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Month: November 2013

Regarding Same Sex Marriage Tolerance Runs Both Ways

November 24, 2013


An unusually strange and powerful experience at church today. I have always maintained that if i had to choose only one thing that I “like the most” out of all the various rituals we participate in during the average church service, it would be “the sermon”. Sure the social aspect offers benefits, as does the variety of service opportunities. But during the actual hour-long weekly service, it is the sermon that draws me in the most and keeps me coming back. I have plenty of friends who find the sermon the most challenging moment of the hour to endure, and instead relish the sacred music and the singing of hymns. I too find myself deeply moved by the music, especially at Christ Church in Manhattan — conducted and arranged by the illustrious and enviously talented Dr. Steve Pilkington, or at Abyssinian Baptist in Harlem — which features an extraordinarily large gospel choir and draws crowds so mammoth that on any given Sunday one can see the line to get in wrapped around the block for miles.

It is during these moments –when a particularly haunting piece of music is being performed — that I FEEL the most, as if my soul is being lifted to some ethereal and transcendent alternate universe where only I and the Great Divine Itself exists. One finds that connection and communication with the God-Force is more easily facilitated through the power of the music and voices during these moments. Nonetheless, perhaps only because music making is what I spend the majority of my time doing — unlike others, I am afforded the opportunity more than most to feel magically transported through the power of music in my day to day life, it is the sermon that I look forward to the most; it is the sermon that stirs me mentally and intellectually. It is the sermon that intrigues and engages me as a person, much like a good book or a film.

It’s no secret that I believe that Reverend Stephen Bauman at Christ Church in Manhattan to be the single greatest sermon writer, and deliverer, currently practicing in the world today. His sermons aren’t the usual fare of fire and brimstone, obligatory chapter and verse followed by inductive break-down and explanation. Instead they are usually highly intellectual and passionate calls to a greater good for and by all. Not only is he a brilliant writer — the gist of his typical sermon is at once topical, current, relevant AND moving, but as well a gifted orator. In the truest sense of the word. It is one of the things I miss most when I’m not in New York. That says a lot considering the cornucopia of innumerable pleasures and benefits the great city offers its residents and visitors alike. But for me, that fifteen minutes of rapt attention, sitting there on the very edge of my seat, listening to Reverend Bauman with baited breath, hanging on every word and sentence — so meticulously and brilliantly constructed, has become as much an important and enjoyable part of my life in New York as has Sunday brunch, America’s best pizza and bagels, The Met, MOMA, the Natural History Museum or any of the other many aspects of New York that draw more people to live there than any other city in America.

When I’m not in New York, and not traveling, my family and I reside in a small town in the country an hour outside of Seattle where we have a second home. Here we have found another church to call home in the town Redmond. While it’s true that I find it easy to miss the sermons of Stephen Bauman, and the glorious music of Steven Pilkington and his magnificent choir, this small church in the middle of nowhere offers us a pretty decent home away from home with it’s own batch of special rewards and benefits. It’s small-town America versus big city. West Coast versus East. The church is quaint; and the people are friendly, sincere, honest and long to do their part to make the world a better place. Their commitment to service is impressive and unrivaled considering the size of this tiny little community. (Indeed their homeless shelter tends to serve about twice the number of regular attendees than does ours is Manhattan on the average day. Considering the population in New York is over 8 million and this town less than one-hundred thousand, either there are just a lot more homeless people in the Seattle area, or this church is really doing something right.)

In terms of sermons, it wouldn’t be fair to compare one pastor’s to another. Especially when one of them happens to be the head pastor at a church on Park Avenue in the center of New York City. So I try not to. Instead I just try to accept each church as it is, on its own merit. Of course this isn’t easy. But I do try. I find that if i don’t expect anything, then it’s easier to appreciate those moments when I do on occasion experience something sublime or transcendent. Thus was the case today, at this small church in the middle of nowhere in a town as white-bread American and nondescript as one could find anywhere else in small-town America.

After all the usual rituals and songs and prayers, Pastor Cara as she is known walked up to the front of the church to deliver her sermon and one could immediately recognize that she was unusually disturbed, moved, maybe even angry. It appeared as though she may have even been crying recently. Her eyes were red. But there was also a fire in them. She proceeded to tell the congregation that she was indeed angry AND had been crying, all morning and the night before.

