Who's gonna nab the real burglar in Cambridge?

The furor over the arrest of renowned Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been painful to watch, even from the balcony of Life’s dramas: Scenes littered with suspicion, mistrust and accusations of racial profiling morphed into outrage, defensiveness, retaliation and, alas, some unfortunate mug shots. None of it—not the incident, the race-based commentary or what was really happening behind the scenes—was spiritually enlightening or positively evolutionary.

If you resisted the urge to jump onto this stage and fuel the flames of racial bigotry, if you maintained some distance and climbed into the balcony of the mayhem, then you had the benefit of being detached enough to see the character stealing each scene. You could almost hear him chortling. Uh huh, it was our devious friend Ego, the Anti-Christ, gleefully yanking everybody’s chain. Yes, I said it: Your, my, our ego is the Anti-Christ.

I didn’t think that I was the first to link the two; but just to make sure, I Googled “Ego Anti-Christ.” The numerous results included books such as Real Jesus, the psychology of anti-christ, and articles. One, “How to Recognize the Anti-Christ Within” leaped from the page. There was even an Oprah.com Community post, “The anti-Christ is NOT a person.”

Millions are waiting for the Anti-Christ to arrive, but it’s been here all along. It sits where we sit, stands where we stand, walks where we walk. And all too often, it speaks when we speak. It prods us to do and say things to others that we would not want done or said to us. It picks fights, fuels dissension, and causes us to choose angry force over peaceful power. It justifies righteous indignation over effective conflict resolution. It’s like a magnet, spinning our moral compass out of control.

Ego is the antithesis of the Christ spirit. It upstages maturity and intelligence. It stirs up mess, and through mass and social media, engages millions in divisive bickering that keeps us mired in the drama of Earth, distracting us from the greater reality of who we are and what Life is. Heaven forbid that we should choose peace, bliss out, and discover that we are more powerful than our egos led us to believe!

Ego is winning its battle for our souls, though not on merit. We’re forfeiting without even showing up.

Ego has a vested interest in highlighting our differences rather than our unifying divinity. It tells us that others are less human, less intelligent, less prosperous or not as beautiful as we are, and we should treat them offensively. We obey. It tells us that someone thinks they’re better than we are, and we should be offended. On cue, we shake our fists in rage, hearts pounding, glands sweating, blood pressure rising, literally making ourselves sick.

Ego doesn’t care whom it hurts. After all, hurt people hurt people. Hurt people also create more drama, so the ego's manipulative mission has been accomplished. Ego will act a fool and make a fool wherever humans allow: in the opulent offices of global government and business leaders, in the squalor of tent cities, refugee camps and urban ghettos, and in quiet upscale neighborhoods such as Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In every case, the human mind makes a conscious decision to relinquish control to the devilish ego. We are not as conscious of the corresponding consequences, but that can change. At any moment, we can choose to act in our own best interests.

“I can be changed by what happens to me.

I refuse to be reduced by it.”

Maya Angelou

Whenever we let the ego force us to focus on the superficial, we volunteer to be reduced—sometimes in front of huge gawking audiences. Whenever we handcuff and book someone for screaming at us, we reduce ourselves to mere ego. Whenever we ask, “Is it because I’m Black?” or retort, “I’ll talk to your mama on the porch,” we’ve let the ego win. Whenever we label ourselves as anything other than children made in the image of the Love that is God, we’ve bought into the ego’s false claims that we are only humans, defined by our differences.

Situations often arise to help us remember who and whose we are. These teachable moments allow us to practice calling on the Light of God within to anchor us to our seats so that we won’t leap onto the stage of someone else’s ego-driven drama. These are times when we can work on perfecting the art of seeing the omnipresent God Light in everyone, no matter how they’re acting.

Truth has its rewards. Without these challenging or confrontational situations, when would we have an opportunity to demonstrate our values, stand firm in the truth of our own divinity, and refuse to be diminished by anything said or done?

Whatever your reaction to the lamentable drama in Cambridge, did you observe your own values on display when you spoke or wrote about it? Others certainly noticed. While responding to my comment about the incident on Denrique Preudhomme’s blog earlier this week, a woman declared that she didn't believe that we should turn the other cheek and let God handle our problems. Furthermore, she said, God would not want us to back down from a fight with our tails tucked between our legs.

If she had not written that, the rest of us would not have known that she, like George W. Bush, perceived God as pugnacious rather than the Prince of Peace. I didn’t argue. We must give loving allowance for folks to believe what they believe. However, I did acknowledge my awareness that there are many who, like her, do not believe in the teachings of Jesus. (OK, so I also added that this is why we create, nurture and repeat these hurtful dramas. I admit that it might have been a bit judgmental. I’m working on that—mean it. Hey, if my soul was fully evolved, it wouldn't be wearing this body.)

That brief online exchange was just another of my many self-awareness tests. Sometimes I pass, sometimes I fail. The most difficult part for me is maintaining conscious awareness that many times each day I will encounter these opportunities to speak and act from my empowering Divine-Self or my destructive Ego-Self. Each decision has its corresponding consequences, which should be incentive enough. And it is, when I remember instead of getting caught up in the drama.

It’s infinitely easier to detect these growth opportunities when I watch other folks’ dramas from the balcony of their lives. Recently, several friends have approached me for support after encountering dehumanizing individuals who hadn't simply hidden their God Light under a bushel; they had buried it in a different zip code.

One friend wondered if the vile nature of her client’s in-your-face communication warranted an equally caustic and profane response “to show him who he was dealing with.” After all, she was no chump!

Because she was no chump, I suggested, wouldn’t it be a greater demonstration of her strength if she refused to allow him to blow out her Christ Light with his belittling rants? Any chump can throw verbal garbage or physical blows. Any small person can try to feel bigger by diminishing the worth of others. Only the strong can turn the other cheek, knowing that the power of the Almighty is within them. She liked that idea and accepted the challenge to flex that muscle.

A few days ago, another dear friend and mentor, a phenomenal manager in the business world, demonstrated that he is also an awesome leader in the real world. His boss, frustrated that he did not have the authority to fire my friend, spewed venomous, demeaning language in his face.

My friend didn't react, no matter how disrespectfully the man behaved in this professional setting. He refused to relinquish his power. He refused to allow the out-of-control being on the other side of the desk to force him to abandon the refuge of his Christ-Self.

He calmly observed his boss's tantrum. In fact, he said, he felt sorry for the man—and with good reason: Despite his considerable education, this man did not know what he was doing to himself physically or spiritually. He did not know that his fury was creating a chemical time bomb in his body. He did not know that this is a reap-what-you-sow world: Whatever you do will be done to you. He also did not know that your anger cannot control others’ bodies, minds or behavior unless they allow.

Luckily, most of us can exist an entire lifetime without being subjected to scenarios with this level of toxicity. I can’t say with certainty that I would have responded appropriately if I had encountered this situation before my mentor modeled—with a capital “M”—how to exude sheer power. If he can do it, we can do it.

He didn’t simply accept the opportunity to be Christ-like, he owned it. He was like the proverbial tree that’s planted in the water: He would not be moved. Despite his boss’s numerous attempts to drown him in darkness and goad him into responding insubordinately, my friend stood strong and tall in the Light, knowing that Darkness and Light cannot occupy the same space at the same time. By making this choice, he and the Light actually became One.

The irony here is that one man was a Christian minister. The other wasn’t. Guess which.

It was Ego who walked off that stage with his tail tucked between his legs—a defeat that did little to spoil its high batting average in many other places in the world, including Cambridge.

Perhaps we can further diminish its influence and impact if we simply shed light on other instances in which we held the Anti-Christ at bay. (Now wouldn’t that be a Revelation?)

What challenges have you faced that you've overcome in a powerful way? Or if you missed an opportunity, with hindsight, how would you have handled it more effectively?

Is Truth more important than facts?

In the coin section of my wallet, I carry the tag from an old teabag. It’s a quote from French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire: “A witty saying proves nothing.” Amen.

We love clever sayings—even if they don’t make sense, even if our own life experiences have demonstrated something to the contrary, and even if we don’t fully understand the implications of the claim that is being made. We just pass these sayings to others on without thinking, especially if it threatens us.

In the e-mail world, this is done by clicking "forward." I've repeatedly received a Bible verse claiming that Jesus said something judgmental and threatening. Each time I've received it, I ask the sender if she (it's always a woman) really believes that Jesus would say something so unChristlike. Those who respond always say that they hadn't thought about it. That's the part I don't understand. It's the thinking faculty that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Some of the other oft-repeated sayings that fill me with wonder are those surrounding the spiritual Law of Attraction. These witticisms preach that you can have anything you want: Think it, believe it, visualize it, hold it as a dominant thought, and it will manifest out of thin air. That is the message of these sayings.

