September 11 represents what can happen when Fear and Anger run rampant within the Soul.

Today, let us calm our negative emotional expressions, so We represent Love and Acceptance – making Fear and Anger unnecessary historical expressions.

Today, let us move our intentions away from war towards the peaceful building of the society we want our children to live in.

Today, let us move our money away from military weapons of destruction to feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.

Today, let us move our attention away from being afraid.

Today, let us focus our money towards curing disease.

Today.

I’ve also gotten to spend some time researching and thinking about life purpose. I found a few good books along the way, as well as a couple of good websites that I will introduce you to.

I was inspired by another TED Video. This time, the video is by a Pakistani man speaking at TED India. With him, he had brought pictures and greetings from ordinary Pakistani citizens. He read about each of their lives, their life aspirations for their children, and brought a greeting of peace from each of them. He was successful at separating the politics of the nations from the daily dreams and aspirations of everyday people. It occurs to me that these dreams and aspirations are universal, regardless of the nation, religion, or ethnic background we happen to be born into.

We all want to make a difference. We want adequate food, health, and shelter. We want to be known. We want to prepare a better life for those who are to follow us.  We want to be able to follow our dreams. We want our rights to be respected. We want a government that allows us to achieve these goals. I believe that these dreams and aspirations are universal, regardless of the country, religion, or ethnicity you happen to have been born into.

For this holiday season, I wish for each of you to have the opportunity to experience your life dreams.  I believe it is our common birthright, regardless of our country or religion of origin. I wish this for every citizen of the United States, Canada, Britain, Iran, Japan, China, Taiwan, and the citizens of every other world country. I wish this for every Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, and the participants of every other religion.  My prayer is that we learn to embrace our commonality of desire, not our differences.

Blessings for a bright, safe, and healthy Holiday Season.

Something to think about…..

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While I was half watching, the thought came.  These are the people who are leading our country?  People who engage in personal attack, disrespectful behavior, and congressmen who insult others to their face?  Politicians who work to instill fear of the future into the hearts and minds of it’s citizens, as they search for a political advantage?  Speaking for myself, this behavior is far more discouraging than the individual policies they may represent.

Our problems are too big, and too complex to be playing a game of political football.  From my perspective, we need our representatives to muster all of the Love and Spiritual Power they can find, along with their best understandings of compassion, respect, and kindness, and then put them to use to solve our problems.  The congressmen I see represented in the media  spend a lot of time fighting the ideas / bills / laws they don’t want, and not as clearly emphasizing what they want to build.

We simply cannot build what we want by fighting what we don’t want.  It doesn’t work that way.  You want Health Care that works for everyone?  Put a plan in front of us that will allow us to make the best possible choices from a wide list of selections, and help us to understand why your plan is better – don’t try to sell your plan by attacking someone else’s plan.  All that tells me is that your plan is not that good.  The time you spend attacking and insulting another’s plan is time you have wasted.  Better to spend time developing and educating the public about your own plan.

Equally unacceptable is the News Media’s role in this.  We need a news media who will report to us what is happening – objectively.  It is not acceptable for the news media to simply give time to the extreme elements of society – people who rudely disrupt proceedings and pundits with narrow views in an increasingly complex world.

This is what I mean by “Spiritual Leadership”.  We need politicians and news media to be guided by the common spiritual principles of kinship, compassion, fair play, and Love.  We need leaders who are worthy of the public trust, and who work to develop a greater society.

I understand the concept of the Separation of Church and State.  The founders of the United States did not want the government led by one faith’s set of religious principles.  They wanted people of all faiths to have an equal say in how their country is governed.  They did not intend that our leaders would have to disregard all spiritual principles before they entered the halls of Government.  Although I don’t want the Government led from a perspective of strict Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist doctrine, I also don’t want my government leaders to discard the core spiritual traditions of Compassion, Love, Justice, and Fair Play. I want the Media to do the same.  I want them to embrace core spiritual values, which are shared by all major world religions.

