This is an excerpt from "The Nature of Spiritual Reality I,"
from my book, "A Handbook for the Spiritual Journey" on WordPress:

All knowing is tentative, 
conditional, 
specific to this here and this now, 
and things are always shifting, 
changing, 
calling for something different 
in the next here and now, 
or the one after that. 

Rules, 
recipes 
and roadmaps 
are of no use on the Hero’s Journey. 

A Guidebook that starts out, 
“Listen to yourself all the way, 
and when listening to yourself--
Your heart, 
your body (symptoms and 'feelings'),
your dreams,
your intuition,
your instinct--
leads to a dead end, 
keep listening to yourself 
to get out of there 
and back on the path,” 
is the best guide there is. 

Keep consulting it 
to remind yourself 
of the importance 
of remembering 
to listen to yourself.

No highs, no lows.
"Hold her steady as she goes."

There are no steady states of being,
so we opt for the next best thing,
keeping the wobbles within 
a normal distribution curve.

This is the meaning of,
"The hills and mountains
will be made low,
the valleys and the swamps
will be lifted up,"
and equality and individuality
will characterize life among all people 
and justice will be done
throughout the earth.

Of course, this requires cooperation
and mutual commitment to the good of all,
and who is going to enforce that?
And who is going to pay off the enforcers
to look the other way?
And who is going to run the black markets
and the sex trade operations?
And who is going to keep them from being run?
And, like that, things are exactly the way they are.
Because people thirst for power over people
and want to rule the world.

What is the fascination with ruling the world?
With controlling the seas
and collecting the tariffs?
With being rich beyond reckoning?
With preferring to be obeyed
over having a life?

And then, there are people like me,
sitting quietly, 
reading Chinese poetry,
wishing everybody would leave everybody alone.

–0–

Silence is a lost art
and the primary source of realization.
Things occur to us out of the silence.
We can ponder the solution to a problem
for days 
and take a shower
and there it is
with a clarity and certainty
that leave all questions answered.

Or we can wrestle with what to do
until we fall asleep,
and the right action 
comes to us in a dream.

We can enhance our creativity
by being quiet more often,
for longer periods of time.
With no agenda.
No plans. 
No schedule.
No time table for creativity to appear.
Just. Being. Still. And. Quiet.
With no end or outcome in mind,
and no possibility of "success"
or "failure."

Being silent for the joy of being silent
will turn the light around,
and enable us to see things
normally hidden from view.

Making that a new way of life
will produce unpredictable 
enhancements to the life we are living,
with surprise and wonder
becoming regular companions.

–0–

How often, 
and at what point,
does your personal gain
factor into your choices and decisions?

That is where we step into 
the story of Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden
and where we go from there,
what we do then, 
tells the tale.

Where we go from there,
and what we do then
has been the subject
of every sermon I ever preached,
and of everything I have ever written.
I have a WordPress site that houses
everything I have ever written,
for your browsing convenience,
and you don't have to have a WordPress
membership to access it,
but you do have to be driven 
by a hunger to know what's what
and already be searching for it everywhere.
You are looking for what clicks with you,
evoking something within you,
that recognizes "IT" when you see it.

We all live in the service of 
inklings and nudges,
pushes and shoves,
that we do not control
or understand.

Our place is to place ourselves
in their service
and do what we are told
when, where and how--
without having to know why.

Savvy?

–0–

The following is an excerpt from my book,
"A Handbook for the Spiritual Journey,"
on WordPress:

"Less than 45% of registered voters 
turn out to vote in most elections. 

50% of 45% is only 25% of the voters 
registered to vote. 

If you cannot scare 25% 
of the registered voters 
into voting for you, 
you should be ashamed. 

The money spent 
by the status quo in campaigns 
in local and national elections 
has been spent to scare 
its faithful (fascist) base 
into turning out en masse to vote. 

It only needs 25% of registered voters 
to vote in most elections. 

The lethargic 75% 
give elections away 
time and again."

Registering more voters
and working to get all voters
to realize the importance 
of turning out and voting
in every election great and small
in local as well as national elections
is the work that sways the future.

And it must be done!

Kansas is evidence in support
of the importance of voting
in the service of a viable future
for all people.

Nothing has the power 
of exercising our right to vote
by voting in every election
for the good of all the people.