2014: My Year of Good Cheer

2014 marks the sixth year I have named my years. It provides an interesting focus for me throughout the year as I remind myself (via a post it note on my desktop) my name for the year and gives me something to live up to. To strive for.

2009 was The Year of Hesed (lovingkindness)

2010: The Year of the Tao

2011: The Year of Living Simply

2012: The Year of Forgiveness

2013: The Year of Living Sustainably

2014: The Year of Good Cheer

Have I achieved any goals with these years? I don’t set out any goals, per se, it is just a reminder of ways in which I can adjust my thinking.

In The Urantia Book (a spiritual endeavor that I have studied since the early 1970s), whenever Jesus encountered one of his disciples, the first words out of his mouth were: “Be of good cheer!” This is in the Bible, too, John 16:33.

Words to live by, those. What good does it do us to be critical, to add negative thought-energy into the world, to hate, hold resentments, argue, and live our lives in cynicism?

Why not be happy? Happiness is a choice. Only we can choose whether or not to be happy. No one on earth can make us happy if we do not want to be. Conversely, nobody can make us feel bad if happiness is our chosen state of being.

Only we can choose to put cynicism aside. Only we can choose to focus on the right side, the light side, the good side of things instead of the ugly. Only we can choose to see the successes in apparent failures, to view the future with excitement instead of dread, to banish depression and decide to be of good cheer.

I was privileged to deliver a sermon last summer, the topic of which was how we can change the world with our thoughts.

It starts with a single decision to lighten the world with positive thoughts, thoughts of happiness and gratitude and love and light. There are enough people who add the darkness to fabric of planetary thought with their thoughts of greed and anger and me-first-ness.

It is a mighty challenge to change the balance from dark to light, but we can do it, one day at a time, one person at a time, just by being of good cheer.

How to Change the World

On Facebook every day I see little messages like “Be the change you want to see.” and “Save the Rainforests” and “Give Peace a Chance.” Well, yes. Of course.  But let’s get real. What can we actually do to change the world? It isn’t enough to write a check or post a clever saying or read a book or love the sea lion pups. We have to be pro-active, steady and consistent.

Imagine for a moment that there is actually a fabric of planetary consciousness that floats above our heads in the near atmosphere.  This fabric is invisible to our eyes, but perhaps not to the celestial helpers who oversee our planet. They can tell at a glance the sorry state of our planet.

This fabric holds and reflects the thoughts and attitudes and mind-action of every person on the planet. When you or I have a fearful, negative, angry or resentful thought, our thoughts stain this fabric, help to turn it dark. When we have a spiritual thought, a loving experience, commit a selfless act, we add a tiny portion of light to the fabric.

I believe in this fabric. And I believe that darkness begets darkness, and that the light banishes shadows.

What color do you suppose the fabric of planetary consciousness currently is?

If we want to change the world, we need to be in control of our thoughts. I believe our thoughts are far more powerful than we can imagine. And when we are cruisin’ in the zone of light, we’re spreading the benign virus of love, which is a powerful way to lighten the fabric of planetary consciousness.

The Tao of Yarn

Anyone who knows me knows that I knit. In fact, I’m kind of a knitting maniac. Not a day goes by without yarn handling of some sort. I make yarn, spinning it out of beautiful, silky fibers. I knit garments and things. Warm things for children and old people, fashionable things, utilitarian things, things of beauty, filled with the peace that I feel when I’m knitting.

For the last two years I’ve been knitting and/or spinning twice a week at a yarn shop in town, Textiles A Mano, run by Laura Macagno-Shang, a delightful woman of amazing expertise and artistic talents.  Inspired by her and the other spinners and knitters, my knitting has gone from mundane, meat-and-potatoes knitting to creating incredible laces, intricate cable networks and dozens of warm things for the Relief Nursery, a local charity that helps out parents and their children from newborn to six years old.

