Form and Content and Christmas: A Daily Tension

I received a comment and question from a subscriber arising from a message earlier this month [Msg-1-Dec-2106, The Resonance and Danger of Ultra Right-Wing Political Movements]. It is worth repeating here:

Hello, Don: The thing that puzzles me on the subject of your current essay on right-wing politics is this: The Iranians, for example, are allowed to keep their culture (except for the globalization effect of the Internet, perhaps); the Japanese, everyone agrees, should keep their culture. These are considered 'good ideas' . . . but the British, well, not so much. They should take in as many immigrants as possible, until the British culture has become so watered down it is no longer in existence. Or the Germans. I heard a story of a resort town in Germany, perhaps Bad Godesberg, in which one can no longer find a German restaurant . . . they've all been taken over by Middle Eastern culture. . . . How is that fair or right or just? And when protests are made for lower immigration levels, and to preserve one's own culture (this only happens in the West), people are called 'right-wing extremists' . . . These knee-jerk liberal expressions, including 'globalization is all good', develop a hollow ring after a while. There are parts of East Vancouver, British Columbia, or Richmond, its suburban neighbour, where a Westerner is an anomaly. In Richmond, citizens have to fight to have street and store signs appear in English. . . . How is this 'good'? . . . If you could be so good as to explain this to me.

Thank you for your comments – very astute and very well-expressed.

I am trying not to confuse "Form" with "Content." The spiritual is focused on content. My ego-mind is focused on form. The issue for me about lowering immigration, as the example you mention, is the fear that lies behind it - fear of losing control, fear of losing status/money/position/identity, fear of the "different," etc. Fear, more than anything else, will diminish any spiritual sense of light, love, inclusiveness, or Oneness, which is what I am seeking for me.

The "Form" this fear takes is almost immaterial - to Spirit, a hateful thought, a hateful word and a hateful action are all equivalent. Not so in the world of form. We live in both: spirit/content and ego/form. There is a quote dealing with the constant tension between being IN the world without being OF the world. What you've described is this same tension. Where I draw lines differentiating between Form and Content and you draw them will be different - we just need to respect and honor that between us. This is not a “once and done” kind of thing. It is a daily tension. Where I draw those lines differs some times between today and where I drew them yesterday. When someone expresses a rightness/wrongness about a “Form” issue, I try to focus on the fear in them and, when I do that, I am reminded of my own fear - so I can begin to relate to that person in terms of Content (in this case Fear) - rather than arguing over egoic manifestations of Form.

I hope this helps.

We are beginning Christmas week where we celebrate the “form” of Jesus’s birth. Exactly how we celebrate that form varies greatly among cultures and has morphed greatly over the centuries. The “content” of His coming is to help us remember that we have never separated from God. Our egoic perceptions that would have us believe we are sinful creatures and deserve God’s wrath are just that: perceptions or illusions. Jesus, the man, fully understood that and fully lived by the Spirit.

So can we – and that is the real meaning of the Christmas of Spirit.

The Christ is the single Self that is shared by all the members of the Sonship – all of humanity. Collectively, we are the Son of God. The Christ does not refer specifically to Jesus. Jesus is simply one of these “members of the Sonship,” who has remembered and fully lived our shared identity. [ACIM: T-15.V.10:9-10 – “Those who are joined in Christ are in no way separate. For Christ is the Self the Sonship shares, as God shares His Self with Christ.”]

I want to take this opportunity to wish all readers of this message a Merry Christmas and a wonderfully happy, peaceful holiday season – Kwanzaa, Chanukah, or simply enjoying family and friends. [Muslims have a little difficulty with Christmas because they do not celebrate their prophets’ birthdays. Since they believe Jesus was a prophet, they don't celebrate. In western countries, their children, however, get caught up in Santa Claus, school closings, and other hoopla. It makes it difficult for them.]

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

There will be no message next week.

Don

#3 Dec 2016

Copyright 2016

Now That The Election Is Over … (Part 2)

Last week I wrote: “During the campaign, while Hillary and her many messengers spoke TO fear and spoke ABOUT fear, Trump and his minions spoke the language OF fear, anger and hatred. That resonated in a visceral way with the “left-behind” that none of us comprehended. It solidified the promise of votes for him, regardless of his vitriolic campaign and message.” I have had several questions from subscribers asking, “What now?” or “What do I do now?” or Is there anything you can say to help me put this into the framework of my spiritual growth?” I will respond to these issues from the perspectives of AA wisdom, an understanding of history, as well as from A Course in Miracles (ACIM).

Let me state that in my opinion the issue is not simply Donald Trump. He is merely the newest (and most prominent?) face of the Alt-Right and Conservative movement over the past decade. He began in the Alt-Right atmosphere with his Birtherism conspiracies. He has maintained this affinity for these conspiracy-laden and truth-be-damned preachers to their millions of followers. Keep that in mind.