Some not only believe that this is true, they believe that repeating these witticisms actually gives others some hope that they can turn things around. Is it hope or a headache that they're giving them?

According to the Law of Attraction prophets (many of whom are focused solely on profits), you can have anything you want—even if it’s not yours. You can have anything you want—even if it is not for your Highest Good to have it. You can have anything you want—even though your soul desires something totally different. You can have what you want—even if there's only one of it, and more than one person wants it. Then that leads to the "blessed and highly favored" sayings that imply that Our Father plays favorites.

Witty sayings prove something if they are true 100% of the time for 100% of the people. If it happens for some, but not for everyone, it’s a possibility, not a truth. And they should be regarded as possibilities and nothing more.

How about this saying from the Loud Mouth: "What's yours, you will get—at the right time and in the most perfect way—and no one can keep you from it." While I have no proof that this happens 100% of the time for 100% of the people, there is some empirical evidence that reveals that it's more probable than "you can have anything you want."

Anyone who’s ever had a disappointment had to have anticipated a specific outcome: They visualized it, made it their dominant thought, and they believed that it was going to happen. But it didn’t—or it happened for someone else.

Two weeks ago, hardly anyone knew who Kesha Ni’Cole Nichols was. In her world, in her mind, and according to her plans, she was going to be honeymooning with NBA star Richard Jefferson right now.

This young woman had planned a $2 million wedding day. (The thought of a woman spending that kind of money for a ceremony and celebration that were going to last a few hours might have made any young man choke: Would he have enough money to sustain her for the rest of the year?) But I digress:

How many times do you think Ms. Nichols visualized herself proudly walking down the aisle with a church full of high-profile folks looking adoringly at her ridiculously expensive wedding gown? In this scene, the love of her life was always waiting at the end of aisle, eagerly waiting to say, “I take this woman.” Not once did it cross her mind that Jefferson would dump her the night before. In order to spend that kind of money, you could not have spent time thinking about anything but that wedding day. It was certifiably her dominant thought. And look what happened.

Ms. Nichols is not an exception. These things happen all the time. Heck, they’ve happened to you. It would be crass and untrue to say, "If you want to make God laugh, just make plans." But you have to admit that it's witty--and o are clever motivational sayings and formulas touting dominant thoughts, visualizations and other predictors of success, prosperity, and wellness that cannot be proved.

In fact, experience has proved otherwise. With the misperception that we are merely mortal creatures, and that acquiring stuff while we're in these bodies will make us happy, these witty sayings steer us in the direction of material joy.

In actuality, peace of mind is what truly brings joy. Few things disturb our peace of mind more than getting, having stuff and keeping stuff. What we need are some sayings that give us peace of mind when we can't pay our bills or when we face health challenges--sayings that have nothing to do with changing the circumstances, but understanding why we created them in the first place. Hmmm, how about: "Trust that whatever you are experiencing is designed by your soul for its Highest Good. Allow it to fulfill its purpose."

I admit, it might not be very inspirational, but if I know that I am eternal and that the problem I'm facing is not, I am more likely to relax and trust that the soul and the God Spirit within me know what they're doing.

Maybe it's the Virgo in me, but I like to understand and analyze my experiences. Based on my belief that things don't happen to me, they happen for me, I always ask the God Within: "Why did I create this situation, and how does it serve me?" Invariably--usually within 24 hours because I've practiced this so long--it is revealed why I am having that experience, and how it is benefitting me. As a consequence, I am rarely disturbed when things happen. I accept that it is happening for my growth and Highest Good. That doesn't mean that I am delighted that I'm having the discomfort. For added measure, I frequently say something like, "I am open to experience something more pleasant, at the earliest and most perfect time."

Challenges build muscle, teach lessons and stimulate growth. The last person you want to be around if things go wrong is someone who has not faced a challenge or a disappointment before. Problems are good. Disappointments are good. Not getting everything you want is good. Learning from every experience--and seizing the growth or practice opportunities they present--is even better.

What advice have you been given, based on a motivational saying, that was fact but not truth? How did you respond? Share so that we can all grow?

Can you make it through the "tough parts?"

It happened Thursday. I was taking my daughter to the airport after a blissful weeklong Independence Day vacation from everything. I even played hooky from the home-church:

“Uh oh, here comes the tough part.”

I looked at Maiysha and instantly felt a little knot in my stomach. I had forgotten how much she dreaded goodbyes. As I pulled up to curb outside the American Airlines terminal at O’Hare, my mind instantly flashed back to the TV Guide documentary about her journey to the Grammy Awards as a neophyte nominee.

That video gave me the first glimpse into what happens every time my little girl and I leave each other and head to another city: I watched her close her hotel room door as I left to go to the L.A. airport. Then she sobbed. She revealed to the producer that it has happened ever since she was four.
Separation is a heartbreaking ritual familiar to all children of divorce, particularly if their parents live in different cities. While excited to see one beloved parent, they dread leaving the other.

At this point, this heartbreak seems to have lodged itself in Maiysha’s memory because, even though she’s grown, and we’ve lived in different cities since her freshman year in high school, she still cries the moment I leave her sight. Now that the TV Guide cameras have shown me what that looks like, I cry, too.

Letting go. It’s one of the toughest things we do, and it can be painful if we don’t understand that there is always a time for departure. We cannot go to the next level without leaving the last. We forget that we’re on a path, and only a fraction of a millimeter of that path is here on planet Earth. Some of us exhaust a lot of energy, much of it negative, trying to control that blink of an eyelash moment in Universal Time.

Perhaps you’re displeased with your current circumstances. What led you to this moment and these circumstances? Sure, you can trace your physical path to this spot—your decisions, educational preparation and the skill sets, the places you went and organizations you joined, the previous jobs you held, the network of people who influenced your personal or professional lives—but that doesn’t always answer the “How’d I get here from there” question, does it?

You did all the right things for all the right reasons. You gave your relationship or your job all you had to give, and more; but it didn’t last. In the immortal tearful words of Nancy Kerrigan: “Why? Why? Why?”

I get this question from many who seek my counsel. For each, the response is specific to their situation, but the core of it my answer is always this: If you were supposed to have a different experience, you would be. What you’re experiencing now is the result of all of the choices you’ve made throughout your eternal life, times that you cannot even remember.

That’s the “tough part,” the “letting go” part: releasing old ideas of how things are “supposed to be,” based on the choices we’ve made in these bodies. As far back as we can remember, we’ve treated people well, worked hard, and followed the Golden Rule. Well, mostly. Still, the few times that we veered from the straight and narrow don’t explain why our lives look like this. Or maybe it’s the other way around: I know, as I sit here perched high, high above the crossroads of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, with a horizon so rich with possibilities that I can barely sit still, I wonder: What in the Universe did I do to deserve this fabulous life?

That would be a clue: There’s something happening that we cannot see and cannot remember. The tough part is accepting that whatever we’re going through right now is either the unfolding of our souls’ plan or our bodies’ decisions to throw a monkey wrench in that plan; everything we do right now impacts us at some point on our journey. If you don’t believe, just do something that you don’t want done to you. Go ‘head. We’re watching.

We forget that Life is invisible and infinite; bodies are not. To help us remember, we’re granted ample opportunities to learn to get out of our soul’s way, go with the flow, and accomplish the goals that the soul intended when it showed up on this drama-filled planet wearing a body costume or, as it’s called in Genesis 2:7, a “tunic of skin.”

That’s another tough part: We think we’re only visible and we focus all of our attention on the visible. This is your soul’s life. Your body and all the physical trappings that you’re fixated on are merely trappings, and you can get sucked into a gooey vortex by allowing those trappings—the job titles, the car, the house, the endless quest for financial prosperity—that distract you from why you’re really here. Prosper that.

At the end of the day, all of us will leave behind all the stuff we fought so hard to own and far too many of us will be just another carcass that got tricked by the devious ego, who stuck his leg out and made us trip over the props. While they put our worthless physical remains in a box and plant it, we’ll schlep our vacuous souls over to a corner and mourn the growth opportunities that we blew.

Everyone is here for a unique reason. What’s yours? Are you fulfilling your mission? How close are you? This is urgent, so let me “go Loud Mouth” for a minute: Are you walking around with a big ball on your head, deluded into thinking that only what you can see, touch, smell, hear and taste is all that exists, and everything you ever wanted resides inside that ball? You can let your ego keep “punking” you—or you can become more intimate with Life’s unlimited reality.

I was counseling a distraught young woman the other day. She graduated with a high GPA from a very good university a year ago, and despite her strong work ethic and high acumen, she has been unable to find a job. Many of her friends are similarly situated, but just as many friends are enjoying what she perceives to be successful careers in the corporate world.

