Friday, April 28, 2006

Playing God

There was a comment in the Euthanasia and Suicide post that euthanasia is like playing God, and no humane person would do that.

The Euthanasia and Suicide post came directly from God in Conversation with God. You can agree or disagree with Him. I happen to agree with Him in this area. And believe me, if you disagree with Him, He is not going to punish you. On Earth, it can be quite a different story. Humans are not that forgiving.

I give you a personal example. During the Vietnam War, a couple gave their kids poisons. Now, why on earth would they do that? Well, they were afraid the kids would be captured, and they can be tortured, so the poisons were there for them to end their life quickly in case the torture becomes unbearable. They asked my mom if she wants some for us kids. She decided against it.

The rationale was to relieve pain and suffering for the kids in case the pain becomes unbearable. Was that inhumane?

There are cases when the pain and suffering becomes unbearable for a person to bear, and they request you to kill them to end their pain and suffering. Is it more humane to end their life and so end their pain, or elongate their life and prolong their pain and suffering. You decide. You make a statement about yourself. I have no judgment about it. If you make your decision based on love, then you are being compassionate.

The parents who made that decision based on their love for their kids are being compassionate although the poison would kill their kids. Fortunately, I have not been put in that position.

With euthanasia, at least, you have the request of the patient. They have condone and give their permission to this act. But the state punishes those who perform this act. Contrast that with collateral damage of war. You don't have the permission of the other. And yet the state condones this action.

You kill animals when you see them in pain. You do it out of love for your animal. It is the same with human beings. If you do it out of love, then you are being compassionate. The world might not treat you kindly, however. The law might not be on your side either. I hope none of you will ever have to face that decision. Confronted with someone who is in great pain and they ask you to end their life.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Osama bin Laden and George Bush

Well, we hear again from Osama bin Laden. Sometimes, I think I am seeing double ... Osama bin Laden and George Bush ... both talk tough, and both want to wipe out the other.

I can see how George Bush gets a bit fearful here. I mean Osama bin Laden did not infer just the government, but also its people are guilty, and must be wipe out.

Maybe Osama bin Laden will suffer the same fate as George Bush. First, they look up to him. But perhaps, with time, they figure Osama bin Laden maybe just a bit unstable himself.

There is some truth to what Osama bin Laden said. Perhaps he has to get extreme for people to take notice. I haven't personally visited Palestine and Israel, and as I understand, there are great discrepancies between those two communities. People know they are inherently equal, and when they see they are treated differently, naturally, they will feel there is something wrong with this picture, and if necessary, will revolt to show these discrepancies to the world. If we don't know the cause, we would think that they are just violent people and need to be rid of, yet they are just crying out for help.

Let us remain calm in this turbulent waters. Remember Christ when He said, I am in this world, but I am not of this world. In some ways, we have to remove ourselves like that too, so we can look more objectively at life. Let us be the light, emanating love all around us. Show them the way. Perhaps the leaders who have come forward before are those who sees the violent path as the answer. One cannot blame them, because if we study our history, we do have that tendency. However, at any moment, we can change. We can create 'love' cells, instead of 'terror' cells. We can change the world from 'love' and not from 'terror'. Love maybe gentle and soft, but it definitely is not weak. After all, God is love.

Friday, April 21, 2006

My wishes have been granted

There were two things that I asked of God, and they both have been granted. I am happy that I am alive to witness this.

As you know, how the Bible usually say that salvation was only for the 'believers'. If Christ asked for forgiveness for the 'believers', I asked for forgivess for the 'nonbelievers' ... in that way, all is covered. Well, with these passages, you know that there is no right and no wrong ... there is nothing to forgive. Well, I am happy that has been cleared up before I die.

My second request was ... well, how can God expect people to believe in God when they can't see Him and can't hear Him. The Bible has been written by man, so how can it be trusted. I wanted more clear evidence of this ... comes directly from Him. Well, these passages are about as close as I can get Him talking directly to us.

I hear Congress are going to do something with the Internet. Privatize it? I don't know how it will affect this blog. But now, you know where the source is and you can go directly there.

I see that Congress are getting tougher with companies hiring 'illegals'. I dislike using the word 'illegals', after all, they are just human beings. Again, these are human constructions aimed at punishing other human beings. I can see that we are still fearful, and seek to close our borders.

I hope these messages have touched your lives as much as they have touched mine. I hope you focus your energy on rebuilding your local community (and save money on gas as well as saving resources).

I do hope the Internet will remain free for all. This is such a wonderful creation that is good for many of us, and I hate to see it fall on a few hands, and we have to pay money for it.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Christ's crucifixion

I hope by now you know that what I am writing in quotes comes from 'God' from 'Conversation with God'. I do not claim to be an expert in this area. I don't go to church, and I don't even have the patience to finish reading the Bible, and I don't intend to finish one. It is a scary book, as far as I am concerned, and also hard to understand. Society might be mad at me, but I have made my peace with my God. However, after reading these versions, they are the best versions I have come across, and the series that I have managed to finish reading. Perhaps it is because of the language, so easy to understand. They are inspirational and have a healing effect, and people need to hear these messages, and that is why I decide to share them with you. You can decide what to believe. It's your choice.

Here is another passage:

'There is no coincidence, and nothing happens by accident. Each event and adventure is called to your Self by your Self in order that you might create and experience Who You Really are. All true Masters know this. That is why mystic Masters remain unperturbed in the face of the worst experience of life.

