Can’t you see that you’re an angel?

If you knew who you really are, you probably would never experience another hurt or disappointment in life. This revelation came to me after watching “The Present Moment,” a video that a physician friend posted on Facebook earlier this week. The more I think about that little video, the more I’m convinced that it has the potential to be liberating, even life-altering for those who have the slightest bit of imagination.

Of course, imagination is a double-edged sword; it very well might be the reason so many of us are unhappy. Most of us imagine, for example, that our fate lies in the hands of an angry, judgmental and vengeful God who doesn’t think we’re worthy to be in His presence and will only allow a few of us to return home. How does that impact the way we perceive ourselves and treat others? How do worthless people behave? How likely are they to behave lovingly? If your All-Knowing Creator doesn’t find you lovable, how can you trust that you’re lovable to mere mortals? Conversely, if you knew that God was in love with you, would it matter whether anyone on planet Earth was?

God: Angry? Judgmental? Sociopathic?

How different would our life experience be if we dared to imagine that God:

Did not put us on a planet over which He had given control to His evil nemesis?
Did not hold us accountable for the original or subsequent sins of others?
Did not challenge us to valiantly resist the potent magnet of The Enemy’s incessant diabolical plots—or face His wrath?
Did not create us as humans—weaker than the stalwart Enemy and capable of error—ultimately to judge us as guilty of making human errors and sentence us to a torture chamber throughout all eternity?
Did not design life to be complicated or painful?
Did not give some—but not all—of us prescribed rules, regulations, rituals, restrictions and readings that must be religiously followed if we are to be saved from sadistic torture?
Did not leave any holy books with directives that conflict each other?
Did not create anything or anyone that is an abomination?
Did not destroy every living thing, in a fit of rage?
Did not unfairly torture the only innocent child to death so that His guilty children could be absolved of their wrongdoing?
Didn’t threaten to cast you into a fiery pit, where you’d suffer forever, if you didn’t believe that He did something so inhumane (arguably satanic) to His only good child?
Did not intend for us to be confused, controlled, frightened, miserable or unloved?

I know that this is unimaginable for many of us to respond affirmatively to those questions. For centuries, people in authority have told us that God has done all of these things. And we have fervently believed it. In fact, we’re afraid to disbelieve it or call it sadistic. But if a human did any of these things, we’d be more clear and instantaneous about defining this behavior as inhumane.

Is this God frightening and intimidating? Is Love frightening and intimidating? Do we really believe that God is Love if we accept claims that God is frightening and intimidating?

Is there a correlation between what we believe and what we experience in our everyday lives? How does the amount of time we spend worrying about the future, fretting about or regretting the past affect us now and in the future? What is the real reason so many of us suffer from unhappiness and disappointment?

The answer was in this video: It’s simpler than we realize, and requires little or no effort. Really. That’s why “The Present Moment,” is so profound and so powerful.

There is one caveat: You may find that the graphics in the video often compete with or obscure the empowering message in the text. I did, perhaps because I spent so many years in television production.

But just in case you also find that some of the words blend into the background, I froze each frame so that I could capture those words for you. You may download it here. I don’t want you to miss the blessing these words have for you. I hope you watch until the end so that you don’t miss this important message:

The Present Moment is the void where nothing exists and where everything is possible. The Angel can then spread its wings. That Angel, pushing with love, is YOU, alive and vibrant.

Know that I love you—no matter what! If I can do that as a human, just imagine how divinely unconditional God’s love is.

Namaste!

Coming up: Our last week on Earth…

Have you noticed that the only constant on planet Earth is change? It seems that everything–from buildings to bodies, and even the planet itself–ages and decays.

At some point, life as we know it will end. But will it happen because an angry God is coming to judge us, grant eternal life to all who believe that He had Jesus slowly tortured to death, and sadistically torture those who don’t believe He’d do something so satanic? And will it happen next Saturday, May 21, as some folks say?

Who has time to SIT?

Why not next Saturday? It’s as good a guess as any. And let’s face it; there have been many guesses.

“The end” as a human obsession

The Essenes, members of a monklike Jewish sect, were preparing for Judgment Day before the birth of the man we now call Jesus. Scholars say that more than 60 years after Jesus’s death, John Mark, a companion of his disciple Peter, wrote Peter’s recollections of the time he spent with Jesus. Among those recollections, Jesus’s prediction that the end of times would come during the first century. In Chapter 9 of Mark’s gospel, he writes that Jesus told a gathering that some of them would be alive on Judgment Day.

This claim is repeated almost verbatim in Matthew 16 and Luke 9, since both scribes “borrowed” liberally from Mark’s text years later. In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians (Chapters 4 and 5), he, too, warned that the end of the world was near: It would occur during their lifetime. None of these scribes actually knew Jesus. All were incorrect.

