Helping You Be the Change
[This article has also been published on the Huffington Post.]
Many of us are heaving a sigh of relief that this presidential election 2016 is drawing to a close, yet we also know that the hostilities that have been playing out in our nation these last many months are not simply going to evaporate after the last poll has closed and the last vote tallied.
We are going to be left with some important work to do — and we are going to need to be clear about what we are dealing with.
[This article has also been published on the Huffington Post.]
In the face of escalating hatred and violence that is tearing at the seams of our country, many of us are left wondering how to be a peacemaker. How can we counteract the alarming anger and violence without engaging in further attack? How do we unleash the power of peace?
The fundamental misunderstanding about reality beneath all the xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, racism and sexism we are witnessing is that something called separateness exists.
The question is, how do we respond to this erroneous idea without engaging in the same posture of attack that such an idea engenders? I am going to suggest three ways, based on the principles of nonviolence.
When gay people, transgendered people, Black people, women, Muslims—or any group—is being attacked it is essential that people of other demographic groups—straight people, white people, men, non-Muslims—stand in solidarity with them.
The first reason this is important is so that they are not left to face the bigotry and violence alone. The feeling of isolation can be just as painful as the attack itself. The second reason it is important is because solidarity is an effective line of defense.
In 1993, in Billings, Montana, a white supremacist threw a cinder block through a Jewish family’s window because they were displaying a menorah. In response, thousands of non-Jewish residents began displaying menorahs in their own windows. At first the vandalism intensified, but the act of solidarity continued, and in the end the violence and intimidation ceased.
Inspired by that story, our Philadelphia neighborhood mobilized when a gay man’s house was being vandalized because he had a rainbow flag flying outside his home. Scores of neighbors began displaying rainbow flags outside their own homes and eventually the homophobic intimidation ceased.
And of course one of the great moments of solidarity in our country’s history was in the 1960’s when thousands of white people, shocked by the racist brutality being perpetrated upon peaceful Black demonstrators, joined with Blacks to demand change.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of solidarity. When I was in college I spent a year studying in Germany. It was the late 70’s, and up until that time there had been no public reckoning in Germany about the Holocaust. So when the PBS mini-series Holocaust was broadcast on national television, it was a historic occasion.
After each episode viewers could dial into a radio forum to share their feelings. Thousands of people called in to pour out their grief and shame. I can still hear the sobs of one elderly woman who described seeing her Jewish neighbors being taken away in the night. “Warum habe ich nichts gemacht?” she said over and over again.
“Why didn’t I do anything?”
Hearing her anguish made me realize the cost of being a bystander. Nearly 40 years later she was still tormented by her inaction.
But the sad reality is that by the time the Gestapo came for her neighbors, the machinery of hatred was already well in place. For her to step in at that moment might have cost her her life. The time to stand with those who are coming under attack isn’t when the Gestapo is knocking at the door. It is when the persecution first begins.
People who target other groups for harassment, intimidation, violence and even genocide often assume that others will stand by and let it happen because they are not directly affected.
But when we stand in solidarity with those being targeted we assert the reality that there is no “other.” When any of us is injured we are all injured. When any of us is targeted, we are all targeted.
Practicing solidarity, we become with-standers, not bystanders, demonstrating the truth that separateness does not exist.
Solidarity is essential. It can stop hate-movements from gaining the traction they need to become truly dangerous. But by itself it doesn’t go far enough in dismantling the erroneous idea at the root of the violence. In fact, acts of solidarity can reinforce a mentality of separateness if they are done with the intent of shaming the perpetrator.
If we really want to be agents of transformation we have to go farther. We have to learn to love the person consumed by hatred.
Let me state the obvious: anyone who has to attack another in order to feel right about him or herself has no clue who and what they truly are. They do not know they are expressions of the Source of All Being. They do not know they were born worthy. They do not know their goodness is and always has been a given.
They believe instead that their worth and their power arise from their ability to dominate or even destroy another. Blinded to their own divine nature, they cannot see the divine nature of those around them. Oblivious to the reality of oneness, they do not comprehend that when they attack another it is themselves they attack.
As healers, our task is to witness to the truth of who they are. We don’t condone their actions or defend their ignorance, but we hold to the truth of what they cannot see: that in their essence they are whole, and far more beautiful than they imagine.
Finally, perhaps the most important contribution you can make to the healing of the world is to heal your own mind. You are sovereign over your mind. You decide what thoughts you will cultivate and which beliefs you will nourish.
So pay attention to how the story of separateness plays out in your own mind, because this is where it all begins.
Start by noticing the attacks you launch upon yourself: the vicious thoughts of self-judgment, of unworthiness, of shame. Notice them and refuse to feed them. You will find they soon lose their power.
The more you can turn your own mind into a zone of peace, the closer the world will move toward peace. Because we are all one, and in the peace of your mind, I find my peace. As you realize your divinity, I am more able to see my own.
Why? Because there is no such thing as separateness. We are in this together, and together is what we are here to learn.
For an inspiring account of the power of love to heal and transform a person consumed by hatred, check out Kathryn Watterson’s book Not by the Sword: How a Cantor and His Family Transformed a Klansman.
With this presidency you may feel you are in the midst of a nightmare. The crucial question is, do you know how to work with nightmares?
