The Romance of Wonder

The Romance of Wonder

I have a new prayer. It came to me, powerfully, this morning. It goes like this:

All my misery is due to my choices.

My misery choices are made in fear of demons.

Demons are the artifice of childhood.

I am no longer a child.

I am an Adult!

I have the power of choice!

I choose wonder!

I choose peace!

I choose love!

I choose to be satisfied with wonder!

I choose to be satisfied with peace!

I choose to be satisfied with love!

I lower my standards to these simple things and gain the greatest fulfillment I could possibly imagine!

Each moment of my life, I, again, choose these things!

Who knows when it started. The Bible says it started with Cain and Abel. I take that to mean it started early in human history. So be it. It started, is the point. Someone hurt another. Then that other hurt another. And so on...and so on... The Vikings, using the gift of their boats, came and killed. They conquered and caused great misery. Attila the Hun. Alexander the Great. Julius and Augustus Caesar. William the Conqueror. Genghis Kan. Napoleon. Hitler. These and many others brought horrors to humanity. These horrors live in us. They live in the dysfunctions of our parents. Daddy abused his daughters. Drunken daddy beat his wife and terrorized his kids. Mommy was cruel and heartless. Their mommies and daddies did the same—“passed the poison”, I like to say. Foster parents cared only for the money from the state. The orphanage treated children as cattle.

This is the demon factory. Especially susceptible are children and these children grow up and become driven, dissatisfied adults. By “driven” I mean “driven to avoid the pain inflicted by demons.” Dissatisfied because running from demons distracts us from the very things that would dissolve those demons for good, and give us the greatest satisfaction.

Most of us products of poisoned parents, who reach adulthood, don't actually “grow up”. A mature, healthy adult is a master of choice. A healthy, mature adult, sees the wisdom of choosing love, knows the joy of wonder and lives in peace as a result. A healthy, mature adult has a dalliance with every moment—the romance of wonder and joy that is the true meaning of life.

Misery comes from running from demons. When we run from demons, we miss the joy and wonder in life. We miss opportunities that would support and further our joy. We seclude in the cloister of fear. A feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction results—the “hole in the soul”. All our creativity and personal resources go into an attempt to fill this emptiness. There are many strategies. Excessive drinking, using drugs, over eating, excessively and compulsively buying and owning things, living recklessly, gaining and maintaining dominant positions over others, thrill seeking, engaging in self destructive behavior, you name it!

We can become quite frantic in our quest to mitigate this emptiness—this core pain. Often we are pushed to lie, cheat and/or steal. Our obsession overshadows empathy and compassion. My pain is far more important than your pain. “Love thy neighbor” becomes an all but impossible commandment.

It's time for humanity to grow up. It's time for all of us to stop and assess—to look inward. It's time for all of us to examine our choices and do a personal inventory. Have our past choices served us or screwed us?

It's time for a mass leap into the light. We have chased our tails since the time we lost our tails. You are never going to catch your tail. Give up! Surrender! Stop! And, try the prayer. Try love. Open your eyes to the wonder around you. By lowering your standards to simple wonder and the joy that lingers in the moment, you will gain the greatest satisfaction. You will never be bored again. You will never be unhappy again. You will be so brimming with satisfaction and fulfillment, you will have more than enough to share. And sharing will bring more satisfaction and fulfillment. The emptiness will be so filled, your soul will suffer flood advantage. Your life will overflow with abundance. Your desires will exactly coincide with your life. Every moment your desires will be granted. You will spontaneously create your purpose and spontaneously live it.

Imagine if everyone achieved this. Imagine a world full of people spontaneously creating their purpose. During the spiritual quest that was my earlier life, I participated in a “Movement Expression” dance class. In one exercise, the teacher has us all (as class of around twenty) close our eyes and move around the room. She told us to let go and trust. At first we ran into each other, but soon, we moved and even danced and like some unified being, avoided collision and moved in some kind of miraculous harmony. I believe this is possible for humanity as a whole. All moving about in life in some kind of miraculous harmony, as if one, self loving being, having a joyful romp on this beautiful planet we call Earth.

