The Congo

Nobody is paying much attention because we’ve got far more local issues with which to deal: the election, the economy and all of its attendant problems.

But in the Congo there is trouble. People are being killed and displaced because of insurgent and rebel actions. The Congo you say, what’s that got to do with me? In subtle ways it has a lot to do with each of us.

We are a planet of divergent tribes on convergent paths. We meet in symbolic counsel every once in awhile at the United Nations in New York and try to work it out.

Part of the problem seems to be when we are not together trying to find pathways to the greater good, we seem to forget our humanitarian and spiritual connection and that we have the power to stop indiscriminate killing, ethnic cleansing, genocide and religious degradation. Never forget we have the individual and collective power to say “NO!”

There is a way to remember we are all part of each other. The next time you enjoy a candy bar think of this.

The chocolate may have come from Ghana, the peanuts from the Sudan, the corn syrup from Iowa, the sugar from Ecuador, the butter from Australia, the paper from Canada, the ink for printing from the Congo, the fruit from Israel, and if the candy bar is wrapped in tin foil, it probably came from Thailand and if it has coconut, it probably came from the Philippines.

Add to this all the people it took to bring those products to market for export, and you have millions of people all over the world who have in some way contributed to your enjoyment of a simple candy bar.

Simple people in the Congo, family people who only want to live in peace and raise their families, are being murdered, forced to leave their homes in an indiscriminate disruption that warring factions have constructed and we and the rest of the world are too busy with our troubles to say, “NO!”

I often wonder how much shame our karma can endure before…

You can fill in the ending.

Thinking?

Here I go again...I often wonder from where these thoughts come, but they do and seek expression through the power of words.

How far back can you remember? Take a moment and direct your mind to find your earliest thoughts. Sweep all distractions from your mind and with some silent concentration you will be able to guide your memory to the time when your mind was new and unencumbered with intellectual illusions in boxes of time.

Once you are there get comfortable and will the mind to pass the gossamer barrier of illusion and you will know the splendor from which you came.

Poet William Wordsworth wrote:

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory, do we come from God, who is our home. Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy, but he beholds the light, and whence it flows, - He sees in it his joy."

Wordsworth is poetically saying that before we came into this physical plane, we existed in glory as conscious beings whose spirits are enthused by the light of omniscient Love and each of us is encouraged to be that love in the density of matter through experiential choice.

I believe that life is eternal. Matter and physical form is not. Physical life is only one manifestation of temporary being. The Master Jesus said, "In my Father's house there are many mansions." Earth is just one of the many schools for learning. Some proclaim, it is the only one, but singular belief comes from the density of our form, not from the gnosis of our being.

In whatever worlds and realms we reside, we are the divine emanations of God's love, and perpetual life is His gift. We are the individuation of the indivisible. The reality of our life, the personification of God's gift, is our choice based on a direct precipitate of what we think.

Descartes hypothisized: "I think therefore I am."

The Buddha: "What we think we become."

It's not that we have lived before or that we will live again, it is that we never cease living.

I'm gonna go and think about ice cream for awhile. It's easier!

True and False

Good Morning Friends,

I can’t wait for this election to be over. I said the same thing the last presidential election and the one before that. Rumor, lies and innuendo run rampant in our media outlets and especially on the Internet.

I was sent another false claim the other day. It was a fake receipt allegedly signed by Michele Obama from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City for over four hundred dollars for a lobster dinner for two including caviar and Champagne.

The New York Post ran a story about it. A couple of days later the Post ran a retraction saying it wasn’t true. They were duped by a Political Action Committee (PAC) who sent the false receipt to discredit the Obama campaign.

Political Action Committees are beholding to no one. They can say whatever they want, make up stories, tell lies and do. Their intent is to create damaging rumors for people to believe and pass on. Common sense would tell you check it out, but it is in the nature of human ignorance to believe what you want to believe whether it’s true or not. Why is it we’d rather transgress than transform and transcend?

My new book, Stone Wisdom comes out in a couple of days. One of the entries is a poem entitled Election Limerick which I wrote after the last Presidential campaign. It seems appropriate for this post and as a commercial plug for the book.

Thanks for the indulgence.

Election Limerick
© 2008 Rolland G. Smith

Some thinking today on the pain
Of this past election campaign-
A rhyming viewpoint
To scold, not anoint.
How negative drives us insane!

