We Were Made For These Times

In the past, religion has taught us that we are, intrinsically, evil.

That is a lie. How can anything made of the cloth of God be based in evil?

Look at the heroism and courage we see in the South. Look at the strength and love and giving among people there.

It is time to stop condemning humanity for its dark side - thus condemning us to failure - and time to begin believing in our inherent goodness.

We have the spark of God within us and as Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes, we are made for these times, to transform them with love.

If you have not read it before, may her poem below give you strength and comfort.

Clyo

We Were Made for These Times

Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Author of Women who run with Wolves

I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend
your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times.
Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because,
the fact is that we were made for these times.
Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in
training for and just waiting to meet on this
exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy
vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there
have never been more able vessels in the waters than
there are right now across the world. And they are
fully provisioned and able to signal one another as
never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of
righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though
your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy
roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing
your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That
long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to
hold together, to hold its own, and to advance,
regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward
fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the
world. Do not focus on that.

There is a tendency too to fall into being weakened by
dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot
yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind
without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all
we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so
will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and
guide us, and we will know them when they appear.

Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you
pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask
for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace
means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at
once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the
world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing
that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist
some portion of this poor suffering world, will help
immensely.

It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom,
will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring
good. What is needed for dramatic change is an
accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more,
continuing.

We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to
bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined
group who will not give up during the first, second,
or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can
do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and
show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark
times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send
up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters
to catch fire.

To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like
these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others,
both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest
necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls
who are fully lit and willing to show

If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of
the strongest things you can do. There will always be
times when you feel discouraged.

I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I
do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it.
It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know
something, as do you. It is that there can be no
despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who
you serve, and who sent you here.

The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not
ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who
brought us here.

In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your
wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is
safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what
great ships are built for. This comes with much love
and a prayer that you remember who you came from, and
why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth.

Calls For A New Life

Sad news today, New Orleans is flooding again. And thousands have been stranded in Texas and Louisiana on gridlocked freeways trying to escape Rita.

Most tragically, a bus carrying elderly evacuees, who were trying to escape Hurricane Rita, caught fire while stuck in that gridlock near Wilmer, Texas.

Residents of a nursing home, their oxygen tanks exploded.

What a horror for them and the people in the cars around them who witnessed this terrible event as the bus burned into a blackened shell. As many as 24 people were killed.

How do we make sense of it all? For it is part of a bigger picture.

It may be that we need to change our lives and ways of living or this earth, under such pressure from our activities, will change them for us.

I have received several "wake up" calls in my life. In two very dramatic instances I escaped death - just barely.

I've lost a home and family. In retrospect I see I was living a joyless life in which I was not authentic. Pulled by what people said I "should" do, I worked and lived a "quiet life of desperation."

Although it looked successful from the outside, either my life course had to change or I had to die. That's clear to me, in retrospect, because I wasn't doing what I came here to do.

I chose change over death. I chose finding my authentic path, one small footstep at a time away from the old life. Thanks to God's grace, I had that choice.

But don't think that now I live an authentic life every second or that I am "in the flow" every moment.

Far from it. But I know when I'm straying too far away from the core of who I came here to be, and I self-correct. The line has been drawn in the sand and I know when I'm crossing over it.

Katrina, Rita and all the trials that face us now have one major purpose. They call us to examine our lives.

An unexamined life is a life just waiting for the wrecking ball.

Instead, know who you are - really - and get in touch with what you came here to do.

I'm betting it's not to waste your life on trivial entertainments, work at a job you hate or criticize others because you are unhappy or resentful of them.

I bet its to find your own "Kingdom of God" down here in which you follow your authentic path so that all the puzzle pieces start falling together and life begins feeling good and making sense.

I bet it's to find a way of living and working that brings peace, fulfillment and connection so you are always in the right place at the right time and never, ever running for your life in any sense of the word.

