My friend stopped by today to bring me something. I had no idea what it could be…..and here it is!!
While working in a building my husband and I own, he and a coworker found four of these. One was above a dropped ceiling and the others were in a corner of the basement, covered in dirt and gunk. We’ve owned this building for six years now, and I don’t think any of the tenants who have been there during our tenure had these. I suspect it was the tenant that was there immediately before we bought the building.
Well, my friend knew I would be intrigued by this kind of thing, so they cleaned it up for me, and he was right! I am intrigued and have been googling.
When I was a kid, I loved collecting rocks. I still have a basketful of favorites I accumulated over the years. I had a rock tumbler, and would grind and polish the good ones I found. I still love looking at the colors and patterns. When we would go to the Jersey shore, we would always look for Cape May diamonds. I went through a phase where I made jewelry out of them (I must have been 10 or 12?)
Then when I went to college, I did take some Geology for my BS in Earth Science. I have always loved looking at the formations of rocks on the road cuts on the way to State College. Wow, it has been a long time since I’ve thought about that. Here’s the kind of thing that I mean:
You can’t look at a rock formation like that, and not wonder what in the world could have happened to push the rocks into that kind of swirling shape. It’s awe-some.
The most awesome geological experience I have had, however, was experiencing the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, from the 18th floor of the Clorox building in Oakland, CA. Now THAT was geology. Amazing. Really cool. Didn’t scare me a bit.
So back to my copper pyramid with all the crystals. With just a little googling, I’m concluding that my pyramid is pretty special. The closest description I found so far that mentions a copper spiral is here. Despite my geology classes, I’ve never been very good with identifying rocks, mostly I just know what I like. So I will have to do a little more research.
This is my personal answer to the question “Why did God make the world this way?”
First, don’t get hung up on the issue of “who” God is. That’s another discussion.
I’m talking about the fact that most people, if you asked them, would say they don’t understand why things have to be the way they are. Most people aren’t totally happy with how the world is. We have problems, there is evil, why can’t people just get along, why don’t they understand, etc., etc. That’s what I want to talk about.
After much reading and thinking, an obsessive amount, yes, and attempts to look at this question from my personal, Christian upbringing as well as from other points of view, in my head, I have come to an understanding that makes sense to me. So, I’m sharing. As always, I don’t expect anyone to necessarily agree with me, but maybe someone will find it interesting.
I read an analogy a few days ago (thank you Paramahansa Yogananda!!), and I’ve tweaked it in a way that works really well for me.
“Why can’t we all just get along? Why can’t everyone be kind? Why does there have to be evil, and greed, and hate? Why is it so hard to understand each other?”
Well, let’s just imagine that the world was one big whiteboard. All love and light and goodness and happiness. In this light, whiteboard world, only good things happen. The only color pen is white. So everyone can write on the beautiful, glowing whiteboard all they want. It is always compatible, always pristine, always glowing.
This works really well if the purpose of one’s time in this kind of place is to bask in the glow and rest. And at a certain level, we all get tired at times and wish life could be this way.
What IS the purpose of life? Is it to take it easy? If it is, it sure seems that either God really messed that up, or He is playing a REALLY bad joke on us. And why in the world would we need all the “instructions” in the Bible to tell us how to live in an easy world? We might like the idea of not dealing with problems and conflict, but that’s obviously not how the world was designed.
So maybe that’s not the reason we are here.
What if the purpose of life is to experience, learn, grow, and understand Love and Light. How best to do that?
The first chapter of the Bible talks about how God created the Earth with Opposites. And He describes them ALL as good. Hmmm … isn’t it interesting to notice that opposites give you the most contrast?
The best way to see white chalk is to write on a blackboard. When you are trying to see clearly, and learn from what you see, you don’t get mad that the board is black, you are grateful for the contrast that allows you to see. How can you learn about what LOVE can do, unless there is something to compare it to?
Jesus talked an awful lot about loving each other and spreading light. (The common theme in his advice is that we need to try.) He also gave a lot of examples about how the world (of contrast) reacts to people who spread the light (not always so good.) He talked about being “in the world, but not OF the world.” All this makes total sense if the reason we are here is to practice Love and learn about how to be LOVE in the presence of the opposition (opposites or CONTRAST.)
