The Lost Art of Thinking

We all think. Right? Wrong. Few of us really think. Thinking is a lost Art.

The Art of Thinking requires the ability to permit the mind to come fully into focus on something, to search for the essence of that something. It could be a thought, a feeling, an experience, or an object. By contemplating that thought, feeling, experience, or object profoundly, the secrets of the universe open up to us.

Yet here is the Zen of Thinking. Before we can fill our mind with the contemplated "thing", we need to completely empty our mind. That is extremely difficult! The practice of Yoga and Meditation has honed the science of emptying the mind to an art. The benefit of emptying the mind is that we also release ourselves from the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and experiences that actually block our ability to think. The Zen is that the beginning of the Art of Thinking is no thinking!

Once we have emptied our mind, then we are ready to fully contemplate. Paulo Coelho wrote: "All you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation." That quote is famous for a reason. Because it is true. When we fully contemplate even a grain of sand, we peer into the way the universe is created. We contemplate the interconnectedness of creation. We ponder the beyond creation, the spiritual reality. We loft our mind into the divine. Now that is Thinking! Fully contemplating any creation of God liberates our mind and spirit.

Shakespeare portrayed Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull. A human skull more readily has a thought provoking power than a grain of sand, especially if the skull belonged to someone we knew. We naturally drift into a contemplation of the impermanence of life on earth and reflections on the life after death. Indeed, I think that it would be true to say that the beginning of wisdom comes from the contemplation of death. We quickly come to the thought, is this all there is or is there more after death? We begin to ponder the spiritual.

You see, it is when we ponder the spiritual that our thinking is put to the real test. Can we contemplate from what we see to what we can't see? That is where the power of the mind and the Art of Thinking rises to its fully glory. Only with the mind can we fully comprehend the spiritual reality. Anyone who denies eternal spiritual reality will be a cynical Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull. The person who embraces the spiritual reality with their mind finds liberation from cynicism.

The power of the mind, the Art of Thinking, becomes energized with the realm of feeling. There can be no profound thought without feeling. Reality is feeling and the essence of a thing contemplated can only be grasped through feeling. That is why art, music, and mathematics have such a profound sway upon the thinking person. We can grasp truth through art, music, and mathematics that can never be grasped logically. All truth has at its core ecstasy or joy.

We have the ability, and the responsibility, to discover the truth through practicing the Art of Thinking. The ability to find and recognize the truth. Ah, yes, there is the rub! What is truth?

³⁷"You are a king, then!" said Pilate.
Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

³⁸"What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him. John 18:37-38 (New International Version)

Pilate said there is no way to know truth so don't bother. Jesus said the truth is within us, that the Kingdom of God is within us. Jesus taught us to have confidence in ourselves, in our ability to know the truth.

One of the key reasons we have lost the Art of Thinking is that we have lost the confidence that we are capable of discovering what is true. We feel that we need something or someone to help us understand, to tell us what to believe, to tell us what is true.

Well, here is the secret. We possess the power to know the nature of things by exercising the power of our minds to think. That's the secret. Think. We can only understand the nature of life, the purpose of life, through the naked power of the mind. We can only understand by practicing the Art of Thinking.

Finding the Source of Love

What is love? Isn't it amazing that the most important thing in the world is the least understood?

We are better acquainted with the absence of love, or the misuse of love, or the betrayal of love than we are love resplendent. Then what is the problem? Why do we have so much difficulty experiencing spectacular love?

The key question is: Where does love come from? That is an extremely baffling and confusing question. Does love come from somewhere or someone else? Actually, both are true. Love comes, ultimately from everything and everyone. Yet if we seek to make that our sole source of love, we will live a life of constant disappointment. What if the people around me are incapable of giving me the love I need? What if nature becomes hostile rather than beautiful, evoking fear rather than radiating love? We become bereft and forlorn.

Although love comes from everything and everyone, the only source of love that we can count on is from ourselves. Only when we find the source of love from within ourselves can we find a constant source not dependent upon other people and things. But that becomes a hall of mirrors, too!


We have a lot of stuff going on within ourselves that interferes with our experience of the well-spring of love deep within us. The most difficult thing to control in the universe is our mind. Our mind constantly seeks to find the course of least resistance, to find a place where there is no pain and only comfort resides. Our mind tries to create an image of ourselves that makes us happy and avoids pain. We often end up living life in an illusion rather than tapping into the well-spring of love that constantly flows deep within our soul.

Love comes from the deepest well-spring of our soul. Yet, if we stop there, we have still stopped short. If we look for love only in the depths of our soul, only in ourself, we are trying to fix on a moving point. If we look for love only within ourself, we have stopped just short of the real source of love.

The real source of love is beyond ourself. Yet the only way to find that love beyond ourself is by going through ourself. That is extremely tricky! Yet the goal is well worth the struggle. If we succeed in finding the source of love through our mind and heart, yet beyond them, we enter into the infinite source and creator of love, God. We discover God within ourselves as the portal to the infinite God who is love.