What I Hate

I hate that there is misery, suffering, and despair in the world. I hate that there is such a thing as disease. I hate that survival is ever an issue, and that people can actually wind up out on the street. I hate that there are so many words in the dictionary inspired by hate.

I hate that people become so pressed by fear that they hurt and even kill other living beings. I hate that prisons are in operation and that they are filled way beyond their intended capacity. I hate that the intent behind the design of at least some of those prisons was to punish rather than reform or even better, to revive. I hate that anyone ever feels the need to commit a crime.

I hate that a woman is ever driven to abandon her own newborn in a dumpster or even at someone’s doorstep. What horrors that woman must be facing for her to deny her hearts blood in that way. And even if the woman is merely disposing of an inconvenient product of a wanton lifestyle, I hate that anyone falls that far from their center.

I hate that many of the religions in this world tend to only help their own and in some cases go out of their way to denounce, degrade, and even destroy those outside their ilk.

I hate violence and cruelty, and every war ever fought on the planet, especially when done so in the name of God. I hate that anyone has to die alone and afraid. I hate that so much of the innovation in the world came out of preparation for battle.

I hate that greed is so often placed before philanthropy, selfishness before altruism, aggression before mediation, slander before inquiry. I hate that anyone sees little or nothing of their own self in any other human being.

This is what I reserve hate for--the things in the world untouched by love. I hate them in the world and I hate them in myself. I also hate that I hate at all. If I was an accomplished disciple of love I would hold no hate. Not even for the things I listed above.

God Is Dead – Long Live God

Most of the Universe is black and empty – a glance at the clear night sky will verify that. But quantum physicists would have us believe that all that blackness is pregnant with possibility – that there is a constant dance going on between existence and non-existence. It's like the void of space is maniacally fiddling with itself in random bursts of creation and annihilation as it awaits inspiration.

Apparently, everything that exists, was formed out of this blackness and is sustained by thought. But whose thought?

I avoid the word “God.” That is a word with so many meanings attached to it as to render it meaningless. An appropriate fate in my reckoning and here's why I think so.

Bad things happen to good people and bad people get away with all manner of nastiness. Not all bad people – sometimes justice is served, or at least it would seem so. And good things happen to good people, too, but, there sure is a lot of crap going on in the world.

If there is a God, wouldn't He/She/It put a stop to all of the insanity? Wouldn't God being all powerful and on the side of righteousness (otherwise, wouldn't we be talking about Satan?) be smiting evil and rewarding good until peace reigns pure in the Universe?

It sure seems like an argument in favor of the non-existence of God, or the death thereof. Maybe God took a vacation. I mean, for God, isn't a couple of weeks more like billions of years to us? One way to resolve the discrepancy between the Creationist's belief that it took seven days to make the Universe and the scientific stance that billions of years were involved is to consider context in the measure of a “Day.”

But, what if God is merely the possibility of creation? Like building blocks strewn willy-nilly across a floor. They remain a mess for a mom to yell about as long as no one arranges them into prideful structures. What they become is totally up to the builder. The blocks don't give a flop how they are used – their only ambition is to hold their shape so they can be relied on to function throughout time into whatever purpose they are applied.

That would explain why so many prayers go unanswered and why I so often hear the phrase, “It wasn't meant to be.” More like, “It wasn't made to be.” And what about those prayers that, apparently, are answered? Could it be in the asking?

Back in my Unity days, I joined the prayer team and was trained as a Prayer Minister. During that training a distinction was made between what was termed “Begging Prayer” and what could be called “Proactive Prayer.” Begging prayer goes something like this:

“Oh Heavenly Father, please, don't let anything happen to little Stevie, and make us strong and resourceful as we face the challenges to come, and hey, how about that Mercedes-Benz -- amen”

The same prayer in the style I was taught would go like this:

“Heavenly Father, from the knowing that we are co-creators and through the oneness of all things, I know, for little Stevie, that he is safe, secure, and surrounded by the love of his family and friends and by your infinite love and compassion. We recognize, within ourselves, the boundless source of strength and creativity which we will apply, without abandon, to the tasks at hand. And, hey, we see that Mercedes-Benz materializing in our near future from the wealth of your abundance – amen!”