When this life is all over, and we have learned as much as we could, then what? Do you really think God put us here in a playground of contrast, gave us this amazing environment with so much variety, so that in the end, he could tell us that we were PLAYING and LEARNING the WRONG WAY? Would you ever do that to your own child? Take them to a challenging new place where they could learn and play, then get mad at them on the way home for getting dirty and playing the “wrong way?” Of course not!!
Jesus gave great advice for how to learn the most in this playground. Of course we are going to get dirty, and fall down while we are trying out everything here. But if the point is to learn and grow in LOVE, then there is no point spending time arguing about who is doing it RIGHT and who is doing it WRONG.
It is only FEAR that keeps anyone from going for it and getting the most out of the experience of life. And Jesus also told us not to be afraid. But if you DO want to experience fear, this playground will provide plenty of experiences where you can be afraid and learn about that too. Contrast again.
There are always those kids (or adults) who want to make up rules about how to play on the playground. The adults might want to keep the kids “safe” or make things “fair.” They don’t want there to be so much contrast because they don’t like the extremes. There are kids who like to take control and have everyone else play their game by the rules they set. There are plenty of sets of rules, and they might be fun to try out for a while. But if we get too attached to the rules, then we are limiting our experiences. Someone might want to impose their rules on others, but that is saying there is a “right” way to play and a “wrong” way to play. Whose rules are you following without even thinking about it? Do you think God focuses on rules or do you think He wants us to do the best we can?
My goal is to learn as much as I can about love while I am here on this Earth. I’m going to do it my way, the best way I can. I’ve already fallen down plenty of times and I have learned a lot that way. I’m also having a blast. I am all done with fear, especially the fear that when I’m done, God is going to tell me I did it wrong. And I’m not worried that anyone else is doing it wrong, either. (Jesus also said not to judge others.)
The following is a story that speaks for itself. Thank you, Mathew and Nola, for sharing.
The true story that follows is a somewhat mystical account of my inner child and an unexpected healing that occurred with the help of my guardian angel. I have decided to share this personal story here in order to shed light on an important subject that doesn’t get a lot of serious attention. Prior to my healing, I hadn’t been aware that my inner child could be perceived as a distinct being and that he was my conduit to creativity, imagination and play. Nor did I realize that as long as my inner child was unhealthy, I was unlikely to fully realize my authentic self and highest purpose.
♥ ~~~ ♥
Early one morning in 2004, I was reading some old personal journals when my wife, Nola saw me and asked how I was feeling. “Not so good,” I replied, prompting her to ask for clarification. Unfortunately, as much as I tried to communicate what was ailing me, all I could come up with was that I was dealing with issues having to do with self-worth, and I wasn’t dealing with them very well. No sooner had I said this, however, the words didn’t sit right with me. There was something else that was causing me to feel “not so good,” but try as I might, the only other thing I could come up with was that I was feeling disappointed with myself. Beyond that, I hadn’t a clue. Although I was suddenly compelled to read to Nola an odd little piece of stream-of-consciousness writing I had come across earlier that morning in my journals — something I had written several months earlier.
“Once upon a time, in a far away land, there lived a Prince who was tormented by his illness. The King was so fed up with this Prince that he locked him away in the castle and forbid him to go out until he found joy in his heart. But the Prince could only find unhappiness and misery and so, in the castle he stayed forever and ever.”
No sooner did I finish reading it, Nola reacted by saying that it was unjust of the King to have locked the Prince away in the castle. “That was not helping the Prince,” she said, “that was cruel.” Well, I don’t know what I had expected her to say, but it wasn’t that! Because as many times as I had read that little story, and I had read it many times, never once had it occurred to me that the King was cruel. But suddenly, Nola made me see it that way. And then she really floored me. “You are not responsible for the fact that your father locked you away,” she said. “You understand me, right? You are not responsible and you need to forgive yourself. You did nothing wrong.”