Throughout the ages, many others have predicted the so-called End of Times. In most cases, including the latest, the predictions were based on “the inerrant word of God”–the writings of ancient people who fervently believed the Earth was flat, that God lived above the clouds, that the Earth was the center of the universe, and the sun and moon revolved around it.

What’s fascinating is that from these unscientific people, we are basing our scientific calculations.

whom do we trust?

At the heart of the Judgment Day belief is this divine question: Will Earth and every living thing that occupies it die of natural causes–or will it be destroyed by a sadistically punitive God who has no regard for the human life He created, and whose punishment exceeds all human crimes? And if we really believe that God is so diabolical, how do we differentiate Him from the so-called “Enemy?”

Does Good Friday highlight a double standard?

We Christians call this Friday “Good;” but it’s the most heartbreaking day on my calendar. It marks the day when we refresh the accusation that God loved His guilty kids so much that He had His only innocent child brutally tortured to death, effectively letting the others off the hook.

Of course, ancient scribes painted a more rosy picture: They claim that God so loved the world that He “gave” His only begotten son. If we believe this, they say, God won’t torture us throughout eternity. Fear is a great control mechanism. Always has been.

Now we know what giving is—and what it’s not. Or maybe we don’t, so let’s check the dictionary, shall we: Give means to make a present of, to place in the hands of, or to endure the loss of; sacrifice. Giving does not mean handing over your child to sadists, knowing that they are going to nail him to a cross and subject him to a very slow and excruciatingly painful death.

How many loving parents would do this? More pertinent, who among us would be glad that our brother was murdered for a crime that we committed? Is gratitude the appropriate response?

I know that this is dangerous turf on which I’m treading. I’ve been told repeatedly that I cannot call myself a Christian if I do not believe that God sent Jesus here to be slaughtered so that I might live. In other words, if I were a real Christian, I would know that torturing an innocent man to death is not sadistic, if it is an act of God.

Let me be clear: I am not questioning any act of God. I’m questioning whether this particular act is God’s. Is there the slightest bit of the Divine tucked inside live sacrifice?

If we believe scriptures that say that God is Love, isn’t it incumbent upon us to ask: Does Love solve problems by killing any of Its children for any reason?

We Christians clearly have a double standard of behavior—and the standard is considerably lower for God. Fascinating stuff. It reminds me of a post I saw on Facebook several months ago. A minister shared a hypothetical scenario that went something like this:

There were two brothers. The older one, who’d previously served a couple of jail terms, had just been arrested again. If convicted, he faced a minimum of 30 years in prison.

His younger brother was studious, college bound and had never been in trouble. The minister said that the young men’s parents had asked if they should ask the younger brother take the rap for his brother. Since he had a clean record, he’d probably only serve 18 months. Afterward, he could resume his studies and go on with his life, while giving his brother a chance to clean up his act.

The overwhelming consensus was that the older brother should take responsibility for his own actions. It would be unfair for the innocent brother to sacrifice 18 months of his life for a crime he didn’t commit. Some even noted that the older brother seemed to be a habitual criminal and probably would be arrested again anyway, making a mockery of the younger brother’s sacrifice.

Where have we heard that story before? I was fascinated that these Christians—folks who do not object to Jesus taking the rap for crimes he didn’t commit—didn’t see the parallel.

His sacrifice far outweighed an 18-month prison term. And guess what? Neither his death nor resurrection ended sin on Earth. But of course, the All-Knowing God probably predicted that.

So, if sadistically slaughtering Jesus wasn’t going to change the world’s behavior, why would God snuff him out a mere three years into his good news ministry? Isn’t it more likely that the Romans mentioned in the scriptures actually committed the crime?

We all know that this isn’t the first time in history that God has been blamed for acts of inhumanity. Just a few years ago, a world leader justified violence against God’s children in Iraq by insisting that God told him to do it.

Such outrageous declarations vilify God. But we so love the words written and repeatedly mistranslated by man that we have given our only begotten brains to the trash heap so that we can blindly believe that God would be so demonic.

We have a double standard: If a blood-thirsty posse approached the home of a guilty man, and his father pushed his innocent brother onto the porch, we’d declare that this father was pure evil. Why can’t we see the parallel when we read that God has done the same thing—and why aren’t we challenging such an implausible accusation?

This really would be a Good Friday, if we took time out to ponder whether we really believe that God is Love. It is impossible to believe that if we also believe that God does things that Love simply would not do.

Is that your Love crammed into that box?

“Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something—and it is only such love that can know freedom.” Jiddu Krishnamurti

I was watching “A River Runs through It” on Netflix the other day, and smiled when I saw a wooden carving above the pulpit that said, “God Is Love.” Scriptures say that God is Love [1 John 4:8]; but most of us don’t know what that means. We can’t comprehend the vastness, the power and the unconditional nature of real Love. The same can be said for our comprehension of God.