She went on to explain that over the last few weeks several Methodist pastors, and even bishops, from around the country had been brought up on formal charges and “convicted” by a jury of their peers and other various powers that be in the United Methodist Church for “breaking the rules” and betraying their vows because they had officiated at same sex weddings. Some had been suspended, some have been warned and some have been flat out fired. She was speaking specifically about Reverends Frank Schaefer and Melvin Talbert, both cases gaining national attention. [Instead of going into the details about each case, which would be unnecessary due to how many articles have already been written about these events, I encourage anyone interested in this issue to Google the names to learn more about the individual cases.]

Obviously there has been a whirlwind of talk, debate and activity on the national front regarding this issue both in terms of the political ramifications and states’ rights, civil rights AND how it is affecting churches and religions around the country. These cases specifically are inciting hundreds of thousands of words to be typed into the national blogosphere on a daily basis. It’s also leaped into mainstream conversation, transcending regular religious subject matter which almost never sees the spotlight of the very secular world in which we live today. It’s a fiercely divisive and debated subject. Just a few months ago I wrote at length about the subject here in a post entitled “Gays at the Table”, specifically about where I stood on the issue of same sex marriage rights and homosexuality in regards to how it’s affecting the Methodist Church and religion in general.

As I explained in the previous post, just so we are clear, in the bigger picture, like many people, I do not believe that we as Christians should discriminate against our same-sex oriented brethren in any way. Whether it’s the right to become a member of a church, or the right to get married, or the right to receive Holy Communion, or even the right to be a Boy Scout Troop Master or a pastor or a reverend or a bishop. This is the future; our future. The future of a more evolved intelligent and enlightened humanity. We haven’t arrived at this juncture because we are more wicked or sinful, but on the contrary: we’ve arrived at this place because we are more well thought-out, more evolved in our thinking, more in touch with our hearts and with the loving compassionate views that brought us together through the actions and teachings of the big man himself, Jesus of Nazareth.

So that’s where I stand on the issue itself. Obvious I know. There aren’t many in the industry of arts and entertainment who don’t share that viewpoint. We’re just about the most freedom and peace loving, liberal minded bunch in the world today. And that’s a good thing. The world has always depended on artists to shine a light on the more enlightened but perhaps less illuminated path. Just as we stood up for and fought for the “sun is at the center of the solar system” theory ala Galileo, or the abolition of slavery, equal rights for women, civil rights for minorities, laws against human trafficing and slave labor, equal pay for all, labeling of genetically modified food, political campaign finance reform and financial institution reform, we have now found ourselves having to help explain why it’s so obvious to us that people who are same-sex oriented deserve to be discriminated against no more than someone who was born with a different nationality or a different skin color does.

I say “obvious” because artists tend to view life through a very compassionate, peaceful and loving lens. More than live and let live… More like live and help live. Together — if we allow ourselves to truly come together — we can do anything, achieve anything, conquer anything, accomplish anything. To us, all these things were obvious long before they became fashionable in the mainstream. Hell I’ll even go out on a limb and confess that most of us are still waiting and hoping to live in a world where it’s obvious to EVERYONE that war of any kind is just plain wrong and that there is NO excuse worthy enough to justify the killing of another, perhaps besides self-defense — and even that one is a stretch in the bigger scheme of things (let’s face it: killing in the name of self defense, though logical on the surface, is a rather selfish and self-obsessed way to view the world, compared to the example that Jesus, Gandhi or the Dalai Llama offered.) It may be unpopular at the moment, but one day humankind will see the merit of banning war-waging altogether and instead choose peace and harmony. Long gone will be the rationale for invading other countries, drone strikes and targeted assassinations in the name of God and country.

In regards to same-sex marriage and weddings and how it is affecting the Methodist Church, and other Christian denominations around the world, there are many who believe that the various churches will have no choice but to yet again “split”. That even the Methodist Church is on it’s way towards splitting into two separate smaller denominations: the traditional one that believes that homosexuality is a sin, and a new breed that does not. I personally do NOT believe that a split is a foregone conclusion. When asked over the last few weeks how I felt about this most recent slew of convictions and condemnations of pastors and bishops for officiating at same-sex weddings, I surprised many by replying that if these men did indeed “break the law” or “break their vows” then they did in fact deserve to be reprimanded.

