Memorial Day Links

Here's a link to Abraham Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address, 1865. A good Memorial Day read.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln2.asp

And here's a link to General MacArthur's amazing speech at the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/filmmore/reference/primary/macspeech04.html

Note: MacArthur recognized that "the problem basically is theological" and that "it must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh."

My Cat

My little cat knows that I don't always allow her to sit in my lap, so, when I'm on my deck and she comes to sit in my lap she at first assumes that I'm going to allow her to come, and she jumps right into my lap. And if I'm not in the mood to have her there I gently nudge her away and she hops down on the deck and doesn't seem to be disappointed at all. So she waits a while as I'm meditating, and starts, at some point to ease back closer to me, then jump up on the table in front of me; sits there for a while, waiting for my mood to change. At some point, with head held low and eyes half closed she puts one paw very gently on my knee as if to ask permission. It's as if she is the prodigal son returning home from the pig pen in a spirit of "I don't deserve to be your cat, but if you would just let me sit here in your lap, you don't even have to pet me, just let me lie peacefully on your knee"... and so I reach out my hand to let her know that she can come; and she comes, and sits peacefully and thankfully on my lap as I stroke her fur and we both benefit from it. And as I am benefiting from it, and thinking about the benefit that I am receiving, I look at this little creature and I realize that God made this little creature for me to be sitting here in my lap in this moment and the affection I feel for this kitty and the affection she feels for me [in whatever way kitties feel affection] are a manifestation of the Love of the God of this universe---the God Who created us both; gave us life; gave all life, and gave all love and all affection. And so this little creature, this experience that we are sharing is like a shaft of light that is the Light of this universe; like a beam flowing down through the forest of sunlight. And like a hologram, this beam contains the Whole.

Getting There

It seems to me that life can never be what we want and need it to be until we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord. And even when we receive Him we continue to have sadness and anger and fear and self-doubts and character defects that we cannot overcome; but we are able to manage these because we have the Power of Eternal Love living within us--Love that never abandons us, never gives up on us, constantly forgives and always encourages and empowers us to simply and peacefully take the next small step onward and upward. We can always take a small step in the direction of Christ's Truth and Love. We will always be able to do so. That is all we will ever need. "I am with you always, even to the end of the world":  This is the only true security that exists. And the only way to have peace as an imperfect human being.

Religious Lostness

And the Lord said: "Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote;.. Isa 29:13

The people being confronted by God through Isaiah in this passage were religious people: prophets, priests, synagogue-attenders, etc. God said they honored Him with their words, but their hearts were far from Him. I recently saw a couple in therapy who were very religious Christians. They attended not only regular church services, but extra-curricular Bible studies, and even taught a Bible class [the husband]. And I believe they were sincere in their faith. But their hearts were full of criticism, anger, and hostility that caused them to have to separate from each other because one could not tolerate the physical presence of the other. I asked the husband to lead in prayer at the end of a session and he prayed with some eloquence, as a man accustomed to public praying. He did not, however, mention his wife, with whom he was having obvious problems, in the prayer, so I asked, after he had closed, if he would pray for her. He stammered and struggled through a prayer, obviously trying, not quite successfully, to avoid sounding like an indictment against his wife. She was full of anxiety, with a pattern of chronic defensiveness that sounded like a whining, victimized, but counterattacking shrew.

Their painful patterns reminded me of the very important truth elucidated in the above passage. We religious folks can be living behind a veneer of love for Christ while harboring a heart full of bitterness, resentment, and critical blame toward our own spouse or some other person in our life. One man said, "It's easier to forgive folks you don't live with." [Or have ever lived with, I would add.] That's true I believe. But Jesus has not given us an out on this score. He commanded us to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who despitefully use and persecute us. [Mt. 5:44]. Guess that pretty much covers any evil thing my wife might do to me. Love?! Bless?! Pray for?! Do good to?!

We can get so much negative crap built up in our souls that trying to do that is like trying to eat your own vomit. Unless we allow the Truth that is at the core of it transform that vomit into the most potent and sweetest nectar that ever passed through our lips, into the heart, like a healing potent, warming and opening the heart, and washing away all the plaque-like clusters that had been blocking the flow of one's very life; relaxing constriction into freedom. As one writer penned, it's like setting a prisoner free, then determining that the prisoner was you.

