Sharing Spiritual Inspiration and Insights

2/10/10 – We can help others best by recognizing that we don’t know how to—but God does. We can be fully present, accepting and loving. We can ask to see clearly, allow God to work through us appreciatively, encouragingly and forgivingly, and not interfere.
2/9/10 – When we limit the number of times we turn to our guiding spirit for insight, inspiration and help, we limit the number of daily problems, large and small, that we can resolve.
2/8/10 – Our happiness and strength arise from our undivided efforts to see, accept and lift ourselves and all others as God’s one perfect, unconditionally-beloved, eternal creation, to whom he has given everything, and with whom he is well-pleased.
2/7/10 – All apparent angry attacks and defensiveness conceal fearful pleas for healing and help. When we ask for God’s grace and vision, he lifts every imagined illusion and barrier to the love that sees only goodness and unity, and sets all things right.
2/6/10 – We get angry at others because we feel guilty about what we’ve done to them, not the other way around. And so we try to make ourselves feel better by dumping our guilt feelings on them, imagining we can rid ourselves of our guilt that way. We can’t.
2/5/10 – Human culture projects its fearful interpretation upon everyone’s actions, while spiritual guidance leads us to a more peaceful, loving vision. Thus, we can reactively interpret behavior as aggressive, or we can ask to see it as offering—or requesting—love.
2/4/10 – When we notice someone who frightens us—someone apparently sick or sad or desperate or angry—we can ask our guiding spirit for another way of seeing that person, not let our fear interfere, surrender the encounter to peace and inspiration, and relax.
2/3/10 – When we ask for clarity and guidance, we find out that what we need and want the most, but may have temporarily lost sight of, is exactly what God wills for us too. We are wholly supported in accomplishing this shared will—surely, safely, serenely, joyfully.
2/2/10 – We don’t understand our own needs. Our guiding spirit does, and will supply them, when we let go of our own ideas of what they are, and stop hurrying to fulfill them. Instead, we can be willing to ask, and receive.
2/1/10 – Gifts given resentfully, guiltily and fearfully, without loving thoughts, are unwelcome sacrifices, angry attacks, tradeoffs, payments for something. We imagine someone is demanding sacrifices of us, but we’re demanding them of ourselves. Continue reading

Justice and Peace Are One Path

Excerpts: Angry media xenophobes and demagogues try to scare us into believing that the world is divided into a tiny deserving few of “us” vs. a vast faceless, threatening, undeserving “them,” urging us to abandon the goal of peace and justice for all, and to put power and wealth in the hands of a few self-interested fear-mongers who guilefully “guarantee” safety through militarism. Offering the opposite message are the great leaders of our past and present, urging us to love and help one another, to give and forgive, to risk peace instead of war, and to work together for respectful, supportive conditions valuing the sanctity of human life everywhere. Truly, we cannot avoid all injustice, but we can avoid adding to its sum.
Justice implies neutrality and fairness, but no judges are completely unbiased. We all see the world uniquely, based on our different backgrounds. In the face of the same legal arguments, natural, unavoidable bias is evident in the many disagreements among even our rigorously-selected highest justices.
Our current justices’ life experiences are for the most part grounded in privilege and wealth. A more balanced Supreme Court would include justices whose lives reflect struggles against prejudice, poverty or disadvantage, since, in common law legal systems like our own, justices at times “make the law” by overturning precedents, regulations and legislation, with immense implications for future generations. Continue reading

Can’t We Just All Get Along?

(Excerpt:) Why don’t we all just humbly accept that we are all destined to live and die with great mysteries and uncertainties, and that we aren’t meant to know very many things with any great deal of clarity? We can still pursue understanding, but it's more fun when we realize that whatever it is that God intends for us to do and be and have and believe on this earth—if there is indeed a God even of each of our personal understandings, and Whoever or whatever we each choose to mean by that Name—it is very evidently not likely that we will ever clearly understand everything, or anything, and will certainly never all come to the same conclusions. (Excerpt:) Especially in religious, philosophical, and political discourse, we can spend less time divided among our many differences, and instead celebrate and focus upon our many commonalities—all the universal truths upon which we can all agree, all that unites us, such as love, hope, faith (wherever we choose to put that faith), respect, responsibility, honesty, fairness, hard work, spiritual practice, community, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, purity, selflessness, peacefulness…and the rest of the long list of good things we can all agree upon which goes on forever. These ecumenical values, in all their various positive permutations and versions, can always be communally embraced, taught, admired, built upon, and warmly shared among people of all faiths and ideologies, or of no faith or ideology. Then, instead of forever being self-righteously “right”–that is, wrong–we can celebrate and embrace one another's uniqueness, and…just get along. Continue reading

Putting On and Taking Off the Pretty Face of War

Excerpt: The heartrending recent news coverage about the ghastly deaths of defenseless civilians, mostly children, in Qana, Lebanon, tells the real story of the mideast wars: random slaughter, and the relentless ruin of the loves, livelihoods, work, and hopes of thousands of innocent civilians on all sides. Nevertheless, true believers in the necessity, efficacy, and morality of war still churn out article after article arguing war's fairness and positive aspects (“Israeli Military Service Unites Generations;” “'Disproportionate' in What Moral Universe;'” “For Troops, A Sense of Moral Clarity.”) For, in order to sustain the important illusion that war is moral, and to divert public attention away from war's inevitably bloody means and ends, pro-war propagandists shamefully exploit every one of the heart-swelling, toe-tapping, chest-beating moments which arise in the midst of horrific wars—all the gentlemanly charitable acts, the selfless patriotism and bravery, the beauty and idealism of youth…. Excerpt: Every soldier who ever shot, tortured, or pushed a captive out of a plane in order to obtain information necessary to protect his own knows that the cruel reality of war makes a mockery of the prettified versions held up for public viewing, the ones giving lip service to human rights, morality, and a rule of law which rests on due process, presumption of innocence, the right to legal counsel, and a fair and speedy trial. Excerpt: Any soldier who ever fought in a real shooting war knows that legal and moral niceties are suspended during the life-and-death situation that is war, hauled out only as convenient for public viewing. Snipers, for example, act instantaneously as judge, jury, and executioner to their random, anonymous suspects. Bombardiers, and missile and rocket launchers unleash hell, raining fire down equally upon all their anonymous, hapless victims…. Excerpt: To hear tell, war crimes are rare aberrations perpetrated by atypical rogues, stray criminal elements within otherwise pristine organizations. The truth is, crimes against humanity happen all the time, on both sides, during all wars, a direct result of the bloody training, means, conditions, and ends of war…. Continue reading

