Live Now – Don't Wait Until You're Perfect

Today is Tuesday, February 11, 2014. 

The world needs you now, not when you're "perfect."

The word perfect is tricky, because there are different ways to define what is perfect.  By extension, the word imperfect can also be hard to define.  Common wisdom says that human beings and the physical world in general are imperfect.  Used this way, the word imperfect seems to mean without any difficulties, problems, irregularities, impurities or blemishes. 

If you think of this physical world as having been created on purpose in such a way that problems are not only possible, but inevitable and even desirable, then how can it be imperfect?  The fact is that in solving our problems and overcoming our negative qualities, thoughts and habits, we grow and gain spiritual strength and grace.  That's exactly what this physical realm was created for.  It is a perfect feedback loop, a perfect mirror for us to see ourselves in.

Whenever we witness or experience the negative consequences of something we have thought, said or done, assuming that we accept personal responsibility for creating those consequences, we are seeing ourselves in the mirror, and we have a unique opportunity to make changes in ourselves, to "perfect" ourselves, as it were.   In fact we are the only ones who can make these changes in ourselves.  That's because God has given us the incredible gift of free will.  We are being trained to exercise that free will responsibly and effectively.  Our challenge is to create lives for ourselves in which we exist in harmony with each other and with the physical environment, including the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms.  

So far, we haven't done very well, unfortunately, but that doesn't mean this isn't still a great place to learn.  It's in our interactions with one another and with the nature that the purpose for physical Creation is fulfilled.  It is in seeking to better ourselves that the perfection of our situation is realized. We're here to help each other grow.  Don't you think that's just... perfect?  :-)

Gandhi's Advice on Re-Inventing Ourselves

Today is Monday, February 10, 2014.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves. 
– Mohandas Gandhi

What does it mean to remake ourselves?  There are a lot of ways you could answer that question, but I submit that Gandhi was talking about a kind of personal transformation that occurs within each of us.  If and when enough of us manage to accomplish this transformation, our human species as a whole will also be transformed, to the benefit of all Creation. 

You are Soul, a spark of God, an energy being who has been sent here to interact in the physical environment in order to learn and grow.  Your body, your personality matrix, your emotions and your mind and intellect are all tools that Soul uses to interface with each other in the physical realm.  When you arrived here, you had already interfaced with a physical baby body, and you underwent a partial amnesia.  You forgot that you were Soul, an energy being.  You forgot that, as Soul, you are neither male nor female.  Your forgot that your true home is heaven. You grew up believing that your body (including your sex and your race), your intellect, your emotions and the qualities in your personality matrix were the real you.  These are only a small part of who you are.   

You have been here many times before in other time periods and other bodies.  You have been a member of every major race of humanity.  You have interfaced with male bodies and female bodies, healthy bodies, defective bodies and diseased ones.  You have been rich and poor, powerful and powerless, famous and unknown, intelligent and dull-witted. In some lifetimes you worked hard in a physical sense.  In others, you stretched the limits of your intellect.  In still others, you experienced a quiet, contemplative existence.  In some lifetimes you were surrounded by family, while in others, you lived a solitary existence, or perhaps you were raised in a family or culture that you were not originally born into.  In each of your lifetimes, you learned something about yourself, and something about other people, something about how Creation works, and something about how God works.   You came here to learn to give and receive love.

Now it is time for something different.  It is time for you to wake up.  The amnesia is slowly being lifted.  More and more people are realizing that they are Soul, indestructible and eternal.  They realize that although the body eventually wears out, Soul remains, and everything Soul learns in each lifetime is brought forward into the next experience.  Now it is time for all of us to reach within and realize the vast pool of knowledge and experience that we have gained in our past lifetimes.  

