We'll Miss You When You're Gone, Donald Trump

Hate him or love him, we will most likely miss the Donald Trump effect in the presidency when he has gone.

I say this as someone who has never considered voting for the man. I rarely watched him on television, having found his personality more abrasive than entertaining. (Actually, I turned away from him after his deceptive treatment of Merv Griffin in a real estate deal many years ago. Always liked Merv, especially his acceptance of responsibility for being conned by the Trumpster, while The Donald gloated over what he had done to him.) Never the less, after all the water under the bridge, I, like, almost all late night comedy, will miss him as the president when he's gone.

Because Donald Trump, with all of his flaws, and they are considerable, brought forth a form of honesty within the presidency that has not been seen for many years. He is the exposed, underside of Clinton, the bombastic privilege of Shrub and the egoic crush of Obama. He proudly plays the lone gunman at the NRA convention.

And he most certainly rocks the boat, most all boats.

The Republicans don't know what to do with him. He's unable to accept or tolerate their constructive correction in keeping the behind the scenes power-mongering hidden. He or his chosen representatives blurt out the most inappropriate secrets at the most inappropriate times. He believes that letting others see him control and manipulate what mostly has been backroom politics is not only manageable by him, but accentuates the brilliancy of his game.

So lying, incivility, deception, insensitivity, brash ignorance, bullying, etc. etc. etc.,—all staples of Washington politics now become visible, decipherable, almost comical theater through his lead.

The Dems of which I long entertained membership within, find his behavior atrocious, even though behind the scenes they thrive within the same degradation, only hidden. Are we to believe that from his obvious character flaws, they are moved to remove him in service to the people?

I don't buy that for an instant. The people who go into Washingtonian politics aren't there for their humanitarian qualities. They are there because they are skilled and experienced in garnering power and if anything, they want Trump gone so Washington can return as nearly as it can to the status quo where behind the scenes, safe and discreet manipulation of the nation can be accomplished. Both parties want this. Think about it. No one goes to Washington to work with the Dali Lama. They side up to Citizen Kane.

So when Trump leaves, it will be interesting to see who fills the void next. What his chaos has brought out is how deep and great our divisions are, how fervently we deny them and how uncivil we are with each other when forced to face it. And BTW, I suspect he has no idea he's doing this. My hunch is he's way too busy congratulating himself as to his "winner" ways. No matter.

The next election might require a candidate who can simultaneously expose and sweep under the rug the issues we struggle with. He/she will have to be able to court those who are radically biased, both those prejudiced as to the rights of appearance and lifestyle but those who are equally intolerant of others rights to believe what they want to believe. After all, more and more passionate voters are showing up in all camps.

It will be interesting, no doubt, but after Trump and all that he has stirred up, will America ever be able to sleep so serenely upon its differences again? I know the Dems and GOP hope so, but maybe the Trump presidency is just the beginning of the shit show.

Yes, Slavery Was a Choice

Thanks Kanye West, for saying that 400 years of slavery "sounds like a choice".

It is. As surely as those souls who during 9/11 chose falling to their deaths free from being burned alive.

But yeah, they made a choice.

It seems very appropriate to me that someone not facing incineration, lynching or such imminent threat should point this out. Especially now.

We are living in a time where with little, direct contact with others, we can dismiss their stories, struggles and the weight of changing human beliefs that mold, imprison and persuade us depending upon where we are on the timeline. Thus we can feel (falsely) justified and satisfied to judge others and their choices without having ever even having asked them about the paths they have trod and why.

Eckhart Tolle once said in addressing a person whose spouse seemed deep in projecting pain, "No one consciously chooses to be in pain." I love him just for that. It puts in perspective for me, all the self-righteous bullshit about needing to be responsible to self and others. You can't do what you can't do! If you can, it's not your will that achieved, it's the Collective Universe supporting you.

