WHAT SAVES ME IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES

A BEAUTIFUL WORLD…AND A VIOLENT, FEARFUL HUMAN RACE

Here I am in this little Pueblo in Costa Rica, overlooking Lake Arenal. Book of Angels was just released, volume two in the Night Angels Chronicles, and I’m doing publicity. I have jumped into the infinity pool. Like Sera in the River Styx.

The cries of the suffering rise to heaven and I’m doing publicity.

Even as a child, I heard those cries. At night, I used to run to my dad’s study and plead with him to tell me why there was so much suffering in the world. But he could never give me a satisfying answer.

THE WORLD HASN’T GONE MAD, HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MAD

The world isn’t mad. The world is just fine. Humans are mad and we always have been. Why is anyone surprised by what is happening in the world right now? Look at history! Look at the history of the human race FOREVER. It has been one act of madness after another.

The majority of people in the world! They suffer horribly and constantly, with little relief. If one child is blown up by a bomb; if one child is raped; if one child is told mercilessly, over and over for their entire childhood by a disturbed adult who also suffered horribly as a child, that they are worthless…that is one child too many and it can never be corrected.

We can’t make it better. There is no justice, only compensation.

BUT HOW ABOUT ALL THE INSPIRING STORIES OF SELFLESS ACTS OF COURAGE?

We love to hear inspiring stories of acts of courage. The problem is, in order for an act of courage to occur, something terrible needs to have happened. first We exalt people who perform courageous acts in war. But this is what I want to know: Why does a war have to happen, why does hell have to open on earth for us to start acting courageous? Why does someone have to be drowning so that someone else can save them?

Why does it have to be this way? Is it some kind of perverse spiritual law? Good and Evil, yin and yang must be balanced?

Action and reaction.

Something bad happens, therefor something good happens.

Lazarus died. Jesus took compassion and brought him back to life. How wonderful. But Lazarus died again, didn’t he? In fact, he had to go through the experience twice. Did he suffer again the second time? What was his second death like in comparison to the first?

I am most interested in how Lazarus felt about dying again. Was his fear of death worse or had it taken his fear away?

Because that’s what this is all about. The fear of death. The fear of the unknown.

FEAR OF THE APOCALYPSE

Christians talk about the apocalypse. It was a big topic in our family and in our church, one that struck hear into my heart. The elders claimed to be authorities on the apocalypse. Elaborate charts were made, based on in-depth studies of Revelations. The conclusions they reached came right from the mouth of God.

I have news for you. For the majority of people down through history, and for most people right now, they experience the apocalypse in their everyday lives.

Imagine telling someone in Dachau, “hey, no worries, the apocalypse hasn’t happened yet!”

Oh yes, it happened. It happened for the people in concentration camps; it happened in the trenches of WWI; it happened for those killed by Stalin.

It is happening in Syria, in Turkey, in Nigeria, in Lebanon.

For every police officer and every black man killed in the United States; for every child that is shot up in a school…they and their families have experienced the apocalypse.

It’s happening right now as I write. In Munich, shooters killing in a McDonald’s, and they say it’s happening in other locations in the city. If they turn out to be Terrorists, they are not afraid of death. I would like to learn more about this attitude towards death. Because, we are all going to die. They obviously have a different outlook towards what that means.

I’m trying to make sense of it. But really, how can I?

“Experts” analyze the “facts” and draw conclusions, even though they are just as disturbed as everyone else and just as influenced by their personal agendas. How quickly they are called upon and they gather around like vultures, feeding off the carcasses, because this their chance to make a splash in our media-driven society. Who wouldn’t want to rise above the masses, to make their life have a little more meaning by becoming the new pundit. Put a new spin on an old thought, so that people go, wow, this must be true. Get yourself on the hottest late night talk show and expound.

It’s the Hunger Games.

It’s the Roman Colosseum.

It’s American Football.

It’s the Nightly News.

SHADOW PUPPETS

Has anyone seen the movie, The Year of Living Dangerously? I watched those shadow puppets, mesmerized. It powerfully illustrates how blind we are, how we only understand the world through a “glass darkly.”

What then must we do? 

Life is suffering.

This modern-day obsession that we were born to be happy is a joke. What is that based on? Where is the proof? Show me. To believe this is an insult to every person who has grown up in pain and suffereing. It is an insult to every person who has grown up oppressed. I don’t think there are any children who when asked what they want to be when they grow up responds with: I want to be a murderer; I want to be a drug addict; I want to live in a ghetto and fear for my life; I want to be raped and tortured to death…. Every child wants the same things: a safe home; a family that loves them; food on the table; maybe even a story read to them at night. But most never know what any of that means.

I’m sorry, is that depressing?

TRAVELING INTO MOMENTS OF HAPPINESS

I don’t find it depressing. I find it to be liberating. It allows me to be honest. It means I’m not trying to fool myself out of desperation, or justify my elitist and separatists ideology.

If I can sit for a moment in peace.

If I can watch a sunset without distraction.

If I can find stillness  in the storm.

That moment is everything. It lives forever when I let it be. 

But the moment I start to think of that moment…it is gone. Another moment has taken its place. And then another. I can never capture a moment in time. I can only look back on it. But looking back is also another moment in my life.

MARTIAL ARTS TRAINING

I learned this in marital arts. I train to stay focused. To discipline my body and mind and to uplift my spirit. I train to feel, in each moment, that I am connected to the energy of the universe. It is my way of being. Everyone can find their own way.

TRAVELING

I travel for the same reason. To connect with life. I am free of possessions. I live simply and without constraints. In this, I have been fortunate. Most people don’t have such an opportunity.

MOMENTS PASS LIKE CLOUDS IN THE SKY

Each moment of pain or pleasure, joy or sadness, comes and then it is gone. They cannot be brought back. If I experience one moment of peace and joy, I am fortunate. I am blessed.

POWER CORRUPTS

Trump? Clinton? Do you really think anyone can reach that pinnacle of power without selling their souls to the highest bidder?

Imagine if we all shrugged and turned our backs on power. Imagine if everyone found beauty in small things.

When we pursue that path to the top, we are either destroyed by the journey or we slowly but surely compromise every bit of integrity we’ve ever had.

Of course, we tell ourselves that we haven’t. Humans are very good at telling ourselves stories and believing them with desperation.

At the end of the day. all the wealth and power won’t mean anything. We come into this world naked and we go out the same.

THE SECRETS TO THE ORIGINS OF LIFE

It is a mystery that I explore in the Night Angels Chronicles.

What if we could discover the Secrets to the Origins of Life? What if, by opening a book, we could gain the knowledge of God? What if we could answer the questions to the basic mysteries of life that, with all our supposed advancement, we are no closer to answering?

How Did We Get Here?

What Happens When We Die?

What IS Life??????

We see through a glass darkly, but then we shall see face to face.

Should humans, in our present state, know the answers to these questions?

How dangerous would that be?

But perhaps, knowing the answers, we would then rise to the highest level of consciousness. So, what is keeping this knowledge from us and why?

Isn’t this lack of knowledge and our obsession with knowing the root of all our fears?

What saves me in these troubled times?

Nothing, absolutely nothing, except my accpetance that I don’t have the answers.

Right now, I am going to sit on my balcony and watch the sunset. And let it be…..