Weekly Bulletin #312
October 3, 2008
A light in a time of darkness
NOTE: The Weekly Bulletin is sent free of charge to anyone who asks for it. It is a publication of the ReCreation Foundation, a non-profit organization undertaking the work of sharing the message of Conversations with God with the world. That message is that the purpose of life is to recreate ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are.
In This Issue...
Notes from Neale
Now, to love
Best of the Blogs
The Calendar
Notes from Neale...
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My dear friends...
I am in the midst of a six-day spiritual renewal retreat at a castle-like setting in Dorset, England known as Gaunt's House. Today we covered Being-Doing-Having as a paradigm, as well as the Circular Process of Creation, and the Process of Ceiving. It has been an interesting and exciting day.
We're here until Monday, when we return to Hamburg for two days of rest before moving on to Venice, where we will offer a weekend retreat.
All over Europe the talk is of the global financial meltdown. And of the upcoming U.S. presidential election. And of the world's uncertain future.
Through all of this I know that people are wondering, what is it that God wants of us? How much more difficulty, tragedy, stress, and strain can the world take?
In the first week of October, 2004 Jacques Derrida, age 74, died in Paris. Many people in the world at large took note of Derrida's passing, as well they might. "No thinker in the past 100 years had a greater impact than he did on people in more fields and different disciplines," noted Mark C. Taylor, a professor of humanities at Williams College and a visiting professor of architecture and religion at Columbia, in an op-ed piece at the time in the New York Times.
"During the last decade of his life," Prof. Taylor wrote, "Derrida became preoccupied with religion, and it is in this area that his contribution might well be most significant. He understood that religion is impossible without uncertainty...and yet we live in an age when major conflicts are shared by people who claim to know, for certain, that God is on their side."
This last observation is precisely the point made in my book, What God Wants. It has struck me since the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and in the aftermath of all that has happened since, that perhaps our world might benefit from taking another look at this. People are, I observe, participating in some pretty horrible stuff, and doing so with the understanding that it is what God wants. What if they are wrong about that?
For far too long the world's discussion about religion has been moving in only one direction, led in the main by those who say that we understand all there is that's really important for us to understand about God, and who assert that humanity's problems are not caused by human beings who fail to understand, but by human beings who fail to act on their understanding.
This is a popular notion, but it's a misconception. Just the opposite has been true. It has been people who did act on what they understood about God who have caused many of our biggest problems. These are people who thought they knew what God wants. Unlike Derrida, they experienced no uncertainty, nor did they wish to.
It's people who thought they knew, without uncertainty, what God wants who created the 200 years of the Christian Crusades and the horrors of the Inquisition, seeking to win the world for Christianity.
It's people who thought they knew what God wants who told armies of Muslims to send marauders far and wide to conquer every land and culture and bring it under the Nation of Islam.
It's people who thought they knew what God wants who called themselves the Chosen People and reclaimed land they declared to be originally their own, ignoring the fact that history had caused it to be inhabited for thousands of years by others, and telling those others to now leave portions of that land, and to live when and how they are told to live, as second class citizens without equal rights in their own home.
It's people who thought they knew what God wants who hanged men and women in town squares, and burned others at the stake, holding up the Good Book and declaring them to be witches.
It's people who thought they knew what God wants who passed laws making it illegal for humans of differing races to marry, or for consenting adults to engage in certain sexual practices.
It's people who thought they knew what God wants who created cultural prohibitions forbidding people to sing or dance, draw pictures of any person, or play music of any kind except sacred songs.
It's people who thought they knew what God wants who said that it was not okay to even utter or write the name of G¬-D-but that it was okay to kill in G-D's name.
Is all of this really what God wants?
Can we be sure?
It is important to be sure, because we are not talking about small things here, in our past or in our future.
The above few paragraphs, with some tiny alteration, appear here as they appear in What God Wants. That book lays the groundwork for an extraordinary theological exploration. It places, quite deliberately, a Great Uncertainty about God into the space of life. What if God does not want what we think that God wants? What would that do to human religions?
Well, of course, it would change them-which might not be such a bad thing. In a Harris International poll a few months ago Americans were asked what they thought was the single greatest obstacle to peace in the world. Fully 69% said, "religion."