But without knowing this, ancient Coach Joe Paterno can be hounded to his death for not dealing with his experience of youth abuse then, the way we would NOW. And all the response to the issues that civilized society sees more clearly now, becomes retroactively the standard for those who couldn't see so clearly then.

Prejudice is out, we say. But is it? Maybe you believe it should be, but that doesn't change the fact that it is not. That others haven't had the gift that your insight and experience has lifted you to see is apparent. "Oh, but they should see it this way, because it's evident to me that it's not right." Is it any wonder Trump is president right now. He speaks to millions of people who not as civilly enlightened as us, are upset about living in a society that measures them by what they should see instead of what they do see. Do you see the importance of a conversation of discovery here?

If I were God I would use reincarnation to place everyone in the next life in the probability that their new life would force & allow them to experience the need for the compassion and understanding they denied others in their last life. Yeah ... slaves to slave owners, slave owners to slaves ... till we get it.

Blame and protest adds nothing. Only love and the exploration of understanding and acceptance of another's path and their experience of it, can triumph.

We had best hope that the children and grandchildren of those facing the consequences from what we are now sculpting in present world culture, come to a wider understanding and compassion for us, and the times and the beliefs that have limited us in seeing it.

Otherwise how will we explain our participation in such enterprises as choosing to support the compulsivity of entertainment and data screens over exploring what is before us. What will we say to our replacing real, live, authentic communication with the preference for "tweeting" and other social scripting. How will we justify numbing out from our social conscience, allowing our leaders to make a joke of our nation, turning lying into an art form and denial into a legitimate way of expression. And most of all, what do we say when our more civilly aware offspring ask us how we as a community could have ever idolized fandom over a few billionaires in the midst of billions crying out for our help to survive. My hunch is our response will be the same as before us, "It seemed like the way to go."

Well, when the debts come due for the ways we have chosen, we like Papa Joe, the slaves & slave owners and Kanye West too, will each speak of how we honestly made the best decisions we could, seeing barely between a rock and hard spot and we will be telling the truth, YES we will be telling the truth, our truth. Hopefully those who then see wider than the narrowness of our sight will have been raised into the wisdom, humility and compassion to recognize and love the true cost and the full vitality we paid in faith of a better view.

Yes, it sounds like a choice ... and it is. And gratefully Kanye, it was a choice others made for us.

daleblackford: Getting Down & Dirty With the Truth

daleblackford: Getting Down & Dirty With the Truth: In the midst of all that happened Wednesday, one thing stood out for me. Not the shootings at the ball field or in San Francisco because ha...

Getting Down & Dirty With the Truth

In the midst of all that happened Wednesday, one thing stood out for me. Not the shootings at the ball field or in San Francisco because hatred projected through bullets and bombs is becoming commonplace. What struck me is that President Trump said that the proposed GOP Healthcare Bill was "mean". That is a new conversation for him. The bill has been mean from the get-go, throughout his support of it. But honest, rational, compassionate feedback about it now from him? Even if it's to cover for a potential defeat of the bill, it was refreshing to hear our seemingly 24/7 mean-spirited president say something honest and compassionate.

I have not been a political fan of Trump. In fact, my ego has railed against him, however, I am seeing why it is appropriate that he is in office now. There is no difference in Truth, Reality or Conscious Effect between the words and manner of someone who says "I hate people like that because of their race, beliefs, gender, sexuality, etc. and someone who says, "I hate people who think and act that way." Oh, yes in society and the world there certainly is a difference where the rules are painstakingly clear. But in Truth what is being projected by both from WITHIN to without is intolerance toward the other. And intolerance backed by education, sensibility or any other good intention, still has mostly one effect ... separation.

Trump represents millions of voices whose opinions and ways may appear to be coarse, selfish, impersonal and even cruel to violent. And many of these people with these voices have been ignored or denigrated through isolation and PC shaming. Yet these characteristics are ones we all know too well, whether by affirming & projecting them, turning away and burying them inside or courageously facing and passing through their blustering messages.