Now it is time to realize that our thoughts have mostly been a product of our social conditioning, and that we can transcend this social programming.  It is time to realize that much of our programming resides in our subconscious minds, and that we must bring this programming to the surface in order to re-program ourselves. We now know that cause and effect is one of the most important principles on which physical life is based, and that our thoughts, words and deeds all have consequences, for ourselves, for other human beings, and for the natural world, including the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms.  It is time to accept that through our thoughts, words and deeds, we create our reality. 

 Now is the time to realize that our egos are simply protective devices meant to guide us in the physical world, and that our emotions are messages that give us vital information about how well connected we are to the Source, or God.   When we own our true identity as Soul, we can use our ego and emotions as tools, rather than as our masters.  When we know who we really are, we can access valuable life experiences from long ago and bring them to bear on our current situation in life.

When enough individuals have made this transition from ego-driven lives to Soul-driven lives, human society will change.  There will be less competition and more cooperation.  There will be peace instead of war.  There will be consensus instead of politics.  There will be abundance rather than lack, and there will be more well-being for a greater proportion of the population, rather than a sharp disparity between the haves and the have-nots.  The re-invention of the human race will depend on individual effort.

How can each of us re-invent ourselves?  Gandhi gave us several clues to what he had in mind, presented here in the form of quotes.

1.  "You must be the change you want to see in the world."  Change always begins with individuals.  If you want world peace, you must cultivate peace within yourself.  If you want a world that is honest, you must cultivate honesty within yourself.

2.  "Nobody can hurt me with out my permission."  Each of us in in control of our own lives, and we don't have to be victims.  

3.  "An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching."  Walk your talk.  Don't just talk about it, do it.

4.  "The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong."  Forgive and let it all go.  Don't harbor grudges.  Deal with problems as they come up, but then move on, and allow others space to make changes for the better without forcing them into a negative stereotype.

5.  "I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following."  If you stay in the present and deal with things as they come up, the future will take care of itself.  The past, meanwhile, cannot be changed, but if you are pay attention to the choices you are making now, you won't have to regret the past.

6.  "I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal.  I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps."  Everyone makes mistakes, and we can learn from them.  We can always apologize, we can usually make restitution, and we can often go back and try again.  

7.  "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."   Keep on keeping on.  Never give up.  

8.  "I look only to the good qualities of men.  Not being faultless myself, I won't presume to pronto the faults of others."   Try to see the good in others and do what you can to help them, if they ask for help.  Don't assume that your help is needed: always ask permission.  Give other people – and yourself – the benefit of the doubt.

9.  "Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony."   This is integrity.  When all parts of you are in congruence or in balance, you communicate well with others and behave in a way that is authentic.

10.  "Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position."  In other words, continue to learn and grow.  Everything you think you know about the world and about life is constantly changing, and each of us has to adapt to changing conditions in order to survive. This means re-evaluating our beliefs and accepting and incorporating new information periodically.  :-)

You Are Unique – Just Like Everybody Else

Today is Sunday, February 9, 2014. 

Always remember that you are absolutely unique.  Just like everyone else.  –Margaret Mead

The paradox inherent in that statement makes it hard to take seriously, but it is absolutely true.  It has been proven many times over by science, and it is a staple of spiritual wisdom, as well.  How many statements have a track record like that?  

The idea, of course, is this: if every person and every thing is unique, then there must be a reason to exist.  We must be indispensable to the whole of Creation, somehow.   I once read a book whose title and author I have long forgotten, but which contained one sentence that I keep coming back to:  Variety is the signature of the Creator.  It boggles the mind to try to understand why this should be so, and yet we know that it is.  Not only are our physical bodies unique, but we, as Soul, are also unique in at least one special way from every other Soul.

 Assuming that Creation was intentional rather than random, and that uniqueness was also intentional, the question becomes, Why am I here?  Why do I exist?  What was I created for?  What am I supposed to do? 

For a start, there are some general answers.  In my own religion, we say, "Soul exists because God love It."  Souls come here to the physical world to learn to give and receive love.  We also come here to learn to manifest the qualities that we have been given:  patience, discernment, strength and discipline, for example.  We are given an opportunity to come here to experience situations that will allow us the chance to practice manifesting these qualities.

