Today we celebrate the vision, dedication and genius of Martin Luther King, Jr.  His message of peace continues to inspire good-hearted people throughout the world.

Martin has been one of my favorite peace heroes since I was in high school. His speeches bring tears to my eyes every time I read or hear them. Why? Because they are so TRUE. My soul rings with the truth and dedication of his words, and his life.   With Martin as our example, today is a powerful time to look within and ask

• What am I doing and how am I being that gives more peace to the world?
• Where are the blocks in my heart and mind that keep me from being a gift of peace?
• What do I need to do to release them so that I can offer the world my simple serenity?

“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.” — Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love

We are beacons of love. Our love shines brightest when we’re committed, courageous and ready to give the full force of our creativity and light.   But sometimes we get disappointed and disillusioned. I know I do. Choosing beyond the feeling of discouragement is a major meditation for me. It can seem hard, but this is how we build our inner muscles of dedication.   Martin must have felt a bit of this, too, at some point. So if you feel discouraged,

• Find a friend and lift each other up.
• Read about peace from your favorite authors.
• Forgive the past and learn from its lessons.
• Discover the treasures buried within your life story.
• Build upon your inner strength.
• Share your light and love with others, and with the Earth.

If you need help to feel more centered and aligned, so you can deepen your dream as Martin deepened his, please give me a call or email me for a free consultation. All sessions are 15% off until 1/31/12.  530-926-4639 or go to www.anaholub.com

My mission is to teach you simple, elegant methods of peace and forgiveness. Once you learn them, you can pass them on to others. We need each other’s peaceful, dedicated, sincere passion right now. The Earth needs you. It’s 2012 – time to jump into the river of love!

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal… I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” — Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream, 1963

Noise is loud and harsh at San Quentin Prison. Gates clang; buzzers attack the air and our ears. Antiquated heating systems complain with knocks and pings, and electric fans emit insistent dragon hums in the classrooms. There’s no quiet here. In order to have quiet in prison, one must learn to be quiet.

San Quentin is a caged man’s world. As a volunteer Peace Education teacher, I am a foreigner — because I can freely walk out past those immense gates, and also because I’m a woman. During my monthly visits, men crowd the yard as I walk through. Most are busy with their primary occupation: building muscle. They huff and puff into their push-ups for hours each day, biding their time until they are released. A precious few greet me with an eager desire to learn. It’s these men I come here to know, to teach and to learn from. It is this tiny percentage who want to find the long buried goodness within them, no matter what, no matter where they are or what they’ve done. read more

To watch a TED talk by IPP founder, Jacques Verduin, about IPP and its great work on behalf of creating a peaceful world, click here.

The tragic shooting in Arizona on Saturday is certainly a wake-up call for our country.  Let’s not make the mistake of seeing it merely as the isolated act of a lunatic.

Our political dialogue has fallen to an abysmal level over the past couple decades.  The tone, not only of  campaigns, but of our nation’s leaders in Washington, DC has become bitterly partisan and increasingly mean.   Rigid ideologies, misrepresentation of facts, and cruel personal attacks have taken the place of open dialogue, often derailing solutions to our nation’s many serious problems.

I’ve always believed that we get the leaders (as well as the commentators) we deserve.  So, let’s not point fingers at the folks in DC—or the folks spewing out hatred and misinformation over the airwaves and the Internet.  Let’s instead look in the mirror.  Let’s look at the places of judgment, self- righteousness, and even hatred in our hearts that are being reflected (as well as pandered to) by the commentators and the politicians.

When we look in the mirror, let’s not judge ourselves harshly.  Rather, let’s see clearly how we’ve contributed to creating the climate that led to the shooting on Saturday.  Then, let’s find a place of forgiveness in our hearts, first for ourselves, then for the hate-mongering commentators and politicians, and finally for the assassin himself.

From this place of forgiveness, we’ll remember that we’re all in this together and engage in constructive dialogue, cooperatively moving toward a peaceful, prosperous America.

— Andrew Oser, Summit Coaching Services

In my forgiveness work, I speak about healing both the victim and the perpetrator archetypes. In reality, everyone with an ego has experienced both sides of this painful coin. One person might think of himself more as a “poor victim” and another might consider herself as basically “a bully,” but for most of us, both labels apply. And though they’re only labels, and both sides can be uplifted by the healing power of forgiveness, the violence still hurts before the healing begins.

The United Nations Charter of Rights for Children states, in part, that “every child has the right to an education and every child has the right to be safe”. One group that’s doing an incredible job helping kids find those rights is Challenge Day. I recently participated as an adult volunteer at a Challenge Day at my local high school. It was a day full of laughter, tears and miracles.

The Challenge Day trainers, youthful yet savvy Gina and Tony, enticed the students into deep honesty, openness and willingness during the 6 hour session. We all played games, made lots of noise, explored giving safe, non-sexual hugs, and shared support for our most difficult life lessons. At the end of the day, everyone (both students and adults alike) realized that there’s so much more that binds us than separates us. Roles like “cool kid” and “loser,” “jock” and “nerd” fell away once our common strengths and frailties were held with compassion and understanding. We learned about ourselves as a human family, and left with a profound sense of peace and excitement.

