J2P Finding love instead of hate

English: White peace dove. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s reached a point in all the fallout following the election when I’m having trouble deciding whether I’m more perturbed by the bigoted, racist, misogynists who voted for Trump or the supposedly spiritual and kinder Democrats I know who are spewing hatred just as steadily.

I’ll admit, right up front, in spite of years of trying to be a person who holds only a space of lovingkindness, I considered Trump one of the most disgusting and despicable people on the planet YEARS before he decided to run for President, so this election has challenged me right in the center of the divide between who I want to be and who I too often still am.

But I truly believe there’s no such thing as righteous hatred.  There’s either loving or hating.  Vicious attacks on those who hold different viewpoints are just vicious and hateful regardless of how sincerely you believe your viewpoint is right and the other is wrong.  And hate just begets more hate.  If hating isn’t okay, then there’s no group or individual it’s okay to hate.  Hating haters just makes you a hater too.

I believe in one web of all life.  The web pulsates to whatever we all feed into it.  If there are more people feeding hate than love, then wars and torture and discrimination and crimes against humanity expand and grow stronger.  When enough people hold compassion and love in their hearts, the web can finally hold love strongly enough for it to rule.

I also believe thoughts of hatred have energy and power and go out into the world.  If you send hate to the President-elect, an energy of hatred permeates his life and his being.  How do you imagine that translates into decision- and policy-making?  Is more bigotry, racism, and misogyny what you want to fuel?  Do you want to see how much bigger his tantrums can be when millions are sending the energy of hate to surround him every minute of every day?

I propose love is the answer.  I propose sending healing and love.  I propose finding forgiveness in our hearts and holding a space of peace and compassion no matter what.  I propose we fill the web with so much love the whole world is bathed in it and changed by it.

SOME HEALING SUGGESTIONS

• If you know how to do long distance Reiki, send Reiki
• Use this Huna healing technique.  Sit comfortably and close your eyes.  Take a few deep breaths and center.  Visualize a screen and see Trump or the KKK or whatever political figure or appointee you think needs healing (or whichever one(s) your heart needs to heal about) on the screen.  Use your inner awareness to see where healing is needed and direct healing to that place.  You might see energy moving there, you might see one color and feel a need to change it to another, you might hear a sound and change it, you might feel a vibration and the need to shift it, you might breathe into it.  If you do any kind of healing with your hands, you might imagine directing that energy.  Your inner voice will know what to do, just follow it.  Continue until you feel you have done all you can.  Repeat this exercise as necessary.
• Check out my post from a few days ago and use the lovingkindness chant to heal your heart and send love.
• Discover in yourself the source of every bit of fear and anger you feel and use the ho’oponopono prayer to heal it.  To do this, name each fear or incident or origin of anger and say:  I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you

Note:  I’ve written often about using ho’oponopono, including many examples of examining an issue to find the components to heal.  Click the Journey2Peace tab above and meander through the posts.

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J2P: Women’s Issues and Healing

Suffragette (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the arenas in which I have been really disturbed by Trump and the voters of America is the subject of women and women’s rights.

I feel like he’s made it quite clear he thinks it’s perfectly all right for men to grope and molest and sexually harass women any time they want.  And that makes me feel anyone who voted for him was basically saying they favor that.

I know young women today are for some reason turned off to the women’s movement and that bugs me (which I’ve discussed here) but I don’t think they get how bad it was or how recently.

HOW IT WAS

You see I am old enough that when I had my first jobs, there were no sexual harassment laws.  It was perfectly acceptable for a man to follow you into a supply closet or an alcove and grab your butt or your breast.  And they did it often and casually.  In those days if a woman spoke up about it, the man didn’t get fired, SHE did.  It’s because of feminists that we are protected by sexual harassment laws.

I was date raped in college.  In those days you didn’t dare tell anyone because the assumption was that you were a slut, it was somehow your fault and you would be shamed — not him.  It was because of feminists that rape started being handled with sensitivity to victims.

Once, upon leaving a fund raising event at a church, a young drunk guy who happened by ran up to me as I walked alone to my car and grabbed my breast.  I got away from him and flagged down a cop.  When the police came to interview me later, the male cop in the duo thought it was hysterically funny that I thought anything was wrong about being assaulted on the street.

When I was heading off to college all of us girls were being told we could be nurses or teachers and of course we’d only do that for a few years till we got married and had families.  We were among the first women who gained the freedom to work at every kind of job and to choose whether we wanted to marry or not.  We broke down doors and opened career paths women had never been able to choose before.  Feminists did that.

