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Saturday, July 13, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Louise Hay and Mary Magdalene
I am sending out this copy of a newsletter from James Twyman who is in France traveling the route of the feminine peacemakers. Here is a copy of his newsletter with some insights and links to interesting web sites.
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Saturday, April 6, 2013
A Call to Peace by the Dalai Lama
“Ethics for the New
Millennium”
By His Holiness the
Dali Lama
In 1949 a
16 year old monk designated as the 14th Dali Lama in Tibet was
forced to flee his country after the Chinese invasion there. The Dalai Lama and
millions of his people suffered great loss, and Tibetans are still suffering
under the harsh rule of Communist China. Despite this, the Dalai Lama has spent
his entire time in exile traveling to countries promoting the message of
non-violence and peaceful resolution preached by one of his heroes Mahatma
Gandhi. These efforts earned His Holiness world-wide acclaim and in 1989 the
Nobel Peace Prize. Using the notoriety as a platform for peace, the Dalai Lama
stated in his acceptance speech in Oslo in December of 1989, “As we enter the
final decade of this Century (20th) I am optimistic that the ancient
values that have sustained mankind are today reaffirming themselves to prepare
us for a kinder, happier twenty-first century.”
And there was reason for hope. The
fall of the Berlin Wall promised an end to the cold war and the opportunity for
the restoration of human rights in those countries living behind the Iron
Curtain for so long. But once again brutal civil wars and ethnic cleansing
reared its ugly head in the Balkan area along the Mediterranean
during the 90’s. The Chinese government continued its brutal policies against
the voices of freedom with the June 3, 1989 massacre at Tiananmen
Square and the arrests and purges that followed. As the Dalai Lama
traveled to the United Nations in support of peaceful negotiations to end this
suffering, he had the opportunity to meet with political as well as religious
leaders of the free world. As the Twentieth Century came to a close the Dali
Lama decided to write a book about what he believed would be the hope for
mankind to come together and create the peaceful world he believed all sentient
beings from all nations and all religious faiths desired. “Ethics for a new
Millennium” was the result.
In this ground breaking book that
spent over three months on the New York Times Bestseller List, the Dalai Lama
makes a call for a global spiritual revolution. Although His Holiness states
that he is of the Buddhist religion, his book is “not a religious book.” He is
a firm believer in religious pluralism. What he means by “spiritual” is finding
that connection inside of us that transcends the physical part of us (the five
senses) that is selfish and materialistically motivated to find compassionate
concern for all sentient beings as the motivation for our actions. In the past,
people connected with this part of themselves through their religious faith,
thereby finding a moral path within the context of their overall pursuit of
salvation.
According to the Dalai Lama, the
growth of science has led to the decline of religion worldwide and with it, the
moral path. He believes there is a global need for people of all religious and
non-religious beliefs to find a path of ethical conduct that will result in
brother and sisterhood and love and compassion as the basis for determining
what constitutes positive and negative behavior or what is “right and wrong.”
Therefore, he believes there is a need for individuals to find a way to
“reorient our thoughts and emotions and reorder our behavior, not only so we
can learn to cope with suffering more easily, but so that we can prevent a deal
of it from happening in the first place.” The answer, he believes is what he
calls “spiritual ethics.”
In Part I of “Ethics for a New
Millennium” the Dalai Lama lays the foundation (or justification) for spiritual
ethics. Part II describes the relationship between spiritual ethics and
individual behavior as well as defines the most important ethics. In Part III
he describes how individual practice of spiritual ethics fits into the overall
global picture of ending war and human suffering and creating peace.
After the events of September 11,
2001, the hope that the Dalai Lama predicted in 1999 seems to have faded as the
threat of war in Europe has declined only to be replaced by soaring wars and
tensions in the Middle East and Asia. I
believe there is a need for another call for a spiritual revolution and a
revival of the reading and practice of the principles laid down in the book.
That is why I am offering an opportunity to read and begin serious practice of
the principles of spiritual ethics in an eight week class that will begin April
30, 2013. The cost of the class is $50 per person and will be limited to 10
people. For more information or registration, you may pick up flyers at the
James Twyman Concert on Friday, April 12 at the Florence Playhouse (Florence, Oregon)
or email me at duffey.brenda@gmail.com.
As Gandhi said in his simple, matter of fact way: “Be the change you want to
see in the world.” Peace begins with me.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Time for Restoring Individual Rights
'Proposed 28th
Amendment' to the U.S.
Constitution: 'Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States
that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives. . .'
