest, through the power God has given you. God created the process of life and life itself as you know it. Yet God gave you free choice, to with life as you will.

In this sense, your will for you is God’s will for you.

You are living your life the way you are living your life, and I have no preference in the matter.

This is the grand illusion in which you have engaged: that God cares one way or another what you do.

I do not care what you do, and that is hard for you to hear. Yet do you care what your children do when you send them out to play? Is it is a matter of consequence to you whether they play tag, or hide and seek, or pretend? No, it is not, because you know they are perfectly safe. You have placed them in an environment which you consider friendly and very okay.

Of course, you will always hope that they do not hurt themselves. And if they do, you will be right there to help them, heal them, allow them to feel safe again, to be happy again, to go and play again another day. But whether they choose to hide and seek or pretend will not matter to you the next day, either.You will tell them, of course, which games are dangerous to play. But you cannot stop your children from doing dangerous things. Now always. Not forever. Not in every moment from now until death. It is the wise parent who know this. Yet the parent never stops caring deeply about the outcome. It is this dichotomy – not caring deeply about the process but, caring deeply about the result – that comes close to describing the dichotomy of God.

Yet God, in a sense, does not even care about the outcome. Not the ultimate outcome. This is because the ultimate outcome is assured.

And this is the second great illusion of man: that the outcome of life is in doubt.”

And this is where I’m going to leave this particular story. I’ll come back to it, because there is more to it, much more to it. The point God makes here is what I think the light experiences are about. He has given us the universe in which to “play” the game of life, as wish. We are doing that. We have been doing that. Our “leaders” want us to believe the ultimate outcome of life is in doubt. That is how they keep us in fear, and by keeping us afraid, they retain their power over us. By feeding us stories about hell and the devil from our earliest years do they keep us in their thrall. Our fear allows them the power to play the game the way they wish, with global wars, internecine wars, global tensions, us against them. And what did Jesus say about this? A house divided against itself cannot stand. Luke 11:17. And where is the leader preaching unity? On this planet, I mean? Where is the one saying we must come together as one people to solve the problems of this one world? Nowhere to be found.

If the relative universe is our playground, and if when our time on this playground ends, the outcome is assured, if we ALL go back whence we came and wake in the comfort and safety and love that fills our true home, then what we do here does not “matter” in any sense but in how we conduct ourselves here, what we learn of ourselves here, even if that learning is what we are not. Those lights, the glimpse I had of what I am sure is my real home, for me prove that this “life” is the illusion. The truth is what I felt in those moments. And if I am that truth, then the small part of me that is here, that gets upset, that is bothered by small things and large, is simply me experiencing what I am not. So that when I am home again, I will understand better the greater truth of who I really am. Experience IS our greatest teacher, is it not? Now there are some who will say that this line of thinking gives carte blanche to behavior of any sort. And to be honest, one must answer yes, it does. But we also have the right, the ability to re-member here, Who We Really Are, and join together to bring opportunities and love to each other, to protect each other from those wolves who walk among us. They show us who we are not too. But we have the right to protect ourselves, and our children, from them, even as they have the right to be as they are. Because I believe, that in the end, far more of us here to experience love than not, and that the greater good is something we care about and a desire for peace and a loving sharing of this experience is what most of us come here to have. So we go about our lives, doing what we can, as we can, loving each other, giving of ourselves to each other, and protecting each other from the wolves. It is in identifying those wolves in sheep’s clothing that discernment lies. Oh, some are easy to spot, they are at the front of the pack carrying swords and rifles and shouting about how we must do the other side harm before they do it to us. Or standing in front of a congregation telling those seated in front of them that everyone not in those pews is going to hell.

We have choices here, we have free will here, and we can, I believe recognize the truth of who we really are. It is a matter of simply re-membering. CWG, books 1 and 2, are a wonderful beginning. But only a beginning. There is a long path yet to walk, but I believe the world is ready to start that journey. I believe the world is tired of the carnage our political, religious and business “leaders” have wrought on the planet and on us. I believe we are ready to choose love as the answer to the many questions we face. I believe a time is coming when we will rise together and stop those who would force their twisted view of God on us at sword or rifle point, when, we, the people will say, enough bloodshed and seek solutions to our problems that ennoble us, enrich us, bring us together as children of the one who created us all. We need not play hide and seek from each other any longer. Let’s just play seek. And let love win this time. I’m going to talk a lot more about this. About how we can do this, we, the people who control nothing, in the end control everything, if we refuse to submit to the god of fear being forced down our throats around this world by bloody, violent men who care about nothing but their power. But not tonight. Tonight, though, one thing we can ALL know is that this is not all there is, regardless what happens here, we have a loving home which we have never really left and to which we will surely return. That is what the lights are about. There is no need for fear when the outcome is assured. And it is. I know it is. There is no hell. There never was. There never will be. The worst we can possibly experience, we do right here on earth when we separate ourselves from the love that created us and forget He has never left us and that She is still watching us and will be welcoming us home with open arms when this life’s drama is done. We can’t lose and since we can’t lose, fear need not be our constant companion. We’re SO much better when we love. Life is so much better. We ALL know this. We just need to practice what we already know. We can. I believe we will. There are many more of us than there are wolves. I promise. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Horoscopes, lol, and an idea.

Maybe that should be horrorscopes, depending on the perspective. The Internet is full of psychics, and it has always been an interest of mine, seeing into the future. But I wouldn’t take the word of someone who alleged psychic abilities, yet couldn’t identify me by name to start with. Not suspicious in the slightest. Practical. I like to know what I’m dealing with before I deal with, which is where my habit of finding out as much as I can about a thing, any thing, before approaching it comes in. I’m most uncomfortable with nebulous ideas, thoughts and people. I define that as uncertain, unconfident, or overly broad. So this morning as I have been going through my ’scopes, I have been looking for common themes. Just to see if there are any. And what possible use any such could have.

Virgo Horoscope (Aug 23 – Sep 22)

Your level of anticipation is high, but you aren’t confident enough to trust your impulses today. Instead of taking a risk, you’ll probably play it more conservatively for now. After all, you aren’t interested in a flash in the pan; you would rather build on what you already have, while waiting for the real stuff.

