Clear Path to Peace

I received this from Tikkun  (to heal, repair and transform the world), a peace-centered Jewish organization. I hope you will ask these questions with me, whether you are Jewish or not.  These questions are for all of us:

NEXT YEAR IN A JERUSALEM REDEEMED THROUGH JUSTICE AND THOSE RETURNING TO HER THROUGH RIGHTEOUSNESS

The Four Children at the Seder Table:  Which Child Am I?

As we celebrate this Holiday of Freedom, the ending of slavery, we ask, “Who am I, when I hear of human rights abuses? Who will I choose to be when I know that others are suffering?”

Will I be one who does not ask? Will I close the newspaper or turn off the television so that I do not hear? Will I turn my head and heart away?

Will I ask only simple questions? “What is this?”  Will I ask what, but never why?

Will I let the evil impulse, my yetzer hara ask: “What has this to do with me?” Will I let the problem belong only to the victims and the do-gooders? Will I distance myself from those in need?

Or will I strive to act in wisdom, to ask: “What are the underlying causes of the problem and what needs to be done to stop the abuse and free the oppressed? What are the laws and what does Gd expect of me?”

May Gd open the eyes of those who do not see, the mouths of those who do not ask, and the hearts of those who do not care, and grant us the wisdom to open our hands to our fellow humans when they are in need  – the hand of generosity, the hand of support, the hand of peace and friendship.
— From Passover: Ridding ourselves of the khametz of arrogance, by Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman, Rabbis for Human Rights, Israel

Here’s a quote from the wonderful book, The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd.

“People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It’s that hard. If God said in plain language, “I’m giving you a choice, forgive or die,” a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.”

That’s how we usually think about forgiveness. What Kidd is pointing to is not that forgiveness is hard to do, but that we often don’t want to do it. It seems hard because of our PRIDE.  We let pride get in the way. We’d rather stay right than come into peace.

With honesty, openness and willingness (H.O.W.), true forgiveness melts pride, attachment and stubbornness. It is the bridge that takes us from fear to love, the path that brings us home.

Being generous is part of our true nature.

There are false generosities:  “Does it look like I’m being generous?” For women and girls, “Am I being a good girl? Am I being ‘ladylike’ in giving?”  For boys and men, “Am I showing my status and my power by having enough to give away?”

Another one: Giving out of guilt. “If I can just give enough, I won’t have to feel so guilty for being born a white American, or a wealthy European, Australian, or Japanese.”

Let’s weed out false generosity so that we have a clear path…not a path full of deception and debris.

True generosity is really something quite different. It is a feeling we get when we are so overflowing with divine love that the only thing left to do is to give it away. The only thing we want to do is give it away. It’s easy, fun, satisfying, enjoyable, and natural. This is a generosity of compassion and empathy.

Why not imagine a world where everyone is saturated with divine love? A world where the best part of our day is when we give love away…to each other and to the Earth..

Being generous – the way we are meant to be.

When Jesus walked the planet, he didn’t have a plan to create a massive holiday of gift-giving…complete with stressed out gift givers.  Jesus came to remind us of our eternal holiness, our pure innocence, and the love of God for each one of us.

That is what I receive from his message, anyway.  What do you receive?

This Holy Day season, let’s remember that it is a season of peace.

This means that we can be peaceful about the season! We don’t need to create anxiety about buying stuff, or whether or not we’ve given “enough” to our kids or family members.  Even children who are used to getting a lot of presents can be re-trained to value gratitude, service to others, and simple (maybe handmade) gifts instead of the mountains of plastic they expect. Re-training ourselves and our children is going to take some work and inner fortitude. I know we can do it – if we commit to it.

This isn’t simply a stress management issue. In addition to our emotional health, we need to safeguard the resources of our beautiful planet. So cutting back on Christmas consumerism is an essential environmental issue as well.

Peace is our birthright. It is our very nature. We’ve lost track of that, and Christmas stress is a great barometer for how far we can lose ourselves in the expectations and habits of consumer society. But we can divorce ourselves from the madness, and claim the simplicity of true Christ consciousness.  It is within us, every moment of every day. Let’s find it together.

Merry Christmas!

I just received this link and it is beautiful! If you click on this, you will see Americans all over the world, standing on bridges as a symbol of the bridge to change…http://blip.tv:80/file/1338283  If you are an American citizen of voting age, PLEASE VOTE. Support clean, honest voting in the United States! I support Barack Obama because he stands for health, sanity, environmental sustainability, peace, and respect for all people.  How about you? As a peace educator and forgiveness counselor, I’ve been inspired by the unity of purpose and strength of caring that characterize the Obama campaign.  Obama’s supporters come in all sizes, shapes and colors, just like the citizens of this country.We can learn to live together in peace, and to export peace and goodwill around the world.  Yes we can! 

