Separation of Church and State

Just because something is illegal, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It’s easy to forget that fact sometimes. We have a lot of laws on our books that got there with supposed good intentions but perhaps it’s time that we took a harder look at some of those issues and began changing the laws. In these troubled economic times changing these laws would be a smart economic decision. In these difficult social times these changes could help bring us together.

We live in a country which was supposed to be founded on the principle of separation of Church and State yet we don’t seem to be really living that. With very few exceptions, we all have had sex and will undoubtedly have more in our lifetime. It’s a beautiful expression of love even if there is a financial arrangement connected to it. The body receiving the affection and attention it needs doesn’t know the difference. Yet if we look at what group is behind keeping sex work illegal and stirring up fears around it, we’re left looking at the Church and many of its followers.

We’re still a young country and we have a lot of growing to do. If we look at how other countries handle sex workers, we could learn a great deal from them. If sex work were legalized, as it should be, great things could come from that. First our police wouldn’t have to spend their already thinly stretched resources on it trying to catch people but rather could focus on protecting the workers. It takes far less resources for the police to respond to calls for help than it does to do investigation work trying to locate and prosecute sex workers. This frees up resources for more important matters of public safety.

With the emphasis being put on protection rather than prosecution this would also reduce the negative impact the industry has on the legal system; less attorneys, judges and legal staff. It would also reduce the strain on the already overcrowded jail system. All of these resources could then be used to focus on real crime reduction and not on enforcing morality issues.

If sex work were legalized nationally, as it already is in some states, it would ultimately mean that those in the industry could begin reporting their income to the government. This increases our tax revenues. If you look at some of the rates that the more successful workers are getting, the additional taxes collected from it could be substantial. That money is more often than not going unreported out of fear and sometimes necessity. That means lost tax revenue right now.

Assuming that like any other legal industry where licenses are required to do business in that industry, that revenue base would also be increased. With more people now being in business for themselves or in groups, more taxes would need to be filed so the tax preparation industry would feel a positive impact as well. With everything being run as a business this way it would mean more jobs to support the industry and this has a positive impact on the tax revenue. Factor in advertising and marketing revenues and the impact it could have on that industry and it really starts to add up financially.

These are just a few of the areas where we would see a positive impacts and each of these will radiate out into other industries. Sex work is the oldest profession for a reason. It’s happening now whether it is legal or not. We need to pull our heads out of our puritanical asses and legalize it to protect everyone involved. Dropping the moral judgments on the activity and seeing its real value will take us further as a society than we can even imagine at this point. Other countries know this to be true from their own experience.

Another area where we could see a HUGE positive financial impact on the economy would be through the legalization of marijuana. Let’s face it, the war on drugs is a dismal failure brought on by moralistic fear-mongers. There have been countless scientific studies that show the health benefits of this amazing plant. Compare this to the alcohol industry now and the negative impact that booze is having on everyone. This is another industry that if it were legalized, regulated and taxed the positive impacts would essentially mirror all of those mentioned above for legalizing the sex industry. I heard that if it were legalized, the taxes collected on it alone would be enough to pull us out of the recession. It’s that big an industry already despite its legal status.

So many resources are currently being wasted on keeping both of these areas criminalized. The fact is that no matter what your moral belief on either of these industries, they exist and will continue to exist no matter what the legal ruling on them. Rather than burying our heads in the sand and pretending that they don’t exist, we need to wake up, drop the judgments and see them for what they really are, business industries that have a huge market base and global economic impact.

The final point isn’t about something that is illegal but rather something that simply isn’t legal and it’s something very near and dear to my heart. Gay marriage. Earlier this week the California Supreme Court decided to allow Proposition 8 (a State ban on gay marriage) to stand but allowed the marriages that took place before Prop 8 to continue to be legal. The thing that saddens me most about this is that the main proponent of Prop 8 and the ones who spent the most on getting it passed is the Mormon Church.

Here is a case where the Church has taken its beliefs, beliefs intended to be for its followers, and used those beliefs to create State law. This is a clear violation of the separation of Church and State but because of the way it’s done the Church is not part of it, just the main financial backer. Even if you factor out the Mormons and just look at it from a neutral standpoint, it is still a violation. As babies we are not born to hate and judge. This is learned behavior. This discrimination directed specifically against gay people is Bible based. Where is the unconditional love there?