The great teachers of your Christian religion understand this. They know that Jesus was not perturbed by the crucifixion , but expected this. He could have walked away, but he did not. He could have stopped the process at any point. He had that power. Yet he did not. He allowed himself to be crucified in order that he might stand as man's eternal salvation. Look, he said, at what I can do. Look at what is true. And know that these things, and more, shall you also do. For have I not said, ye are gods? Yet you do not believe. If you cannot, then, believe in yourself, believe in me.

Such was Jesus' compassion that he begged for a way - and created it - to so impact the world that all might come to heaven (Self realization) - if in no other way, then through him. For he defeated misery and death. And so might you.

The grandest teaching of Christ was not that you shall have everlasting life - but that you do; not that you shall have brotherhood in God, but that you do; not that you shall have whatever you request, but that you do.

All that is required is to know this. For you are the creator of your reality, and life can show up no other way for you than that way in which you think it will.

You think it into being. This is the first step in creation. God the Father is thought. Your thought is parent which gives birth to all things.'

It's your choice

'I want what you want. The day you really want an end to hunger, there will be no hunger. I have given you all the resources with which to do that. You have all the tools with which to make that choice. You have not made it. Not because you cannot make it. The world could end world hunger tomorrow. You choose not to make it.

Your claim that there are good reasons that 40,000 people a day must die of hunger. There are no good reasons. Yet at a time when you say you can do nothing to stop 40,000 people a day from dying of hunger, you bring 50,000 people a day into your world to begin a new life. And this you call love. This you call God's plan. It is a plan which totally lacks logic or reason, to say nothing of compassion.

I am showing you in stark terms that the world exists the way it exists because you have chosen for it to. You are systemically destroying your own environment, then pointing to so-called natural disasters as evidence of God's cruel hoax, or Nature's harsh ways. You have played hoax on yourself, and it is your ways which are cruel.

Nothing, nothing is more gentle than Nature. And nothing, nothing has been more cruel to Nature than man. Yet you step aside from all involvement in this; deny all responsibility. It is not your fault, you say, and in this you are right. It is not a question of fault, it is a matter of choice.

You can choose to end the destruction of your rain forests tomorrow. You can choose to stop depleting the protective layer hovering over your planet. You can choose to discontinue the ongoing onslaught of your earth's ingenious ecosystem. You can seek to put the snowflake back together - or at least, to halt its inexorable melting - but will you do it?

You can similarly end all war tomorrow. Simply. Easily. All it takes - all it has ever taken - is for all of you to agree. Yet if you cannot all agree on something as basically simple as ending the killing of each other, how can you call upon the heavens with shaking fists to put your life in order?

I will do nothing for you that you will not do for your Self. That is the law and the prophets.

The world is in the condition it is in because of you, and choices you have made - or failed to make.

The Earth is in the shape it's in because of you, and choices you have made - or failed to make.

Your own life is the way it is because of you, and the choices you have made - or failed to make.'

On the New Testament and Bible in general

'Most of the New Testament writers never met or saw Jesus in their lives. They lived many years after Jesus left the Earth. They wouldn't have known Jesus of Nazareth if they walked into him on the street.

The Bible writers were great believers and great historians. They took stories which had been passed down to them and to their friends by others - elders - from elder to elder, until finally a written record was made.

And not everything of the Bible authors was included in the final document.

Already 'churches' had sprung up around the teachings of Jesus - and, as happens whenever and wherever people gather in groups around a powerful idea, there were certain individuals within these churches, or enclaves, who determined what parts of the Jesus story were going to be told - and how. This process of selecting and editing continued through the gathering, writing, and publishing of the gospels, and the Bible.

Even several centuries after the original scriptures were committed to writing, a High Council of the Church determined yet one more time which doctrines and truths were to be included in the then - official Bible - and which would be 'unhealthy' or 'premature' to reveal to the masses.

And there have been other holy scriptures as well - each placed in writings at moments of inspiration by otherwise ordinary men.'

On Adam and Eve

I include this passage because it seems we have a misunderstanding about the significance of Adam and Eve.

'Adam and Eve - mythical names you have given to represent First Man and First Woman - were the Father and Mother of the human experience. What has been described as the fall of Adam was actually his upliftment - the greatest single event in the history of humanking. For without it, the world of relativity would not exist. The act of Adam and Eve was not original sin, but, in truth, first blessing. You should thank them from the bottom of your hearts - for being the first to make the 'wrong' choice, Adam and Even produced the possibility of making any choice at all.

In your mythology you have made Eve the 'bad' one here - the temptress who ate the fruit, the knowledge of good and evil - and coyly invited Adam to join her. This mythological set-up has allowed you to make woman man's 'downfall' ever since, resulting in all manner of warped realities - not to mention distorted sexual views and confusion.'

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Nuclear War with Iran?

Everything is on the table ... including nuclear war? Another sign of insanity. Even to think about it is not an option for enlightened people.

I remember writing a letter to George W Bush, commending him on his aspiration - 'freedom' for all, but questioning him on his destructive ways of achieving it, and urging him to find peaceful means to achieve it.

In regards to wanting Iran to disarm, I asked him if the United States is willing to disarm itself. I mean, how can you ask someone else to disarm, while you are armed, and get mad because they don't disarm.