Remember that as Soul, you've been here before many times.  It's important to realize that each and every one of your lifetimes has also been unique, and you came for different reasons each time. What about your personal reason for being here now?  Why were you born in this particular body, in this particular time in history? 

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but those questions will have to be answered by you.  Life is participatory, not a spectator sport, so your participation will be to figure out why you are here this time.   You made some agreements before coming here.  That doesn't mean you have to honor them, although it would be best if you did.  If you cannot manage to solve the issue you came here to face, you will simply have to come back again in a different body at a different time in history to do it all again in a different way.  

In fact, that's why so many people have so many physical lifetimes.  They spend a great many of them fooling around or going off on side-tracks.  It's not that they don't learn a thing.  They do.  But it's unconscious, rather than conscious, learning, and applying what they have learned is a hit-or-miss proposition.   That's why it's such a good idea to wake up.  Your learning curve will be much more efficient that way. 

Chances are, you won't get a one-piece answer, anyway.  Your answer will probably appear in little pieces that you'll have to put together, like the pieces of a puzzle. But when you begin to get the sense of why you came, some of the things that happen in your life will
start to make sense, and you will get some of those, "Oh, so that's why..." moments. 

The most important thing to do, meanwhile, is to operate on the assumption that you do have a unique purpose in the world, and you need to fulfill that purpose somehow.  As the graphic says, "If you are not there to shine your light, who knows how many travelers will lose their way as they try to pass by your empty place in the darkness?"   :-)

Hot Lunch Angel

"Lunch angel" Kenny Thompson
Photo credit: Kenny Thompson

Today is Saturday, February 8, 2014.

Kenny Thompson is a "lunch angel," hopefully one of many in the coming days.  He works as a tutor and student mentor at Valley Oaks Elementary School in Houston, Texas, and his wife teaches there.  Recently he heard the news that a school lunch supervisor in Utah had taken away lunches from kids whose lunch money balance was zero or negative.  The kids went through the lunch line, but their lunches were taken away from them when they got to the cash register, and they were given milk and a piece of fruit, instead.  (The lunch was deep dish pizza and salad.)  

This bothered Kenny, because he knew some of the students he worked with might be in the same situation.  He decided to do something about that.  He went to the lunch supervisor's office and asked how many kids' accounts were in arrears and how much it would cost to fix the problem.  The answer was that over 60 students at his school were eating cold cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead of the normal not lunch because they didn't have any money in their accounts.  

If you think this does not happen at your local school, think again.  This is standard practice, folks, in public schools across the nation!  For some reason that I don't understand, kids nowadays go through the lunch line and at the end of the line (instead of at the beginning), the kids punch in a four-digit code on a keypad.  As soon as they press "enter," the cafeteria supervisor can see how much money they have in their account.  Why don't they punch in their numbers before they go through the line?  I have no idea, except to say that the line is generally set up to get the most kids through the line quickly.  Lunch and recess are only 30 minutes these days, so the kids need to get through the line, eat their lunch and get outside to play in a short amount of time.  Why do they have so little time?  Don't get me started...


The amount needed to rectify the problem at Valley Oaks Elementary, at least for the time being, was $465.  Kenny knew that if he used his savings to help out, he wouldn't be able to afford the Doc Martens he was planning to buy, but he decided that the kids' lunches were way more important.  His old boots will do nicely, thank you very much, he says.  

One of Kenny's students broke down in tears when he learned that he would be able to eat the regular lunch.  He told Kenny that he sometimes said he wasn't hungry so he didn't have to go through the line and be embarrassed.  (If you think the kids don't know why some of their peers are eating cold sandwiches instead of hot lunch, you are dreaming!) 

It appears that some other people may be getting the nudge to be "hot lunch angels" in their own communities.  Full-price hot lunches are only about $2 per meal, and the kids who are on "reduced-price lunches" only have to pay about 40 cents per meal.  That means just $4 will feed a child on reduced-price lunches for two full weeks at school.  