Our mothers were by and large married to men who not only didn’t want them to work but thought of them as lesser beings whose opinions didn’t matter.  Not long before, in my grandmother’s generation, women who brought property to a marriage had no control over it once the knot was tied–my grandfather even had the gall to leave her fortune in a trust when he died so she still had no power over it.

My generation of women were the first whose husbands “let them work” and opened the way for the many modern marriages in which husbands support their wives’ careers and work with them on finding equal footing in the marriage.  Women now can have their own credit cards and property.  Feminists brought these changes about.

Donald Trump’s commentary about women says to me he’d like to see a return to the way things were when I was young.  You know, when it was acceptable to grope women any time any place, when women were assumed to have caused their own rapes, when women weren’t thought to be capable of holding their own in the work force and husbands controlled the money.

When I look at the election votes, to me it seems nearly 60 million Americans are saying they think it would be fine to take us back to that.  I don’t see how anyone could vote for him without on some level consenting to returning women to the dark ages.

WHAT I CAN HEAL

As you can see, I’m pretty pissed off… at Trump, at those who voted for him and at younger generations who think feminism is irrelevant to them.  And that’s alternating with being teary and upset at the idea of going back to being humiliated and objectified as the younger version of me was.  And I know if I’m ticked at other people or sad about other people, there are issues at play that are mine.

There are things to heal in me.  Because everything I see in the world reflects what is in me.  And what’s in me I can choose to explore and heal.

In this situation I find myself asking:

• How have I let the Divine Feminine in me down?
• How am I failing to stand strong in my own being?
• What have I still not healed from past sexual harassment and assault?
• What’s the real source of fearing/attracting harassment and assault?
• Is there something I want to have recognized or recognize within myself about my place in the women’s movement?
• How do I not honor my femininity?

As I explore there may be more.  Sometimes it helps to name it.  Sometimes it can just be healed…

THE HEALING

You know I like to use ho’oponopono, which I’ve discussed in many posts, starting here.  But healing can happen in many ways.  You might do Reiki on yourself, you might see a therapist, you might go to a healer or forge a new path…  It doesn’t really matter which way you choose, just heal.

For me, I see a number of ho’oponopono prayers here:

• For every way in which I fail to honor the feminine in me, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• If I am suppressing my own strength or power, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• If I still hold on to wounds or resentments about past harassment or assaults, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• For anything in me that magnetizes abusers/abuse, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• If I am upset with others because I crave recognition, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• For any way in which I fail to honor my femininity, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you

No one else has the power to make me angry or hurt me unless I grant that power.  Whatever I see out there arises from what is in me and I can heal myself.

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J2P Peace Begins with Me

http://tinyurl.com/lrlwx9w

I admit it, I was stunned when I checked in on the election results late in the returns and realized Trump was going to win.  My stomach clenched, I had trouble sleeping, I spent much of the day in a state of dazed denial.

There are a number of aspects of this I’ll be working through and I’m sure I’ll post along the way.  But today for me was just a process of pulling back from the clenching and upset and getting my center back.

After thoroughly loving Elizabeth Lesser’s latest book, Marrow, I’m now reading and loving her earlier book, Broken Open.  In one of those moments the Universe synchronizes so well, I picked it up to read for a while after climbing into bed last night and I opened to a section in which she talked about a day when she was terribly upset about environmental issues.  The upset led to learning she can see an issue, be upset by it, and choose to die to it.  Perfect.

I can be upset by this and choose to die to it.  Put in those terms it doesn’t resonate for me quite the way I gather it does for her, but it was a starting place — and I try always to take note when the Universe plops an answer right into my lap.  So I fell uneasily asleep telling myself I was dying to this issue.  To me it means letting it go, accepting “what is” and moving on to a new space where my heart has expanded and includes more in its love.

I absolutely believe if I’m seeing problems “out there” or “in them” that throw me into fear or anger or any strong reaction, I know I’m looking at something in me.  And if it’s in me I can heal it.  But today I knew before I could get to the healing I needed to just settle down and find a way back to calm and some ability to be compassionate.

I decided it’s time for the lovingkindness chant.  But first I rode my exercise bike.  I knew I needed to work off some of the extra angst and exercise always help take tension down a few notches.  I also like the bike for the regular motion and rhythm because it helps to bring me back to circulating stuck energy and regular breaths.