I don’t know why I was so incapable of admitting that, but I was! I thought I had forgiven myself for the choices I had made in the past. And I thought I had forgiven my father for the choices he had made. But when Nola suddenly asked me to say the words, “I am not responsible for the fact that my father locked me in my room, and I am now free to walk out the door,” it took a good two minutes before I could actually bring myself to say those words. When I think back to that moment now, I find it fascinating how each time I thought about repeating those words, I laughed in a nervous and embarrassed way until finally, under unrelenting pressure from my wife, I said the words.
When I wrote about this event in my journal later that day, I wrote that after I managed to say the words, I felt like I had emotionally distanced myself in order to say them. Thus, I hadn’t really said them at all. Realizing that, I suddenly wondered if I subconsciously agreed with the King – did I really believe I deserved to be locked away until I found happiness. But then Nola’s point of view drifted into my field of awareness. “The Prince was ill and he needed help. As the Prince’s father, it was the King’s responsibility to help his child overcome his illness in any and every way that he could.” And with that realization, I finally accepted the fact that my father had been truly incapable of loving me, and I shed some painful tears.
Just to clarify, it’s not that I had ever been locked away in a literal sense. But I was definitely a victim of physical, mental and emotional abuse at the hands of my father. And clearly, as much as I thought I was over it by the age of 44, I still had unresolved issues. Also, in order for the rest of this story to make sense, you need to know that just after Nola and I were married (in 1985), I changed my name from David to Mathew because in my teenage years I began to experience a disassociation where I no longer identified with David. By my early twenties, this disassociation had become so severe, I recall a time when a friend shouted my name from across the street and I didn’t respond. Not because I chose to ignore him. The truth was, I heard someone shouting “David,” but I didn’t realize that David was me, so I kept right on walking.
A few years later, when I finally changed my name, although I didn’t know it at the time, I was effectively sealing little David’s fate. Thus, when the painful tears suddenly rose to the surface as I was writing about this incident in my journal (the moment I finally accepted the fact that my father had been incapable of loving me), I found myself strangely detached from the tears. “Why am I so detached,” I wondered. And then suddenly I understood. It was because my inner child, David was crying, not Mathew the adult. So I let David cry while in my mind I called upon the angels to be with us and help us. Strangely, I felt the little boy starting to surface through his tears, and I tried to encourage him. “I love you,” David, I said in my mind. But I could feel that it was hard for him to break through — by then, he had been locked away for so many years. “It’s okay, David,” I cooed in my mind. “Everything’s gonna be okay.” And finally, David surfaced and tried to say something through his tears. It sounded very much like, “I love God. I love God.” Because he was crying and trying to talk at the same time, I wasn’t exactly sure if that was what he was saying. But the thought did cross my mind, “I wonder if David has been mad at God all these years for allowing him to be locked away as he has been?”
As I sat in my office and continued to write down the details of this experience, no sooner did I finish writing about the possibility that David had been mad at God, stream of consciousness words began to flow off my fingertips – words of love to my wounded inner child:
“You are free, David. I love you and you are free to come out of the castle and go anywhere in the world you want to be. You may go forth with all the wonder and joy that’s in your heart, without restriction, without judgment. You are allowed to be whoever you wish to be, in any way you see fit. No one will criticize you for the way you choose to exist and wonder at the world. It is your world to discover and to do whatever you wish with it. God bless you, David. Go forth. You have existed in the castle for too long. Now that you are free, go forth and enjoy the beautiful sights and sounds and smells and tastes and beauty and wonder of the fantastic world around you. It is okay. You shall see. Everything is okay for you. It is safe. You are protected and nurtured and no harm will come to you ever again. God bless you little David. God bless you.”
A few minutes later, I thanked my guardian angel for participating as he had in the events that transpired earlier in the day. I told him that I now knew that I had unresolved forgiveness issues, and that my inner child was still very wounded and needed a lot of love. Was there something he could recommend that I should do to continue along the road to health and well-being? Here was his answer:
“Thanks indeed to Nola for recognizing the truth in your story about the King and the Prince. We gave you that story several months ago for this very reason. You needed to understand that you had been treated in an unloving way and that you did not deserve this treatment. It is an unfortunate experience that you arranged to have. And you have been dealing with its unfortunate consequences for many decades. God bless you Mathew AND David. You are both one and the same and neither is more valid or worthy to live out their life than the other. You both must coexist; your inner child and your adult persona. Together you will find much happiness. But remember, it is your inner child that has been very neglected and badly treated for your entire life. He will need a lot of love and encouragement to come out of the castle and stay out in the light of day where he belongs. God bless him and you, Mathew, for having the courage to look within and find this little boy. You have done a wonderful thing by letting his pain leave your body. There will be more pain. But it is all good. You are forgiving yourself and others, and in the process, you are recovering your lost creative child.”
