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Today I watched Part 1 of Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Courage” rally in Israel. Before I tell you anything more, in respect of full disclosure, I’ve got a dog in this hunt. I’m a Jew.

As such, you can infer whatever you like about any bias in my observations;  however, I’m much more a mystic than I am a religious person so any bias you may think I bring is more likely your own.  It is sort of like me telling you I grew up in the 60’s, a Jewish, suburban, upper middle class girl and you assuming I’m a feminist, a Liberal and a Democrat. Sorry, I never got feminism, am somewhat politically conservative and a registered Independent. See. You’d have made that mistaken assumption, too!

So, now that we can set aside all that potential rush to judgment, back to Glenn Beck and Israel.

In April of 2011, I wrote a blog post in which I referred to Mr. Beck as, perhaps, a prophet of sorts.  At the time, I clarified that I didn’t necessarily mean it in the biblical sense.  Now I wonder.

Moses gave the Israelites the vision and courage to leave behind a world they knew ( an oppressive one albeit with certain creature comforts) to head out into the unknown.  It was, as almost no one would dispute, a turning point for humankind.

Glenn Beck has also provided millions (my estimate) with a vision and the courage to leave behind, if not literally then figuratively, a world they know and head into equally unknown territory.  In this instance, what is being left behind is not so different than what the Israelites relinquished.

We, like the Israelites of ancient Egypt, became enslaved to materialism. To having our physical needs and wants reasonably met while losing sight of our spiritual ones. We too, established false idols…Alan Greenspan, various political leaders, the U.S. dollar.  But with the passage of time, we came to remember that while golden calves glitter, the glare is temporary and blinding.  In that blindness, we yearned for something more, something lasting, and something real.

Enter Glenn Beck.

Mr. Beck is a visionary (I’m still mulling over the word prophet).  He saw where we were, where we needed to go, and he said, “Okay, if I can see it, I guess I have to lead the way.” Like all true leaders, he has been a reluctant one.  For that he will surely be rewarded when and how it counts…whether or not we appropriately acknowledge our gratitude for his foresight and willingness to serve.

Glenn Beck is shining a light upon the Light that is Israel.  He and others regardless of religious affiliation, who are connected to Source in their hearts, know one of the most important messages Moses reminds us in Deuteronomy: When the Jewish People are exiled from the land, not just the land suffers but the whole world suffers.

With the reestablishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the world began an unprecedented economic and technological expansion. During that same period, the world lost its spiritual and moral compass. Those two realities have led us to this moment in time when the dark forces of the world want to annihilate the State of Israel to once and forever drive the Jews from their land.

Glenn Beck saw this convergence on the horizon but more importantly, he has done something to impede its design.  The world would do well to heed the message he brings and, if it’s not too much to ask, to also thank the messenger.

Permit me my moment.

Thank you Glenn Beck.

 

Howard Schultz is brilliant and courageous. 

Don’t know who he is, you say? Read on.

Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, recently suggested that we suspend all contributions to political candidates and politicians generally until they address the deficit and begin to do the People’s business for which they are elected. His suggestion has taken root.  Just today, both Duncan Niederauer, head of the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ CEO Bob Greifeld have joined in support and are encouraging other CEO’s to do the same.

If you’re not a CEO don’t fret.  I’m not and I’m on board because I know a good idea when I hear one.

For too long, and too often, we’ve allowed ourselves to feel powerless to affect issues that seem way beyond the capability of one individual.  But one individual can, in fact, turn the world upside down or right side up… depending on their intention. Think Hitler and Jesus Christ.

Your thinking “extraordinary examples” aren’t you?  Well, maybe… but you get my point.

Perhaps more to the point, and more relevant to what you can do, is this:

1.       We are all connected, and the action of one of us inevitably influences the outcome for all of us. It’s like the butterfly flapping its wings in New York City whose motion ultimately affects wind patterns in China.

2.       You vote every four (or six) years at the ballot box. However, you vote every day with your money.  Money is energy. Where you choose to spend (or not spend) yours is an act of self-definition.

