Our Compassionate Country

The national election is over,and the American flag is still proudly waving over the water in our home harbor. Long may it wave over a land of the free and the home of the just.

When the constitution was written, neither women nor black people were considered fully human. It was thought that all privilege and power came directly from God, and if you had neither it was because God didn't deem you worthy. It mattered not how the powerful obtained their power, nor how they held onto it. Our "representative democracy" (republic)was not meant to represent every voice in America, only the voices of the powerful.

These powerful people owned the media, enacted laws to which they were not held accountable, and created corporations to protect themselves from the consequences of their illegal, irresponsible, and immoral actions. The first amendment to the constitution granted protection to the voices of every one of us, from the least educated and poorest to the Ivy league graduates. The internet gave power to the individual voice in a profound way.

We are finally able to be a government of all the people, by all the people; let's keep believing that every voice counts so that we can create a country that is truly for all the American people. Compassion is not Communism, as many fear-mongers have asserted. Let Our America serve as a model and lead the way to a compassionate, responsible, and just world that is of, by, and for all the people.

May the Holy Spirit guide all of us in our thoughts words and deeds as we compassionately care, listen to,  and responsibly speak out for the vulnerable and the voiceless.

Seeking The Spirit

• Posted by Y A Warren on November 6, 2012 at 8:24am
• View Blog

The issue that I see with defining Divine energy as male, is that we accept as sacred scripture the old gods of war and blood lust, re-framed in a  "new" religious way, as a pattern for "loving" fatherly behavior. We are taught that the Almighty "loving" Father created hordes of people who would never amount to anything and that "He" went so far as to create a child simply to torture him and put him to death as an example to any who are tempted to step out of line.

This branding of god creates religions that are really nothing more than Stockholm Syndrome. (Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them.Wikipedia) We are led to believe that personal power is a punishable offense, and that punishments for all mistakes will be visited on us and our future generations unless we admit that we are powerless.

We are told that this "loving" father is a jealous patriarch, who will not rest until "He" extracts the essence of life from all who err.Is it any wonder that we continue to war with one another and so many live in daily, all-consuming terror? Death seems a safer place to many than continued fear. As long as we attribute angry outbursts, directed at individuals who displease the "Master" to Divine energy, there will be no peace in religious people.

Even the essence of Christianity, "Love "God" with your whole heart and soul and your neighbor as you love yourself", has been perverted by those who seek to control others through fear. The core question is, "How do you define "God?" It is important that we find a common language for the source of all life and the transformation of death. Perhaps the closest we get to a neutral definition is the Yin-Yang concept in Daoist metaphysics.

During the sixties, in the United States, there was a strong move toward a spiritual movement based on personal experience of The Holy Spirit. This spirit is generally accepted as neither male nor female, although the patriarchal religions continue to attempt to codify this experience and define The Holy Spirit as a person of the triune male god.

It seems that all religions since the advent of the frontal lobe in humans accept that humans have a special "spark" that other creatures don't have. I like to think of this spark as The Spirit of Wholeness (Holy Spirit) that makes humans capable of acting on individual conscience, even at their own expense.

I believe that most religions have something similar to the concept of the Holy Spirit imbuing all humans. Perhaps the answer is to rescue the definition of The Holy Spirit from the patriarchal powers, and redefine it for ourselves as we see this spirit in action in our fellow humans. I am hoping the listening campaign leading up to the Parliament of World Religions will help define a common vision of The Spirit in action.

Hunting for Hats

This Sacred Sunday we'll celebrate with buying my honey a hat;
Skin cancer has kept us in the dark so long, I feel like a bat.
I really do like his face, as I like the rest of him,
But he won't hold together long if they carve off all his skin.

A hat with a very large brim to protect his ears and neck
He draws the line at the desert sun curtain in the back.

To Sunrise on Second for breakfast; out the door we'll waddle.
Then off we'll go to Bass Outdoors, they have plenty of models.

Perhaps take in a movie; we've heard Cloud Atlas is a winner.
By the time the movie's over, we may go out to dinner.
I have him to myself two days a week; I must make the most of them.
I sustain myself for the rest of the week on memories made with him.

Diana's Disaster

As a person who lost my home and neighborhood to a dreadful hurricane called Katrina, I am always amazed at the people who use these disasters to tout their own superiority as "Christians" who are protected by their favor with "God." Are the states of New York and New Jersey part of that 47% who are simply choosing to define themselves as victims? Or maybe their "sinful" ways have brought the wrath of "God" upon them?