Notice it’s easier to breathe
With no more political sleaze.
The ads are all gone.
Let’s vow from hereon,
To demand politics that please.

Imagine what that would be like
Back to times of Stassen and Ike.
All words must be clean,
No phrase could be mean,
Commercials could only unite.

Start it with political speech
And the rule to follow for each:
Find something that’s nice,
That’s true and precise
With phrases that honor and teach.

Maybe we should make it a law
For parties to lead or withdraw.
All ads must be true-
Now that would be new-
All perfect, no lies, not a flaw.

Tell us truthfully, where you stand.
If you need it, bring in a band.
Keep it clear! Direct!
The truth in effect,
And politics would then be grand.

Doom and Gloom

Good Morning all,

My friend Bob said to me yesterday there is so much doom and gloom out there when we have so much for which to be thankful. How about writing a poem and post about that? OK, Bob, here it is:

Doom and Gloom
© 2008 Rolland G. Smith

Let’s choose some words and play a game
To fit our national mood.
For some it’s doom and some it’s blame;
A few are misconstrued.

But I am sad in what I read
For gloom is part of it.
Investors think the growing seed
Is tarred within a pit.

That may be true and times are tough
And loss does come to mind,
But don’t you think we have enough
And need not more entwined?

We really have a lot to count
For those who keep the score
And when it's bad we all surmount
The issues we abhor.

When global markets scrape the tanks
And numbers breach and fall
Let’s change our thoughts to giving “thanks”
For what we have at all.

We have so much, we’re spoiled kids,
Complaining all the time.
Comparing us to real skids
Our lot is most sublime.

Can we not go from East to West
And turn and then head back
Without a stop to even rest,
No border stops to track.

Do we not have a power source
Without a thought each day?
To me that is a gift perforce
And something we should weigh.

Do we not have a freedom’s grace
To say what all we please?
And let our thoughts then interface
With others in degrees.

We have a vote where some do not
And choice to make it so
Too many say, Oh, I forgot
To pull the lever row.

I’ll bet with thought a list would come
And blend within your mind.
So many gifts where we succumb
And be as if we’re blind.

There are so many things we need
To say we’re thankful for.
The sun is one and flower’s seed,
And mountains and the shore.

A gentle rain is in there too
As is an Eagles screech.
Let’s not forget the morning dew
And those who like to teach.

So when we say we’ve not enough
Complaining here and there.
Perhaps we need to call our bluff
And make the choice to share.

A thank you is oft hard to do
And some think it means weak,
But we should say it and pursue
This way to always speak.

So I will end this post this day
With lofty thoughts in mind
And hope that all who read will say
Tis gloom I leave behind.

The Mighty Oaks

Hello Friends and by the way, if I haven't said thank you for logging in from time to time, I do so now.

What a glorious day this has been in the east. I live in the mid-Hudson valley approximately midway between New York City and Albany, New York. The fall this year was spectacular. I say, "was" since most of it is now past peek and replacing it is the season of the "drab"; a place between colorful fall and white winter.

Being still and observing is one of my choice things to do and in doing so, I invariably muse and this time the result is...

Oak Sonnet
© 2008 Rolland G. Smith

Old rusted Oaks hold firm their foliage
While other trees have shed to silhouette!
Are leafy hoards, now dead, a sacrilege?
Or does the Oak hold leaves as amulet?
Soon Winter’s wind unlocks and leaves release
But still, we’ll not, know why, this is the way
For Oak’s have always had a staying peace
That knowledge cannot change or castaway.
The Druids saw their Oaks as sacred trees
And to them prayed for guidance and support,
But that meant not they must release their leaves
To be in fall the way most trees abort.
The mighty Oaks and man are much the same.
When ready we release what we became.

Where I Stand

I am not a liberal or a conservative or independent. I am not a registered anything. I am an American citizen and I, and every other citizen, have the franchise and constitutional right to choose where I stand, whom I support and how I will vote in each election.

In the past I have voted for republican candidates and I have voted for democrat candidates and I could vote for an independent depending on the candidate platform positions. Whether the candidate of any party is male or female is not an issue for me. It is an issue whether the candidate is sufficiently qualified for the office.