What is this Truth that is at the core of this commandment of Christ? It is that He commands us to be motivated only by His Love. He wants us to be free from the heavy, leaden, grip of an angry, bitter heart. He knows that we are creating unnecessary suffering for ourselves [and others] by languishing in that darkness. He is inviting us into the light. "But men loved darkness more than light" Jesus said. [Jn 3:19]  And they just get lost in it...lost in the darkness. While the Light is shining all around them.

Fear of God

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, as recorded in Proverbs. Jesus teaches us that the Love of God is the fulfillment of it. And one deceives himself if he says that he loves God and yet does not practice love for every human being: even one's enemies. [Mat. 5:44]. The most important thing you will do today, and every day, will be to consciously practice love for those whom God places within your sphere of influence. And we must never deceive ourselves by believing that this is an easy or natural process. It takes prayer and sincere openness to the Holy Spirit of Christ within us. No person is easy to love all the time. And some are extremely difficult to love [You may be one of them ! ;>).]  But our Lord offers no excuses for us. He commands us to love, do good, bless and pray for those who hate, curse, despitefully use and persecute us.
If I try to proselytize people while not practicing love for them I will damage the image of Christ and His Kingdom, for it is grounded and motivated only by Love. I must never allow my ministry to outpace my love for people. I must not pretend to love people, which is hypocrisy. I must sincerely love them. None of us does this perfectly; and that is quite all right as long as we admit it. Jesus is the only perfect Lover of our souls; and He has gracefully promised to abide within those who receive Him. His Love within us is pure. Our work is to allow that pure Light to shine through us, unencumbered by our apathy, ego-centric need to impress people or our self-centered judgments and critical spirits emanating from our sinful nature. People will always hurt, betray, disrespect or wrongfully ignore us sooner or later. They're only human. Like Jesus, we must not allow this to deter us in loving them. This does not make us victims; it makes us victors! More than conquerors! Because this loving way of being in the world is what we freely choose in obedience to our Lord; it is not determined by others, especially the worst that is in them! In the likeness of Christ's love for us, we love them in spite of their sinful nature manifestations, which is a symptom of their [our] blindness. Like our Lord we pray, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." But unlike Him, we must also pray, "And forgive me, for I have not been knowing much about what I've been doing either."
We only really know what we are doing when we are practicing Christ's Love peacefully and joyfully. Then all is well in the universe. This is where the fear of God leads us--again and again and again.

RESURRECTION!

Resurrection means new life

Available every moment

Right now----and now-----and now!

Freedom from all oppression

Everything that is oppressive

What oppresses you?

Jesus overcame it----and lives in you!

Only those parts of your personality that are flapping in the breezes of this world,

Out from under His wings

Are vulnerable to the oppressive stuff.

So bring everything you've got under His wings

Every thought captive

You are not of this world

Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, in the fiery furnace of this world

You will not have even the smell of smoke on those parts of you that are “in Him.”

The rest is wood, stubble and hay

And will be burned away in the Consuming Fire (the sooner the better),

It is nailed to the Cross and died, dead and buried.

You, the real you, arose with Him in new life that is not of this world

Not entangled in the worries and cares of this world

Not worried about the economy, politics, health, the kids, terrorism…..

Now you know why you're here and where you are going.

You are burning in the peaceful fire of His Love for the human family.

You are the Light of this world!

You are born again!

You are resurrected!

Again and again and again and again……

And death is your final victory!

Mark Graham

THE PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR

My fellow Americans and my fellow Earth Citizens:

Deep currents of joy and sorrow are flowing through my heart. I rejoice in what we have accomplished as the human family on this beautiful earth. And I deeply grieve what we have failed to accomplish: Peace and Love for our fellow humans. I don't have to remind you of what we have accomplished; you are immersed in technology and have media that holds it before you each day. The same media also reveals the horrors that I deeply grieve, and about which I wish to speak in this address. More to the point, I wish to speak words to encourage the psycho-spiritual evolution beyond those horrors.

The time has past for arrogance, high-minded superiority, and condescension. The time has past for nationalistic pride in anything that does not embrace and encourage the best for the entire human family; not just for those who reside within certain man-made boundaries on this earth. The time has past for the lust for power and the desire to control territories and amass material wealth. The time for competition between nations has past, unless it is competition for which nation can be the most generous and bring the most service and good will for the human family. The time for hatred and fear has past. We have evolved technologically beyond prior generations' wildest dreams. We probe space, circle the earth, communicate around the globe in hand-held devices available to all advanced nations. In the last few decades we have acquired the power to destroy the earth! Quoting from Gen. MacArthur's speech on the USS Missouri at the end of WWII:

Men since the beginning of time have sought peace.... Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all material and cultural development of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.