As an American born citizen I am supposed to have the same rights as everyone else in this country. While I recognize that marriage is a ceremony of the Church, I also recognize that our government has inferred many legal rights and financial incentives upon married couples. This in and of itself is a violation of the separation of Church and State. As a legal, tax-paying (yes, I do pay them) citizen, I should have access to those same benefits as any other American, yet I can’t ONLY because I’m gay. From a legal standpoint that is a violation of my rights as a citizen. I’m happy to have our commitment ceremony be called a “civil union” and leave the term “marriage” to the Church but I want access to every legal benefit that the State infers upon married couples. It’s not special rights it’s just equal rights. Anything less is discrimination and is simply unacceptable. One of the main purposes of Government is to defend the rights of the minorities to make it a level playing field for everyone. That isn’t happening here.

This is a very divisive issue, I know this, but it’s time that we woke up and stopped the practices in our country and on our planet which divide us. The Church and its followers are fully entitled to have their beliefs and opinions but they should only apply to their members. They are welcome to judge me and believe that the Bible tells them to do it. The laws in our land were formed in a different time based upon beliefs of the time. Unfortunately these old laws were put in place by members of the Church using the beliefs dictated to them by the Church. There are too many of us on this planet who don’t subscribe to that belief system and all of the laws that violate the civil rights and freedoms of others need to be modified from a place of love and respect.

We are all members of the same species. We are separated by arbitrary lines that our ancestors created that make us Americans or Canadians or Italians or Greeks but still we are all humans. We absolutely must find better ways to get along and we must do it quickly. We must focus on that which unites us and brings us peace and change that which separates us and brings us war at any level. Those who choose to live in love are living in alignment with the Universe which loving creates all that is, was and ever shall be. Love is the law.

How would your world change if all your decisions were based in unconditional love and not in judgment?

Perspective

Greetings everyone. Good news. I’ve finished the letter to my family. Now I just need to edit it a tiny bit and then send it off. A few of you have asked if I’ll share the information in the letter and I’m happy to do that. Right now it’s about 10 pages long and I’m pretty happy with it. That’ll be posted here soon. Thanks to those who asked.

I’ve searched through my other writings to find something to post so that it doesn’t seem that I’ve just abandoned this blog. Unfortunately everything I’ve found needs a bit more set up before I post it. I’m using this blog to tell a story and share a journey. The things I have already written were written before I began this blog journey so I’ll have to build up to them. Stay tuned.

I recently came across a bit of information that has really been taking me mentally to some powerful places and I want to share that information with you. Some years ago scientists discovered a star in the Milky Way that’s one of the largest they have ever found in our galaxy. This star is so massive that if you took it and put its center where the center of our star, the Sun, is the outer edge of that star would sit just beyond Mars!

In the world in which we live, I just have a difficult time comprehending a single object that is that massive. Think about how big around that would have to be to be a sphere. It would entirely encompass our Sun and the first 4 planets in our solar system. Not only is it that wide but because of its spherical shape it is also that tall. It just seems almost unimaginable yet there it is.

I just Googled it to see if I could find the name. Apparently this isn’t a new discovery, but the information on it just recently came to me from a friend. I’m a big fan of astronomy and so things like this fascinate me to no end. My point in sharing this with you is to encourage you to begin to think about the larger picture. As awesome and powerful as we humans think we are, in the big picture we’re like the nucleus of one of our cells (maybe even the nucleus of the nucleus) in comparison to our bodies. We’re so tiny that we’re almost invisible…yet we exist and are an amazing expression of life manifesting itself as mankind.

Check out these two videos to help get some perspective on the larger picture. Each is very short and easy to digest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u70UBs7BWY8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw

Let the thought of the size of these stars and their distance to Earth roll through your mind and notice the shifts that occur for you. Holding the perspective of where we are in a Universe of infinite potential can help raise your consciousness. The time of a mass rise in consciousness is approaching. All the signs point to it. This shift will be the focus of upcoming postings from me.

Enjoy the videos. Don’t give up on me. Great stuff is on the way…I promise! Thanks for your support and encouragement. I’m deeply honored by it all.

The power of the mind

Our brains are such powerful things. They’re powerful beyond even our wildest dreams yet most of us know so very little about them. For the most part we think of them as memory holders. They hold the memory of past experiences and knowledge we’ve gained. They’re able to take all of that and use it to guide us in our daily lives. Everything we do, read, hear, see and experience is stored there. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it because remembering things when we really need them can be challenging but still the memory is there somewhere.

The brain and the mind however are two different things. Most people believe the terms are interchangeable but they aren’t really. The brain is the organ that physically exists in our head. The mind is the intangible component of our being that directly interacts with the brain and the body. The mind is that part of us which generates thoughts, imagination and our inner dialogue. I believe it’s important to be aware of this because of all that becomes possible with that awareness.

