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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God, Well and Alive in Donald Trump

In response to putting out the request for topics to write on, a friend wrote back: "Seeing God in Donald Trump (you never wrote that you wanted it to be easy)".

I have to say I appreciate the topic and also that it appears that for many people it might not be easy. But that's what I'm looking for in topic suggestions--ones that challenge us to inquire beyond the box of our comfort zone and set beliefs.

So here goes.

First of all I live within an idea that makes life simple and without threat. Often it's difficult to embrace, but when I do, I always find the peace of mind that allows me to enjoy life over stressing compulsively in the battle of trying to make it what I want it to be.

The idea is reflected by something Albert Einstein once said, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe.” This means that the fundamental choice we make as to the nature of the universe we live in, determines all the subsequent laws, circumstances and seeming other choices we will make because of it. Einstein suggests that when we use our minds--our thought expression power to align ourselves with a friendly, i.e. infinitely cooperative and order establishing life arena, all, yes, all subsequent circumstances can be relied upon to reveal previously unseen pathways and resources consistent with the standard of unconditional friendliness. This means a friendliness manifesting that we would otherwise not experience in holding to our expectations of a hostile, flawed, I'm-responsible-for-correcting, world.

For those of you who must insist on believing that what you experience outside yourself has power over you and thus demands your reaction, just stop reading right here. This isn't for you. There can only be a ongoing hostile universe when you insist upon that view. As the Course in Miracles would suggest, you are believing you are under attack and in this world, like it or not, what you believe becomes your experience. That's just how it works. It may not be real, but the experience will tell you that it is and you will subsequently suffer and battle for your sanity because of it.

So as to the request of seeing or experiencing God in Donald Trump (as well as anyone or any situation) one has to begin by accepting that God, Order, Love or whatever you call the Cosmic Milieu encompasses all, including Donald Trump and his presidency. Then the issue becomes one of seeing what you're missing. Rather than using reason to determine what you think you should or should not find.

Now before anyone brings up the rebuttal challenging this belief in the face of such atrocities from Hitler's Germany to child abuse to natural calamities, I repeat, judging hostile circumstance without a willingness, and indeed, the expectation to experience an Order or Beauty that lies beyond one's judgment, will insure that the limit of one's belief in the atrocity or hostility that they are seeing will be all that they will be seeing. Heaven may be issuing from the very embers of hell, but without a commitment towards what must rise from it, all that can be experienced are the smoking remnants of what was along with the urgency to somehow replace it. And on and on it goes within a hostile world, never changing. Until belief does.

I'll discuss this more in a future blog, but for the purpose of this question, how to see God in Donald Trump, one's focus has to change from argument to curiosity.

In an article on "Genius" some years ago, I.Q. was determined to be less a qualifying factor for genius than the manner in which one thinks. Richard Feinman, a theoretical physicist, who was arguably considered a genius in thinking, put forth the process of genius thinking in this analogy.

He shared that if one was given a task to find a needle in a haystack most would either refuse or abandon the task in frustration, possibly doubting that the needle even existed. Some, of strong will would work systematically to prove whether or not the needle was in there and finding it, move on to other things. But those of genius thinking would explore the haystack as ripe for possibilities and once finding a needle would then wonder, "how many more needles or other items were hidden in the haystack". They would expect more and subsequently put themselves in position to find more.

So if you want to see God or Goodness or Order in Donald Trump or anything, you have to be committed and prepared to find it. So how big is your sense of God or an Orderly Universe? Big enough to trust in or too small to release your reasons for reacting?

What I will suggest now is just one friendly thinking idea beyond the box of what most see Donald Trump representing. It is still reasoning and cannot be relied upon or limited unto, however it can help show how light can emerge from seeming darkness.

Here's one view of how I see Trump limited to the world stage he presents himself upon.

His rhetoric and actions paint a picture of a leader who willingly exposes, embraces and defends his right to use deceit, condemnation and attack upon any person, position or circumstance that he is content in believing serves him. He appears to believe he is special in a way that allows him to objectify, humiliate, parody, violate and use others without seeming awareness as to empathy or responsibility for the consequences that his self-serving vision limits and defines.