A few years ago I had the great pleasure of having a very private chat with Sir John Templeton, creator of the Templeton Prize in Religion. I asked Sir John, "What do you believe is most needed in the world today?" His answer was immediately and concise: "Humility theology."
"What is that?" I inquired.
"It is a theology which does not assume that it has all the answers," he replied.
This is very close to Derrida's observation that "religion is impossible without uncertainty."
Prof. Taylor, in his commentary on the great philosopher following Derrida's death, goes further. Said he, "Belief not tempered by doubt poses a mortal danger."
Indeed. So, let's do some good for our world today. Let's go to our churches and our synagogues and our temples and our mosques and let's throw some doubt around. Let's ask the most impertinent question of all. Let's ask of our spiritual leaders, "Are you sure that you know what God wants?" Then, let's give them some of our own answers.
Neale.
An additional article of interest for you
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Now, to love
by m. Claire
I'm certain that I'm not the only person who is urged to look for sources of light in this age we are living in – each of us, rummaging through our kitchen drawer for anything resembling a book of matches and the end of a candle, or even the dim glow from a failing flashlight. We are a struggling, searching people, up close and personal now with what many of us have known was coming. The question before us: How will we ourselves become or remain A Light in the Darkness?
But in this time of darkness there is also A Dawn: of something greater, and more meaningful than our prior idea of what life was and is about. We are brought so much closer together in our time of challenge on the planet and this can only serve us, ultimately.
Soon, money troubles and the color of our skin; the Haves and the Have-Nots will be less of an issue as we are all tossed into the same pot of our co-created reality together. And I believe that soon, life will begin to take on far more meaning than we have experienced in this last hundred or so years of a "civilized society".
September 14th, 2008 -- We find ourselves wrapped and warmed in the glow of the Findhorn community, here in Scotland. It goes without saying, that if the whole world lived in true community this way; treated the beloved planet earth this way, life would be different.
I'm looking out onto a community of earth toned and honey browned and sun-faded structures; homes, in many different shapes and sizes, all of them easily harmonizing with each other and with the surrounding landscape of fields, distant windmills, shoreline and forest. There are paths just wide enough for slow and mindfully driven cars, and ambling, mindfully moving people. Hillocks and even rooftops grow grasses and mosses and flowers; birds unfamiliar to my ears tweeter-twee-twee away to one another, some hidden, some perched at the tops of trees, visible and proud, perhaps announcing sunshine after a night of deeply nourishing rains.
There is an apple tree in the neighbor's yard with apples the red of fairytale apples, grown in kingdoms and far-off lands, held by the white hands of princesses. There are brightly painted window frames and sills, and planter boxes full of flowers, and plants in pots set out on as many surfaces as can be invented for the outside of a home – here, at Findhorn.
On our arrival yesterday were gathered from the airport by a gentle, peaceful man named John, who makes his home in the Findhorn community and as we drove, the rain came down in large droplets -- the kind that land on the crown of one's head or right beneath the eyelashes when nudged under the edge of an awning on a rainy day. Through the steamed windows of the small European car we trundled along in, I could see green pastures that stretched into swales and wide vistas with large stands of trees leafless twenty feet up, then billowing out into dark foliage. Between the rolling green there were golden fields with large, perfectly rolled rolls of hay, as if Van Gogh was going to arrive on the roadside any moment to try to capture the entire scene before night fell.
We pulled into the community of Findhorn and were passed from one set of gentle hands into another -- from peaceful John to passionate Will and sparkling Angie, our hosts. We were unpacked and placed into a soft, white and beige and gold room with fluffy robes, towels laid out on the bed and invitations to run a hot bath with bath salts and herbal bath oils to add if we'd like.
After two full days of travel to get from the West coast of the United States to the far reaches of Scotland and the Findhorn community, one could not feel more grateful for the little things in life. Which always, as it turns out, happen to be the big things.
Although we were beyond exhausted and so sleep deprived that we felt as if we'd been drinking scotch all day, we bathed, huddled into our comfy robes and came upstairs to join our hosts and their warm invitation to dine with them. Smells of pesto, olive oil and melting cheese filled the house as we climbed the stairs, surrendered as babies.