As Sarah Ban Breathnach asks in Simple Abundance:

Could your bliss and an authentic life be one and the same? What if whatever it is that makes you ecstatic, brings you joy, sends you soaring, satisfies your hunger, fulfills your yearning, ignites your passion, makes you reach out to others, and gives you peace - in other words, your bliss - is the Kingdom of Heaven?

Have you ever considered that The Kingdom of Heaven is not up in the sky but is something we are to create here, both individually and collectively?

Given current events, perhaps it is time for each one of us to begin today to find that authentic path for ourselves.

Too much misery and sorrow occurs when we don't. Let us pray:

Dear God,

There is one Presence and one Power in the Universe: You.

By Your Grace, life agrees with me.
I place myself under your care as You guide me on my authentic path.

You guide me in making the corrections I need
And comfort me as I make these changes.

By Your grace, I am able to digest every new thought
And assimilate every new experience so it frees me.

I am able to respond and make good decisions.

I am surrounded by Your angels and I am safe.

Nothing is more powerful than Your love
And Your desire that I know joy.

I love my life.
My life is a blessing to myself
And to the world.

Amen.

From Prayerforce: 365 Days To A New Life

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Psalms 30:5

Katrina: Did Fox Impact Her?

Sometime, you might take a look at The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy.

It was the first stepping-stone in my quest, which began nearly twenty-five years ago, to get a handle on what is really going on in what we call "reality."

There are people who discount prayer and the idea that we can affect reality through what we think.

"Magical thinking" is the derisive term applied to the idea that we can have an effect on the world around us through what we think.

There is a fear - and it is legitimate - that if we start believing that we create everything with our minds, then we may think we don't have to pay attention to what's actually happening - like global warming - but think we can just "wish it away" while we continue to spew toxins and heat into our atmosphere.

There's a fear that people will get it in their minds that we don't have to stop spewing garbage into our atmosphere or conserving energy because we can just "fix" all these problems with our minds without taking any action.

And there's the joke about the man who prays to God to win the lotto, but never buys a ticket.

This is true magical thinking and nothing could be further from the truth.

Miracles require thought and prayer as a basis, but they also require the courage to act on the impulses we get, follow our dreams and get our hands dirty in creating a better world.

"Magical thinking" as I've described it above, however, is not quite the same thing as finding out that we live in an energy universe in which the energy of thought impacts the world around us and that there is an actual cause and effect.

The self-fulfilling prophesy, a phenomena that countless people have experienced, is anecdotal evidence of the fact that our thoughts affect our lives.

It would follow, therefore, that a collection of people all thinking the same thing could create a self-fulfilling prophesy for the collective.

Is it that big a jump to then consider that with a natural phenomena, like a hurricane, that our fears about it can influence how big it gets or where it hits based upon our most deeply held beliefs?

I wondered about that recently when a fellow blogger informed me that FOX had broadcast a movie in August in which a category 5 hurricane hit New Orleans and destroyed her.

Did that movie embed the minds of millions of people with the images similar to what we have seen this month, helping them to come true?

Absolutely.

For this is the nature of collective consciousness. What we put in - all of it - has an effect.

That is why people like Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra, Caroline Myss, Louise Hay and so many others are working hard to get the word out:

YOUR THOUGHTS ARE CREATING YOUR REALITY and

COLLECTIVELY, OUR THOUGHTS CREATE OUR COLLECTIVE REALITY.

Quantum mechanics explains how this is possible, but of course it is still a theory and the packets of energy about which it theorizes are infinitesimally small, being the theorized building blocks of everything in the material world.

But you know something funny? Scientists all operate out of theory. There are many things we take for granted that are just "theories" but seem to be true because we've found they work.

It's said over and over that air flight can't be proved, as a theory, but we see hundreds of planes in the sky every day.

The Mid-West saw a spate of tornados after the movie Twister came out that was unprecedented. Was that coincidence?

Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans after Fox's film was aired. Was that coincidence?

Those that insist these and countless other events are just "coincidences" do so because they are scared to death. They are scared to death of the responsibility that comes when you realize your thoughts, along with the thoughts of everyone on this planet, create everything around you.