I am tired of my media pontificators and alleged journalists telling me that the detriment of Obama is that he’s black and a socialist and race is an issue and the extreme of McCain is that he’s ultra conservative and right wing and age is an issue. I am tired of distant and obscure connection extrapolations that suggest Obama is a terrorist or a Muslim and even putting those two words together in the same sentence, as some commentators do, is a disservice to the inherent and original grace of Islam and to my intelligence. I am tired of inferences and suggestions and innuendo that McCain will carry on “W’s” failed policies. I am tired of the un-truths and distortions of each campaign and the constant reiteration of false facts.

Each one of our current presidential candidates is qualified to be president. Race is not an issue unless you are personally prejudice, neither is age. Each one is an honest and good man and plans to be of service to America. Each one will be presented, if elected, with daily choices that require intellect, knowledgeable advisor input, innovation, compromise, compassion, and an understanding, if not implementation, of what is “the greater good”, not the partisan good.

Patriotism is the process of supporting the positive ideals of our government, not necessarily its policies. Policies can be wrong and often are. Ideals are the shared noble values by which one chooses to be governed and hopes to live by for the good of the whole. To equate patriotism as loyalty to a party or person or position is misinterpreting the word for the aggrandizement of partisan positions.

“My country right or wrong” is a prejudicial, ignorant and irresponsible belief. It undermines our past greatness and our future potential as a beacon for the oppressed of the world. It should be, “my country, let us have the will to do right and the grace to admit wrong”.

Our system of government is a good one. It has its flaws and as a participatory democracy it is our individual responsibility to find the flaws and root them out; if need be vote them out, and replace them with ideals and people who transcend politics and transform our republic into a beacon of light for all who seek to be heard and ask that the rule of law be fair and that opportunity be equal.

It has been a personal sadness of mine for many years as a broadcast journalist to report each Election Day that only a small percentage of eligible voters took the time to vote. We are in this life together, only a few can get by without the help of others, so the rest of us must work to encourage, support and honor the diversity within our oneness. We will not always agree, but in courteous disagreement comes a self-righting process.

You may believe that war is right and just and that is your right. You may believe that war is wrong and unjust and that is your right, but unless you participate in the election process you relinquish your right to critique and you mitigate the new and old warrior deaths that fought to sustain our system. Support for our troops is not the issue here, only the policies that sends them ill-equipped into harms way.

Do not let the few who have the public pulpit usurp your liberty of thought or your rights of reason. The politically glib may beguile and persuade, but private discernment and choice have always belonged to each of us.

Vote!

Leaves and Spirit

Hello my friends on this early morning of frost and fall breezes. A gusty wind is pruning the late leaving leaves and the splendid colors of the tree spirits now festoon Gaia’s ground with a quilt of color.

On such a beautiful morning, my thoughts lean toward perceptions. Concretised perceptions limit the perceived wonder of life and cloud the light of living in the NOW, finding the joy in every moment and cements us to expectations that invariably disappoint.

We need to listen to our hearts for it is the only organ in the body attuned to the divine. You can never go wrong if you follow your heart, your bliss, as Joseph Campbell would say. Your bliss can never be compromised by the ego which will deceive, delude and demand in order to justify and perpetuate its existence. Each contraction of our hearts bares a powerful message of joy. If we listen.

Listen to your heart. Feel its divine onomatopoeic cadence. Infuse into your heart a verbal rhythm with the words "Love Is All.” In the truth of these words you have the mantra of miracles and the interconnection of spirits.

If we see the other only as a separate physical being struggling to live then we limit all of us. If we choose to see the divinity within each human being as an expression of the continuing divine unfoldment then we are all limitless.

To me the joy of earthly existence is to see all that is as All That Is and to recreate ourselves in every moment in the grandest vision we can image for ourselves and to learn that different is not lesser and "the other" is not separate from the self.

God cannot be unknown to himself. If we accept the premise that our spirits are divine then it follows there is divinity in all others. If we see all that is through the divinity within us, then we will see nothing, but the light of love personified. We are all one with THE ONE and therefore one with each other.

The miracle of life, however, is not the Oneness. It is the diversity within the Oneness. An ego-focused existence confuses different with diversity. Living, by choosing to see others as different, inhibits the ability to express the divine within us for we empower the ego-sustained illusion that believes we are separate. We cannot be separate from what it is we are. We can think we are separate and thereby choose to live in the illusion, but the reality is we are never separate from divine love that is us. We are always only a choice away from the abundance that is our creation gift. The ONE-der of diversity, encourages expression of the divine within us as us.

I started this post by watching the leaves fall and cover the sacred ground of earth. Isn’t it marvelous how the mind can wander in wonder?