Before you continue I'd appreciate you clicking on the Pale Blue Dot above.
I watch TV with the rest of the nation and try to decipher the media's hype and media's desensitization of other's values and morals.
I watch a small Naval Fleet leave Habour heading for a War with a landlocked nation.
I watch as slowly the economy slows and gas prices drop due to the lack of planes in the skies over land.
I watch people at work with tear-filled eyes, describe what they have witnessed on CNN the past evening.
I watch as people second guess their insecure feelings of everyday life, and claim the terrorists won.
I watch church pews fill and the longing for comfort in eyes that have seen media desensitize and hype other's values and morals.
I watch Airlines crash in a economic collision of fate.
I watch the reflection in the mirror to see what has changed since that day.
I watch the contradiction that is Life.
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:
There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death
1 would be near birth
1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.
The following is also something to ponder...
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada.
If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over
two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
What goes around comes around.
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.
An interesting perspective to keep in mind as we move forward.
For this entry I thought I'd try something different.
With each monthly group meeting I attend, I recieve a copy of the guided mediation that C. does.
This is the one for March! Any feedback or ideas would be appreiciated. (The word DESIRE in the mediation is not meant of the "Material World.")
"Some of us were raised with dreadful ideas of a judging, authoritative God. Some have had a troubling history of parental, educational or clerical discipline where our wills were ignored, our desires negated, and submission presented as God's will. As a result we often distrust our own true longings -- longings that are a response to God's presence with us.
Listen to the words of Jesus,"ASK AND YOU SHALL RECIEVE!"
When was the last time you asked yourself what you really want?
How long did you allow yourself to entertain that longing?
What inner or outer voices suggested that whatever it was, you ought not to be so foolish as to think it could be satisfied?
At some point did you judge yourself willful and selfish?
Again listen to the words of Jesus, "ANYTHING YOU ASK FROM THE FATHER HE WILL GRANT IT IN MY NAME."
1. What is your deepest desire right now as you can name it for yourself?
Take time for your desire, your wish to emerge and to take form. See if you can dress it in words.
2. Have you ever expressed your desire to God before? What happened?
If you did not ask God for what you want in your heart of hearts, why didn't you?
Talk to God about it.
Finding our true desire sometimes leads to the discovery that we could have what we wish but may not want it yet becasue of what it would cost....
1. Do you think that is happening to you?
2. Is there some steps you can take to accept the gift you asked for and now want to refuse?
For later when you have time to be with God longer.
-In your experience how do you pray for what you want?
-What internal or external voices so you have to quiet in order to discover your authentic desire?
-How have you sorted out your desires and been sorted out by them?
-What happens when you permit and encourage yourself to express your feeling to God until you get to the bottom of it?
"If anyone is seeking God, the Beloved is seeking that person much more." - St John of the Cross