God is the source of love and the creator of love. Only when our love is set firm in God's love within ourself yet beyond ourself will we find the power to love others in a way that transforms them, that transforms ourselves.

Real love, true love, love that originates in God within and beyond us, is a revolutionary force, a creative force. When we tap into that love, we become someone who is able to love others even if we are not loved in return. We become people who can forgive those who have offended us, who have scorned our love, who have disrespected our person.

Forgiveness is the most difficult of all acts, especially when someone has violated our trust, our love, our pride. Finding the power to forgive those who have violated us is only possible when we receive our love from beyond ourself in God. During a time of violent and hateful struggle in India between Hindu and Muslim, Gandhi meet with a Hindu man who had just killed a Muslim child. He had killed him out of rage for the murder of his son by a Muslim. The Hindu sought Gandhi's help to find a way out of his torment. Gandhi told him to find a Muslim boy whose parents had been killed in the rioting and raise the boy as his own.

Surely that advice rates right up there with Solomon's judgment in the dispute between two women who both claimed the same baby. He ordered the baby cut in two, and half given to each. The mother who begged for the baby's life, asking Solomon to give it to the other, proved the real mother. Real love is the willingness to lose the person rather than see them die. (1 Kings 3:26)



Giving up your life for another is the highest form of love. As Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) It is no coincidence that the Medal of Honor is given to soldiers who throw themselves on a hand grenade to save his fellow. Measure that against the act of strapping a bomb under your clothing to blow up women, children, elderly, and youth in a crowded market place.

Most of us count on others to feel love; our parents, our brothers and sisters, our children, our friends. If some how they do not show us love, we feel unloved, we become depressed and angry or withdrawn. Most violent crimes are between people who know each other, often because one feels unloved or their love has been violated.

Yet, when we know the truth, that love comes from within ourself, even beyond ourself, rather than from others, we focus on our power to love rather than on being loved. We understand that the greatest transforming power in the world is love. We realize that we possess the power to transform others and ourselves through the power of love. Rather than
victims who are unloved, we are champions of love who change the world around us through that power.

The Zen of Chopping Wood

Some days just seem tough. Something goes wrong or seems unfair. I have an irresistible urge to do something to make everything right. It's at that time that I close my eyes, take a deep breath and head for the chopping block.

All my troubles are solved at my oak chopping block. I bring out my trusty Fiskars super splitting axe, 6 pound maul, wood grenades, and wedge. I fell a lovely oak that leaned against a dead pine tree in our forest. The earth shook when Leaning Oak fell to the ground. Since then, I have had the joy of splitting rounds of oak.

Splitting oak takes some serious concentration. I find that the perfect remedy to my foolish, irresistible urges to try to fix people and situations. I just keep splitting oak until I am thoroughly cured of that curse of the gods. Sometimes I swing my axe and maul for four or five hours. By that time I am so exhausted that I couldn't do anything about the person or situation even if I wanted to. And, amazingly, everything comes out just fine without my interference!

My axe is made by the same company that makes scissors. It is not the humongous axe that Paul Bunyan swung or Abraham Lincoln, for that matter. It is a scientifically engineered axe, sharp as a razor blade, that will defeat even the most gnarled, knotted round of oak. Not that it is easy, mind you. Some oak rounds that are especially difficult take me over an hour to completely split up. It is me against the knotty, gnarled oak round.

I find that each oak round has its particular character. Sometimes I am lucky. The round, although 21 inches long and 30 inches in diameter, is without knot or bend. It is straight with nice stress marks on the ends to help the splitting. I spit the round without major troubles. Other times the oak round has a nasty knot or has been cut at an angle. That requires some real intelligence and focus. I need to wield my axe for effect, making sure that I don't miss and cut off my leg. This axe is so sharp that just touching my arm cuts it! This is not an activity for the distracted or the careless. And that is the heart of the Zen of Chopping Wood. Total focus.



I didn't always win. At one point, my Fiskars bounced off the oak rounds like canon balls off Old Ironsides. I could see how Old Ironsides, made of oak, earned its reputation. Not to be defeated, though, I learned of a Fiskars axe sharpener. After buying that for about $10, my fortunes changed. I have yet to find an oak round that could beat me, even with only a 6 pound maul for back up.

I had suffered from another challenge for four years before I found a solution. Squirrels raiding my bird feeder. Every time I devised a new way to foil them from gorging on the hanging bird feeder, they found a solution. The squirrel proof feeder failed. Hanging the feeder by a cord over a branch 20 feet up failed. After a couple months, the squirrels decided just to leap to the earth when I approached! Now I know how squirrels learned to fly. Actually, I defeated them after I gave up. I just happened to buy cheaper bird feed. The recession, you know. The birds kept coming but the squirrels couldn't be bothered! So, I guess there is a Zen of defeating the squirrels, as well. I won by giving up!

