Sloan. I am curious – as I do believe there are angels among us and always have – do the angels ever say anything about diversity? I know this has nothing to do with Obama and the dialogue we’ve been having . . . Peggy
I have learned that each person’s soul is a unique emanation of God into form (simply stated).
Here’s the poem that started it.
Earth,
The sacred prism
Through which souls are refracted
Into the elemental parts,
Purified in Holy Fire,
Then one-forged
And sent on their way
to not even God knows where,
Simply because they are all
Unique emanations of God,
Evolving . . .
Souls on this world tend to herd up, lose their uniqueness. My experience with Obama campaign workers, which was pretty iinvolved, was that they were mezermerized, tranced, like some sort of cult. Reminded me of the Fuckawi Indian trip. All starry-eyed, no feet on the ground. And not in the least open to looking at Barack Obama with eyes wide open. Nor with themselves, either. Human nature.
I have learned that what the angels are trying to do, or maybe would like to see happen, because I don’t see much evidence of anything widespread, is for people to step out of the herd and become who they really are. This is not an easy thing to do. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable around the one changing.
A fellow told me yesterday, we are friends, that I’m mostly full of shit. He has no subjective ability. Everything for him is objective. He cannot read between the lines, make inferences from what isn’t said, or see double meaning in what is said. I laughed, told him that the problem people like him have with me is that they think, consciously or unconsciously, that if I’m not full of shit, then they are, and that’s not something they can accept. So I’m the one who is full of shit.
As I wrote to Linda yesterday, I have been a one-person minority many times, and I held my position until the angels told me to change it. Very seldom was I told to change, and when sometimes I started to waver, the angels really got onto me about wavering.
I wonder if you ask about diversity to wonder if there is some sort of permission to screw up, go to war even? Yes, that always is in play, but it makes for a very different journey than taking the road less traveled by, which is the short cut.
We all have people in our lives who want us to stay in their herd. It bothers them when we break away. You describe this in your life. Jesus frequently talked about leaving family, friends, views, beliefs, habits, to seek the kingdom of God. Be in this world, but not of it.
That separation was put to me in spades. It’s still being put to me. I cave in to herd thinking/approval at my peril. I must follow my own course, and I need constant help staying on it. Constant help. Even after all I have experienced, I am not smart enough to do it all on my own.
Sloan
Sloan, I have always been ‘outside the herd’ – it always got me into trouble especially in the workplace because they did not want me to think for myself, they wanted me to play along even when I saw it was detrimental to the patients, the hospital, whatever. I had an easier time in the positions where I was the supervisor. Any nurse who ever worked with me could attest to my rebel qualities, so going with the herd just does not apply to me. I rarely did.
Without compromising my position that I am not yet ready to give up on Obama, I agree with you about the mesmerizing effect all of us felt. We were so hungry for truth and reason after 8 years of Bush, it was difficult if not impossible not to feel spell-bound by the words spoken by Obama. I, for one, was very happy when he declared his candidacy because he made so much sense during the 2004 Democratic convention. I liked his common sense approach to government and the world. Besides I saw no other choice on the horizon. I believed to not take a stand would have kept us on the same path we had been on since 2001 with two open-ended wars.
Even though I clearly am disappointed in the two more years of war, the one in Iraq is winding down and if we don’t end up in a war with North Korea or Iran in the meanwhile, the other one will wind down in 2011 and we will be a country not in war with anyone. Of course, with his decision on Afghanistan, we have not been given what I and most of his supporters wanted and believed he would do, but 2011 is better than no end in sight at all. After both wars are over, I do trust him not to take us to war with any country who does not attack us.
Actually, had he not dropped out, as much as I thought of Obama, I was prepared to vote for Dennis Kuchinik (I think I did not spell that right) because his plan for the economy and immediate end to both wars was more reasonable and desirable than Obama’s, or so I believed.
There were several times during the campaign when I believed what Obama was saying was ‘pie in the sky’ rhetoric, that no individual president would be able to accomplish what he said he would do for the country, because Congress would fight it tooth and nail. Conversely, I so wanted to believe we could have something better than the go it alone, shoot now, talk later, administration of G W Bush, I plunged in and voted for him, after Kuchinik dropped out. Perhaps I will come to regret it but we knew with McCain, we would see no end to the war for many years, if ever, so I did the next best thing and voted for Obama.
Obama has done what he said on the healthcare issue and that was the second most important reason I joined the ‘herd’, if you will, for him. This country, as you pointed out, also, is the only civilized country in the world that does not take care of its citizens by providing healthcare for everyone. It was long overdue and had to change and McCain definitely was not going to do that. Maybe Congress will shoot it down but I don’t believe they will because Americans want universal healthcare in one form or another. But, at least, Obama did get the ball rolling on that, as he promised.
I’m afraid I don’t understand what you meant about my stand on diversity more or less asking for permission “to screw up or go to war even”. I am 72 years old and I believe and hope my days of ‘screwing up’ are over. My position on diversity is simply that I am no more favored in the eyes of God than another person who might be different than I. I am happy to see a young generation coming up to bat who, for the most part, does not see color or nationality, etc but sees people who should be valued for themselves, not for things they have no control over, such as the color of their skin, where they were born or their sexual orientation.