After all, what are rules and laws for? Why are they there? The key, the very foundation one could safely say, of any organization is that it is organized. And what makes it organized? Rules and laws. We believe in this. We don’t believe in that. We come together at this time. We leave at this time. Our religion is called this. Their religion is called that. On and on ad infinitum. There are obviously tens to tens of thousands of rules and laws that govern any one organization, which is precisely what makes it an organization. If people were to begin dismissing or ignoring or bypassing or breaking whatever rules and laws they as individuals chose to because they disagreed with them, then there would be no organization. It is the rules and laws that keep the organization organized, that differentiate it from being merely an idea or a concept AND what differentiate it from OTHER organizations. With no organization there would be chaos. And without organization — without being organized — one could hardly claim to be a part of something tangible like a valid organization or organized structure.

Therefore as members of any organization we must adhere to and ask that our fellow members adhere to the rules and laws that organize the group or the structure. Especially at the leadership level. It is the key to the whole system not falling apart. If a pastor from one Methodist church in Alabama decides to ignore the law forbidding pastors from officiating same sex weddings, what is to stop another pastor at a church in Oklahoma from becoming a cocaine addict because he likes cocaine? Or from marrying his neighbor’s 11 year old daughter because “we get along really well and she’s very mature for her age anyway.” In fact why not let pastors do whatever they want to? Why not disregard all the rules and laws that govern the United Methodist body and just let everyone decide for themselves what rules or laws they abide by as they choose in the moment?

Well the answer to that is obvious. Anyone who is a part of any formal organization — and that includes all of us, for we are all a part of many or at least one organization — the country we are a citizen of at the very least — recognizes that the laws and the rules that govern us are what keeps the peace within that organization; they’re what allows us to move freely within our day to day lives without fear and with a sense of relative peace, safety and security. God forbid we get to the point where we become so liberal minded that we decide one day that no one has to abide by any of the rules or laws that we’ve previously created and decided as a group to live by. For that will be the end of what we know as civilization. Then it’s every man woman and child for themselves. Survival of the fittest. Live and let die. Kill or be killed.

Now this isn’t to say that the current laws on the books of every and all organizations — including countries and religions — are right, or just, or fair. Many are not. But within the construct of every institution and organization exists the ability to change those laws. And that’s precisely what we see happening on a state by state level across the United States when it comes to same sex marriage equality. One by one each state is gunning up and deciding for themselves what they deem to be the best law regarding whether or not same sex marriage should be legal or illegal. Each state with slightly different forms of what it looks like, of how legal it is or how illegal it is, and the individual smaller rules and laws that govern the bigger law. That decision is up to the people and the elected leaders of that particular state. And that’s how it should be. That’s organized. That’s organization. That’s a well run and civil civilization. Safety and security that you can trust. The opposite of chaos.

The same thing obviously needs to happen in the United Methodist church. And perhaps in many other christian denominations as well. If enough people eventually decide that they deem it appropriate to allow Methodist pastors and bishops to marry same sex couples, then they will eventually change the law regarding that issue within their organization. And that will be that. Just as individual states are doing within the American union. It WILL happen. It is only a matter of time. But the last thing we need, or want, is for people to decide for themselves what rules or laws they deem valid or relevant to them.

Another aspect of the issue that needs addressing is this tendency that people have today of making the other side feel “bad” or “wrong” because they don’t yet happen to agree with them. As of late the issue of same sex marriage equality has become very fashionable and mainstream. It’s hip. It’s in. It’s the “right thing to do”. To some it seemed to happen overnight. To others, especially those waiting for decades for the right to be considered legally married, it’s taken forever. But we must remember that this is a HUGE change. A mammoth transformation in how we view the world and in how we view our religion and religious ideals. It may SEEM obvious to some of us, like a logical and rationale step towards our continued evolution as a society; but to others it seems like a huge step in the wrong direction, a major aberration and perhaps even an abomination. In fact in the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament it clearly states that homosexuality IS an abomination. It uses that specific word.

So what we must all try to understand is that those who stand against same sex marriage equality because they still maintain that “homosexuality is a sin” are doing nothing new or shocking, they’re doing nothing different than what they’ve done for thousands of years in the religion they’ve practiced for generations upon generation. What WE are asking of them actually is HUGE. It’s a MAJOR fundamental change in theory and in practice. We can’t blame them for wanting to stick with the status quo. After all, aren’t we risking treading down a potentially dangerous and unmanageable slippery slope if we start picking and choosing what we believe “God” has dictated and what we all of a sudden are now saying “God didn’t really mean that. Humankind made that up and we no longer agree with it.” What’s to stop us from doing that to the entire bible? To every holy book for that matter? To the idea of “God” Itself? Where is there TRUTH if we alone can pick and choose what truth is to us depending on how we feel in each moment? In each generation?