Some urges require only an hour to subdue. After splitting a single round, I am ready to get back to work without doing anything foolish. Other urges require the full five hours, until I am limp and senseless and full of the joy of delightful exhaustion. I drag myself back into the house without the ability to do anything stupid. I just take a shower and collapse. And, to my continual amazement, when I finally regain my strength, the problem no longer exists!



I have considered other ways to try to deal with the desire to kill people who wrong me or do something stupid. First, kill the person or people. Fortunately, I have never acted on that! Second, drink myself silly. That never worked because I really dislike alcohol. I can't even bare the taste of red wine, which I tried to drink for my health. Third, hitting golf balls at the driving range. That is not bad, but at the end of the day I am out $12 and have nothing to show for my labor. No, none of those for me. Just give me my rounds of oak, my axe, maul, and wedges, and I'll solve any problem by not acting on it. And I have a stack of lovely oak firewood to burn in our Harman Oakwood next winter. Yes, the Zen of chopping wood is to solve the problem by not solving it!

Christ in Tremper's Field

The best part of every day for me is when Cayman, our Rhodesian Ridgeback-Yellow Lab dog, begs for a walk. We have been blessed with a home that sits on 3 acres of lovely forested land adjoining about 250 acres of forests and fields.

I especially love when Cayman and I take a walk during the late spring and early summer. As we walk through our property, along a steep path with undulating hills, the "best dog in the world" sets the pace. He prances, walking with a princely gate swaying side to side, with his trademark floppy ear laying back on his head.

Cayman is a beautiful dog. Friendly, happy, strong, big, obedient, kind with children and other pets. Although he is, indeed, hell on wood chucks. I have to do my best to get to him when he catches one to save the poor wood chuck. So far I have succeeded every time. A couple years ago, Cayman ran after deer and disappeared for a few hours. Today he obeys my voice and holds back, letting the graceful deer bound away, white tail switching, into the forest.

Lately, Cayman and I have enjoyed walking daisy lane into Tremper's Christmas tree field. That is the most glorious stretch of path through fields and forest that God every created. A couple months ago, white daisies clustered in choirs singing Hallelujah at the top of their lungs. A few weeks ago, brilliant yellow daisies with black button centers joined the chorus. They make perfect harmony, the heavens sing with the angels joining in as Cayman prances and I joyfully stroll along daisy lane.

For me, the true glory of our daily walk begins in Tremper's field. The Tremper family had lived on the farm for hundreds of years so I have fittingly named the field, Tremper's field. The trees in Tremper's field have much to teach. An aged Dogwood stands fully in the field without any trees nearby to block its sunlight. Without competition, the Dogwood has grown into a magnificent tree, spreading over a large patch of field with its branches stretching out perfectly in a tall umbrella under the heavens.




In May, the Dogwood blooms perfect blossoms. The blossoms even surpass the perfection and beauty of the daisies along daisy lane. After the blossoms fade and fall, I think nothing to follow could rival their beauty. Yet, the Dogwood has not finished astounding me. Throughout June and into July, its perfect leaves panel out taking advantage of every inch of air and sky. The picture is perfect and joyful to behold.

Yet the most astounding change comes during the late fall and winter, after all Dogwood's leaves have fallen. Standing gnarled and rickety, the Dogwood reveals its age. Surely the tree is old enough to be in the last years of its life. Yet, even in its last days, the Dogwood revealed its vigor through the beauty of its blossoms and leaves. Although gnarled and twisted, it is surely in its prime.



Other trees stand in Tremper's field grandly, alone, spreading their branches covering vast distances in umbrage and height. They, indeed, are glorious. Yet none of the trees give me pause like that noble Dogwood. Poems have been written about the spreading Chestnut tree, yet the state of Virginia named the Dogwood blossom its state flower. Like Virginia itself, the Dogwood is old and gnarled, yet beauty returns to its branches even in old age.

There is even a legend that the Romans nailed Jesus on a cross made of Dogwood.

Legend of the Dogwood

~ Unknown

In Jesus time, the dogwood grew
To a stately size and a lovely hue.
'Twas strong & firm it's branches interwoven
For the cross of Christ its timbers were chosen.

Seeing the distress at this use of their wood
Christ made a promise which still holds good:
"Never again shall the dogwood grow
Large enough to be used so
Slender & twisted, it shall be

With blossoms like the cross for all to see.
As blood stains the petals marked in brown
The blossom's center wears a thorny crown.

All who see it will remember me
Crucified on a cross from the dogwood tree.
Cherished and protected this tree shall be

A reminder to all of my agony."