I also asked him if he has killed anyone. I asked him if someone gives him an order to kill someone, can he do it? Does he need a reason to kill someone? How would he feel afterward? What impact would it do on the victim's family and his family? George Bush never did answer me. My intention was for him to understand the psychological torment he put these people under. But perhaps, he didn't.

Although, the day that he declared 'Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists', I know he has limited understanding. Once you are enlightened, you know that we are all one, and you wouldn't even think about making a statement like that. Rather, you want to talk to them to find out what is their pain that is driving them to hurt us. Unfortunately, George Bush is reluctant to talk to those he regards as 'terrorists'.

A lot of people believe in the End of the World, Amageddon, etc. Be warned, what you think is you create. Is that what you want? You can choose another path.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

A Retired Methodist missionary versus the IRS

I received an e-mail today from Sojourners today. April 15 is approaching, and I still have not pay my taxes. Believe or not, I was thinking along the line of Ruth Clark, not paying taxes as a way of protest. I don't mind paying taxes if it is to help people better their lives, but if it is used to fuel this war, I have no desire to fuel this war. Bush may want the war, but if the money doesn't come in, what then? If the people in the military just say no, and they don't want no part in this insane war, what then? Here is a story of a lady who choose not to pay tax as a way of protest. Unfortunately, the IRS went after her.

A retired Methodist missionary versus the IRS. by Clare Hanrahan. SojoMail 4-12-2006

To help finance a future George W. Bush has painted as permanently at war, the IRS has raided Ruth Clark's bank accounts, taking all her money. Every month, the IRS has continued to seize 15% of Clark's Social Security income, leaving this retired Methodist missionary without adequate means to meet her living expenses."I intentionally live on the edge of poverty to avoid paying for the war machine," Clark said. "Would it be right for me to murder? Would it be OK for me to make children orphans? Do you think it would be OK for me to support a war where children are maimed, where they lose their arms, their legs, their eyes? How can I pay for that?"Clark is a familiar presence to many as she makes her way throughout downtown Asheville, North Carolina. She walks almost everywhere, usually pulling behind a small, wheeled cart decorated with bumper stickers decrying injustice and war. Many Fridays she stands at Vance Monument with the Women in Black in a public expression of grief for the violence of all wars, foreign and domestic.Budget experts from Harvard and Columbia University calculate that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is likely to cost U.S. taxpayers - the willing and the coerced - "a minimum of nearly one trillion dollars, and potentially over $2 trillion." But the IRS seems bent on harassing the poor to collect these funds while U.S.Fortune 500 companies enjoy unprecedented tax breaks.In a Jan. 14 article in the Daily Camera of Boulder, Colorado, Molly Ivins reports "Hundreds of thousands of poor Americans have had their tax refunds frozen and their returns labeled fraudulent." Households making an average income of $13,000 are treated this way, Ivins wrote, while "mind-boggling sums in taxes are being evaded by those at the other end of the income scale."Meanwhile, Clark, whose Christian values led her to become a conscientious objector to war, has her bank account raided. "I am diametrically opposed to using any of my money to kill people. It feels bad to have them take my money," Clark said."When our government taxes me making the rich richer and the poor poorer, it's not the way the government should be run. I can't claim ignorance. I know that the monies that are being charged to my name are making Halliburton richer." According to the 2004 report, "Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years," published by researchers from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, "In 2003 alone, 46 Fortune 500 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes. These 46 companies...told their shareholders they earned U.S. pretax profits in 2003 of $42.6 billion, yet they received tax rebates totaling $5.4 billion. Almost as many companies, 42, paid no tax in 2002, reporting $43.5 billion in pretax profits, yet receiving $4.9 billion in tax rebates."The report states, "Loopholes and other tax subsidies cut taxes for the 275 [Fortune 500] companies by $43.4 billion in 2001, $60.8 billion in 2002 and $71.0 billion in 2003, for a total of $175.2 billion in tax breaks over the three years."Clark lives in a small apartment at the Brooks-Howell Home in Asheville, a community of retired Methodist deaconesses and missionaries who share a comfortable, though not luxurious, home after a lifetime of service. Despite her age, which she wouldn't disclose, there is little that is retiring about Clark, and there isn't much that frightens her. This peace-loving woman has crossed paths and shared the picket lines with several notable practitioners of nonviolent action, including Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers union, and Brazilian educator Paulo Freire."Meeting Paulo Freire was a highlight experience," Clark said. "I remember thinking, 'I wonder if this is the way the disciples felt when they stood waiting to talk with Jesus?' He was just so accepting and supporting. He helped people to recognize that they could become history makers, not merely someone that history happens to."During the Vietnam war, Clark worked as a missionary in a shanty town on the Rio Negro River in Argentina, the largest in Latin America. "I knew, and they knew, that the North American heel was on their throat."Listening to Clark as she talks about some of her experiences living and working among marginalized people, one can understand her determination not to contribute her money to finance more suffering and bloodshed."During the years that I earned more money than I needed, I found out that I could put up to $2,000 a year into an IRA to reduce my taxable income," Clark said. "I kept on amassing a bankroll because if I spent any of the money I would have to pay income tax, and that would violate my conscience."But Clark had seen enough poverty in her days to not rest easy with her own growing nest egg while others lacked the basics of life. "Now the balance of the money is used for immediate loans to Third World women's groups," Clark said.
"I was raised in poverty and I know pretty well the poverty picture," Clark said. "It's a demeaning kind of thing. But when people who haven't money enough to provide for themselves and their own family are then able to move into a position of helping others, it's really a powerful thing that happens to you. You move beyond being a victim.... For me to be able to give to Third World women, who with very small loans are able to turn their life around, to be able to make baked goods and sell them, to put a roof on their house, to buy school books for their children...it helps to feel that you can be a history maker."During her many years as a missionary and later as a volunteer on stipend with the United Farm Workers, Clark was not required to file a Federal Income Tax form. But in 2002, after cashing the IRA, she filed the required form - under protest. "I withheld 47% of the taxes the IRS determined I owed," Clark said. "This is the percentage of the federal budget that is used to finance wars." "The IRS came after me for the deferred taxes they said I owed them." Clark said. They "put a lien on my Credit Union account in California in 2004. They emptied it out." "I wrote and told them [the IRS] of my conscientious objection to war," Clark said, "but they came back again and took the money from my bank in Asheville. My checks started to bounce and the bank, Blue Ridge Savings, charged me for each one. My Social Security and my pension from the Mission Fund had been electronically deposited. So the IRS took it all. I don't think they are singling me out. There are a lot of people they are after in the same way they are after me."According the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, an advocacy and support group for people conscientiously opposed to paying for war, "bank account seizures and salary levies are the most common way that the IRS uses to try to collect from people who refuse to pay for war."Clark no longer has enough to meet her monthly rent, which "went up to top dollar," she said. "Now, with all this trouble, I'm in arrears. I have my pension check going directly to the Brooks-Howell Home now to help pay my rent, but the IRS still deducts 15% of my Social Security check." But Clark is quick to add, "Compared to what that money from the U.S. is doing to other countries, my plight is not so difficult. The more I read, the more radical I become.""I've been in some pretty tight circumstances, places where I wasn't sure of my personal safety, but God has never left me. Despite my lack of wisdom or foolishness in ways I have tried to solve a particular problem, God has never left me.""It is time," Clark said, "for us to come clean with all the countries, to stop telling lies and to tell the truth. It is time to help people, to really help people." She said of her substantial contribution to peace and justice throughout her lifetime that she had tried to do all she could. "My finances were limited, and I have been trying to live on as little as possible. When I am aware of the ways people in the Third World have to sacrifice in order to get by, what I have to contend with is nothing.""My hope is not that people will make a contribution to the shortness of my cash, but that they will figure out a way that they also will stop paying for war, and that they will help somebody else to stop paying for war. Then we will multiply our strength, not just by the amount of money that we refuse to give [to the IRS], but in the numbers of us who will say, 'I will not pay for war.'"Clare Hanrahan is an Asheville author of Conscience & Consequence: A Prison Memoir, and a 25-year conscientious objector to paying for war. For more information about Hanrahan's work, see www.celticwordcraft.com, and for more on war tax resistance contact the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee at www.nwtrcc.org or 1-800-269-7464.