He prefers using one-way communication (e.g. tweets & sound bites) limiting dialogue around what he says. He adamantly denies any failure of his beliefs, intentions and actions, proclaiming blanket success no matter the results. And he makes broad judgmental statements that suit his beliefs, regardless of any evidence to the contrary or support for his ideas.

When it comes to what he wants he acts like an entitled bully.

In a hostile world he most certainly appears a significant threat.

But what about within a friendly one? Again, one that transcends what I've just described seeing.

First of all, in an unopposed friendly universe we ultimately find acceptance of community, realizing intimately that we are not separate, but one. We share the same heart and inclination towards surrender to that which frees us from our loneliness, the sense that we are divided and isolated. Not to experience this is certainly hostile.

So Trump is part of our core, just as are sixty-three million voters, almost half those voting and even more who believe in him but didn't vote. That means that although his character appears deeply flawed, half our voting nation deemed that within what they see as an acceptably hostile universe, his behavior is acceptable, if not appropriate.

I think what frightens us most is this. Donald Trump's candidacy, election and leadership is showing us, that though we would like to believe we are a respectful and civil community, there is a within us a collectively dark and selfish justification for self-service and manipulation as a valid means of survival and as a basis for judgment, incivility and exclusion of our neighbor. And this is not new to us from Trump. These traits have been within humanity from day one. The only question is how we deal with them. And if you've truly never judged, denied or even mentally slighted anyone for their actions, then I may stand in awe of you, but not after some serious inquiry. Trump told and showed millions he would act on these dark impulses. He gave these fears voice.

And he was elected.

A wise soul once said, "You shall know the truth and it shall make you free." Often this is taken to mean that some sort of higher wisdom is the key. But instead of some seeming unrelated, higher wisdom, the most relevant truths are those that free us to see beyond what we cloud our minds with, i.e. the inclinations, limitations and lies we accept as uncorrupted meaning for what we're experiencing. These limited beliefs are what keep us imprisoned, unable to see Greater Order beyond the expectations of our preferences.

Perhaps now is the time for the awakening of a simple, transforming Idea, a powerful truth that can allow us to experience the collective freedom that we have been previously unwilling and even afraid to consider, less accept. All of us, including Mr. Trump, his team members, those voting for and against him, indeed, the whole world now find ourselves in front row seats to clearly witness self-justified, divisively hostile, reactionary intention projecting upon the global community.

It's no accident that Trump, his presidency and those who follow him have been given the authority to release upon the world this dark, manipulative intention and by human nature it will meet an equally opposing force. It's as if our collective ego (for we are one) has now been given opportunity to voice globally our base fears that court separation, condemnation, judgment and alienation as justified response to what we don't agree with. The truth that can free us is witnessing how this genie of disrespect and division has come out of the bottle and no matter how nobly or wickedly we wield it's power, how vulgar and impotent are the results. And from this shared futility, perhaps we can find the willingness to simply accept that in order to find the qualities we seek in others, we must and can commit to finding it in those and their actions that we don't see it in. The alternative is increasingly visible insanity and my hunch is that there won't be enough medication--liquid, solid or digital to numb us into not seeing it.

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So yes, I can very much see God in Donald Trump.

Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 — February 11, 2012)

Listening to an anthology of Whitney Houston's songs on the radio today, I was filled with a deep joy and sorrow. Public people can play such a heavy role for all of us, playing out our fantasies of how rich and fulfilling lives might be. We can see them as sacred characters living outside the pressures and confusion of everyday life. Now her form is gone and we grieve how such beauty could be lost, yet isn't it the undeniable story of life—the innocence of youth and beauty transitioning into the seeming loss of it? Such a horribly sad story for everyone of us who have both denied and unexamined the tremendous cost we pay for believing it. My teacher said, “How I marvel at how this wealth has found itself in such poverty.” And yet, how could it not be for us, gifted and cursed by the ability to imagine a world that we naturally limit ourselves to, feeling so lost and trapped in the reasoning we craft it with.