Most of the things I knit are given away to family, friends, or charitable organizations. I keep a few special things, of course, but it seems as though the minute I cast on a project, a person comes to mind and I begin to think about that person, meditate on his or her situation, and pretty soon that warm garment becomes first a thing of comfort for me and then a thing of comfort for the recipient. But this is not a blog post about what a great knitter I am. It’s about how we can all do little things to enrich a life.

Something as simple as a warm “chemo cap” for those going through treatment. Something as simple as a pair of baby booties for a friend’s new grandson. Something as easy as a set of felted coasters as a wedding gift. These are not items of great value, but I believe that they send good, healing heart-energy into the universe that is multiplied over and over and over again. When we give gifts from the heart, from our creativity, we affirm the recipient’s worth, we spend time in creative contemplation, we engage in constructive prayer.

And that is always a worthwhile endeavor. It adds love to the planetary consciousness.

What can you do today to make the life of a loved one — or even an acquaintance — better?

 

Energy

Let me begin this post by saying that I am not a scientist. I am not schooled in engineering or any of the ways in which power is generated. I have a basic knowledge of many systems of the world, but I have no expertise. What I do have, however, is a modicum of common sense, and that is what this post is about.

It seems to me that drilling for more oil is futile. Whatever pools of it we find, it’s still a finite resource and as our population continues to explode unabated, it won’t stretch as far as we think it ought to or need it to. Ditto natural gas and all those fossil fuels. Finite. Any energy system that requires them is unsustainable. To me, it is sheer madness to be using up our fossil fuels in automobiles and airplanes at such a prodigious rate. But what’s the alternative?

Alternatives are all around us. The tides go in and out, twice a day, every day. This seems to me to be an enormous resource of power. Even the temperature difference in the oceans between the surface and thirty feet under could be used to drive a turbine. Hydro-power we know how to use; we need to figure out how to use it without damming up all the rivers. Geothermal is in its infancy, and yet what more abundant power could could there possibly be? We just need to be a little more clever about it. Run certain strips of metal through seawater and they become magnetized. Magnetism is a source of power. And, by the way, isn’t the whole world covered by a magnetic field?  Bringing the needs down to a small, local level, what if we put thick plates of steel at every intersection on thick springs that ran a turbine under the intersection? Cars driving over the plate would turn the turbine and make the electricity to run the streetlights. I bet each one of you reading this post can think of at least a dozen ways to power your house, your town, your corner of the world.

The problem with all the solutions we can think of is that the fossil fuels we are using up are still so cheap that it doesn’t pay to invest entrepreneurial money on an alternative. So what if gas goes up to $5/gallon? Oh well, fewer lattes at Starbucks, but we’ll still fill our gas-guzzlers. What if it goes up to $10/gallon?

What if there suddenly is no more gasoline? Surely somebody, somewhere will do something about that, right?

Well, the time is now, because all these fossil fuels are finite. We’re running out of them. Drilling will not help. Coal-mining will not help. Fracking will not help, not in the long run. Those are short-sighted, non-sustainable solutions to a problem that needs vision for the next two hundred years or more. Now is the time to kick these alternatives into gear and get them going so that when that day comes that the gasoline pumps run dry — and believe me, that day is coming sooner than any politician will tell you — we’ll have another way of doing things already in place. Already up and running. A smooth transition.

In this era of unfettered capitalism where greed rules the day, money is not likely to be invested into a new infrastructure of power until there is real money to be made, and that isn’t happening yet, because gasoline is still less than $5 per gallon.  We need to stop looking down at the gas pedal and look up toward the horizon.  We’re running out of fuel. Carpooling one day a week isn’t going to help. We need real, sustainable solutions, put forth by the best minds in the world (not politicians) and we need them now.

2012: The Year of Forgiveness

I’ve been naming my years for a while now. 2009 was The Year of Hesed (lovingkindness).2010 was The Year of the Tao. 2011 was The Year of Living Simply, and for 2012, I’ve chosen The Year of Forgiveness.

I’ve heard that to forgive someone means to merely allow them their path. Very simple, and my experience says that what is simple is best.