The amazing thing about our brain, and something that not everyone knows, is that the brain doesn’t know the difference between what we experience in the world and what we imagine. Scientists have discovered that the exact same parts of the brain are active when we see or experience something as well as when we simply imagine doing something. I believe that is a key piece of information in helping us to change our lives, to grow and ultimately to evolve as an individual and collectively as a species.

Given that information think about all the data that goes into the mind. When we see violence or gore in movies, video games, in “the news” or read about it in books or newspapers, that information along with our interpretation of it gets stored in the brain. Even though we may be very conscious that “it’s just a movie” when it’s happening, the interpretation of that movie doesn’t get directly connected to that fact that it was just a movie. You may recall that fact when you focus on the movie or scene from it but the brain stores the information gathered from watching it as something you have experienced.

For example I’ve never shot and killed anyone or anything personally (and hope I never do) but unfortunately I’ve seen many movies, or video footage, where that has happened. I know this true for most everyone that has been exposed to the media that way. That means that the memory of that experience is stored in my brain somewhere (yours too) and while I’m sitting here quietly and thinking about it, I know that it’s not something that I’ve done nor want to do. However if in a crisis situation where I was holding a gun and I felt threatened or panicked, my body might react just like in the movies without me really thinking about it. I believe that is especially true for children that commit violent crimes. They haven’t developed the mental abilities to prevent that from happening. That knowledge goes a long way in explaining the level of violence and crime in our world, especially in America. How many times have you noticed yourself doing something that you’ve never done before but doing like you saw in a movie or on TV?

Once you understand the relationship between the mind and the brain, the brain and the body and the body and the mind, you can really begin to change your life. With this knowledge you might become more selective of the things you watch on TV or see at the movies. I would hope you would anyway. Also with this knowledge you might begin to monitor your thoughts and imagination more carefully as well. Beyond that though consider the possible positive implications of this knowledge. In essence, we can change the past. If we’ve had a negative traumatic experience of abuse in the past, rather than dwelling on it repeatedly “as it happened” (which just re-enforces it in our system) we can change it to be a more positive outcome. This is where the imagination comes in.

Let’s do a little exercise. Pause after each item until that you’ve completed that task then continue:
- Take a moment to check in with yourself and observe how you feel right now.
- Think about a negative experience from your past. Roll it over in your thoughts for a few minutes. Really let yourself recall it fully…the location, people involved, your age, the year…as many details as you can. Take your time with this.
- Scan your body and notice how it feels. Notice where it’s tight or tense. Notice how you feel and what your mood is just from thinking about it.
- Compare that to how you felt before you began this exercise. Note that difference and recognize that it was all brought on by your thoughts.
- Think about that experience again but imagine a different, more positive outcome. Imagine yourself handling it the way you wish you could have at the time. See yourself being confident and capable of bringing the experience to the best possible outcome for everyone involved, not in a vindictive way but rather a loving way in which the trauma did not occur at all. Really let yourself explore how that might have looked, what you might have said and done and how if it had gone that way, it might have reshaped your life. Spend as much time as you can with those thoughts.
- When you’re done notice how you’re feeling then and compare that to how you felt when you just remembered it as it happened.
From this exercise, you can see how the body reacted to what the brain perceived. Perhaps your heart rate changed, your breath became more shallow and rapid, and perhaps your palms began sweating. All of those and perhaps more were triggered by the brain and were probably the exact same things which you experienced during the original event. Just as easily, when you changed the outcome, your body moved back to a calm, relaxed place. That was all done with using the imagination to trigger experiences within the brain.

Clearly just changing the outcome in your mind won’t mean that it never happened and so you’ll be magically healed. However since we’re dealing with something which happened to you, depending upon the traumatic impact of the event, you probably developed issues from it (fears, anxiety, phobias, anger, etc.). The event is done but these issues are the residual effects of it. By changing the outcome you can begin to dislodge those effects and their impact on your body. Remember only you are holding on to your past. No one else has a vested interest in you being angry, afraid, vengeful, hurt, etc. from the experience. That’s a choice you are making to stay in that victim state. If you are able to trace the effects to the present day and then re-imagine how that all would have changed with your alternate outcome, you’ll begin to see changes in your life almost immediately. You can change your life in an instant if that’s what you choose. That is changing the past. It takes practice and focus but it is possible.

