Politics, Racism, and Fear

Hello Everyone,

I know that I am an innocent. I just am, and frankly, glad of it. What has sort of jolted me out of my pink bubble is the myriad political ads that friends and family forward to me as the election draws closer. America, there is a giant elephant in our living room. It is fear. It takes the form of racism, sexism, lying, cheating, name-calling, rumor and innuendo. It's ugly and it does not become us.

Just so everyone gets a clear picture, I used to be a registered Republican, because to my mind, the principles of the Republican Party were closest to what I believed: in the absolute and sovereign power of the individual. I believe that with every fiber of my being, because I know Who We Really Are: God having a physical experience on earth. However, as human mind has so twisted the tenets of both parties, I confess that for awhile there I really couldn't tell which party was which anymore. I still can't.

So I shucked the labels and registered myself as Independent. That feels more like me, anyway. I'm free to choose from the myriad candidates and myriad ideas, and I vote where it feels correct. I loathe the labels of left, right, conservative, liberal, democrat, republican, middle of the road. Labels are for those who can't think independently. Labels are for lemmings.

Once someone says they are "liberal" or "democrat", someone stops listening altogether. Not another word of what they have to say is given any listen by the closed mind and locked heart of fear. And this is what I see happening in my inbox. Friends and family send these political missives; the latest one today was from a friend in Virginia. The e-mail was a compilation of the best bumper stickers - all of which were defaming Obama and the Democrats. As I read them, I realized that he is afraid. Only fear can make people attack another on such grounds.

The presidential race should be all about the issues; rather it is reduced to slurs around rumor and innuendo. Another friend forwarded to me an e-mail that was reportedly written by a soldier in Afghanistan recounting that Obama had snubbed the troops. This e-mail is not verifiable, nor does it trace back to his e-mail address for veracity. It just gets forwarded on, like it's Gospel truth...out of fear.

I trust that Americans can figure out for themselves what is True and not True; but the catch to this is that you have to come to the table with an open mind and an open heart. You have to come to the debate with the attitude, "Tell me who you are." You can't come to the table with fears like racism, prejudice and preconceived ideas that obscure you from ever hearing what they have to say, let alone giving yourself the opportunity to FEEL the truth or see their beauty.

Fear is irrational. It has no reason, it just lurks within a heart and obliterates the Light. Fear is why we are at war. Fear is why we fight with each other. Fear is why we are sick. Fear is why people pass on information that is without verifiable truth, because it supports your fear.

If you want a safer, better, and happier America, then each of us, every single one, had better take a good hard and honest look at who we are as individuals, first.

No one need know what goes on in that conversation between you and YOU. But we each had better have that conversation. Because it is we, the people, that make up this country. You, me, the John and Jane Doe's all across these 50 states. However much fear and hatred we harbor in our hearts, that's what we are going to experience as a country in this world.

It's time for some individual house keeping. I challenge you to have that conversation with yourself. Come to terms with the fact that you are afraid of those of different colors, different creeds, different ideas. Now, I challenge you to love them. I challenge you to listen with an open mind and open heart.

This is no airy fairy exercise, my friends. This country is only as good as the people who comprise it. If you love America, but clear hate certain Americans, how can this Nation stand? It won't. It will crumble from within; it won't take any foreign enemy to bury us.

This country is advanced citizenship. It takes clear hearts and clear minds to deal with serious problems. To be a citizen of America means you must defend the right of someone to voice their opinion about something you would spend your life trying to defeat. It means you will disagree with that person vehemently on the issue; but you will respect that person as an equal citizen and worthy being. These are not oxymorons. You can disagree with someone and still respect their right to their opinion. And if you respect their right to their opinion, you will not defame, slur or disrespect someone by making a political argument into a personal slur. That is spiritual immaturity. We are called to become spiritual adults.

It's time to grow up America. We can conduct healthy, spirited debates and actually learn from each other. Only fear closes our ears to what someone has to say. It costs us nothing to listen, not just with our minds, but also with our hearts. Times are changing, as they always do. It just feels so much better when you listen with your heart open, even to something you don't like. It's the idea you disagree with; the person is just like you: God having a physical adventure.