We are now at a time where shootings, bombings, killings and other violence has escalated to an often multiple times daily occurrence. And believe me, without a transcendent change of course, it's going to get worse. A lot worse.

And still supposedly sane, intelligent people keep shouting out the repetitive bullshit that we will not tolerate any more of this from "them" as if that's a plan tried over millenniums of human experience that has ever worked.

Well, "them" has got to turn into a conversation about "us" through the willingness to believe that it's not what someone believes, but who they are that matters. And if it takes wrestling together through a mountain of what we don't agree about to get to the heart of who we are, rather than who we think we should be, well, then that's the new Plan B. And yes, no matter how seemingly ugly, inappropriate or unacceptable the package containing you and me is, it's a sane course. In fact, the more we are together, disagreeing about the worldly stuff, the better the chances are we will both desire to see what we can agree on--the heartfelt stuff. Could there be a cost to this? Yes. Some have participated even unto death, but look around friends, death is already in full play.

"But Dale, this seems like pie-in-the-sky thinking."

Well, We aren't going to be able to contain or sustain these global levels of increasing isolation, hatred and pain. Look around you. We aren't communicating and we're getting more and more vulnerably unavailable through our technologies. We either work together towards healing through outrageously open models or we drown in the tidal wave of increasing separation & denial--which will then force collapse, thus stripping and empowering us to work together in outrageously open ways towards healing. Because there are no laws, law enforcement, noble expectations, magical thinking, social actions or societal pressures that will influence us to abandon our prejudices. We let go when we see the necessity to do so and the Universe will help us through inspiration and by bringing to bear the escalating cost of our maintaining the status quo.

So President Trump said something seemingly true and compassionate, i.e. that a plan to take away health care benefits from millions who most need it, is mean spirited.

Here is where it begins for me. In spite of all the resistance I have felt for you, Donald Trump, I accept you as our president because I am a committed part of the whole who, like it or not, has brought you into leadership.

Thank you for saying something real and objectively compassionate. I applaud you and hope that you will follow through with more honesty and compassion. Yes, I know you feel you need to fervently support the interests of those who elected you, but you also represent me and those who didn't elect you. As a representative of the latter, I will do my best to see you in the light of your Spirit, not just your personality flaws and political intentions, with faith that Spirit knows what It is doing through you (as It does in all of us). Again, thank you for standing up (if only in words) for those who need your support. It is a part of you that I and many others can appreciate and support.

The bottom line is that love is love and it heals. And prejudice is prejudice, which poisons, even when it's used for noble reasons.

Moving to Cuba to Get Closer to My Ego

I recently watched the movie Arrival and was surprised with my experience of it. It's a movie I wouldn't recommend for those wanting to escape into a story. It challenged my thinking in ways that were very perplexing, frustrating and exciting. Won't say more about that. No spoilers.

I will address one scene, though, that got me to thinking about thinking. In the film, Louise, the Amy Adams linguist character, tells her colleague, played by Jeremy Renner, that immersion in a new language, rewires your brain, i.e. re-patterns how one thinks within their experiences.

So I looked it up on the internet and sure enough, there's a lot of research that has been done on that subject with similar results. It immediately got me fantasizing about moving to Cuba and immersing myself in Spanish for a few months. Seriously, I'm thinking about it. But even more so, it got me thinking about the language that I have grown up within, English, and how it has affected how I process experiences and information.

It's been happening all along, but I first noticed that I was noticing it in a song that has been a staple within the ministries I have served and attended. Some of you know I was ordained a minister by the Unity School of Christianity over thirty years ago and you may have your own experience with Unity churches as well. At the end of the services, the congregation gathers in a circle and sings "The Peace Song".

The song has evolved (PC) through the years. "Our Father" has become "Creator". "With every step I take ..." became "every breath I take" and other changes too. But in singing the song a few weeks ago, a very glaring observation occurred. Near the end the lyrics are "... let this be my solemn (or joyous) vow. To take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally. ..."