God in a Box We see God through the only lens we have: Human. Our vision is myopic at best, egoic at worst, and assures distortion of the image. Our visual field is somewhat of a box—containing and confining. We’ve placed God there, where we can observe but not experience.

We’ve created and publicized God as looking human, living in the beyond. Before we could fly above the clouds, we believed that God and heaven were there. They weren’t; but at least there was sunlight, which is more than we can say for the darkness that astronomy and astronauts have found in the Deep Beyond. And oh by the way, they haven’t run into God up there, either.

Frankenstein is a rank amateur

We have bestowed upon God a crazed, conflicted, sociopathic human personality that would be natural for anyone confined to a box. In the bat of an eyelash and with the severity of whiplash, our God performs acts that are as angelic as forgiveness and as demonic as genocide.

Our God issues violent threats of eternal damnation, causes excruciating pain and suffering upon innocent devotees such as Job and Jesus, causes the sun to shine upon the wicked and the good, and welcomes prodigal children home—no matter how errant they’ve been. Did I mention that He’ll bring a pox upon your house? Not really. But He’s ordered you to kill your kids if they’re disrespectful.

According to scripture, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways [James 1:8]. What does that say about the God that we’ve created? More important, what does it say about us as creators?

Love me, or you’ll regret it!

Our God is so small and humanly insecure that He demands worship. The scriptures we’ve written say that all things work together for good for those that love God [Romans 8:28]. What does that imply about those who don’t? Have we created a quid pro quo God for whom love is a mere trade?

Our limited perception of what God is and what God does makes it difficult, if not impossible, for us to wrap our arms around the notion that Love grants free will to Its beloved. Always and forever, as the song says. Wish it could be on Earth, as it is in Heaven.

If asked, we will tell you that we believe that God has granted us free will. Despite that, we’ll also tell you that we believe that God has gifted us with commandments. Our gaze is so transfixed on the God Box, we seem to have forgotten that commandments are the antithesis of freedom. Commandments control; they don’t liberate.

It’s amazing that it doesn’t occur to thinking people that it would be extremely sadistic for God to grant us total freedom, then brutally punish us throughout eternity for exercising that freedom. Wait a minute! We’re here for less than a century! Even if we sinned every day we’re on the planet, eternal punishment far exceeds any crime. That’s simply another dramatic illustration of how tragically we’ve demonized God—and how thoroughly we misunderstand Love.

The worst job in the Universe

Our God is so small and tyrannical that even though He is sovereign and can do anything He wants, He chooses the mind-numbingly tedious and distasteful task of keeping records of how we use our freedom, every minute of every hour in every time zone for every body. Why would God spend His precious time that way? Oh yeah: So that He can have documented justification for brutally torturing us at a later date. Please, are we talking about Satan or Love?

Beyond not being divine; that story line is disturbingly diabolical. It would be more merciful for God to simply force us to do what He wants. It would spare us the misery and spare Him the drudgery of watching bad acting on every stage on Earth for centuries—without intermission.

But oh! Forcing us to do the right thing wouldn’t grant us freedom, would it? And, boys and girls, if it ain’t freedom, it ain’t Love.

WWLD?

Let’s put our thinking caps on and consider: What would Love do? Well, real Love probably would create a what-goes-around-comes-around world. Haven’t we been admonished to judge not and condemn not? Not one but three gospel writers tell us that “with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” [Matthew 7.2] In the Old Testament, it’s “an eye for an eye.” [Exodus 21:23]

Of course, the scribes were not referring to us as we know ourselves: as mortal bodies. We’ve seen many a body’s lifetime end without reaping what it sowed. But we’re not physical bodies. We acknowledge that with the belief that God will punish us forever. I’m sorry, physical bodies don’t last forever.

We are eternal souls, not the physical characters we’re portraying here on Earth’s stage. As souls, we will not escape the karmic ricochet.

Life is always fair

If God is Love, Life will always be fair. It’s the first Drama Queen Workshop Principle. In a whatever-you-do-will-return-to-you world, we have total freedom to choose our outcomes; we are punished by our sins, not for them. That frees us to choose our own karmic butt-whipping. It also frees God to have more joy-filled days. And hey, who deserves it more?

If we don’t know what Love is and what Love does, is it any wonder that so few of us truly experience it? Is it any mystery that we feel emptiness and longing? We yearn for that kind of love from others because inside us, where God really lives, Love seeks its own.

Remarkably, God’s love is so intense and the freedom it grants us is so overwhelming and unfathomable that we separate from it and from each other. Now God sits over there—in a heaven we’ve created in the Great Black Vacuous Hole beyond Earth’s atmosphere with no gravitational pull, performing menial and maniacal tasks, and woefully confined to a box.

And we lie over here, lonely and dying for unconditional Love.

If God cares…

Is it about the mistakes you make—or the lessons you learned?