This one is introduced by this statement:

Where one person hurts, so does another. That’s the empathic power of Venus, connecting single hearts with the global heart. As Venus moves into Virgo today, the insensitivities of humanity don’t go unnoticed. Some say we’re spiritual beings learning to be human. As she graciously gilds our imperfection with kindness, Venus surely agrees.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). Relax! Molehills tend to resemble mountains right now, but your problem isn’t as taxing as it appears.

Virgo Horoscope (Aug 23 – Sep 22)
You have a lot of creative energy today, yet it may be difficult to find a way to express it. Your most original thinking may have to stay within your mind for now, as words may fall short of conveying your thoughts. Don’t fret about this, though, for your best ideas will continue to mature until they are ready for sharing.

Sunday, Oct 07, 2007

Your worries and concerns could span a wide range of issues today. And you might find yourself a little lacking in self-confidence right now. Don’t be afraid to be a little skeptical today. Just remember that if something sounds unbelievable, then it probably is.
And be sure to avoid any kind of speculation or idle gossip the best you can right now because it’s only likely to bounce back in your direction. Just be aware that other people might not fully understand your intentions today.

You still may be feeling a little uncertain about a few issues and might find that you’re having a bit of a hard time making certain decisions right now. Give yourself a break and just hang in there until the obvious answers start to present themselves.

Welcome to Your Daily Forecast for Oct 7, 2000

You’re wired for sound, and not feeling at all patient with anyone who’s dragging their heels, especially if there’s work to be done. Here’s a tip: to avoid confrontation, work alone.

That crowd forming around you consists of fans, all of whom are lining up to catch a glimpse of you. It’s up to you to keep them at bay while still holding on to their everlasting love and admiration.

Even if you’ve always worked a certain way, you’ll need to rethink that now. Try what you’ve only dared to think of before. Bet it works.

Whether they’re nice about it or not won’t matter. You’ll know if you’re being rejected, and you won’t take kindly to it.

Then this comes from a dear friend:

“The Paradox of Our Time”

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more but enjoy less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences but less time; we have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts yet more problems; more medicine but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life, we’ve added years to life not life to years.

We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; big men and small character; steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses but broken homes.

These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet, to kill.

It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Remember, spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

Remember, to say “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there. Give time to love, give time to speak, give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind. To all my friends in my life, thanks for being there!

Yesterdays were all the same. All about something coming. Now all my life I’ve been happiest when anticipating something arriving. I don’t know why but when that isn’t true, I feel empty from within, the world goes gray and so do I. Which is why I need the actual ‘SAD’ lights my in home or the gray of winter’s short days worms its way into my very soul. Despite the cheery words of horoscopes though, what I feel within is that grayness. I’m not sure reading about Mother Teresa’s struggles with the darkness is actually helping, I’m finding I can only take so much of that in one sitting and then I need to set it down and find something of greater cheer to balance the feeling I absorb from her writings. I know these next two years are important for me but I am having a difficult time connecting that spiritual feeling with the reality of the world around me. I suppose that is some sort of balance thing, but patience has just never been my real strength. And it isn’t now either. I don’t feel a sense of urgency because of my age, I don’t really feel my age at all, but I have grown weary of this “something” Jenna talks so much of, always being coming, never being actually here. And I am not sure what to do with that, it is that unsureness that is producing this feeling of ennui of late. That, and the reality I live in, that I see reflected around me. Maybe I’m just a little depressed because I see another campaign season coming with those endless attacks on our soul from the anonymous right wing and their ceaseless little ads that just eat away at ones heart because they attack in such insidious ways ones psyche. Another year of “swift boat” attack ads on people who only want to make our world better for all of us from people who only want to pile up more money and power for themselves.

Wouldn’t it be a miraculous world if we could get past all that, and get all of us pulling in the same direction? We can quibble on the details as we need, but to at least get us all facing the same direction on issues that shouldn’t be controversial. I mean how can anyone be against children’s health care, how can philosophical questions about the “wisdom” of government operated health care be used to prevent so many people from having ANY health care. Employers, even large ones struggle with this issue now, in my own situation, health care costs are rising 12% for 2008. If large employers struggle with this, and they do, how can smaller enterprises hope to deal with such on their own? Employers have been THE main source of health care for Americans for 60 plus years, and now the costs are so ridiculously high, their answer is to shove more of those off onto their employees who already struggle with the cost of prescriptions, copays and family coverage premiums? Yet “socialized medicine” is made to sound the like greatest evil ever invented. Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko, shows that this system WORKS, all around the world. Yet here we resist it as if it were the devil himself offering it up in exchange for our souls. And we already know that isn’t true, or at least I do. There is no devil, and there is no hell, but we can certainly manage to create conditions here that emulate the worst of the lies that are told about that on Sunday mornings. Those conditions exist in many places around the world. And we, here in America, don’t even care about reducing our environmental poisons in the slightest. We make the most heavily polluting cars on the planet and all we care about it is selling more of them.