To bring you up to speed on the situation in Utah, the cafeteria manager and her supervisor were put on paid leave while the incident is being investigated.  The school has apologized to parents.  

If you are wondering what to do with your tax refund dollars, you might consider making a small contribution to the school lunch program in your community.  Any amount will be appreciated  :-)

Do Your Dreams Have an Expiration Date?

Today is Friday, February 7, 2014.

Do dreams have an expiration date?  Today's photo message says no, but my experience has been a little different. Perhaps it's not so much a question of having an expiration date as it is a question of whether the dream is based on a solid assessment of reality.  Whatever the case, some dreams do seem to have a point beyond which they are merely fantasies, and it becomes wasteful to put any more energy into them. 

 When I was a teenager, I was asked to make a collage of what my life would look like as an adult.  I found a picture of a family gathered around their vehicle, an SUV.  The husband was decked out in fishing gear.  One child had on a band uniform and carried a tuba.  One child had on a ballerina costume.  One child had a baseball team uniform on.  There was a dog in the picture.  Basically, I wanted a family life.  I assumed, somehow, that I would also become a teacher.  

Fast-forward to my early twenties.  I had married a Japanese guy and we were living in Japan.  We had no kids. I was an English conversation teacher.  

Fast-forward to my early thirties. I had found out that my Japanese husband was sterile and that I was ovulating irregularly, in any event.  He had not wanted to adopt, and in frustration, we had to admit that our marriage wasn't the greatest, either.  We divorced, and I moved from Osaka to Tokyo by myself, where I taught English for Berlitz Schools of Languages in Japan.  

Fast-forward once again to my early forties.  By this time, I had come back to the United States and had gotten my Master's Degree in Second Languages and Cultures Education.  I had just started working for St. Paul Public Schools, and was in my first year of teaching English as a Second Language at the elementary level.  I went to a doctor about a huge blood clot that I passed, and was told that I had a tumor that was growing pretty fast.  This was in May sometime.

I didn't want surgery because I still had hopes of "meeting someone" and having a child.  The doctor told me they would "watch" the tumor and I was to keep a diary of how I felt, whether I was in pain, and the start, end, and duration of my menstrual periods.  I did this and compiled the notes for the doctor in the fall, sometime in November.  By this time, the tumor was about half the size of a basketball.  It had to come out.   The doctor told me to re-read the diary I had written, and I had to admit, it showed clearly that the amount of pain I was in did not improve my "quality of life."  On my forty-first birthday, in December, I had my uterus taken out and with it, two huge non-cancerous tumors. One was inside the uterus and the other was wrapped around it.  

In the month leading up to the surgery, I did a lot of crying and grieving.  I cried when I saw mothers and children, fathers and children, and anything to do with babies on TV.  I did so much crying that I messed up my sinuses and had a huge sinus infection, which threatened to derail the surgery.  By the time of the actual surgery, however, I was pretty much done crying, and I had accepted, albeit with bad grace, the fact that I was not going to have any children.  I would have to give up my dream.

It wasn't as if the dream was realistic, anyway.  Not only did I not have a husband or partner, I didn't even have a relationship of any kind.  I certainly couldn't have afforded to adopt a child of my own, much less drive the child to ballet lessons or music lessons, like the mom in that ad I had cut out in my teens.  I didn't even have a driver's license!  Not to mention a car...

So I gave up on the dream, and what happened was amazing, because unbeknownst to me, I had finally released all this energy I'd been using, fruitlessly trying to keep the dream of motherhood alive.  Suddenly, I felt great, and I healed from the surgery so fast that my doctor was shocked.  I put all my energy into teaching, and that's where it stayed.

My dream of motherhood had an "expiration date," if you will, and that was the date of my hysterectomy.  There was nothing stopping me from transferring my energy into a more achievable dream, however. 