Quieted down enough after my ride to feel I could sit and focus, I moved on to the chant–the version I use is from Jack Kornfield’s Path With Heart.  First 10 minutes for myself:

• I am filled with lovingkindness
• I am well
• I am peaceful and at ease
• I am happy

Like many practices, if something in me stands in the way of the energy of the chant, it tends to rise up.  Sometimes it might be incidents that unfold over a few days or weeks, bringing me face to face with whatever needs healing, but this time I immediately felt the disbelief and discontent pushing back against the chant.  After a few minutes I wept and chanted, chanted and wept.  And then the peace moved in and my heart started warming as I continued repeating those words I love.

Next up I chanted 10 minutes for Trump.  I began it as an affirmation, the way I said it for myself.  Something in me instantly began to fight and I started crying again.  I realized I needed to chant it to the more prayerful form in which it is usually spoken:

• May Trump be filled with lovingkindness
• May  he be well
• May he be peaceful and at ease
• May he be happy

The change shifted it for me — I could say it as a prayer for him but I couldn’t say it as if it already were true.  With the shift I settled in and moved deeper.  I could feel my heart expand and I realized saying the chant for someone, while it may or may not also help that person, is something to do for your own peace, to clear your own heart.

I finished with 10 minutes of chanting for America.

• May America be filled with lovingkindness
• May she be well
• May she be peaceful and at ease
• May she be happy

I’m still a little dazed and uneasy but I’m also in a more peaceful place.  Back in 2002, in the lead up to the Iraq war, it took a little over a week of daily chanting for Bush before I broke through into a place of feeling the oneness.  I figure it will take time again.

So I plan to chant every day.  Because the only person whose peacefulness I can control or change is me.  Peace begins with me.  It also begins with you.

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with each of us.

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J2P Monday: Compassion, Politics… Peace

United States flag with peace sign (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m a little early with Tuesday’s NaBloPoMo post but I wanted to make it a J2P Monday post and to get it up ahead of the U.S. elections.  In the run-up to the election I posted a challenge a couple of times, asking people to delve within and heal in themselves everything that upset them about these elections.

Now I want to just raise some thoughts about compassion and this process.  Because what’s more disturbing to me than the vitriol in the candidates is the apparent lack of compassion and empathy among ordinary people ranged on both sides.

While I totally disagree with Trump, I understand that many of his supporters feel they’ve been left behind, excluded from the economy, disenfranchised…  I don’t agree with many of their conclusions about how these problems have arisen or what the answers are.  But I’ve been around long enough to know that the answers I stand by could just as easily be disproved next year; in other words, I am not God and I feel there’s a great deal of hubris in assuming my assessments are correct and those who disagree are stupid.

And whether I agree or not, I feel for their sense of disenfranchisement.  I know it feels bad to feel left out and disregarded.  I feel compassion for their pain.  I hear a comment that makes me mad and drift away from my neutral space and compassion; it’s work to keep moving back there.  For me that’s just part of the path I’m walking.

I know it’s not everyone’s path, but it concerns me that so few people seem to have any place in their hearts for anyone who fails to share their views.  In the streams on social media and in the news I don’t get the sense that supporters of either candidate have an iota of empathy or fellow feeling about the people on the other side.

This growing inability to empathize with the feelings of people whose views are different is one of the biggest obstacles I can see to peace.  If we can’t learn to feel compassion for people whose opinions don’t reflect our own how can we ever expect to reach a place of peace on earth?

It starts with me.  It starts with you.  When you open your heart enough to feel the pain of “the other” you take a first step.  When you heal within yourself whatever keeps you from perceiving with the eyes of love and compassion, that’s a big step.  Are you willing to step toward peace?

November blogging so far

In case the title didn’t tip it off, yup, this is totally a filler post.  Even set it up ahead of time and had to come back to put the links in.  But, hey, it counts right?

The first posts for NanoPoblano/NaBloPoMo went up on the other blogs.

For Scribblings, there’s a Share Your World challenge and then a Weekly Photo Challenge post.

On the Wizard101 blog I whined about how long and tiresome the upper level worlds are…  If you don’t play the game I’m sure it’ll be riveting anyway

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NaBloPoMo/NanoPoblano time again

Okay, we’ve hit that time once more.  November.  The month of crazy writing challenges, whether it’s 50,000 words of a novel or blogging every day or churning out poetry…  Every time I thought about the blogging challenge in October I put off making a decision (I gave up on the novel one several years ago and I don’t write poetry).

