Wave The Flag Of Freedom To Be

I guess I really like flags. Perhaps it is the notion that waving one about says 'Here I Am' to no one in particular and everyone in general. The colors are an expression of the facets of ones personality and the freedom that is evoked when one can truly say 'I Am Who I Am'.

Of course flags often connect folk with a group or a mindset and can provide the waver the illusion of strength that comes from the acceptance in that corporate identity. Raising the flag can symbolise a victory and lowering one signifies mourning and loss.

My flag today is the Rainbow Flag - created to illustrate the diversity among peoples and the unity that emanates from refracted light. This weekend saw the annual celebration of National Coming Out Day. A day when all are encouraged to remove the masks and share who they are with their world. So many of us live in hiding, Unable and unwilling to reveal our truth for fear of the judgement of the world. This fear, so often justified by reality, is crippling and stunts our growth in love as long as we hold on to it.

I have just finished reading 'The Shack' by William P. Young and I am heartened that the understanding that I have, the revelations that I experience are supported throughout this wonderfully inspiring novel. I know that unconditional love is my unwavering thought toward my daughter and that my father feels the same toward me. No matter who I become. what I do or where I go - he will always be with me and always love me.

I may not always please him, ever meet his expectations or often make his heart glad - but I know that he loves me and that he is 'especially fond of me'. How have we humans created and sustained a religion that puts me in a completely different light. It is because humankind has to create systems and hierarchy in a vain attempt to control others and to coerce them into conforming to norms and rules and laws that come from fear not love.

So today COME OUT!! Do not hide yourself any longer, afraid of the opinions and judgements of others, but come into the light, shine as you are and wave your flag with joy for all the world to see. There is no one like you, you are perfect, special and unique. You have intrinsic value that is just bursting to spring forth into the world and share its gifts. Whoever you are you are loved and you are loved for who you are . . . the Spirit that binds us together will also set us free!

Blessings on all who wave the flag of freedom to be!

With Love,

Geoff

Truth or Lies

Throughout the course of history the few have attempted to control the many by a succession of elaborate lies and misinformation. In fact, the easiest way to assume control, be it over an individual or an entire nation, is to be the gatekeepers of information. Those who say what is true and what is not are those who have the minds of others in their hands.

Recently a number of distressing stories have come to light where youngsters have been kidnapped and made to live in a subservient manner with men and women who completely manipulate the truth so that their captives become loyal and dependent on the captors, much like 'Stockholm Syndrome' or the plight of battered wives.

The psychological manipulation is so complete that the victims feel (initially out of fear) unable or unwilling to challenge the status quo. This is a similar dynamic to the capitulation of the German populace to the radical and antisocial commands of Hitler during the 1930's. People, individually or corporately, give over their powers of question and reason to those who control what is essentially seen as the 'truth'. The sad fact is that in most cases the information is not true - it is a lie.

To whit - Santa Claus. Why is it that Westerners insist on telling their children to believe in a fictional figure and then berate them for 'spoiling' the story when they finally wise up and tell their younger siblings the truth?

How have the world's religions been able to foist myth after myth upon their adherents without any tangible evidence of the stories that they insist are pure fact. The truth can only be verified by one's own experience. It cannot be transferred by edict or law or even taken as fact because someone in a power position says that is is so. We must question everything that we think we believe to be sure that it is our choice to value as truth.

So what is our big 'National Secret' in America. What is the lie that we are telling the world about capitalism and enterprise that is the antithesis of unconditional love and acceptance for diversity of thought, practice and experience. Why do we try and force the world as a whole into a mold that is not working for us as a nation. When we are unable to provide for our poor, our elderly, our infirm and our destitute because, as a nation we are pursuing a selfish and superficial dream. The secret that we hold is in fact a lie. That America is the 'land of opportunity' is only part of the story, and offers false hope to so many that cannot find their way out of poverty and isolation. The lie is that America, as a nation, is altruistic, generous and fair. The truth is that America as a nation is greedy and self centered and controlled by a cadre of individuals and corporations who care nothing for anything other than profit and the 'bottom line'.

"Oh say does that Blood Spattered Banner yet wave . . . O'er the Land of Greed and the Home of the Lie"

Where is love and compassion, sharing and interdependence when we are, as a nation, unable to provide Universal Health Care to our own people? What lies are being told to convince people not to question these wrongs but instead to fight for the preservation of a 'liberty' and 'freedom' that has long been taken away!

More to come!

With love, Geoff

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go

I just watched the Lifetime movie 'Prayers for Bobby' for the second time in two nights and I could not help but remember the trauma that I went through as a young man battling with being gay and a Christian and how irreconcilable those positions seemed to be. The story that was being told was one of a young life that was sacrificed, though the end result was that others were set free. Bobby took his own life because he could not face the rejection, couched in 'love', of his close-knit, Catholic family. Rejection is never love however because love, to be love, must be un-conditional. His family learned this, sadly, after his untimely death.