Many years ago, I hurt a lot of people who got caught up in my tsunami of self-destruction. I am soul-sorry about that, and everyone that I’m aware of has forgiven me for my actions during those dark times, for which I will be eternally grateful. I needed those times; they were a part of my path to today. Surely I can allow someone else their path.

I find that it’s easier to forgive someone the big transgressions, but what about the guy who cuts me off in traffic? I am usually outwardly calm, but in my head, I’m screaming: “You idiot!” I really don’t want to do that any more, so I’m going to stop it in 2012. I’m going to let the little things flow over me, making “allow them their path” my mantra for the year.

And I’m going to forgive myself, too, on a daily basis, for being imperfect and doing all the stupid things I do. I say the wrong thing all the time, I eat the wrong things, I still am tempted to slide into old behavior patterns. I no longer burn with resentment, but I can chew on a good one for a while before letting it go. I don’t want to do that any more, either, and so I won’t in 2012. Forgiveness is sustainable; resentment is not.

Living consciously is a decision. Each of us is faced with a million tiny decisions every day as to how to react to a million tiny situations. So in 2012, I will react with love in my heart and the perspective that while we all might be on different paths, the goal is the same.

I have a good feeling about what 2012 has to bring.

Happy New Year!

Dear Mr. President:

Dear Mr. President:

As the leader of the greatest nation in the world, I implore you to set politics aside and do the right thing on a variety of issues. Forget Congress. Introduce legislation and let the angels and other celestial planetary advisers do the heavy lifting with regards to encouraging congressional members to do the right thing. Take your case to the American people. They will recognize sustainable changes when they see them.

1. No more war. Our Department of Defense is for the defense of the citizens. It is not a department of offense. Bring our soldiers home, close foreign bases and spend that money here. War is not sustainable. It is stupid, wasteful and against every spiritual principle there is. We can take a stand of non-engagement.
2. No more casual, haphazard and wasteful use of finite resources such as fossil fuels. This is irresponsible for our future. Put a harsh progressive tax on these resources and let that inspire and provide incentive for the great minds of American entrepreneurs to come up with inventive ways to create nonpolluting energy sources.
3. Pollution is ruining our planet and sickening our people. Be bold in legislative regulation of pollutants, regardless of what other countries are doing. We must lead in this regard.
4. Outlaw cigarettes. It’s crazy that we spend so much money on health care for sick smokers while subsidizing the tobacco industry.
5. Introduce legislation that allows for term limits in congress. Your office has a term limit; so should each seat in the House and the Senate. The gridlock we are currently experiencing would never happen if there were term limits in congress.

I know that you know that this list could go on and on. We need common sense leadership with an eye not for this term or the next term or for our grandchildren, but we need a visionary who can look 500 years into the future and make plans for our planet that are sustainable. We can’t just keep kicking these cans down the road because it is politically expedient.

Be bold, Mr. President. Be brave. Lead the world.

God Bless.

Occupy for A Constitutional Convention

I, like most aware Americans, are quite taken with the Occupy Wall Street movement. But it is not lost on the billionaires that the movement is unorganized. “Give us jobs!” is like saying, “Give me money.” It means nothing, really. The movement needs to have one specific purpose.

I suggest calling for a Constitutional Convention.

I’m not a constitutional scholar, but I do know that the billionaires are not the problem, it’s the people who make the laws who are the problem.  We need to revamp that system.

The system by which we elect our officials is corrupt. Those with the money have the power. This is wrong. But as long as there are no term limits, the system will continue to become more and more corrupt. Do you think the current congress is going to make changes to the system and put themselves out of a job? Of course not. It’s up to us to do that.

We could get term limits if we hold a Constitutional Convention. It’s time to put career politicians out of business. We could get a balanced budget amendment. We could radically change the antiquated taxation system. Universal health care? We already have that, because whoever goes to the emergency room at the hospital has their bill paid by the rest of us. But it’s unorganized and inefficient. We could fix that with a Constitutional Convention. We could demand a decrease our dependency on imported oil. We could become energy-independent! (Other countries are.) We could mandate taxes on corporations who ship their jobs overseas. We could demand that we get something in return for all the foreign aid we send to other countries. If they can’t behave, they don’t get to cash our checks for billions of dollars.