Where are the people who would put people before profits hiding? Why can’t they find a common voice and teach the American public the truth. We MUST lead the way in this area, Kyoto is just the smallest of beginnings and we have to be part of it. Medicare works, it isn’t perfect, but it works, and to extend it to the rest of the country would not be the evil that the republican party insists it would be. It would make health care available to all of us. There are MANY successful models around the world to emulate, we do NOT have to invent the wheel to do this. We only have to acquire the will to do this. How can such a church-going nation care so little about so many people? How can this nation so consistently put dollars before people? It is enough to make one a little disillusioned from time to time. Just once in my life time, I’d like to see the stock market react badly when a new ceo famous for cutting jobs is installed at some fortune 500 company because it recognized that all of those jobs that are now in immediate jeopardy represent PEOPLE not stock market numbers. That though the company may struggle to redefine itself and become more profitable it must do so in ways that do not harm its workforce. Putting people on the street is NOT good management and that the stock market rewards such behavior is evidence of the sickness of soul that lies at the heart of the American economic model. I am not advocating socialism or communism or anything of the sort. I am advocating humanism. People before dollars. We CAN do this, we need simply begin thinking in a new way, rewarding those whose conscience requires them to first protect the people who produce the products and find new ways to make production more profitable, whose first reaction to a crisis is not to fire people, but reorganize the way they do business, in ways that protect their workforce. THAT is how business will regain the loyalty of its employees, when it begins to demonstrate, as once it did, that they CARE about their employees first and foremost. When they engage their workforce in finding solutions, they’ll find their workforce able and willing to help them. It is a mistake of gigantic proportions to think that ideas can only be found in boardrooms and in firing the people who make the products that make the company profitable. America needs to find its soul. And remember that it is our relations with each other that are important, that when one of us succeeds, we all succeed. We ARE in this life together, we need remember that and starting living that truth. Unity is what we need, not separation. Get us all pulling on the rope in the same direction and we can move the world. I hope we find one candidate next year who can bring that idea to the forefront and help our country recover its sense of national purpose and dedicate our efforts to helping all of us, not just some of us. Who will work to bring us together, not work to deepen the differences we have now. If we keep deepening those valleys between us, eventually we’ll split this planet in half, and none of us survive that. I believe the rest of the world is waiting for our leadership in human terms. And I think it is time we showed them that we are not people of war but people of love. The world will respond to that sort of leadership. Let’s make the “paradox of our times” 2008’s campaign platform. We’ll all win if we do, I promise. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

Reality check

Yesterday, I mentioned in passing, that one of the places, jenna leaves messages for me is where she knows I’ll see them. Well, one of the things I’ve read every day for, oh I suppose it is going on 42 years, less the three I spent in the Army, is the astrology column in the StarTribune. NOT, as I said, because I give any credence whatsoever to astrology as a science, but as an entertainment medium, I enjoy it. And, she has led me to some very interesting places in recent years with it, not as prescience but as a way of pointing things out to me. Well, each day, for many years, this particular one has been, interesting to say the least. As I said, it is one thing she knows I will see every day. It gives her another way to open my eyes, which as my Ansir profile clearly points out, can sometimes be shut very tightly as I’m locked into my own inner vision. So this from today’s paper I found amusing.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). If you are poster child for anything, it’s common sense, common honesty and common dignity, the most beautiful virtues to grace a poster. And in practice, it turns out that those qualities produce something uncommon indeed.

And yes, I’m going to tell you why. :^).

In the ANSIR realms, I am Thinking: Healer, Working: Philosopher, and Emoting: Extremist. There are but four of us in the 450,000 plus who’ve taken their profile test who match this profile, for the longest time until somewhere upwards of 300,000, I was the only one. For me, the combination could not be more perfect, for in the in the simplest terms it tells the truth of me. And Holiday Mathis, the author of the Strib column, has captured what I believe, perfectly today. Common sense – what good does anything produce if it makes no sense spiritually, physically or economically? Common honesty, well the philosopher in me asks what other kind is there? And how could one accomplish anything if no one could believe what you say? Or believe that you believe it anyway? And, if you have noticed a common theme throughout this blog, it is that I believe most strongly that EVERYONE deserves common dignity. THAT is why I’ve reproduced the quote from Hubert Humphrey about the moral test for government a couple times. Everyone, regardless their particular circumstance, deserves to be treated with common dignity. In my career, so far, I have been in public service, and one of the things I look for when I hire is people who believe that even the poorest of the poor must be treated with common dignity, especially they, for they have the most fear. I put those three principles into my every day. I think our world would be a better place if everyone did. And, if I could, I’d make ‘em – THAT’s the extremist in me, giggle. Yes, I know, free will, blah blah blah. And I buy that theory too. But still, if there were three values I could make all parents teach their children from the moment of conception, it would be those three I’d choose because the outcome of all them together is love, unconditional love for self and all others. If you live in that state, you do not become a terrorist, you do not try to impose your values on the rest of the world, you do not wish to have that which comes at the expense of another and you treat everyone as you would have yourself be treated. So where’s the harm in that? :^)

Now, I didn’t say that is the only one I read each day, jen’s led me to a variety of places over the years, and so I get a handful of these each day. Not every one, every day speaks to me, but often, there is a spark of an idea, or a glimmer of hope, in each one; they are nuggets in a way, that I can use as I begin my day. Yesterday I talked about waking dreams and having this feeling of being on the cusp of something? So today into my inbox wanders this:

Virgo
August 23-September 22 Friday, Oct 05, 2007
Don’t under-estimate your own abilities today. You may be feeling like others are a little more in control of your destiny right now. Just remember that you’re probably quite capable of working hard and devoting yourself to achieving some larger and more important goals at this time.

You might also have the feeling that many things may soon be about to change for you, and you may very well be right. Just try not to allow fear or guilt to cloud your mind and hold you back right now.

Then, this one, You may not be totally happy about your position right now, but remember that it’s only temporary. If it doesn’t feel that way, look around for small signs that things are getting ready to change.

And there is no doubt this one is true too. It is fear, and yes, some guilt, that has clouded my mind, particularly since my son’s death 10 1/2 years ago, the long dark night of the soul I’ve spoken of here and on my main site. I’ve been working on releasing those things for quite some time, it is they which have caused the sleepless nights the past 9 years. Progress can be slow, and some of that is very hard to let go of, it has been part of me so long, but to move on, it is necessary to shed the past, as Sarah explains in Full of Grace, “its just that we stayed too long in the same old sickly skin”, and let love and hope be born afresh each day. I find that easier to do first thing in the morning. Gets a little harder as the day exacts its toll for passage, sometimes. And some days I lose the battle entirely, but the “war” for my soul can’t be lost, the outcome is assured, the light experiences prove that to me, for me, so fear just can’t ever win me over. When you don’t fear death, I mean really don’t fear what comes next in the slightest, it changes your outlook on what happens here. Or it does for me. The extremist part of me might feel that way anyway, even though in my early years, well heaven and hell were always part of the thought process, I couldn’t avoid that given the circumstances into which I was born. But there came a day, between the light experiences, between the white globe and the golden, when I let go of that fear too. The philosopher part of me had been thinking, okay, if this guy, the devil has as his sole purpose the purchase of my soul, then why does that rascal make himself so hard to find? I mean, watch the movies, you gotta draw pentagrams on the floor, light candles, do chants, all sorts of machinations to get this guy who wants ME, no matter the cost, to show up at all.