For me, Hurricane Sandy is Diana's personal disaster. I am grateful for every tax-paying citizen's money that funds FEMA efforts that assisted my state after Hurricane Katrina, and is in the trenches helping my cousin's state of New Jersey. They need a lot more than FEMA, however.

My first cousin Diana and her husband Keith have spent their whole adult lives advocating for children and troubled families. Each of them works professionally for organizations that assist these populations. They adopted three beautiful children and are now grandparents of a darling granddaughter. They have a grown son, a daughter working in the film industry after obtaining her degree, and another daughter in college.  They are highly educated taxpayers, just like so many of you. They choose to use their skills for the greater good, rather than in the for-profit corporate sector.

The headquarters and staff of my cousin's organization has been hit hard by this hurricane. She has not run away; she is at the office coordinating efforts to help her staff and the many people she serves. I am so proud that she has asked me to assist in her efforts to assist her population.

Here is what she wrote to me about her organization:

About 80% of my staff are without power, heat, hot water, phone and internet...And of course millions of other NJ residents are as well...Our offices were without power or phones until yesterday afternoon. We are opening today with a skeleton crew and trying to help families.

We are starting up a fund to help families who have children with special needs who may have lost equipment, special food and nutritional supplements, etc., So you can certainly make a tax-deductible contribution to the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network and put "Sandy" in the notes line. Address is below.

Hope you are well.

Diana MTK Autin, Executive Co-Director
Statewide Parent Advocacy Network
35 Halsey Street, Newark, NJ 07102
973-642-8100 x 105
diana.autin@spannj.org
www.spannj.org

Empowered Parents: Educated, Engaged, Effective!

Prejudices of the Past

I wonder how much hell on earth is about living the pasts and fears of others?
So many of the fears that we experience were passed down from fathers and mothers.
Those who preach a jealous, wrathful "God" are programming their children to quake
Whenever faced with any decisions that leave any doubt in their wakes.

If "God" destroys or saves a whole nation on the actions of one human,
How are we to believe that about justice "He" gives a damn?I don't believe that one human's actions has ever helped control the tides,
Even though this is a belief in which many scriptural stories abide.

I have become, from gurus, shamans, and priests divorced;
I now believe that all energy is part of a balancing force.
Nothing on earth ever loses all its life; it is simply redistributed;
The balance is positive or negative, based on the lives we've lived.

We too strongly hold on to the action of simply breathing;
We are too set on recreating ourselves by conceiving.
When we realize that death is not an entry into nothingness,
We may be able to false promises of individual reward resist.

I much prefer to believe that each of us is born as a relatively blank slate,
And that we can pick the people and energies to which we'll relate.
This fear that only so many are born as God's chosen people and friends
Creates a competitive environment that leads us not to seek to make amends.

When we realize that the Energy we absorb and the Energy that we give
Is the Energy that has continued the breath of life since the first life was lived,
We can stop attempting to "one up" each other in the eyes of "God."
And give all others an equal hand of friendship on the earth we all trod.

Quilting for Comfort

I'm so excited. I have another commitment for a listening group for the Parliament of World Religions. This one will be in Coker Creek, a hotbed of conservative Christians. The thing is that many of the participants are transplants from other areas of the country. They are a community of quilters who belong to different (or no) churches; their focus is offering children in crisis comfort through handmade quilts. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say about ways they see of healing our mother earth.

I've often wondered how much therapy is actually accomplished through groups of women with needles. I know that some of these women have survived some really tough times through the sharing of their lives with other ladies. I wish that they could quilt their ways to world peace. Maybe comforting with quilts is a way to start.

Crowds, Corporations, and Conscience

Neither crowds nor corporations have a collective conscience; conscience is something that only imbues individuals. And happiness is always fleeting, as it presupposes the attainment of a specific point of pleasure. Human beings experience contentment when they are serving their greater values. This presupposes a mission in life in which one is following one's individual conscience. This pursuit is always a journey, never a contest for a finish line.

Democracy can only be better than other forms of government when we engage our individual consciences toward a greater good, both now and in future generations. Justice will only prevail when we stop believing that Christianity is a contest for who has the place closest to God in heaven. It seems to be each of our individual imperatives in a just world that we use the burning embers of our own individual consciences to help ignite the faltering flames of those around us. Already burning bonfires will continue to burn on their own, finding their own fuel.

The mission fields that we are all called to serve are outside of the doors of our churches, in every interaction we have with every point and person in creation. The energy we impart will continue in all of creation that we touch. We must each ask ourselves, "Am I a catalyst for justice or simply a part of a crowd?"