Suddenly I realized that the words "each moment" would not do. It needed to be "this moment". Because to futurize the word "moment", i.e. sing of each progressing one, was to say nothing with any meaning at all. The moment is Now and never beyond it. "Each moment", is a plan, not an entry point. It's the ultimate cop-out to push anything into the future. Once projected there, it's safe to say I don't have to deal with it Now. I can postpone it to the fantasy of the next moment instead, which never ends ... until ... Now.

It got me thinking further about our language of futurizing. It's the language of our ego actually, the loudest, most compelling voice in the world, the noise of our collective repetitive minds driving us with what to do.

And what do we hear? "You should ...", "find this ...", "what will happen if ...", "how can I change this ...?", "what's missing?", what do I want/need?", etc. What these messages have in common is a reliance upon and impetus toward "what's next?" and "what will or won't I do about it?"

It's the noise of the world that compulsively drive us to keep pace without taking the moment to seriously question whether any of it means anything more than a drum beat to continue marching to.

Oh, but Dale. What would happen to the world if we didn't keep trying to solve the world's problems? How about no problems? How about a shift in global perception that changes how we function from seemingly isolated doers forming billions of problematic gaps within our doings, into collective realizers who together accept the prosperity of harmony within and all around us? But then that would take away, "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat". That's a pretty powerful teat the world, its leaders and most of its citizens are sucking on. But it's like a wise soul once said, "Sometimes a majority simply means all the fools are on the same side."

Relax. I'm not writing this as a plan. It wouldn't work as a plan. More like a wakeup call that can emerge through inevitable collapse. And we are most certainly headed for psychic collapse. I'm certain of that. Because insanity can be very exciting, but it's still batshit crazy, even and especially when it's the norm. And the cost just keeps increasing. Sanity might look at first boring or impossible, but really, it's just an excuse to hide our fear of having no control over it. However, it's all that's left when insanity becomes too much and gives out. And I have to say, I am a realist. I don't think we have a ghost of a chance of maintaining the illusion. It's wearing us down into freedom. We're running out of time and space to distract ourselves from the pain of living so decidedly meager, while simultaneously pockets of secular realization are emerging.

That's all for now. In one of my next blogs I hope to address in detail, a powerful tool. How to facilitate sane, loving and conscious dialogue with one's ego that can release us from the insane drama of fighting, shaming and attempting to overcome and change our egoic thinking, while accepting how to love and appreciate the ego's precious role in helping us to survive in the insane world that we have imprisoned it within. I am just Now looking at this anew, within the insights of addressing sane and insane use of language--not the content, but the intention with how it is expressed. Because it is projection, not content which corrupts pure, loving intention.

It's all about love and the most unloved is that noisemaker in our minds that we hardly pay attention to, less actually hear. We formed the ego eons ago, as a thought entity to insure that our intention to protect ourselves was consistently enforced. And it is faithful. We need to love and respect what it has done for us. And so free it from the fears of the future that we have bound it to, so it can speak to us anew of the great love (us) that it has found so worthy of working endlessly to save.

Too Sweet To Stomach

A friend texted me this poster a couple days ago querying me as to what I thought of it. First of all, I treasure my brother who sent it. He is always sending me material that somehow looks good but feels a little bit off and asks me for my take on it. He playfully challenges me to see if I'm awake. I love it.

It's a beautiful shot with the words, "You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible." It is attributed to Deepak Chopra.

At first reading, I found myself wanting to agree with what was said, but the more I tried to say, "yes", I kept running into a part of me that wouldn't agree. "What is this?" I thought. "Why can't I just pass this on?" I found this dialogue fascinating because consistently when it comes to truth, my picker is a clear on-off switch. And though I wanted "yes", it was clearly saying "no".

Then it hit me. The quotation was a powerful example of the core flaw that underlies most present, pop spirituality and human potentiality thinking, i.e. a platitude that seems so delicious, yet is impossible to swallow.