Monday, April 10, 2006

You are the Life and the Way

We are at a crossroads. I remember before George Bush became the president, his views are pratically 180 degrees from today. Somehow, in the culture of Washington, his views flipped. On the immigration issue, several days ago, I heard a more gentler version, allowing immigration the path to citizenship, but now, I heard versions of possibly punish 'illegal' immigration aliens. My view is biased because I happen to be an immigrant myself. I was amazed at how this country opened its door for me. I know 9/11 happened and it shocked the nation, but this can be an opportunity for this country to demonstrate to the world that it lives on principle, which is the attribute that is admired by the world.

Here, I offer another inspiring message from God:

'I want to tell you, My dearest children, that this matter of Who You Are, and Who You Choose To Be, is of great importance. Not only because it sets the tone of your experience, but because it creates the nature of Mine.

All of your life you have been told that God created you. I come to tell you this: You are creating God.

That is a massive rearrangement of your understanding, I know. And yet, it is a necessary one if you are to go about the true work for which you came.

This is holy work We are up to, you and I. This is sacred ground We walk.

This is the Path.

In every moment God expresses Himself in, as, and through you. You are always at choice as to how God will be created now, and She will never take that choice from you, nor will She punish you for making the 'wrong' choice. Yet you are not without guidance in these matters, nor will you ever be. Built into you is an internal guidance system that shows you the way home. This is the voice that speaks to you always of your highest choice, that places before you your grandest vision. All you need to do is heed that voice, and not abandon the vision.

Throughout your history I have sent you teachers. During every day and time have My messengers brought you glad tidings of great joy.

Holy scriptures have been written, and holy lives have been lived, that you might know of this eternal truth: You and I are one.

Now again I send you scriptures - you are holding one in your hands. Now again I send you messengers seeking to bring you the Word of God.

Will you listen to these words? Will you hear these messengers? Will you become one of them?

That is the great question. That is the grand invitation. That is the glorious decision. The world awaits your announcement. And you make that announcement with your life, lived.

The human race has no chance to lift itself from its own lowest thoughts until you lift yourself to your own highest ideas.

Those ideas, expressed through you, as you, create the template, set the stage, serve as a model for the next level of human experience.

