1/1/17

A few of us gathered at the well this morning. The water was icy cold which felt good to my hand as I dipped fingers into the water. A short winter brings the promise of spring and the world keeps turning in great abundance through the seasons. What more can we ask of God? Well, we do ask more and receive more than we deserve. Those of us who gathered at the well, then followed Jesus through the woods and up the lighted path of the mountain. I delighted in the colorful flowers, mostly blue and purple flowers that grew in the crevices between the rocks. The flowers mixed in with green grass looked to be flowing down from the mountain top.

When we arrived at the top I delighted in the green grass between multiple patches of snow that probably feed the flowers below. I walked in tall grass scattered with wild flowers beneath a deep blue, cloudless sky as if God had suspended nature’s rules in this special place. Years ago, I remember watching a special about the paradise in the middle of China wondered if that is where our mountain was on this day. Maybe.

It was in China where we first lined up, spirit to spirit, from pole to pole. Then we began to walk God’s light around the world. Each of us were bursting with such light we’d received from God’s mountain top. I reached out my finger and drew light beads and streams upon what we call reality. We all did this as we began to walk, drawing circles of light around people and trees and animals along our path.

I went to a man in china and drew circles of light around him just before I hugged him. Next I stepped over to Viet Nam and drew circles around a very young girl standing against a building waiting for a trick. I hugged her and smothered her with love and light. I next stepped into the Ukraine and hugged an older man who was attempting to dig in the frozen dirt. He seemed distraught and I circled him with light by reaching my finger all around him and then held him tight for a few moments. I prayed that I gave him hope.

Our line of spiritual light walked around the whole of the world. I reached down into Africa to hug and hold a tiny baby who was sucking on a bottle. The baby was tiny and had been in danger of starving. I felt fiercely protective for the child and told the baby girl to grow up strong and bloom. Next I walked into America and hugged a young black boy in great distress. I wasn’t sure why, but drew circles around him and told him to hang on, that it would get better in a short while. I wasn’t sure, but it usually does if we just wait the problem out. I circled him with light and when I hugged him, I think he felt my presence. Sometimes children do.

Next I went to a young lady living in a trailer with her three children. She had on a lot of makeup on as if that would make everything ok. I drew circles all around her trailer and hugged her. As I did, she began to cry. I am not sure but I think this was a good sign. She wiped mascara off her cheeks and seemed calmer.

Lastly, as we all stood in California or Mexico, I looked back at the progress we’d made as we marched around the world. I smiled at the million scribbles we had left behind, swirling up and down every mountain and around countries from the North Pole to Antarctica. Circles of happy light ran every which way up and down the land. We had did a good job this morning. All of us seemed to recognize this fact as we nodded our goodbyes to each other. Now I can begin my day with the feeling of accomplishment. Thank you God.

This is a photo of my side yard.

1/6/17

What we do sounds easy--to send our minds to gather upon the imaginary mountain and then walk around the earth spreading God light that no one can see. It is not easy. It is hard to keep it up even once a week. I don’t know why. Is it because it becomes less exciting and ordinary or is it because something beyond our kin pushes back at us? I don’t know the answer. I do know that regardless of the effort it takes to walk in spirit, we keep at it. This includes many Buddhist monks, Catholic priests and nuns, leaders from various religions and of course, ordinary people like myself who keep trying to improve our own meditation. I used to think that I didn’t know how to meditate because I wasn’t doing it like the books described, but I have since learned that the way each of us meditate can be personal.

I have asked myself the purpose of meditation? It has many purposes, one of which, is to communicate with God, and another is to share love around the world. These are the reasons I meditate. I am trying to encourage all of us, including myself, to keep pushing because this is what we do best in life--keep pushing against the current.

1/16/17

According to Oxfam, the 8 or 9 richest people in the world have 400 + billion dollars combined. I tried to do the math and divide 400 billion by the 7 billion people in the world and couldn’t, too many zeros. Or we can think of it like this: If we wanted to use up 1 billion in single dollar bills you would need to spend $1.00 every second for 32 + years.

Looked at another way, the 2,000 richest people on Forbes list have 6.5 trillion dollars. This sum is easier to see and compare. If 6.5 trillion were divided up and distributed around the world, each of the 7 billion people living in the world today would receive maybe a million plus dollars.  

Of course, this is impossible, but it does show vividly where the money is not. Also, money alone wouldn’t solve the problems of the world. That much money to spend, or even a million for each person, would certainly make for a big happy bubble that might last years but it would burst soon enough because people wouldn’t have changed their attitude.