But if we can get this lesson, understand it and begin filling our minds with thoughts that will create a reality that we actually want to see, this lesson will be the first step to creating heaven on earth.

Alleluia!

Through wisdom is a house built, and by understanding it is established. Proverbs 24:3

Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:5

Peace and Light,

Clyo

12 LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES

Thank you, Caryn, for forwarding the following to me.

HURRICANE KATRINA – THE 12 LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
by Gary Zukav

"We watched ferocious winds tear into the Gulf Coast, a jewel of a city become inundated, and, with growing horror, the inaction of our government as bodies lay in the streets, tens of thousands clustered without water or food and thousands more hovered on the edge of survival in the wealthiest country in the world, we have been given the opportunity to watch ourselves as well, to observe and learn about ourselves from our experiences.

As relief arrived in slow motion and then in an unorganized flood and we realized that the evacuees will struggle for years to rebuild their lives, we have had more opportunities to learn from our experiences or to react to them – to create as we have in the past or to create differently – and our experiences continue.

Hurricane Katrina gives us OPPORTUNITIES to discover how we are creating and how we can create differently if we choose. Every adversity offers this OPPORTUNITY – to lapse into victim or become a creator.

The potential to shift from victim to creator is very great when we hurt as much as we hurt now. Whether we have watched this massive suffering on television or from a sidewalk at the Convention Center in New Orleans, the OPPORTUNITY is the same – a treasure offered to those who are willing to work for it.

We [Gary Zukav & company] are offering a FREE series of OPPORTUNITIES to help you learn about yourself from your experiences of Hurricane Katrina: HURRICANE KATRINA – THE 12 LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES.

It is available to you now on www.zukav.com. We will post a new OPPORTUNITY every Monday and Thursday mornings Pacific Time, and you can also view previous OPPORTUNITIES (it is never too late to learn from an OPPORTUNITY).

Before you begin, please consider that Hurricane Katrina can be seen as the deliverer of a great end and a great beginning, a great loss and a great gain at the same time.

It can be the end of a complacent life and the beginning of an aware life, the end of indifference and the beginning of gratitude, the end of superficial looking and the beginning of deep feeling, deep insights, deep appreciation, and deep love.

It can be seen as the disaster of hundreds of thousands of people suddenly, abruptly, violently dislocated, many never to live again in the homes they once knew and it can be seen as the biggest infusion of caring into the awareness of the United States and much of the world since 9/11 and the Asian Tsunamis.

How you see it depends upon how you choose to see it.

If you choose unconsciously, you will see through the filters of your fears, including disinterest and apathy, rather than using your experiences to learn about yourself and applying what you learn to create authentic power.

These perceptions – both frightened and compassionate – come to each of us in our own ways and teach us what we need to know about ourselves to create lives of more joy and less pain, more meaning and less helplessness, more love and less fear."

I agree with what Gary Zukav has writen and encourage everyone to visit his website.

Now it is high time to awake out of sleep. Romans 13:11

And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have therefore, let us do good unto all men. Galatians 6:10

May you walk in peace and love,

Clyo

Katrina's Lesson: Compassion

The lesson that Katrina brings us is that compassion must be our first order of business.

The blessing that Katrina has brought us is to remind us we are, firstly, a loving nation of heroes.

Those heroes are in the streets and in the shelters. They are serving and donating. They are the common everyday people of these United States of America who continue to react with courage, love and faith to the devastation and horror caused by Hurricane Katrina.

But their values and principles are not mirrored in the policies of our current Administration.

While our people, clearly, believe that we are "all in this together," we have been under the rule of a political faction whose primary philosophy is that each of us should be left on our own to sink or swim, depending on whether or not we can afford a boat.

Many Americans are calling for an independent investigation to find out what "went wrong" in the response to Katrina. No doubt mistakes in judgment were made by several and these will be identified.