Many dreams take years to achieve, and there are often a number of setbacks along the way.  Rarely do we achieve exactly what we dream of.  Most people will tell you that the reality that they have manifested is different from the dream, and yet the basic goals of the dream were accomplished.  Those whose dreams have taken a long time to bring to fruition are united in telling us to keep on keeping on, and that the time a person seriously considers quitting is often the moment just before victory.  

Fewer people talk about reviewing our dreams once in a while to revise or scrap our dreams.  Our revised dreams are usually much better than the original, much more appropriate and realistic.  When we stubbornly refuse to give up on a dream that is not headed for fulfillment anytime soon, we are simply wasting our energy.  

Look carefully at your dreams.  How are you doing?  Are you on track for achieving your dreams?  Do they need a little tweaking?  Has your situation changed to the point where a dream is no longer appropriate?   There's no sin in closing the door on a dream that isn't working out.  Release the dream and free up the energy you were using to hold it in  place.  Now transfer your energy to a new dream, and see what happens.  :-)

Walking Each Other Home

Today is Thursday, February 6, 2014.

We're all just walking each other home.  –Ram Dass

I've got a dream, I've got a dream.  I know I can share it if you want me to.  If you're going my way, I'll go with you.  –Jim Croce, "I Got a Name" 

A quick check on the web shows that a lot of different people have been intrigued and inspired by this quote.  Apparently, everybody has a slightly different idea of what "going home" means.  To me, "going home" means "going home to God," because after Its many sojourns on the physical plane, each Soul eventually leaves the earth plane for good and stays in the Worlds of Spirit.  Those Souls who have done some traveling in the Inner Worlds say that God's creation is huge, and if we think the physical universe is big, it's tiny, compared with the rest of Creation. 

We were all sent here to learn, and – having known only heaven – I'm sure it did feel like being kicked out of the house to Souls many lifetimes ago.  Just like some kindergartners who cry and scream for Mom not to go away and leave them their first day at school, many Souls have had a tough time here in this physical world.  Eventually, Souls come to appreciate physical life for the opportunities that can be had here and nowhere else. 

We are all on the way Home, though, to the Heart of God.  Along the way, we work with each other to perfect the qualities that were created within us.  We learn by doing.  We become patient by exercising patience.  We become loving by giving and receiving love.  We learn discipline by being disciplined and by disciplining ourselves.  We learn honesty by experiencing the effects of telling the truth or lying.  We learn how our thoughts, words and actions affect others by experiencing the effects of thoughts, words and actions of others.  We learn about comforting others by experiencing discomfort ourselves, and then being comforted by someone else.

What is Home like?  I don't know, myself, but the spiritual teachers say that it is a pure positive place.  There is no sadness, no hate, no anger, no disability, no heartache.  There is no worry, no grief, no lack.  Those are things we have here in the physical world, and the idea is that we are learning about the positive things in heaven by experiencing the corresponding negative things here in the physical world. 

Should we be in any rush to get Home?  No, I don't think so.  There's plenty of time to have all the experiences we need here in the physical plane.  We cannot experience the entirety of possibilities in only one physical life, so we have more than one lifetime.  We even have the option of goofing off and not learning what we signed up to learn.  No problem.  No loss.  You just keep on getting another lifetime.   All in God's time. :-)

Picking Your Battles – What's Worth Fighting For?

Today is Wednesday, February 5, 2014.

Be selective in your battles; sometimes peace is better than being right.

When I lived in Japan, I often felt that I was being peeled like an onion, layer by layer.  In a country where so many things are done differently from the way I was brought up, I could have fought a new battle just about every day, if I wanted to.  That was when I realized that there is more than one way to do things, and sometimes picking a fight is tantamount to beating one's head against a wall for no good reason.