With a little thinking, it turns out that the only person who can truly save the world is Jesus. With his teaching on love, along with the millions of others through history who have given their lives for us. This day, MLK comes to mind. I will never forget his Letter from the Birmingham Jail. In it he said his dream was that we judge people according to their character. Too many of us judge people for every reason except their character. We all do it--Black people, white people, people of different faiths and political persuasions--Any of us can get caught up in quick judgements. When will the human race learn to accept one another?

I remember when a senator yelled out and heckled President Obama during his first State of the Union Speech. And I ask myself, is there a difference between that heckle and John Lewis’s, and other brave people, refusal to go to the inauguration? I have a deep respect for the office of the Presidency of the US. This makes me hesitate to disparage our incoming President. I ask myself, “Don’t both actions show a lack of respect?”

Yes, but there is a difference. The difference is character. That heckler mocked the color of President Obama’s skin not his character. Mr. Lewis’s boycott is not against the presidency itself but the character of the person who will hold that office. And that makes all the difference.

Jesus said to me just recently, “Everything will change.”

I don’t know how or when but I hope it means that God will somehow step in to save us from ourselves, if that is even possible at this stage of the game.

Well one can hope. I am still that little ant walking down the path, going about my business with hardly a notion of that huge stone about to roll down to block it. Will that blockage be a rock, a pleasant surprise, or just a slight difference? It isn’t given to me to know. Only Jesus knows because he lives in the future as well as in the past.

I realize that what I write here on the web consists of short comments lacking in weight. I don’t dive deeply into most subjects because I don’t mean to write essays because who would read them? I doubt if I get many readers anyway and maybe short comments work well enough. We have so much media coming at us from every direction, conflicting to grab our minutes that our attention spans have shrunk. Not many people want to open a web page and read for more than a few minutes. In fact, with the birth of Facebook, more people than ever prefer quick photos and short quips. What is a person to do?  Roll with the punches.

Photo of President Trump and wife by Doug Mills. I love the play of shadows on the back wall.

Jan 20, 2017.

I read a transcript of President Trump’s inaugural speech. I thought the speech was inclusive of all the people in the United States. It read as if President Trump really cared about all segments of our society and spoke sincerely when he promised to give jobs back to the people. The problem is that by giving the people what they want instead of teaching them what they should want, he will dirty up the clean air we breathe, air that all living things depend upon for health and life. Using dirty coal would make the skies of the US look like Beijing on a bad day. It would also deny vital, healthy air to the next generation of children, the people of tomorrow.

President Trump please reconsider your stand on coal. Keep the coal cleaned up and then make us pay for it. So what if it costs a little extra, we can handle it. Truly, this is a pivotal time and future generations will either blame or praise you for the destruction or the preservation of the air on our planet.

1/22/17-travel with Jesus

We traveled with Jesus today for the first time in about six months, but I almost wish we hadn’t. I have always known that these travels with Jesus were not mere sightseeing tours. Now I begin to understand the deeper meaning of these trips. Like most of us, it takes a good while for new or unusual material to sink in. We don’t accept new ideas willingly, but need hints and allusions before we can truly understand. Now I understand what Jesus wants of us. It was Jesus suggestion that we travel this day.  

We began by nodding to each other that we were ready and met at the bottom of the sky tunnel. Here I saw something new, a lot of wooden curls and twists of roots growing into the tunnel that had turned to wood. They were nice and decorative looking. We began walking up the slope of the tunnel, feeling its pulse of tree-ness as we sent it our pleasure and thanks for allowing our travel.

We followed the ghost form of Jesus to the very top. I asked Jesus what color we would see first.

He said, “Every color.” and smiled.

We stepped out amid the billion branches into the universe. We stepped onto a planet that almost took my breath away. It was so vivid in color it looked like an artist had splashed paint with a huge brush onto a canvas of this world. Everywhere we looked was bright color. Close by my feet was a swath of the deepest green I had ever seen. And right next to the green a swath of glowing yellow, then purple, then looking forward I saw more green, and purple, orange, and every color in a child’s box of markers. We walked a ways and stopped at a rich brown hill and watched a multi colored, glistening lizard climb out of a hole. I looked into the distance but there didn’t seem to be any distance, no fading away of color, just tall greens, sort of trees without brown trunks, next to a large stream of bright blue water.

Seeing the water made me look up to the sky. It was intensely royal blue with streaks of purple, red and yellow running through it. I turned around and no matter where I looked, the distance did not fade. It was as if there was no distance to the land because the colors did not subdue or fade away. I looked at the bright brown mound again to watch the lizard, more of them now. They looked very earthlike, but with a lot of wrinkles in different places on their bodies.

Then I looked back up into the sky. When we first arrived, I thought I’d seen something strange and streamlined fly past us. I was right. What I now saw in the sky above us looked like a petroglyph from the dinosaur age of earth.