Is it about how well you study a man-made book—or how committed you are to the Truth embedded in your spirit?

Is it about fulfilling the prayers from your mouth—or the wish list of your eternal soul?

Is it about whether your body is cloaked—or the love with which you cloak others?

Is it about the place you live—or the soul in which The Divine Spirit lives?

Is it whether you pass an exam, win a game or get a job—or that you fulfill the purpose for which your soul came to Earth?

Is it about your physical attraction to someone of the same or opposite sex—or your intimacy with the divine part of you?

Is it about your religion—the rules, regulations, readings, rituals, restrictions and ramifications that reflect what humans believe about God—or your direct, unfiltered, interactive relationship with The Divine?

Is it about punishing your enemies—or forgiving your desire to punish them?

Is it about whether you have physical companionship—or that you are fully aware that you are, were and never will be alone?

If God cares, is it about the same things you care about?

Declaring Freedom, Choosing Oppression

At this time every year, Americans celebrate our freedom from tyranny and oppression. What irony. We decry others’ extremist behaviors; but we can’t see how, in our individual interactions, we are also tyrants and oppressors.

We wonder how those whom we’ve labeled “terrorists” can claim that their actions honor God. But aren’t we doing the same? At every opportunity—at least once weekly, sometimes daily on Facebook or Twitter—we oppress and terrorize others, typically in forceful, angry and condescending tones. We are “saved” from God’s wrath, and they are not. They must do, say and believe what we want them to believe. Or else.

Terrorism, tyranny and religion thrive on threats of extreme punishment (satanic torture that lasts for an eternity) and extreme reward (eternal bliss with vestal virgins). Both rely on the premise that God solves problems through punishments that exceed any human crime: He sadistically hurts or destroys all or part of His creation through genocidal floods, filicide (feel free to consult an online dictionary), torture, natural disasters, plagues and curses. Fascinating stuff. It gives new definition to the word “divine.”

We kid ourselves when we claim to love a God who not only lacks compassion, but is extremely brutal to others in our human family. How do we react to such a sadistic God? Actually, our options are limited. We can:

Emulate this brutal behavior and call it “holy;”
Spread panic by warning everyone within earshot that God is going to heinously brutalize them forever unless they believe that He has heinously brutalized others;

In the case of those who call themselves Christians, there are other options: We can realize that God is not bi-polar. Love is not vengeful or inhumane. If God is Love, God does not do things that Love does not do.

We also can carefully read the accounts of ancient scribes. Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong says that anyone who believes that everything in the Bible is true, simply hasn’t read it. Most quote the text that proves their point and discard text that contradicts it:

God could be in only one place at a time—in or out of the Garden of Eden—meaning that God is not omnipresent;
God didn’t know where Adam and Eve were when He returned to the Garden—meaning that God is not omniscient;
God gave some of His power to Satan—meaning that God is not omnipotent;
The number of animals who entered the ark, the number of days it rained, and the length of the stay on the ark constantly changed, sometimes in the same verse;
Jesus was born in a barn and in his parents’ home;
God is everywhere, but there’s only one path to get there—and other inconsistencies.

Let’s declare our independence from oppression and oppressing. Let’s unshackle ourselves from beliefs that denigrate God as an angry, vengeful and sadistic tyrant. Let’s celebrate our freedom to relax in the embrace of a God who loves us unconditionally—no matter what we believe.

Father Everyday

The first Tweet I spotted in this morning’s time line was: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” It was a Marcel Proust quote shared by @LouKavar. It made me think: In a world where an increasing number of us are declaring ourselves “spiritual, not religious,” aren’t we really describing the eyes through which we see the eternal God, our Father?

In a thought-provoking Huffington Post blog this week, columnist Jay Michaelson reflected on “A Better Way to Believe in God.” Among other things, he looked at religionists’ insistence upon believing scriptures that clearly reflect the limited knowledge of the ancient scribes, discarding empirical evidence proving these declarations inaccurate:

“Here in America, hundreds of millions of people believe in Intelligent Design, in life beginning at conception, and in a notion of a retributive God. Why? Not because of science, truthseeking, or logical inquiry. They “believe in” these things (notice the locution) because they think religion is at the core of their lives.”

By contrast, the “new eyes” of spirituality see a God that is more accessible, more responsive, more loving, compassionate and forgiving. Our Father is someone whom we invite and delight in having as a companion and active participant in our daily lives, decisions and actions.

“New eyes” can’t envision God as a male being who lives beyond the stars, visits Earth only to destroy every living thing, and hasn’t told all of His kids how to return home. No, “new eyes” have captured Jesus’s vision of God as a Father who provides His prodigal kids a safe, reliable and embracing place to turn when we need guidance, shelter, or have made mistakes. And there’s a feast and new clothes, to boot!