It was summer.  I was on a river trip with a group of women; all of us adventuring together on the Klamath River in far northern California, near the Oregon border.  I was paddling my kayak, happy with the day, the beauty, and the sunshine.

Underneath, though, I was worried.  What if I get tossed?  Every serious river runner has to deal with this fear at some point or other.  I’d been kayaking the Klamath for years and had voluntarily jumped in plenty of times. I’d also been quite handy with my kayak, managing to stay in the boat through countless rapids.  I’d only “gone swimming” once before, years ago. I knew that at some point, the river would take my little body and propel it out of the boat, because that is just how it is. You can’t do a lot of river rafting without that experience, and the more I kayaked, the closer I came to the inevitable.

I was lucky – the day was warm. Coming up to a class 3 rapid, I paddled hard in preparation.  I needed to align my boat with the perfect slot in the rocks ahead. As usual during river rafting, the slightest drop in my concentration would be my undoing.  I looked quickly to “river right”, making sure to avoid overhanging branches, then put my attention back on the slot ahead of me.  But that glance cost me one micro-second too many, and the river wasn’t waiting for me. I went over the rapid and into the river so fast I couldn’t even think about it. I was swimming, and I had no choice.  I was wet, the water was moving, and my boat was bobbing somewhere close by.
Here’s the magical part: after the first shock of surprise, I realized that the Klamath River was embracing me. I felt absolutely safe in its arms of love, and I began to cry. My salty tears met the river water and we celebrated the truth that, in that moment, there was nothing wrong, nothing scary, nothing to be avoided…just warm water carrying me downstream.

The river was so strong and steadfast! Except for my upturned face and knobby knees, it completely covered my body. It took me. I relaxed into the safety of it, still crying with relief and new understanding. It was a moment I will never forget.

River rafting can be a dangerous sport. Every toss from a boat will not be as ecstatic as the experience I had that summer day.  Just the same, I gained a powerful lesson from the Klamath. It taught me about the river of love, the river of life itself.  All of my fears, hesitations and assumptions were exposed and laid bare in one moment of my heart’s relief, when I got wet and realized they were not true. The lesson moved me because I was so aware of the metaphor: this water was alive and teaching me to trust – just as the water of every moment is also wet and alive and welcomes my trust, even if it doesn’t look like I’m in a river any more. I am. It is the river of life.  That day, I found out it’s also the river of love.

What a time of upheaval and change!  And what a time of no upheaval and no change at all!

I don’t know about you, but the past week has been a time when all of my *&#! came up. Any place where I wasn’t trusting my connection to the One came to greet me with a devilish grin. Yikes!  What an unpleasant crash into a hell world of my own creation. I notice that I get really bent out of shape if I get worried about the future. In reality, in this moment I’m fine…doing my thing, healthy, with a roof over my head and all the blessings of my beautiful life…

In my imagined future, I can create all sorts of scary possibilities. And it sucks. Reeling my mind back to this moment NOW has taken all of my patience, strength and self-love. I know I am not alone. Everyone I work with and play with is also feeling this deep inner challenge of remaining present in the Presence…or losing our way and coming back…So if you are feeling slightly or majorly insane these days, go into your heart and reach out to all of your teammates…the incredible souls around the world (and beyond) who are committed to the awakening of Love and Peace and Health and Justice on Earth.  There are millions of us, and we are strong. Tap into the group determination that we yield, especially if you’ve temporarily lost your way.

Together, we awaken. Together, we support each other and learn to love Life. God is perfect love.  And so are we.

I received this email from Randall Butisingh, a wonderful, wise man I met through the Internet.  Randall is an elder to almost all of us, since he is in his 90’s. I share his words to inspire you:

“We are all, when we choose, 100% saints and also 100% sinners. That is the challenge in our lives. In the present we are faced with our greatest challenges; a diminishing environment, economic deficiency, attack by terrorists, the proliferation of the Aids virus and other dreadful diseases; all caused by man’s greed, his excesses, his selfishness and recalcitrance.  But this should not affect those who love and have the inner peace.  Bear in mind, the darker the night, the brighter and more brilliant the stars. So it is with evil – the greater the evil, love and mercy and forgiveness manifest to a greater degree. This we can see in the work of selfless individuals, charitable organizations and benevolent governments.  What happens outside of us is of very little consequence and is transitory, but what takes place inside of us is what greatly matters; like the continuous ticking of the clock in the most violent storm.

