Running through a stack of papers I came across the following quotes:

 "Spirituality is the highest form of politics."  John Mohawk of the Haudensaunee

 "Being human is not being driven, but deciding who one is going to be.  Karl Jaspers

 "Existentialists realize that categories, rating scales, rational standards, and impersonal explanations fail to capture the living stinging moment of reality."  Avery Weismen

 "In a world that is largely unfair, you make your choices."  George Yonemura's father

 "Besides

my struggle was always against 

an inner darkness: I carry within myself

the only known keys

to my death....

       the healing

of all our wounds

is forgiveness

that permits a promise

of our return

at the end.  Alice Walker

  "Then we shall understand that evil is not symmetrical with the good, wickedness is nto something that replaces the goodness of a man (sic): it si the staining, the darkening, the disfiguring of an innocence, a light and a beauty that remain.l  Howeve radical evil may be, it cannot be as primordial as goodness.  Paul Ricourer

 "In a higher world it is otherwise but here below to live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.  J.H. Newsmen 

Yesterday a tornado ripped through a boy scout camp killing 4 scouts.  I could only think of our Cameron, a boy scout (who designed the Logo for the beloved community) and how we would feel if he had been one of he kids killed.  We would be inconsolable.  The ourpouring for the families has been exceptional - people coming from everywhere to help and comfort them.  I only wondered why the same people don't flood to the inner cities and console the mothers of kids shot in the cross fires of gang shootings.  Why is there so much sympthy for the scouts' families and very little for inner city mothers?  I can't answer that. 

There are two choices any person needs to make through out their lives, people can either choice to live there lives to make things better in the world they live in or they can choice to make things better for only them self. There is also two different ways people can think, people can choice to view there thoughts of everyday situations in there life either positively or negatively.

People now a days especially don't understand the power of good, they see it and they feel it but they rarely understand it. From a young age people are taught how to act and what to believe and they base there day by day decisions on this information which leads there lives to become a manifest destiny which means that what ever they believe about themselves or there future will come true. The problem with all of us today is that we don't Believe in ourselves enough any more, everything is based on facts and science instead of dreams and imagination.... we have no faith. The pressures of stress, anger and judgment come from negative thinking, this is when people cant see the good in a situation any more, when the world has beaten a persons dreams, hopes and faith down so hard that they give up because there sick of being let down. The problem is that people hardly ask the question 'Why is everything going wrong' they just assume that's the way it is.

But I'm telling you that's not the way life has to be. Everybody has a conscious that gives you a good feeling when you do good or a bad feeling when you choice to do bad. It seems that consciously choosing to do the wrong thing always eventually has a consequence, but when the people around you are always warning you about the consequence before you make the wrong choice you begin to become curious and wonder why its wrong to do it. People constantly focus on teaching others what Not to do instead of focusing on teaching others What to do. When people hear what not to do they get curious and wonder Why not, but aren't able to understand why without being able to learn for themselves from the experience. So when a person choices to make the wrong choice a consequence will often follow the decision, but the consequence isn't meant to hurt a person its meant to teach a person why there choice was wrong in a positive way, but way to often your friends or family will treat you negatively when you make the wrong decision saying things like "I told you, you shouldn't have done that, now look at all the trouble you caused us" or "how could you be so stupid and deliberately disobey me" Instead of showing you why your decision was wrong or helping you get through the hard times. When you do something wrong you know it and you fear that others will notice it cause your ashamed of your actions but instead of people listening to your true feelings and assuring you every things gonna be alright like you need them to do, the people around you love to show you how wrong you were just so they can seem like there advise was right all along, but the only reason that there advise is right is because they made the same wrong decision in there life before and had to deal with the consequences to. All people learn from experience and its the only way a person can figure out the truth for themselves, so instead of acting negatively to someone for making the wrong decision even though you told them not to You should only think of what will help the person positively, and instead of telling someone not to do something tell them what and how to do something and why its the right thing to do, so there is no point getting mad at some for doing the wrong thing when you could focus on what you can say to help that person positively. When a person faces consequences they learn through out there life, but when there yelled at and punished for making a wrong choice they start to fear a consequence and begin to become prosecuted for learning about life. Everyone has to make the wrong choice before they can know why to make the right choice, but the way the world handles wrong choices currently only negatively effects people, one of those negative effects are fear. The fear provoked by the way we negatively handle situations start to cause people to not want to be honest and inevitably not want to take responsibility for there actions... and so excuses are made. If you don't take responsibility for your actions because of the fear of the consequence than you will never be able to learn from that situation and it will block you from taking the next step you need to take to move on in life.



We all need to learn from are mistakes and be honest with ourselves on what we need to do to be able to get where we wanna be in life and to free ourselves of life's worries, cause all we got is this ONE life and its the only one that we will ever get and when your old you don't wanna look back and think about all the things you worried about and didn't do, what you need to do is see the truth today and the way to start is by thinking positively. When you make a wrong choice you shouldn't worry about all the bad things that are gonna happen, instead think about the good that will happen after you deal with the bad, or instead of thinking of the time you wasted think of the time you still have and do something about it, negativity brings you down and depressed and positivity brings you up and optimistic for the next steps in your life. Excuses are the things that escalate problems not truth, if you admit to being wrong on a decision then that's the end of it and in the future you will look back and think how scared you were to tell the truth and wonder why you were scared cause it all worked out for the best now, the quicker you see that truth is the key to moving yourself to where you want to be than the quicker your whole life will become worry free.