Over dinner and after some catching up over the last year's happenings, our hosts shared with us that the community had just a few days ago said goodbye to a wonderful friend who had been here almost exactly 10 years to the day when he passed on into the Next, suddenly and to the surprise of everyone. But amidst this experience of planning and scurrying to make preparations for his funeral right down to building a coffin, our hosts treated us with tender loving care, even with 101 things to be done swirling about them (they are both non-denominational ministers) and succeeded in making us feel more at home than we could most anywhere on the planet. After warm food and warm conversation, there settled a respectful kind of quiet between the four of us, as we chewed softly on the fact of Life, and of Death.
We all find out, in one way or another, at some time or another, that life is indeed very short. That we really are here today and quite possibly -- gone tomorrow. That life isn't what we thought it would be, but that it is nevertheless possibly the most precious possibility offered throughout the universe – this chance to fall in love with a few people, a few ideas, a few causes; creatures, environments, landscapes for a lifetime.
Right now I am receiving many emails that describe in great detail a story of longstanding or current suffering. Very real, to-the-bone suffering. Some people are in chronic pain, and there may not be any cure for it and they may have to live like this until their last breath. And so they ask, "What is the meaning of my life?" Some have experienced countless times, abandonment and rejection and violation of the deepest kind and wonder when it will ever stop and why it ever began, and "What is the meaning of Life?" Others are losing relationships, financial stability, health care and livelihood with nowhere to turn it seems, and if worse does come to worst they would most certainly have cause to ask: What is the meaning of this thing we call Life?
It feels like there is a tremendous amount of housecleaning afoot, each of us being cleaned out, cleared out, and our prior concepts yard-saled most every weekend. Every idea we ever had about how life was supposed to be has been stoically tossed by life, right onto the bonfire. And I think that if this is happening to you, then you are a specific part of this shift to a higher consciousness that many of us have signed up for at this time in human history. And you are exactly where you're meant to be, and you're doing a wonderful job of being unveiled and holding on loosely to what remains. And you've got a whole world of company.
From what I can gather through other teachers, and from my own sense of it, this is happening to each of us in order for the heart to open, finally and once and for all, which is the only place in our being that can possibly make sense of such calamity during the darker chapters of history. Love becomes the only sensible place to turn, because we find that the mind is not much of a refuge.
At long last, we may be asked not-so-gently by life to stop depending on our minds to tell us what is Truth with a capital "T" in order that we might let go of the last slip of hope that Life will work out okay and that we will somehow be saved from what is actually, certain death of the physical body at some point – certain ending to this particular manifestation of life posing as our reality. The mind loves to imagine that everything will be okay. Well, if okay looks like our physical body surviving, at some point that won't play in our favor. If okay looks like ongoing health and happiness for ourself and for all of our loved ones, well, don't bet on it happening, or at least staying that way.
The things of this life are ephemeral; ever-changing. They appear and they pass away. What then, if we cannot hold onto those things we cherish, is the meaning of it all?
At this point in human history, I think the candy is being taken from our hand. What pacified us once, would now only allow us to keep pretending that if we can just hold onto it, all will be well. And I believe that this is where we separate ourselves from life and any sense of connection to it. We sail into fantasyland, instead of remaining present with someone in front of us, or with life as it is appearing in the moment: sometimes treats, sometimes treatless.
I myself, wish that I could still have something – anything in this world of relativity that could give me a sense of constant peace; of stability – but I feel that my embodied understanding of the Meaning of Life has shifted into an awareness in which I can no longer take much delight in pacification through "candy" because a greater part of me now knows better. Even when the candy has appeared in my reality again and I am looking down at it, gripping it once more, the larger part of me understands that this too, shall pass away and then what... then what? What does my life mean then?
There is an entire restructuring going on. In a world that is changing faster than we can say, "Watch out for that melting icecap!" we are being challenged to look beneath our idea of what we think of as a rewarding life. Is it really lattes? Living for the annual 2-week vacation? Sometimes I picture the worst case scenarios, and think to myself, "Well, at least life would have a lot more meaning on a day-to-day basis, then."
We'd ban together, co-op and commune. Neighbors would know one another, and all of the extra space in homes and garages would be used space, by people who don't have huge homes. Instead of bills and mortgages and commuting and being tired, stressed, stretched to the point of breakdown and passing one another like ships in the night, we'd find ourselves feeling valuable and see ourselves and our true nature come shining through: serving, helping; a hand out and a hand up. Maybe rewards would look like Peace in the home and in the neighborhood, and sing-a-longs and reading aloud to each other (books!). Rewards might become shoulder rubs and common projects and laughter and folks just getting along and finding harmony even within their differences, deciding that in a world where there's so much chaos, peace shall reign here.