We have a duty as Americans to be very good stewards of democracy. Democracy is a place where everything, every idea, every people get to be here, much like the books in a library. The books in the library sit side by side offering their unique and individual thoughts for those who wish to read them. Those books don't hop off the shelf at night and duke it out. So it is in this wonderful place. We all get to be here. It takes advanced citizenship to fully grasp what this really means and how great a challenge this is to each of us every day of our lives.

We have nothing to fear, except fear; because fear will undermine us and crumble us from the inside out. Next time you see someone whose political views you think you hate, try this: take a deep breath. Acknowledge that he/she is a unique individual with unique things to say, just like you. Acknowledge that you might be afraid of some of the things they might offer. Now, listen to them with your full attention and respect. Breathe in again, breathe out. Now, realize that you are in no way diminished because they have that idea. You can thank them for sharing. You can chew over what they had to say. You can discard all of it; some of it; non of it. Nothing bad is going to happen just because you listened with an open mind and an open heart. The only time something bad can happen is when you fear it, then, my friend, you will attract it.

This Universe can supply every one's needs at the same time. There's enough for everyone. America is the place on Earth where we are either going to learn to do that in the physical; or we will go the way of all the other civilizations that came before us. We can trust in the Good in each of us. Speak to that. Listen to that.

Everyone is God at center. America is the great experiment. Can we learn to live with all those different Gods in the same place and know that each of our Good is always at play? I say we can. That is applied spirituality in action.

Thanks for reading!

Kath

Purple States: Hurrah! Labels Are Falling!

Good Morning Everyone!

Reading the New York Times Online this morning, I ran across an inspiring story: Introducing Purple States.

I had to think back for a minute to grade school art classes when we learned to mix colors; and by gosh I remembered that red + blue = purple. I don't know who thought up the labels of "red states" and "blue states", but that might go down in history as the most divided time in recent history.

And I remember thinking I'm neither! As much as the politicos would like to pigeon hole us, we can't be. Now approaching the Primaries in 08 (just got my pamphlet in the mail yesterday), I am glad to see that the people, we, are changing the face of the politics in America.

I had a most enlightening and enjoyable conversation with my realtor yesterday. We talked about lots of ideas and concepts in light of the current situation in America today. What I know is that these conversations are happening all over the Nation: earnest, sincere regular folks are grappling with choosing the very best candidate to represent them, not big interests.

But ordinary folks aren't just interested in the issues that directly affect them, but have real concerns for the larger issues such as the war in Iraq, our economy, our future, and I think at the heart of all the discussion, is our image of ourselves as a Nation.

Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green, Libertarian - all labels - everyone is first an American who loves this place we all call home. Everyone is concerned with our direction, our "feel" of ourselves, our presence in the world, and what we represent. We are grappling with "our mission", "our focus", our very identity.

The encouraging part, to me, is that the people are now on board for their own future. In past elections people were happy to be led. Now, they are wanting to lead with their voices and their votes. We as a people, one by one, are picking up our own beds and walking forward sincerely looking for those who would represent our feelings and concerns as we are more clearly identifying what we DO want by having experienced a long and protracted period of experiencing what we DO NOT want.

And this is perfection. This is how we grow, learn, expand and change and choose again, by the contrasts we experience. We feel the pain and discomfort and immediately know what we prefer, sending out a collective desire for more choice, more truth, more real, more sincere, and we are now choosing to participate, listen carefully with our Godchips more than our ears to know what is so.

2008 is going to be known as the year of America's Pivot. This is the year we more consciously choose our own course rather than being led by thoughts and platforms that others have chosen for us. Rather, we the people, will write the platform.

Follow the link (http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=c131f4ce775266) in the weeks to come and witness the emergence of the Purple States - We the People. Applied spirituality in action.

Thanks for reading!

Kath

Seeing Through A Glass Darkly: "Then" is Now

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/holier-than-they/#comment-15680

^13:11When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. ^13:12For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known. ^13:13But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Good Day Everyone!

