Hi There!
So, another mad mass murder.
Starting to loose count.
Listening to a lot of different sorts of folks since the Las Vegas Massacre,
I hear variations on a theme:
- "I'm afraid to be in a crowd."
- "Our country is going to hell in a basket"
- "We need/don't need more/less gun control."
- "Why?"
- "With so many severe earthquakes and devastating hurricanes,
with nuclear North Korea, Washington craziness, war rumors and threats of war,
data hacking, these mass shootings, are we close to the end of the world?"
- "I feel so sad."
- "We need to do more about mental health."
- "I just don't feel a bit safe anymore."
and a whole lot painfully more.
Underneath it all, presenting in different ways,
I sense a destabilizing, pervasive fear
at not knowing how to deal with dangers that keep compounding.
The danger of mass shootings is one part of an ooze of fear spreading over
and suffocating our spirits.
So, what's our "spirit"uality out here on the street of everyday living when
The Route 91 Harvest Festival
on the streets of Las Vegas
was as far from festive as a birthday party is from an execution
and "harvested"
58 dead bodies
and 500 plus shot up music lovers,
and millions upon millions of ever more fearful people ?
How do we get a handle on this and so many other dangers
that just keep piling up on the streets of our everyday living
and causing a destabilizing fear?
- pain meds that dope to death
- escalating childhood and adolescent suicide attempts
- gun danger
( Since 1968 more Americans have been killed by guns
than the total number of Americans killed in all of America's wars -
Nicholas Kristol, The New York Times, August 27, 2015 )
- forks
(with more than 35% of us obese and a total of 70% of us overweight - CDC)
- racial strife
- an epidemic of depression and anxiety
- frustrations around economic opportunity and justice
- environmental and sustainability threats
- acerbic public discourse and vacated civility
- misinformation/fake news
- ubiquitous media trivia and violence
- disintegrating family life
- gender conflict
- international nuclear, trade and military threats
- health care that isn't either for too many
- democratic process challenged by election interference and blatant gerrymandering.
Is it to be fearful fight or flight?
Or, is there a spiritual reset that will open a fear free way forward?
Let's explore and opt for the latter.
First off, and painfully so, we need to
FACE THE FLAW
We are damaged and damaging goods.
"If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously
committing evil deeds, and it is necessary to separate them from the rest of us
and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts right through
the heart of every human being."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Early on, Christian thinkers said the same thing in a different way.
They called it Original Sin.
It means that from the "origin" of humanity
we beautiful people have taken serious missteps
that throw off our balance.
At times we stumble into damaging conflict with who we really are,
with one another,
and with nature itself.
People playing God is a job we just can't handle.
Trying to play God throws people, social process, and nature off kilter, causing chaos and pain.
In the earliest days of Christianity Paul admitted:
"For what I do is not the good I want to do,
no - the evil I do not want to do -
this I keep doing."
Romans 7:19
The Flaw causes fearful things.
EVOLUTION HAS A WAY TO GO
We have evolved out of the caves,
but we have not yet evolved away from
many primitive attitudes and behaviors.
Consider:
- bullying to genocide,
- hoarding to mass starvation,
- murder to the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Individual consciousness, societal values, nature itself
are working free from dark chaos
to lightsome fullness,
buts a lot of the lights aren't on yet,
much less fully so.
Check out
Odisse Mourns America's Lost Innocence in the New Video, 'You Grew Up.'
In this animated video, the emcee critiques how society socializes us
from innocent adolescents
to lost, even monstrous adults. ( NPR online, 10-03-2017)
All this is genesis for a bevy of terribly fearful stress.
Are we stuck with it?
Not really, if we'd do just that, really
Get Real.
FEAR FREE FORWARD
In Reality,
All IS ONE.
Once we "get it,"
or as much as we "get it,"
we are freed of fear and can
forward to fullness.
"We are many faces of
The One
who is
All That Is."
( Author unknown, but a truth worth knowing)
"All separation,
every kind of estrangement
and alienation is false.
All is one..."