This is not the God we met in church: the God whose brutally torturous and deadly punishments consistently exceed all crimes—the “smack-down God,” as the Rev. Gaylon McDowell aptly characterizes Him—a Father whose behavior is frequently more human, and sadly, more inhumane than divine.

Perhaps we are increasingly seeing God with “new eyes” because while religion has encouraged us to build a personal relationship with threatening and fearsome God who uses deadly force, spirituality has helped us to build a stronger relationship that was, is, and always will be based on unconditional love. With unconditional love comes freedom—the freedom to choose how we see each other, how we see ourselves, and how we see our Father.

For those with “new eyes,” no one is outside of the Father’s Love. Every house is Father’s House. And every day is Father’s Day.

Eywa: Someone you should know

Part Two of a three-part series

Sitting here in the balcony, playing with the “Real 3D” glasses I received when I entered the movie theater to see “Avatar,” I am reminded again that each of us looks at Life through different lenses. Some lenses help us see things more brilliantly; others completely block the light.

My first reminder came earlier this week, when I discussed the movie with two friends. What did they think about it? I wondered.

One purred that “Avatar” was a beautiful love story: a man was willing to live the rest of his life on a distant moon, light years away from Earth, wearing a tail and no clothes, so that he could be with the woman he loved. The other friend ranted that the movie glorified the Messiah complex: a brave white man heroically swooped in and saved the black people underneath those blue striped costumes. OMG, was he agitated!

Of course, everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion. The Loud Mouth is no exception: From where I sat, “Avatar” was all about me. OK, ok! It was about you, too—a story about how we treat each other, our planet, and every living thing on it. To me, “Avatar” was about our relationship with the Allness that is God, or as the Na’vi, the blue striped black folk on the distant moon Pandora called it: Eywa.

The Na’vi people were taught that they could tap directly into Eywa and into all life forms because there was only One Source of all life, and everything and everyone was connected—from the most beautiful flower to the most ferocious beast. Of course, the Na’vi had a distinct advantage over us: Eywa was unmistakably present. They could literally see the Divine Source of all Life.

But what if Eywa, their Divine Source, was not visible to the naked eye? What if It vibrated at such a high frequency that It appeared to be invisible, like the individual blades on a fan rotating at high speed? Would they be as reverent and as certain that Eywa existed and that It was a benevolent power that served all, equally?

If the Na’vi couldn’t see Eywa’s full glory, feel Its peace and love, smell Its fragrance, hear Its song, or taste Its nectar, they might easily be convinced that Eywa was, well, anything someone told them It was.

Spinning tall tales has always been a favorite pastime of intelligent beings. Millennia before the advent of the entertainment industry, folks amused themselves by creating and spreading tales. Among the most popular: fantastic stories about gods that no one could see. Typically, these gods lived on top of mountains or beyond the clouds.

These tales fanned wild speculation about what each god looked like and what each of them did. Some reputedly worked for good, others for evil. Feeding on the imaginations of the illiterate naïve masses, these stories took on a life of their own. To this day, many believe them to be true.

Think about it: What if, for generations, the Omaticaya clan of Na’vis had been told that Eywa was a gigantic man who lived on a distant planet called Earth, and knew their every thought and deed? According the legend, Eywa spent all of His time recording the good and bad deeds of each Na’vi humanoid, rewarding good behavior with stuff such as sports victories and wealth, and punishing bad behavior with stuff such natural disasters, poor health and poverty.

What if the Na’vi believed that a wrath-filled Eywa would come to Pandora one day, guns blazing, accompanied by an army of fire-spitting angels? In an instant, He’d annihilate everyone who wasn’t perfect, totally obedient, or hadn’t professed aloud that Eywa was a barbaric bad-ass that should be feared.

You can imagine what would have happened when the gigantic metallic aircraft, bulging with guerilla warriors, noisily descended on the Omaticaya clan of Na’vis that fateful day. Most would have believed that it was Eywa, arriving in fulfillment of the legend. Petrified by His promise of destruction, mesmerized by the sheer size of the space ship, the robot-like “AMP” suits, and armed mercenaries, the Omaticayas would have fled their sacred land and the demonic missionaries from the American military-industrial complex would have carted off all Pandora’s rare and priceless unobtanium minerals.

What saved Pandora from that preemptive attack? Was it really the white guy, Jake Sully, as my friend insists? I don’t think so. Maybe it was Eywa, you say?

Actually, an insightful scene disputes that possibility. More important, it exposed humans’ naïveté about what the Divine is—and what it does. To me, that scene delivered one of the most life altering messages I’ve ever heard. It totally reframed the Divine—and definitively explained why prayers don’t seem to be answered 100% of the time for 100% of the people.

