The Hardest Thing

The hardest thing, in these troubled times, is to keep the faith. And by faith I really mean Faith.

Yep, another one of those rants.

Top New York judge clamoring of dire results and top-end revolution if state judges don't get long-overdue raises. Current salary: $150,000 per annum +, no shit.

State hopes to keep all 'correctional facilities' open for business, albeit admittedly at taxpayers' expense, and business is good: 1 in 100 Americans will have done time in one of 'em.

Federal government abets the bail out/takeover of Bear Stearns, and after a backlash, raises the compensatory pay on what was a $60 stock note last month from the original bargaining of $2 per share to around $10 per share. We pay for their wanton carelessness and misguided, blind risk assessment myopia. Oh, and don't think that they're the first...or the last, for that matter.

My wife gets a 'green' update email describing how the television waves are going to HD and the ol' rabbit ears will no longer pick up the frequency...at all. The email discloses how to best and most quickly and responsibly pick up a converter box. Here's a crazy idea: put a cover on the fucking box and put some plants on top of it. When you get desparate, watch a good film or read a book. Elaine Pagels has some groundbreaking material on the Nag Hammadi texts that people should at least be aware of.

I could (and likely so could you) add to this list of perils and woes ad infinitum. Every day. Every day we could compound our misery at the travails of the modern world/culture/society. Great! I say great! That is coffee you smell, so wake up! Wake up to something for Gods' sake! Maybe most don't give a rat's turd about that. But get really pissed or completely and utterly dejected by current events? Why not!? Feels better to feel badly, doesn't it? And shit, since most of us are already pulsing out and carrying that energy anyway, it's so much easier to go with the flow! Yeah! Easy, going with the flow.

Perhaps a step along the way is to wake up a little to the world around us and get indignant, downright and justifiably angry. Yeah, anger, that's the stuff of change. Get angry and argumentative. Yeah. And then try not to carry that bag around with you. Good luck.

So what to do, what to do, with a sigh and shoulders slumped.

Here's what my number one Teacher tells me, and under no vague or uncertain terms whatsoever: if I am to have any peace, any measure of serenity at all, I first have to give up the big ME. Then I need to make sure my House is clean. And I'd better be really sure that the log is taken from my eye before I can go looking to take any splinters out of anyone else's.

Why even bother? My spiritual belief is such that this heavy body is a vehicle on a journey, and the purpose of this journey is to a) take what experiences I have, wrest them into a place of Blessed Peace, recognize them as Grace, and share that Grace with others, b) live my own ministry of Blessed Peace and Compassion by being awake, to the best of my ability, to the needs and condition of those around me, c) give all the Blessings I have received from a Kind, Loving, and Just God back to this world, and d) love my God and my family with all my heart and soul and spirit and never, under any circumstances, place anything before Them.

A most amazing thing occurs when I can maintain that focus and that vibration, and it has only recently come full circle in my understanding of a teaching of my very beloved Chris. In frustration, years and years ago, I asked, furiously, "Do you just know all the fucking answers at some point?!" He serenely and genuinely replied, "No, you just have fewer questions."

And it has been my experience.

I could easily and readily fall back to outrage and/or despair, the dalliances of stasis, and sometimes I do. But the reward of recognizing the Truth that Mahatma Mohandes Gandhi extolled ("Be the change you wish to see in the world") is better, if only more challenging. I invite you to try it. Take that personal inventory and jettison that unwanted, unreliable, and just plain antiquated shit. You'll be so much lighter, and your Vessel will have more space to fill with all things Light. Light, like making apologies you thought were dead and gone. Admit to foibles, mistakes, misdeeds, and be willing to receive the Good News that you're part of the Human Family, and we all screw it up sometimes! Allow yourself the hug that shatters the barriers, the handshake that softens your heart, and the possibility that everything is exactly as it is supposed to be.

God loves you, and will never even for a moment forsake you.

Imagine we collectively tried to exact that ideal of God here, on Earth. With each other.

Imagine that.

Go on...imagine that.......