When I saw the posts this last week about signing up to be part of Ra’s NanoPoblano group again, I hesitated.  But I finally decided to jump in for the third time.  Or at least start the month with that intention 😕

Same as the last two years, I’m saying I’ll post on at least one of the three blogs every day.  There will probably be more on the other two than here.  The Scribblings blog is where I post some easy challenges, recipes, and photo posts, all of which are simpler to churn out on a regular basis.  And on the Wizard101 blog I try to post at least a couple a week since it’s the primary platform for selling my guide to the game.

Some days I’ll probably post links here to the pieces I’ve done on the other blogs.  I’m kind of a night owl, so sometimes the post for the day will go up before midnight on the night before, sometimes after.  In other words this will be a drifting and floating month, with posts popping up on different blogs and the date for each may or may not be on the day for which the post is intended.  Got all that 🙂 ???

Whew.  Opening day, done.  Okay, here we go…….

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NaBloPoMo ends… a break begins

Yep.  That’ll be me.  Meditating.  Meditation by William Bouguereau (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I can’t tell you how happy I am to have reached the end of  NaBloPoMo.  And I didn’t miss a day. A few times a post when up technically on the day before but was intended for the next day (like CPS reminders) but I managed a post per day and a few times I even posted on more than one of my blogs on the same day.

But I’m about to do a happy dance that it’s over.  And I’ve decided to take a blogging break for a week.  You might see me around commenting or liking.  But I don’t plan to post.  And I’ll only be reading posts from my fave folks… you know, the ones I’d miss too much…

I’m feeling like I need to get away from my computer habit and spend more time getting things done around the house, cooking, exercising — and most important, meditating and contemplating life beyond illness.

I’ll be back next week with a new J2P Monday challenge and more.  Have a great week!

Thanksgiving Moon

Gratitude

fresh cranberry compote from another year

My mother and I had a lovely Thanksgiving though nothing about the day was as usual, as planned, or as expected.

She’s been worryingly logy the last couple of weeks and I’ve had some kind of bug that’s had cold symptoms and bronchial symptoms coming and going and an unreal level of fatigue every day during the same couple of weeks — possibly we both have a bug.  Anyway, we planned out a menu of our usual Thanksgiving dinner, minus a dish or two in an attempt to simplify but by Wednesday we hadn’t even gotten the groceries.

Because of my odd blood pressure ailment, which leaves me light-headed if I stand for very long, I usually fix a big dinner over the course of a week.  Grocery shopping all but the freshest stuff in advance, and plotting out what can be cooked first and frozen, what can be made ahead that lasts ok in fridge, etc.  All the shopping and all the cooking between Wednesday and Thursday is just not something I can do.

So I looked on line to see what I could come up with and realized the local food co-op, of which I’m a member, instead of closing as they used to on Thanksgiving, somewhere along the way started opening and doing up a Thanksgiving feast for their hot bar.

I made sure I got over there this morning soon after the hot bar was supposed to be set up and picked up lovely bourbon-brined turkey, several kinds of veggies, dressing, mashed sweet potatoes and pie.

We both napped for a chunk of the afternoon and then heated up plates of the goodies I’d brought home and were so pleased.  While we certainly prefer some of the things I make and I favor making my own so I can tweak recipes to get rid of wheat and dairy, the meal was excellent, and given how unwell we’d both been feeling it was perfect.

What I especially appreciated was our ability to roll with how we felt and what we sensed we could do.  I realized that for most of my life I’ve had a big thing about Thanksgiving.  As a child we lived reasonably near my father’s closest (in both age and relationship) brother and his family and I SO looked forward to visiting for a few days.  Those cousins are the only ones around my age and for me those days were the closest I came to having siblings so I really loved it.

The takeaway was that for many years I felt I had to have a major event for Thanksgiving and it meant I often said yes to invitations that left me uncomfortably dining with large numbers of people I didn’t know and feeling a little disappointed that the day didn’t match my expectations of it.

My mother and I both LOVE the food of Thanksgiving so it was great that we managed to get a meal we liked with the minimum effort.   I’m so grateful to the co-op for the great prep and for providing food I know is always fresh and local when possible.  And I’ll be fixing us a meal of some of the things we’d planned when I’ve got some energy back.