Unhappy that she was not enjoying the same success, she told me that she has repeatedly prayed to God, “What am I doing wrong? What am I not doing? Please give me some direction.” After asking, what did she do? She actively looked for ways to follow the same direction as her “successful” friends. She was so busy that she probably wasn’t even able to hear the direction she was being given from the spark of God within her. She expected the direction to take her where she thought she should be going.

Like most of us, she wanted God to do her will. We’ve been taught to do this. It’s what we think prayer is: “Ask and it shall be given.”
What if it’s not yours? What if it’s not the right path for you? What if your body’s desires aren’t in alignment with your soul’s? What if you tried to release your human understanding of the situation? You might see things differently.

My young friend, for example, had been mightily blessed; but she appeared to be unaware. After graduation, a relative reached out to her and, acknowledging how hard she had worked to complete her education, made her an offer that her friends probably would envy: She was invited into the relative’s comfortable home and told not to worry about paying a thing. Yep, I’m talking free room and board. Blessing, or no?

This young woman could hardly wait to move out on her own. She was desperate to be like her friends who have income, independence, and are now accumulating rent receipts, credit card debt, car notes and all of the bills associated with owning a late model car, suitable business attire, furniture and appliances.

I asked her several questions: First, why are you here on this planet, in this country, in that place at this time? Like most of us, she wasn’t sure. Exploring some possibilities provided tremendous insight for her. You might find this exercise helpful, as well. Try to look at your situation from a different perspective, higher than the ego-level.

I wondered if this talented, ambitious young woman had considered the possibility that living in her relative’s home might actually have been a blessing for her relative. She paused, a bit confused. I tried to clarify: I asked her to tell me what it feels like when she presents someone a gift—an unexpected, generous, selfless gift. She could feel it instantly—and it felt GREAT. I asked her to imagine that she had blessed her relative with this incomparable feeling. Her spirit began to brighten at the empowering thought that she might actually be delivering the gift in this situation.

Then I asked her to look deeper, look at the scenario spiritually, beyond the physical appearance and consider the possibility that the eternal soul who currently is wearing the body of her relative is one that her soul has known for a long time. I didn’t ask her to accept it as a fact; I just wanted her to write a script with this scene.

Next question: What if, at some point in your eternal life, you did something selfless for this soul or another and the Universe was returning your generosity? What if you refused to allow this soul to repay its debt?

She then began to stop resisting her situation, but actually embrace it.

Like most of us, this young woman had focused her attention on the drama on her life’s physical stage, where the ego-self is only capable of rearranging the props on the stage or trying to direct the actors to do what it wants. Those who are heavily controlled by their egos even try to manipulate situations and people in a forceful rather than powerful way.

When something goes awry and things aren’t going as our egos desire, those who believe there’s a God cry out for help. They look up rather than within because they’ve been told that God is a being that looks like a man, which is a limiting portrayal of Spirit or Love. They say that “He” is far away in the heavens, and will come down here and intervene, or will favor us over “His” other kids. They confuse us and confound our search for a close relationship with God and complicate our search for divine answers to our most troubling questions.

We pray and pray and pray for God to do our will, and we feel rejected, abandoned or even angry when “He” doesn’t comply. At that point, we’re ripe for the pickin’. Our egos convince us that we have to take control. WE have to make it happen, since we can’t count on God.

We don’t give a thought to the possibility that things are the way they are because it is for the Highest Good of our souls to have this experience. Through it, there is a wonderful growth lesson for the only Life that really exists: the eternal life of the soul.

Maybe, if we made uncharitable choices during a period that we can’t remember, this is an opportunity to settle that debt. If given the option of paying off a debt or carrying the burden throughout all eternity, which would you choose if you know that physical life is not real life?

We don’t know what our soul’s plan is, and we haven’t done the spiritual homework to figure out how to neutralize those debts painlessly. If you’re interested, I provide those tips very simply in “Crossing an Unseen Bridge: The Law of Attraction Secrets No One Wants to Talk About.”

Taking full responsibility for our life’s circumstances is tough. Letting go of our limited vision of a God who is off in the heavens, instead of within us, is even tougher. We have to leave behind that ancient caricature borrowed from Greek mythology, if we’re going to get to the next level in our spiritual development. At that level, we revere each individual as a spark of the living God and we treat each individual with the divine respect that we would accord God if “He” was wearing a tunic of skin. As a consequence, what returns to us in this “reap what you sow” world is always divine.

Our every thought, belief and action has a corresponding consequence, and the only thing that you really can control are the consequences of your thoughts, beliefs and actions. Be still, seek peace, and you will hear the directions rising from the Divine within you.That’s what happened to my young friend:

Because she had left her iPod at a friend’s earlier in the week, she found herself jogging in silence, the realm of the Divine. As a consequence, she was better able to hear the Divine speak to her.

She wasn’t sure why, but as she ran that day, Spirit moved her to call me. After we gained some clarity on her situation, it occurred to me that I knew someone who needs an energetic, hardworking entry-level public relations person with events management experience. The position would require frequent travel, which she loves.

Because she and I had not spoken in a while and she lives out of town, she had not crossed my mind. Apparently, she was supposed to. I hold a lot of influence in determining who gets that position.

This was just one of many reminders that there are no accidents; there is a Divine Plan. It was written before our souls entered these bodies; in fact, our souls co-authored it.

If we could pull our contributing chapters from a shelf and find the pages that explained how our current circumstances serve our souls’ growth, if we could remember that we are not finite bodies and that this is just a momentary experience in this tunic of skin, we could relax and go with the flow. We wouldn’t be upset when things change, no matter how abrupt or seemingly unfair the change is.

If we could trust God enough to know that everything serves our Highest Good, we wouldn’t be angry when un-Christlike Christians or other ego-driven souls try to harm us. We called them onto our stages to push us onto another one because it was time to go. Our ego-selves don’t like change that they don't orchestrate; we needed these souls' help. As mean-spirited as they seem, they are fulfilling our missions in meaningful ways. If we could remember that, we would know peace beyond all understanding. We would be joyful when things change.

Nobody on this planet has achieved Enlightenment. If they had, they wouldn’t be here. No matter what our level of spiritual understanding, new, sometimes greater challenges await us down the path. Stretching can be uncomfortable. But if we trust the divinity of the God within us, we will never again perceive them as “tough parts.”

R.I.P.--A Post Mortem on Death

Nobody--I mean, no body--is leaving this planet alive. By contrast, every soul will be very much alive and kicking when it pulls out of here.

A part of us grasps this Truth: We know indisputably that no one has ever come to Planet Earth and stayed. We know that this is not home. We know that we have bodies and souls--and we know that the two are not synonymous. We know that one is finite; the other is infinite. And we know which is which.

On occasion, we even verbalize our understanding of this difference: When souls leave human bodies, we often say that they "passed" or they "passed on." We use an active verb that indicates that these souls went somewhere. We know that lifeless bodies aren't going anywhere that they aren't physically carried.

More frequently, however, we act as if the physical body and the immortal soul are the same thing. "Michael died," we say. Did Michael's body die, or his soul? Which was the real Michael, the mortal body or the immortal soul?

We do something else that's quite confusing: We say or write, "Rest in peace" (R.I.P.). Are we talking to the soul? The body certainly doesn't need a directive to rest or rot; it will do both naturally. It seems to me that if an immortal soul had the option of departing a lifeless body or resting peacefully within it, that soul would get out of Dodge-immediately. Of course, I could be wrong.

How did we get so confused? If we believe that every soul has a purpose for being here, do we know when that purpose was established? Was it done prior to its arrival-or years later, after reading A Purpose-Driven Life? Who has the greater vision to establish the purpose of a lifetime on Earth: the infinite soul or the ego that is inextricably attached to the finite physical body?

If the soul is on a mission, do we believe that it will subordinate its plan to the ego? In other words, can a body or ego's desires trump a soul's mission? If not, could that explain why bodies don't always get what they ask in prayer: the job, the house, the car, the mate, the baby?

Did millions and millions of Michael Jackson fans worldwide want the undisputed King of Pop to entertain us forever? Absolutely. Did our collective desire trump his soul's divine plan? Absolutely not. That's difficult for us to grasp because our egos want what they want, when they want it--and they're egotistical enough to think that they can run roughshod over the soul's desires.

Our egos' battles with our all-knowing souls is what makes us "double-minded." We cling to two diametrically opposed belief systems. "Double-minded" is a phrase we learned from James, in his book that became part of the best-selling anthology we know as the Bible. In the 18th verse of his first chapter, James noted that you can predict that a man who is double-minded in one area of his life is unstable in others. The inconsistency becomes a common thread woven through his thoughts and actions.