Rather than symbolizing the cross to me, the Dogwood in Tremper's field symbolizes Christ. He had the courage to stand out among people, to reveal his glory like a city on a hill, like a lighted candle on a stand. He did not hide among people but strove to become the example for all people.

We can learn a lesson from that awe inspiring Dogwood. Seek to stand in a place in the field unencumbered by other trees. Give gratitude when we are placed as a seed far removed from others so that we can grow to our fullness. We will grow into who we have been destined to be by the creator and designer of the Dogwood seed. It takes courage to stand alone in the field, choosing to stand in the full light of day rather than cowering in the crowded forest. Full grown, grandly expanded, in full view for all to see and enjoy. Our majesty, like that of the Dogwood, abounds in the boundless field.

Yes, my daily walk with Cayman through Tremper's fields is a gift from God. I take a step outside myself into the glory of God through his creation. I find myself in the white and yellow daisies, in the Oak and Magnolia trees, among the bounding deer and the soaring hawk. I find myself in front of the glorious, gnarled, blossom bedecked Dogwood in the openness of Tremper's field.

Although many grand Dogwoods have spread their branches over fields throughout the past 6000 years since the dawn of human civilization, none have been as glorious as the one I see every day on my walk with Cayman through Tremper's fields.

You Just Can't Get There From Here!

Close your eyes. What do you feel? Distress? Worry? Anxiety? Those are feelings that we commonly feel these days. It takes a saint to be happy in these times, especially if you read and watch the news every day! Swine flu. North Korea threatening the world with nuclear war. Iran developing nuclear weapons so that it can threaten the world. An economic depression that approaches the Great Depression of the 1930s.

In some ways the situation of the world is like the insurance salesman from Des Moines on a drive throughout the country side without a map or GPS. He gets lost. Seeing a farmer on his tractor plowing his field, the insurance salesman pulls over his late model Mercedes and hails the farmer. The farmer turns off his tractor to hear. The city slicker from Des Moines asks the way back to the city. The farmer sits back in his seat, rubs his chin with his hand while chewing a blade of grass. "Well, seems to me, you just can't get there from here."

How much that is like us! We want to get back home but seems like we just can't get there from here! At least the Insurance salesman knew where he wanted to go. For us, we can never go back to better times. We have to go forward to a place we have never been before. That's really scary.

So, where are we and where do we want to go? What are the times asking from us and what are the opportunities that await us?

There are some who believe that 2012 marks the end of history, possibly the end of the world. I do not believe that the world will end or that our daily lives will change that much by 2012. But I do believe that we will experience a gigantic turning point in history. Especially two events will take place of monumental importance.

First, the Islamic nations of the Middle East will embrace democracy. President Obama's Cairo speech marked the beginning of a new era between the USA and Islamic nations. The recent protest demonstrations against the hijacking of a democratic election in Iran indicate an undercurrent of support for democracy in the Middle East. Iraq, on June 30th, celebrated a day of national liberation.

Iraq will experience many ups and downs in their democratic life. Democracy is messy. It is the worst form of government, except for all the rest. My money is on democracy, Islamic democracy, winning in Iraq over radical Islamic terrorism. They are walking a path pioneered by India. India recently held the largest democratic election in history with Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew and Christian participating. If only Gandhi's efforts had succeeded in keeping Pakistan within Indian sovereignty we would have an even greater example of democracy among many religions.

Second, North Korea will collapse under the weight of the United Nations resistance to its nuclear terrorism. Korea will be united by the end of 2012 not by the force of North Korean nuclear weapons but through a collapse of their already bankrupt financial system. A tyrant can afford to starve his people as long as he feeds the military and arms them. North Korea is facing an immediate future without an inflow of supplies or money from other nations. That is the reason for the insane threatening of the world with nuclear war. They are dying, the regime is crumbling on the eve of the installation of Kim Jong-il's son.

So, where will we be on New Year's 2013? Rest assured, we will wake up and see the dawn of another day! The world will not end and our daily lives will continue. But we will have entered a new era, an era of building peaceful relations among the nations. Islamic nations will have crossed the threshold into democratic Islam. Korea will be reunited and posed to help East Asia and Southeast Asia enter a golden age.

Our generation and the next generation will have a tremendous responsibility to take the next step. Religious leaders, saints, and lay persons in every religion will have the great responsibility to live the teachings of their religions, to create a parliament of world religions. The generations following will have the task of creating one world community governed by a new world Constitution and government.

This would truly be impossible if we relied upon our own talents and abilities. The task lay beyond our talents and abilities. But God and the Heavenly Hosts have always helped us in the past and they will in the present and the future. We are moving toward the Kingdom of God on earth, the fulfillment of every religious person's dreams and hopes.

So, maybe we can't get back home from here. That's good. Because the new place where we are going together, the place we will create together, is much, much, much better.