I think Howard Schultz has exhibited leadership at a time when we are in search of such talent. He’s done his part. Now it’s up to all of us who know a good idea when we hear one to do our part.

If memory serves me correctly, President Obama was very proud of his grassroots, social network-based campaign approach that managed to collect millions of dollars from “ordinary citizens” who were moved by his promise of Hope and Change and, who by their individual contributions, made the difference.

See, you matter.  Your money is an expression of what you are willing to support. Withdraw that support now!  Make your contribution (no pun intended) in support of Howard Schultz’s idea.  Say “no more funding” for alleged leaders, of any and all parties, whose word means nothing and who exhibit both a lack of understanding for the People’s will and an unwillingness to perform the job for which they applied.

Just do it. You’ll feel empowered and together… real change is possible.

Fear unchecked is a breeding ground for violence.

This is what we are seeing around the globe and, most disturbingly, here in the U.S.   It’s particularly apparent in our youth.  This past weekend Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit, the District of Columbia, and even Kansas City were plagued by teen flash mobs, stabbings and even murders. It’s fair to say we are on the verge of, or in the throes of, an epidemic of violence among our youth.

Why?

I think there is an identifiable cause, as well as an ongoing influence, that we can point to as being at the heart of this phenomenon.

The cause is fear. As we go through remarkable changes that are taking place on every level of existence, each of us is facing the unknown.  With so much breaking down around us, there is a palpable undercurrent of fear emerging across the globe as we struggle to identify new solutions in these changing times.  We humans 1) like to rely on what is familiar and 2) we like permanence.

During periods of rapid change, familiarity is anathema and anything resembling permanence is impossible.

Add to this fear the desire of those historically in positions of power to retain that power and you have the aggravating influence that progresses fear to violence.

The best way to hold onto power is to frighten those for whom you are responsible into believing that they need you to keep them safe. As violence erupts in our cities, it is the powers that be that we will call upon to quell it… thus inadvertently re-establishing and re-legitimizing their control.

Gandhi knew the answer.  It was peaceful resistance not violent overthrow.  Violence begets violence.  It’s just a matter of time.  But the peaceful exertion of intractable resistance in the form of certainty is transformative.

Do not buy into fear and anger expressed as violence.  The young are merely a reflection… a visible “acting out” of what they feel happening around them. We, around the globe, have abdicated personal responsibility for ourselves and we have abdicated responsibility for our children. Children without guidance, boundaries and the benefit of wisdom from responsible adults have no concept of the proper use of power.  To them, force is the most expeditious solution.

Start in your home and in your communities by being an example of navigating change without fear and by setting boundaries that define, by the choices you make, peace as a priority above all else.

Then you can light the way through this temporary darkness.

 

As if there were not already enough “chaos” to deal with… London is in flames.  That’s the bad news.  From here on out…it gets optimistic. Really.

Let’s start with chaos.  Chaos is not a bad state of being. It’s merely an as yet unrecognized pattern.  What that means is that when we go through change (something we do more than anything else in or lives) there is always a period when we’ve move out of the familiar but are not yet fully into the new pattern.  It’s that “moment”, as we walk into the unknown, there is a feeling of uncertainty and resistance as we re-familiarize ourselves with what’s new and  reestablish our footing, so to speak.

That’s where we are, globally.  It’s actually the “Change” of “Hope and Change” that so many asked for and got.  They just got it in the way the Universe thought it would be best… which turns out to be somewhat different than what was sought.

Which is where the expression “Be careful what you ask for because you’re liable to get it” comes from.

What we wanted was change without stress. Well, change doesn’t cause stress. Resistance to change causes stress.  So what we really wanted was change without any disruption to how we do things and what we have.

That was kind of juvenile… don’t you think?

As for London… less than 1% of the population is causing the destruction and violence.  This is important to note because to make changes in a society or situation, statistically it takes about 10% of the total population.  So, if 1% of the population can cause such disruption and harm… imagine what just 10% of us can do, globally, in support of peace.