Let me paint a verbal image for you. Sometimes to treat a boil you have to lance it. Often, as well, you have to allow the boil to get large enough to lance. Maybe that’s where we are – waiting for Trump and the Republicans to complete their plans for America: a desire to repeat George W. Bush’s economic, tax, regulatory and military agendas based on valued conservative principles (which caused our financial meltdown in 2008); voter restriction laws; a roll-back of social policies (especially a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions in the area of reproductive biology); LGBTQ rights; draconian Gerrymandering to ensure election victories; and moving the philosophy of education from “teaching how to think” to “teaching what to think.”

All of this, including Trump, are the issues that bubbled up in this election.

To take AA seriously and truly desire to stop drinking, all of us have had to hit our bottoms. Epitomized in the description of the difference between religion and spirituality: “Religion is for those who are afraid of going to Hell. Spirituality is for those – like us – who have already been to Hell and don’t want to go back.” In short, we have to hit bottom before we can begin the climb back to sobriety and sanity. One of the promises that comes true when working AA’s Steps in total honesty is that we will become aware that, no matter how far down the scale we have fallen, we will discover that it allows us to share that experience and hope to help someone else.

So, perhaps, we are hitting bottom, we can lance the boil, and we can begin to heal. However and more specifically, what is it we can do and what must we watch out for? We must accept what is happening -  which means to be aware of what’s going on without fear; staying informed without fear; speaking out without fear.

In this vein, I received from a friend this missive from Dan Carter, Professor Emeritas, Educational Foundation, University of South Carolina, who writes opinion pieces for the NYT on-line publications: “Above all, Trump grasped the fundamental weaknesses of our current political culture. He has repeatedly bullied opponents and lied with the kind of brazen disregard for truthfulness, and for civilized norms of political debate, that would have left Joseph Goebbels gasping in admiration.  He may be totally ignorant of critical issues of public policy, the constraints of the constitution and the challenges of world leadership, but his years as a television salesman (of himself) allowed him to understand that most of the media—particularly the broadcasting and cable networks—would simply broadcast these lies in the name of journalistic objectivity, the more outrageous the better.   And in a political environment in which complex issues are reduced to 30 seconds of: “She’s a liar”/“No, she’s not”/ “She’s a crook,” “No she’s not,”/  democratic debate was reduced to the 140 characters of the tweets he used so effectively…. 

“In the coming weeks, the chattering classes will endlessly explain what has happened either by pointing to the weaknesses and miscalculations of the Clinton campaign or the grievances that Trump so successfully exploited.   Reporters and pundits will parse the exact meaning of his appointments.  Does naming GOP Party head Reince Priebus chief of staff indicate a conventionally right-wing course?  Or is the appointment of white supremacist Stephen Bannon as chief counselor the real key to understanding his coming administration? 

“Priebus and his like will become “steady hands” and Bannon will be transformed from an overt racist and anti-Semite into a “right wing media provocateur.”  We will all analyze Trump’s tweets and contradictory statements like Roman seers poring over the entrails of dead chickens, breathing a sigh of relief when he decides to deport only two million Latinos instead of eleven million and pushes through some flim-flam healthcare fig-leaf to justify the destruction of the Affordable Care Act.

“And step by step we will normalize Trumpism.”

We cannot normalize this ugliness and hatred: The tweets; the misinformation; the use of the Alt-Right communication network (websites, papers, radio talk shows, etc.), and the continual disdain for all legitimate media. All these may become normalized – candidates for office will try to emulate what Trump did; more fake news sites, websites, and other forms of media will proliferate. This will cause the final blurring of the factual truth (who do you believe: Breitbart News and Rush Limbaugh or the Washington Post and Time magazine)?  By the time that happens our democracy, based on an educated populace, may be beyond redemption. Based on history this is how the gradual normalization of ugliness and fear will happen.

Another friend sent this to me from Colin Tipping: Radical Forgiveness – Finding Peace, Love and Acceptance; Institute for Radical Forgiveness Therapy & Coaching, Inc. – on how to deal with Trump and the Republican’s victory: “The trick is to be totally into doing what you feel is the right thing to do, while at the same time knowing that destiny is being fulfilled somehow and that our actions are all part of the karmic dance.… In other words, by all means, take action to do your best to be rid of Trump and all he stands for. However, if you do it, while at the same time, finding love in your heart for him for waking us all up from the dream of separation, your actions will have enormous power to raise the consciousness of the planet….

“This may well be the beginning of the great BREAKDOWN that we have known must necessarily precede the BREAK THROUGH into a new and higher consciousness. "Thank you, Donald Trump, for being the one to play that role.… This is our big chance to wake up, shift our perception and leave this false reality behind. Let's go for it!”

The boil may be getting close to being lanced. Our bottom may finally be becoming a reality. Our destiny of moving to an era of cooperation rather, than competition, and of a true sense of Oneness, rather than absolute Separateness, may be looming on the horizon. In the words of James Twyman, an ACIM scholar, who has written about this election: We must surrender to the awareness that we do not understand the whole picture; we must trust enough to embrace that awareness without fear; and we must embrace what is happening with gratitude for bringing all our ugliness to the surface to be seen, acknowledged and dealt with in the open Light of Love.