“Are we on earth?

“No.” Jesus answered.

“Are there people here?”

At Jesus nod, we continued to follow him and walk swiftly across the land, as only invisible forms can do. We stepped over a large, swiftly running river and past a lot of clumps of tall tree like forms. Maybe they had green trunks. Not sure if I can remember exactly because my attention was immediately pulled towards the huge mountain of glass. It wasn’t really a mountain of glass, more like a rounded pillar of glass, three or four of them set in a circle. It was hard to tell because glass walkways was strewn between them and filled the ground level. Each pillar of glass had ribs holding it all together. Naturally, I am not sure it was actually glass. Also, I couldn’t see inside clearly because the glass seemed fogged up in many places. Later I learned that the people inside needed a rest from the constant vividness of the color palate that surrounded them on this planet.

We went inside and saw huge open spaces with clear elevators shaped like bubbles rising to the top, stairs that moved like escalators. It truly seemed mountain size so we could only see a small portion of what was going on in any one place. People, but not a large number, were scattered around the inside riding up an elevator or stairs. We went to an underground cavern where machines were running and we went to another area where it seemed like a whole river was falling into the underground cavern then running for a ways and flowing out again. People were using something to pull fish and other life forms out of the underground river.

The people looked just like us. I didn’t see any large or thin people but there was variation in tallness. The color of their skin seemed almost uniform and slightly brownish, but hair color was varied. The clothing the people wore seemed subdued, consisting of grays and greens. A few of the people riding on the elevators or stairs stood out because they wore bright colored clothing and other add-ons.

We went back outside and I noticed that airplanes shaped like round glass bulbs were lifting out the glass pillars. We followed one and watched it land on the ground near a large area of green and yellow grass. The two people who stepped out of the landed airplane were covered, head to toe, in a white outfit like we might wear to protect ourselves from Ebola or radiation. They used the covering to protect themselves from the intense light of this world’s sun. I looked up at the sun. It was a different shade of yellow than earth’s sun.

“Is something wrong with the sun on this planet?” I asked Jesus. “Is it dying or something?”

Jesus said it was but the end wouldn’t happen for millions of years. He added, “It isn’t the sun’s eventual death that is the problem, it is the intense radiation pouring out from it.”

“Didn’t these people evolve here?”

Jesus said they hadn’t. He added, “These people are from earth.”

Ah, that explained why the people aren't used to the sunlight here. The intensity of it might kill them if they went outside. But even with this intense amount of sun, other life such as birds, lizards and even grass had evolved and seemed to thrive on this planet. I thought it strange that everything didn’t look like desert. But maybe the sun wasn’t hot, just intense. The air was the purest I have ever seen air on any planet we’ve visited. I assume that is why everything was so vivid.

Yet, beautiful as it was, I felt sorry for the people who could not go outside to breath in air or feel the wind upon their skin. I understood now why there was so much glassed in living quarters. Even the people’s gardens needed to be under glass. We had seen people walking and sitting next to normal looking trees and flowers, but had seen no one walk outside in the air.

I asked Jesus, “Why did they come here? It seems a needlessly harsh way to live.”

Jesus answered that people had to disperse from earth. They could no longer live there because of the runaway green house. Jesus explained that in this ‘potential’ future, we had turned earth into a hot house that resembled Venus, though not quite as bad because some people still lived on earth. They need to live below ground. They didn’t build glass domes on earth because the view would be bleak, empty and bleached of color, like sea coral. The people on this planet could at least could look out at beautiful color. No one on earth could do so any longer.

I shuddered as I learned this. I love earth. I love its greens and colorful flowers and trees and even the fog and snow and the excitement of storms and thunder and everything that makes it earth. It is too beautiful for me to imagine it changed forever. I can’t bear the thought.

Each of us left this bright planet with its strange sun with a heavy heart. I remember many trips Jesus took us on where we did go underground. I knew there that we were on earth but I didn’t know why the people lived beneath the ground instead of on top. Not I understand it will be because they can’t breathe the air. The people had turned their own weather against themselves. I used to think the cause was from radiation, but now I think the problem might be intense and extreme winds, bad air, and other weather related events. Jesus is trying to warn us. It is time to take heed of this warning and protect our earth. No matter where we travel in the universe, humans will always want to come home to visit their home planet because no air or wonders will ever match its beauty. One time Jesus took us to a future earth that was kept preserved as a park system for visitors. The only people who lived on earth permanently were its care givers. It was preserved because humans had left for other planets by then but always wanted to come home for a visit. People could vacation here and many areas were kept as if history had stopped, but it was an illusion that made everyone happy.