The point of that exercise is to see the power of the mind. You felt one way. You only thought about an experience and suddenly you felt another way. You changed it and felt differently again. You did that with the power of your mind and the various functions of the brain. Despite the victim mentality that most people hold in relation to their mind, we control the mind, the mind does not control us. It is powerful beyond our wildest dreams and limited only by our doubts and fears. It is our key to the brain and its power. The brain has the power to control our body and emotions.

Please choose to filter the input you receive because the brain is always active and gathering data through your senses. Try spending even just one day a week not watching the news, reading the paper, watching violent or negative movies or television, or listening to angry or sad music and watch how your body reacts and your mood shifts. I’m certain you’ll see the difference and that awareness can lead you into even more powerful uses of the body-mind connection.

Change your mind, change your life.

Staying in the flow

Losing yourself and letting go of all your beliefs is one of the greatest challenges we face as humans. Our lives are the sum total of our beliefs. What we believe shapes the way we express ourselves in the world. That expression then creates the experiences we have or do not have. The experiences we have further shape our beliefs and the process cycles around upon itself. By holding our beliefs as a shield against the arrows of change, new thought and evolution, we limit ourselves and the battle is lost.

As humans, we cling to our history because it is something that we believe that we know for sure. Since we live every moment in newness, we cling to that which is familiar to guide us through the unknown. But does that process really work for us or does it hold us back? If I held firmly to the beliefs I had at age 7 and refused to surrender them in exchange for more evolved ideas, my life would be so very limited, simple and stagnate. Just the idea of doing that seems laughable to most of us but in essence it’s what we do. We gather new information, reshape our belief systems and struggle to release old, outdated or incorrect beliefs.

Growing up in a small town in Alabama guided by a mother who believed that the Church had the answers to life and a father who shunned all things religious, I fell into the rift between their differences. One the one hand by being placed in the Church (Baptist and Methodist) I absorbed their teachings and took on that belief system. I really had no choice in the matter because I was never presented with an option. The Church taught that if I didn’t believe in God and Heaven that the alternative was the Devil and Hell. There was no middle ground. This life was all a pass or fail situation. In the end I would be evaluated by this same God and then assigned an eternal fate based upon the events of one lifetime.

It wasn’t until I was 18, left home and started making my own decisions that I chose to reject those teachings. I rejected the belief that I was hell bound because of my gayness. I rejected the belief that God couldn't love me because of an expression of myself that came from the very same God which had created me. In rejecting all of those teachings, I was left with nothing. Or so I thought. I had indeed left the Church but not until recently in my 40’s did I realize that I was still guided by the belief system that the Church set forth. While I rejected their rules around God’s conditional love or wrath, I hadn’t really examined my beliefs around God. I had stopped the bleeding but not healed the wound.

As I sit writing this, my mind is flooded by so many thoughts…anger, frustration, resentment, confusion, fear and greatest among them, hope. It would be easy for me to sit in judgment of the Church (all of them) and their teachings but it does not serve me to do that. That makes me no better than them because it puts me in a place of judgment which is my real problem with the Church at large. How can one judge and love at the same time? Unconditional love has no space for judgment. Unconditional love has no rules. To have these things, we place conditions upon the love and limit it. Love has no limitations, no boundaries and no rules.

As an evolutionist I believe that we must allow evolution to unfold within each of us and surrender to its flow. By simply observing anything around us and taking a historical perspective, we can see the power of evolution. It’s been said that change is the one absolute in life. Everything changes. As it changes, it evolves. Evolution however is difficult to see by using our limited vision of the here and now. That’s where the historical perspective comes in. By stepping back to observe the larger picture and understanding history, we see the mysterious hidden workings of the evolutionary impulse towards change.

The deepest of teachings often come from the simplest of experiences. In watching a house being built, we see how everything must happen in its right time. If the widow installers arrived the first day and wanted to hang the windows, they would have no place to put them. If the roofers were available on the second day, they would have no building to roof. The structure of the house must evolve first. That structure begins long before the first bit of dirt is moved. The house is conceptualized, designed and planned long before any work on the physical house begins. It all begins with the thought by someone that “I need a house”. At that point, it’s just an energy form that exists in the consciousness of someone and it can become anything from there.

Once the plans have been made, the foundation laid and the structure built then we can see the full effect of the evolution of the thought that was “I need a house”. From there the house will evolve until finally someone lives in it. This every day occurrence contains within it the lesson that all things must evolve in their own time. There is a sequence to everything. Going with the flow is easiest and gets you the biggest gain.

What things are you resisting in your life or are you trying to force? What would happen if you stopped resisting and went with the flow? Could you try? If not, why?

Our evolutionary nature

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