You are the life and the way. The world will follow you. You are not at choice in this matter. It is the only matter in which you have no free choice. It is simply the Way It Is. Your world will follow your idea about yourself. Ever it has been, ever it will be. First come your thought about yourself, then follows the outer world of physical manifestation.

What you think, you create. What you create, you become. What you become, you express. What you express, you experience. What you experience, you are. What you are, you think. The circle is complete.

The holy work in which you are engaged has really just begun, for now, at last, you understand what you are doing.

It is you who have caused yourself to know this, you have caused yourself to care. And you do care now, more than ever before, about Who You Really Are. For now, at last, you see the whole picture.

Who you are, I am.

You are defining God.

I have sent you - a blessed part of Me - into physical form that I might know Myself experientially as all that I know Myself to be conceptually. Life exists as a tool for God to turn concept into experience. It exists for you to do the same. For you are God, doing this.

I choose to re-create Myself anew in every single moment. I choose to experience the grandest version of the greatest vision ever I had about Who I am. I have created you, so that you might re-create Me. This is Our holy work. This Our greatest joy. This is Our very reason for being.'

On Suicide and Euthanasia

This is another issue that divides us, so this is what God has to say about it.

'Understand that 'right' and 'wrong' are figments of your imagination, and that 'okay' and 'not okay' are merely announcements of your latest preferences and imaginings.

For example, on the question of ending one's life, it is the current imagining of the majority of people on your planet that it is 'not okay' to do that.

Similarly, many of you still insist that it is not okay to assist another who wishes to end his or her life.

In both cases you say this should be 'against the law.' You have come to this conclusion, presumably because the ending of the life occurs relatively quickly. Actions which end a life over a somewhat longer period of time are not against the law, even though achieve the same result.

Thus, if a person in your society kills himself with a gun, his family members lose insurance benefits. If he does so with a cigarette, they do not.

If a doctor assists you in your suicide, it is called manslaughter, while if a tobacco company does, it is called commerce.

With you, it seems to be merely a question of time. The legality of self-destruction - the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of it - seems to have much to do with how quickly the deed is done, as well as who is doing it. The faster the death, the more 'wrong' it seems to be. The slower the death, the more it slips into 'okayness.'

Interestingly, this is the exact opposite of what a truly humane society would conclude. By any reasonable definition of what you would call 'humane,' the shorter the death, the better. Yet your society punishes those who would seek to do the humane thing, and rewards those would do the insane.

It is insane to think that endless suffering is what God requires, and that a quick, humane end to the suffering is 'wrong.'

'Punish the humane, reward the insane'. This is a motto which only a society of beings with limited understanding could embrace.

So you poison your system by inhaling carcinogens, you poison your system by eating food treated with chemicals that over the long run kill you, and you poison your system by breathing air which you have continually polluted. You poison your system in a hundred different ways over a thousand different moments, and you do this knowing these substances are no good to you. But because it takes a longer time for them to kill you, you commit suicide with impunity.

If you poison yourself with something that works faster, you are said to have done something against moral law.

Now I tell you this: It is no more immoral to kill yourself quickly than it is to kill yourself slowly.'

The Moment of Truth

I received this e-mail today. I thought it is a good informative reading and I like to share it with you. I find it interesting how he defined the word 'crisis' from the Chinese. It presents danger and opportunity. Indeed, we need to acknowledge that there is a problem, study the problem, and this can be the impetus for us to create a better world. Did you watch 'Ice Age'? Do you think that movie came out by accident?

"The Moment of Truth" by Al Gore
--------------------------------
>From Vanity Fair Magazine
(link:http://www.algore.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=353&Itemid=78)
Clichés are, by definition, over used. But here is a rare exception - a certifiable cliché that warrants more exposure, because it carries meaning deeply relevant to the biggest challenge our civilization has ever confronted.

The Chinese expression for "crisis" consists of two characters. The first is a symbol for "danger"; the second is a symbol for "opportunity."

The rapid accumulation of global-warming pollution in the Earth's atmosphere is now onfronting human civilization with a crisis no other we have ever encountered. This climate crisis is, indeed, extremely dangerous, but it also presents unprecedented opportunities. Before we can get to the opportunities, however, it is crucial to define the danger, and to discuss how it is that we in the United States seem to be having such difficulty perceiving that danger.

Danger
The climate crisis may at times appear to be happening slowly, but in fact it is a true planetary emergency. The voluminous evidence suggests strongly that, unless we act boldly and quickly to deal with the causes of global warming, our world will likely experience a string of catastrophes,
including deadlier Hurricane Katrinas in both the Atlantic and Pacific. We are melting virtually all of the mountain glaciers in the world – including those in the Rockies, the Sierras, the Anders, and the Alps – and, more ominously, the massive ice field on the roof of the world, on the enormous Tibetan Plateau, which has 100 times more ice than the Alps, and which supplies up to half of the drinking water of 40 percent of the world's people, through seven river systems that all originate there: the Indus, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, the Salween, the Mekong, the Yangtze and the Yellow.

Even more important, we are rapidly melting the vast, but relatively thing, floating ice cap that covers the Arctic Ocean. For the first time, sceintists are finding significant numbers of polar bears that have died by drowning, as the distance from the shores of the Arctic to the edge of
the ice cap has stretched in placees to 60 kilometers (37.02 miles) or more.