Well, I thought, if he really wants ME, he’s going to have work a little harder than that, and I am certainly NOT going to do that work for him. So, one evening, okay late, late, late one evening, and after a few more than a couple beers, while out walking in the middle of the night – which I am still prone to doing quite often, walking in the middle of the night I mean, what the hell else do you do when you can’t sleep? So, I sat down on a bench and invited him to come visit. Said we could start a negotiation, tell me what he had to offer, I was willing to listen. Never showed up that night. Nor any other night. So when I read in book 1, God saying there is no such entity, well, I wasn’t exactly shocked, lol. The devil, hell, is just another invention of men to control other men, and women and children too. Something to threaten us with if we don’t let them tell us what to do and pay them for the privilege. What a racket THOSE guys have going. They’re the ones pleading poverty and getting rich through paying no taxes on real estate, or anything else, and STILL pleading poverty – those abuse settlements have hurt them, I guess. I despise those hypocrites every bit as much as did Jesus in his day.

So, reality check. I come home from work tonight to find that not only has my “health” plan decided that complicated bereavement is not a medical condition but they have billed me $1500 for the pleasure of finding a way to finally sleep for a few hours again. So, I canceled my Monday appt with the good sleep doctor. Then, I find a message from my remaining son, who’s lost his job because he is in the middle of an ugly divorce and having to stay home to take care of his children, both of whom have asthma, one as severely as does he, was not important to his employer, only his presence was, and now he has had his appeal for unemployment benefits denied because he accepted their “severance or be fired package”. Now about THAT I have no guilt, the asthma did not come from my side of the family, that comes from his mom – and it isn’t as if she could help it. Even that is sort of a joke. I think the reason so many kids have auto-immune diseases, asthma, autism, ADD, is because of the environmental poisons we have been spewing into the air and pouring onto our farm lands since the end of WWII (the war to end all wars, it turns out, only ended Hitler, it continues to exact its human toll to this very moment) and I understand how Neale felt in those moments he raged at God in the beginning of book 1. The only difference, really, between us, is that God spoke to him. And he found a way to help himself and those he loved, indeed found new love himself. Me? I have a gentle loving voice who sings to me and doesn’t even have a Visa card. So? Astrology? Fun. But it reflects my own reality no better than anything else.

What I would really like to do is find this key that turns on this big creation machine we are, book 1, and use it to make a difference. Not for me. I, honest to god, do not care about me, I’ve been here 58 years and certainly have served out whatever useful purpose, or sentence, lol, I came here to serve. But there are so many things “wrong” here, that could be made “right” so easily. And we haven’t the will to even try. Somehow, for some reason, I feel guilt about that too. What will it take to make a difference I wonder? A real difference. A little difference doesn’t matter to me. The Extremist in me doesn’t notice little differences. The Philosopher cares enormously about the state of this planet’s mental health. And the Healer in me is filled with tears that no one seems to really care one way or the other about anything except themselves and what advantage they might gain from whatever alliance they make today. I think I may have just defined the word conundrum. So, here, in the early evening, I am left hoping tomorrow dawns with hope, because for this evening I need spend some time alone with my tears and my jenna and see if there is any sense to be made of this at all. I’m not interested this night in flowery language and lofty ideals. But I could use an an idea. That would be good. Maybe by the time I take my 2 am walk, I’ll have one. If you have one? Let me know. g’nite all, much love, :^) gene.

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene</em

Dreams.

“I thought that dreams belonged to other men
Cause each time I got close, they fall apart again!”

Two lines from a song called Almost Paradise. I’ve told you, here, and on my main site, that jenna often sings to me during the day, in fact, often she begins something as I rise from bed, it will change during the day, sometimes, today it didn’t. Those two lines all morning. Which got me thinking about what I wrote yesterday, or quoted, regarding our ability to realize our waking dreams.

And, so, tonight I want to talk a little in human terms about yesterday’s post, which was more in Godly terms, I suppose one would have to say, than human, considering He, through Neale, did most of the talking. There was once a column that used to run in the St. Paul paper by a man whose name I found on Google, Bob Talbert, called, “things I learned while looking up other things”, for some odd reason I had his name tangled with another man, also long passed on, which I happen to remember because he wrote the first book I ever read about astrology, one I bought and read as a teen – my curiosity knows no boundaries, nor has it ever. :^) I BEGAN reading with a full-sized children’s bible, pictures but lots of text; my favorite story was Daniel in the Lion’s Den, from there I moved on to comic books, giggle. Not such a leap as I look back on it from the perspective I have this day. I guess what I mean to say is that I have always found truth wherever I was, or it found me. That is not to say I believe astrology to be an exact science. Or a science at all, but as God pointed out in book 1, His messages are everywhere – a brief quote, from an earlier post.

Page 5, of book 1, “And so I will continue sending you the same messages over and over again, throughout the millennia and to whatever corner of the universe you occupy. Endlessly will I send you My messages, until you have received them, and held them close, calling them your own.

My messages will come in a hundred forms, at a thousand moments, across a million years. You cannot miss them if you truly listen. You cannot ignore them once truly heard. Thus will our communication begin in earnest. For in the past you have only talked to Me, beseeching Me. Yet now I can talk back to you, even as I am doing here.”

Then, Book 1, page 58: The last paragraph, and the last quote for today too, I didn’t say the last word, that is mine, giggle, and it follows immediately. God says: “So go ahead now. Ask Me anything. Anything. I will contrive to bring you the answer. The whole universe will I use to do this. So be on the lookout. This book is far from My only tool. You may ask a question, then put this book down. But watch. Listen. The words to the next song you hear. The information in the next article you read. The story line of the next movie you watch. The chance utterance of the next person you meet. Or the whisper of the next river, the next ocean, the next breeze that caresses your ear – all these devices are mine; all these avenues are open to Me, I will speak to you if you will listen. I will come to you if you invite Me. I will show you then that I have always been there, All ways.”