The lie lies in the very first words, "You must find ...". "No. This is an act of will." And in fact, no matter how you try, you cannot will yourself into that place inside where nothing is impossible. It's already your natural state. It's not missing, nor a quest. And it's not hidden. It's right before you now and you know it. You just don't want to know that you know it, because you intuitively know how accepting this will impact your efforts to stay busy sustaining your place in your world. It will collapse it.

And rightly so will it dissolve away, because what would you do with this unlimited power if you were able to claim it? Turn it over freely to be used as is It's Nature, in meeting the needs you face all around you, without a shred of resistance, spontaneously, for the immediate good of all led by Divine Wisdom? Come on. Maybe after paying off debts and manifesting a new car, house, relationships, life and a better world according to how your mind with its thimble-full of experience would pattern it. Keep in mind that this means letting go of all your pre-conceived ideas that exclude Wonder and Beauty flowing equally out of utter seeming Chaos as well as Order.

And another point. To find something, you need time and space with which to find it in. Spirit, that place inside, is a Present Moment experience that shows you there is no space and time. This is nuts, yet we continue to talk about the future as if it exists. Here's what's true. If something has to happen in the future, you can be sure it won't ever happen. Why? Because it's the pure fantasy of what's next. Everything happens now. Describe to me what it's like to live anywhere but Here and Now. (Microphone drop.)

The thing is we are all, in this Present Moment, complete vessels of manifesting anything, everything without limitation. All we have to do is surrender and LET THE MANIFESTATION BE AS THE SPIRIT LEADS. But as long as we look to use this Power as our own personal strike force, delivered in some future time and space, well good luck in finding it.

Chopra's saying is very subtle, but it is at the heart of what I would call White Magic or Furniture Moving. Yes, it appears you can tap this force to make what you want to make until you can't make it anymore. For those of you who are still happily engrossed in making things, you don't know what I'm talking about and that's OK. And for those of you who are experiencing the progress of your personal impotence in the world ... I know ... let's just say, ease up on yourself. It's hard to be much of a kite when you've started seeing that your also the wind. It's kinda distracting.

More to come. Love questions & feedback
and thanks for the poster Sal.

Truth Talks and Bullshit Walks

I have to say, the words spiritual practice hold little meaning for me anymore. They've become a cliche--something beyond the norm that a person does to either get what they want or make them feel special about missing out on it. More deviously it's a form of magical thinking that covets unique worthiness unto spiritual reward for thinking and behavior that is prejudicial, repetitive and superstitious. Throw in a miracle, the Divine Lotto for the chosen and that mostly covers it.

So when the old argument comes up, "Yes I believe in Spirit but, God needs our help to rectify the wrongs, change what we fear, etc. ...", PUH-LEASE! God doesn't need anything from us other than our nature--the love which is ultimately required to keep the peace. In fact, it's our intentions and subsequent actions that appear to keep stirring the pot and surprisingly enough throughout the history of pro-active human watch-dogging, the Order of the Universe amazingly keeps holding serve.

For existence is simply a state of mind, not a fixed reality and its condition is how we choose to make/see/form it. It doesn't change us, it changes with who we think we are and are willing to express.

Trending for some time has been the Law of Attraction, aka The Secret, The Law of Visualization, etc. Some eighty years ago, the author Napoleon Hill rose to fame by distilling it into a formula. "What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve." In my tradition of ministry it's known as the Law of Mind-Action: Thoughts held in Mind, produce after their kind. Or in other words: What you you see (in your mind) is what you get (in your experience).

This is the fundamental law of existence, i.e. of how each soul's world comes to appear. For conception and belief linked to will (as Captain Picard would say) "make it so." And no one is held hostage to another's thoughts or actions, unless they make the idea their own and even then, they still retain the power to release it.

How can you say that Dale? People have been victimizing others throughout history? Are you saying that people can't take away our freedom, our power, our lives unless we let them?