Perhaps we have advanced to the point at which we can hear these words with fresh ears, and see this vision with new eyes. We speak of peace, but often with little hope that it is attainable. But now, more than ever, we have at our disposal the global connectedness to encourage the Truth that sets us free. And whether we are theists [as I am] or atheists; whether we follow Buddha, Mohammed or Jesus—we must see that we have the same universal origin; we breathe the same air and have the same basic needs. We all stand in awe of our own consciousness, which we did not create and which we do not even understand. And the fact that we have been given the amazing and unspeakable gift of life must reveal to us that the Originator of that life is beneficent, and must be characterized by that which we most highly esteem within ourselves: Love. Even the love that we have for our children is not an aspect of our personality that was chosen by us. It was placed within us by the same Source that originated our hearts and minds. Surely that Source must comprise the highest form of this Love: for the entire human family! And so now, more than ever, we have good reason to be renewed in the hope that peace and love—consciously chosen good will and compassion—can increase upon the earth.

The difficulty of this endeavor—the increase of Love and Peace—speaks to the power that militates against it. Let us call it evil. But let us not relegate it to any certain nation, party or faction of the human family. Let us recognize, as the theologian states, that the line that separates good from evil passes through the heart of every human being. Until we evolve to the point at which we can look in the mirror and see that which is not good within the self, we condemn ourselves to project that unacknowledged evil outward upon someone or some group or faction of the human family. This has always been the fertile soil in which hatred and violence grows; and it can break out like a wildfire and destroy centuries of advancement. I am thankful to be an American, but I do not for a moment believe that America, or any American, is pure. The power of evil, lurking in all our hearts, tends to kill or reject those who are the purest among us. But this is what we now seek to overcome.

One of the reasons, perhaps the main reason that I am thankful to have been born in this nation is because its government is founded upon a trust in the general populace to govern itself. That is a radical trust, always in jeopardy, and predicated upon, not only the intelligence of the people, for intelligence is neutral and may be utilized for good or evil. This trust is predicated more upon the psycho-spiritual maturity and wisdom of the common men and women in its domain. It is predicated upon the mainstream populace's ability to care for the common good above selfish endeavors. Without this dynamic, democracy and world peace will never be possible. We will always be at war, like children jealously fighting for the attention and highest esteem of their parents—parents who love them both dearly and grieve their competitive nature. The great importance of government for and by the people is emphasized by the fact that evil loves power, and governing is a form of power. Common folk are not generally enamored of power. They just want to get along—work and provide for their families; enjoy the prosperity of the land and the beauty of the earth. They are, therefore, a safer repository of power than the minority who are afflicted with a need to rule. But this latter will always be those who compete and work diligently to gain that power. A government that places the ultimate power in the hands of the common folk is therefore genius—provided the common folk are psycho-spiritually mature. This is why our Founding Fathers wove together democracy and unfettered religion. They realized, in a manner that seems advanced beyond their time, that democracy could not maintain itself without this growing maturity that facilitates sincere and intelligent good will and a willingness to overcome the baser drives of human personality. In fact, any true religion places this endeavor—the overcoming of the “sinful nature” inherent in every human—at the apex of importance. And any religion that attempts to force or coerce cannot originate from the God Who has set us free—even to violate His will. The God of this universe does not need man to enforce His will; He is quite capable of that Himself, if it were His will to govern by power, fear and intimidation. Every bird, butterfly and child's lovely face speaks loudly that this is not the way of the God of creation. We must come to realize that our lives must be motivated, more and more over time, by the Love that we have for our children. That Love must be the decisive factor in all our endeavors. And that Love must not be excluded from any human or group of humans on this earth—even those who seem to be absorbed in the darkness of hatred or the lust for power. We must trust the power of that Love to overcome all evil, as light always overcomes darkness. We must raise this endeavor to a conscious level, and keep it infused with hope, because it is always in danger of sinking down underneath the worries and cares of daily life, drained by cynicism or overcome by the fearful need for power and its false security. Any viable religious practice must serve to keep its practitioners mindful of this Love, and growing in their capacity to live it out in the world of daily living. And those who do not believe in a supernatural being must surely see and realize that there is no higher motive for the human will than this Love. We can all, therefore, be unified in Love. I do not believe there is another force on earth that will unify us.

May God bless America, and may God bless the human family.