So I look at a lot of things, every day, and see what meaning, if any, they might have for me. Ideas can be sparked from anywhere, within as well as without. I pay attention, and there ARE things I see every day, and my jenna knows this, and she does not restrict her communication with me to her voice within me at all. She, too, uses all sort of communication mediums and tools. She sings to me, always the perfect song, the perfect lyric, in just the moment I need hear it, sometimes a very dark moment indeed, but I can hear her through the darkness, perfectly, though I cannot sing a note, she sings things I haven’t heard in years, perfectly in tune. And, she draws my attention to other things, usually things I would have otherwise not noticed, nor paid heed. When I “miss” something, she tends to internally whack me upside the head, until I DO see whatever it is she wants me to see, then we talk, or she does, and gives me an idea, or an application or a possibility. So far, she’s been right. I say so far, because as I’ve said before I do not have a crystal ball, nor do I “see” the future in any way that could be of immediate use – in fact, sadly, quite the opposite. I DO have visions of what is to come here on this planet but those are so far off as to have no meaning to anyone but me and I have no desire to be a modern day Nostradamus, so I will leave behind no predictions. They would be useless anyway because humanity, each and every soul, will write their own scripts for their lives and time, even as do I.

Where I began this thought was with that long ago columnist who wrote about “things I learned while looking up other things”. :^). This could be, should be, my own motto. Because most of my “education” has come about in exactly that way. I call it pulling threads. I start with one idea in mind, find something else interesting along the way, pull that thread, which leads me to something else entirely and soon I am hopelessly lost among the various windows I have opened (the internet makes this WAY too easy – Wikipedia for example, giggle, is a forest of information in which I often find myself lost amongst the trees, fortunately browsers make it easy to find my way back “home”, I don’t have to leave a pile of rocks or mark a red X on any trees to do so, though as I think about it, one of the things I never did while wandering the woods of the farm I grew up was get lost, I always knew where I was in relation to home. And, in all truth, I still do, in many different ways.

I guess, I’m too restless for formal education, giggle. I’m not hyperactive in that way, at least not on the outside, but within, interest never flags, never tires. And I multi-task quite well, I always have, or maybe that is just a short attention span. :^) Anways, so now we come to those two lines that began this :^) In case anyone was wondering whether I was ever coming back to them at all. It is a song Jenna has been playing in my mind all day. She really does do this often, I’ve grown to love it. Which is odd, because I used to just hate it when a song would get stuck in my head as a kid, I grew to loathe some very good songs because of that.

But, of late, I’ve been feeling the way those two lines put it. As if I’m on the cusp of something, and each time I think I’m close to whatever it is that is trying to break loose, the dream falls apart again, like the wisp it was. I love the astronomy pic of the day from NASA (sometime search their archives on the word starbirth – you will be amazed at what you see), yesterdays picture 10/3/2007 Picture of the Day was a little movie of a comet (which as I think of it, looked amazingly like a sperm) racing past the sun and having its tail blown off by a gust of solar wind. Fortunately, or perhaps not, I’m not sure it matters, the comets tail regenerates. But this happens to me too, I feel on the verge of something and whoosh my tail gets blown off, giggle, I guess it regenerates too, or it so far has always anyway, not sure what happens if one day it doesn’t.

They are singing about “waking dreams” but I’m not really sure dreams “belong” to anyone, I certainly don’t experience sleeping dreams, (when I remember them which is VERY rare – for a reason, I’ll probably talk about here someday) as predictive, although perhaps waking dreams are sometimes, or can be, if we choose to create them. Perhaps those dreams are how we create the circumstances of our lives, or fail to do so. Failing to have waking dreams at all is, to me, akin to having ones tail blown off by an existential wind, leaving one for a time, rudderless, like a boat with no pilot slowly circling until it crashes on the shore or its motor runs out of gas.

The question all of this leaves me with is one posed in CWG, do we want to be the cause of our life, or the effect of it? That is the choice we have, that we make each day. Somedays I choose better than others. Maybe the key to leaving a lasting mark on this world, if that is a goal for any of you, is being sure that each day begins with the rudder in your own hand. Easier said than done.

So, why did this come up? Well, I got my copy of Mother Teresa’s book the other day and have started through it. I mentioned in a previous post that I had not much real respect for her until I saw an article on this book. I have always mistrusted, instinctively, religion and those proponents of it who insist every day is gospel and joy, when the evidence of my own existence so clearly demonstrates, to me, that they are blowing smoke because not only do I not see that reflected in the world around me, I don’t believe THEY believe it either, it is just part of the package they are selling.

So, this article, which talked about her doubts and fears and crises of faith, gave me a new respect for her, because I know about long dark nights of the soul as you will have seen from my main site, I’ve spent much of the last 10 years in one of my own. So I felt a kinship with her that nothing I had heard or read before created. I’ve barely made a dent in this book, but my respect for her is growing by the page. The first thing I read as I opened it for the first time was this little quote, sorry about lying about the last quote above, I meant from CWG, :^).

“The impression I got was that I was dealing with a woman who somehow saw God and felt God in the distress of the poor, and a woman who had an incredible faith in light and darkness. She saw the suffering of the Christ, but it was not that she was taken up in ecstasy or things like that – that was not part of her life, although people might be tempted to think that….I really believe the reason Mother Teresa had to undergo so much darkness in her life is that it would bring about a greater identification with the poor.”

Waking dreams are hard to come by and harder to hold on to. But they signify hope and without that, for me, life here is empty. So even though they fall apart on the edge of manifestation, I can retain the ability to choose again each new morning, to rekindle that hope as I move through my day, that this time, maybe this time, the cusp will bring with it not another gust of etheric wind with which to shear my dream from my soul. And perhaps, if by evening the wisp that was my waking dream has once again eluded my grasp, that overnight my tail, my waking dream regrows. So far, most days, that has been true. The darkest of my days in the year following my son’s death, well I survived those, and still hope survives in me, though my experience of faith is no more than Neale’s as described yesterday, weak and wavering.  Still I think, today, perhaps, my own waking dream comes to be. That is what gets me up each morning and through each day. Is that faith, do you think? Or foolishness? Does it matter? It gets me through the day. It gives me hope for a better tomorrow. Maybe that hope is what we all need to focus on. Maybe if we could all just do that, we could turn the tide on our battered and bloody planet and reverse course for its battered and bloody people. That’s a waking dream worth having, I think. I hasten to say that is NOT the dream I pursue each day that eludes, though surely, it must be part of it in some way. So I am going to keep that faith of the mustard seed, knowing only that I must land and take root to be what I came here to be. That is all that is required of the flowers of the field, why would our creator ask more of us than to take root and bloom? So each day, so far, I choose that. I hope that can be so for you too, each day a fresh waking dream of love and finding your own truth within. Now, tonight, I am going to get much better acquainted with Mother Teresa. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

A pause for a political message.