However, demanding an investigation in order to apportion blame to people is not going to help us prepare against future calamity. The people in charge today will be gone tomorrow. Only love and working together in crafting compassionate policies for the national good can help us.

I hve been highly critical of our current administration precisely because it has not operated out of love for the common good. It has set us against one another falsely, often either creating or exacerbating issues that drive us apart.

Tearing our national fabric apart for the purpose of winning elections and gaining power is morally bankrupt, especially given that chaos and destruction are the true "trickle down" effects of the ultra-conservative economic philosophy and policies that have been implemented as a result.

It is that philosophy which should be targeted for extinction, not FEMA, food stamps, our schools or the budget for repairing levees.

An independent investigation may or may not expose the lie in the philosophy that we do not need government to assist us in the protection of our people or promotion of our common good.

But whatever it shows, no investigation will give us a true picture unless it is independent from both politicians and our current administration.

Any investigation must have its own investigators, budget and subpoena authority.

What happened in New Orleans should never happen again. If we are to have an independent investigation, let us assure that it will give us the answers we need.

But the independent commission will not be the answer to our problems, only a tool for self-discovery. The answer lies in transforming the American heart.

We have been so busy being entertained, making a living and acquiring material possessions that we have been blind to the extreme poverty that exists in this nation and the damage that is being done to our land, rivers, coasts, air and seas.

We are each our brother's keeper. We are also custodians of the earth. We know that when we see the need, but we often live lives in which we are too busy to see what's really going on.

Americans need to slow down. We need to stop running around like chickens with our heads cut off.

We need to really start looking at people and listening to people, not media. It would benefit us to spend more time in nature, alone, communing with her.

Our greatest need is to spend time in silence, quiet our minds and allow God to inform us of what part He wants us to play in the healing of our nation and the world. And a big part we play is in raising our children.

In the new book, Freakonomics, economist Steven D. Levitt states that he found that what you do with your child is not really as important as how you do it.

A father himself, his statistics show that it is the quality of the human interaction between you and your children that most affects whether they will be happy, successful and well-adjusted...or not.

He indicated, during an interview, that his findings led him to understand that if a parent is running around, driving him or herself crazy taking a child to all sorts of "enriching" activities, that will transfer to the child and will have a negative effect.

Sitting on the floor and talking, being happy and relaxed in the moment will do more for your child than all other activities combined. Choosing the best-loved activity instead of fragmenting time and energies on too many, is the healthier route.

The lesson is clear. Relax, do less and concentrate on bringing more of what you really enjoy into your life.

Take enough time to do the things you want to do well.

Spend quality time just being with your child. Your child loves you and does not need a lot of toys. He or she does not benefit from being shuffled from one event to another. He will become an outstanding person with solid values simply by being bathed in your love and constant, steadfast behavior.

Learn compassion for yourself and it is easier to feel it for others.

Also it is not good for a soul to be without knowledge, And he sins who hastens with his feet. Proverbs 19:2

A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry, for this will remain with him in his labor all the days of his life. Ecclesiastes 8:15

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones. Proverbs 17:22

Show mercy and compassion every man to his brother. Zechariah 7:9

Our Nation: Everyday Heroes

The heroes in this story about Katrina are not in the federal government. The heroes are in the streets and in the shelters. They are the common everyday people of this United States of America who continue to react with courage and dignity to the devastation and horror caused by Hurricane Katrina.

They are the people who evacuated peacefully and are coping with the loss of their lives and homes and loved ones with incredible stoicism.

They are the police and firefighters who have lost their homes, sleep in the streets, are exposed to filth and stomach turning smells, were endangered by snipers, and yet have continued to serve even without food, water, power or communication with their loved ones.

They are the Red Cross workers and the National Guard rescuers. They are the doctors and nurses and hairdressers and teachers who are all volunteering and working with our displaced brothers and sisters.

They are the working class heroes, civilians who got in boats and went from one drowned house to another looking for survivors from morning until night.