As an example, I personally believe that pot, cocaine, LSD and pain killers should be legal for recreational use. And furthermore if someone wants to use them everyday so be it. If they want to be high when they go to church so be it. As long as they aren’t hurting anyone, why not? In the industry I’m in, these substances are as commonplace as water, juice or milk are in the average American home. You see them everywhere. You can get them everywhere. Backstage, front of stage, side-stage, on-stage, in the audience, they’re everywhere. But in mainstream America, these substances are illegal and extremely taboo. One doesn’t dare bring them up in “polite society” for fear of being excommunicated or banished or shunned or jailed.

Because of this should I just start breaking the law all the time because I don’t agree with those laws? Should I show up to church high? Should I offer a tab of acid to my pastor? What about to some of the kids at church? See, the key to my survival, and to the safety and security and survival of the society that I and everyone else lives in is that I recognize that my viewpoint is my viewpoint. It’s no better or worse than any one else’s viewpoint. But it is the prescribed and agreed upon viewpoint of the majority of people in our society at this time. Hopefully that will one day change. But until then we abide by this viewpoint and the laws that stem from it. More than that, we also recognize that one does and doesn’t do and say certain things in society based on a shared desire to get along and keep the peace. If change is going to transpire, it happens slowly over time, with caution and respect.

One day I’d love to speed down Fifth Avenue going a hundred miles an hour in the back of a limo high on a variety of substances with my pastor, our naked bodies sticking half way out of the tee top chugging Moët out of the bottle and screaming our heads off… “Whew!!!! We’re flying!!!! I’m high for Jeeeeeesssssuus!” But alas, that little reverie may never happen. Or at least be years away at best. And that’s okay. That’s the deal we make to live in this well organized society. And frankly I don’t mind. In fact I don’t even mind that my pastor if he or she ever read this might both have serious concerns about my sanity. I get it. I respect that that’s a pretty wild request in terms of change.

Just because same sex marriage is all the rage now in our present society doesn’t make it right. I’m not saying it’s wrong. The only people who can decide that is each individual for themselves and the then together as a collective, as a society of individuals, we can decide if it’s something we want to deem appropriate or not for ourselves. Call it playing God. Truth is we’ve been playing God ever since we invented the poor bastard. If anyone should be confused it’s God. Talk about a confused sense of self. He must really suffer from an extreme identity crisis. For more has been done in His/Her/It’s name than can be imagined. Both good and bad. It seems the only beings in the universe who really know what God is or believes or wants, or likes or dislikes, is us, human beings. And for thousands of years we’ve taught ourselves that God doesn’t like homosexuality. We’ve agreed on it.

Now we’re trying to change that. We’re changing what this God believes; yet again. And that’s okay. That’s what human beings do with their Gods. But we should be respectful of the fact that many among us actually believed what we previously already agreed on. Now that we’re asking them to change, now that we’re asking them to believe that God has changed his mind, we need to recognize what a big stretch that is. So we need to be respectful of their inevitable shock and resistance to this change.

If anything, it is we who are the most vocal proponents of suddenly changing what God believes who need the most to be tolerant and compassionate. Not just toward our fellow gay and same sex oriented brothers and sisters, but also to our more conservatively minded traditional brothers and sisters who want to keep things as they are and have been for thousands of years. We must resist the urge to make them feel wrong or bad for how they feel just because we’ve changed our minds and changed God’s mind about homosexuality and same sex marriage. While at the SAME TIME slowly working toward changing the laws and the rules about it to be more inclusive and loving and compassionate.

Once these rules and laws are changed, legally, formally, on the books, then and only then can and should we allow pastors and bishops to officiate at same sex weddings. Because then they won’t be breaking the law. And thus no reprimanding or punishment or suspension will be necessary. And then and only then might we encourage our fellow members to start “getting with the program”. Because then it will be they who will be bucking the system and going against the grain. As of now, they have every right to feel the way they feel. They’re in the right after all. They’re abiding by the laws that we’ve all priorly agreed to follow.