Back on earth, we held our minds together long enough to make a pact. We promised ourselves and Jesus that we would not allow the earth’s air to be to destroyed. We nodded to each other. We are from different points on the globe, so each of us has our own image of natural wonder to love and respect from our surroundings. We dare not let such wonderful air and wind and snow and rain and mud and grass and flowers die from heat or dirty air. We vowed to protect it.

Future generations will look at ours as being crazy because we allowed a few investors to ravish the earth for profit. If you look at the big picture, it seems unfathomable that we would allow it. I think either we begin fixing this or we will pay the most deadly price. This warning comes from Revelation.

Jan 25-2017

Here is what is going on according to Revelation, as I remember it, (I haven’t read Rev. lately, it is too depressing).

According to Revelation:

First take note that Jesus said that everything that is stated in Revelation will happen. Lucky for us, most of it we can slide through with hardly a whimper for a number of reasons. What the angels showed John of the future horrified him, but to us, living as we do in the modern world, those same sights seem normal.  Also, because of hard work by angels and the courage and concern of many people, some events have or will be lessened in intensity. We should also keep in mind that Revelation is not written consecutively. It is like a Russian doll with some parts set within other parts.

That being said, there is still a lot left in Revelation to ponder and worry about. Here are a few points that I remember about predictions that pertain to today:  

· A leader (the first beast) who was once dead will come back healed as the second beast. Both are driven by the invisible dragon. Only words and symbols, and yet? Hitler was mortally wounded but is he back?  (Figuratively or actually who knows? We really are living in the Matrix).

· The kings of the earth will hide in the mountains, but they still will not learn. Right now many rich people are building bomb shelters, buying up old atomic warhead silos, and buying hide-a-ways in New Zealand or putting their name in for the government installation inside the mountain.

· A great island or continent that is based on commerce will be so damaged that ships will be afraid to land. To me this sounds like radiation. Why else would commercial ships be afraid to land? Possibly, if we are truly lucky, it could be a reference to the past, such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII, or a reference to the Ebola epidemic.

· There are also statements about ‘Stars falling from the sky’—think asteroids.

· ‘The sun darkening’—think pole shift after Antarctica splits apart.

· “The largest earthquake ever on earth’—I wonder if we will cause this ourselves with fracking?

· All this warning is frightening, but the truly most awesome event in Revelation, the one that gives us great hope, is the promise that New Jerusalem is on its way to earth.

Everyone needs to pull it together and fix this world and society we live in. If we don’t, I see true calamity in our future. People will need to live underground because they can no longer live above ground. Why can’t they live above ground? I am not exactly sure. Use your own imagination. We can fix this. We can beat back on what is happening. The future is not written in concrete, not even Revelation. The most important first thing we can do, or continue to do, to save ourselves and our planet, is to grapple with the fact that our planet is overheating. Recent photos of the ice melting at the North Pole show the truth.

Still, much good is happening on earth. I read that contrary to the current news, there are less people facing starvation today than ever before. So something we are doing is working. We have also eradicated some serious infections and cured many others. It seems that we, as a whole, have a conscience and it is working. If we keep this up we may stay in good shape and even improve the state of human life around the world. There could be much to look forward to, but first we need to push back against what ails us here in the United States of America. We need to keep our title as the Land of the Free.

Perhaps a good question to ask: Is the “Father of Lies” taunting Jesus because he knows Jesus has come back to earth? Also what does the ‘enemy’ or ‘dragon’ accomplish by destroying the earth and controlling us humans who live upon it?  I don’t know the answers. I suspect it is anger against the God who loves us.

Also, I think that President Trump’s promise of jobs is nice words without real meaning. Likely, those few new jobs that are created will have little to do with real improvement and everything to do with further damaging the earth while giving more wealth to investors. The Dakota Pipe Line was supposed to go around the city of Bismarck, SD but got rerouted when someone thought the people wouldn’t like it near their city. So now it is supposed to go right under a main river near an Indian reservation. Just the word, ‘Reservation,’ says enough. The purpose of this is to save the pipe line investors’ money, no matter if the oil spills on sacred ground. The old saying “Follow the money” is as true today as any other time in history.

So I ask: “Why does President Trump choose to endanger this earth we live on?” He will say he does not, but actions speak louder than words. Plus, SD already has jobs and the lowest unemployment of any state.

Did this same thing happen to Mars? (And maybe even the runaway green house on Venus)? Were Martians driven to destroy their own planet? I have walked with Jesus on Mars when there were still people living on it and again today when it is almost empty of life. It is a dying world because…? I can’t say exactly how many millions of years ago or why it died but I believe the same dragon drove at the people until their world became unfit for life. Was it money then too? This is why on angel world they don’t allow money. It corrupts and disfigures all it touches.