Our nation is full of heroes, full of the people who do the work in this country. They are the ones who respond when tragedy hits and go where they are needed. And they deserve to get their federal government back from the very rich and the very heartless. They deserve a federal government that cares about them as much as Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Chief Eddie Compass.

"If one person criticizes them" [local officials such as the Mayor of New Orleans] "or says one more thing" [to criticize local officials, even if it is]"...the president of the United States, he will hear from me," said Senator Mary Landrieu after spending ten days in Katrina's wake. "One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him [the President]. Literally."

"Everybody anticipated the breach of the levee, Mr. President," Landrieu said, in contradiction of Bush's statement last week that no one "anticipated the breach of the levees." And as she addressed the U.S. Senate, she noted that even "...the clay figurine, Mr. Bill, from 'Saturday Night Live'" anticipated the breach, asking "How can it be that Mr. Bill was better informed than Mr. Bush?"

I can tell her. He set it up that way. It's part and parcel of right-wing Republican values. Those values, and the lack of empathy inherent in them, are consistent with the astonishing statement by Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) of Baton Rouge who was overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

After the 2004 election, Grover Norquist spoke in a room of 4000 very wealthy Bush supporters. He announced with glee that Republicans would now "stick a knife in government and kill it."

That is just what conservatives and Republican politicians have been doing, and as we have seen with Hurricane Katrina, their policies are working, with devastating results.

Those policies include, of course, eliminating public housing, FEMA, head start, public schooling, PBS, funding for police and firefighters, funding for levees, public works, parks, roads and - you name it.

If it serves the public at large, it's on the Republican chopping block with the goal of making it all privatized. Their goal is that only those who can afford to pay, directly, for services get them.

In other words, you better have a car and the money you need for gas to get out of town. If not, you are not entitled to be evacuated and, bottom line, you are not entitled to live.

Yet we see corporate hand outs given with impunity. If a policy serves corporate profit making, Republicans give it full support, especially if proposed by major corporate lobbyists who have donated to their campaigns.

Even our military is being gutted in Iraq for the benefit of private corporations who are raking in the profits from rebuilding Iraq.

And Katrina - and I've read this in a blog posted by an employee of Halliburton - Katrina represents a great opportunity for Halliburton or some other private corporation to come in and make a lot of money cleaning and rebuilding. From the Republican point of view, Katrina is good for business.

This kind of thinking is morally bankrupt. Surely the forty percent of our nation that still likes President Bush cannot agree with these values.

But as George Lakoff writes, "The moral of Katrina is mostly being missed.

It is not just a failure of execution (William Kristol), or that bad things just happen (Laura Bush).

"It was not just indifference by the President, or a lack of accountability, or a failure of federal-state communication, or corrupt appointments in FEMA (Michael Brown, appointed by President Bush as the director of FEMA had no previous experience with disaster response, but was the judges and stewards commissioner for a racehorse association), or the cutting of budgets for fixing levees, or the inexcusable absence of the National Guard off in Iraq. It was all of these and more, but they are the effects, not the cause."

"The cause was political through and through -- a matter of values and principles.

The progressive-liberal values are America's values, and we need to go back to them. The heart of progressive-liberal values is simple: empathy (caring about and for people) and responsibility (acting responsibly on that empathy). These values translate into a simple principle: Use the common wealth for the common good to better all our lives. In short, promoting the common good is the central role of government."

Yet the right-wing conservatives now in power have the opposite values and principles. Rather than shaping government to meet the function for which it is best suited which is promoting the common good, they are working actively to dismantle government and use what is left to benefit the very rich. The result, as we have seen, is chaos and tragedy. Poor people have no place in the rich, right-wing Republican's scheme of things.

Note this from the New Orleans Times Picayune:

"Some observers have said that because the majority of storm evacuees are black, the lethargic disaster response has a racist component. But Mayor Nagin cast the color issue in another light. "I think it's more a class issue than race," he said. "The Superdome had mostly poor people in distress. The rich have resources the poor don't. The Convention Center was different. There the poor were mixed with people from hotels and predators. You had blacks, Hispanics, Asians. The predators in there didn't care. When those stories come out, like children raped, with their throats cut, then somebody's got to answer."