The challenge now is to enliven the lessons we learned during Challenge Day and make them a part of every day life at Mount Shasta High School, and at all high schools, middle schools, colleges, universities, families and throughout our entire social web.

Only this commitment to peace will prevent more kids from jumping off the George Washington Bridge, as 18 year old Tyler Clementi did this month. Maybe because I drove over that bridge every day for two years during high school, the latest suicide over a bullying incident holds symbolic meaning for me. I also love the symbol of a white bird, flying in freedom, to remind me of peace and serenity.

Whatever symbol for peace works for you, I hope you will hold it dear to your heart and make it grow. To find inspiration, contact www.challengeday.org. Be the change you want to see in the world!

I got into a subway car with my son and sister. The doors were still open and the place was fairly crowded with sweaty New Yorkers of all colors and shapes. All of a sudden, a black man arrived at the doorway and began yelling at a white man who was sitting in the subway car. “What you did was wrong! I’m gonna make you pay, white man! I’ll see you tomorra! You can’t beat me! You can’t beat me!” he bellowed.  The white guy, who had a fresh black eye, began yelling back, matching the energy and contributing his own equally violent threats to the mix. Finally, the doors closed and the black guy slammed his fist onto our car BOOM! as it sped away into the bowels of Manhattan.

After a split second of stunned silence, a couple of people laughed, either because they thought it was funny, or because they were actually nervous and needed to break the tension. Everyone looked around and realized that we were fine, no big deal. A young black man looked over toward my white, 13 year old son and rolled his eyes with a smile.  Aron smiled back; so did I.

A few years ago, this incident could have sparked a race riot. In the heat, anything can happen. But this time, what I noticed was all the people (black-eyed white guy excepted) telling each other in subtle ways, “No thanks. We’re not going on that ride to racism, anger and violence. We’re done, and we’re not interested. We aren’t taking the bait and we won’t get hooked. There’s a lot more to life than macho posturing and slugging it out, no matter who’s involved or what their racial background. Let’s all get along and have some fun, instead!”

I got off that subway car inspired by how far we’ve come, and how great New Yorkers are. Some might say that New Yorkers are cynical, they’ve seen it all, and that’s why they let the incident slide into oblivion. But I don’t agree. People reached out to each other to make a better, richer fabric of community together.  Now that’s something to celebrate!

“Heaven is the decision I must make.” — ACIM

This is one of my favorite quotes. There’s no room for dithering or hesitation. Moment by moment, we decide.

Heaven is here in this moment. Not outside. Inside. Here – in your heart of hearts.

Namaste.

Allowing the possibility of a happy outcome to all things takes a lot of trust. How can there be a happy outcome when there is so much pain and suffering in the world…and in our hearts?

The only way to achieve any kind of real happiness is to offer all of our loneliness, fear and sadness to the Holy Spirit. Giving it to another person or idea doesn’t work. We’ve already tried to pawn it off on desires for possessions, prestige, sex, and drugs. We’ve attempted happiness through work, or sought relief through our spouses, children and therapists. None of that was successful, except for a minute or two, was it?

We are left with only one course of action that leads to healing. Pain and suffering can only be finally cleansed in one way. We must look in only one direction for support and guidance. Why? Because there is only one source of Love that is real. How can we find healing in anything that isn’t real? We can’t – it’s impossible.

If we want peace, we’ll need to offer up our pride and surrender on bended knee. We must acknowledge with a grateful heart this source that gives us life, minute by minute, moment by moment, breath by breath. Let’s finally understand that this source is pure love…so we can find the soft strength that’s necessary to lay down our burdens. Breathing out our sadness and confusion, we’ll make room for clarity, joy, and new direction. We’ve got to make some space, to clear out. Only the Holy Spirit, God’s grace in action, can help us here.

We will walk off the battlefield as many times as we need to. Over and over…or just once and for all. It doesn’t matter. What matters is directly experiencing relief from the illusions of bitterness, revenge and hatred. They are not real…we just made them up. We can let them go and find sanity…peace…heaven on earth.

This is the way that a happy outcome to all things is sure. Aaaahhhhhh, so good to know. 

A peaceful day to you.

A few days ago, I lost the coin. I couldn’t find it anywhere, though I did all the sensible things -checked my pants pockets, retraced my steps, etc. I began to feel sad that it had disappeared, and angry with myself for losing it. Damn!  I liked that coin!  I saw my attachment, my assumption about what it meant to me, my annoyance with my irresponsibility. And the little thing is worth about $200, on top of it all.

Anyway, the next day I taught my first Uncovering Your Inner Rumi devotional poetry workshop. A wonderful group gathered in Mount Shasta, CA, to explore writing devotional poetry together. Since I was thinking about the gold coin, I wrote about a poem about it during the workshop.  Here it is:

O Beloved

give me back my gold!

I lost it…yet could I ever lose it?