But I think what I appreciated most was realizing that I let go of putting such a big expectation on how the day had to be or feel.  As my draggy-ness wore on and I slowly revised expectations, from picking up a couple of side dishes at Trader Joe’s (happily ensconced in freezer) when I realized I’d not be able to do it all to abandoning the cooking plan altogether, I never felt let down.  Never felt that stab of disappointment that I wouldn’t be having the magical meal I’d planned.

We had a lovely meal in a warm and cozy house.  No one was shooting anyone in the street or dropping bombs nearby.  The weather was lovely.  After dumping our plan piece by piece, we were both delighted that we managed to pull something together.  How could we not be grateful?  Thank you God.  Thank you Goddess.

Bloggers Unite for Peace

Over at Uncle Spike’s Adventures there’s a call for bloggers to unite in standing for peace.  If you’d like to add your blog to the blog roll there, follow this link.  Spread the word.

Check out the Journey2Peace link at the top of the page for lots of posts offering challenges and practices to help you find peace within and be peace in the world.

J2P Monday on Tuesday: Healing family issues

Saying grace before carving the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In scheduling posts ahead for this mad blogging month I accidentally scheduled a post for another blog for Monday and then was too lazy to change it or write another one to go up as well.  But I wanted to do a little something with ho’oponopono for the holidays.  So happy J2P Monday on Tuesday!

I have actually never studied ho’oponopono more than superficially with a teacher but two of my huna teachers introduced me to the concept  and a couple of the prayers and then I read a lot about Hew Len and watched a number of his videos on line and just kept working with the prayers.  Traditionally in Hawaii, as I understand it, ho’oponopono is used for healing issues in families [Mark Saito does weekend workshops on this–web site under construction at the moment but I’ll come back and put a link when he finishes.]

Thinking about the many issues people often have at holiday gatherings, I decided this would be a good moment to look at ways you can use the prayer.  These are just some examples of types of issues you might have, designed to give you the idea of how to apply it to whatever your issues are:

• Anticipating being irritated by people:  I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• Feeling like your family doesn’t listen to you.  How do you not listen to yourself?  How do you not listen to others?  I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• Feeling your family doesn’t see your worth.  Do you have self worth?  How do you fail to make others feel worthy?  How do you de-value yourself?  I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• Does someone talk too much or dominate the conversation?  How do you overpower others in conversation?  Does your mind chatter and drown out your knowing self?  Do you listen well to others?  I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• Are there family members who express opinions you don’t like?  What in you reacts to these opinions?  What fears do they touch?  Why do you feel the need to judge?  Why are you taking it personally?  I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you
• Do you feel your parents never approve of what you do?  Do you approve of yourself?  How do you withhold approval from others? I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you

Every time you feel put out, put down, annoyed, abandoned, etc., heal in yourself whatever it is you’re seeing in them.  Everything you see in them is somewhere in you.  Anything in you you can heal.  Say the prayer.  If you have to say it to yourself two dozen times a day, say the prayer.

Have an amazing Thanksgiving!  And if you’re elsewhere in the world, as we move through the season of many holidays in many places, you can use the prayer with your family and have an amazing whatever holiday you’re celebrating.

Happy Peaceful Sunday

http://tinyurl.com/lrlwx9w

Rolling up on time to set aside at least 10 minutes to pray or chant or meditate for peace.  For more info on Collective Prayer Sundays check the page.

I’ve been finding daily peace lately with Deepak and Oprah’s latest 21 day meditations.  I’m several days behind so still looking forward to the final few.  When I can find time to sing some chants as well, that’s still my fave.

Whatever form of finding peace you choose, have a happy Sunday!

Uh oh, no post

Okay, I’m barely making it within November 20 in my time zone.  And I actually have nothing much to say.  Been focused many, many hours a day the last few days on updating my guide book for Wizard101 and finally creating a “hard” copy on Create Space in time for Christmas.

And the muscles in my face have been going to town again.  Another week when I’m experiencing a whole new — amazing — level of feeling, “Wow, a face can feel this good?”  There are still a few mighty tight core pieces so I’m finding it tough to stay in the moment as I excitedly anticipate how FABULOUS it’s gonna feel to have no tight muscles in my face or head…

So that’s been it, grinding on book and unwinding muscles…  And the Nano logo is up top because this post really only exists so I can say I didn’t miss today 🙂

The mirror did something… maybe???