Nagin's ire began to rise anew as he recalled a foiled strategy to send able-bodied refugees over the Crescent City Connection to the high ground of the West Bank.

"We were taking in people from St. Bernard Parish," he said. "If we had a bottle of water, we shared it. Then when we were going to let people cross the bridge, they were met with frigging dogs and guns at the Gretna parish line. They said, 'We're going to protect Jefferson Parish assets.'"

"Some people value homes, cars and jewelry more than human life. The only escape route was cut off. They turned them back at the parish line."

As the Bible says, He who mocks the poor reproaches his Maker. Proverbs 17:5

Republican policy making is morally bankrupt precisely because it continually mocks the poor. It continually puts the acquisition of astonishing wealth for an elite minority over the common good.

More from the Times Picayune:

"Nagin said that in order to cope with the always frustrating, sometimes overwhelming situation he has tried to "stay in the moment," dealing as best he can with each individual issue as it arises: a police officer's report that a large number of elderly people were stranded near Lee Circle; the sight of refugees continuing to gather on the city's raised highways. Nagin recalled with special dismay having recently been told that a New Orleans police officer committed suicide during the storm's aftermath."

"I asked my people to get in touch with the LSU department of psychiatry," he said. "The police are holding the situation together with Band-Aids. We have to let them get three to five days off."

"As the Blackhawk coursed over the city, Nagin and the other passengers pointed out familiar landmarks made unfamiliar by the storm. The city was largely ruined. It would be as difficult to restart as the thousands of automobiles submerged in the murky water below. But Nagin insisted it must be restarted, no matter what."

"I think I'm here for a reason: to rebuild," he said. "New Orleans is the soul of the country. It's the place jazz comes from. It has Mardi Gras Indians that nobody else has. It's a place where a chef can take a piece of fish and make it into a masterpiece. We don't even think about not rebuilding Miami. We don't think about rebuilding Los Angeles, and they're on a fault line. We just do it. We don't talk about it. I don't want to talk about that foolishness."

Although progress is being made, Mayor Nagin has an incredible task before him.

Not only that, because he is a Democrat, powerful Republicans within our government - and their defenders in the media - are spinning a web to blame Mayor Nagin in order to take the focus off themselves, where it belongs.

I'm sorry, but the Bush Administration has cut funds to every city in this nation causing them to trim police and fire departments and put off infrastructure repair.

It is FEMA and, more than that, the Office of the President that is responsible for the gross mismanagement.

I, for one, am immensely proud of Mayor Nagin. He has stood up for his people - and for us, for we are all Americans. He has a tough job ahead in rebuilding New Orleans. Please send him your positive thoughts and prayers. And when mail delivery is restored, send him your cards and congratulations.

I am also tremendously grateful and proud of New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass. A real hero, his leadership abilities are truly astonishing.

I urge every American to bless all those who are dealing with this catastrophe. Commit today, in your heart, that you will never allow federal politicians to so misuse our government and national resources again. Vow that you will never allow them to cut the heart out of America again.

Then be proud. Be proud of your fellow Americans, for they are the salt of the earth and the soul of this land.

The blessing of Katrina will be that she has reminded us of this: who we are, as a nation. We are a great, brave and compassionate people. We can and will have a federal government that reflects who we are. We will have a federal government that cares as much as Mayor Ray Nagin, Police Chief Eddie Compass and Senator Mary Landrieu.

Why? Because we deserve no less.

Meanwhile, for a list of ways you can help our fellow Americans in the Gulf Coast, click here.

God bless you and yours.

A Lesson Of What Love Is Not

Yesterday I urged everyone to rally behind President Bush and cease criticism of him.

Unfortunately, I have read disturbing news on the Internet indicating that everything we saw the President do, in terms of comforting people and overseeing progress, was staged.

Not only was it all staged to look real, the President's decision to stage "progress" and make himself look like a decisive leader actually hampered relief efforts.