That is who I am, Sloan. No more, no less. I’ve been that way since I first became aware the whole world was not white Christian anglo-saxon. Since I first felt ‘funny in my heart’ when I heard the word n . . . . r or saw how people, I knew and cared about, laughed and called a young boy who had a club foot and was obviously mentally impaired, also, a ‘retard’ without reaching out and helping him. That is when I became aware of how cruel human beings could be toward other human beings. That was the most difficult lesson I drilled into my two daughters as they were growing up. I say difficult because their father was the direct opposite of me in that he had this great sense of humor but I realized too late, he could also direct that humor toward others who were different, just as my relatives did. Making fun of others different from him was a sport. Thank God and my constant mentoring on it, my daughters did grow up to respect others of different race, religion, etc. That and to love one another and others in the world around them were the only two important lessons I drilled into them on a regular basis and, despite their father’s influence, they got them.
Enjoy your day, Sloan.
Peggy
You had asked if the angels spoke to me about diversity?
In my answer, I wrote, “I wonder if you ask about diversity to wonder if there is some sort of permission to screw up, go to war even?”
As if, by diversity, we can and do do all sorts of things, including go to war?
The angels have never recommended that approach to me. Not physical war. Often, though, they recommend that I go to battle against stuff they don’t think is doing humanity/people any good. War one. There are many others.
I have concluded, and the angels have never dissuaded me from it, in fact, they encourage me, that the herd has never been right and, I gather, never will be.
Here’s a report of my personal, direct dealings with the Obama herd, which is separte from the other suff I have published recently.
I had never heard of Barack Obama, until after he announced his candidacy for president. Briefly, I was caught up in the mezmerization. Like about a week. It started when I was moved to donate $2,300 to his campaign. That very number later turned out to be one of the suggested donation amounts his campaign workers were sending out. I published my donation and enthusiasm. Then (what follows, I published) I started trying, by email, to have the dialogue with President Obama that he had said he wanted to have with America. I got back computer generated “Thank you for writing” letters. Then I got invitations to join think/discussion groups. Reminded me of the Fuckawai Indians. Reminded me of a cult. By now I wasn’t mesmerized. By now, I was thinking, those sneaky fucking angels set me up, to get me to give that much money, to give me serious standing to make a lot of commotion. When I finally got a human to dialogue with me by email, he was astounded that I actually expected President Obama to take the time to answer my emails. Conceded, I did, that I never expected he would. But he should never have said he wanted a dialogue with America, knowing there was no way he could do it, or would do it. To that, the campaign worker too what seemed to be even more astoundedness. That I would call Obama a liar, for making a statement he knew he didn’t mean. Some time passed, and I got a phone call form an Obama worker wanting to know how I was doing and how I felt about the campaign. I gave him an earful, told him to get out before it was too late, and said I’d written a few times asking for a refund and had only gotten computer-generate replies. He said he would look into it. Maybe three weeks later, he called back, said it looked like I would get the refund. Nope, it never came. Then started getting invitations to attend fund-raisers in the Miami area. Again, I was asked to contribute $2,300. I was asked to pay money to meet Barack’s wife, who had been described to me by someone who kept up with such stuff as a spider. Barack wasn’t to be there. I wrote back, explaining all of the above, except the part about Michelle Obama. I heard nothing back. As I recall, I did this twice, responding to two different Obama fund-raisers. Twice, nothing back. I now recall that I had asked the worker who called me to get me off their email list. Nope, that didn’t happen either. Then I got on the local (Keys) Obama campaign list, and I worked them over too, and heard nothing back. This is supposed to be starting to get pretty funny. Bottom line, by having so many dealings with Obama’s organization/people, I got to know what sat at the top. As above, so below. As below, so above. I was a member of the Obama herd about ten days. Some day I’m going to figure out a way to take that $2,300 out of those pesky angels’ hides. Some day.
Sloan
Okay, I’m laughing, because it is written like a comedy of errors, but I had exactly the same experience and it really was not funny to me, either – with trying to contact him, because like you, I took him at his word. I don’t know why I believed this or even believed I would get a reply right away from one of his aides to say he had read exactly what I wrote. I should have known better. This was about my sister in TN who is between Medicaid and Medicare eligibility and I was pleading for intervention on behalf of people like her in our country who are working five or more days a week for minimum wage but their employers do not provide health insurance yet they make “too much money” to even go to the health department to see whether the lumps on their bodies are cancer or to get their blackened toxic teeth out of their mouths before they die from the damage to their hearts! I still get mad thinking about this. Of course, I got no reply. I finally received a letter from a staffer, thanking me for writing to the president and he takes everything into consideration when trying to do anything for the country, yada yada yada! So, for reasons like that, (I only donated a total of five dollars twice because I have other things I have to use my income for) I really don’t open any more of the e-mails saying they are from Obama – few have been like the one he sent before his address after winning the presidency, which I’m sure you received – as they are all usually signed by one of his staffers.
Peggy
The stuff kept coming from the Obama camp, camps, and I started marking it junk mail 
Sloan, The Terrible
P.S.
Speaking of angels, I received this yesterday from a fellow who used to live in Key West, who’s been having his own personal rueful awakening with something the devil made him do, which didn’t turn out too well for him:
Hey Sloan, sometimes I wonder if your “angels” are angels or devils, like on either shoulder. I know you speak from your heart but there’s so much negative about humankind, especially Americans, whom might just be the most generous people ever to walk the earth. Yes, we have greed, it’s an enormous problem to overcome, but in the history of the world, has their been another group that has tried harder to feed the poor, free men, etc.etc………..you never seem to give Amercians a break, we/they are not all Bernie Madoff……I didn’t vote for hi but I think Obama is doing well under the circumstances he inherited, let’s give him a chance, he’s our only one for at least 3 years, doug
Doug,
You might wish to read what Jesus had to say about humankind in the Gospels. Might cheer you up
Be glad, I suppose, you don’t have the ears and eyes and sensors I had installed, or awakened, in me, and input I receive from angels who hear, see and sense a lot better than I do.
Sloan