This news release from yesterday speaks for itself. Nonetheless I have a couple words following it. :^)

The Honorable Charles B. Rangel, Chairman
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Contact: J. Jioni Palmer or Matthew Beck (202) 225-8933
Rangel Responds to President’s Veto of SCHIP
WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) issued the following statement today after President George W. Bush vetoed legislation to improve the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
“No matter what the president says, the basic question the American people are going to ask is, were you with the children of this great nation or not?

“The president has chosen to stand between 10 million needy children and a doctor’s office. This veto marks the death knell for compassionate conservatism.

“Not only does it show a callous disregard for our nation’s children, it is ill-conceived and shortsighted. Not only is it fiscally irresponsible, it is morally reprehensible.

“SCHIP is a good program, and I hope Republicans in Congress will take the wind out from the president’s wings and deliver a victory for the children of this great nation.”

Who is served: The State Children’s Health Insurance Program, enacted in 1997, is designed to subsidize health coverage for families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance.
Eligibility: Most states cap eligibility at $41,228 for a family of four. The bill would have raised that level to $61,842.
Cost: The federal government now spends about $5 billion a year on SCHIP. The bill would have raised that to $12 billion.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

$190 billion to kill Iraqi’s, but not $12 billion to provide health care to our own children.  Now THAT is compassionate conservatism.   The tricky thing with Conservatives, a stratagem President Bush has become a master of, is saying one thing and doing another.  While he speaks compassionately, even passionately, in public about love and faith and helping others, what he does in private is where his true soul shows.  And this is perfect evidence of that.  I don’t think he is going to have to worry about a rapid beatification process once he’s gone back behind the curtain.

Who creates our life circumstances?

I mean whose fault is this all anyway? Book 1 has a few thoughts about this that I want to share with you tonight. :^) And I might have a comment or two of my own after this excerpt. This is actually a little premature and I had intended to come to this a while down the road, but the topic came up in a conversation with a friend and so I decided since I’d already gone to the “work” of typing this out, I’d just do this now. But with a bit more of the conversation added. So this is a bit bigger excerpt than I will normally do, well, I don’t know if that is true exactly, not being able to see into the future very well as of yet, giggle, but I suspect it is. And I want to use something else from that conversation here too, at the end though, because it is the truth of it all. :^)

Neale has been crabbing about how his life had gone, and he did live an interesting life, no doubt, with his fair share of ups and downs, book 1 came at a very down period in his life. He told God that it was hard to get to his “God space” when he’d lost his job, the rent needed paying, the kids needed a dentist, and being in any sort of lofty space didn’t really seem to be a likely way to deal with any of his problems. The “you” so often referenced is Neale, of course, but it is not as well, it is YOU, too, and me, and anyone who finds their way into this Conversation With God, Neale was the vehicle of its deliverance into our hands, and the you, is we.

So God says: “Do not forsake me when you need Me most. Now is the hour of your greatest testing. Now is the time of your greatest chance. It is the chance to prove everything that is written here.

When I say “don’t forsake Me, ” I sound like needy, neurotic God we talked about. But I’m not. you can “forsake me” all you want. I don’t care, and it won’t change a thing between us. I merely say this in answer to your questions. Is when the going gets tough that you so often forget Who You Are, and the tools I have given you for creating the life you would choose.

Now is the time to go to your God space more than ever. First, it will bring you great peace of mind – and from a peaceful mind do great ideas flow – ideas which could be solutions to the biggest problems you imagine yourself to have.

Second, it is in your God space that you Self realize, and that is the purpose – the only purpose of your soul.

When you are in your God space, you know and you understand that all you are experiencing now is temporary. I tell you that heaven and Earth shall pass away, but you shall not. This ever-lasting perspective helps you to see things in their proper light.

You can define these present conditions and circumstances as what they truly are: temporary and temporal. You may then use them as tools – for that is what they are, temporary, temporal tools – in the creation of present experience.

Just who do you think you are? In relationship to the experience called lose-a-job, who do you think you are? And, perhaps more to the point, who do you think I am? Do you imagine this is too big a problem for Me to solve? Is getting out of this jam too big a miracle for Me to handle? I understand that you may think it’s too big for you for you to handle, even with all the tools I have given you – but do you really think it’s too big for Me?”

Neale says: “I know intellectually that no job is too big for God. But emotionally I guess I can’t be sure. Now whether You can handle it, but whether you will.”

God: “I see. So it is a matter of faith.”

Neale: “Yes.”

God: “You don’t question My ability, you merely doubt My desire.

Neale: “You see, I still live this theology that says there may be a lesson in here somewhere for me. I’m still not sure I’m supposed to have a solution. Maybe I’m supposed to have the problem. Maybe this is one of those “tests” my theology keeps telling me about. So I worry that this problem may not be solved. That this is one of those You’re going to let me hang her with…”

God: “Perhaps this is a good time to go over once more how it is I interact with you, because you think it is a question of My desire, and I’m telling you it’s a question of yours.

I want for you what you want for you. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t sit here and make a judgment, request by request, whether something should be granted you.

My law is the law of cause and effect, not the law of We’ll See. there is nothing you can’t have if you choose it. Even before you ask, I will have given it to you. Do you believe this?”

Neale: “No. I’m sorry. I’ve seen too many prayers go unanswered.”

God: “Don’ be sorry. Just always stay with the truth – the truth of your experience. I understand that. I honor that. That’s okay with Me.”

Neale: “Good, because I don’t believe what whatever I ask, I get. My life has not been a testimony to that. In fact, I rarely get what I ask for. When I do, I consider myself damned lucky.”