All You Need Is Love

North Korea tested a nuclear bomb and a few missiles. They revoked the truce in place since 1953. Nuclear war on the Korean peninsula is looming. Pakistan has counter attacked the Taliban, holding them off for the time being from conquering Islamabad and capturing its nuclear arsenal. Iran marches steadily and rapidly toward creating its own nuclear missiles. Israel has pledged to strike before that happens. Sure sounds like Armageddon to me.

The nuclear drama is taking place with the backdrop of a world wide global depression. The world's governments have been acting quickly to avert a complete meltdown of the financial institutions. Whether we will or not remains to be seen.

The Swine Flu has sent fear through the world's communities. WHO rang the alarm bell. It had the appearance of a false alarm, bringing criticism upon its leaders who assure us a pandemic will happen.

What in the world is happening? Are we witnessing the end of the world? No. Just the approach of the end of history. Many have designated 2012 as the year history ends.

What does that mean, the end of history? It sure sounds a lot like the end of the world. The end of history denotes a monumental turning point in our communal life on the earth. Some have called it dooms day and others the beginning of the Kingdom of God.

In either case, the end of history is a turning point. We face several enormous challenges before 2012. How we deal with them will determine whether we experience an apocalypse or a step over the threshold into the kingdom of God.

The central challenge is whether or not we can love one another. I know, that sounds a lot like the hippie slogan of the 1960s. Yet it really does come down to that. Can we love, forgive, and embrace one another? Can we live in peace in mutual prosperity, community, and mutual love?

We are at a turning point, a decisive moment of history. We have in our hands the power to turn the earth into a cinder or into a Garden of Eden. We have the ability to herald the angels of peace or the angels of destruction. Everything is in our hands. Love. "All you need is love" as the Beatles sang.

Who are the children of peace? The children of peace are the children of God. Who are the children of God? The children of God are the followers of Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tzu, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, the Baihai Báb, Joseph Smith, Sun Myung Moon, and on and on. All true religious leaders teach love of God and love of each other. We have teachings enough to live in peace if each of us takes the religious teachings we hold dear and live them.

North Korea poses an especially difficult challenge. A communist atheistic totalitarian dictatorship on the verge of possessing a quiver full of nuclear arrows, love may not be enough to disarm them. The united world community may have to devastate North Korea before it harms its neighbors.

One way or another, when we celebrate the new year 2012, we will have crossed the threshold of a new history, the era of cooperation among the nations and religions of the world. That will not come automatically. We will have decades of struggle to see a coming together of the children of God of all stripes. God and the angelic world will help. They have decided that there is no turning back. We will see the Kingdom of God on the earth, even if we have to experience nuclear war, plague, and famine along the way.

Maybe we are just afraid of death?

We just seem to keep ourselves so busy. We seldom take time to think about those things that matter most in our lives. When we are young, there is always another tomorrow. When we are raising our families, there is always the career and paying the bills. When we grow old, we begin to dread the increasingly frequent invitations to Memorials.

Why are we that way? Maybe we are just afraid of death? If we keep ourselves busy, if we pay attention to important matters, if we attend Memorials out of duty, maybe we are refusing to allow ourselves to think about the most important thing: eternal life.

Eternal life. Boy, that is a hard thing to get your hands around! It's right up there with trying to imagine a God without beginning and without end! We try to understand things we have never experienced by relating them to things we have experienced. And who of us has experienced living forever? Living forever is impossible to imagine on this earth and in this universe. Especially when our body becomes a constant source of annoyance as we approach 80, 90, and 100. As my Dad said as he reached into his mid 80s: "What use to be loose is now hard. And what used to be hard is now loose!"

When we do get the courage to think about our impending death, we often try to think of ways to defeat the Grim Reaper. Death Becomes Her is a story like that. Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep receive a concoction from Bruce Willis that gives them eternal life in the body. But like the Egyptian mummies, they learned that life in the body forever is less enjoyable then they had hoped.

It has been said that the contemplation of death is the beginning of philosophy. And that of all God's creations, only humans can contemplate their own death. We can, but we don't. Why? Because we can not image a life after death. We find it impossible to picture ourselves in an eternal spiritual world. What the heck would we do there forever, anyway!?

I studied with a famous Methodist theologian at Southern Methodist University, Shubert Ogden. I recall during one lecture on his renown series on Systematic Theology when he said: "Could you image living with the same woman for eternity! That would be incredibly boring!" A famous theologian? And he doesn't understand the first thing about life in the eternal, spiritual world after death?

The eternal spiritual world is the atmosphere of love, at least in the realm called heaven. There we breathe love like we breathe air here. How do we know? People are traveling often to the spiritual world and reporting about its nature. Shamans have voyaged into the spiritual world for many thousands of years, held only by a golden cord to their earthly body.