This doesn’t mean that we cannot do our best right here right now to change their minds. We can. And we should. There is nothing more anti-Jesus or anti-Christian than to consciously and blatantly deny basic civil and human rights to those among us just because they are different than we are. So on with the marches and petitions and sit ins and be ins and protests and demonstrations and letter writing campaigns. This is a mission that I have full faith we will one day soon accomplish. But until we do, let us remember that is is WE who are the rebels here. It is we who are bucking the system and going against the grain. It is we who are advocating breaking the law. And it is we who are advocating picking and choosing what God believes or doesn’t. Implying that we know better than God; in fact implying that it is we who decide and dictate what God is and isn’t. That is quite a big request. So it’s no wonder that some among us are a bit resistant to follow our lead. The least we can give them is the same respect and tolerance that we are asking of them in return.



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Uncategorized Bishop Melvin G. Talbert, Frank Schaefer, playing God, Same sex marriage wedding, tolerance, United Methodist Church

Exploring Effortless Manifestation

November 24, 2013



Have you ever talked about someone or something that you haven’t thought about it in a while and then all of a sudden you see that person or that thing a few minutes or hours or days later? Maybe a friend or a celebrity or an object or product. You have a spontaneous thought about it, and/or talk about it with a friend, and then out of the blue you encounter that same thing in your day to day life without you actually having to do a thing. By various names it could be called instant or immediate or effortless manifestation. You didn’t lift a finger. No effort. It just appeared in your life or line of sight seemingly out of nowhere. Carl Jung referred to this phenomenon as Synchronicity.

Some people who are prone to a more logical pragmatist view of things will rush to dismiss events such as these as “coincidence”. But seeing that we have begun to discover through scientists specializing in physics that there may not be any accidents or coincidences in the universe, especially as it concerns sentient beings or to break it down even further, “consciousness”, we are not going to take the time here to debate the “coincidence versus created” argument. Instead we will continue presupposing that everything that happens to us in our day to day lives happens because WE created it, one way or another, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Besides the fact that science is now discovering and proving this to be true, there is an added bonus to this seemingly miraculous idea: it removes us from feeling like meaningless pinballs in a giant random and chaotic game with no meaning or significance and instead places us in a position of personal responsibility; it takes us out of a tendency toward victimhood and invites us to begin accepting that we may operate at a level with much more control over our reality AND more responsibility for how our day to day lives unfold.

It’s not important how or why we do this — psychic or telekinetic power, a sixth sense, invisible energy waves or particles that we’ve yet to discover. At this point both spiritual masters and scientists are beginning to understand that consciousness i.e. sentient beings, are creating nearly everything that they experience through some sort of power that has heretofore not yet been discovered. This discovery — a burgeoning field in the sciences that is just getting started; a long held belief taken as fact and for granted by spiritualists for tens of thousands of years — doesn’t have any room for coincidences.

What we are interested in here-now is HOW does this instant manifestation aspect of conscious creation take place? Why does it happen with some things and not with others? Why do some things in life seem so easy to create, as if by magic, and other experiences that we wish to create seem to take forever? No matter how much we want them and how long we work on creating them?

Observation: Most outcomes that are desired seem to possess a combination / or a ratio of desire for the outcome and resistance to the opposite of the outcome i.e. “I desire to make a lot of money. I resist not having a lot of money.” The experiences that we seem to create out of thin air with no effort whatsoever usually seem to manifest so easily because at the time that we thought of them or talked about them all we felt in that moment was curiosity and desire, and maybe some excitement and/or enthusiasm. We weren’t feeling any resistance. In fact these things are usually things that we don’t care too much about one way or another. No resistance. But sure enough BAM there it is a few minutes or hours or days later. Somehow we manifested it.

So therein seems to be the key to it. Our passion for it may be strong; or it may be slight. But it doesn’t feel like a matter of life or death to us. We feel the desire and curiosity for it (or why would we be talking about it?) But we possess very little resistance to it. Here we are talking about resistance as “resisting the opposite of what is desired”.

To be clear it is important to note that there is another type of resistance: resistance to what IS desired, (as opposed to “resistance to the opposite of what is desired” as discussed above). i.e. “I desire to make a lot of money. I resist being perceived as a rich arrogant snob.” This is a different kind of resistance. Obviously we have to discreate this resistance, to what is desired, if we ever want to create something desired in the first place. That’s a given; and not even of prime import regarding the subject of this exploration.

But what about the resistance that is simply the inverse of the desire? For example “I resist not having money” — the inverse of the desire to have money. It appears that if there is more free desire coupled with enthusiasm curiosity and excitement, without any attention on or awareness of the resistance portion (“I don’t want to/enjoy/like not having money”) then instant manifestation transpires much easier. As if by magic.