Remember the scene? Jake physically plugged directly into Eywa—into the Divine Itself—and asked for two things: 1) Save the life of Dr. Grace Augustine, who treasured the Omaticaya clan and had been seriously injured by gunfire, and 2) help in defeating the money-grubbing emissaries from the American military-industrial complex were intent upon forcing the Omaticaya clan off of Pandora’s sacred land.

Surely this intercessory prayer would be answered. Jake was asking Eywa to help the good people. The Na’vi had lived harmoniously with each other and with nature for centuries, and Grace Augustine had fought tenaciously to keep the Americans from disturbing that harmony, destroying the balance of nature on Pandora. Besides, Eywa had a vested interest in the preservation of this most sacred land, right? This should have been a slam dunk prayer.

Only humans who believe in God could relate to this scene—humans who, like Jake, believe that the Divine is a being (complete with gender) who can be convinced to do what we want. We act as if God is a wish-granting genie: If we ask “Him” a certain way, perform certain rituals, pay a certain amount of money, and believe with all our hearts that our prayers will be answered affirmatively, we will be blessed. God will grant our wishes.

It doesn’t work that way—on Earth or on Pandora. In this case, Grace the good, died. On Earth, despite our prayers, our loved ones die. We die. Millions of good people die. With every disappointment, we discover that God is not a genie and prayer is not a magic bullet; but we continue to do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And we encourage others to do the same.

Is there something we should know about God and about prayer that will help us understand them better? Perhaps, in that same scene, Jake’s beloved Neytiri revealed it, as she tried to manage his expectations of the outcome of his request: “Eywa does not take sides,” she explained. “Eywa only balances.”

On this side of the Universe, balance is called reaping and sowing. One rabbi phrased it, “Judge not, lest ye be judged, condemn not, lest ye be condemned…” In Loud Mouth vernacular: “Whatever you do will be done to you”—no more, no less. Balance.

Part one of Jake’s prayer request was not granted. What about the other half? The Na’vi did win the battle. Does that mean that Eywa blessed him or them? No, but it might look that way to those who think that God is a wish granting genie.

I think the Na’vi’s salvation was their awareness and belief that they were connected to every living thing. I think it was their respect for the role that every living thing plays in their eco-system and their ability to literally “hook up” with all the other life forms.

Understanding that they were one, everything—plants, trees, animals, Na’vi humanoids, flying beasts, you name it—worked collectively to ward off the enemy and restore peace, harmony and balance to their corner of the Universe. After their victory, did you notice that the Na’vi didn’t establish prison camps? They didn’t torture the invaders or turn them into prisoners of war.

The Na’vi understood harmony. They understood balance. They understood that the only way to avoid punishment and condemnation is not to punish and condemn. Most important, they understood Eywa—what It is and what It does.

That’s something we all should understand if we are to maintain peace and balance in our own lives. When we ask, in prayer, for everything to be resolved and balanced for the Highest Good of All concerned, we will get precisely what we asked for–EVERY time.

Valentine, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you

I was stunned and saddened earlier this week to receive a Facebook invitation to a workshop that proclaimed, “If you do not have money constantly circulating in your life, there is something radically wrong with you.” The invitation was from a minister who practices the teachings of Jesus.

This young man is an indisputably beautiful person whom I genuinely love, and my intent is not to disparage him in any way. But admittedly, I was so surprised by his declaration that the Loud Mouth within me succumbed to the lure of the empty comment box beneath the invitation in about a nanosecond, immediately questioning the judgmental nature of his marketing message.

Scripture tells us that Jesus believed that absolutely nothing was wrong with the blind beggar. As far as Jesus was concerned, the man, who had been blind since birth, had done nothing wrong and neither had his parents, as presumed by the curious disciples.

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” John 9:2-3 (NIV) I could be wrong; but it seems to me that Jesus’s lesson here was that all physical conditions—even those perceived by humans to be negative, disadvantaged or disabling—serve God’s purpose.

Scripturally, God is Love 1 John 4:8 (NIV), and “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” 1 Cor 13:4-5 (NIV) When I connect those dots, it means that God’s purpose is not to harm us, and every condition benefits us in some way. Of course, this directly contradicts Exodus 20:5, the scripture to which Jesus’s disciples had referred, a scripture that claims that God unfairly punishes children for their parents’ and ancestors’ wrongdoing.

As far as I’m concerned, God is good all the time, and all the time God is good. Holding to that principle, scriptures that portray God as sadistic fall through my strainer and into the disposal; however, I honor others’ right to capture those images of an angry vindictive God in their bowls and cling to them. Similarly, I respect those who believe that material prosperity reflects a heightened level of spiritual consciousness. To me, they’re on different planes, parallel and distinct.

Investing time and energy in the acquisition of the temporary tangibles of planet Earth distracts us from the real reason we are here. However, I give loving allowance for others to hold a different belief. I’m even open to seeing proof that we can learn the lessons necessary to raise our spiritual consciousness if we’re focused on boosting our cash consciousness.