Later that day, with Nola’s encouragement, I cleaned out my office and threw away a lot of useless paper that had been sitting on a shelf above the computer table where I regularly sat to write. In its place I suddenly felt a strong desire to hang some old framed pictures I had stored in a box that little David had drawn many years ago when he was seven. I wanted to show David love and respect now that he had ventured out of the castle, and I felt that by hanging up his art, that was as good a place as any to start. ~ Mathew
One of the most wise men I have run across is Scott Sonnon. He knows the meaning of strife, hardship, and how it all leads to unconditional love. He posted this today:
I am not a believer. I am convinced. I did not have faith. I was given it.
Life taught me through consistent, obvious lessons. When I resisted those lessons, the universe appeared to neglect me at best, and detest me at worst. And each time that I ignored or fled from life’s lessons, they returned, louder, stronger and more insistent. Then, I attempted something radical (for me): I embraced a lesson life offered. The discomfort of that initial embrace stung, but burned away only illness and disease, suffering and misery. What remained, grew stronger. And with that increased strength, greater confidence that the universe may not be an opponent, but my secret advocate.
So, I embraced another lesson, and another, and another. My confidence grew to belief that what would follow from every event I embraced would be positive for my growth as a person. And that belief grew into faith that even when all appeared overwhelming or scarce, desperate or flooded, everything happened for my best interest, not as a mere advocate, but with a deep, unconditional, tireless love for me. Across cultures and nations, this appears to be a universal experience regardless of the details with which it is described.
Open to the possibility. Turn, face and embrace. You may not have confidence now, but if you have the courage, just once… on the other side of that discomfort, your trust will grow that the universe secretly conspires for you as your most unconditional love.
BULLY ALERT!!! There are a couple of situations in the news recently that are examples of how hurtful criticism can be. We call this kind of behavior Bullying and it’s easy to just label it wrong and get angry and want to punish the bullies to stop it from happening again. But the focus on punishment isn’t working in the quest to stop bullying. Here’s an article about why.
Following are two situations where “fighting back” was handled in a different way.
The first situation involves Balpreet Kaur, a Sikh woman. As the article says, the situation “started with a sneaky and ill-advised online potshot, but it ended with an apology and a positively heartwarming lesson in tolerance and kindness.” The story is here and I’ve copied the article from HuffPost below.
Over the weekend, a Redditor with the username “european_douchebag” posted a photo of a college student named Balpreet Kaur to Reddit. Kaur, an Ohio State student and observant Sikh, does not trim her facial hair in accordance with her religion’s beliefs.
Kaur discovered her newfound fame, when a friend showed her the picture. Despite having her privacy violated and her picture posted to the supposedly humorous r/funny subreddit for the world to discuss, the young woman’s response was dignified, graceful and generous.
“When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away,” Kaur wrote. “However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can.”
The Internet, too, rallied in Kaur’s defense, with Redditors like “MisterMT” adding their own messages of support. “This is overall a great story – and Balpreet is about to become a global icon. Even better, she is someone who genuinely deserves her recognition. Wonderful stuff.”
Many took note of Kaur’s true inner beauty, while others hailed her as a role model.
“I had tears in my eyes, reading this post,” wrote “singhza”. “Balpreet you are an inspiration to everyone and esp the Sikh youth who think they are a misfit in the society if they conform to our religious symbols.”
What happened next, however, was in many ways more surprising: european_douchebag himself apologized.
In a response entitled “I posted the picture of a Sikh woman on here and I’d like to apologize” that popped up on Reddit yesterday, the man behind the furor issued a complete mea culpa:
I know that this post ISN’T a funny post but I felt the need to apologize to the Sikhs, Balpreet, and anyone else I offended when I posted that picture. Put simply it was stupid. Making fun of people is funny to some but incredibly degrading to the people you’re making fun of. It was an incredibly rude, judgmental, and ignorant thing to post.