In releasing Whitney and those persons, situations and relationships that we cling to in our lives, it would be wise for us to remind ourselves at how repeatedly consistent this drama plays out. To quote an old Dave Mason song, “... there aint no good guy, there aint no bad guy, there's only you and me and we just disagree.” The stories about what could, should or would have been serve only to distance ourselves from vulnerably experiencing what actually did happen. Hindsight has no bearing unless it is applied in the moment with a presence that's willing to make a difference. Bobby Brown didn't cause Whitney's death, nor did society or any specific person or policy. Whitney left because, like all of us, she lived her life within her understanding of the world she believed herself confined within. We all do, no matter how it appears or how many sign on in supporting roles.

For me, there is great sorrow and joy, knowing that this drama of isolation and self-responsibility that we play is the real cause of life's suffering, loneliness and desperation as well as the immediate possibility for life's joy, loving union and freedom when we come off the stage together. Billions of souls for thousands of years have acted out the flaws in this earthly passion play of insufficient compassion, unconsciously knowing that together by doing so, we can find our way home, out from the madness of separation into the sanity of how deeply and unconditionally we all care.

Thank you Whitney for doing your part so well. Thank you for sharing with us your beautiful voice, but most of all thank you for living out so courageously the part you accepted to play. You and every one of us have spent our lives modeling how the flawed premise of “overcoming life” necessitates ongoing troubles and tragedies to face them with. Yes, it's hard to give up the stage alone, when most everyone else is still in character, but your life has helped me see more clearly that until I, along with at least one of you, take that step (if only to share our weariness), the same curtain on this sorry tale, will just keep on rising, day after day after day. You deserve more, my sweet sister. And so do I. So do we all.

Welcome home Baby.

Dale

The Problem with Problems Is Having to Solve Them

There is a story told of a mother whose son would not come home from playing until late in the evening. She became so fearful and frustrated with his disobedience, that she decided to trick him into behaving. She told him that there were monsters outside that only came out after dark. This seemed to do the trick as his fear kept him from ever testing the night again. As he grew older though, he became more and more afraid and eventually housebound. This troubled his mother.

So she told him another lie about a magic medal she found that would protect him from monsters. He put the medal around his neck, never removing it and once again was able to leave the house and rejoin the world.

Willa Cather in her novel, O Pioneers, wrote, “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”

Why repeat? Because even our most creative thinking is generated within a limited context of familiar experiences, beliefs and expectations. Our base understanding of the story—our recognition and validation of what we are seeing, its possibilities, probabilities and even the tolerable degree of mystery we're able to entertain—keeps us from seeing beyond or through the box of the story itself.

“Your reasoning is excellent—It's only your basic assumptions that are wrong.” … Ashleigh Brilliant

In the mother's story, her son needs to be protected from her projected fears. In the son's story there are no such fears, so the mother sees that she needs to enlist her son in her fear. Without this, there seems no solution. She tells him a white lie. Since he can't believe in her nameless fears, she will name one for him—monsters in the night. And now her story works until she realizes that her lie is creating another problem—more fear in her son than she intended. SO INSTEAD OF INQUIRING INTO THE VALIDITY OF THE WHOLE STORY, she adapts to the story's needs. Imaginary magic that keeps away imaginary monsters. Can you begin to see the movements of politics, religion and relationships here?

This is the story of my ego, that is, who I am pretending to be. I am the Observer of how Full, Universal Wholeness appears fragmently expressed through my perception of the thoughts I have chosen to identify as and therefore project my existence as. By so doing, me, my world and my life can be minimized, rationalized and managed upon a small stage that I hope to understand and control.

I play all the roles—the mother, the son, the monsters and the magic—but to keep playing and working through all the problems, I have to stay on script, otherwise I and those playing with me, might find ourselves off stage, in the audience, or even out of the theater into spontaneously, irrepressible reality.