We must be alert and aware to the normalization of ugliness and hatred. We must speak out.

I hope this helps.

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#3 Nov 2016

Copyright 2016

PS: I will be unavailable during the Thanksgiving week. There will be no message.

Our Responsibility To Vote

I just received an email from Lee Carroll with a channeled message from Kryon. Some of you are familiar with Lee’s/Kryon’s work. For those not familiar, please check him out at Kryon.com.  Lee has been very supportive of my work and my book, “How the Bible became the Bible.” He has recommended it in his writings (Kryon Book 11, p.21) and his presentations. He spoke to our New Thought congregation in Saint Augustine, FL in March 2006 and December 2008. I consider him a mentor.

Lee’s email was titled: “Old Souls Need To Vote.” In it he discusses the old and new energies that are competing for us. He writes of Kryon’s channeling: “… Old souls are going to have a tendency not to vote in this election because you’re going to see old energy on both sides. And you’re going to look at it and you’re going to say, ‘Neither one really is what we want. Kryon, where’s the new energy? This is old stuff. They’re fighting, they’re angry, they’re calling each other names. You take a look at their meetings and all they do is shout and get angry and red faced.’”

Kryon goes on the admonish us to vote and to vote for whomever we believe will be the more transformative. He concludes: “Now dear ones, it’s important that you vote. Because if you simply say I don’t like what’s happening, you won’t be able to vote for what’s transformational. And you have this privilege and this right. The next time around it’s going to be different and the time after that is going to be startling.”

Earlier this year (July): I wrote about the importance of doing all I can do to encourage a sense of spiritual oneness in our society: “The constitutional idea of democratic freedom is based on my commitment to voluntarily relinquish some of my personal freedom in this or that area of my life in order to preserve my oneness in the social structure as a whole. I relinquish my personal freedom as I vote and abide by the will of the majority and then work to make that will work. The bumper sticker wisdom – Freedom Isn’t Free – is true and not just because of the military. It isn’t free because I work to give up my rights in many areas in order for my society to thrive. If it thrives, I can thrive. If it doesn’t, I can’t.

“I am not an island unto myself. I am just a small thread in the fabric of society. My work is to dedicate myself to improve the whole social structure. Much of that work requires me to subjugate myself to the health of the whole. My freedom comes, not when I become my own little island, but when my society grows and thrives. I work to make that happen, just as I work to make AA and ACIM a reality.”

Certainly Donald Trump is unfit and unprepared to don the mantle of global leadership required by the Office of the President of the United States of America. As well, Hillary Clinton has a lot to be desired on a personal level – although much of this is based on 20 years of Alt-Right conspiracy theorists who have made of wonderful living from keeping these rumors alive. So, I’ve concluded for me the issue of the personhood of these two candidates is not the basis on which to cast my vote. I will vote for the transformational (to quote Kryon) issues available to us.

The conservatives are proposing to restore the economic/social policies of the George W. Bush administration – lower taxes for the wealthy and the corporations, strengthening of the military (through more war or through more structuring), reducing regulations and the budgets of regulatory agencies, and hoping the business community will come to our collective rescue. Those policies, enacted by a Republican controlled House and Senate (for 6 or Bush’s 8 years) added almost $3 Trillion to our deficit, added only 5 million private sector jobs, almost bankrupted our nation, and plunged us into a horribly severe recession that became global. Why they want to go back and do more of that is beyond me.

The Democrat policies are more progressive and in line with what is emerging as the interconnected global economy in this Information Age. So, I will be voting for this agenda. It was begun with President Obama and has done significant things to improve our overall social structure in terms of inclusiveness, growth, and economic diversity. Fifteen million private sector jobs have been added, the stock market has doubled, we have reduced our wartime footprint, and we have resolved severe international crises with diplomacy rather than military might. And he has accomplished this – not with Congressional help – but in spite of the most obstructionist Congress (under Republican leadership) in history.

Kryon concludes his message by stating: What I have been saying “… are potentials, not fortune telling. The ripples of what is coming are being felt. And I say it again. That there is precedent on other planets that have gone through this and you’re right on schedule. Because what is happening here has happened there. It’s about light and dark. It’s about energy reacting to energy, and what happens and how it happens. It’s benevolent physics.”

As I’ve stated before, “I have to understand, on a visceral level, who the “Me” or “I” really is when I am speaking or thinking. The “I” that says to myself, “I really need a newer, more reliable car” is a different “I” than the one that says to my Holy Spirit, “I can’t do this anymore; help me perceive things the way You see them.”

Although these messages are mostly for me, thanks for listening to me and getting to know me – warts and all. As always, feel free to forward this message to your friends, family, and those accompanying you on your spiritual journey.

Don

#2 Oct 2016

Copyright 2016