A real world example might look like this: “I don’t feel well. I’m afraid I might be getting sick. I don’t want to get sick.” This is resistance. This is the resistance portion of the desire/resistance ratio. If one is focused on only the resistance aspect of this ratio then they will naturally be attempting to manifest “I don’t want to get sick”. (As opposed to “I want to be healthy”).

Manifesting like this, manifestation from resistance-only is the most challenging and difficult path. The most difficult point of view to create from. We can greatly and immediately increase our potential to manifest by recognizing that we are presently feeling resistance, rather than desire, and attempting to create from that point of view. Then deliberately change our point of view towards the desire side instead i.e. “I want to look and feel healthy and strong.” So we do our best to discreate all of or as much of the resistance portion of our desire as possible; and increase JUST the desire + excitement / enthusiasm / curiosity portion.

If it’s possible it is optimal to only feel the desire side and none of the resistance side. Of course this all depends on what it is that we are trying to create. If it’s something we perceive as being disturbing or frightening or threatening — getting sick and dying, or going broke and having to file bankrupcy– then we may be at first only aware of the resistance we are feeling i.e. “I don’t want to be sick” or “I don’t want to go broke”.

(At this point it is paramount that we remember and acknowledge that WE are the ones creating how we feel and what we feel. We are not victims of what or how we feel. We are the creators of it. As we become more adept at (using whatever tools we have in our toolbox or at our disposal), to deliberately change what and how we feel, it becomes easier and easier to shift our viewpoint from resistance to desire. Especially once 1 – we become used to being able to remember that it is we and only we who are responsible for how and what we feel and 2 – we have the experience a few times of being able to make this shift; once it becomes second nature to us. Soon it becomes effortless, no more difficult than flipping a switch on or off.)

Perhaps there are times in life where we find that certain things (experiences) render it nearly impossible for us to completely discreate the resistance portion of our desire. We find that we just cannot discreate the resistance 100%. That’s okay. The key is to increase the desire portion as much as possible while simultaneously decreasing the resistance, i.e. we deliberately shift our attention from “I don’t want to be sick” to “I really want / would love to feel healthy and strong, vibrant and powerful.” The resistance is still there.

(Again this is not a given. There is no rule that says that we HAVE to feel resistance. No matter what we are talking about. How much resistance we feel towards anything is up to us. A combination of nature and nurture (how and where and by whom we were raised, and genetics), past experience (how much or how little experience we have with what is desired or resisted (and how we perceived and processed it), inner power, strength of will, practice (based on past experience), self discipline (how adept we are at deliberately controlling our attention thoughts or feelings), and most importantly our own personal set of beliefs about whatever it is that we are desiring or resisting. (None of us feel the same level of desire or resistance for the same things (experiences) in life. That’s up to us, up to each individual.

Some people perhaps have no resistance to being sick. When they were sick as children for example their mom let them stay home from school for a few days, tucked them into bed and made them chicken noodle soup and pampered them. So feeling sick may be a drag. But they view it as “a good opportunity to get some rest”.))

For someone in the above example there is no reason (no universal law written in stone) that they need to feel ANY resistance at all if they want to create feeling well. They can if they so choose immediately shift their attention to 100% desire to feeling well, to something like “being sick is no big deal but to be honest today I really just want to feel strong and healthy”. Total desire. No resistance to being sick. Just a strong desire to be healthy.

This is optimal. We’re making note of it here because it’s important to acknowledge that resistance is not mandatory. We’re not obligated to feel it or operate from it. If you don’t feel any, don’t go looking for it. If it’s not there then it’s not there. Getting to the level of being able to easily shift from resistance to something to feeling desire for the opposite of that same thing is the key.

But what about those cases mentioned above where no matter how hard we try we just can’t seem to be able to shift 100% of our attention from the resistance portion. One of those things (experiences) that we find disturbing challenging frightening or threatening. In these cases the key is to just try to flip the scale as much toward the desire side as possible. Increase the desire to resistance ratio.

It’s important to note that getting rid of the resistance portion completely is not essential. If it’s there, it’s there. Acknowledge it. Discreate it or as much of it as you can. (Again, by using whatever tools you’ve learned and find work best for you. It could be Avatar — this is what I personally find works best for me, or meditation or yoga or NLP or the Sedona Method / Release Technique or an immersion/abstinence technique or creative visualization or affirmations or even prayer.)

