What’s So Difficult About Equality?

Throughout the last seven decades, I’ve watched women and so-called people of color take their rightful place as functioning members of society. It hasn’t been much longer than that when women were not allowed to vote in elections, and only since 1962, if you happened to be a black woman in the United States. Nowadays, most women can hold any job and live any way they choose. It amazes me that men feel threatened by this, but now I’m seeing that many are — and it’s become quite a problem for our society. I’ve never believed that men are put-upon, but observance and thoughtful articles are opening my eyes to what has happened. The most startling statistic is that 70% of the suicides in 2019 were white men. Add to that the fact that only 40% of college students are male. Between 2019 and 2020, men who died from drug- and alcohol-related causes spiked 35%! There are numerous reasons for this, of course. Some have simplistic explanations, such as they think women have stolen their jobs and they now have no purpose. I think it’s true that men feel lost in the current climate of changing gender roles, but I also believe it’s mental conditioning which has caused them to feel this way. This topic will be revisited soon, but for now, I’ll end with a quote from Andrew Yang: “We need to be needed. We imagine ourselves as builders, soldiers, workers, brothers — part of something bigger than ourselves.”

“…man is a generic term. Masculine, feminine, and neuter genders are human concepts.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 516:29

“As a man and also one of God’s creations, my right thinking, which came from the Holy Spirit or the Universal Inspiration, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for all.”
A Course in Miracles T-5.I.4:5-6

The Abolishment of War

“The man of imagination, maintaining the absolutely neutral position of Principle, with no pro-this or anti-that, is the one who will discover steps and techniques for communication leading to the abolishment of war.” 
We Are the World We Walk Through (or Christian Science, Re-explored) by Margaret Laird

“The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness. The means of war are not the means of peace, and what the warlike would remember is not love. War is impossible unless belief in victory is cherished. Conflict within you must imply that you believe the ego has the power to be victorious. Why else would you identify with it? Surely you realize the ego is at war with God. Certain it is it has no enemy. Yet just as certain is its fixed belief it has an enemy that it must overcome and will succeed.” A Course in Miracles - T-23.I.1:1-

Reputable Fact Sources

Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater

I had a phone conversation with a good friend and the talk turned to social media, various political analysts, the state of our nation, and how to find our way through the destruction we are witnessing. I do not allow myself the laxity of thought which dwells on negativity, but I also am a proponent of being led by Grace and Love to follow the steps required in this daily life. You will never find me listening ad nauseam to repetition of the so-called news, but I often check in with people such as Heather Cox Richardson for guidance through the maze we are navigating. I will soon be putting together a list of podcasts and newsletters which are reliable for straight-up truth in the reporting of daily events. Along with these sources, there will be newsletters which give a spiritual perspective to daily events, while building accurate historical perspectives (Marianne Williamson), and folks who give us answers to why this is happening at this time (such as Iain McGillchrist). Please let me know if you’d like a copy of these sources once they are compiled. Now is not the time to be ill- or non-informed. Nor is it the time to be quiet. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas

“This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace. The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 96:12-20

“It seems to be the enemy without that you attack. Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. For love now has an ‘enemy,’ an opposite; and fear, the alien, now needs your defense against the threat of what you really are.

“If you consider carefully the means by which your fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way, you will perceive the premises on which the idea stands. First, it is obvious ideas must leave their source, for it is you who make attack, and must have first conceived of it. Yet you attack outside yourself, and separate your mind from him who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split you made is real.”
A Course in Miracles W-170.3-4

Quiet in the Midst of Turmoil

 

John Currin - Pistachio, 2016.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”                                                                                                                                         Henri Nouwen

“Learn to be quiet in the midst of turmoil, for quietness is the end of strife and this is the journey to peace. ⁶Look straight at every image that rises to delay you, for the goal is inevitable because it is eternal. The goal of love is but your right, and it belongs to you despite your dreams.”                          A Course in Miracles T-12.II.5:5-7

Be a Peace Pilgrim!

Mildred Norman walked for peace. She began her trek in 1953, with the intention of walking across the United States. She quit counting miles in 1964, when she walked 25,000. She became known as the Peace Pilgrim. At any time in any culture where there is great apathy, a pilgrim is likely to step forward. And a pilgrim inspires others. It may be a poet, a musician — or an old woman walking across the United States! Mildred never deprived herself, and her needs were always supplied. She gloried in the richness of her inner life and the richness in her connection with people — because that’s where richness lives.When asked if she was afraid being alone with no so-called defenses she replied: “There is good in every human heart, no matter how deeply it is buried. When you smile at the world, it smiles at you — and I love to smile!” And I love Mildred!

“At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good. Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil. Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 571:15-21

“Look past dreams today, and recognize that we need no defense because we are created unassailable, without all thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning. Now we cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind. And in defenselessness we stand secure, serenely certain of our safety now, sure of salvation; sure we will fulfill our chosen purpose, as our ministry extends its holy blessing through the world.”

A Course in Miracles W-153.9:1-3

Stretch Out Your Senses

Digital art by Camille Campbell

All the Hemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.

Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season

Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.

Make a new water-mark on your excitement

And love.

Like a blooming night flower,

Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness

And giving

Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence

Lie beside an equator

In your heart.

Greet Yourself

In your thousand other forms

As you mount the hidden tide and travel

Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven

Are sitting around a fire

Chatting

While stitching themselves together

Into the Great Circle inside of

You.

From: ‘The Subject Tonight is Love’

Poem by Hafiz - Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

You Can’t Kill Meme

Do you believe in magic? It’s a good song, that’s for sure. We all want to believe that things can happen, simply because we think about them — but is that magic? Perhaps it’s simply the way things are, although thought is powerful. I recall a documentary explaining how large numbers of people have been convinced to believe lies. It’s called, “You Can’t Kill Meme”. Frightening stuff, but I’m finally beginning to understand what has happened to us in the past few years. The mind control being exercised by large groups of people is scary, but what of the very few people who utilize the internet to exponentially heighten their thought manifestations? To quote one man, “Introduce an element of chaos to break down social hierarchies.” Without citing specific instances, what I’ve ultimately taken away from this informative video is that we must be pure in our reflection of Love and its energy. I have friends who are working for Truth and Love by the food they ingest and the information they spread, teaching us about a more pure way of living. There are many paths and we all have a purpose. Let’s not be afraid to spread love and joy! It’s our best defense against authoritarianism.

“What is healing but the removal of all that stands in the way of knowledge? And how else can one dispel illusions except by looking at them directly, without protecting them? Be not afraid, therefore, for what you will be looking at is the source of fear, and you are beginning to learn that fear is not real. You are also learning that its effects can be dispelled merely by denying their reality. The next step is obviously to recognize that what has no effects does not exist. Laws do not operate in a vacuum, and what leads to nothing has not happened. If reality is recognized by its extension, what leads to nothing could not be real. Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot be seen. Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness through light must dispel it.”

A Course in Miracles T-11.V.2:1-9

“Divine Life destroys death, Truth destroys error, and Love destroys hate.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 339:2-3