Jesus, your golden grace

coalesced in my hand

Lakshmi, I prayed for your help

Gone now

poof! it flew into the Mystery

Here is the teaching

if I dare:

never lost,never taken

this golden glow of mine.

Well, I really prayed that the coin would reappear, since I’d now gotten the lesson. A friend helped me search once more, and lo and behold – I found it!  Where, you might ask?  On my altar, where I’d placed it for safe-keeping, beside an image of the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi, goddess of grace, beauty and abundance.I had to laugh. Lakshmi had me covered – the whole time!  Another life lesson:  Divine Love holds my golden grace, even when I’ve forgotten it, and forgotten where I’ve put it.  So good to know.

The River of Love is the healing experience of Divine contact. It’s sometimes called the Holy Spirit, the Divine Mother, Father God, or the “peace that passeth all understanding.” It was the only thing that kept me sane and whole enough to raise my children well, despite my mother’s illness and its effect on me. It helped me learn that I am a lot stronger than anything that shows up in my life, even the shock and pain of my mother’s suicide.

It took years to receive all of the lessons this experience gave to me. I needed to learn that the Grace of God offers a more powerful love than what my human mother could give me. It’s a love that never leaves, never gives up, and always heals when we allow it into our hearts.

Through this life journey, I feel humbled and in awe of the great mystery. I wonder where my mother is now, and how she is doing with the lessons that she learned. I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I feel the movement of my soul in holding them. I am open-hearted and open-minded, calling for more wisdom.

Life gave me this experience to show me that NO MATTER WHAT, the River of Love will float me home to a deep inner sense of security and serenity. This river taught me to release my sadness, and find gratitude for the lessons I’d learned. It gave me the joy and freedom of knowing I am never isolated or without a friend. The River of Love showed me that the edges to all things are friendly…if I relax into the safety I share with the Divine.

In the past, I rarely spoke or wrote about what happened with my mother. Even now, I feel reticent to discuss it. But I also feel that we need to share our life experiences – not to wallow in the pain of them, but to transform difficulties that seemed impossible to overcome.When really tough things happen, using our minds to figure out what to do doesn’t help very much.  We need more space, more breath, deep intuition and a lot of prayer and true forgiveness to feel whole again.

I give swimming lessons in the River of Love. It’s OK to get your feet wet – or plunge right in with a full, naked leap! See you on the river…..

The deeper I go into forgiveness…in the ecstatic, radical sense of the word…the more I see that its invitation is surrender. Forgiveness is the golden door, the way past all fear and grief, and an entry into life beyond dictatorship of the ego.

What is radical about radical forgiveness? What is ecstatic about it? Using a spiritual philosophy grounded in the teachings of A Course in Miracles and other holy books, we go beyond the traditional usage of the word “forgiveness”.  Rather than “letting bygones be bygones” (somehow), we agree to let our spiritual intelligence teach us. We humbly learn about the gifts that were hidden or obscured – in even the most terrible events in our lives. We surrender to the wisdom that lives beyond what our intellects can decipher. Allowing the healing blessings in, we also let pain and sorrow out of our hearts.

When we choose to let go of blame and grievances, and the corresponding thoughts and emotions buried deep within, we can refill ourselves on a cellular level with healing grace. We then find out that there is no spiritual need for forgiveness, after all, because we are not helpless, solitary victims of our circumstances. The world is not out to get us — in fact, God wants our perfect happiness.

Divine Love beckons us, welcoming us to release the pain of this material world, while supporting us to remain present in the world in order to guide others to the door. Divine Grace, sometimes known as the Holy Spirit, is the healer, and our part is to surrender to the healing…constantly flowing…the River of Love.

Recently, I found two plays on words that gave me a chuckle.  I share them here for your enjoyment and inspiration.

One of the hardest parts about being human is the tendency toward feeling abandoned. Abandoned by loved ones, by the death of loved ones, by the “betrayal” of others, and by God as well.  Especially by God. Hence all of the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that muck up our innate happiness.  Well, I found that there is a great use for abandonment.  Turning around, there is the possibility to abandon ourselves to God. That’s the juicy sort of abandonment that brings sublime joy, health, and happiness. This is the abandonment that Sufi poets describe so well. So next time you are feeling sadness or pain over thinking you’ve been abandoned by someone, abandon yourself to God instead. Freedom will be yours, every time.

Meditating upon “turning around”, I remembered the analogy that Colin Tipping likes to use in his explanation of Radical Forgiveness.  He describes our lives as being tapestries. They are beautiful, but usually we look at the backside of them. (“Ass backward,” as we used to say in New Jersey.) From that viewpoint, there are knots and hanging strings, and the image is messy and blurred. Turn it over, he suggests, and we see the divine perfection of our life plan, including everything that has ever happened for us. Not to us, but for us. It’s a turn-over!  Delectable!  I can remember that….apple turn-over, yum…let’s go get one right now.

When life seems unmanageable, try abandoning yourself to God. This surrender will put you on the path of forgiveness. And when circumstances are distasteful, turn it around…give yourself a tasty turn-over. Witnessing the perfection of each moment will make your life delicious again.