Just as we have different beliefs, we all have different styles of learning. I generally learn better when I’m paying attention to my teacher, reading the appropriate texts, questioning things that don’t make sense, and doing my homework. For example, I don’t believe that I can learn chemistry by studying English literature.

When it comes to prosperity and spirituality, I actually learned and evolved more when I was broke. Guess it’s my learning style. When my life was out of my control, I found that I was more motivated to seek Truth. Before then, I was too busy enjoying the big house with the circular drive, luxury cars and in-ground pool to ask the important questions and receive the answers that eventually brought me a more dynamic, enduring level of prosperity and priceless inner peace. In fact, I’m beginning to suspect that it was the inner peace and unconditional trust that whatever I was experiencing was for my Highest Good that attracted more bounty than I ever did through creative visualizations or 40-day prosperity programs. I’ve tried them, so I know of what I speak.

As Proverbs 4:7 (KJV) says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting, get understanding.” It is one of my guiding principals. I trust it as unwaveringly as I trust God’s love. To deeply understand something, we must research; we must ask probing questions, not simply accept other folks’ answers. In this instance, my question was: Is my agitated response to the prosperity workshop invitation due to the minister’s lack of understanding—or my own?

If I’ve learned only one thing in my quest for spiritual truth, it’s that I’m better served by paying less attention to other people’s actions and more attention to my reactions. After all, I will not be held accountable for the way others act, only how I react.

With that in mind, there was only one thing to do: Examine this situation under the loving light of the Christ. I always begin with the premise that all dramas and all actors are playing in my theater for one reason only: to support my spiritual enlightenment. Consequently, I always begin with two questions: Why did I invite this scenario? How does it serve me?

Then I delve into the scenario-specific details. In this case: Does the concept of prosperity workshops annoy me? Truly. Am I disturbed by the idea that something is “radically wrong” with me if I don’t have positive cash flow? No question about it.

The next step takes circles back to the beginning: Why did I invite this scenario, and how does it serve me? Once asked, the answers always come—rarely immediate, but always on time. In this case, it took about a day; but, as usual, it was worth the wait.

I discovered that neither the workshops nor the “something is radically wrong with you” edict was at the heart of my discontent. When Spirit allowed me to sit in the balcony and watching the drama performed under the loving light of the Christ, I was blown away by what was revealed: The message in the invitation mirrored a judgmental, condescending and manipulative aspect of my own ego that I needed to confront and heal. Surprise, surprise, the problem was mine!

I couldn’t have gotten better news. Here’s the deal: I can’t control others’ actions, reactions, thoughts or beliefs; but I can control my own. Once I own the problem, I can shape the outcome. I have the authority and ability to change any aspect of it that I desire.

How empowering, how liberating, how exhilarating! Whoo hoo! Spirit had revealed the lesson and the blessing of the workshop invitation—a very generous gift for which I am eternally grateful.

Now the transformative work can begin: I must accept full responsibility for healing this aspect of my ego self. I must agree to be consciously aware of the lesson learned here because more scenes like it will encore on my stage. I must embrace each scenario as an opportunity to rehearse a more enlightened response, so that one day I can lovingly bring down the curtain on it and all dramas that hold no entertainment value.

The most important lesson I’ve learned through these spiritual epiphanies is that I must remember that I am not simply in the Light, I am the Light. For that, I love myself unconditionally. You are not simply in the Light. You are the Light. For that, I love you unconditionally.

What better day than Valentine’s Day to affirm and stand firm in our love for ourselves? What better day to know that just because money is not lounging in our bank accounts doesn’t meant that it’s not constantly flowing through our lives? There is only One Life and we’re in it.

What better day than this day to remember that no matter what anyone says, there is absolutely nothing wrong with us! Even if we don’t know where our next meal is coming from and can’t pay our rent or mortgage, the radical truth is that there is no spot where God is not. We are worthy of God’s presence. God is with us always–in the urban homeless shelter and the suburban mansion, in the unemployment check and the Wall Street bonus.

God is equally present and equally loving. God doesn’t love one child more or less than another. No one is highly favored. What you possess is no measure of God’s love. If you want more, simply step onto that glorious path called Self Love.

Have a divine Valentine’s Day!

Peek-a-Boo!

It’s amazing how long fables live on Earth and in Cyberspace. Five years after I first blogged about this attempt to manipulate (i.e. frighten) the Faithful, it landed in my e-mailbox again. Let me repeat myself…

Maybe you’ve already received this image of the nighttime sky in an e-mail message. If not, take a wild guess at what that eerie looking object in the heavens might be.

Need a hint? Well, according to the originator of the e-mail, this image was captured by NASA. You know the Loud Mouth in the Balcony had a lifetime as a journalist, so I had to fact-check.