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Others can only appear to take away that to which we're attached. Now if you believe, as many do, that you are the person, the body, the circumstances and the drama that can affect and be effected by all of these, then I can see how my statement could seem absurd. However, to avoid these absurd truths and continue making it so, you have to ignore a whole universe of conflicting evidence.

Like God, Order or whatever you want to call It. If you think there is no such Order, fine. Just tell us convincingly, how the human body with all its intricacies from blood flow to neural response, brain, heart and all other organs and the interconnected systems that succeed in animating and renewing the body, tell us how this came about and continues. Our spiritual-psycho-biology just showed up, a fluke of existence? Or how supported upon this planet, we can assert the truth of our thoughts and actions while taking for granted that the earth somehow consistently rotates on its axis, orbiting a star 93 million miles away at such a distance, that moderate radiation keeps a tight temperature range that neither freezes nor incinerates us and our plans. Just lucky huh?

So if this is your position, then well, you've got me. Because if my explanation is a whopper, yours is the whopper of all whoppers--ridiculously ruling out the Real possibility of a Higher Order based on whims of doubt in the face of mountainously uninvestigated mysteries?

Each soul is the full channel of manifestation, at one with the energy that moves in and through its whole sphere of witness and beyond, seemingly limited only by the perception and judgment as to what one is experiencing. This includes all form including our bodies, our experiences, our minds and our world. We see what we want to see, what we're accustomed to seeing, what we're used to believing in and holding onto. And we are pressured by those invested in the illusion to keep maintaining it at all cost.

These false ideas that we communally share are the thoughts that produce after their kind. For example, "We won't stand for incivility." Well, incivility exists because people believe in it--fer it or agin it, as well as in the rules and reactions each deem appropriate for dealing with it. And whether one resists or embraces incivility all that ever changes is our adjustment to incivility while its being acted out, repulsed or lying in waiting.

Ideas produce after their kind. They don't stop when we resist them because to resist them is to engage them. They stop reproducing when the idea is no longer tenable, believable, i.e. not existing in the MIND of the person who once held it. What would a world without incivility look like? Possibly spontaneously uncertain, loving, wild, uncomfortable, unpredictable and alive, just for starters. Instead of reacting from script to address behavior that appears uncivil, people might be exploring the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that come up from beyond the norm of dealing with it. In other words, we'd be like small children bouncing off each other on the playground. They have a lot of fun doing that.

If there is spiritual practice, for me it's thinking-outside-the box while committed to a Faith in ORDER at work in and around me. Trusting that what makes my heart beat and keeps the sun shining is the same Force that keeps the Real Eternal Me mysteriously on course as well. Jesus called this process forgiveness (the no-harm, no-foul kind), the precursor of healing. It's also known as Grace, the Order which unerringly guides, insures and awakens us.

So to wrap up, when others rally to move the furniture in order to better the world, defeat the bad guy or entertain self and the masses, I'm all in. It's good theater and can bring us closer.

But when we let our stories limit who we allow ourselves and the nature of others to be, then I'm staying put in my front row seat to simply watch the show. I return as Divinely called but neither as victim or warrior. I am the Light-Bearer who has the power and authority to forgive, have faith, court bewilderment and release less-than for exploring more. And you can join me if you so choose, or don't. Either way it's completely safe. It's just that insanity produces more of its kind as does love/acceptance too. And we tend to kick against the pricks until we know of and how to flow. The only sane choice then, becomes letting it all go.

Nazruddin was searching around the front yard of his house all morning and well into the afternoon.

His wife came out and said, "Mullah, what are you doing?"

"Looking for my keys." he replied.

"But you've been out there for hours. Don't you remember where you left them?" she inquired.

Nazruddin said, "Oh yes, I know where I lost them. Somewhere in my room."

Shaking her head she shouted, "Then why are you looking for them out in the front yard you crazy man?"

"The light's better."

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