Let me leave you with these two conclusions.

1.        Get comfortable being uncomfortable.  Change requires that and if you do, change will come more quickly with less stress.

2.        Become part of the 10%.

Oh yes, keep breathing and smiling.  That helps too.

As our elected officials continue to struggle with the futility of attempting to apply depleted energies to problem solving rather than embracing spiritually-based, co-creative thinking…each of us must hold onto the core belief that we can directly influence the outcome of unfolding events by how we think, speak and act individually.

It’s my favorite saying:  “There is only One of Us”

Once you surrender to this concept, choices become clearer.

“Surrender” being the operative word here.

Generally, we are pretty adept at seeking a higher power. It’s surrendering to it when we encounter it that trips us up.  It’s one thing to yearn.  Many of us do that in our personal lives. We yearn for relationship…we yearn for a partner…we yearn for love. Then, when we find those things, we spend the rest of our lives resisting surrender to the very thing we sought and, miraculously, found.

We are no different when in search of a Higher Power. Of Source.  Of God.  Of The God Within.  We seek and yearn and explore all sorts of avenues to find that connection that will bring us inner peace and give our lives profound meaning. Then, on those occasions when we get a glimpse of such Power, we manufacture all sorts of reasons why it cannot possibly be as we experienced it (a/k/a/ denial) …or… why it just makes more sense to go on our merry way living life as we always have (a/k/a ego- directed).  And so we wind up back where we started and the merry way of the merry-go-round goes… yes…’round and ‘round.

How do we get off this ride?

Surrender!

Surrender does not mean relinquish your individuality. Nor does it mean relinquish power (with a small “p”) over creating your best life.  Surrender means letting go attachments and outcomes. Instead, leaning to accept and receive what life brings you in each and every moment with certainty that whatever that may be it holds the potential for your highest good.  The key to getting there is being fully conscious and fully aware in the present moment so that you can access inner guidance to handle that which is in front of you.

You’d be pleasantly surprised at what you can know when you are present and aware. Knowing is certainty… and certainty creates reality.

So while the politicians fiddle as Rome burns… know that The Phoenix rises from the ashes…and so to shall We…  All of us because …wait for it…

There is only One of Us.

 

It isn’t that I think that our Representatives…The President, Senators and Congressman… should never be able to smile or enjoy themselves.  It’s just that while unemployment is at 9.2%, 31% of the houses are underwater (the value of the house is less than the outstanding mortgage), and the world is holding its breath awaiting resolution of the U.S. debt ceiling deadline on August 2^nd … it’s sort of disconcerting, if not at times infuriating, to see photos on the nightly news, or on major news websites, of all of them sitting in some situation room in the White House smiling.

You know that “good time” I think they are all entitled to …well this isn’t it.  And those photos just make me think about how they all have jobs and houses that are not under water…which makes me think they still don’t get it.

How is that possible?

You and I know how difficult and uncertain the economy is.  You and I know the future looks fraught with all sorts of problems we definitely didn’t anticipate.  You and I know how hard it is each day to care for ourselves and our families…just get through each day, really… while dealing with the stress of worrying about where all of this is headed and what’s in store for us when we get there.

I think it’s possible because they do not, in fact, get it.  And even if they do, they are clearly clueless about what to do about it. Their time is up.

We are headed into new and uncharted territory.  So it’s up to the explorer in each of us to blaze new trails of innovative thinking in our own lives. All change starts with the individual, an individual, actually.  That individual may be you…or it could be the child who is watching how you handle change and its accompanying uncertainty.

So as we’re blazing new trails, let’s make two course corrections that our political leaders seem unable to make. First, let’s tell the truth. Always. To ourselves and others no matter how painful. Second, let’s accept responsibility for the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves and, if we’re caught smiling on the job, let it be because we’ve figured out how to get ourselves out of this mess.