According to the late dream expert and author Jeremy Taylor, who worked with dreams for over 40 years, all dreams come in the interest of health and wholeness. All dreams—including nightmares, which bring information so crucial and urgent that they scare the bejesus out of us to get our attention.
This presidency nightmare is no different. It is offering us exactly what we need at this precise moment to grow and evolve as a species. But first we have to be willing to look at what is happening beneath the contentious headlines to discover the deeper wisdom being offered us.
So let’s do some dream work, shall we?
On center stage of this nightmare stands the character of Donald Trump. If you take him at the literal level you may see him as an arch villain bringing out the worst in us.
But dreams don’t operate at the literal level. They operate at the symbolic and metaphorical level―and they pretty much always turn the tables on what we assume to be true.
So if this were my dream (and of course it is), rather than a villain, I would want to explore how Donald Trump is playing the role of a spiritual teacher. I’ll explain what I mean.
First and foremost, spiritual teachers help us see and transcend ego, enabling us to shed the ego’s illusions so that we can awaken to the truth of oneness and our infinite nature.
The character of Donald Trump is functioning in my dream as a spiritual teacher of the highest order because he is showing me in unmistakable terms what ego looks like. After all, if I don’t know what ego really looks like, how can I ever hope to transcend it?
Although the nature of Reality is the complete oneness of Love, the ego is constantly bombarding me with fake news—endless variations on its cornerstone belief: separateness is real. This fake news, if I buy into it, creates in my mind an illusory world of fear, division, domination, and death, a world where big walls and big guns make perfect sense.
By allowing me to witness ego in such a caricatured form, my spiritual teacher is helping me see how ego seeks attention, believes that greatness rests on wealth, fame, and the ability to dominate, and perceives itself to be greater than others. (Consider for instance the name of this character in my dream. Trump—noun: a suit that ranks above all others. To trump—verb: to outshine, upstage, outdo. The very definition of ego.)
By depicting ego in such an unbridled fashion, Donald Trump (I/me/mine) is giving me the tools I need to detect these same tendencies within myself—even though they may show up in subtler forms—so that I can begin to free myself from them.
My spiritual teacher is also impressing upon me the urgency of shedding this egoic thought system by showing me where it will inevitably lead me: into animosity, division, blame, exploitation, violence, suffering.
If this were my dream (and, like I said, it is), my spiritual teacher is placing before me a straightforward question: Do I want ego sitting in the Oval Office of my own executive function?
Now this is where the teaching of Donald Trump, blessed be his name, becomes truly sublime. He is caricaturing ego to such a degree that he is practically begging me to see through its act entirely and opt out of its drama completely.
Witness his brilliance:
Only ego attacks. In fact, outside of the ego’s illusory world attack doesn’t even exist. So if I allow myself to be duped into attacking my spiritual teacher, who is so graciously showing me what I need to see in myself, if I respond to him or his followers with anger, ridicule, hatred, or blame, I have in fact installed ego in my own Oval Office. I am choosing to keep alive the fallacy of separateness and ensuring that the nightmare continues.
But if I can see through my teacher’s theatrical ego-charade to see the divine radiant Being that he truly is—a Being who has taken it upon himself to conceal his true nature even from himself in order to help me awaken—and if I can begin to see that that same divine radiance is my own true essence, then I will have learned what this nightmare has come to show me. The fallacy of separateness fades away, the nightmare dissolves, and the angels rejoice.
But let’s zoom out for a moment, because this nightmare isn’t just your personal dream, nor mine. This is a national nightmare, a global nightmare, a collective dream. So let’s listen to what it is telling us about what we need to understand in order to transform as a country and a world.
In the world’s dream, the United States has long been the Donald Trump of nations, and our spiritual teacher is helping us finally see how we must appear to others—believing we are exceptional, and that our economic and military might give us the right to call the shots in all world affairs.
Is it any wonder that such bravado would evoke attack from others who are caught up in the ego’s illusory world of hatred, division, and violence?
But what might happen if we were suddenly to realize that we are collectively under an egoic spell? What if it suddenly dawned on us that only in dreams does greatness reside in riches and military might? What if we suddenly, laughingly, woke up to the truth that our greatness lies in our inherent capacity to embody and express the Reality of Love?
Our collective dream would change in the twinkling of an eye. We would understand that we are on this planet as an interdependent community of equals, and Donald Trump, supreme teacher that he is, will have accomplished his sacred task.
This article, originally published May 2016, was updated July 2019. It has also been published on the Huffington Post and Medium.
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If you’ve landed on this website, chances are you’re a spiritual explorer, as am I. I hope you’ll look around, and if what you find here resonates with you, perhaps we are meant to travel this journey together.
First, let me tell you a little bit about how I landed here, starting with the photo you see here.
That’s me, kneeling in the labyrinth. It was 2010. I was in Denver, staying with my mother who was in hospice. About the time I learned of her cancer diagnosis, I also learned—through a series of dreams, synchronicities and intuitions—that it was time for me to leave my vocation as a pastor. It was time for me to step onto an unknown path.
I went to the labyrinth that day because I was facing monumental losses—that of my mother, my vocation, and my spiritual community. I needed guidance. I needed reassurance.
When I got to the church, a photographer from The Denver Post told me they were doing an article for an upcoming workshop about the labyrinth, and he asked if he could photograph me walking it. I wasn’t thrilled—this was an intensely personal moment—but I agreed.Continue Reading