The Times Picayune reported that:

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.

“We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won’t let helicopters fly,” O’Shea said Friday afternoon.

The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.

The women we saw him comfort were not from the Biloxi area, but had come from outside of the area and were neither in need of food, clothing or shelter.

According to a German reporter, Christine Adelhardt who reported live from Biloxi:

"Two minutes ago the President drove by with his convoy. What happened here in Biloxi during the day is really unbelievable. All of a sudden the rescue troops finally showed up, the clean-up vehicles; we didn't see those over the last days here."

She indicates that she witnessed this in an area that had no urgent need and in which no people were around because they had all gone to the city center. Yet that is where all the clean up vehicles and "help" showed up, for the purpose of putting on a show as backdrop for the President, to be filmed for the cameras.

"The President is traveling with a press convoy, so they get wonderful pictures saying the president was here and the help will follow. The amount of this catastrophe shocked me, but the amount of set-up that happened here today is at least equally shocking for me."

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

And this from Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. Apparently the crew that was working so hard during President Bush's photo op left and apparently never came back:

"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe."

"Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government."

New Orlean's Mayor Nagin also stated that he still believes the situation is being poorly handled. "We're still fighting over authority," he said. "A bunch of people are the boss. The state and the federal government are doing a two-step dance. "I told the president, 'I'm into solutions. If the state government can't take responsibility, then you take it.' ... I think it's getting better, but the pace is still not sufficient.'"

I post this with great sadness and disappointment, realizing the President has not looked into the eyes of the suffering, but just into the eyes of the cameras, for our benefit.

See a list at the following blog which has pulled together links and substantiation.

They...by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Romans 16:18

Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. Proverbs 20:17

A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire. Proverbs 18:1

He who mocks the poor reproaches his Maker. Proverbs 17:5

The lesson to us all is this:

We must be real.

We must be engaged with real life.

We must become informed about a politican's real values - based upon his works - before we vote for him.

Let us continue to pray for those on the Gulf Coast and open ourselves to be active tools for God's love and compassion.

If you are able, please donate to the Red Cross and consider offering any spare rooms or empty housing you may have to those displaced by Katrina.

Bless you.

Our Lesson: Love

National Guard troops have moved into New Orleans and the rescue has finally begun in earnest.

Today President Bush appeared live on television assuring us that the federal government will do "whatever it takes," starting with a 10.5 Billion "down payment" to help the people along our devastated Gulf coast recover their lives. He has pledged that New Orleans will be rebuilt as opposed to House Speaker Dennis Hastert's idea that it be "bulldozed" and abandoned.

Prior to this speech, President Bush toured some of the devastated area - which is greater than Great Britain - and met people who have been waiting a week for help. In his shirt sleeves, he hugged, kissed and comforted people.

I pray, no matter your political views, that the sight moved your heart as it did mine. And I will tell you why.

But first, let me be frank here. We all know that President Bush's response has been evoked, at least partially, by blistering criticism in regard to how this national crisis has been handled.

Further more, he is aware that we are all finding out that he, himself, is partially responsible for the devastation that has occurred because he cut funds for the rebuilding of the levees surrounding New Orleans. Because of his actions, work on those levees was stopped.

It is also obvious that he remained at his ranch way too long and did not pay attention to the category five hurricane that was tracking toward New Orleans.

Whereas National Guard should have been ready to move into the Gulf Coast states as soon as Katrina passed, it was not ready and nothing happened.

Whereas the President should have made recovery his first priority and appointed someone within his Administration to coordinate all rescue and relief efforts, he did not. Senator Mary Landrieu has called him on it and is currently insisting that President Bush appoint such a person now.

So, to sum up, President Bush dropped the ball in many areas.

But what we would be wise to focus on now is this:

He has picked the ball up now, and is running with it.

Cynics will say he is doing it to try and dig himself out from criticism and bad poll ratings. No doubt this is true.

But he has also been in the presence of the suffering and he understands what has happened and he genuinely wants to help.

