Posts from — November 2008

Back in September the Anglican church issued an apology to Charles Darwin for impugning his character, denying his God-given ability to think, and branding him a heretic.

The apology made my heart soar since modern medical science is based upon Darwin’s “theory.”

The truth is, if you benefit from modern medicine, then you are conceding by default that Darwin has blessed you since he opened the door to new understanding.

Yet the Church of England went even further beyond issuing an apology. It put a section on its website that is devoted to familiarizing Christians with the nature and value of Darwin’s work.

As the Reverend Dr. Malcolm Brown writes: “There is no reason to doubt that Christ still draws people towards truth through the work of scientists as well as others, and many scientists are motivated in their work by a perception of the deep beauty of the created world.”

He further writes: “For the sake of human integrity – and thus for the sake of good Christian living – some rapprochement between Darwin and Christian faith is essential.”

This is fantastic news and a great start to healing the unholy rift. Because, bottom line, it’s time for people of all religions to stop impugning those who do not share their faith. To do so is to continue an ignorant and  barbaric history which has included the Crusades.

Les Croisades by Claude Lebedel - 13th c.

Sadly, this brilliant and brave apology was exploited in an ugly manner by at least one person who used the opportunity to issue his own sarcastic press release. Naturally, it revealed far more about him that is unsavory than it did about his chosen enemy.

I’m sure that those who rip scientists and thinkers apart (allegedly in the name of Christ) do not even realize that they are in the same league with Muslim extremists who behead those they believe are offensive to Islam. Yet they are. It’s just a matter of degree.

The world has seen too many people scorned, flogged, imprisoned and put to death for daring to have a different idea about God and life. Victims have even included devout believers like the statesman Thomas More.

Yet the great irony in More’s case is that he, himself, had ordered a number of “heretics” burned at the stake while he was in favor with King Henry VIII.

Whether beheaded, gutted alive, or burned at the stake, too many have been gruesomely punished for exercising our God-given right of free will. Yet these tortures had nothing to do with Christ who asked us to love and bless those who would despise us. These atrocities were all politically motivated and perpetrated to gain worldly power.

The joke is on the barbarians, however, since Jesus clearly said that whatever you do to others, you do to Him.  So to insult, abuse or kill another is to insult, abuse, or kill God.

When we embrace this ”snake” of condemning others, we must be aware that it will always turn around and bite us as well.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will start soon (that link is for streaming video should you want to watch it on-line). After I post this I’m going to sit down with a cup of coffee and watch it not only for itself, but in memory of my dad.

I don’t remember how old I was when he first started waking me up to see the parade. I would have to do some research to see when it was first broadcast. I think he brough home our first black and white television around 1954. 

Yet the clearest memory I have of my dad waking me up to watch the parade was in 1961. We had a color television by then. We sat on the couch together and I got to snuggle next to him, which was rare because he worked the night shift and we seldom watched television together. 

Like so many men of his age who had been through WWII, my dad wasn’t a demonstrative man. Yet when we watched the parade, he’d put his arm around my shoulders and it was the best feeling in the world. I felt so safe and at peace.  So this post is for my dad, and for every dad who wakes his kid up and makes sure he or she doesn’t miss the parade.

Thanksgiving: A Harvest Festival

In all the focus on getting dinner on the table, we may forget that it is a day for more than cursory “grace” at the table. We may forget that Thanksgiving is a day to meditate on all we have received throughout our lives. We may forget to give profound thanks for our survival.

Yet, as a harvest festival, Thanksgiving is not just about having a good meal. Although eating is both necessary and pleasurable, this holiday we have named Thanksgiving is more about awareness, gratitude and celebration.  

The earth has nourished us with her bounty and God has guided us to a place and a time in which food is so plentiful. We are so blessed in so many ways. Our worst day in North America is better than the best day in dozens of Third World countries in which good and decent people are not surviving, but are subject to brutality and starvation.

This is a day in which to thank God for the blessings we have received while living on this earth, and to thank the earth herself for nourishing us with her bounty. It is a time to utter a prayer for thanks for our farmers and to the very plants for growing.

Let us take nothing for granted. Everything that supports us is a gift. Bless it all and connect with God and the gratitude in your heart.

A Thanksgiving Day Prayer

Dear God,

Thank You that we are here,
able to partake in this wonderful day.

Thank You for our community
and our beloved friends.

Bless the many wonderful people in the world
who are striving to be their best.

Thank You for our nation
which provides us with opportunities.

Thank You for this beautiful planet
and bless her mightily,
For she is a gem
and we are one with her.

Thank you for the harvest you have given us
And the sumptuous food you provide.

Thank You for our health,
and the amazing wonders
of modern medicine.

We know not everyone has access to these gifts.

Thank You for hot and cold running water
and safe drinking water.

So many people in the world
do without these blessings
that we too often take for granted.

Thank you for our home,
its comforts, warmth and luxuries.

Thank You for family, our spouses, our children
and everyone we love.

Thank You for our work
which provides abundantly for our needs.

Thank You for all that we are,
all that we have,
and all we can give.

Thank You for awareness
of who we are
and what we are here to do.

Bless those who are without family,
who are suffering or in pain.

Make us vehicles of Your Grace
and show us where we are needed.

Make us better, more giving
and more loving people tomorrow
than we were yesterday.

Guide us in doing every small thing with love.

You are the Beginning and End,
the Alpha and Omega of our beings.

Every cell in our bodies
leaps in joy for you
and in the pleasure
of this wonderful day.

Thank You.
Amen.

Happy Thanksgiving ~

Pigeon House in U.K.

59 species of pigeons and doves are currently threatened with extinction, mainly due to human activity.

