What I Want for You

I want you to be happy, to have a genuine sense of peace, contentment, and fulfillment.

I want you to be completely healthy, to feel vibrant and alive and whole.

I want you to have the strength you need to face and overcome all your challenges, to be refined by fire and emerge on the other side completely pure.

I want you to feel loved and appreciated, to have warm and loving relationships with family and friends.

I want you to be prosperous, to have a powerful feeling of being on purpose … to feel that you are making many positive contributions with your unique gifts.

I want you to know God, to feel God’s presence in your heart, to feel that God is leading you moment by moment.

I want you to be an instrument through whom God works to bless everyone you encounter.

I want to spend eternity with you, in the everlasting love and light of God.

And even if you don’t believe there is a God, if you reject the notion of an afterlife, if you would not have me for a friend … I hope that I will always be kind toward you, and that you will accept from me just one gesture of kindness.

Keep It Positive!

I spent a lot of time in my 30s absorbing the teachings of the personal growth movement, going against the grain of Evangelical Christianity to listen to people like Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Ram Dass, Anthony Roberts, and many others. Other positive thinkers were considered safe and not a threat to your spiritual life, people like Zig Ziglar, Denis Waitley, Robert Schuller, Brian Tracy and the like.

But I never felt threatened by anything I heard … and I would not necessarily agree with everything that someone taught. I rather enjoyed hearing many different kinds of ideas.

Here is an example of an idea that might get you to thinking, I am not certain but I think I first heard this on a Deepak Chopra tape:

Every cell in the body dies and is regenerated approximately every 4 years, so the body you have now is not the same body of cells that you had, say, five years ago. So, if every cell in your brain has died and been regenerated, then mind is not something that is physical … it is meta-physical (i.e. beyond the physical body). And with my apologies to Deepak should he not be the one who taught this, or should I not remember correctly the key point of this concept … if mind is meta-physical and dwells in the realm of limitless possibilities (read, God), then there is no limit to what you can do if you just set your mind to it. Pretty cool idea, and even if you disagree with it, this idea will get you to thinking.

Back in the days when I was in my 30s, I had the good fortune of having a 45-minute drive to work, mostly on the highway. My place of employment had a huge library of cassette tapes for use by the Sales Team, most of them on “positive mental attitude” and effective selling techniques. Though I was not in Sales, I persuaded the company librarian to let me borrow any tape series … and I would listen to them all the way to work, and all the way home. I listened to virtually every series they had over several months, and it was a fantastic time of learning for me.

I still do the same thing today, although the CD – I have since graduated from cassette tapes – that is in my player now is the Rosetta Stone audio companion to the Spanish (Latin America) language learning program I am taking.

I’m not sure how I got on this path, but growing up there were some very negative people in my life. And negative people can sap the life out of you, if you let them. Something inside me, probably the voice of God, taught me that I don’t have to believe or embrace the negativity of any other person. The hard part is rejecting their negativity, but doing it in a loving manner. Peaceful interpersonal relations are not always possible, however, because there are many negative people who are so intent on living in negativity (or so practiced at it), that when they realize that you won’t wallow in the muck with them, they feel rejected and lash out. Sometimes it can be a delicate balancing act, empathizing with someone in their disillusionment, negativity, or depression, while at the same time staying positive and offering encouragement and instilling hope.

Call me Pollyanna, but I just don’t want to dwell on the negative, I don’t want to be around negative people, and I don’t want to even hear negative things. Sometimes people feel that they are being helpful by sharing negative information, such as medical research that states if you have these symptoms or these readings or this physical manifestation, then you are 60% more likely to … have a stroke, be debilitated, or die. Don’t even share that shit with me, if you want to read and let seep into your mind negative thoughts … than keep it to yourself. I want to hear things like:

  • “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.” Helen Keller
  • “Don’t be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin.” Grace Hansen
  • “Trust your hopes not your fears.” David Mahoney
  • “Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.” James M. Barrie
  • “There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.” Wayne Dyer
  • “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Jesus of Nazareth
  • “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi

Remember, People, Keep it Positive!

Krishna

Saturday night I went to the Himalayan Fest at the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah.

I’ve never actually been around devotees such as these, so I was not sure what to expect. I remember being at The Ohio State University back in the early 80’s and seeing some devotees in orange robes, and as I recall they did not say much but were known to chant mantras. In any case, I was kind of anticipating a quiet, austere atmosphere.

To my surprise I discovered kids running around in the temple, climbing on the seats, poking each other and giggling as kids do.

There were many like me not acting particularly worshipful as we snapped pictures of the deities, furnishings, and what not.

Downstairs I found Fest-goers on their iPods and cell phones, talking and texting and so forth.

In the gift store there were well-meaning but not well trained cashiers who were trying to find prices and run the register, and impatient shoppers waiting to check out.

On the outdoor stage, one of the featured dancers had just completed a beautiful and sacred religious dance, and while she waited side-stage for the announcer to describe her next dance, she was chastising her daughter for coming up to the stage and distracting her.

The temple was in need of a good paint job.