At present, the North Polar cap helps to cool the planet by relfecting the vast majority of the sunlight that hits the Arctic during six months of the year. It is like a gigantic mirror larger than the entire United States. But the growing areas of open water left as the ice cap melts are
absorbing the vast majority of the energy coming from the Sun, raising temperatures at the top of our planet far more rapidly than anywhere else. We are beginning to melt – and possibly de-stabilize – the eneormous, 10,000-foot-thick mound of ice on top of Greenland and the equally
enormous mass of ice of West Antarctica, which is propped up precariously aginst the tops of islands, poised to slip into the sea. Either of these massive, land-based ice sheets would, if it melted or broke up and slid into the ocean, raise the sea level worldwide by more than 20 feet.
The largest ice mass of all on the planet – East Antarctica – was long thought to be still growing. Until two months ago, that is, when a new, in-depth scientific survey showed that it, too, may be beginning to melt. Since the entire climate system of Earth is formed by the planetwide pattern of wind and ocean currents, which redistribute heat from the tropics to the poles, there is growing concern that the relatively stable pattern that has persisted for 11,000 years – since the last ice age and before the first appearance of citites – may now be on the verge of radical and disruptive changes. The Gulf Stream, the monsoon cycle in in the Indian Ocean, the El Niño/La Niña cycle in the Eastern Pacific, and the jet streams, among the other circulartory phenomena, are all at risk of being pushed into new and unfamiliar patterns. Global warming, together with the cutting and burning of forests and the destruction of other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a rate comparable to that of the extinction of dinosuars 65
million years ago. Most scientists theorize that that event, by the way, was caused by a giant asteriod colliding with the Earth. This time it is not an asteriod wreaking havoc; it is us. We are recklessly dumping so much carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere that we have literally
changed the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, altering the balance of energy between our planet and the rest of the universe, so the buildup of heat energy that should be re-radiated by the Earth is beginning to wilt, melt, dry out, and parch delicate components of the planet's living systems.

More than 70 percent of the planet's surface is covered by ocean, and a series of new, comprehensive studies show that the amount of CO2 being absorbed into the oceans is about one-third of what we have put into the environment with the burning of fossil fuels. As a result, the oceans of the world are becoming more acid, and the total amount of carbonic acid – even though it is a realtively weak acid - is beginning to change the mix of carbonate and bibcaronate ions in the oceans. This interferes with the ability of corals to form their calcium-carbonate skeletons, which constitute the base of many food chains in the oceans. Even more ominously, the amounts of carbonic acid we are continuing to sink into the oceans will, if we don't change the current reckless pattern, make it more difficult for many ocean creatures, large and tiny, to make shells, because the shells would instantly dissolve in the newly acid ocean water, the way chalk (also calcium carbonate) dissolves in vinegar. Continuing on our current path will return the oceans to chemical pH balance that last existed 300 million years ago – when the Earth was a very different planet from the one that gave birth to and nurtured the human species. All of this, incredibly, could be set in motion in the lifetime of the children already living – unless we act boldly and quickly. Even more incredibly, some of the leading scientific exprets are now telling us that without dramatic changes we are in grave danger of crossing a point of no return within the next 10 years!

So the message is unmistakable. This crisis means danger! But in order to move through the danger to seize the opportunity, we have first to recognize that we are in fact facing a crisis. So why is it that our leaders seem not to hear such clarion warnings? Are they resisiting the truth because they know that the moment they acknowledge it they will face a moral imperative to act? Is it simply more convenient to ignore the warnings? Perhaps, but inconvenient truths do not go away just because they are not seen. Indeed, when they are not reponded to, their significance doesn't diminish; it grows.

For example, the administration was warned on August 6, 2001, of an attack by al-Qaeda, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US," said the intelligence community in a message so important that it was the headline of the president's daily briefing that day, five weeks before the attacks of September 11. Didn't he see that clear warning? Why were no questions asked, meetings called, evidence marshaled, clarifications sought?

The Bible says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Four Augusts later, as Hurricane Katrina was roaring across the unusually warm water of the Gulf of Mexico and growing into a deadly monster that was less than two days away from slamming into New Orleans, the administration received another clear warning: the levees – which had been built to protect the city against smaller, less powerful hurricanes – were in grave danger. But once again an urgent warning was ignored. The videotapes of one session make clear that the president heard the warnings but, again, asked not a single question. This not a partisan analysis. A recent report by Republicans in the House of Representatives called the White House reaction a "blinding lack of situational awareness." Repbulican representative Tom Davis, of Virginia, the chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, which produced the report, added, "The White House failed to act on the massive amounts of information at its disposal." Coupled with "disjointed decision making," the report continued, the president's failure to see the danger "needlessly compounded and prolonged Katrina's horror."
Where there is a blinding lack of situational awareness, the people perish.

Nearly 70 years ago, when a horrible and unprecedented storm of another kind was gathering in Europe, British prime minister Neville Chamberlain found it inconvenient to see the truth about the nature of the evil threat posed by the Nazis. In criticizing his government's blinding lack of
awareness, Winston Churchill said, "So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resovled to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent." After the appeasement at Munich, Churchill said, "This is only the first sip, the
first foretaste, of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year – unless by supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor we rise again and take our stand for freedom."
Then he warned prophetically that "the era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place, we are entering a period of consequences."