As I wandered up the path this morning on our final day here in Findhorn, I ducked into the sweet little coffeehouse tucked into a stand of trees. Taking in the little flowers along the stone walls and then the broad sky above, I was aware of how much more available I've become -- due to the rapid progress of our regress -- and partly tired and partly inspired, humbled daily by change, and by what I can and can't do in the face of it. I even forgave myself for not having caught on earlier. To Love. To being Present and bearing witness to whatever shows up. Because in the midst of upheaval on most scales globally, so many of us are Remembering. Maybe not in every moment, and probably not even in what adds up to half of the moments of our day, but any moment is one more cupful of awareness that we offer The Shift in consciousness. In fact, even in the worst of circumstances, with a moment where we choose peace instead of war – both internally and externally -- we are taking care of the next generations; we know that we have contributed to A Better World, one day.
So then, our individual lives aren't about permanence. And Love isn't someone telling us that we're flawless but someone telling us that we've got room for improvement and they love us anyhow. And Life is just what's happening in order for us to awaken fully.
But the meaning of our individual lives can be truly meaningful and there can be permanence in approach: We can bank on Loving. With every single thing that comes down the pike, we can choose to respond with Love. With the innocence of our true nature shining through the tears of our grief, and pain; our joy and our bliss. Whatever happens to be showing up.
It's the only thing that makes any sense at all.
Now, to do it. Now, to Be it. Now to Love.
Best of the Blogs...
Each week we present in this space the best from past entries on the worldwide CwG Blog. The blog may be accessed daily on the home page at www.beliefnet.com.
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Easier said than done
posted on Beliefnet on Tuesday October 7, 2008
Embracing Godliness is not easy. It can be, but for most people it is not. That's because most of us do not want to give up what we have to give up in order to "get Godly."
As I look at those words I realize that to many, even the idea sounds arrogant. Do we really think that we can "become as God?", or emulate the Divine? Isn't that what Lucifer is said to have tried? Wasn't he punished with everlasting damnation for his hubris in imagining that he could be equal to God? What right do we have to think that we could or should even try it?
Yet is it not the invitation implicit in many religions to "be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect"? Did I just make that up? Are we not called to become sinless? Are we not encouraged to model the saints?
Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that it is "okay" with God for us to get as close to Godliness as we can. It's okay for us to work toward that. (It may not be okay for us to actually get there, to actually become equal in Godliness to God Himself, but it is okay for us to try.)
If this is true, the mind then asks, "What does it take for us to do this?" We all want to know how to be better people. Of course, the world's religions have been telling us how from the beginning of time, so it is not a question of insufficient information. It is a question of insufficient will.
Interestingly, the New Spirituality, which is what I write about here, extends to humanity the same invitation as more traditional religions. That invitation is to answer affirmatively the following questions:
Can I be patient? Can I be kind? Can I be compassionate, caring, sensitive, forgiving, gentle, accepting? Can I be encouraging, supportive, uplifting, inspiring? Can I be truthful, genuine, authentic? Can I be open, available, accessible? Can I be non-defensive, non-attacking, non-separate from others in every way? Can I be...truly be... loving?
The major difference between the New Spirituality and Old Time Religion is that most traditional religions invite us to embrace these behaviors as a means of moving toward perfection so that we can be worthy of returning to the presence of God in heaven, whereas the New Spirituality invites us to embrace these behaviors as a means of demonstrating that we are already in the presence of God; that, in fact, God lives in us, as us, though us.
This, then, is the defining characteristic of the messages of the New Spirituality: Lack of separation from God. The defining characteristic of the teachings of most religions is: Total separation from God, both now and perhaps even forevermore, depending upon our behavior.
So in the paradigm of Old Time Religion we act a certain way to get to God, and within the New Spirituality we act a certain way to experience that we never left God; that God never separated Divinity and Humanity, and that the two are One.