There were plenty of llamas on site too, and I expect that they did not always poop in the right spots.

So perhaps I went there looking for a bunch of holy people living on holy grounds, and what I found were a bunch of normal people in a unique, but very normal place.

Thank God.

I found a bunch of normal people just like us, albeit from a different background with different experiences and different traditions.

Normal people living normal lives, yet on an extraordinary journey seeking to dwell in The Love and Light at The Center.

Just like us.

At the Ballet with God

My lovely wife left travelled yesterday to visit a loved one who is faced with a medical condition unforeseen just a few days ago. I’m glad she could make the trip home.

We had purchased tickets several weeks ago for tonight’s ballet, and we could not return them for a refund. I really wanted to go, but I did not know who to ask, so tonight as the time for the ballet approached I just kind of gave it up to God and asked for guidance.

I was open to anything … give both tickets away, sell one ticket, sell both tickets, give one ticket away, whatever. I left about an hour early and listened in my spirit for any prompting from God … driving slowly down the street looking for just the right two people … walking on the sidewalk near the theater looking for a kindly older lady who might enjoy a good show … finally, standing outside the theater ticket office asking anyone who approached if they might need a ticket.

I did feel a bit awkward about asking just any individual, after all they would be sitting beside me. That’s why I was kind looking for an older lady, perhaps a widow on a fixed income, I wanted to be able to bless someone like that. Besides, I was very close to both my Grandmothers up until the time they passed away, and I seem to enjoy very good relationships with the elderly.

In the end, I carried the extra ticket in with me and sat beside an empty seat.

I felt a little irresponsible for wasting the ticket, I thought to myself that I should have started sooner to find a solution. But I always try to turn lemons into lemonade, and so as I sat there waiting for the show to begin I contemplated how to put a positive spin on the situation. The elderly lady on the other side of the seat would have more elbow room. The short lady sitting behind the seat would enjoy a totally unobstructed view. And, I imagined that I was at the ballet with God … that this was God’s will for us this evening.

Wow, am I ever glad that God allowed me to see the show – those ballerinas and ballerinos were amazing! Graceful, strong, incredible athletes … spinning, twisting, and dancing … sinewy marvels of choreography.

If I tried to raise my leg once only 30% as high as they raise theirs seemingly every other step, I would be in physical therapy for months.

And the toe walking – ouch!

What made it even more fun for me is that it was the Innovations performance, an exercise in contemporary ballet forms. How would you like a little rock or funk with your pirouette?

Drug Dealing

I arrived in San Francisco last Tuesday night, and took the BART subway train to the stop nearest my hotel (which was about 4 blocks away).

I exited the escalator at street level carrying 2 bags, and surely looked confused as I looked for street signs that would help me determine my location.

I was a sitting target.

No sooner had I stepped off the escalator when a kind, homeless, person approached me to offer assistance … with the expectation that I would pay him for the consultation. I tried to resist by telling him that I knew where I was going, and that I would find my way.

While looking down the street I had intended to follow, he said, “Don’t go down that way, there is drug dealing going on down there.” To which I responded, “Oh, I ain’t worried about any drug dealing on the street, I think that’s the way I want to go.”

At that point he got insistent and a bit aggressive, saying “Listen, I am the best dressed homeless person in San Francisco … you should go a different way.”

Well, I did not want to argue with him … and I appreciated the fact that he was not just looking for a handout, that he actually provided directions for an expected tip … so I pulled out a dollar and said, “Okay, what way do you want me to go?” It was nearing dusk as I headed in the direction he suggested.

Today I am returning home, and when I left the hotel for the walk back to the BART station I decided to walk through the neighborhood that my homeless consultant tried to steer me away from. I assumed that he had mentioned drug dealing to ingratiate himself for the purpose of earning a tip, I reasoned that it was merely an effective sales technique. And I knew that there was nothing to fear when I got a half block away from the hotel and passed a young couple pushing a baby carriage.

Then I turned left on Eddy Street.

Suddenly the crowd looked different. Not only were there a number of homeless people gathered in the area, several other individuals were standing on the sidewalk not looking drunk or disheveled. As I walked toward those standing on the sidewalk, no one moved to get out of my way. They gave me a long stare, but one unlike the type of stare that a homeless person gives you.

Honestly, I felt a little fearful at that moment.

Instead of walking into the street to bypass the unmovable crowd, I decided to squeeze through a small opening. I was pulling one suitcase behind me, and I had one large bag slung over my shoulder. As I made my squeeze, the bag on my shoulder smacked a tall dude right in the back.

Whoops!

Fortunately, that was not the end of me. I apologized, and continued on my way.

As I spied several homeless people scattered in front of me, I thought, “What will I do if they all ask me for money at once?” I actually carry a pocketful of change in the city so that I always have something to give, but I did not want to create a scene and gather a crowd around me. So I did what most people in the city do, I stared straight ahead and quickened my pace.

I realize that there are a lot of con artists on the street, but homeless people are just like home-full people in that they need to feel trusted and appreciated.