Today, there are dire warnings that the worst catastrophe in the history of human civilization is bearing down on us, gathering strength as it comes. And these warnings have also been met with a blinding lack of awareness, by the Congress as well as by the administration. After the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, many Americans now believe that we have entered a period of consequences – that Katrina, as horrible as it was, may have been the first sip of a bitter cup which will proffered to us over and over again until we act on the turth we have wished would go
away. And they are beginning to demand that the administration open its eyes and look at the truth, no matter how inconvenient it might be fore all of us – not least for the special interests that want us to ignore global warming.

As Abraham Lincoln said during our time of greatest trial, "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." America is beginning to awaken. And now we will save our planet.

Opportunity
So it is time for the good news: we can solve this crisis, and as we finally do accept the truth of our situation and turn to boldly face down the danger that is stalking us, we will find that it is also bringing us unprecedented opportunity.

I'm not referring just to new jobs and new profits, though there will be plenty of both. Today we have all the technologies we need to start the fight against global warming. We can build clean engines. We can harness the sun and wind. We can stop wasting energy. We can use the Earth's
plentiful coal resources without heating the planet. The procrastinators and deniers would have us believe that this will be painful and impossibly expensive. But in recent years dozens of companies have cut emissions of heat-trapping gases and saved money. Some of the world's largest companies are moving aggressively to capture the enormous economic opportunities in a clean-energy future. But there's something far more precious than the economic gains that will
be made. This crisis is bringing us an opportunity to experience what few generations in history ever have the privilege of knowing: a generational mission; the exhilaration of a compelling moral purpose; a shared and unifying cause; the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the restless human need for transcendence; the opportunity to rise.

When we do rise, it will fill our spirits and bind us together. Those who are now suffocating in cynicism and despair will be able to breathe freely. Those who are now suffering from a loss of meaning in their lives will find hope. When we rise, we will experience an epiphany as we discover that this crisis is not really about politics at all. It is a moral and spiritual challenge.
What is at stake is the survival of our civilization and the habitability of the Earth. Or as one eminent scientist put it, the pending question is whether an opposable thumb and a neocortex are a viable combination on this planet.

The new understanding we will gain – about who we really are – will give us the moral capacity to comprehend the true nature of other, related challenges that are also desperately in need of being defined as moral imperatives with practical solutions: H.I.V./AIDS and other pandemics that are ravaging large parts of humankind, global poverty, the ongoing redistribution of the world's wealth from the poor to the rich, the ongoing genocide in Darfur, famines in other parts of Africa, chronic civil wars, the destruction of ocean fisheries, families that don't function, communities that don't commune, the erosion of democracy in America, and the re-feudalization of the public forum.

Consider once again what happened during the crisis of global Fascism. When England and then America and our allies ultimately did rise to meet the threat, we won two wars simultaneously, in Europe and in the Pacific. And by the end of those terrible wars, the Allies had gained the moral authority and vision to create the Marshall Plan – and persuade the taxpayers to pay for it!

They had gained the spiritual capacity and wisdom to rebuild Japan and Europe and launch the renewal of the very nations they had just defeated in the war. In the process, they laid the foundation for 50 years of peace and prosperity. One of their commanders, General Omar Bradley, said at the end of World War II, "It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of each passing ship."

And now so must we. For this, too, is a critical moment. Ultimately, it is not about any scientific discussion or political dialogue; it is about who we are as human beings. It is about our capacity to transcend our limitations, to rise to this new occasion. To see with our hearts, as well
as our heads, the response that is now called for. This is a moral, ethical, and spiritual challenge.
Just as we can no longer ignore this challenge, neither should we fear it. Instead, we should welcome it. Both the danger and the opportunity. And then we will meet it because we must.
We have accepted and met other great challenges in the past. We declared our liberty and then won it. We designed a new form of government. We freed the slaves. We gave women the right to vote. We took on Jim Crow and segregation. We cured polio and helped eradicate smallpox, we landed on the moon, we brought down Communism, and we helped end apartheid. We even solved a global environmental crisis – the hole in the stratospheric ozone layer – because Republicans and Democrats, rich nations and poor nations, businessmen and scientists, all came together to shape a solution.

And now we face a crisis with unprecedented danger that also presents an opportunity like no other. As we rise to meet this historic challenge, it promises us prosperity, common purpose, and the renewal of our moral authority. We should not wait. We cannot wait. We must not wait.
The only thing missing is political will. But in our democracy, political will is a renewable resource.

Friday, April 07, 2006

More on Marriage

'Marriage as you have constructed it is a way of saying: "This relationship is special. I hold this relationship above all others." Yet you might find it interesting to notice that almost no one who is, or has been, recognized as a spiritual master is married. It's because masters cannot truthfully make the statement that your present constructionof marriage seeks to make: that one person is more special to them than another. This is not a statement that a master makes, and it is not a statement that God makes.

The fact is that your marriage vows, as you presently construct them, have you making a very un-Godly statement. It is the height of irony that you feel this is the holiest of holy promises, for it is a promise that God would never make.

Yet, in order to justify your human fears, you have imagined a God who acts just like you. Therefore, you speak of God's 'promise' to his 'Chosen People,' and of covenant between God and those God loves, in a special way.

You cannot stand the thought of a God who loves no one in a way which is more special than any other, and so you create fictions about a God who only loves certain people for certain reasons. And you call these fictions Religions. I call them blasphemies. For any thought that God loves one more than another is false, and any ritual which asks you to make the same statement is not a sacrament, but a sacrilege.