Emanuel Swedenborg wrote volumes on his experience in the spiritual world in the 17th and 18th centuries. He had established himself as a scientist before venturing into the spiritual world, seemingly spending more time there awake than awake on the earth. Of course, we can easily discount experiences like Emanuel Swedenborg. Yet his logic is strong. In Conjugal Love, he writes that the sexual union between husband and wife is the highest spiritual experience of love in heaven. Yet he testifies that that love is far, far more than a sexual experience. It is the complete merging of a man and woman in ecstatic love forever.

You see, that is where Shubert Ogden missed the boat. He spent so much time trying to understand things that he failed at the most important task: Experiencing the highest form of love with his wife.

So, what is the eternal spiritual world that awaits us all like? Why are we so afraid of it that we will do almost anything not to think about it?

Like life before death, the eternal spiritual world is about relationships. The most important relationships here are the most important relationships there. The relationship between husband and wife, between parents and children, between siblings, and between friends. The eternal heaven in the spiritual world is like life in a family, a great extended family that embraces all people who ever lived.

Will there be people who hold esteemed positions in heaven? Probably. They are the people who showed the way of love on this earth. They are the ones who taught us the way of love that jives with heavenly love. You see, if we live the way of heavenly love here, we are ready and able to live in the total freedom of love in the eternal spiritual world.

Just as nature is extremely important for living a life of love and peace here, nature in the spiritual world is extremely important for living a life of love and peace in the eternal spiritual world. From accounts of those who have been there and returned, the spiritual world has many realms. Maybe that is what Jesus meant when he said that in his father's mansion has many rooms:

In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. New International Version

So why are we so afraid of death if what awaits is so glorious? Maybe because our spirit tells us that we have been so busy taking care of ourselves, our careers, our families, that we have forgotten to embrace and live the love of heaven? How could we neglect to do that? I doubt that any of us could say no one told us how to do it! Read the scriptures of Shamanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and in each and every one we are taught the way of heavenly love.

If we do not know, it is because we choose not to know. We choose to keep ourselves busy enjoying our youth, building our careers, buying our toys, or hiding in our beliefs. Anything but living the way of heavenly love. Those who live the way of heavenly love now have nothing to fear from death.

April 15th: The Day Abraham Lincoln Died

"The last breath was drawn at 21 minutes and 55 seconds past 7 A.M. and the last heart beat flickered at 22 minutes and 10 seconds past the hour on Saturday, April 15, 1865." Carl Sandburg marked Lincoln's last moment of life in his monumental biography of Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln had prophetic dreams about his pending assassination. He considered himself a man of destiny and believed that his life would end at the hands of an assassin. Few will miss the irony of his assassination taking place on Good Friday, the day that Jesus suffered crucifixion on the cross. Lincoln had lived in a way similar to Christ, carrying his cross throughout the four bloodiest years in the history of the United States of America as the leader of the cause to preserve the union.

Lincoln's death came a few days after General U.S. Grant received the surrender of General Robert E. Lee on Palm Sunday 1865. Although the Confederacy had yet to formally surrender, all expected a complete and unconditional surrender soon. President Lincoln had made a daring visit to Richmond the day after Grant's army rode into the city. Lincoln sat in Jefferson Davis's chair in the capital building, pondering the man who had sat as his adversary throughout the four, long, horrendous years.

Lincoln had not even wanted to attend Ford's Theater that evening. He had no interest in watching the British play, Our American Cousin. Yet is wife insisted, wanting to celebrate the expected end of the war with levity and amusement. Once the announcement had been made in the newspapers, Lincoln felt obliged to attend, even though he had forebodings.

The death of Lincoln, like the death of Christ, seemed destined and nothing could stop it. Just as the Civil War seemed destined to exact the death of 620,000 North and South, Providence appeared to require the death of Lincoln upon the cross for the nation's sin of slavery. Slavery, that horrific practice of owning men like animals, led the United States into hell fire and brimstone, into an apocalypse of fury and destruction.

Why had the English colonies in America received African slaves? Pure and simple, making a profit through selling agricultural products. During the 1600s in New Amsterdam, slavery had been admitted and then dropped. The Dutch plan to create plantations worked by African slaves failed. In Jamestown, the effort to plant slavery in the 1600s succeeded. The Southern way of life and slavery became inextricably interwoven, especially for the aristocratic slave holders like Washington and Jefferson.

Slavery. The cross upon which Lincoln died. Did John Wilkes Booth, the foremost Shakespearean actor at the time in the United States, assassinate Lincoln because he abolished slavery? No. Booth's reason for killing Lincoln lay simply in his fury at the disgrace brought by the South's defeat. He held Lincoln responsible for that defeat and humiliation. Ironically, Lincoln would much rather have attended a Shakespeare play with Booth on the stage than Our American Cousin.