Here is a stanza from a hymn that bears me out:

“A faith that shines more bright and clear

When tempests rage without;

That when in danger knows no fear,

In darkness feels no doubt.”

Thank you, Randall, for your long life of service, faith and love. You are a blessing to this Earth.

This morning I stretched my body, emotions and mind in yoga class. I was deep in prayer about being truly naked before God. I wanted to release anything that appeared to be in my way, any thought or feeling that could obscure the glory of the Divine – for me – in each moment.

As I traveled into my breath, in and out of yoga poses, I also journeyed in and out of perceiving myself as a separate person. Intellectually, I know that my individuality is a scam, and I’ve touched upon the vast, unfettered Truth of Goddess many times. This morning, and more and more recently, my prayer was (and is) to experience the vastness on an ongoing basis.

I began to sense Aliveness in the air around me. Not only in the very atoms and molecules, but beyond physicality. I started to drink copiously from the prana which completely filled what appeared to be space all around me – it stretched from one centimeter beyond my skin all the way to immense creations of divine intelligence, to “places” that my mind has not yet imagined. Everything was seamlessly linked inside this river of love. I floated in joy….and remembered to include my body and what is inside my body in the river, too.

I’ve been getting bored with only tasting the good stuff – and only sometimes. I’m tired of snacking…OK – enough noshing, as we say in Yiddish. I’m pulling for the eternal experience of experiencing eternity. I’m desiring freedom with the full extent of my glorious being. Can you relate? There are many, many people who are sharing this prayer with me. We are a team, and we are awakening together.

Here are the words to a song I wrote that describes my desire for the mystical touch…and my experience of the Beloved One. Hope you enjoy it.

River of Love

wash away my fear

River of Love

take away my tears

River of Love

cleanse me to my soul

purify me

River of Love

cleanse me to my soul

Call me and I’ll sing it to you.

530-926-4639 PST, California, USA

We are all swimming in this river, but we don’t remember, most of the time…and this is changing…there is no place else to be…

Come swim with me in the River of Love.

In the last few days, I’ve come even deeper into a realization about the connection between anger, violence and sadness. It is grief that lurks behind destruction…and the willingness to feel and release sadness is the cure and the balm for our pain.

Where does this grief come from, you ask? It grows from our collective refusal to live in accordance with Divine Love and its ways: union, blessing, expansion, mercy, comfort and caring for each other and our beautiful green planet. There is a shared, tragic and fearful howling that is constantly baying a mournful melody beneath our sleepy awareness. This is the grief I’m talking about, although we rarely recognize it and even more rarely give ourselves some breathing room to feel it.

I recently came across a short Buddhist tale about a monk who was crying at his master’s grave. When asked by a traveler, “Why are you crying? I thought you were enlightened!” the monk replied, “Because I am sad.” (from Everyday Grace, by Marianne Williamson)

When I read these poignant words, I thought about how much violent behavior could be transformed if we really take this story to heart. Just think – if we all gave ourselves permission to feel sad – what would our world be like?

We’d no longer answer, “Fine” to the ubiquitous question “How are you?”

Instead, we might say, “Oh, I’m feeling the tender stabbing and ripping feeling of my heart as it opens to grief.” Then we’d both pause, and take a breath together, standing by each other as we released our sadness into pools of trust and love. And it wouldn’t have to be a problem, or a drama, or a cheerleading session — just a quiet recognition of suffering as it appears here on Earth.

We could breathe and relax and feel together, and then feel a whole lot better, and closer. We’d go on about our days with more creative energy and more compassion for the next sisters and brothers who came along…and when we asked them, “How are you?” we’d pause to listen to the ringing truth of an answer that might, or might not, contain some sadness or discomfort of any kind.

I hold a vision of this world where joy, elation, fear and sadness are recognized as inner markers for how close we are feeling to God at any moment. If we want to feel closer, then we simply release our grief and in doing so, make room to expand our joy.

Notice how no violence of any kind is necessary or desired in this honest world. Connections between us just dance deeper, until someday, we’ll be done with releasing grief and the forgiveness of all deeds will be complete. The At-Onement, which lives eternally inside us, will be manifest on Earth, and we will notice that we’ve created a garden, you and me….a delightful, heavenly garden of peace.