James' theory has held up for nearly 20 centuries: Humans believe that God is angry and vindictive. Worship is mandatory and free will is granted; but if we exercise that freedom in ways that God does not desire, He will torture us throughout eternity.

Conversely, we also believe that God is Love--and we don't believe that Love is angry, vindictive or that it mandates worship and obedience from loved ones or it will exact a painful long-lasting punishment. That's double-mindedness in action.

But that's the tip of the iceberg. We also believe that we should drop bombs on our enemies; but don't believe our enemies should drop bombs on us, their enemies. We believe that we can be unfaithful to our spouses, kill a gang member's child, infect millions of computers with a disabling virus, and steal quarters from a jar or billions in a Ponzi scheme; but it's an indignity if others do these things to us. We believe there should be harsh penalties--even capital punishment--for some crimes; but we want mercy if we or a loved one committed the illegal act. We also believe that our loved ones are dead when only their bodies and egos have died. Yes, we are double-minded; but we don't have to stay that way, unless we choose.

Several high profile souls left the planet this past week: TV's most famous talk show sidekick, Ed McMahon; model, actress and pop icon Farrah Fawcett; Oxi Clean's screaming hawkman, Billy Mays; and the Thriller of them all, musical genius Michael Jackson. There were also countless mothers, fathers, children, relatives and friends whose souls completed their missions here. We can also look at these transitions as our egos' loss or their souls' victory: Consider the possibility that their souls had a schedule for this visit (remember, this is not home)--and they left according to that schedule.

In one of my favorite books, a simple little allegory about life and death, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Author Richard Bach offers a gull proverb: "The gull sees farthest who flies highest." When we're able to see beyond the physical props and the costumes to that invisible realm called reality, the realm of spirit, soul and God, it's amazing what is revealed to us. Bach writes:

"As the days went past, Jonathan found himself thinking time and again of the Earth from which he had come. If he had known there just a tenth, just a hundredth, of what he knew here, how much more life would have meant! He stood on the sand and fell to wondering if there was a gull back there who might be struggling to break out of his limits, to see the meaning of flight beyond a way to get a breadcrumb from a rowboat."

That was the birth of a new mission for the soul known as Jonathan, prior to his return to Earth. When we understand the meaning and the multiple dimensions of Life, we understand that "loss" is a thought, not a reality.

When our loved ones pass, they are not lost. Because of our limitations, not theirs, we simply cannot see them. In reality, they are more accessible to us, in spirit, than they were in body. Yes, we miss their physical presence. Let's not deny that. But it doesn't mean that they are dead. It means that their bodies are no longer animated by the infinite life of their invisible, invincible souls.

Maybe it's time for the rest of us to R.I.P.: Rethink the Idea of Passing.

Is God Your Father or Your Daddy?

I visited a friend in the hospital yesterday. As I approached the reception area, I noticed a beautiful little boy accompanied by a couple that might have been his grandparents. This cherub couldn’t have been more than four years old. Round-faced with pinchable cheeks, big brown eyes and a fresh haircut, boyfriend couldn’t stand still, as the receptionist prepared the badges permitting them in the patient rooms. He was busy, busy, busy.

Suddenly he looked up and screamed, “Daddy!” Seconds later, he leaped into the open arms of his spittin’ image: a gorgeous brother that this child obviously adored. The little boy grasped his Dad’s cheeks and kissed him squarely in the mouth. His little fingers surveyed his Dad’s face, then rubbed his head and hugged his neck. The child was so breathless, so delighted to be with his Dad; I wondered if his parents were separated or divorced, and he hadn’t seen his father in a while.

“Are you ready to meet your little sister?” his father asked.

Ahhh, now the picture was in focus: Dad had been at the hospital with Mom through labor and childbirth, and Little Bit had stayed with his grandparents. But while their separation was a brief one, it had been much too long for this child.

It reminded me of Sasha and Malia at the Democratic Convention, when they saw their Dad on the huge monitor on stage. Remember that? You could almost feel their urge to go up to the screen and hug him. They had missed him so much.

Daddy love. More than that, it’s Daddy like—a much greater compliment to a father, in my humble opinion. Fathers can be anyone whose sperm fertilized an egg. Only fathers who treat their children well—and do it consistently, consciously and unconditionally—earn the name “Daddy.”

I’m not saying that abusive, caustic, negligent, absent and unsupportive fathers can’t be loved; they can. But rarely are they liked: Their children don’t feel an overwhelming urge to kiss their faces, rub their heads or hug their necks. These children don’t squeal with delight when they see their fathers—or jump up and down while squealing and clapping, as my daughter, Maiysha, used to do. Lordie, Lordie, that child would make so much noise when her Dad came home from work.

Most children have a deep affinity for their fathers. When they grow older, many notice that they resemble their earthly fathers, or maybe they were frequently told, “You look just like your Daddy!”

On the other hand, no one has told them that they looked like their heavenly father, God. When they look in their mirrors, they can’t see a resemblance, either. Why is that? What are we looking for? That fascinates me, so I often ask Drama Queen Workshop participants, “What does God look like?” Their responses are always insightful.

Once, with great pride, a woman said, “When I look in the mirror, I see God. God looks like me.” Others nodded in agreement, though I noticed that none of them was a man. Perhaps it was the idea of God looking like a woman that they couldn’t accept—or maybe they had a more expansive view of what God is. Men can be great thinkers. Mean it.

In another workshop, for example, a man asked me, “Do you think God looks like something or nothing?”

My response: “I think God looks like everything. If it’s true that God is omnipresent, then there is nothing in which the spirit of God is not present.” He had no comeback. He just smiled, although I could tell that he initially intended to bait me into saying something stupid or shallow.

I’d only be in danger of that if someone had offered evidence that God has a physical body that resembles ours. Humans assumed that if we were made in God’s image, God looked like us. I can understand how ancient illiterate people concluded that. I’m not sure what our excuse is.

We believe that God resides outside of Earth’s atmosphere, yet we know indisputably that human bodies really can’t function outside of this atmosphere without special equipment such as space suits. So the likelihood that God is wearing a human body beyond Earth’s atmosphere is probably slim to none.

The ancient scribes didn’t know that, so they wrote stories claiming that the profound Jewish rabbi named Yeshua, ascended into the heavens in a body that had been brutally tortured and rendered lifeless after Roman soldiers crucified him. What, pray tell, was he going to do with that carcass, if he went where they said he went?

There’s also no evidence, aside from the conflicting texts of these scribes, that God—portrayed as both omnipresent and physically light years away, as in all ancient myths—would be so satanic as to orchestrate such an inhumane death. But many mythical gods were diabolical, so there’s a logical explanation for why they told the story this way. There’s no logic at all to why we still believe it.

You have to read books about ancient history and mythology before the light turns on and you realize what formed our beliefs—and how innocently those beliefs were formed. Everyone knew these ancient myths, so the scribes probably assumed that the rank and file would not regard their updated versions as news reporting. They were wrong. Once the religious giants at the Council of Nicea declared these books as the “Word of God,” myth mushroomed into fact. Allowing only a chosen few to read or interpret these words for more than 1,200 years cemented them into the human belief system.

Eighteen centuries after the confab at Nicea, we still believe these tales are true—and we vigorously defend the words, even though they desecrate God’s image as an unconditionally loving Father.

While discussing my first book, one woman argued, “God is sovereign! He can do anything he wants.”

I concurred. My question to her was, “But would God want to do anything inhumane or satanic?” She admitted that she hadn’t thought about that.
Perhaps, on this Father’s Day, we should think about that. Perhaps we should look at why we hold human males to a higher standard of conduct than we hold our Divine Father:

• If an earthly father raped his virgin daughter, he would be labeled a degenerate sex offender and could spend years in prison for incest.
• If an earthly father solved problems by committing acts of violence against his children, we’d label him an abusive parent and throw him in jail.
• If an earthly father plotted with others to brutally kill his only child by allowing others to nail him to a cross and subject him to three days of excruciating pain, we’d call him hateful and satanic, and our outcry for justice would be deafening.
• If an earthly father had a multitude of children who repeatedly committed crimes and hurt others, and he decided to stop them by killing his only good child, we’d label him criminally insane and send him away forever.
• If an earthly father kicked his naughty kids out of the only home they’d ever known, and banished them to the wilderness without any survival skills or visible means of support, we’d think he was demented, demonic—or both—and we’d press to convict him for child abuse (after we garnished his wages for lack of child support).
• If an earthly father told his kids to forgive others’ sins 70 times seven, but threatened to punish his kids’ sins with unending torture, we’d call him a hypocrite.
• If that same father told his kids not to kill others, but he was guilty of genocide, we’d lock up the hypocrite and throw away the key.
• If an earthly father,who had a huge mansion and lots of children, gave a known demon total control of those children’s thoughts and behavior, we’d move heaven and earth to free those kids from the gip of the demon and deprogram them so that they could function normally and harmlessly in society.
• If that same father declared that only the kids who outsmarted the demonic caretaker’s tricks could return to the mansion, we’d imprison both of the conspirators for child endangerment, sadism and more.