You think that this talk is tough? I tell you this: You have bastardized the Word of God in order to justify your fears and rationalized your insane treatment of each other. You will make God say whatever you need in order to continue limiting each other, hurting each other, and killing each other in My name.

Yea, you have invoked My name, and waved My flag, and carried crosses on your battlefields for centuries, all as proof that I love one people more than another, and would ask you to kill to prove it.

Yet I tell you this: My love is unlimited and unconditional.

That is the one thing you cannot hear, the one truth you cannot abide, the one statement you cannot accept, for its all-inclusiveness destroys not only the institution of marriage (as you have constructed it), but every one of your religions and governmental institutions as well.'

Thursday, April 06, 2006

On Marriage

I bring up this issue because this is one of the issues that divide us. Many have brought up 'marriage' as something that is sanctified, ordained from 'God', and here is what He has to say about it. Again from Neale Donald Walsch book.

'Marriage was the only way you could figure out to bring 'foreverness', or eternality, into your experience of love. It was the only way a female could guarantee her support and survival, and the only way a male could guarantee the constant availability of sex, and companionship.

So a social convention was created. A bargain was struck. You give me this and I'll give you that. In this it was very much like a business. A contract was made. And since both parties needed to enforce the contract, it was said to be a 'sacred pact' with God, who would punish those who broke it.

Later, when that didn't work, you created man-made laws to enforce it. But even that hasn't worked.

Neither the so-called laws of God nor the laws of man have been able to keep people from breaking their marriage vows. Why? Because those vows as you have them normally constructed run counter to the only law that matters, and that is natural law. Marriage, as most of you have practiced it, is not particularly beautiful, for it violates two of the three aspect of what is true about each human being by nature.

Again, what is natural law?
Who You Are is love
What love is, is unlimited, eternal, and free.
Therefore, that is What You Are

Now, any artificial social, moral, religious, philosophical, economic, or political construction which violates or subordinates your nature is an impingement upon your very Self - and you will rail against it.

What do you suppose gave birth to your own country? Was it not 'Give me liberty, or give me death'?

Well, you've given up that liberty in your country, and you've given it up in your lives. And all for the same thing. Security.

You are so afraid to live - so afraid of life itself - that you've given up the very nature of your being in trade for security.

The institution you call marriage is your attempt to create security, as is the institution called government. Actually, they are both forms of the same thing - artificial social constructions designed to govern each other's behavior.'

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Be a Bringer of Light

I came across this passage and I was touched so deeply that I want to share with you. This passage comes from Book 3 of Conversations with God. I must say, Neale Donald Walsh perceptive power is strong as well as his ability to express himself. I am thankful for him because his ability to receive the message is so clear and to translate it for us.

Here is a message from God:
'Everything that occurs ... everything that has occurred, is occurring, and ever will occur ... is the outward physical manifestation of your innermost thoughts, choices, ideas, and determinations regarding Who You Are and Who You Choose to Be. Condemn not, therefore, those aspects of life with which you disagree. Seek instead to change them, and the conditions that made them possible.
Behold the darkness, yet curse it not. Rather, be a light unto the darkness, and so transform it. Let your light so shine before men, that those who stand in the darkness will be illumined by the light of your being, and all of you will see, at last, Who You Really Are.
Be the Bringer of Light. For your light can do more than illuminate your own path. Your light can be the light which truly lights the world.
Shine on, then, O Illuminati! Shine On! That the moment of your greatest darkness may yet become your grandest gift. And even as you are gifted, so too, will you gift others, giving to them the unspeakable treasure: Themselves.
Let this be your task, let this be your greatest joy: to give people back to themselves. Even in their darkest hour. Especially in that hour.
The world waits for you. Heal it. Now. In the the place where you are. There is much you can do.
For My sheep are lost and must now be found. Be ye, therefore, as good shepherds, and lead them back to Me.'

Monday, April 03, 2006

George Bush and Condi Rice

George Bush said that the problems that we currently have in Iraq is because of Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein has been in jail for all these years. I am just amazed at George Bush's logic. If something goes right, it's to his credit, but if something goes wrong, it's somebody else fault.

Condi Rice said that although we have made many errors, we have made a good strategy. What strategy is she referring to?

As long as these two people don't see the problems, they can't solve the problems. Even when the people of this nation come together and say it, they can't see it. Even when some congress people start seeing it, they can't see it.

They think that if they keep saying it, we start believing in it. Not this time.

If the Iraqis can't come together and form a government, it's something wrong with them, right? Saddam Hussein have divided them so much that they can't come together now, right? And what make you think that a government would be good for them? Because it has worked for you right? Has the government really work for you? What does the government do? Make laws? If they make laws, and if people follow the law, perhaps we have peace, right? What make you think that if you make law, then people will follow the law? Because if they don't follow the law, they will punished right? And what make you think your law is good and people should follow it?

Sometimes, I feel sad for you. You make your laws to imprison you. I wonder when will you see it and liberate yourself. You can make your own law and follow it, but don't impose your law on other people. If your suggestion is good, people will naturally follow it, without you imposing any law.

Stay strong. The world is turning. More people are turning toward the positive, simply because it is healthier that way. Let you feelings about things guide your way. Your feelings are the gate to your soul ... your inner God.