God: “That’s an interesting choice of words. You have an option, it seems,. In your life, you can either be damned lucky, or you can be blessing lucky. I’d rather you be blessing lucky – but, of course I’ll never interfere with your decisions.

I tell you this: You always get what you create, and you are always creating.

I do not make a judgment about the creations that you conjure, I simply empower you to conjure more – and more and more and more. If you don’t like what you’ve just created, choose again. My job, as God, is to always give you that opportunity.

Now you are telling Me that you haven’t always gotten what you’ve wanted. Yet I am here to tell you that you’ve always gotten what you called forth.

Your Life is always a result of your thoughts about it – including your obviously creative thought that you seldom get what you choose.

Now in this present instance you see yourself as the victim of the situation in the losing of your job. Yet the truth is you no longer chose that job. You stopped getting up in the morning in anticipation, and began getting up with dread. You stopped feeling happy about your work and began feeling resentment. You even began fantasizing doing something else.

You think these things mean nothing? You misunderstand your power. I tell you this: Your Life proceeds out of your intentions for it.

So what is your intention now? Do you intend to prove your theory that life seldom brings you what you choose? Or do you intend to demonstrate Who You Really Are and Who I Am?

Neale replies: I feel chagrined. Chastised. Embarrassed.

God responds: “Does that serve you? Why not simply acknowledge the truth when you hear it, and move toward it? There is no need to recriminate against yourself. Simply notice what you’ve been choosing and choose again.

Neale asks, “But why am I so ready to always choose the negative? And then to spank myself for it?”

God answers, “What can you expect? You were told from your earliest days that you’re “bad”. You accept that you were born in “sin”. Feeling guilty is a learned response. You’ve been told to feel guilty about yourself for things you did before you could do anything. You have been taught to feel shame for being born less than perfect.

This alleged state of imperfection in which you are said to have come into this world is what your religionists have the gall to call original sin. And it is original sin. But not yours. It is the first sin to be perpetrated upon you by a world which knows nothing of God if it thinks that God would – or could – create anything imperfect.

Some of your religions have built up whole theologies around this misconception. And that is what it is, literally: a misconception. For anything I conceive – that to which I give life – is perfect; a perfect reflection of Me.

Yet, in order to justify the idea of a punitive God, your religions needed to create something for Me to be angry about. So that even those people who lead exemplary live somehow need to be save. If they don’t need to be saved from themselves, then they need to be saved from their own built-in imperfection. So (these religions say) you’d better do something about all of this – and fast – or you’ll go straight to hell.

This, in the end, may do nothing to mollify a weird, vindictive, angry God, but it does give life to weird, vindictive, angry religions. Thus do religions perpetuate themselves. Thus does power remain concentrated in the hands of the few, rather than experienced through the hands of the many.

Of course you choose constantly the lesser thought, the smaller idea, the tiniest concept of yourself and your power, to say nothing of Me and Mine. You’ve been taught to.”

Neale asks, My God, how can I undo the teaching?

And God responds, “A good question, and addressed to just the right person!

You can undo the teaching by reading and re-reading this book. Over and over again, read it. Until you understand every passage. Until you’re familiar with every word. When you quote its passages to others, when you can bring its phrases to mind to mind in the midst of the darkest hour, then you will have undone the teaching.”

Now, I grant that was a good piece of work reading. And, that since it shows up on pages 116 through 120, that there is a bit of context missing for you. So go get the book, read it all, and see what you think. giggle. Rent it, borrow it, buy it. I fewer than 10 of you ask, I’ll buy it and send it to you, giggle. What comes before it is important. But the lesson God teaches in this piece is critically important. God does not send us here to create the circumstances of our lives for us. This is not His stage, it is ours. We come here to create our own masterpiece, whatever form that may take, from beggar in the street to CEO of a Fortune 500 company. We have multiple opportunities and everyone gets a turn at everything. This life is no accident, you didn’t just “end” up here. You came here with a purpose in mind. And you are living out that purpose. And you may change your mind at any time. What we make of life here IS up to us. In all moments and at all times. This little interchange between Neale Donald Walsch and God isn’t just about their relationship. God’s relationship to Neale is no different than His relationship to you, or to me. We all are His children. We all have the same opportunities. That we come here with some sort of agenda is true, we have in mind something to do, to remember, and as every movie needs every role, so do we all play our parts in this drama we call life. The challenge is to recognize this and then decide what part of it serves us and what does not. Then to move away from that which does not and toward that which does. For me, it is moving toward those lights, toward the feeling I had in their presence, nothing has ever so captivated me as those fleeting moments, I would recreate them in my every moment were I able. And perhaps that is my path, to find a way to BE able to do that. I don’t think I have to go “home” to do that. And even if I do, a life spent moving toward the light, to me, is worth the trip. I have found a piece of the truth of me, of US, and I pursue it relentlessly. Oh, hell, I have my Neale moments, we all do, but it is in choosing again that we proceed. Endless, infinite opportunity to choose again is one of God’s gifts to us all. Relationship is His greatest gift. We’re going to talk a lot more about that, relationship, in days to come, but this has grown long enough. I’ve joked with a friend that I don’t write books, I have no desire to do so, but I DO tend to write chapters, giggle. So I’m going to end this post with a request that you think about the excerpt I’ve quoted, and if any wish to take me up on my offer to gift you with book 1, please let me know, I’m no bookseller, but I am a bookgiver, giggle. Maybe that is my gift. And maybe there is more. I’ll choose when choosing need be done.