If God had wanted to save Lincoln's life that night, he could have easily done so. A combination of events, all essential to the success of the assassination, coincided. Lincoln's preferred body guard had other duties, leaving a misfit to protect his back in Ford's Theater. Rather than stay at his post, he went out for drink and women in the street. That allowed Booth to take his hiding place next to Lincoln's box. Booth used a single shot derringer from five feet distance to kill Lincoln. Angels surely could have fended away that inadequate bullet. But, no, the bullet struck Lincoln mortally.

Why did Lincoln have to die, crucified on Good Friday? If he had lived, how very different the Reconstruction would have been. Lincoln's lack of desire for revenge, his single-minded intention to forgive and welcome back all southerns who took a pledge of allegiance to the United States of America, his commitment to ease freed slaves successfully into the fabric of American society would have made for a very different nation.

Instead, Andrew Johnson, the vice president sworn in upon Lincoln's death, had a far less charitable stance toward the South. He held that punishment for rebellion is the proper and right course. The North would force the South through Reconstruction. The long road for freed slaves into full citizenship began. A road that, under Lincoln, certainly would have been shorter and more successful. If Lincoln had served through his second term, maybe Fredrick Douglas would have eliminated the need for Martin Luther King 100 years later. Who knows? Who knows . . . .

Yet we are often pawns of destiny far more than shapers of destiny. We have parts to play in the grand unfolding of the Providence of God. Why did God require the sacrifice of Abraham Lincoln on April 15th, 1865? Why did God require the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the same day about 1830 years earlier? The ways of God are mysterious and past all understanding. Yet we know that great people who believe in love often end their earthly lives on the cross. And, although we would prefer---as surely they would---that they lived, through their life and death on the cross of the providence, the world is a vastly better place.

The Ghosts of Woodstock

August 14 to 16, 1969.

I wonder if you have noticed that this year is the year of Anniversaries? 400 years ago, Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson River. 200 years ago, Robert Fulton sailed The Steamship along the same Hudson River. And 40 years ago today, the three day Peace Fest began in Bethel, NY, named Woodstock. All those events took place just outside my Window on the Hudson.

When Hudson sailed the Half Moon up the river that now bares his name, Native Americans who had lived in the region for 12,000 years saw the strange creature move up the river like an ancient sea monster. His voyage marked the beginning of a new age in the New World, the age of European colonization in the region.


In 1809, Robert Fulton received the first patent for his steam boat. In 1807, he had sailed the Clarmont up the Hudson River claimed by the newly founded United States of America, wrested from the sovereignty of the British just twenty years before. Fulton's voyage heralded the beginning of a new age for the New Nation, the age of the Industrial Revolution.

In 1969, August 14 to 16, another epic event nearby the shores of the Hudson River, the mega outdoor peace revival in the tradition of the camp revivals more than a hundred years before, took place. Hundreds of thousands of youth gravitated together in the quest for peace in a three day music fest. That event launched the voyage of a million ships, people throughout the world who had been awakened to the hope of peace in our time. That marked the beginning of another revolution in the USA, the Peace Revolution.


I lived during the Woodstock event in another place so today I see the ghosts of Woodstock rather than real memories. The ghosts who hoped for peace, yet sought that through unbridled license. During the time of Hudson, and the time of Fulton, Asia knew the kind of peace that the ghosts of Woodstock sought. They sought peace through the use of opium and courtesans. The peace of the Chinese aristocrats, sexual freedom and opium, had become the peace of American youth.

How in the world did we get peace and freedom confused with drugs and illicit sex? How in the world did we become so very confused? Why did so many of us cast away common decency in the name of freedom and love and peace? What set the conditions for that great delusion?

Peace had been in the air. Our parents' generation had been engaged in a life and death struggle with Fascism in Europe and Asia. They had no illusion about the way peace would come to the world. Peace would come through the barrel of a cannon and values worth living and dying for, not through the hashish water pipe and sexual abandon. After victory had been declared over the armies of Germany, Italy, and Japan, the world geared up for another war, a more subtle and difficult to understand war. The war for peoples' hearts, minds, and souls erupted in the life and death struggle between international communism and democratic capitalism.



Here came the rub, though. The sermon of communist preachers---that we are all brothers and that we should do away with greed, ownership of property, and live like saints, giving to others according to our ability and receiving according to our need---struck a cord with what the Woodstock generation knew to be true. What is, indeed, true. God implanted that desire in every person's heart!

Yet, although we believed in our hearts that message, something seemed wrong about the preacher. Like Elmer Gantry, preaching with a tongue of fire while living a life of selfish seduction, the communist preachers seemed to have another agenda. Rather than set us free from our chains, they desired to chain us. Rather than free the people from opium that befuddled us, they sought to befuddle us with opium. Rather than show us the way of love towards all people, they showed the way of infidelity and broken hearts. They offered a dream of peace, love, and freedom but gave us a nightmare of murder, death, and slavery.