This truth makes me wonder why our current president and our government wont take responsibility for there actions. We invaded Iraq with out any right to do so, and now over 4000 American troops have died and close to a million innocent Iraqis have died from our mistakes, but instead of our current administration taking responsibility for all of the death an chaos that has occurred they are still making stupid excuses. How is the problem of terror ever going to be fixed if we the people don't recognize that the choices that are being made are the wrong choices and only more and more negative consequences will occur until we don't take full responsibility for our actions. Bush has justified his mistakes through excuses of fear, and everyday more people choice to make the wrong decisions because of the fear of the consequences, the American people are scared of what might happen if we leave Iraq without realizing that every extra day were there more death is occurring which has a effect on the family's who have lost lives, which can only lead to pain and to suffer pain with out a vindicated reason will turn to hate which will be directed to America as a whole, and our wrong choices are going to continue to pile up consequences until we face are fears and accept our responsibility. We can fix things by choosing to make the positive choices that will help others and only then will our country and the people begin to become strong and worry free.

All we got is our self to make the right choice that will help us in our future,

And all America can depend on to make the right choices is we the people, If you want things to be good than make good choices cause with Love, peace, faith and truth you will fear nothing.

American people are grown up in a society that bases there beliefs and values on materialistic objects instead of the beliefs and values that truly advance a person into eternal happiness.
Mostly everyone in America has trouble with being an individual because of the fear of being judged in a way that isn't you, which often leads to a person trying to adapt into group or way of society in order to make sure people don't see them as something there not. Americans work more time for stuff than any country in the world , this is because in order for the average American citizen to fit in properly with are society he/she needs to adapt to the standards of living, which means dedicating your life and all your hard work to be able to have things like a big house, multiple cars, T.V's, computers, temporary vacations, and a variety of other ''things'' that according to the world are suppose to make you happy. But the truth is that all of these 'things' only provide temporary pleasure to a person, and when the pleasure is used up people just want more and more which will inevitably lead to misery instead of eternal happiness and spiritual enlightenment or the answer to life itself. If a person is real with there self and with others than nobody is going to have the power to judge you and bring you down, cause you can sense truth within yourself , and if other people do try and judge you negatively differently from who you are, you will be able to pity them, their primitive fake attitudes are only going to lead them to drama and distress for their own future. People need to look for happiness and not just buy it, happiness comes from seeking truth in the world and doing something to help others and not only yourself, seeking truth means to make sense of whats real, and the truth about feelings is that they should be used to show good not bad. If you try doing these two things you will find your self with more joy, confidence and friends than you could have ever imagined.
We also need to acknowledge that there are consequences from the way we live, not only the stress ourself is branded with from expectations like from bills, credit, or money problems that can ruin a family. But also how our standards of living is maintaining an on going cycle of poverty in 3rd world country's which means our selfishness  is now putting stress and restraint on others . Now unless you have been to a 3rd world country poverty may seem unreal to you, only because you cant imagine children suffering horribly and nobody stopping it, but never be ignorant to the truth, poverty is a reality and the saddest part about it is that America has had the wealth and resources to be able to end poverty for a long time. Instead American corporations choose to exploit the poor by moving there companies for selfishness and use the poor to work for penny's a day under degrading conditions. Then after they have produced mass amounts of goods paying hardly nothing for it. Then can still not even consider to pay the poor enough respect so they can feed there families or afford basic shelter. They then can ship there product to America where there is high demands for these name brand products and a person from America would be so influenced by the media and others to go to a store to buy brand new clothes and end up paying $160.00 for a pair of Nike's, while the corporation who owns Nike probably only paid $2.00 to have that shoe made(2 people get screwed and one gets Rich).
So to conclude, I believe so many people are wasting there potential by focusing there minds and values on 'things', instead of themselves.
We are all being distracted away from seeing how incredible human potential is and what really matters on this earth ...life..love..peace..happiness..harmony, sense, feelings and truth. The Moment Is Now people, so be yourself and accept truth then speak it...... do not fear, cause in the End nothing will matter  Only Your Actions.

During Chapel yesterday, I opened the Bible and found some old cards with poems and/or sayings that I liked.  The first is "The Partisan's Hymn" - the Jewish Resistance fighter's anthem:
"you must not say that now you walk the final way/Because the darkened heavens hide the blue of day/The time we've longed for will at last draw near/And our steps, as drums, will sound that WE ARE HERE."  
 
Sometime this past week I heard the presentation of Rachel Corrie's Journal.  It seems that "The Partisan's Hymn" can now apply to the Palestinians fighting for their rights and land.  

If you hear one side you feel empathy, but if you hear the other side you feel empathy for that side.  What if all grieving parties sat down together with empathetic observers and aired all their grievances and worries together.  But each side with the commitment and desire for justice and well being for all.     

From German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Fortune and Calamity":
   "Those they strike stand dumbfounded/staring at the rubble/of their everyday, inglorious existence..../they seem to come from some eternal source..../pronounce judgment/on earth's own entangled drama....Time alone decides...finally reveals what is meant by misery/This is when most turn away....This is loyalty's [last] hour...till it is transfigured/by a gentle, cosmic/...light."

From the book Men and Message, I copied this quote, "The emptiness and enigma of life afflicting one makes a leap of faith a necessity to escape the absolute darkness."

In his "The Inner Reaches of Outer Space," Joseph Campbell quoted the following text by T.S. Eliot:
"I can only say, there we have been: but I/cannot say where./And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time/The inner freedom from the practical desire/The release from action and suffering/release from the inner/And the outer complulsion, yet surrounded/By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving...."