Lo and behold, it was true! NASA is the image’s source; I think you’ll agree that it’s a highly credible source.

Now what do you think the e-mail said that NASA called this image? Take a wild guess.

Uh huh. The Eye of God. Now if we believe that, all we have to do is figure out whether God is winking at us, which explains why we can’t see the other eye, or if “He” (pardon my limiting masculine pronoun) is the mythical one-eyed Cyclops. Oh yeah, and where is God hiding the rest of “His” face and body?

Obviously, the sleuths at snopes.com had wondered the same thing. This is what they discovered:

“This is a real photograph of the Helix Nebula, although it’s technically not a single photograph but rather a composite image formed from several photographs taken by NASA’s orbiting Hubble Space Telescope and a land-based telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona.

“This image was NASA’s “Astronomy Picture of the Day” for 10 May 2003. The tinting of the image is artificial; the Helix Nebula does not naturally appear with the colors shown above. The picture’s ‘Eye of God’ appellation is a title coined by an admirer of the photo due to the nebula’s resemblance to a human eye, not something designated by NASA. The nebula is also visible all the time, not merely ‘once in 3000 years’.”

Of course, the e-mail didn’t mention any of these critical details. Instead, it added that un-Christlike Biblical quotation that always accompanies these types of manipulative messages:

Jesus said, “If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.” (Mark 8:38, Matthew 10:33, Luke 9:26 & 12:9)

Considering that 1) Luke and Matthew copied most of their text from Mark, 2) none of them knew or heard Jesus personally, 3) they were were quoting him decades after his crucifixion–without the benefit of tape recorders, transcription machines or even shorthand, and 4) these words seem hypocritical, coming from the mouth of a man who believed in forgiving 70 times 7, I’m wondering why its veracity hasn’t been vigorously challenged by those who call themselves Christians. If I remember correctly, Jesus was also quoted as saying, “Condemn not.” The “I will be ashamed of you before my Father” verse certainly is a condemnation. Would Jesus really say something so un-Christlike?

Other Bible verses claim that issuing threats of this type was not part of the Prince of Peace’s nature. If people didn’t believe his teachings, Jesus was also quoted as telling his disciples to “wipe the dust” from their feet and keep it moving. He didn’t say, “Stand there and badger, belittle, and threaten the people until they embraced my Truth as theirs!” Instead, he believed that those who have ears would hear.

Things haven’t changed much. Even today, most are more willing to embrace the concept of “fearing God” than to embrace the emancipating and joyful message that God is Love, God is within, and God forgives 70 times 7. I think we’ve noticed that every verse in the Bible doesn’t agree with the others, as they would if the book was written by one author, rather than the collected works of different authors with different philosophies, different politics, written at different times for different reasons. (Hint: Each chapter is “The Book of ______”)

Bible scholars value the text for the insight it provides into the thoughts and beliefs of ancient peoples. They not only know that many of the facts are inaccurate, they know that many of the facts, as written, weren’t intended to be accurate. Bible historians also know that the original texts have been transcribed and translated so many times that it’s impossible to know what was really written. And laity logic tells us that if God is timeless, so would be “His” word. It wouldn’t need to be interpreted or updated. Frankly, it reminds me of what a book would look like if the works of Rev. Jerry Falwell, Deepak Chopra, Neile Donald Walsch and the Rev. Billy Graham were represented in one volume, each sharing his own perception of what God is and what God does. Some parts of the book would resonate with some of us; other parts would not.

And so it is today: We ignore the parts of the Bible we don’t agree with. For example, most of us will not kill our children for being flippant, our spouses for cheating, or strangers for passing our temples, even if the Bible directs us to do so. Others might. In fact, many like to find and focus on the scary words in the Bible, the threatening passages, the manipulative verses that “put the fear of God” in others–as if Love kills, tortures, condemns, judges, is ashamed of us, or will not let us return home.

What most of us think about God is utterly fascinating. That’s why I wasn’t at all surprised to receive another “photo” by e-mail of a teary-eyed God, peering at Earth, with a face almost as big as the planet itself. You’ve seen that one, right? If we are to interpret this photo literally–and if we are to believe that God is human rather than Divine– it would make sense that “He” would be saddened by man’s attempt to distort Jesus’ beautiful lessons into utter meaninglessness. And, I could see where “He” might be even more disturbed to see that man has made God in his physical image, rather than acknowledging that we were created in the image of God. According to scripture, that means we are omnipresent Spirit–like God, not that God has a body, like us.

Luckily, God is so all-knowing that nothing we do surprises or saddens “Him”. God knows us better than we know ourselves, and “He” loves and forgives us, despite our shortcomings, short-sightedness and limited vision of what Omnipresent Loving Spirit looks like and how it perceives its human creation.

I’m telling ya, that kind of Love will absolutely bring a tear to your eye, no matter how big your head is.