Then start deliberately increasing the desire portion (feeling desire for the opposite of whatever you are resisting), and then in addition add some curiosity (“hhhmmmm why have I created getting sick? Isn’t that interesting? I wonder how fast I can create getting well again?”), then some excitement and enthusiasm (“Wow I can’t wait to feel strong and healthy! That’s going to be awesome! Gosh think of all the cool things I could do as soon as I feel strong and healthy!”)

Now you’ve flipped the scale towards feeling much more desire for what you want rather than feeling resistance towards what you don’t want (it’s opposite or inverse). From that viewpoint it appears that instant manifestation becomes very easy. To the point where all we have to do is think about something, or talk about it, and BAM we see it manifest.

(Consider the case where someone is feeling a little under the weather and they just casually remark “I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow. I always do”. And sure enough they do. Why? Because there was very little attention on resisting anything. Instead they just have a desire to be well.)

Next time you find yourself experiencing one of those “coincidental events” where something or someone that you’ve just thought about or talked about mysteriously appears, acknowledge it and immediately try to remember what and how you were feeling when you were last talking or thinking about it. Make note of it. Chances are it will fit this mold explored and discussed above. By applying these observations to bigger things, experiences or desired outcomes that we deem to be “very important” to us, we can greatly increase our ability to manifest them.

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone



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Uncategorized Abraham Hicks, avatar course, coincidences, Consciousness, deliberate creating, NLP, Sedona Method, synchronicity, the key to instant manifestation

The Election on the Grassy Knoll 50 Years Later

November 21, 2013

It was fifty years ago today that American president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in broad daylight while visiting the state of Texas on the campaign trail. For the last few weeks Americans have been bombarded with Kennedy stories articles documentaries and memorials galore by the media. Even bellicose rightwing blowhard Bill O’Reilly got in on the act by conveniently releasing a book turned TV movie about the revered Democrat legend –surely no coincidence – this year.

It seems that anything and everything that can be said about the man and the tragedy that ended his life and “changed America forever” has been, or at least will be attempted to be said, this month. Except for the most glaring and obvious, i.e. who killed him, how did they do it, and why? In regards to every other aspect of his life, no stone has been left unturned. No aspect of his life left uninspected. Jackie O posthumously graces the cover of People magazine for the umpteenth time this week while both JFK and Jackie adorn the cover of TIME.

The only problem is that out of all the hundreds of thousands of words that will pour forth from this generation’s highest paid journalistic minds, none will say anything remotely new or noteworthy. Lots of rehash. Lots of obligatory mournful sentiment. The same stories. Told and retold. With slightly different angles or tone. The message the same. Youth. Vigor. Vitality. Promise. Tragedy. Loss. Shock. Sadness. Confusion. Mourning. Deification.

But no one will speak of the fact that the assassination of JFK was the first major blatant act of terror perpetrated by a mysterious cabal of evil-doers in order to seize control from the existing government and kidnap the American people in broad daylight. At least no one of major import. (Excepting Oliver Stone that is…) Mainstream media would never allow it. Is this because, as some propose, the same large multi-national corporations with no allegiance to country or king who own nearly everything also own this mainstream media? Or is it simply a matter of ratings? Why dare rock the boat in the name of truth when you can milk the tragedy in the name of patriotism and high ratings? Either way, one thing is sure: every major organization in the United States, from the New York Times to PBS to NPR to the Big Four networks and the monster cable ones to the White House, will address in one way or another the assassination of Kennedy, but very little attention will be paid to how or why he was killed, nor by whom. Instead everyone will pretend that they believe the “official story” — that Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy and Governor Connally with a cheap shotgun from a window several stories up above them and that he miraculously managed to not only wound Connally but kill the president with three shots fired in less than six seconds with a “magic bullet” that penetrated both the president’s body AND Connally’s body three separate times.

Yes the story defies the laws of physics and is full of holes. But we won’t hear our current president or any other politicians bring that up. Instead they’ll march, they’ll salute, they’ll tear up, they’ll draw flags to half mast and attempt to speak noble and mournful words about the potential greatness of this valiant and patriotic American fallen hero. Just as they’re supposed to. And for the most part the American people will fall in step with this charade and pretend that there is nothing wrong with this picture. That’s what’s expected of us.