Dear ones, some people can simply hear about disaster and understand, immediately and on a gut level, the suffering that is involved.

Other people have to see interviews and images on television or in the newspaper before they grasp the pain of others.

Then there are people who can only understand suffering when they meet with the suffering in person, when they are amid the energy of the suffering.

President Bush has stood in the auras of suffering people. He has seen the devastation, in person. He has looked into people's eyes and seen their pain.

Regardless if he has an eye on damage control for his public image - and who on this earth would not - he is not faking his compassion.

Therefore, I ask everyone who has climbed up on a soap box and is poised to spend the next two or three months blasting the President to reconsider.

It is important to learn lessons about how to respond to and handle natural and man-made disasters. It is vital that we create standards for response times and have plans in place for the deployment of help the moment after a destructive event has occurred.

But it is counterproductive to rail against the President.

I did not vote for President Bush. I do not agree with most of his policies. But I support what he is doing now. He is doing the right thing and he deserves credit for doing so.

I would like to see him call for Americans to conserve energy and gas. He does not seem to be able to do so.

I would like to see him announce a works project for the South, similar to the WPA that put people to work during the Great Depression. He has not and perhaps he will not.

Regardless, he has given us something else, perhaps something more valuable.

We have seen our President hug and kiss the poor and the forgotten. We have heard words of love and compassion from him. He has expressed a message of love that we, desperately, needed to hear.

Beloved, many people say that a disaster like this happens so we learn faith. In my opinion, a disaster like this one occurs to teach us love and compassion.

President Bush has been accused of lacking compassion for the poor. Based upon his policies, I must concur that the assessment has been correct. Of course there are reasons for his perspectives and policies.

President Bush is not just a member of America's upper class, he grew up as a member of an elite group on par with kings and queens.

President Bush is not just rich, he has been insulated from the problems of poor and middle class people his entire life. He truly, I believe, has not been able to empathize or understand what it is like to be at the mercy of events, crime, economics or poverty because, for him, there has always been an out.

For instance, had he been in New Orleans as Katrina approached, he would have had the money to leave and another home to go to. He wouldn't have driven out, of course, nor had to face jammed roads. Instead, he would have taken a plane. If all commercial planes had been full or were cancelled, it wouldn't have affected him. He would have simply boarded a private jet - either his or one of his countless wealthy friends - and left New Orleans that way.

Upon finding out that his home had been destroyed, he would simply buy another, better one elsewhere. And that is if he did not have a second or third home, which is common for people in his economic class. Another option, of course, would have been for him to set up residence in a first class hotel.

The point is, President Bush does not understand what life is like for the majority of people who cannot afford a tank of gas to get out of town. He does not understand how his countless policies regarding schools, fire departments, cities, erosion, pollution, wages - the list is endless and comprehensive - have eroded the lives of working Americans.

Now, with this disaster, he has a chance to learn about the results of some of his policies. He also has the opportunity to learn the benefits of real, compassionate leadership.

None of us love perfectly. All of us are here to learn love and compassion. President Bush is here to learn love and compassion and so are we.

So while all the criticism of President Bush has been, initially, constructive in getting his attention; in getting him to see what has been really going on, making a career out of beating him into the ground will not help you or me - or our nation - learn love.

Instead, I ask you to pray for President Bush. Pray that, through this disaster, God opens him to love and compassion so that we may rally behind him in solving our problems.

Ask God to open our own hearts so we act out of compassion and love, not out of a small minded need to "be right," hold grudges or use this tragedy as a dagger.

In the words of Mohandas K. Gandhi:

And so I hope this....has made it clear. ....that whilst we may attack measures and systems, we may not, must not, attack men. Imperfect ourselves, we must be tender towards others and be slow to impute motives.

Wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest does the same things. Romans 2:1

The fool rageth, and is confident Proverbs 14:16

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. Song of Songs 8:7

Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous. 1 Peter 3:8

Let us all join in the recovery effort, to the best of our abilities.

God bless you.