Oddly enough, when someone tells us that God—our Father—has done all of these things and more, our reactions are totally different. We respond with praise and worship. We look to the heavens and sing love songs. Yet we demonize earthly fathers who have done far less. It’s amazing how the human mind works.

A couple of years ago, a devout young man asked me a question I’ll never forget. He was planning a praise and worship festival, and needed public relations counsel. Sensing my discomfort with some of his dogma, he pointed toward the door and said, “If God walked in here right now, wouldn’t you drop to your knees and start praising Him?”

I took a deep breath. “That presumes that I believe that God isn’t here already—and that if He came from someplace else, He would scare or harm me. Is that what Love would do?” The young man hadn’t thought about that. All of his life, he only believed what others told him to believe.

I never saw him again. Hallelujah! I keep telling you: God is good.

On this Father’s Day, let us give our Heavenly Father a well-deserved break from centuries of bad publicity. Let’s give God the benefit of the doubt by challenging every allegation of inhumane behavior with the question, “Would Love do that?”

On Father’s Day 2009, let’s declare that while the word of God is inerrant, the word of some of the ancient scribes is verifiably inaccurate. Let’s dare to believe that God does nothing demonic, and does not solve problems by hurting people.

As a Father’s Day gift to God, let’s read more than one book—or vow to read the one we have more carefully. All the evidence that it’s time to stop blindly accepting other people’s answers and start asking our own questions is right there.

On this day, instead of simply declaring that we love God, let’s begin to like God as a Father who treats all of us well—and does it consistently, consciously and unconditionally. Today, let’s allow God to become our Daddy. Who knows: When we feel that Divine presence washing over us, we might begin to squeal with delight, rather than tremble with fear.

What a difference an "R" makes

I received an email the other day with the most intriguing subject line: “Are you revolving or evolving?” It occurred to me that many of us don’t know the huge difference that an “r” can make:

The concept of evolving is a bit “woo-woo” to most of us. It’s that spirituality thing. We tend to shy away from it because it is distinctly different from religion: the rules, regulations, rituals, readings, and restrictions that grow from a peoples’ belief of what God is and what God does. Many religions discourage thoughtful consideration or questions about the mandated beliefs and issue deadly and diabolical threats to those who don’t share those beliefs.

By contrast, spirituality invites questions. It makes us think much bigger thoughts about a much bigger God. Its very nature is evolutionary; it’s about growing in awareness of the ever-present nature of God, rather than trying to establish a relationship with a judgmental, angry, hard-to-please God who is far away. Spirituality teaches us how to be consciously aware of God’s immediate presence so that we can leverage it to guide our steps, and it teaches us to trust God’s presence so that we are not shaken by economic downturns, relationship upheaval or even the death of physical bodies. Spirituality gives us a greater understanding of ourselves as human and spiritual beings and provides context for everything that happens in our experience.

Are we evolving or revolving? The question reminds me of the time I went to Northern California with my “wasband.” (It rhymes with husband; I borrowed that term from the Rev. Vici Derrick. Don’t you love it?)

My ex is a car fanatic–one of the reasons we had four fine automobiles. As a kid, I had a fascination with cars, too. Detroit didn’t produce a vehicle that I couldn’t identify by make and model year; but that’s about as much as I wanted or needed to know. By contrast, when my spouse was a kid, he read encyclopedia volumes, cover-to-cover. (Yeah, I thought that was weird, too.) Even as an adult, this guy loved books. If we were in a mall and somehow got separated, my daughter, Maiysha, and I knew to look in the nearest bookstore. He was always there, reading some car magazine.

One fine day my car fanatic wasband decided that we should experience the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, up close and personal. Whoo hoo–until he said that he also wanted to attend a drag race in a nearby town. Strolling through the lovely shops in Carmel and gawking at the array of fine vintage automobiles amid the heart-stopping beauty of Pebble Beach golf course was right up my alley. Watching some guys going nowhere at death-defying speeds, making more noise than my earplugs could silence–not so much.

Finally, the moment I’d dreaded for weeks was almost upon us. That morning’s brunch felt like the Last Supper. After I’d played with my meal as long as I could, I had to face the inevitable.
As we walked out of the restaurant, I asked that annoying girl-question: “Do you know where we’re going?” Tsk, tsk was the essence of his annoying-boy response. After all, EVERYONE in town must be going to the race. We’ll just follow someone.

And so we did. The guy in the 700-series BMW, who was exiting the restaurant parking lot ahead of us became our designated leader. Of course, this guy was totally qualified to show us where to go: He had a luxury car, which meant he was smart and successful like my wasband; his car also had California license plates (but so did our rental car), which meant he knew how to get there quickly.

So, off we went, away from Monterey’s traffic lights and street scenes, heading directly into the Northern California countryside. And I mean countryside. Every 15 minutes, my wasband declared that we must be close because it was almost race time. Pretty soon I noticed that nobody was behind us. Where were all the other race car fanatics? I wondered. Mr. BMW must have been wondering what was going on, too. There was a car tailing him–with two black people in it. No matter what he did, he couldn’t shake us.

Nearly two hours passed, and we were halfway up a mountain, nowhere near our desired course. I was too relieved to be disgusted. When our lead car turned onto a very long winding trail and sped toward a farmhouse, the guffaw that I’d been squelching for hours finally burst free.

Mr. BMW probably darted down that path to get away from us, and I wouldn’t blame him. But now what? How would we get ourselves off of this mountain? I wondered. We passed a gas station, but my wasband refused to stop. When we passed it again, he was finally ready to ask for directions. Too late. It had closed.

Finally, we ambled down the mountain toward civilization, heads bowed, tailpipe tucked between our legs–and we actually made it to the track. But the traffic was going the opposite direction. The race had just ended. God is good!

It occurs to me now that we had been presented a wonderful lesson about evolving and revolving. Everyone’s lessons aren’t so in-your-face definitive; consequently, we must be more attentive and inquisitive, no matter how smart we are.

That could be a problem. Most of us have an aversion to asking the right questions to the right people get the right directions. We choose the folks we’ll listen to, even accept their answers and beliefs, even if they are inconsistent, implausible and illogical. We make judgments about what others can do for us, based on their superficial trappings.

Is it any wonder that we keep revolving around the track, making the same mistakes, repeating the same lessons, and meeting, dating, even working with the same type of people? Every situation, every person has value, but we don’t look for it. We complain, but we don’t ask why we attracted them into our lives or what they came to teach us.

When we live like this, we revolve unconsciously. By contrast, it’s absolutely impossible to evolve unconsciously. We are always fully aware when we’re growing and living with spiritual guidance. We know that we are evolving–heading to a higher plane on purpose (and not playing follow the smart guy in the BMW)–when we begin to take responsibility for the people that we attract into our lives and for the situations that we create or encore ad nauseum. We know that we are evolving when we actively seek directions from within.

Taking responsibility for our lives and our outcomes is as simple as asking: “Why did I create this? Why did I attract this person? What is the lesson my soul wants me to learn from this situation, this person, this bank account balance, this job loss, this mortgage foreclosure? What growth opportunities lie within this?” Evolving is like traversing a spiral staircase: No matter what the speed, we are constantly ascending and never encountering the same challenge twice.

This economic climate is gifting us with some awesome opportunities to evolve or revolve. Are we ready to ask the questions that can lift us to the next level? Or will we be satisfied with someone else’s answers, even if they don’t take us where we want to go?

Your path is not the same as mine or your parents, siblings, friends, neighbors or coworkers. There are no cookie cutter answers, affirmations, denials or treatments for your life challenges. Your path is unique and so is your mission and your lessons. Those who claim that they can tell you how to live a better life in five, eight or ten easy steps might mean well, but they are not equipped to guide you the way that your Higher Self can. They don’t hold your answers. Only the God within you knows why you are here and what path you need to take and what decisions you need to make.

You have free will, and every decision has its natural consequence. Will yours be evolutionary?
Shout back at the Loud Mouth.

Solving problems by killing people: A Divine idea?

Weren’t we just talking about abortion—and judgment and condemnation—last week? How ironic is it that today a judgmental, condemning human pranced himself into a church and executed a physician who performed abortions. Where’d this guy get the idea to solve problems by killing people? And why did he choose the church to stage this drama?

What’s the appropriate way to respond to behavior that’s disagreeable to us? Anybody know what the Bible says we should do in these instances?