Believing me to be my mind or ego, I cling to this small platform of life, world and identity that I compulsively attempt to manage, control and be self-responsible for. I block out the whole, unlimited, Universe so that I can narrowly focus on what my mentally-formed psyche needs to support itself. And in this psychic fishbowl, my intention is linearly, I want what I want when I want it. MY STORIES GIVE ME AND MY LIFE ITS MEANING. They serve as my reality and drive my busyness.

In this fishbowl (which BTW, is affirmed and shared by a world community doing the same), I motivate by frightening myself into doing or not doing something, with thoughts about what I want or don't want to happen to me. So driven, I will either simply act on what seems obviously familiar or attempt a surface inquire with reasoning or creative thinking that taps THE SAME RESTRICTED THOUGHT POSSIBILITIES THAT SUPPORT MY PRIME DIRECTIVE: STABILIZING THE FISHBOWL WITHIN WHICH I CAN REMAIN SAFELY SMALL. Nothing new, outside of the box comes from within the box.

So does this story turn out well? Of course it does, because even the most horrific story has no power to change the harmonious nature of the Universe it is told within.

Yes, innocently caught within the power of my mind to bring dramas to seeming life, I identified with the story of who I think I should be, deceiving myself into betraying myself. Yes, I unconsciously gave myself false information so as to make love look like fear so that I could continue to play the part I imagined best followed the story line. Yes, I had to, because the story seemed real and believing it real, I like everyone who visits this existence, gave it my best shot at playing it.

And yes, now I begin to see the flaws in the story and my efforts to conceal this from myself. I see now that irrational fear has no bounds, because it is held to no accountability through sane inquiry. The magic I gave myself to protect myself from nothing that exists, only sustains the increase of my irrational, baseless fear of that boogeyman.

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” … Rumi

Now is our time for asking the questions that we don't have the answers for, the ones that can allow our stories to be the adventures that the simplest wisdom of children imagine them as. Instead of asking what will calm or adjust me to my fears? Or what is the right or wrong thing to do? Or how can I make up for this?

Try these questions, no matter what is happening and especially when what is happening seems to really matter. You needn't concern yourself with the answers, they aren't necessary. Just ask the questions. The fact that your ego resists your asking these questions without reasonable expectation for an answer, might give you pause to wonder how powerful these questions are. Lies don't need to have a truth applied to them to free you. Just seeing them clearly is enough to release you from their threat.

Q. Do I know that my magic or medication I'm treating situations with, is even working anymore?

Q. Can I be certain that there really are any monsters or anything wrong with my way at all?

Q. Do I know that what I think needs to happen, needs to happen or that what you or I need to do needs to be done?

Q. Is it possible I might be “right as rain” just as I am now? And maybe you too?

And ...

Q. Can I be certain that it's not possible or even probable, that the drama I have been living, is simply my ego's last, grand performance, a virtuoso characterization of who I pretended to be within the mystery of my awakening in gratitude to the Love I Have Always Been and now am able to see and feel.

Bravo as the Universe thunders in standing ovation.