The debate over gun control and the Second Amendment goes on and on with no
solution
or compromise in sight. Each side has its arguments – those opposed to
gun control hold up the glorious Founding Fathers who put this Amendment into
the Constitution so that citizens could protect their families and homes
from threats not only from wild animals or criminals but also threats this new military might present. Therefore, any attempt to deny them that right is unconstitutional. Those in favor of gun control say
that assault weapons in the hands of the wrong people need to be controlled for
the safety of the general public. I think this is the gist of the two opposing
arguments. I think both sides have lost the actual historical perspective that
was the reason for the protection of the Second Amendment which was part of the
original Bill of Rights that had to be added to the Constitution before the
public would ratify the document.
Each of the first ten
amendments was considered important to protect the citizens of the country
against a central government that would use the power given to it to usurp the
rights of the citizens the way the kings of England had done. One of the powers
that this new Constitution proposed for the central government was the right to
establish a military. The Founding Fathers realized that giving that power to a
central government without their equal power to protect themselves from the
government’s abuse of that power was not something they were willing to risk.
Therefore, before they ratified this new government and gave it the power to
establish a “standing militia,” they wanted to know that they had the right to
keep their own weapons to protect themselves against that militia should the
need arise. This was the purpose for that amendment. In 1787 the guns that
citizens had were just as powerful as those that the new standing army established
by the Constitution had, so the citizens felt this right to “keep and bear arms”
was enough protection. This is not 1787, however.
In understanding the
history behind this Amendment, then, if we fast forward to the 21st Century,
Americans have the right to “keep and bear arms” in equal proportion to what
the giant military industrial complex has attained. Therefore, Americans can
devise nuclear weapons and have tanks, and heavy duty assault weapons of every kind
should they feel the need to protect themselves from this power. This is
well within the intent of the Second Amendment as written in 1787. If this sounds preposterous, and indeed it
should, perhaps Americans need to look at some revision of the second Amendment
that fits with the 21st Century and our protection against a
government that, in my opinion, has gone too far in the creation of bigger and
better weapons.
What if the government decided to turn its
drones used in the Middle East against
populations in targeted areas of pockets of danger in this country? What good
would shotguns and even assault weapons do? What is happening in Syria could
very well happen in this country. I believe Americans do need the protection of
the second Amendment because I think history has shown how far out of control
the American government is in terms of a military and usurping power at every level, but I think the Amendment needs overhauling.
I
think people, in lieu of the second Amendment, should demand that the President
and Congress begin immediately to demilitarize this country and establish a
Department of Peace to review the intent of the second Amendment and how to
alter it in the best interests of every citizen in this country – not the
special interest groups and huge corporate cartels that control Congress. I
also believe there is merit to the proposed 28th Amendment listed in the
heading at the start of this article. It is time Congress stopped making laws
that continue to erode our personal freedoms and only give them more power and
control and start thinking about laws that apply to all citizens equally
thereby beginning to break up this massive, powerful oligarchy that continues
to keep citizens paralyzed under the guise of “protecting us and our freedoms.”
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
A Lesson from the Amish
The recent tragedy in Connecticut
is not the first school shooting in the United States. A chronology of the
last 20+ years of shootings reveals a list of about 20 in which a gunman gets
onto school grounds and begins shooting until he is either subdued or turns the
weapon on himself. This shooting is unique because of the numbers killed plus
the age of most of the victims. Now the media is busy focusing on the tragedy
and beginning again to put together a “profile” of the killer in order to keep
weapons from such people. There is also the renewal of the never ending debate
on gun control.
Leaders are busy
trying to find a way to make individual citizens feel safe when they leave the
security of their homes to go about their daily lives. I do not wish to
belittle the tragedy that has occurred for 26 families in Connecticut, but I believe we are expecting
too much of our leaders, especially the federal government. This type of
tragedy is a signal of the breakdown of communities and it behooves the
individuals in all communities across this nation to start looking at what is
happening in their community and take responsibility for fixing it – not
expecting some entity from Washington,
D.C. to come in and help solve
the problem for them. Perhaps we can learn how to do this by looking at a
community that suffered the same kind of loss on October 2, 2006.
On that day a well known member of the Amish community named
Charles Carl Roberts IV aged 32 walked into the one-room school house and took
the entire student body hostage before killing five girls and then shooting
himself. First responders did, indeed, come to the scene until the crisis
ended, but, afterward, the Amish did not reach to federal officials or other
agencies for help to survive this tragedy and move forward. There was no cry
for better gun control; in fact, the Amish do not own guns. What did the Amish
do?
One of the basic tenants of the Amish faith (Amish Grace-
How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy by Donald B. Kraybill et al) is that
believers cannot be forgiven their earthly transgressions and enter into heaven
if they cannot forgive their transgressors on Earth. Therefore, the Amish set
about forgiving Mr. Roberts. Everyone in the community knew Mr. Roberts.