1. Kids giving you mouth?

a. Give them good counsel
b. Forgive them
c. Kill them

Hint: Ex. 21:17, Deut. 21:18-21

2. Cold-blooded. Murderers on the loose?

a. Arrest them
b. Forgive them
c. Kill them

Hint: Ex. 21:12, 21:15

3. Cheating spouse?

a. Divorce them
b. Forgive them
c. Kill them

Hint: Lev. 19:20, 20:10

4. Kidnappers, body snatchers?

a. Make them sleep with wolves
b. Forgive them
c. Kill them

Hint: Ex 21:16

5. Bad-mouth blasphemers?

a. Publicly humiliate them
b. Forgive them
c. Stone them to death

Hint: Lev. 24:16

6. ”Me and Mrs. Jones?” Men who have sex with their father’s or son’s wife:

a. Castrate them
b. Forgive them
c. Kill them

Hint: Lev. 20:11, 20:12

7. Sexy Mama? Men who have sex with their mothers-in-law:

a. Castrate them
b. Forgive them
c. Burn them to death

Hint: Lev. 20:14

8. What to do with ungodly atheists and agnostics?

a. Cripple them
b. Forgive them
c. Kill them

Hint: Josh. 1:18, 2 Chr. 15:13

9. No “Welcome to Walmart?” Those who work on Saturdays (includes cooking, looking for food, leaving home and making a fire):

a. Arrest them
b. Forgive them
c. Stone them to death

Hint: Ex 31:15, 16:25, 16:26, 16:29, 35:3, 31:14, 35:2, Num 15:32-36

10. Lost forever: Virginity

a. Slap on a chastity belt immediately
b. Forgive her
c. Stone her to death

Hint: Deut 22:21-24

I gave you the chapter and verse for every answer, so if you answered anything but “C” for every question, I’m utterly speechless. Now you know why killing people has been such a popular way to solve problems for lo these many centuries—even after man-made law ruled these solutions inhumane and illegal.

Who’s right? Is killing people is a divine or satanic method for solving problems?

In Memoriam: Life as we once knew it

I watched in wonder as the debate over Notre Dame’s invitation for the President of these United States to speak at this year’s commencement hit a fever pitch of judgmental rhetoric—led by those who call themselves Christians. Fascinating stuff.

Maybe I’ve been watching the drama on Earth from too far away. I’ve obviously lost the ability to zoom in on the important stuff. I certainly missed the moment that “judge not and you will not be judged, condemn not and you will not be condemned” ceased to be central to the teachings of the radically non-religious Jewish rabbi named Yeshua. People on both sides of the issue claim to be his followers; but they clearly don’t walk his walk.

The Loud Mouth is brash enough to call out non-Christlike Christians; but the President, who consistently confronts hot topics directly, without being confrontational, delivered a speech that appealed for both sides to disagree if they must; but do it with Christ-like civility:

“I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it—indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory—the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

“Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.”

As the resident bull in the china shop, let me take this debate to a place where our President couldn’t: To “The Beginning.” At the heart of the abortion issue is this: When does Life begin—and does a woman have a right to choose to give birth to an infant body?

Much of the debate rages around whether Life begins at conception or at some stage in the development of an embryo or fetus. The presumption here is that Life is physical—and that a human can give It, take It, save It, or even make It miserable. Perhaps we have forgotten what Life is—Life with a capital “L,” that is.

Have you ever seen Life with your physical eyes? Where was It? What was It doing? What did It look like? What was it wearing? Can you draw a picture of Life? Have you ever photographed It? How old was It?

What does Life look like at birth? At death? Can you describe it? Have you ever thought about it? Have you considered the possibility that we have made the words “life” and “body” synonymous?

When Life leaves a body, the body dies. Does that mean that Life is dead, too? Unless you send me evidence to the contrary, Life—like Spirit, like Soul and like God—is invisible to those in the physical world. And, unlike those in the physical world, Spirit, Soul, God, and Life have no beginning and have no end.

We have forgotten. That’s why this Memorial Day weekend, I honor the Divinity that we once knew as Life: The powerful, invincible, God-like essence that we temporarily abandoned to slip into costumes called human bodies and solve problems by disrespecting, maligning, berating, battling and killing those who disagree with us, or belong to a different army, tribe, gang, race, gender, sexual orientation, political party or religion.

I mourn the loss of our memories. We have forgotten that at “the end of the day,” our souls will not be held accountable for how others treated us—only how we treated them. If we remembered that—even if we forgot what Life really is—Memorial Day would be just another day on the tiny planet called Earth.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us"

Many of you think that the Loud Mouth sits in the balcony alone. Actually, I have plenty of company. Your souls are here, watching all your dramas with me. In fact, some of them are putting on quite a show themselves: They are screaming frantically, arms flailing, trying to grab your attention and warn you to make better choices. But they’re invisible, so you can’t see them. Their voices—even at top volume—are barely above a whisper, so you can’t hear. And you rarely leave the stage to hang out with them a bit and simply enjoy their presence. Poor dears.

We don’t have a clue how frustrating it is for our Higher Selves to watch our egos amass years of karmic debts that they will have to repay in full—an eye for an eye, as they say. Myopically, we buzz around the stage, focusing on stockpiling earthly profits, no matter what the ultimate cost: We treat others in ways that we would not want to be treated; engage in disrespectful, dehumanizing behavior and crabs-in-a-barrel antics; bear false witness against others and covet others’ position or property. On occasion, we outright abscond with it. Ouch!

This win-the-battle, lose-the-war drama is not very entertaining, inspiring or evolutionary to those who share your stage or watch from the audience. I’m sure that Pogo and the other philosophical animals in the fabled Okefenokee Swamp would probably say, “You’re stinking up the place, Dude.”

Those old enough to remember the Pogo cartoon strip might recall the lead character’s most famous line: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Thousands of years earlier, the Jew who later became known as Jesus, said something similar: “Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you also do to me.”

What were they talking about? There is only one Life in the Universe and we are it. We can’t help others without helping ourselves. We can’t hurt others without hurting ourselves. We are One.

I know it’s difficult to remember that, especially when we’re pointing fingers at someone else. Add all the tempting gotta-have-it-now props, the material stuff littering our stages that distracts us from achieving our soul’s higher mission and you have a formula for missed growth opportunities.

Preventing ourselves from sinking to the lower levels of consciousness requires the fortitude of Job. According to the ancient scribes, God diabolically made a bet with Satan, inhumanely killed Job’s children, servants and animals; heinously tortured Job; refused to explain why He was so cruel; then gave Job new children and more money.

While those of us who believe that God is Love can’t quite wrap our heads around this story as illustrative of divine behavior or literal truth, the premise is unequivocally inspiring: No matter what happened to him on the physical plane, Job maintained his belief and trust in almighty God.

Over the centuries, we seem to have lost sight of the meaning of almighty. Somewhere along the way, it was diluted from All-mighty to “Some-mighty,” meaning that God has some of the power and Satan has some. Basic math dictates that if God has ALL the power, that leaves zip, nada, zilch for Satan or anyone else. But I’m open to the possibility that I might have made an error in that complex calculation.

I also could be wrong about my take-away from Job’s story. For me, it’s not about suffering. It’s about trusting—trusting that everything is in Divine Order always, no matter what it looks like on the surface.

Throughout the ages there have been many souls who have maintained Job-like belief and trust in an Almighty God, and they have been willing to teach us so that we can speed along our evolutionary path without succumbing to our egos, which like to detour frequently and wrestle with the Darkness.

Thanks to social networking in the Beliefnet community, I was blessed to meet one of these teachers. I’ve mentioned him before: Melvin Forrester is an American who has lived in Germany since World War II. Melvin had an out-of-body experience while serving in the war that not only gave him a balcony view of Life on Planet Earth; it fortified his trust in God. He knows what it feels like to be consciously aware that we are eternal spirit, not bodies.

On May 9, Melvin and his wife, Gabrielle, celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. There was no champagne or hoopla. It was a quiet celebration with a glass of mineral water. The reason: Last year, Melvin was diagnosed with a debilitating illness that is slowly rendering him motionless.

Melvin has a very strong relationship with God. Under normal circumstances, he might be expected to pray or petition for total healing or a different diagnosis. He didn’t. Instead, he trusted that God knows what God is doing, and furthermore, could do it without Melvin’s guidance.

Since God is not cruel, no matter where it is written, if this illness had appeared, Melvin concluded that it must be there to benefit him (and consequently, others) in some way. If his mortal body was going to slowly shut down, he decided that he was going to teach others how to fearlessly let go of things that are not eternal.

Periodically Melvin emails an update, which always provides insight on how real faith works. True to his evolutionary soul mission, he is allowing me to share his story so that it might bless you, too. Here is an excerpt from his latest update:

“I sometimes think that this philosophical stuff is getting too much for me. I want to give up sometimes and end this experiment. Also I recently have severe problems with swallowing and side effects from the medicine, therefore I have begun reducing the doses of medicine, especially when I cannot breath and have pain.