Of course, it’s not enough that we demand this of our leaders, if we don’t also demand it of ourselves.  Our politicians are, in the end, a reflection of the people who elect them. One of the lessons I’ve learned in my life is that I usually cannot change other’s beliefs by force, but I can often change them by example and by positive leadership. Does our daily behavior exhibit the values that we want our children and our politicians to display?  Will you join me in my attempt to set a better example for those in our world?

Something to think about…..

We live in the house we all build – www.earthshare.org

Nick has travelled the world, has spoken to over 2 million people, has inspired many, and continues to make an impact.  For additional information on Nick’s life, click here.  What gifts do you have to give today?

Something to think about…..

My life is my message  -  Mahatma Ghandi

Something to think about…..

There’s nothing about death to like.  It can happen very quickly, which is tremendously hard on family and friends.  It can happen slowly, which is very hard on the person dying.  If I had to pick out the best way to die, I can’t come up with any choices I like.  It seems like a painful process for all concerned.  Why is it necessary?

I hope I’ve grown a bit through the years, though I sometimes still ask similar questions.  I guess I’ve just begun to accept it.  It’s one of the universal experiences of living.  We all have an experience of it.  In some ways, our questioning can tie us together, and bring us closer together.  For that period of time, we realize that we’re all in this together, and that all we have here for support is each other.  The period of mourning is comforting in that way.  People pull together.  People tell you of love that remains unexpressed at other times.  People go out of their way to extend niceties.  Perhaps it’s a way of reminding us who and what we love, and reminding us that we can extend that love at all times.

To me though, the question is:  What purpose does life have, if “life” really ends at death?  Life makes sense if this is some type of learning ground, but I can’t really put my arms around all of the daily miracles we experience if it doesn’t have a purpose (See Everyday Miracles for more information).  Why would the thousands of Everyday Miracles exist?  The thought that all of these Everyday Miracles are just the result of some cosmic accident just doesn’t make sense to me.  It seems to me that there has to be a higher reason for this experience, and I suppose I will have to wait for a while longer before I get to know for sure what that purpose is.

It occurs to me that life is more than just this body we inhabit.  When my father died, I remember thinking that Dad was more than just his body.  The thing that made him the person I knew was the life force that inhabited his body.  After death, that life force was gone, it wasn’t there.  What was left was a shell that used to be inhabited by the energy called Dad.

The laws of physics tell us that energy never dies.  It simply changes form, from one form of expression to another.  I think that is what happened to Dad and Betty.  Their life force / energy left the body, leaving it behind – since the body was no longer strong enough to support their journey.  I expect they continued on their journey as another form of energy.  That gives me comfort.

I suppose I may have more on this later, but for now, it remains

Something to think about…..

Betty Rogers – February 8, 1935 to October 24, 2009

I love this quote from Maya Angelou. If I think about the people who have had the greatest impact on my life, I find that it is certainly true for me. My grandmother, for example, was a significant person in my life. She died 32 years ago. At this point, I remember fewer of her specific words and actions than I did 15 years ago, but I’ve never forgotten how I felt when I was with her. I felt loved. I felt valued. I was always glad to be with her. For that reason, she continues to influence my life even today.

I believe you have the power to impact someone as deeply as my grandmother affected me. Do you have someone who looks up to you now? Do you have someone who believes in you? Do you know someone who could use your love and assurance? Is there someone who is important to you who might not know that? Consider extending your love and gratitude for their presence. You never know what impact you may have.

Something to think about….

“Loving what is” is a fundamental teaching of many world traditions. Each of us has been given the gift of life, a gift that we spend one day at a time. Each of us has been given enough food, medicine, water, love and money to live our lives to whatever age we have currently achieved. In the process, we have learned about life, love, family, achievement, and our spiritual selves. Each day, we’re given a new opportunity to create the life of our dreams. Each new day is a gift, issued in finite quantities, to achieve again. Our goal, I believe, is to be present to the needs of ourselves, our loved ones, and our world, to take action to create the life of our dreams, and to live the life that we have imagined.