University Bridge, Seattle, Washington (view from the west) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just a quick — if puzzling — update on the neighbor saga about which I posted last week.  Then I posted about putting a mirror in the window, facing their house, to deflect their energy back to them.  I’ve felt better ever since.  Often those mirrors lead to some resolution, so hoped for that as well…

On Sunday he worked in their yard.  As he finished I looked out and realized he must have dumped or blown a bunch of leaves from their yard onto our side yard as they’re twice as deep over there now as in the rest of the yard.

I’m not sure what reaction he expected but I thought it was kind of funny.

1. He knows we have a yard service so what’s it to us?
2. This year we’re having them mow the leaves into the grass to mulch since the soil needs it.  So YEAH! more mulch!

So the mirror may have done something.  Something unexpected…  Hmmm…

In the meantime, I realized that the incident last week triggered my fear response.  When he used to jump into the garage or driveway or at our car to yell, I felt afraid every time I stepped out of the house.  And now it’s back.

I’ve always had a tendency to freeze like a deer in the headlights when someone starts yelling, so he pretty much got away with all the previous attacks.  So I’ve decided to invoke my “you can’t do that again” power.

You see I also have a history of occasionally drawing a proverbial line in the sand… mentally… strongly… and then … it never happens again.

My favorite story is from years back, before I knew anything about metaphysics, energy, etc.  In my second year of law school I lived across Seattle’s University Bridge from the law school.  The walkways on the bridge were also where bicyclists rode.

They rode fast, didn’t care about pedestrians and would ride up from behind without giving a warning and knock you to the side — into the bridge rails — as they flew on past.  With a 30 pound backpack full of law books that shifted to the side with the impact, I hit hard and so often that I had permanent bruises on my right side.

Finally one day as I smacked into the rail I stopped, looked at the sky with my mean face on and mentally announced to the heavens, “The next biker who knocks me into the rail IS GOING OVER THE SIDE!”  And no one ever knocked me into the rail again…

Every now and then since I’ve come to a place where I mentally resolved I would not take it any more or let something happen again …  and it never did.  Something about reaching a place of strength internally and mentally drawing the line seems to change what I magnetize.

I’m not trying to borrow trouble, I just feel I need to mentally make a stand and quit walking out peering fearfully around to see if I’m going to be attacked in my own yard.

Running up to people yelling in a menacing way is technically assault (see that law degree was good for something!).  If my neighbor ever runs at me yelling again, he will hear that he may not do that ever again and if he does I’ll be filing a complaint with the police.

I know I also have some more healing to do about what led me to draw someone with a scary temper (first guess would have something to do with some fiery-tempered family members…) as a neighbor (like the list I already made wasn’t long enough 🙂 ).

But I also draw the line here.  It’s not okay to jump into my face yelling and I WON’T TAKE IT ANY MORE!

Extra thoughts for peace

When I heard the news about Paris last night I wondered if I should change the publish date on the post I’d scheduled and write something about the attacks instead.  But I felt like I wanted to sit with it for a bit.  So I posted this on Facebook:

I’m looking at all the prayers and tributes and outpourings of love for Paris and wondering if the terrorists realize how much peace and love they unleash every time they strike… I think our love is bigger than their hate.

and delayed writing a post about it.

The overwhelming sense of love and unity I’ve seen arise after so many of these terrible events is where I put my main focus.  I don’t choose to let them put me in fear or upset and I try not to focus on the news feed that constantly invites me to be upset and afraid.  I choose to see that most of the world focuses on love and compassion.

I’m also asking myself why we don’t pour the same love and compassion forth when U.S. bombers kill a few hundred innocent civilians.  Or, as many have pointed out, why the news of the bombing in Beirut failed to garner similarly supportive comments on social media.

My feeling of love and peace contains all living beings.  All humans of every color, nation, religious affiliation, etc.  Our fellow living creatures of the animal world.  Life.  Precious life.

Since I mostly stay away from the news, I can’t claim that I’ll be leading a movement to post words of support because I’m generally way behind the curve on finding out things have happened.  But I send Reiki to victims and survivors every time I hear.

I’ll join the social media spreading of support and love… as soon as I find out.  I hope a movement starts wherein the world is moved by every act of violence so we may focus love and compassion for all humanity.  That we spread the message of love whether the media is hopping up and down about it or not…

In the meantime I’ve got some prayers to say to heal whatever in me sees selective compassion instead of universal compassion…  And whatever in me believes the media only cares about white victims…

Don’t forget to take some time to pray for peace.  Check out the Collective Prayer Sundays page for info.