Disgusting-Type-of-Liberal Unfairly Spews Appallingly Naive Garbage About Haditha, 'Military Justice', Occupations, Peace, and Other Outrages….

(excerpt): If the two letters could have been republished side-by-side, I would have liked to point out to my responder that, to the twenty-four Haditha slaughterees, and to the rest of the hundreds of thousands of civilian and military victims of the American invasion and occupation–many of whom were innocent of any political involvement, and the rest guilty mostly of harboring opposing political loyalties and beliefs, or of needing to make what seemed like an honest buck soldiering–to all of these victims, if the American soldiers were not terrorists, they must at least have looked like terrorists as they were climbing in windows and breaking down doors, bristling and blazing away with high-tech weaponry on women and children, or raining down indiscriminate bombs from above…. Continue reading

Fair Negotiations with Iran. NOT.

(Excerpt): International fairness is demonstrated when individual nations hold themselves to the same high international standards of behavior they expect from others. America is the biggest and strongest nation among equals, established under the highest principles, ideals and values; we can also choose to become the humblest, the most respected, even the most loved nation, by reflecting in our international policies our deeply-held belief that all men truly are created equal, with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and by living the golden rule–treating all others as we would like to be treated. Continue reading

The Best and the Dimmest

(excerpt): The other day, changing clothes at the YMCA, I chatted with a delightful stranger, a twin in her fifties who apparently has never competed with her identical twin sister (and best friend) in anything. Not during their childhood, not as teenagers, not as wives and mothers, not even now since their kids had grown. I was flabbergasted.
(Excerpt): In brutal contrast, I grew up in an extremely competitive household. My three sisters and I spent considerable youthful (and later, adult) energy attempting to best one another in every arena, whether trivial or significant. We carved our egos, our veriest identities, out of what shreds were left after thoroughly wrestling and wringing out every possible family title. (Excerpt):
Here’s what I’ve decided: whenever we compete “against” another, whether as individuals, groups, or nations, competition works against our highest goals, ideals, and purposes. Any time we move away from simple, personal or cooperative effort, towards something as mean-spirited as hurtful competition, we move toward erasure of mankind’s highest ethical standard, the “golden rule”— treating others as we would like to be treated—and move instead toward “all’s fair in love and war,” a smarmy slogan which conveniently discards morality and ethics as low-priority whenever something newly urgent feels at stake. (Excerpt): Because such unfriendly competition, apparently, has never improved anything—not a single relationship, not a single enterprise on this tiny, fragile, interconnected planet, where every thing we do impacts everyone, where every thing we think touches every other mind, and where we share the very air we breathe and every drop we drink. Continue reading

Coulda Been, Woulda Been, Shoulda Been….Sad Lessons in 20/20 Foresight

A few weeks after 9/11, my local newspaper published my (pre-blog) “solutions” and comments about “what we should do next/now….” Excerpt: I would figure out which American foreign policies have resulted in so much global hatred and criticism, and change them….I would not assume that everyone wants us to come over and tell them how to live….I would offer help to others in reaching whatever goals are important to them….I would give no support to government policies and decisions that legitimize treating non-Americans in ways we Americans would not wish to be treated….I would use this terrible, tragic attack as an opening to form global alliances based in respect and love for human life, human freedom, and human interests everywhere….I would not use the arguments of “stablity” or “American interests” or protection of our citizenry to legitimize unjustly invading, occupying, imposing on, or exploiting any other peoples, or to create or support undemocratic governments favorable to American interests….If some of the money we spend on military and intelligence were spent on kindness, diplomacy, and sharing, we'd be a safer, richer, happier country….I pray in the name of (9/11's) most direct sufferers that their memory will not be disrespected by using them as an excuse to start World War III…. Continue reading

My Father the Terrorist

He was a man who would kill and maim innocent children and civilians if he was told to do so by his leaders … Who would boldly face certain death for his beliefs … Who believed that death and destruction solved problems … Who believed in retaliating violently, and avenging losses … Who would kill anyone he was told was a threat to his safety, home, land, family, traditions and beliefs … Who would kill and die anywhere in the world to further his people's interests, and to spread their ways around the world … He was a man who thought terror a reasonable means of achieving political, social and economic goals … He was also a U.S. Army career officer, a highly decorated war hero, attorney, horseman, poet, woodsman, musician, scratch-handicap golfer, linguist, historian, and gentle, patriotic, idealistic, loving son, husband, brother, friend … father…. My father. Continue reading

We Need Not Add to the Sum of Human Injustice

Excerpt: Our most powerful “weapon” is our national reputation. As long as the U.S. is seen as a rich, selfish country careless of human welfare and disrespectful of international opinion, no stirring words, no proud history, and certainly no amount of spending on intelligence and defense can protect us from our multiplying enemies…. Continue reading