It’s bad enough when sports figures and actors turn out to be sad excuses for role models… but it’s completely something else when it turns out to be our teachers. So, the unfolding story out of Atlanta Georgia is particularly shameful.

In excess of 178 teachers and principals, and perhaps Superintendents, are being accused of cheating and tampering with test scores of elementary and middle school students in order to continue receiving funding under the No Child Left Behind Act.  The educators (I use the term loosely) actually held “cheating parties” where they got together after school hours and doctored the tests by erasing wrong answers and substituting correct ones.

I think Congress needs to pass a supplemental act titled “Leave Corrupt Teachers Behind.”  While it’s a tongue-in-cheek statement, I do think that the complete breakdown of ethics in our society has reached a dangerous level when those responsible for molding the minds of the future exhibit such reprehensible behavior evidencing a complete lack of conscience.

What were they thinking?  Obviously something similar to what the teachers in Wisconsin were thinking when they marched before the State House picketing the Governor’s budget plan which included prohibiting teachers from collective bargaining practices. Those teachers encouraged their students to have their parents or doctors write fraudulent absence notes to their schools so the students could picket alongside the teachers.  Most of the students I saw interviewed didn’t even know what they were picketing for… but were delighted it had gotten them out of school!

In this most recent and troubling example of the ethical and moral “pit of despair”in which this nation finds itself, let us each personally vow to begin to make own lives a breeding ground for truthfulness, integrity and ethical example.

When Moses and the Israelites were standing seemingly trapped at the Reed (Red) Sea, Moses plead to God for help. The unsung hero of that moment was Nahshon, Israelite brother-in-law of Aaron, who took the first step into the waters and continued head deep before they parted.

We are at such a moment in our ethical lives.  Be a Nahshon in your own.  Walk into this culture of deceit, up to your head if necessary, with faith that doing the right thing will bring the highest outcome… or at least model something worth emulating.

Two seemingly unrelated news stories caught my eye. The first, concerns the “entertainer” Prince praising the virtues of countries run under Sharia law, especially the “order” and “simplicity” of having women wear burqas.  The second is about a gender neutral approach to everything from education to child rearing.

Where’s the connection?  Well, that’s the first question.

The second is “Where’s the real harm?”

The obvious answer to the first question is that both stories speak to how we perceive and respond to sexuality.  While that is certainly a big topic that deserves its own post, we need to be much more concerned with the answer to the second question.

For several thousand years, male dominated governments, religions and societies in general, have institutionalized the marginalization, even the near obliteration, of the Divine Feminine aspect of Creation.  It isn’t necessary to go much farther than Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness…” (emphasis added). Everywhere you look in Nature, you find the interaction and cooperation between polarities… the necessary, and dare I say equally important contributions, of what those polarized aspects bring to the perpetuation of all things natural.

Not so mankind.

Man, literally man, has spent thousands of years and squandered countless resources in efforts to deny the Divine Feminine role in Creation and to imprison the female in one of three roles: mother, whore or object (a/k/a property).  We need not look very far beyond this perversion of Natural Law to explain thousands of years of aggression, war, and imbalance.

This is not a feminist rant.  This is a call to mankind to awaken to the reality that the Divine Feminine is resurrected and, undaunted, has embarked upon a return to Her rightful place alongside the masculine aspect of Creator.

It is through this re-balancing of male and female energies that the world will be set right and by no other means.  No secular legislation or religious dictate will end this breech until the hearts of men are open to the love and inherent value of all living beings… a lesson learned only through recognizing, accepting and acknowledging the Wisdom that is the Divine Feminine role in Creation.

 

The key to living well is balance. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about personal nutrition or the economy.  Hydration is good… but even too much water can kill you.  Capitalism is good… but greed and excessive materialism can kill a society.

Beware of extremes for they are found at the dead end of roads leading to destruction.

Having said that, and not to mix metaphors, the voices clamoring for the end of capitalism are mistakenly trying to throw the baby out with the bath water.  It isn’t capitalism that has brought us to the economic morass in which we now find ourselves. Capitalism, like the internet and guns, is content neutral.  By that I mean none of those have any effect until humans decide how to use and/or apply them.