In today's New York Times, Judith Warner addresses the essence and therefore the evidence of religion as it is being playing out in the political arena today. I love that these questions are being raised and discussed, as we are beginning to "see through the dark glass". I have opened today's blog with a quote from 1 Corinthians 13:11. It's one of my favorites and a place in the Bible where Truth is able to be felt amidst a lot of human interpretations of mind. I determine this by how it FEELS to me.

One day science will have a gadget that measures Truth/Love. It will be called the Love/Truth Angstrom Meter. It will operate much like a Geiger counter does that detects the amount of radiation. It will be a small screen at the bottom of your TV or in the lower corner of your computer screen. As a program's content unfolds, the meter will detect the level of Source or Light or Truth or whatever you wish to name It, contained in the program.

We already have that Love Angstrom meter Self contained within each of us.

This is that part of everyone of us that our Founding Fathers referred to when they said, "All men are created equal". It is our individual Godchip that is constantly and faithfully "ising" to us the Truth of anything. Our ears and eyes see words and images, but It is constantly telling us the Truth. Often - no, most of the time, what we see and hear is at distinct and diametric odds with what we feel. We struggle with labels today - Christian, Democrat, Republican, Islam, Jew - because the definitions no longer hold but rather shape-shift for convenience.

Where once I felt aligned with the Republican Party because I thought they most closely represented a thought form that believed in the power of the individual as sovereign, I left as they no longer represented that viewpoint. Now I align with no party, but rather cast my votes as an Independent. Free from the label, free to discern as it feels to me.

In America, my home, we have gotten so bogged down with these "names". I can remember my Mom saying, "Don't call people names. It's not nice." She was (and still is) wise. Names trap us into a mental construct that confines us ever into a frozen definition. Yet, we are dynamic as individuals and as a nation.

We are in the throw of growing pains as Nation. Wriggling like a two year old to get free from the stroller, yelling "Let me out!" The stroller we have been strapped into for the past 231 years is the conveyance of religion(s). God love us, we strive to know the Truth; to know God aright; our intentions are so pure, so earnest! And because of these Intentions to Know, we are growing and learning. But in order to walk, run and then soar we have to get out of the stroller.

America is moving from spiritual childhood into spiritual maturity. Nothing in the world scene is separated from the movements of spiritual growth, but indeed reveal in the physical the spiritual movement of the individual and the Nation. The "struggle" that is taking place on the world's scene today regarding religion in America is invigorating, enlightening and expanding us to a new consciousness. And it is time, for we have asked in our individual and collective intentions to know the Truth. Oh, this is what I so love about America - about Us. We are so free that we can ask these questions and allow ourselves to be transformed.

I can also remember as a teenager complaining to my Mom about this ache or that pain. Again in her wisdom she would reply, "It's nothing. Just a growing pain." Likewise America is growing, and because we are reluctant to expand, to let go of old ideas and embrace the expanded truth, we resist and experience such growing pains as a Nation. But the Intentions of our core - our true Nature of God - drive our deepest desires to be the best we can be, to do the right thing, to know More - we will expand, we will evolve, and we will and are growing into our spiritual maturity, leaving "religion" behind as the base camp from which we left long ago when we began our ascent to Know the Truth; to Know God Aright.

Religion constrains our expansion because it is a definition of human-thought labels. Likewise do politics restrain and constrict our expansion as they, too are definitions of human-thought labels. They shift like sand on the beaches. Our essence, our Core is the same: it is Source in each and every single human being. It is the Truth of our beingness that is emerging, like it or not. This emergence confounds the human mind which struggles to hang onto the labels, but if we would shift our trust from "mind" to "gut", ah then.....we Know. This is the evolution that is happening now. So allow me to update 1 Corinthians 13:12:

^13:12For THEN we saw in a mirror, darkly; but NOW face to face: THEN I knew in part; but NOW shall I know fully even as also I am fully known. ^13:13But always abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love......and love is Who We Really Are.

Exciting times to be alive. It's all so Good. (Good being a noun)

Thanks for reading!


Kath