Based on the testimonies, gleefully delivered on many a Sunday morning, our way of praying worked pretty good. The difference is simple – being active in the process, rather than passive. By accepting responsibility for how things turn out, rather than expecting some external power to take care of it is, from what I have seen, the crucial quality.

I think the question of whether God is dead or not, is nonsensical (as is this idea that there are “good” people and “bad” people – but that's a subject for a later post ;). It requires that there be a form that can die. I've always considered God as a formless and impersonal foundation for all “things” and that we are in charge of how it is applied in our lives. Isn't that what “free will” is all about?

There are a lot of details, and a caveat or two, that I plan to go into in future posts, but suffice it to say, God is love and love doesn't interfere. The state of the world is purely a result of how humanity has applied the infinite manna. In other words, it ain't God's fault.

Tithing The Natural Way

During my high school years I had a friend whose family maintained a pantry full of enough food to feed them for two years. He didn’t smoke, drink, take drugs, or even swear. He was my kind of guy and as it turned out, he was Mormon. I had never heard of a Mormon.

One day, his father took me aside and started up a conversation about a guy named Joseph Smith. He asked me if I would like to watch a short film that would clarify things a bit. I didn’t see any harm and it sounded interesting.

About all I remember of its content was a bunch of people wearing white sheets and standing around in water. Then, one by one, this one guy bent each person back until their head was under water. I remember thinking how unpleasant that must be, since whenever my head goes under water at that angle, I get loads of it up my nose.

Then he told me that my parents, should I choose to become a Mormon, would have to donate ten percent of their income to the church. He used a word I had never heard before. The word was “tithe.”

I went home and asked my parents about it, and I seem to recall that their attitude was I could become a Mormon if I wanted to, but any tithing would have to come out of my pocket. I decided to not become a Mormon.

Decades later, the subject of tithing once again crossed my path – this time at a Unity church and this time, I was a member. The church coffers were low and the minister thought it a good time to educate us on the power of giving. As a result I learned a great deal about tithing, both how to do it and how not to.

The sermon was based on Malachi who said: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

Once again the minimum amount deemed effective was ten percent. Now, this minister wasn’t going to let us off easy. Her interpretation was ten percent of our gross income. At that particular time, the church wasn’t the only one having some financial difficulty and ten percent of my gross was going to be, well, painful.

But the minister said for it to work, we needed to be happy about our gift. We needed to be giving from a place of gratitude, knowing that the money was going to a worthy cause. In fact, and this was rather brave of this minister, her definition of tithing was giving to whatever or whomever provided our “spiritual food”. In my case, that wasn’t entirely her church. There was Self Realization Fellowship, Peace Pilgrim, and a guy named James.

It was a struggle, but I did manage to muster up some gratitude. All I had to do was think about how these organizations and/or people had benefited me and my heart swelled with gratitude – naturally.

That was when it made a difference. My previous attempts at tithing seemed to net nothing in the way of blessings gushing through open windows. When I actually wanted to show my appreciation, my fortune changed in the form of a raise in pay that made it much easier to do ten percent.

I suspect it isn’t really tithing unless you really want to do it. And when you really want to do it, you are behaving like that grand source that just loves to give us exactly what we want. I think that is what tithing is really all about. It’s about being like the essence of who we really are.

When we live and act from gratitude, we are closest to that higher part of us that is Creator. As a result, we come into the act of creation, and thus create. That’s what opens the window. That’s what delivers the blessing -- us being who we really are when we aren’t absorbed in ourselves.
When a tithe is offered out of obligation, I suspect it’s coming from a place of lack, and can only create more lack – which may be just fine. There is nothing like a little pain to promote piety within the flock ;)

Sunday School Hooky

I was raised Christian by a pair of agnostics. Each Sunday morning I tried to say in bed until the family left without me, but my parents preferred the late service (or perhaps they thought I did). As a result I had to lie in bed doing nothing for hours, which for my ten year old temper was worse than church, but not by much, so ‘try’ became the operative word.

Once seated in the temple, there was another agonizing wait that was probably only fifteen minutes, but seemed like days. Finally, after the minister mumbled something about Heavenly Fathers and ghosts, and everyone stood and sang some incomprehensible song, we kids were excused for Sunday School.