It has been the evolution of capitalism, lacking necessary ethical and moral underpinnings, that has caused the system to rampage so out of balance as to bring the Republic to the brink of economic collapse. The insatiable and unchecked desire to acquire more money, power and material possessions has fueled the engine of unlimited spending and the corresponding accumulation of obscene debt.

It’s a critical moment.  The knee-jerk reaction is to blame the system rather than examine the motives and actions of the people who ran it.  To do the latter means to take a long, hard look at ourselves, our priorities and what we value.  To not take such a look, and thereby bring the system back into balance, is to abdicate responsibility for the inevitable and tragic end to the most remarkable experiment in personal liberty and freedom ever attempted on planet Earth.

A Republic such as that established by the U.S. Constitution combined with free market enterprise is a brilliant construct if accompanied, and therefore balanced, by such values as compassion, integrity, moderation, charity and personal responsibility.

Without that balance, the abyss is but a few steps away from where we now stand.

In your own life, immediately take charge of your personal decisions and re-balance your priorities.  Reevaluate what you value and be determined to stand up for those things you know to originate from your highest self.

At some point in that process, when enough of us take this approach, we will reach the tipping point that establishes a more holistic and supportive existence… and escape the need to destroy all that is good for lack of balance.

As a former undergraduate Sociology major at Villanova University, I know something about gathering and compiling statistics.  As a former lawyer, I also know something about making an effective argument that presents the facts in a light most favorable to support your point of view.  While the combination and resulting conclusion of these two skills can be highly compelling and persuasive, it does not mean they are necessarily true.

There is a difference between effective presentation and truth.

Juan Williams, in a FOX.com opinion piece praising President Obama as a “national treasure and role model” for good parenting, quotes Roland Warren of the National Fatherhood Initiative. “Research shows that kids with absent fathers are two to three times more likely to be poor, to fail in school, to be teen parents and become involved with the criminal justice system” said Warren.  Warren has an agenda and so he is using one of many possible statistical gatherings to support it.

I take issue with Juan Williams’ opinion of the President as role model.  Further, I take issue with the statistics Warren cites in supporting his own agenda.

As for Warren’s statistics, it’s not a numbers game. One parent is perfectly capable of doing that job.  Is it harder alone? Yes. Would having both a father and a mother present be an improvement?  Maybe.  It would if it’s not a dysfunctional couple with all sorts of ongoing problems.  But if the choice is between an emotionally healthy single parent able and willing to be an involved positive role model or two people who are miserable together then “no.”

As for the President being a national treasure and role model because he is an involved father, as a parent I can assure you it’s about much more than just showing up.  As a single mother of an 18-year-old daughter, I can also tell you that it’s entirely possible to raise a teenager who is not failing in school, pregnant or involved with the criminal justice system. You do that by not becoming a parent until you are ready to be one,  living the principles and values that you hope to teach and by being involved enough in your child’s life to know when and where they are off track.

Regardless of his politics, President Obama did not work for the job he now has. Not in the traditional sense. He had no relevant experience. He played a political game and through his connections he got there.  He deceived the voters as to the direction he intended to take the country, and he has isolated and removed himself from the issues that are of most concern to the people he governs. National treasure and role model? Really? Or is just showing up enough?

We have many social problems in this country and admittedly the breakdown of family life is high on the list.  But I am certain that I could take up this blog, and a few more, listing remarkable individuals who have made positive and significant contributions to history who did not have the benefit of two a parent household.

It’s too simplistic to say that two are better than one… or that showing up is all that needs be done.  What is needed first and foremost is an ever-present and engaged parental role model who teaches by example truthfulness, respect, compassion, personal responsibility, diligence and patience.

If you can times that by two…great.  If not, no harm done.

My 18-year-old got all A’s, isn’t pregnant, doesn’t use alcohol or drugs, and is headed off to an international program that is part academic courses and part community service.

She’s my statistic.