/r/Funny wasn’t the proper place to post this. Maybe /r/racism or /r/douchebagsofreddit or /r/intolerance would have been more appropriate. Reddit shouldn’t be about putting people down, but a group of people sending cool, interesting, or funny things. Reddit’s been in the news alot lately about a lot of cool things we’ve done, like a freaking AMA by the president. I’m sorry for being the part of reddit that is intolerant and douchebaggy. This isn’t 4chan, or 9gag, or some other stupid website where people post things like I did. It’s fucking reddit. Where some pretty amazing stuff has happened.
I’ve read more about the Sikh faith and it was actually really interesting. It makes a whole lot of sense to work on having a legacy and not worrying about what you look like. I made that post for stupid internet points and I was ignorant.
So reddit I’m sorry for being an asshole and for giving you negative publicity.
Balpreet, I’m sorry for being a closed minded individual. You are a much better person than I am
Sikhs, I’m sorry for insulting your culture and way of life.
Balpreet’s faith in what she believes is astounding.
Sometimes humanity surprises us for the better. This is simply one of those times.
The second situation involves Jennifer Livingston, a TV news anchor in La Crosse, Wisconsin who responded to a viewer’s outrageous attack on her appearance on Tuesday morning. The article (again on HuffPost) can be found here.
Livingston recently received an email from a male viewer criticizing her weight. Her husband and fellow news anchor Mike Thompson posted the text to the Facebook page for “WKBT News 8 This Morning.”
“I was surprised indeed to witness that your physical condition hasn’t improved for many years,” wrote the viewer, who said Livingston was not a “suitable example” for young girls. “I leave you this note hoping that you’ll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle.”
Livingston addressed her bully on-air Tuesday, prefacing her message by saying that she has received words of support from “hundreds” of people and that the response has been “truly inspiring.”
“The truth is, I am overweight,” she said. “But to the person who wrote me that letter, do you think I don’t know that? That your cruel words are pointing out something that I don’t see? You don’t know me… so you know nothing about me but what you see on the outside and I am much more than a number on a scale.”
Livingston continued, “That man’s words mean nothing to me, but really angers me about this is there are children who don’t know better — who get emails as critical as the one I received or in many cases, even worse, each and every day.”
She said that bullying scared her as the mother of three daughters. “If you are at home and you are talking about the fat newslady, guess what?” she said. “Your children are probably going to go to school and call someone fat.”
Livingston thanked the viewers, friends and colleagues who have stood up for her, and ended with these words:
“I leave you with this: To all of the children out there who feel lost, who are struggling with your weight, with the color of your skin, your sexual preference, your disability, even the acne on your face, listen to me right now. do not let your self-worth be defined by bullies. Learn from my experience — that the cruel words of one are nothing compared to the shouts of many.”
We would all agree that this kind of criticism, this kind of bullying is “bad.” But we are each able to choose our reaction to it. We can focus on the condemnation, but that just escalates the negativity and empowers the critic, placing the bully at the center of attention. We can react as a victim, but then the bully wins, gets a satisfying reaction, and is empowered to create this kind of drama over again. We can hide and hope the bully doesn’t notice us, but what kind of a life is that?
OR, we can be secure in who we are and refuse to be defined by the criticism of the bully. We can understand the bully or the critic for who they are, someone who is insecure and who only feels powerful when they can manipulate others and get a reaction.
Which leads to the most important part of the lesson here. How do we teach our kids to react to criticism? How do we empower them?
Both of these women are secure in themselves. Each personality shines in the face of her situation. They reacted differently, but neither one focused on revenge. Neither one acted like a victim. And neither one ran and hid from their attacker.
Most of the anti-bullying strategies out there focus on punishment and how “wrong” the bully is. This leads to an underlying lesson: when someone criticizes you, you are victimized. WE ARE INADVERTANTLY TEACHING OUR KIDS TO ACT LIKE VICTIMS, the OPPOSITE of what we really need to do – to EMPOWER our kids.