Yet the dream still lives because the message is true, although the messenger was a false prophet. In our hearts we know that peace, love, and freedom are the highest ideals. Our hearts did not betray us, we betrayed our hearts. The ghosts of Woodstock would have us believe that drugs, free sex, and communism will set us free, will bring us peace, and will blossom love in our hearts. How very, very wrong they are. They gave us drug addiction, broken families, and lives of unbridled license.


Banish those ghosts! In their place, let the heavenly hosts enter triumphantly! They herald a peace, love, and freedom that comes through holiness, through living as the children of God. The Heavenly Hosts will usher us into another Revolution on the Hudson. They speak to our knowing hearts of love between all people of all religions, of all races, of all ages, of all nations. Not a love couched in drugs and illicit sex, but a love embracing the sanctity of families as well as the sacredness of the person. There we will find the cornerstone of peace, love, and freedom, not in the ghosts of Woodstock.

The Happiness Test: How Happy Are You?

Marci Shimoff, in Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out, presents a happiness test. Let's take it!

I have copied it below, or you can take it online at the Ladies' Home Journal. (Don't worry, men, this is for you too!)

Rate each statement on a scale of 1 to 5:

1 = Not at all true

2 = Slightly True

3 = Moderately True

4 = Mostly True

5 = Absolutely True

1. I often feel happy and satisfied for no particular reason.
   1 2 3 4 5
   

2. I live in the moment.
   1 2 3 4 5

3. I feel alive, vital and energetic.
   1 2 3 4 5
   

4. I experience a deep sense of inner peace and well-being.
   1 2 3 4 5

5. Life is a great adventure for me.
   1 2 3 4 5

6. I don't let bad situations keep me down.
   1 2 3 4 5

7. I am enthusiastic about the things I do.
   1 2 3 4 5

8. Most days I have an experience of laughter or joy
   1 2 3 4 5

9. I trust this is a friendly universe.
   1 2 3 4 5

10. I look for the gift or the lesson in everything that happens.
    1 2 3 4 5
    

11. I am able to let go and forgive
    1 2 3 4 5

12. I feel love for myself.
    1 2 3 4 5
    

13. I look for the good in every person.
    1 2 3 4 5

14. I change the things I can and accept the things I can't change.
    1 2 3 4 5

15. I surround myself with people who support me
    1 2 3 4 5

16. I don't blame others or complain.
    1 2 3 4 5

17. My negative thoughts don't overshadow me.
    1 2 3 4 5

18. I feel a general sense of gratitude.
    1 2 3 4 5

19. I feel connected to something bigger than myself.
    1 2 3 4 5

20. I feel inspired by a sense of purpose in my life.
    1 2 3 4 5

Scoring section:

• If your score is 80 - 100: To a great degree, you are Happy (for no reason).
• If your score is 60 - 79: You have a good measure of being Happy (for no reason).
• If your score is 40 - 59: You have glimpses of being Happy (for no reason).
• If your score is under 40: You have little experience of being Happy (for no reason).

OK, how did you do? Are you happy (for no reason)? Marci's questionnaire is unique because

it asks you to rate intangibles--feelings, values, and attitudes.

Shimoff stands in a tradition that I admire. She stands in the tradition of those who teach that we are responsible for our own happiness. We can not blame others or our circumstances for our unhappiness. Nor can we attribute our happiness to others or circumstances. Happiness is something we decide to be.

Victor Frankl stands in this tradition. In Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl relates experiences in

a Nazi concentration camp. A more horrendous and despairing place would be hard to find. The Nazi party sent you there to work to death. Frankl faced the concentration camp experience believing that the meaning we find in life is what sees us through. He could tell when a person would die. He knew the signs of when a man gave up hope, lost a sense of meaning and purpose in his life.

Erick Fromm also stands in this tradition. In The Art of Loving, Fromm chastises our hedonistic culture that encourages us to live immaturely, seeking only our selfish gratification in relationships with others, especially our spouse. He wrote that loving is an art, the art of learning to love others no matter who they are. He makes the bold assertion that a mature person can love anyone, and could successfully marry anyone. The mature person's happiness comes from within, not from having just the right spouse.

Mahatma Gandhi comes from this tradition. Gandhi had everything going for him. A lawyer, intelligent and from a wealthy India family of the Brahman caste, he confronted the oppressive racist practice of Apartheid in South Africa and the suffocating British colonial rule in India. The Afrikaans in South Africa and the British in India treated Gandhi as a second class citizen, at best. He would have none of that. He refused to let the Afrikaans and British view of him be his view of himself. Choosing the spiritual path of inner enlightenment, Gandhi inspired his people and the world to become fully human and fully divine in oppressive situations. He refused to let his circumstances determine his happiness. His happiness came from within.

The list of people who know the secret that happiness comes from within could go on and on. The message they all teach us with their lives is that happiness comes from within and we have complete control over the inner dynamics that bring happiness.