So listen up, those of you who are demonstrating for all the right reasons: Demonstrate for something concrete. Demonstrate for one or two specific things that can be changed. We can all unite our voices and get many things changed if focus on one thing we can all agree on: the system must be changed.

It’s time for a Constitutional Convention.

Pass the word.

Gross National Happiness

This YouTube video will take sixteen minutes of your life but could have enormous repercussions, particularly if you repost it vigorously.

A better way is possible. It’s being done right now.

We have much to learn.

Make a difference today.

Ability is no Indication of Character

This latest revelation of bad behavior by a member of Congress should really come as no surprise. He is just the latest of a long line of elected officials who think they can get away with anything.  He won’t be the last.

To my mind, there are two reasons for this. The first, is that there is a truism that states: People have contempt for those upon whom they are dependent. In other words, congressmen have contempt for their constituents, welfare recipients have contempt for the government, labor has contempt for management and vice versa, etc.  This is sad, but when we have a system that fosters the few to have so much and so many people to have so little, this is what we get.

The other reason for bad behavior among government officials is the way they’re elected. We don’t recruit those with the highest values or the strongest character. We elect those with the loudest party line who look the part and have the most money to spend to sway voters with whatever misleading information they and their supporters can fabricate and/or spin. Anthony Weiner and his kind may be good at their jobs, but if we expect leadership from these people, we are looking in the wrong direction. The same goes for athletes.  Why are we dismayed when they fail to live up to whatever elevated standards we think they ought to abide by? They’re athletes. They weren’t elected to higher office. Their ability is no reflection on their character.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe we have real leaders with true character currently in office. But those individuals do not comprise the majority in this broken system. Were we to recruit the best and the brightest with the highest possible standards, people who will provide real role models for this nation’s (and the world’s) children, then we need to change the system.

 

War is Stupid

Yesterday was Memorial Day. The mainstream media (local and national) as well as social media was filled with wreaths, parades, flags and cemeteries. Lots of interviews with veterans and the widows, widowers and children of “our fallen heroes.” I’m a veteran. I know the patriotic mindset. And I know that much of what I saw yesterday was an attempt at justifying that which has no justification.

War is stupid. There’s no reason at all that those young men and women shouldn’t be living their long, productive lives with their families instad of getting blown apart and killed on foreign soil.

In WWII, the Germans were the enemy. They’re our friends now. Also, in WWII, the Japanese were the ones to kill. Now they’re our friends and allies. We waged a horrible war in Vietnam, but now, Vietnamese are very welcome here and Vietnam has now become a popular U.S. tourism destination. We take horrific delight in murdering our enemies, but then when it’s over, it’s over, and the Department of Defense (notice that this is not the Department of Offense) starts looking around for some new place to validate its existence and job security. War is stupid.

The United States could take the position that it stands for Peace and refuse to engage. For those sad countries that continue their war-like behavior, we could just pull back our aid. If they’re going to act like children, we can treat them like children. Let them know there are consequences for their actions. If they behave, they can play on the world stage. If not, they’re shunned. And if they want to retaliate: well, that’s why we have a Department of Defense.

Not only are the costs of war horrendously high for our service members, but all that cash could be redirected to support schools, our failing infrastructure, provide clean energy, economical health services and figure out a more honorable way of electing our officials.

I’m not the first one to say this. It’s been said many times before. But now, for me, it has become a spiritual issue. Are we going to actively engage the “family values” that everybody talks about? Don’t forget that the men and women who sign the papers that send our kids off to war die of old age. They, and and for the most part, their children, don’t die on battlefields. 

This election cycle, ask your candidates to itemize and explain not only the current issues, but the underlying values they hold and by which they will make decisions on your behalf.

There are no spiritual values that include war.

War is stupid.