As a species, we have become alienated from nature even though we remain a part of it. Look at our history and there’s no doubt that we insist on dominating every creature on earth. Perhaps that is why there is an “anti-pigeon” movement throughout the U.S.

Hostility against this bird – so closely related to the dove of peace - has been growing. Fears are nurtured by pest control companies with an obvious goal in mind: profitable contracts.

Despised to the point of being poisoned with Avitrol, the same birds that were our allies in carrying messages to troops during WWII are treated by many as our vilest enemies.

Those who feed pigeons are increasingly harassed with new laws forbidding them from doing so and, sometimes, more extreme measures as described in the essay, Pigeon Wars, from which the following is an excerpt:

Citizens began ratting out feeders, sending Haag-Wackernagel names and the locations where they were regularly found. People began accosting feeders on the street, shaming them.

“Although we certainly did not condone extreme action,” he writes, “in one case a pigeon feeder was even physically attacked.”

One elderly man, perhaps finding no safe place left to feed pigeons outside, began luring them in through his apartment window. He was evicted.

[Read more →]

Are you afraid of the current economic crisis? If so, it’s no wonder considering that we’re being bombarded with bad news. Yet we know that whatever we focus on increases. So we are well-advised to overcome not only fear of the economic crisis, but all other fears.

Yet fearlessness is not something that can be gained through snapping our fingers. Fearlessness requires adopting certain ideas and reinforcing them.  So if you are feeling fears of any kind that are making you miserable or threatening to overwhelm you, then you must devise a strategy so you can, at least, manage those fears.

Here are 12 sure-fire ways in which you can help yourself feel better. [Read more →]

Baby In Forward-Facing Buggy

It’s easy to criticize new ideas. It’s even easy to dismiss an idea that, if true, could help us empower our children through one simple change, such as buying a different baby stroller.

For instance, this morning I came across an article about a researcher in Scotland who  has conducted a study that  has yielded preliminary evidence that forward-facing strollers can slow babies’ development.

Developmental psychologist Suzanne Zeedyk is quoted as saying, ”Our data suggests that for many babies today, life in a buggy is emotionally impoverished and possibly stressful.  Stressed babies grow into anxious adults.”

Study Part Of ”Talk To Your Baby” Campaign

Her study, done in collaboration with the National Literacy Trust charity as part of its Talk To Your Baby campaign, suggested that children who are pushed in forward-facing baby carriages (as opposed to children who are pushed in prams, pushed in backwards-facing baby carriages or carried) may be less likely to talk, laugh and interact with others.

Yet this isolation and lack of interaction occurs exactly at the point in a baby’s life when the baby needs this interaction for infant brain development.  [Read more →]

God creating the sun.

As I wrote in my last post, God is all: the electron, the atom, every element, the sea, the sky, the earth, the solar system and universes encompassing universes, to include all creative and the destructive forces that exist throughout.

And while the events of my life have amply demonstrated to me that God is a healer, the nature of existence is one of break down and build up.

Things are created, then destroyed, and other things created out of the raw materials. This appears to be true of all matter, whether it involves a compost pile recycling vegetable matter or the recycling of stars.

To think of God as everything all at once, and as both creator and destroyer, is mind-boggling. It has been difficult to reconcile the loving nature of God with the destruction we see, for instance, in natural disasters and the violent turbulence of the universe, to include the death of stars.

It has also been difficult to reconcile that, since God made us in His “image and likeness,” that everything we are is of God and there is nothing we are that God is not.

Despite the fact that people in centuries past thought that the complexities and depth of God could never be grasped by the human mind, perhaps this film on the tenth dimension may provide some illumination. The explorations of science may wind up giving us non-scientists a few valuable hints about the vast nature of God and how seeming contradictions all fit together into one cosmic whole.

Artist Depiction of God

Scripture in all traditions says that God cannot be grasped by the human mind. It is almost cliche to say that God cannot be defined in human terms, has no limits, has never been born, will never die, encompasses everything and, because of these qualities, is unknowable.

So what or who is God? And how do we relate to God? [Read more →]

What is the spiritual universe? And is it different from what we call “the universe?”

The universe, as we speak about it, is something that we associate with planets, stars and suns. Truthfully, most of us do not grasp its vastness, depth or layers upon layers.

Yet as astounding as its physical construction is, when I write about “The Universe,” I am not just talking about seen aspects. I am talking about the entirety of all things. I am talking God.

God is the spiritual universe that encompasses and is our physical universe, for God is everywhere and in everything all at once.

So the question that determines the quality of your life is this: Is that universe friendly toward you? [Read more →]

Globe & Mail November 5, 2008: Obama overcomes

Are you like me? Do you feel that Christmas has arrived early this year? Yet this is not a commercial Christmas that I’m writing about.

This feeling I have that Christmas has arrived early has nothing to do with tinsel and toys or holiday displays.

I’m talking about the sense that the spirit which awakens our feelings of connection, awe and gratitude each holiday season – feelings which are so hoped for in our preparations for Christmas – is close to us now, along with the elevated feelings it brings.

I’m suggesting that, just in time for us to give profound thanks during our Thanksgiving meals, this spirit which allows us to feel love, hope and belief in our own inherent goodness, has swept the nation.

It has swept the nation because we have invited it in. We have chosen a different path. And we are about to begin an uncharted journey paved with higher ideals.

I wept when it was clear that we, as a people, had elected Barack Obama our president - and not by a hair’s breath, but by a clear majority. [Read more →]

NY Times front page November 5, 2008: Obama elected President

Some discussion now, post election, concerns how  Barack Obama is perceived as “all things” to all people. [Read more →]