( Sci Nisargadatta Maharaj )
"So we, though many,
are one body
in Christ,
and individually
members of one another.
( Romans 12:5 )
There is an underlying, bed rock oneness
to all that is
The universe and beyond is waking up to itself,
to its oneness,
and that includes us.
In the meantime,
and it can be mean at times,
there will be stress and suffering on the surface of things
as we stumble out of the dark.
We and all nature are like a woman giving birth.
The stretch to bring forth hurts a lot.
Yet, what is brought forth is beautiful new being -
a fresh fullness.
Yes, growing free and forth from "flaw" hurts.
See Jesus on the cross.
Talk about birth pains!
Talk also about a liberating new life -
a fresh forward to fullness.
"For in Christ
all the fullness
of the Deity lives
in bodily form."
( Colossians 2:9 )
Yes, evolving into what we are is at once painful and liberating.
Here, too, is a birthing,
a stretch to fresh fullness.
To put it too simply,
there may be an ouchless band-aid,
but there is no such thing as an ouchless
freeing from flaw,
or evolution to fullness.
Accept that and we are freed forward.
Tighten up and we freeze up in fear.
Just as matter cannot be created or destroyed,
so too for us.
We are and always will be.
Yet, we can evolve into All more and more,
a realized All.
Stretch pass "as is"
and we come into our own,
into a fresh fullness -
and it just opens to more and more.
All this takes courage.
"Cor" in Latin means "love."
In the Christian Blessing,
"God is Love." ( 1 John 4:8 )
So this freeing from flaw,
this evolution into All,
is simply to
"Fall in Love."
That's the base and expanse of All.
So, yes, we have lots of terrible troubles right now.
It takes courage - Love accepted -
to fearlessly grow through them.
Many of us have had our
1950's expanding and suburban middle class life,
our Leave It To Beaver days,
our supposed safe Red, White and Blue era destabilized.
If we are honest, those days had their fears:
- school air raid drills that caused many to fear an atom bomb attack from Russia
- the Korean War
- The Vietnam War (resistance movements, demonstrations, political upheaval)
- the whole Hippie era ( sex, drugs, rebellion, tradition smashed )
- the Civil Rights Movement ( racial violence, riots)
- churches and their traditions upended
So, now we have our particular pack of fearful troubles.
It's our turn to see things for what they are, and aren't,
go deep and go on.
That "deep" is
"Falling n Love."
That's the Reality Base.
It frees and strengthens:
"God is love.
Whoever lives in love
lives in God,
and God in that one...
There is no fear in in love.
But perfect love
drives out fear,...
The one who fears
is not made perfect in love."
( 1John 4:16-17 )
This coming week, and much after that,
let's ponder, meditate on and contemplate
the lead of spiritual lights as we
face flaw,
evolve ever more,
fear free forward
to fullness.
May the
Meditation Markers
that follow
get us off to a good start.
Again and always thank you for the privilege of sharing together.
Also, welcome to our little gathering here to new members in
Argentina, Spain, England, Australia.
I look forward to us all being together next week.
In God's Dear Love,
John Frank
*********************************************************************************
MEDITATION MARKERS
- " Peace I leave you;
my peace I give you.
I do not give to you as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts be troubled and
do not be afraid."
( John 14: 27 )
- "Teach this triple truth to all:
A generous heart,
kind speech,
and a life of service and compassion
are the things which
renew humanity."
( Buddha )
- "My soul honors your soul.
I honor the place in you
where the entire universe resides.
I honor the light, love, truth. beauty and peace within you,
because it is also within me.
I sharing these things
we are united,
we are the same,
we are one."
( Namaste - Hindu Greeting )
- "Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society."
( Francis of Assisi )
-"I wish I could show you ...
the astonishing light of your own being."
( Hafiz )
-"Peace comes from within.
Do not seek it without."
( Buddha )
- " Do not become overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good."
( Romans 12:21 )
- "Chaos is inherent in all compounded things.
Strive on with diligence."
( Buddha )
- "For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers,
neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us
from the love of God
that is in
Christ Jesus our Lord."
( Romans 8: 38-39 )