Never mind that both recent polls and surveys from as far back as thirty-five years ago show that approximately 3 out of 4 people claim they do not believe the official story. For whatever reason we can all admit this to each other, we can even admit it to a random pollster who calls just before dinner, but we don’t and won’t do anything about it. This has been the main thing that’s been on my mind all week regarding this year’s anniversary. It really hit home when I saw the cover of TIME magazine. In the lower left-hand corner, as if only a side-note to the event itself, the so-called “conspiracy theories” are mentioned. This actually surprised me. That the powers that be at TIME would even mention that there are so-called conspiracy theories about the subject. That alone is progress. And the article itself is much more bold and elucidating about the problems with the official long gunman story than one would expect. Of course it’s followed immediately by an article of almost equal length that debunks all the conspiracies and attempts to prove that the official story is most likely exactly how it went down.

The question is, do we really BELIEVE that? I personally know of only one person who sincerely believes the official Lee Harvey Oswald story. But he’s as simple minded and apple-pie-American as it gets. So I can’t fault him for his naiveté. He does the best that he can with what he was dealt in this life. But for the rest of us, what bothers me the most, what perhaps bothers all of us the most is HOW and WHY can we continue year after year and decade after decade pretending that all is well when we feel deep down inside that it’s not, that it can’t be, when something so sinister transpired right before our eyes and is still being covered up by a government that we have to and need to trust?

After JFK came Malcolm. Then MLK, RFK, millions of innocent Vietnamese murdered, and several prominent members of the black Panthers shot dead while asleep in their own beds. Then Watergate. In relatively quick succession. And since then many many more similar incidents just as wicked suspicious illegal unjust and frighteningly blatant to the point where we the people have slowly become used to these acts of horror and terror transpiring in our own backyard by people who claim to be our government. We must remember that the above mentioned atrocities happened after The Election on the grassy Knoll. It was as if the killing of Kennedy in broad daylight like that was a coming out party of sorts, a cruel warning meant to shock and inform us that the great American experiment of a country and government for the people by the people had failed, had ended, and a new boss was taking over.

In our own time we’ve since seen Grenada, Chile, Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City, 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Bolivia, American backed occupation of and genocide in Palestine, Colombian and Mexican drug cartel massacres, assassinations in Iran, global coup d’etats galore, Sandy Hook, constant drone killings, massive wiretapping and eavesdropping on innocent civilians inside and outside our borders, redactions, rendition, Guantanamo Bay, and even presidential-ordered assassinations of American citizens. For some reason to the casual observer, looking back on it all, it seems that it all started with those shots that killed Kennedy and stunned us all.

And now it seems that nothing is off limits. 9/11 was filled with even more holes and discrepancies than the Kennedy assassination. Sandy Hook even more so. One isn’t sure if they’re just getting sloppy, or lazy, or at this point they just don’t care if we know anymore, perhaps believing that they’ve finally pulled us down to our knees and trained us to understand that we have no choice in any of these matters; that we are all okay with this new set up of overt corruption, criminal intent and terrorism within our government. Perhaps it appears that we’ve become used to it now, that we’ve become used to the fact that we regardless of what we know or think we know that we have finally accepted that we are indeed powerless. That we are now just too damn scared to do or say anything about it.

It is inconceivable for most of us to even consider what the implications would be if we publicly acknowledged that we know that the Lee Harvey Oswald story is a complete fabrication and a cover up; if we stood up and demanded that all the private records pertaining to the the murder of Kennedy sealed by the government for “national security” reasons be released. Now. Today. No more excuses. No more lies. No more cover ups. No more pretending that we believe the story. Just how scared are we to demand this? You would think that the soul’s hunger for truth and justice would prevail over our primitive desire for safety and survival. But except for a brave few, it appears that is not the case. Most of us choose to deliberately play along with the charade rather than speak up or do anything. Worse yet we train our children and their children to do the same thing. Every child in America is raised to believe that a man named Lee Harvey Oswald killed president Kennedy on November 22nd 1963 for no apparent reason. And even though we don’t actually believe that, we allow this myth to perpetuate, leaving our children to eventually learn the cold hard truth on their own when they’re older, and teaching them from a very young age that we are either ignorant fools or utterly and hopelessly powerless.

But what if instead of cowering in fear and complying with the status quo through playing along and pretending ignorance we rise up and revolt? The 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination cover-up offers us the perfect opportunity to do just that. I for one would rather go down in flames fighting for a glimmer of truth rather than live a life of comfort ease that is supported by lies. I sincerely believe that at the very least we owe that much to president Kennedy and his legacy. If we aren’t brave enough or don’t care enough to do it for ourselves, then maybe we can do it for him. Just a thought on this hauntingly tragic day.

– Posted by The Ambassador using BlogPress on an iPhone

 


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A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

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