Families affected by his actions took food to his family and offered comfort to
them in their time of grief. The nation was astounded by this act as they read
about these events. The community came together, offered solace and forgiveness
to all involved and recovered without any government intervention.
What lesson can we learn from this even if we are not
followers of the Amish faith? The first lesson is that the best way to prevent
guns from getting into the wrong hands is for each adult individual in the
community to take the responsibility to know his or her neighbors. If there is
need or suffering there, take action. Inform responsible agencies in the
community about this. Take compassionate action ahead of time. Look people in
the eye when going about daily activities. Teach the adolescents in the
community to get involved with community service and do peer monitoring before
a tragedy occurs. Prevention is much preferred to intervention and the
prevention begins at home.
Parents need to know their children and other parents need
to support all parents in their efforts to monitor and control adolescents. But
the most important lesson of all is love and forgiveness. Until society can
learn to forgive those who transgress with compassion instead of making them
into media “heroes,” this type of activity will continue.
A study of our nation’s history provides hundreds of names
that have been glorified in the past and present by the media and Hollywood. Billy the Kid,
Bat Masterson, Doc Holiday, Jesse and Frank James, Bugs Moran, and Bonnie and Clyde are only a few who come to mind. What were the
names of their victims? Gun violence is not new. War is the ultimate result of
belief that violence will end violence. The anger and resentment toward the “enemy”
continues, however, long after the guns have been “laid down” and festers and
simmers until another outbreak begins. Many times those who are fighting have
lost any idea about the reason for the war.
During the Peace Convention of 1915, one of the most
stirring speeches against World War I came from Frau Hofrath von Lecher of Austria. She
had been an upper-class housewife who became a nurse in a hospital for the
wounded. Although charged with the care of hundreds of severely wounded
soldiers, she had no supplies to tend to them – not even any food. She asked
the soldiers, “What are you fighting for?”
They replied, “We do not know – we were told to fight.” When
they found that she was to attend the Peace Convention, they begged her to
implore the nations of the earth to make peace in the names of their wives and
children.
We are at a point in our nation where we have lost any idea
of who the enemy is because we have forgotten why man began to live in
communities in the first place. It was to rise above the “every man for himself”
Law of the Jungle attitude. The Amish have not forgotten this and their
community moved forward and transcended the tragedy that beset them that
October day. Hopefully, we as a nation of communities can learn this lesson and
move beyond the most recent tragedy in compassionate love and forgiveness. We
call ourselves a Christian nation. Perhaps we should remember the words of
Jesus as he suffered death by crucifixion, “Father forgive them for they know
not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Hills of Home
I wrote this poem in 2005 when I first felt the call to move back to my Kentucky roots. I have pulled it out once more to share in the hope that within the next year I will be back in the region where my ancestors lived and are buried and where I feel truly "at home and at peace."
In the summers of her
youthful past,
She walked barefoot through
the long bladed grass
That grew along the honey suckled hills of
Her Old Kentucky Home.
And the perfumed air that
filled her lungs
Brought a spark of life into
her infant soul
Nourished by the wild
berries she watched ripen and grow
Into cobblers and homemade
ice cream
For summers’ eves with
lightening bugs aglow.
But the robin in spring and
red bird in winter,
Chirped a call heard deep
within her,
To trade her Sunday shoes
that walked the straight and narrow path
For sparkling, glass
slippers that yearned to roam
In search of love and
adventure far from her Old Kentucky Home.
And romance blossomed among
the garden paths of Versailles
And the Left Bank of Paris.
But the slippers faded into
shimmering moonlight on the Seine,
So she found garden clogs to
work the terrain
To build love and
contentment with a home of her own
Amid the honey suckled vines
of her Old Kentucky Home.
But the robin in spring and
red bird in winter
Chirped a call heard deep
within her,
To follow her love to
Eldorado and the Seven
Cities of Gold
Promised in stories and
myths of old.
When that love withered and
died in the desert heat,
She donned hiking boots to
retreat
With her new love to the
lush, green woodlands aside ocean dunes
Amid quiet streams filled with salmon and the
call of the loon.
Left alone in Eden by death’s early
knell,
She felt her paradise
turning to hell.
But she found solace for her
soul biking the salty sea shore
And donned dancing shoes for
music and loved once more.
But the strong winds in
summer and heavy rains in winter,
Drowned love once more and
sent her
Back to the rooted vines
that climbed high on the hills
Of her Old Kentucky Home.
Now, in the autumn of her
years she roams barefoot once more,
To the song of the robin in
spring and red bird in winter
That chirp the secret of
unconditional love rooted deep within her
And spreading wide across
the hills of her Old Kentucky Home.
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