Izzy Kalman is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist who is working tirelessly to get this message out. His website, www.bullies2buddies.com, has a wealth of information about how to handle bullying and how to empower our kids. The truth is, we all encounter criticism throughout life, and knowing how to handle it is huge. Izzy has written many articles that are insightful and helpful in understanding the psychology of the dynamics of bullies and “victims.” In this article, Izzy says:
Consider what kids have been taught about bullying for over a decade. They have attended assemblies presented by highly paid ‘bullying experts’ who tell them about the horrible effects of bullying. They have been presented with school bullying policies outlining all the kinds of bullying that they should not tolerate. They have been told that words can scar them forever or even kill them. They have seen No Bully Zone posters plastered in school corridors. They have watched movies and read books about the pain of being bullied. They have participated in antibullying rallies and wear antibullying bracelets. They have been told that they are not capable of dealing with bullies on their own because the bullies are too strong, so their classmates and teachers must stand up for them against their bullies. Their favorite celebrities have embarked on highly publicized antibullying campaigns and assured them “It gets better.” They have been promised that tough new laws will protect them from bullying.
Then they are confronted with reality. Despite society’s promises of protection and the comforting “It gets better” declarations, they continue to get bullied–and it’s only getting worse. The ever-present No Bully Zone posters are nothing but a lie to them. When the school authorities get involved against their bullies, their peers despise them even more, call them ‘snitches’ and want revenge.
Having been told year after year how destructive bullying is, they become even more upset when they are bullied. And when they get upset, they get picked on even more, because emotional upset is what fuels bullying. So the bullying gets worse, they become more desperate, and they are more likely to feel that the only way to end their misery is to end life itself.
We will never reduce bullying by continuing our current antibullying efforts.
We need to realize that kids who commit bullycide, as much as we sympathize with their misery and grieve for them, are not heroes and the last thing we want is for them to be role models. They are the kids who lacked the resilience and the wisdom to deal with their problem. We cannot continue to glorify them with magazine covers and laws in their name and expect bullycide to decrease.
The most reliable way to prevent kids from taking their own lives is to teach them how to deal with bullying on their own. It is not hard to stop being bullied, and our kids deserve to be taught how to do it.
And on a lighter note: I have to add this video. We can never underestimate the power of humor in the “fight” against hate. Enjoy!!
“Beliefs are like addictions; you get hooked on them. Everyone has had the experience of forming a belief about someone they have never met but have heard of, and later, on meeting them and getting to know them, they have been nonplussed to discover that the imaginary perception that they had invented bears practically no resemblance to the person, and they have to change or adjust their belief accordingly.
You all have beliefs that have become deeply ingrained over the course of your lives and which you never question – you had a thought, it made sense to you at the time, and it became a belief, or your parents or teachers led you to believe that something was a proven fact – and then one of your children or one of your younger friends or associates draws to your attention its invalidity. That can be very unsettling for you! Maybe you refuse to look at it from their perspective (admitting to yourselves that you have been wrong all these years can be very painful) and get angry with them as you try to defend it.
However, when you can begin to question your beliefs without fear, and release those that no longer serve you, you will uncover within you a sense of freedom, a sense of space, and you will feel lighter. Most of you know people who have inflexible beliefs and attitudes and with whom it is difficult, if not impossible, to have a meaningful conversation. When someone like that comes to mind remind yourselves that everyone is a mirror in whom you see your own reflection. At first it is hard to admit that to yourselves, but you are all aware of having noticed others not seeing, or choosing not to see, their faults or inadequacies very clearly reflected back to them. Are you really so different?”
The excitement mounts as your awakening draws ever closer. You have been waiting a long time for this and you will not be disappointed. Some of you have had so called “peak experiences,” when whatever you were doing flowed perfectly and at a level of competence or ability that was way beyond what you would describe as normal. It was uplifting for you, even galvanizing, because it seemed that you could do no wrong, could do nothing to interrupt or prevent this energetic flow from delivering the most remarkable outcome. The sheer wonder of moments like those are as nothing compared to what awaits you upon your awakening.
The journey to reach this stage in your evolution has indeed been arduous — a long and exhausting endeavor — but the end is in sight, and even though you have doubts, deep within yourselves you have a certainty, a knowing that…
meaningofstrife 