There is, in my opinion, a huge difference between resisting what is, and working to create a life of your dreams. Let’s take the controversial topic of abortion, for example. If you were to take a poll, I don’t think many people would consider themselves “Pro-Abortion”. Most women that I have talked to who consider themselves Pro-Choice consider abortion to be an unwanted alternative. (For the record, I am not pro-abortion either. I think it’s a tremendous waste of a life that could have been).  Each year, Abortion Protestors spend thousands (if not tens of thousands of hours or more) protesting, planning protests, (and resisting) Abortion. These Abortion Protestors, I think, really want a planet free from abortion. What affect would we have had on the abortion issue if each of these protestors had taken that same amount of time, energy, money and manpower and had instead devoted it to abortion alternatives? What if they had spent that time working on the development of responsible sex education programs, child adoption programs, crisis counseling, counseling centers where teenage girls could go when they learned of their pregnancy, family counseling centers, responsible parenting classes, etc?  The agencies currently devoted to these services often go understaffed, and underfunded. My personal belief is that if all of the Abortion Protestors would spend their time developing, staffing, and funding these abortion alternatives, the need for abortion and abortion protests would diminish dramatically, while at the same time our care for our society would increase.  Pro-lifers could spend their time developing, staffing, and funding these abortion alternatives as well instead of developing picket signs and handouts.

Let’s take George W. Bush’s War on Terror as another example. Islamic Fundamentalism is. At the present moment, we can’t change that. What we can do is create a world where Islamic Fundamentalism doesn’t need to kill others. What would have happened, for example, if we had taken the $864 Billion and all of the time and manpower spent on the “War on Terror” so far, and had used that money, time, and effort to build programs of understanding, to build world communication forums, programs for the understanding of other religions, etc.? Consider this a thought exercise. What programs of understanding and community could we have created with that same investment in money, energy and manpower (working to create what we do want), other than what we have already created with it (fighting what we don’t want)? There’s no concrete answer, of course, but my sense is that with that same investment of time, energy, manpower and money – we could have created something substantial – if we had wanted to.

What’s my point? My point actually has nothing to do with abortion nor the War on Terror. My point is that we accomplish much more by accepting, loving, working with, and developing what is, than we do with resisting, condemning, and trying to fight what is. We accomplish much more, in my opinion, by promoting the ideas we love and working to develop the society that we ultimately want to see, than we do by fighting to tear down the society that we don’t want, and arguing/fighting against the ideas we don’t like.  Loving what is has nothing to do with not working for change. Loving what is does not mean being a doormat and letting “what is ‘walk all over you’”. Loving what is means that you start with where you are, and with love, you begin to develop the life you do really want to live, and the society you want you, your family, and your loved ones to live in. It means building your new life, it means creating the society you want. It means building happiness, calming sadness, defusing anger, and creating anew. It means inclusion.

Resisting what is, on the other hand, creates an “Us versus them” mindset. It strengthens the determination of the opposition.  It fosters anger, resentment, fear, rage, and sadness. It leads to retaliation, destruction, isolation, and loss. It means excluding others.

Think of those whom you consider to be great leaders. What characteristics do those great leaders have in common? Many of the leaders that have been considered great throughout history are those that worked to develop that which they did want. Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, John F Kennedy, America’s Founding Fathers, etc., were leaders with a vision. They knew where they wanted to take society. They had dreams of building a greater community. They worked to create equality. They worked to create what they wanted to achieve. Do the leaders you consider “Great” share the trait of working to build the life / society they wanted?

Are you working to achieve the life of your dreams? Are you taking constructive actions to make your life count, and make the world a better place? Will the world be a better place because of your actions? What will your legacy be? Will it be a legacy of building, loving, constructive action, greater community, helping others and creating the life of your dreams, or will it be a legacy of anger, divisiveness, isolation and resisting life as you see it?

Something to think about…..