“I always thought that I could master a two-minute struggle for air, but recently it went on for hours. But that’s the “Exit Plan” of my spirit. I will bow to his better judgment. When it seems too much to bear, I go into a mental state that I learned through meditation, which allows me to see and communicate with my spirit. I ask him if he really wants to have this experience, and ask him how I am doing with my part in this little drama.

“You know that about 40 years ago I had a special experience, and I know what awaits me on the other side. I am going joyfully and without regrets and fear.”

What would you do if this happened to you or a loved one? Could you be so focused on the divine, so undistracted by the physical circumstances that you could unwaveringly trust and unflinchingly embrace God’s will? Are you willing to lose to win?

Remembering how you got here--and why you came

Does this ever happen to you: You’re confidently traveling down some path–maybe one you’ve envisioned or planned for days or years–and you suddenly discover that the destination is not what you expected? I get that wake-up call almost every Sunday. All I know, for sure, is that I’m going to write a blog post; but I rarely know the topic when I sit at the computer. Most times, I write hundreds of words before Spirit directs me to go in a completely different direction. It’s as if the movement of my fingers on the keyboard stimulate my muses.

Today was going to be different. I’ve known my topic since mid-week, when I received a powerful message from my friend Melvin in Germany. I could hardly wait to share it. Then yesterday, everything changed: I read a story in N’Digo, Chicago’s “magapaper for the urbane,” by award-winning author, journalist, attorney and University of Illinois Associate Professor Christopher Benson. It began:

Just about two years ago, my mother died.

Just about two weeks ago, she called to let me know that she was going jogging.

Huh? How’d she do that?

Benson quickly explained in his story that his mother had a back-from-death experience two years ago, after a serious fall. He reflected on how precious each additional moment is now, and how much his mother impacted his many successful professional careers. Benson traced those successes back to his mother’s response to what he, at age nine, considered to be an impossible class assignment. He had to write an essay on why his dad should be named “Father of the Year.”

“I didn’t have a father. He wasn’t there,” Benson wrote. “I had never known him.” What was he going to do?

His mother’s response reshaped Benson’s self-image and his view of life. She challenged him to write about his mother–the greatest father any child could ever have:

“She also wanted me to know deep down inside that, yes, I was different. But my difference was not something to be ashamed of. My difference was not something to be shunned. Indeed, my difference was something to be proud of, to celebrate in ways that would cause others to celebrate with me.

“In my difference, there was value. There was something I could use to help other people come to understand things they never really had considered before. I was different. Yes. But I was just as good, just as talented, just as worthy as anybody else.”

In the process of meeting his mother’s challenge, Benson and his teachers made a life-altering discovery: This child had a gift; he was a talented writer. From that point on, he decided, the circumstances of his birth would not define or limit him.

Conventional wisdom says that we do not choose our families, just our friends. Spiritual wisdom, which is not rooted in or bound by the limitations of earthly thought, espouses something different and more evolutionary:

• Spiritually, we existed before the mortal body was created and will continue to exist after it decomposes.
• We chose to be here at this time and in this place.
• We had a purpose for coming–a purpose that is revealed to us when we ask, Spirit to Spirit; a purpose that will be supported, Spirit to Spirit.
• Each actor on our stage, even those we choose (and who agree) to be our parents, are perfect for our purpose-filled script of this physical experience. If someone is missing from the script, it’s because we intentionally didn’t include him or her. A father or a mother, siblings, spouses, children would have been perfect for another story, but not for this one.
• Even murder mysteries and horror stories have some entertainment value.

Everyone’s experience with their mothers doesn’t end up in a glowing tribute on the pages of a newspaper, like Benson’s. Every character who gives birth is not a nurturer. Some provide horrific stories of abandonment, neglect, abuse, torture, unloving and unsupportive behavior. And, while every stepmother isn’t a wicked witch, some are.

The childhood of recently retired Chicago broadcasting legend Merri Dee comes to mind. Merri was a toddler when her mother left this life. Her father then married a woman who was a storybook-cruel stepmother. Within a few years, he became ill and was unable to reign in this woman who was terrorizing his baby girl. Soon, he also left his body behind, leaving Merri in her care.

Merri recalls the stepmother severely punishing her for minor infractions. She stripped Merri of the family name, forbade contact with her siblings and other relatives, and forced her to fend for herself at the age of 14. Merri was not the least bit intimidated. No matter how much the woman beat her, Merri said that she refused to cry.

Her stepmother’s fury over her fearlessness, stubbornness and strength translated into even more cruelty. One day, the woman hung Merri out of their apartment window, head-first, until a neighbor spotted her and threatened to call police.

Years later, the plot for Merri’s life story revealed that her childhood was a dress rehearsal for the most critical act of her life: After working, continuing her education, marrying, giving birth to a daughter, and divorcing, Merri landed a job in sales for a multinational corporation. At the urging of a friend, she enrolled in broadcasting school, and became one of the great voices on Chicago radio. Because she had good looks to go with that voice, she soon became a local television talk show host.

One night, Merri and her talk show guest were kidnapped after the show, blindfolded, taken into the woods, shot in the head and abandoned. Her guest died; Merri didn’t. Mustering every ounce of strength in her body, just as she had as a child, she crawled through the thicket to a highway and summoned help.

Merri’s broadcasting career continued for three more decades, until she decided to pursue other interests last fall. Throughout that career, she raised more than $31 million for children’s causes through a variety of organizations, including the McCormick Tribune Foundation and the United Negro College Fund. She has raised even more spirits with her wise and gentle counseling and role modeling. Though she’s not nearly old enough to be my mother, she often watches over me and so many others, as if she was our Mom. (Thanks for sharing her, Toya.)

Once, while watching her bravely overcome yet another hurdle, and knowing that she didn’t have the benefit of a nurturing childhood as so many of us did, I asked her, “Where does all that strength and all that wisdom come from, given the upbringing you had?”

“From within,” she said, flashing that trademark Merri Dee smile.

Her lesson: Our source of self-worth or truth, financial supply or encouragement is not outside of us; the Invisible Spirit that is God is within. Everything we need is within.

If we could only remember that when stuff is hitting the fan and we have to respond quickly and instinctively. That’s the challenge, especially when we’re distracted–no, mesmerized–by all the drama on the world’s stage. If we look at our childhoods and adulthoods from that vantage point, the props and the actors seem real. We are more apt to react and judge people and their behavior as “good” or “bad.” When we judge them as “bad,” we close our eyes to the benefits that we asked them to deliver to us. That certainly includes our mothers and those who have played the mother role in our lives.

Is it implausible that we are Invisible Spirit, and we asked a soul wearing a specific body if she would be the vessel through which we, too, could experience physical life on planet Earth?

Is it implausible that the circumstances and challenges that surrounded our birth, adolescence and adulthood followed the script we wrote to help us practice, practice, practice bringing Light into the darkness, and respond in a more Christlike way to those who hide their Light under a bushel, a barrel or a big head?

Are you open to the possibility that there’s a greater plan for your life than your brain is aware of? Can you even imagine that you helped to create that plan–or does it make more sense that you are not here by choice, but by biology?

In the balcony of the Home-Church, there are no right or wrong answers. This is safe space. No one’s telling you what to think, what to say or what to believe. Here, we share our thoughts and exchange ideas. I certainly hope you’ll share yours.

Your entire life in only six words

Prolific thinker and author Ernest Hemingway once said that his six-word story was one of the best pieces of writing he had ever penned: Ever read it? For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn. Brilliant: Opening act. Climax. Denouement. Curtain. In six words. And nobody left the theater wondering what happened.

Many have issues challenges to write a story in only six words–fiction, non-fiction, sci-fi, romance, even autobiographies. The cutest one I’ve seen was the life story of an elderly dog: “Lost then found. Worked out great!”

As humans, we tend to complicate our lives, then we say that life is complicated. But we’re the ones unnecessarily creating challenges, and often making an even bigger mess when we try to resolve those challenges. Consider this: Life is not difficult; only a sadistic God would have made it so. Most things in life can be handled as simply as a six-word story, if we follow a few simple guidelines:

• Love yourself. Once you know who you are, you can't help but love every bit of you. And when you understand that you are part of the One Presence in the Universe, everything changes.

• There is no spot where God is not. Consider the possibility that God is bigger and greater than a mythical male being who lives millions of miles away. If a spark of God is in every soul, everyone encountered is a Holy One. Is that how we treat them?

• We reap what we sow. If we reflected on everything we did or said to someone during this past week alone, would we be eager for our harvest–or regretful?