In keeping with the idea of living consciously and gaining a measure of control over your emotions, it's important to become aware of your personal behavior patterns.  What people, situations, words, or ideas upset you?  What makes you see red?  When you figure out what makes you angry, look for patterns.  Is it certain types of political comments?  Does it have to do with your religion?  Is it how your boss treats you?  Does it always seem to involve dishonesty on someone's part?  Is it usually about some type of racist behavior?  Do you usually end up feeling insulted, personally?  Does it often involve money, the kids, the house, the car, or sex?  Is it your mate who bothers you?  Your boss?  Your teenagers?  One of your co-workers?  The neighbor from hell? 

Once you figure out what makes you mad, it will become apparent in which areas of your life you are overextended, or out of balance.  If you are overextended, you will need to decide how to get a few things off your plate by requesting help, delegating responsibilities, or just learning how to recognize your limits and when to say "no."   If you are out of balance, you will have to dig a little deeper to find out what is causing the imbalance. It may be that the things that anger you now are simply new triggers for an old anger that you have not yet resolved.   When you figure out the original issue and resolve it, you may find that you don't have as many battles to fight as you thought.

In picking your battles, you have to consider whether the issue really needs to be addressed, and whether now or later might be a good time to do that.  What is your goal for this battle?  What changes do you wish to make?  What problem do you wish to solve?   Will the solution benefit only you or all concerned?  Your participation in a battle should always have as its goal a solution to the situation at hand, and ideally, the best outcome for all concerned.  If you are in a battle whose sole objective is to hurt another person or simply to express your anger indiscriminately, you are fighting for the wrong reasons.

Are you arguing simply because you wish to prove that you are right?  Remember that if you are really "right," you will continue to be right whether or not anyone else acknowledges it.  Sometimes you have to ask yourself: Would you rather be married or right?  Would you rather have this job or be right?  Would you rather get the job done or be right? 

There are times when no change can be made, and then you will have to decide whether to at least say something about the issue, hoping that it might lead to a change in the future.  For example, there were a lot of women who struggled for women's suffrage years before their sisters were given the right to vote. Many civil rights workers gave their lives in hopes that one day racist policies and practices would be ended.  People are fighting against Big Business, Big Oil, Big Government, Big Banking and Big Pharma, the Keystone XL Pipeline and racist team names and mascots.  Even if their causes are successful, some of them may not see the ultimate outcome.  That's what you always have to ask yourself: is this fight worth it, even if I never reap the benefit?

Some people pick small fights because they are reluctant to engage a larger issue.  If you are constantly going tit for tat with a colleague at work, for example, what's the larger issue?  Are you afraid that the colleague is after your job?  Or is your colleague afraid that you are after his/her job?   It may be best to get the real issue out in the open, rather than doing little things to bug each other every day.

Some fights are just not worth it.  For example, will that political argument you are having on Facebook change the outcome of the election?  Will arguing with your boss really help your situation, or might it be better altogether to find another job?  Is it going to matter 50 years from now which wedding dress you choose?  Is it really necessary to argue about Justin Bieber with a cousin you see only a couple of times a year?  

“Choose your battles wisely. After all, life isn't measured by how many times you stood up to fight. It's not winning battles that makes you happy, but it's how many times you turned away and chose to look into a better direction. Life is too short to spend it on warring. Fight only the most, most, most important ones, let the rest go.”   ― C. JoyBell C.

There are times when it is simply better to walk away, knowing that no good can come out of a pitched battle.  Here are three more tips for avoiding unnecessary battles: 

1)  Avoid holding people and situations up to an impossible ideal.  You may wish to aim high, and there's no sin in that, but recognize that nothing is perfect. Being angry because things are not going according to an ideal in your head is a sure recipe for self-imposed misery.

2)  Realize that some people just like to create drama wherever they go to create a little excitement in their lives.  There are better ways to create excitement.  Don't take the bait.  Don't be a prop in someone else's play.

3)  Hanging onto relationships and situations that are no longer serving your best interests will result in a lot of disharmony.  Instead of fighting, let them go.  Keep moving forward.  :-)