There was no escort – we were trusted to find our own way – a situation I took full advantage of.

About three times the number of paces it would have taken for me to arrive at the class for my age group was the distance to where I held my own personal Sunday School on the banks of the creek that ran behind the church property at the edge of a small eucalyptus forest in a suburb called “Northridge”.

There I communed with nature, hippy style, feeling the energy of the trees, delighting in the sway of algae and the gurgle of the water, and witnessing the cycle of life as I discovered frog eggs, then pollywogs, then little leaping frogs.

I was a pre-teen on the verge of puberty. It was the mid-sixties. And, like I said, though I didn’t know it at the time, I was plugged into the whole sixties peace and love revival. I was a one member commune, a child of the Earth with tree hugger tendencies, who was dismayed by the “establishment” and as a result, was generally treated as a pariah by the general public.
I still have to remind myself that I’m not “wrong” or ‘bad” because my views are so different from “the norm”. That it’s ok to believe that Love is for everyone and not just for members of whatever religion believes it has the favor of whatever God it prays to. That it’s ok to think that there’s more than just one “child of God” – that, in fact, we are all “of the creator” – isn’t that what Jesus was trying to tell us?

Should I be damned for thinking that Jesus, Buddha, Abraham, Krishna, and Lao-tzu, just to name a few, were all of the same ilk – that when Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”, he was speaking from the context of the christ, and not from his ego self.

It is my conviction that Buddha knew himself as Christ, as did Krishna, Lao-tzu, and perhaps even Abraham (though I haven’t studied him all that much). I believe that a connection to The Christ is possible for all of us, from many different paths, by many different names, and that The Christ doesn’t give a flop how we do it, but that we do. It’s my view that The Christ is simply a channel to the oneness that we all came from – that it’s the “yellow brick road” back to our true home. That we’re all wearing ruby slippers and don’t know it. And the great master teachers through time have just been trying to tell us that!
Am I such a bad guy for believing that?

Maybe my beliefs would be more in line with the society that I live in had I not played hooky from Sunday School, and maybe my younger social life wouldn’t have been as miserable, but looking back, I like myself for doing it, so at least somebody likes me.

Before It Mattered, It Didn’t Matter

If current science is correct, since the beginning of time some tens of billions of years ago, stars have exploded, galaxies have slammed into each other, and comets and asteroids have rained down on planets turning their soil to blazing liquid and their oceans to vapor.

But, until matter developed the ability and impetus to scream “Oh shit!” [translation] – none of that mattered.

Our bodies are made of the same stuff that merrily roasts, freezes, collides, boils, melts, vaporizes, explodes, tumbles through the vacuum of space and spirals into the oblivion of black holes. So why does this stuff suddenly care?

Because of nerves – those long cells that wire the sensory organs to the brain. It’s the nervous system that has a problem with all the commotion in the Universe. Suddenly, all that banging about became dangerous. Suddenly pain became a consequence of exposure to the extreme. Suddenly conditions became important, and worry was invented.

It hurts when the body is injured. It hurts when it needs more food or water or air. It hurts when the opportunity to make more little bodies is thwarted. It even hurts when it thinks any of the above is going to happen.

So how do we vindicate this discrepancy between life’s fragility and the Universe’s hostility to life? I mean, think about it – here we are, these little blobs of gooey stuff that are so easily squashed, poked, suffocated, invaded, cooked, poisoned, and frozen, sitting in a Universe that, on a regular basis, squashes, pokes, suffocates, invades, cooks, poisons, and freezes things – how is that a reasonable state of affairs.

Most babies that I have encountered don’t seem to be worried about it at all. They just gleefully charge after whatever tickles their fancy – often, to the utter horror of some doting guardian. It isn’t until the fire burns – or the little hand gets slapped away – that they begin to equate the world with danger.

Are babies wrong to fear nothing? Is our grief, should something happen to that baby, warranted? What is lost when life ends? How are we different from, say, a rock? What is it that experiences pain as unpleasant? Does a rock feel pain?

Life’s preoccupation with survival, when compared to the events in the Universe, truly seems to be trivial. But then, is everything as it seems?




In this blog I intend to explore this and many other aspects of life, happiness, and the perplexing nature of existence.