• Judge nothing, condemn no one, forgive everyone. It is reported that a loving Jew, who centuries later came to be known as Jesus, said: “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37) At the end of the day, we will not have to account for what others did to us–only for what we did to them.

We frequently excuse or justify our unChrist-like retaliatory behavior by pointing fingers at the other person, and repeating what he or she did–as if it’s our job to determine harvest time. All we’re really saying is that we don’t trust God to do God’s job. We use it as an excuse for not doing ours: Our job is to be the Light of the World. Our job is to remember that Light and Darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Our job is to see Invisible Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Omniscient Spirit that is God in everyone.

Let’s also remember that God must balance each situation on Earth through a physical channel. That channel might be you; but the only way you’ll know is if you ask for guidance, and remain open for direction, so that you can take the proper action.

There will be times when Spirit says, “Sit down, I got this.” Sit, trusting that the matter will be resolved in a most divine way, for the Highest Good of all concerned.

Other times, Spirit might say, “Listen, this is what I need you to do…” Do you know Spirit’s voice when you hear it? Don’t fool yourself or try to fool anyone else by saying that Spirit directed you to do something mean-spirited or self-righteous. If the solution is not simple or loving, it’s not God. You’re listening to your ego. You’re serving a false god. Be careful: It will compel you to make a withdrawal from your soul’s karmic bank account, and you might not have enough deposits to cover it.

Trust that everyone will get exactly what’s they deserve, in the manner and intensity that their behavior warrants. That’s the immutable law of the Universe. Unfortunately, our egos are so shortsighted that they want justice to show up a certain way, at a certain time. They don’t have enough insight to distinguish the mortal body from the immortal soul.

Egos have no idea that everything we do becomes part of our soul’s record. Some of the consequences meet us right way. Others don’t revisit until after our bodies fall away, throwing us off-guard, making us think that we’re victims.

If egos were eternal, they’d care more about that; but personalities die with bodies, and we’re left cleaning up the mess at some other juncture in our eternal lives. How do we get the upper hand?
Personally, I try to be very mindful of the consequences of every action. I ask frequently ask myself, “How would I want someone to treat me, if the situation was reversed?” I also pay close attention to the kinds of situations in which I find myself, always asking: “Why did I attract this situation or person? What lesson do I, as a soul, want to learn that this scenario or person came to teach me?”

I’ve discovered that certain dramas encore at a mind-numbing rate. The reason: I didn’t learn the lesson the previous times. I didn’t respond with love, rather than anger or revenge. I wasn’t patient with myself and others. I didn’t forgive. I didn’t let the Light lead. I didn’t choose peace. I didn’t trust God. If, as a soul, I have made a commitment to learn these lessons, I will voluntarily repeat these classes and call in tougher teachers until I pay attention and capitalize on these opportunities to practice responding to all situations in a more Christlike manner.

Life is not complicated when you seek higher consciousness. Actually, it’s so simple that you can write your memoir or epitaph in six words: “Asleep, then enlightened. Life became fun!” And nobody will leave your theater wondering what happened.

Your greatest stressor: expectations

While in a meeting the other day, a high level executive mentioned that he has been chronicling some of the extremes that he’s experienced since moving to Chicago last year. Among them was this gem: Every day, a well-dressed woman arrives at his stately home, and for about a half-hour or 45-minutes, she stands on the sidewalk, gazing at the home.

Apparently, this woman didn’t restrict her visits to daylight hours. One morning around three o’clock, the executive and his wife were awakened by repeated flashes of light hitting their bedroom wall. The flashes were coming from a car parked across the street. The couple was understandably unnerved.

One Saturday the executive spotted the woman outside and ventured down the long driveway to greet her. When they were face-to-face, he asked if there was anything he could do to assist her. Most of us don’t value civility as much as this man, and probably would have greeted her quite differently.

Pointing to the house, the visitor explained that it was the home of her dreams. That’s why she felt compelled to spend time visually embracing it every day. The man found her response quite odd. I didn’t.

This woman was exhibiting all the predictable symptoms of someone who has a small library of books and tapes proclaiming that she can have anything she wants. Typically, this material outlines several steps for manifesting one’s desires.

Without serious thought or question, this woman had followed step one: We must make our desires our most dominant thought, and we must expect our desires to manifest. Her daily visits and the pleasure she derived from them demonstrated the next steps: We must visualize our desired object in great detail–soffit, fascia and slant of roof–and experience the same emotion we’d feel if we’d already received it.

That is, after all, “The Secret” that brought millions of dollars to those who produced and sold the book, CD, DVD, audiobook, soundtrack, “secret scrolls” email messages and even daily text messages promoting this extreme and implausible interpretation of the spiritual law of attraction. It didn’t bring nearly that much cash or comfort to those who bought it, which is precisely why I was compelled to write Crossing an Unseen Bridge: The Law of Attraction Secrets No One Wants to Talk About.

Let’s get real: Everyone who has experienced a disappointment–including those who spent their hard-earned money buying secrets–knows that life doesn’t work like that. It would be impossible for us to have been disappointed if we hadn’t been focused on our desire, expected to receive it. Just the thought of having it made us giddy. There, we did all the steps. Where’s our stuff?

Conversely, if we accept this as the secret to the human creative process, then we are forced to believe that everyone who was ever diagnosed with a disease they couldn’t pronounce and had never heard of manifested that disease because they’d held it in their minds as a dominant thought.

Give me a break! Didn’t we go through all those steps the last time we applied for a job? Didn’t we obsess about getting that offer letter? Didn’t we envision the details of our lives and lifestyles, if we had a bigger office or a larger paycheck–or in this recession, a paycheck, period? We might have even pondered the best route to work to avoid the traffic. Do we land every job for which we apply?

Starting tomorrow, if five people stand in front of their dream homes for an hour every day for a year; if they embed every detail of the houses’ architecture into their minds; if they visualize themselves bringing in groceries, washing clothes, making beds and watching TV in those homes; and if they replicate the excitement they’d feel if the homes had become their residences, will all of them eventually live in those homes? I rest my case.

Remember: If it doesn’t happen the same way, 100% of the time, for 100% of the people, it’s not a law. Maybe the real secret is that we should stop believing things that our own experience tells us are not true. Maybe we should stop trying to be in control–and stop listening to people who tell us to place demands on the Universe/God because It/He responds to our commands/prayers.

After years of inconsistent results from applying this so-called law, we conclude that either we aren’t really in control or we’re not smart enough, persistent enough, consistent enough, faithful enough or ”favored” enough to get what we want, when we want it, in exactly the right size, shape and color, without fail.

When we mention that we didn’t get the results we desired or expected, we’re often told that we must have let a fleeting negative thought creep into our minds, and it negated weeks or months of positive thoughts. A fleeting negative thought is more powerful than a hundreds of positive ones. Not only is that bad messaging, it’s just downright scary.

Luckily, it only works for a limited time. Eventually, thinking people see the gaping holes in that theory and they stop coming to hear it. We have been fed unrealistic expectations by well-meaning people who thought that they were inspiring, motivating and empowering us to do great things.

How do we achieve great things? What should we believe? It depends upon whether you’re open to the possibility that your physical life and your path were created to serve your soul, not your body. Whatever you have right now, whatever you’re experiencing right now–if you haven’t gotten in your own way by imposing your will–is precisely what you’re supposed to have and experience at this moment.

It’s possible that every one of your experiences is a teachable one, a growth opportunity. Embrace that experience; focus on finding the lesson and the blessing in it. If you can’t detect or even fathom a blessing in what you’re going through right now, ask for it to be revealed to you. Then act as if you really want to know: listen. When the answer appears and you don’t know what to do with it, ask for direction. Then listen.

Earth Is the Mother of All Drama Queens readers know that I have gained tremendous insights from the turmoil that I have experienced in my lifetime. Soon, I’ll share with you my latest drama, and how applying the lessons I’ve learned–especially the ones about imposing my will–brought it to an astoundingly better conclusion than I could ever have designed, desired or expected.

To those who are waiting for a big breakthrough, a great relationship, a new job or a miracle: You are more than a physical being with physical needs and desires. You don’t alway have what your bodys wants; but you always have what your souls need. Seeing and being the Light within you could shift some static energy or attract some complementary light to you.

When you fixate on your physicality and your physical needs, you can’t see the big picture and you limit your possibilities. Sometimes situations such as the one you’re experiencing appear and recur to provide you an opportunity to question your expectations and beliefs, or to practice trusting that everything is going to resolve itself for your highest good–and the highest good of everyone involved in a situation.

Seize the opportunity your soul has created. Work with it, not against it. Learn, practice and master the lesson so that you no longer need to have this undesired physical experience.

I predict that the lesson the daily visitor on Longwood Drive will learn is that fixating on someone else’s home can make you miss the one that’s really yours.