What I want to do is close this with a bit of dialog from Bones, if you’ve read anything else in here, you will know I love that show. There is very little I watch on network television, a literal handful of shows, but this is one that just engages me at my core. I love the music, I love the relationships, I love the science of it (Carl Sagan’s spirit, at least his questing spirit lives on in me) and I love watching the two main characters pretend to not know they are in love with each other. This particular episode was about a woman who had been part of a “terrorist’ group in the 70’s (it seemed to me a take off on a woman who was apprehended here in Minnesota a few years ago, her story in a way), who had been in hiding for 35 years, marrying, having a wonderful child and making a good life after what had been a horrible mistake. She was on her way to turn herself in and had written a letter to her daughter, explaining what she had done and what she was doing, being television, of course, she was murdered on her way to the police. The letter closed with these words: “Understanding, compassion, kindness and love are the only true revolutionary ideals, when we compromise those, we become what we despise and we lose our humanity.” I believe those words are gospel truth. Religion, politics and business separate us, divide us, teach us to demonize that which is different, ALL who are different than we. What we need now is not separation and division but unity, love, kindness, compassion and understanding. And to move toward the light that We Really Are. If I do only one thing with this blog and my main site, if I move even one soul toward the light, it will have all been worth it. Even if that soul is me. much love, :^) gene

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene

The Symptoms of Inner Peace

From Steve Goodier’s, Life Support Newsletter, another treasure worth sharing. :^)

THE SYMPTOMS OF INNER PEACE (TM)
by Saskia Davis, reprinted with permission of the author
(A note from the author follows today’s reading.)

Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great
many have already been expose to inner peace and it is possible that
people everywhere could come down with it in epidemic proportions.
This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now, been a fairly
stable condition of conflict in the world.

Some signs and symptoms of inner peace:

* A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based
on past experiences.

* An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

* A loss of interest in judging other people.

* A loss of interest in judging self.

* A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

* A loss of interest in conflict.

* A loss of the ability to worry. (This is a very serious symptom.)

* Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

* Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.

* Frequent attacks of smiling.

* An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them
happen.

* An increased susceptibility to the love extended by others as well
as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.

WARNING: If you have some or all of the above symptoms, please be
advised that your condition of inner peace may be so far advanced as
to not be curable. If you are exposed to anyone exhibiting any of
these symptoms, remain exposed only at your own risk.

© 1984 Saskia Davis
———— –
A note from the author:

SYMPTOMS OF INNER PEACE was written from the state of being that it
describes. In fact, when I wrote it, I was high on Love. Not romantic
love, but the kind that confirms to us that we are connected to and
supported by the Universe. It had been eight years since I had taken
stock of my unsatisfying life and had committed myself to changing it
from the inside – out. This had meant giving up “image-management- for-
the-sake-of- social-acceptance” in favor of choices and relationships
that were based on my real thoughts, feelings and desires as well as
giving up fear-based choices in favor of faith and love-based choices.
The result was a passionate and satisfying life grounded in deep inner
peace, the state from which SYMPTOMS OF INNER PEACE was written.

Since “SYMPTOMS” first was published, it has taken on a life of its
own, making its way around the world via friends, newsletters,
bulletin boards, books, radio, church groups, and, now, the internet
where it can be found on hundreds, possibly thousands of sites which
seem to be multiplying exponentially: a totally grassroots peace
movement! Wow! What a rush!

Blessings,

Saskia

What Will You Become?

In accordance with Steve Goodier’s injunction to use his Life Support articles freely, tonight, I am using one of his, that I got in today’s mail. The reason is that I believe there is no such thing as coincidence in this world. And I have just finished a book, I’ve mentioned called the Biology of Transcendence by Joseph Chilton Pearce. In the latter part of his book is a chapter called Always Becoming, in which he quotes Jesus, as saying during his time in the desert before beginning his walk around the middle east, “If I be lifted up I draw all people toward me.” Which thought brought me to a song from Sarah McLachlan’s that I particularly love, which has a verse that has drawn me in deeper each time I’ve listened to it.

“I’m pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness, I feel like letting go.

If all of the strength and all of the courage
come and lift me from this place,
I know I could love you much better than this,
full of grace
full of grace.”

Then comes Steve in the third instance of becoming, because to me that is what Sarah is singing about too, overcoming the darkness, becoming the light of love. And, to me, divinity reveals itself in threes. Mind, body, spirit. Always the divine triad. So when Steve’s newsletter arrived today, the synchronicity of it seemed, well, right. I need to percolate a bit about Transcendence before I talk about it here, but I wanted these three ideas to float around the ether while I do that. That subject line IS the real question I’ve been asking since the inception of my own “mystical” experiences. What will I become? It is a personal question but it is one I think we all need be asking ourselves. And moving always in that becoming toward the light. So enjoy Steve’s story, I’ll be back tomorrow night with another idea, much love, :^) gene

WHAT WILL YOU BECOME?

“Is it true,” a young boy asked his mother, “that we are made of dust?”

“Yes,” she said.

“And is it true that we go back to dust again when we die?” he continued.

“Yes, dear.”

“Well, Mommy, when I looked under my bed I saw someone who was coming or going, but I don’t know which.”

I’m afraid to look under MY bed….

There are times that we feel as if we don’t know whether we are coming or going. But this little boy doesn’t have to worry about people coming and going underneath his bed.

But did you know that all things are coming and going in a different way? Even people are constantly reshaped, remolded and re-created! Not from dust bunnies, but from life itself. Let me explain.

The Rocky Mountains in which I live are reshaped every year. Wind, water and ice erode them away about three inches every 1,000 years. That isn’t much, but they are being re-formed all the time. A 10,000 foot peak will vanish every 40 million years! In fact, today’s Rocky Mountains are the third version of earlier mountains that rose out of volcanic turbulence and eroded through the passage of time.

We may not see much of a difference in ourselves from day to day, but we, too, are shaped and reshaped. Everything that happens to us, the good and the bad, leaves its mark. Actually, we are not even the people we were yesterday!

But unlike mountains, we have a hand in our re-creation. Harsh experiences can erode and destroy, or we can use them to call forth beautiful inner qualities. Illness can actually create within us an attitude of compassion for others who suffer. Loss can help build strong bonds with others who care. Suffering of all kinds can be used to strengthen our faith.

Even good times can leave us different than they found us. We can use joy to hone a sense of humor and pleasant memories to cultivate a heart of gratitude. Everything shapes us. You and I are being re-created every minute of every day.

We are quite literally in the process of “becoming.” The possibilities are exciting and wonderful. In a short time from now, you will be a different person than you are today.

The important question is: What will you become? Something extraordinary can happen when that question is answered seriously. What will you become? Your very life depends on your answer!

My hope as always is expressed below. :^)

If today brings even one choice your way
choose to be a bringer of the light :^) gene