Our Christian teachings are wrong when they condemn a person for being who they are and for what they do. It is never right to try and change another's life. I really know that now as a spiritual principle. Why is what I do, I say, I think, I hope, I wish right or best for anyone but me? And why is what others do, others say, others think and others hope right or best for anyone else but them? Jesus reflects the loving and compassionate essence of a Universal God. Man has added his words to create a book, the Bible, that seeks to legislate a perceived 'way', to be the one and only right way to be. That folk have taken this as truth, without question, makes the Bible one of the most damaging books ever written. As a history book of the gradual development of God-consciousness it is without peer. Without LOVE there is nothing.


For most of my lifetime I have believed that notion of loving the sinner but not the sin. I now see that as false. Unconditional love is just that - a love that has no conditions and no requirements for it's dispensation. The sin and the sinner are one, and as one they are loved. For me or you to judge the actions of another completely ignores the example of Jesus who came to the rescue of a woman caught in the act of adultery who was about to be stoned to death, a consequence congruent with the law of the land - a law based on the unenlightened revelations of the Old Testament. He said to the assembled kangaroo court - 'Let him among you who is without sin cast the first stone'. Of course, no one moved!


Jesus knew that they had it all wrong. He understood the truth of the law of love. He was the enlightened one. They were still mired in the ignorance of partial understanding. Within a year or two they took his life instead and then his followers made it look like it was the plan all along so that the God of their limited understanding could forgive them . . . like Jesus was a necessary sacrifice to satisfy God's sense of justice! How sad that mankind transposed their own feeble notion of the requirements of forgiveness onto the Love Force of the Universe. What loving earthly father would require a recompensive sacrifice in order to forgive his children of anything?


Until Christendom is liberated from the Bible as a handbook, and begins to use it as a history book, the sins of the fathers will still be visited on the children. I am lucky that my dad loved me regardless of my actions and stood by me when others condemned me to hell. Bobby was not so fortunate. My dad reflects God's love because his love is unconditional. Who I am is more valuable to him than the collective misunderstanding of generations. His love for me is without condition, without judgement and requires no forgiveness to access. My mum is the same way. These folk have completely, and perhaps unwittingly overturned the teachings of the church as they have accepted me 'Just As I Am'.


I know that I have survived in order to be a light to shine into the darkness of the lives of those who have not experienced the 'Love That Will Not Let Me Go' - the love that binds us together and unites us as one across all the false barriers and separations that segregate us in the world today. I must let the wounded know that who they are is who they are meant to be. The actions that do harm to others are the ones that must be corrected, the nature of a person is without question something to be accepted and embraced, without comparison to standards and mores that are nothing more than attempts to create conformity for the purpose of control.


Who is to say that my life is any less important or valuable than that of any one else? Who is to say that it is wrong - or right? The only measure is if I love. Period. Like the song from the bohemian musical 'Rent' - we should measure a life in seasons of love. This too is the heartbeat of Christianity - too bad most Christians are stuck with a corpse. The risen Christ is alive in love and compassion.



With love, and in peace - Geoff

A New Year - New Direction

It is January and I have not blogged for three months! My brother told me when I started that the key was to be consistent! I have since found out that he struggled his way to consistency, so, instead of beating myself up I will say - to quote the enduring British (or Aussie) one-hit wonder . . . "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down" . . . ad infinitum!

I am not hot on New Year's Resolutions, but I do believe that it is a perfect time for us to evaluate the direction of our lives and the values that we hold. The cyclical nature of the seasons almost compel us from within to moan with the frosty winds and ache for the newness of Spring - even in Florida, where it is said that we experience three seasons in a single week sometime in January and for the rest of the year it's Summer!

This year past has been extremely challenging, but in terms of growth has been most rewarding. I have come into 2009 a better and more whole person than entered 2008. That I am in my 50's is all the more remarkable because tradition holds that the older we get the more intransigent! For me it seems to be the opposite. Not that I don't like things a certain way, but I am finding that to be willing to let go is far more exciting than having everything 'My Way' - sorry Frank! That I could think that if only people saw it, did it, felt it, enjoyed it the way I did they would surely be happy is very naive. That I could support and encourage them in having it their way is far more satisfying!

So I recalled a teaching of Don Miguel Ruiz who says that the practice of four simple agreements with ourselves will ultimately change the world and I decided to make these the focus of my New Year. I will try to be Impeccable With My Words - I will say what I mean and mean what I say. I will Take Nothing Personally - trying to remember that most everything is not 'about me', it's about the other persons 'stuff'. I will Not Assume Anything - we all know who ends up being the ass! And I Will Do My Best. I really believe that if I practice these principals enough I might master them and then I shall know emotional, spiritual and physical health! Not a bad lot for the year!!

Happy New Year my friends and family!

With Love and Peace, Geoff