Yet the question implicitly folded into both thought systems is the same: What does it take to be the things we want to be? To be patient, kind, compassionate, caring, sensitive, forgiving, gentle, accepting, encouraging, supportive, uplifting, inspiring, truthful, genuine, authentic, open, available, accessible, non-defensive, non-attacking, non-separate, and truly loving?
That is the question. And the answer is the same for both old and new spiritual traditions. It takes Will. It takes a commitment to live a particular kind of life, to be a particular kind of person. It takes determination. And courage. And clarity as to what you are doing and why you are doing it. And it takes, yes, love. First, self-love--for. being humans who have believed for so long that we are not one with God, we will not doubt fail more often than we will succeed, especially in the "early going." Then, love for others. The kind that knows no condition. The kind of love that God has for us.
And it takes a love of Life Itself. I mean, the whole process that we call Life. The ups, the downs, the in-betweens. The highs, the lows, the middle ground. It takes a willingness and an ability to see the entire life process, from birth to death, as an opportunity, not a travail, as an invitation, not a test, as a series of moments in which we can create, not a series of moments in which we can only react.
It is difficult sometimes. It can be very difficult. When life is full of pain, when life is covered with disappointment, when life is colored by hurt, when life, in short, does not seem worth living, we have to fight to re-discover a reason to go on, a reason for everything happening the way it is happening.
And the biggest challenge comes when we learn that things don't "happen for a reason;" that God is not "up there" somewhere, deciding what to throw at us or what to present to us as a gift, in an ongoing celestial "game" of Let's See What She Does With This. The real challenge is when we find out that things do not happen for a "reason" created by Someone Else, but that things do happen for a "purpose"--and that purpose is the purpose of all of Life: to create an ongoing context within which we get to announce and declare, enact and express, become and experience Who We Really Are, by deciding in each moment Who We Now Choose to Be.
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The Calendar
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A look at events at which Neale Donald Walsch will share the message of Conversations with God in the weeks ahead. You can learn more about the work of the ReCreation Foundation at these events...and on its official website, www.cwg.org, as well.
NOTE: Not all events are sponsored by the ReCreation Foundation, but because all of the events move forward the message of Conversations with God, which is the mission of the Foundation, the Foundation is pleased to inform you of them.
October 17 - 19, 2008
Venice, Italy
Workshop
Stefano - Tel: +39 338 7180315
Email: stefrusso@yahoo.it
October 24 - 26, 2008
Cabourg, Normandy, France
Workshop: Another Way of Loving
Tel: 00331 5375 3535
Email: info@recreer.net
www.grandfestival.fr
October 31 - November 2, 2008
Copenhagen, Denmark
Workshop
Email: svend.trier@get2net.dk
November 5, 2009
New York City, New York
Free evening program: Have Your
Own Conversation with God
East West Living Book Store
6:30 to 9 pm
Tel: 352-442-2244
Email: support@nealedonaldwalsch.com
November 6, 2008
Happier Than God: The One Day Experience
A spiritual renewal event
New York City
Tel: 352-442-2244
Email: support@nealedonaldwalsch.com
November 8 - 11, 2008
Phoenix, AZ
Celebrate Your Life
Contact +1-480-970-8447
www.celebrateyourlife.org
November 12, 2008
Dallas, Texas
Benefit Lecture for Free2BU program
"Peace begins at home"
Unity Church of Dallas
Tel: (214) 717-1310
Email: Angel@Free2BU.com
December 28, 2008 - January 1, 2009
Ashland, OR
Your Conversation with God
The Holiday Retreat - The 5-Day Experience
Will: +1-352-442-2244
Email: will@cwg.org
www.cwg.org/main.php?p=Retreats&sub=RSchedule
January 22 - 25, 2009
Los Angeles, CA
The Freedom Formula Experience
Contact: +1-800-930-3713
Email: Info@thefreedomfoformula.com
March 10 - 12, 2009
Ashland, OR
Deep Study CwG Intensive
Contact Will 352-442-2244
email: will@cwg.org
March 20 - 21, 2009
Denver, CO
Weekend Workshop
Mile Hi Church
Contact: +1 303-232-4079
June 19 - 22, 2009
Golden, B.C. Canada
Quantum Leap Retreat
Quantum Leaps Lodge
Email: info@quantumleaps.ca
quantumleaps.ca/neale_donald_walsch.php
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