A Faceoff Over Allegiance

“So, who are you rooting for tomorrow?” Michael needled me, hoping to get a rise out of the only American sitting at the dining table. It was the night before the Olympic Gold Medal hockey game between the U.S. and Canada. I had been in Canada for over two years now and my immediate response even surprised me a bit.
“Well, Canada of course.” I shot back. “It’s my country now.”
Interesting how I came to adopt this land as my own. On the surface, it doesn’t appear all that different from the states, what with Costcos, karaoke and internet dating. Once you get used to the colored money and all the references to royalty, it’s easy to forget the differences. That is, except when it comes to hockey.
I grew up in Nebraska where the winters froze all the ponds over, but the only people venturing out on them had six packs and fishing poles in their hands. Winter meant the tail end of football season and heading inside to play basketball where it was warm. I knew of hockey and I remember the names of Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr and later on Wayne Gretzky, but I was never much more interested than just knowing that they existed.
Sports stayed a passion with me, but when I moved to Mississauga to pastor a church, the local sports talk shows seemed far more interested in goaltending and body checking than quarterbacking or RBIs. So I let myself go with the flow and gradually noticed that I was starting to follow the puck. I was actually beginning to get and enjoy the game. Maybe I really was a Canadian at heart.
Of course, living near Toronto was a perfect classroom for studying the game, what with the Leafs bearing the national prestige of the nation, similar to how the Yankees sit atop the U.S. sports world. However, playing like the Chicago Cubs, those loveable losers, who, though stigmatized by futility, never lose their sex appeal.
But when the puck dropped in Vancouver I began to feel my American roots showing. Sitting in the bar at East Side Marios, surrounded by a sea of red maple leaf fans, I could feel some of my lost allegiance resurfacing as I watched for the first time in action, the young US team that had beaten everyone, including Canada once, in order to be in this game. When Team Canada went up 2-0, I jokingly turned to my friend, a very rabid, hockey mom and said, “I’d love to see them tie it and make it a close game.” Debbie looked at me as if I had just broken her grandmother’s cloisonné teapot, “Don’t even go there, she warned!”
I laughed. She didn’t. I shut up. Watching would be safer.
I don’t think I’ve enjoyed any sports event more than I did that game. It was thrilling. My Canadians, moving on goal in wave after wave of artful symmetry, like the fingers of one hand reaching for the prize, while my birth brothers attacked the net like an angry nest of hornets, almost independent of each other. Suddenly I was able to discern style, discipline, recklessness and harmony in the sport.
And when Team USA pulled their goaltender, launching their furious last minute barrage, I smiled knowingly inside, sensing that all of us in the room were about to experience something more than just a hockey game. And so it began, for with twenty-four seconds remaining, the Americans pushed one in, tying the game and prying the medal free from a Nation’s victory embrace.
The whole bar sat in stunned silence, men, women and near kids alike, with me, the only soul smiling just in the wonder of it all. In shock, Debbie turned to me, trying her best to feign comedic anger amidst genuine heartbreak. “This is your fault!” she jabbed at me with pointed finger.
I was absolutely speechless, in awe of the sheer magnitude of the emotional shift that had just taken place.
Debbie needed to be somewhere else and wanting to get there before the overtime period started, she heartfully both chastised and hugged me, racing out the door to leave me as sole witness to what happened next—an observation and understanding as to why I love this new country of mine and its people so dearly.
At this point, I didn’t care who won. In fact, I was using my sentiments to buy more time without there being a loser. I knew that eventually it would end and that I would end up grieving more for who didn’t win than cheering for who did … but I never got the chance to check that expectation out.
Sid the Kid put in the shot heard ‘round Canadian Nation and just like that, it was over.
The room erupted in euphoria, everyone shouting, laughing, smiling and hugging each other. As I looked around at the faces though, expecting to see the usual victory parade, I was forcibly struck by something quite different. People weren’t just happy in their own circle of celebration, the whole room was contained by, and overflowing with, a tangible spirit of camaraderie. The team hadn’t just won … a whole nation had come together.
As I reveled in the glow of this mass love affair, I noticed, too, what was missing from this scene.
There was no sense or celebration of a vanquished foe. There was no pent-up force, no testosterone shrieking out, “We’re number one!”, “In your face!”, or “Not in our house!” More like small children, they were turning to each other with wide, genuine smiles, as if crying out together, “We did it! We did it! Look at what we just did!”
Yes, I am an American and I love my country, but I think I am a Canadian too, and I need to be one right now, because I am looking for the Spirit of my Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave and I feel a deep sadness. We Americans got lost somewhere, sometime ago, even before those airplanes crashed into our towers. We forgot what made our country great, what made it once a nation that the whole world looked up to in hope, aspiration and gratitude. We forgot that we are all in this together.
I saw that spirit once again in a small bar, on a Sunday afternoon in Oakville, Ontario and I refuse to lose sight of it again. Thank you Canada, for not just reminding me, but for showing the whole world just how it’s done.