Up, Up, and Away!

I think most of us have had childhood dreams of flying. I used to dream that I could lift myself up off the ground and float around... that I could move forward and fly just above the ground, or float up and touch the ceiling. It was a wonderful feeling, being free of the constraints of gravity, the burden of matter.

Imagination could be just that, or it could be rooted in an alternate reality, a different dimension, a future state, a passion of the soul. We long to be free of constraints, of critical, judgmental eyes, of condemning judgments by the unenlightened, to do what is right and to feel accepted and appreciated. We long to play unconstrained by the usual suspects. We want to be free, to float above the din, to have the power to make a difference.

We were meant to be enlightened souls. Our spirits do not need to be constrained by gravity. We long to fly because we are not matter having a spiritual experience; we are spirits having a material experience.

Alas, many have become lost in the clamor of existence, consumed by the material. The day to day can become crushing. Not enough time, not enough money, not enough stuff. Got to get more. Got to do more. Busy, busy, busy, too busy to pray, too busy to be still and listen, too busy to rise above. STOP! This is the road to nothingness, or worse. What are we going to do with all this stuff when we are gone? He with the most toys loses the most toys. Life is wasted. Time is up. The ride is over and nothing remains. When your life and mine is over, what we did will be tested by fire. The fire will consume anything that is made of straw and wood... only that which is built of rock (i.e. on "The Rock") will remain. Did we comfort the broken hearted, did we give when we saw someone in need, did we feed the poor, did we clothe the naked, pray for the sick, visit those in prison (literal or figurative)? Did we do it quietly, without seeking any recognition for our works? When we did it unto the least of God's children, we did it unto Him (and vice versa!). Did we pray often, praise often, study the Word of Truth daily, and seek to do His will? Those are the rocks. Those are the things that will last.

We are coming into a time in history when we are seeing many of the things the prophets foretold would happen in the 'end times'. 44% of Americans now believe the natural and man-made disasters could be (or are) a sign that this is the case. The cover of Newsweek this week boldly proclaimed "Armageddon Now". The very thought of this can be a shock to the soul... some protest violently against the idea, but if we are in the end time, things will happen, regardless of their protests. Many people 'come to Jesus' when they come down with a fatal illness, or are mortally wounded, when they can no longer deny their mortality. If we are in the end times, we may experience the mortality of all of humanity at once, and, if the prophets are right (and true prophets always are... that is the test of a prophet), it will be a violent and painful death for much of mankind. Is there an escape? Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me". According to the texts, those who are the true believers will be taken "Up, up, and away!" before the really nasty stuff goes down. They will be "rescued from the wrath to come".

Who are the true believers? I used to think it was anyone who 'confessed Jesus Christ as Lord, and believed God raised Him from the dead' that would go to heaven, regardless of how they lived the rest of their lives. It was an immature faith that is all too common in Christian circles today, much to our disgrace. The truth is that unless we daily work to purify our hearts like glass, to seek God's will with all that we have and all that we are, we have not made Christ Lord of our lives... it was just talk. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God". We will probably never (in this life) be perfect, but if we want to fly like superman before the big crash, we need to be committed. When the trumpet blows, I want to be on that rocket. By God's grace and mercy, the ticket to heaven is just above our heads. We need to reach up and hold on with everything we have, and never let go. "Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we [the faithful] will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (I Cor 15). "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." (I Thes 4) If these are truely the last days, we could be the only people in history that did not have to pass through death to get to heaven. We could fly to heaven in transformed spiritual bodies! Up, up, and away!!!

Joy Unspeakable!

"Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” So said the Master of Life. I can tell you, He knows what He is talking about. What could be more joyful, more playful, more creative, more expressive, or more spontaneous than the heart of a child? To play, to laugh, to imagine, to sing, to dance... to experience the joy of living... that is heaven on earth. To have a pure heart that is thankful and full of reverence is more precious than fine gold. To know that we are loved by our Creator is nothing less than joy unspeakable, once we deeply comprehend what that means.

I have been reading a book called "Heaven is so Real!" by Choo Thomas. It is an international best seller, translated into several different languages, with over a million copies sold. It has transformed the lives of countless people by making real a place that people had barely been able to imagine. Have you ever wondered what heaven is like? In this wonderful book, she tells how she was taken there numerous times by the Lord of Life Himself, and she describes it in glorious detail. Streets of gold are just the beginning. There are mountains and crystal clear rivers and colorful fruit trees and playful animals and majestic mansions. It is a place beyond all that we could imagine, and it is there for those who seek after goodness and truth and the Creator of all things with the heart of a child. The author sings and dances and laughs and wonders at the joys and beauty laid out before her. It is this kind of heart that is rewarded. Selfishness, materialism, jealousy, power trips, ego, fear, worry, doubt... these lead to the destruction of the soul. Goodness and godliness are health to the soul. We choose the path we walk and bear the fruit of our choices. I highly recommend getting this book and reading it for yourself. Her testimony and the 'book on tape' are also available as videos for free on Google if you search "Heaven is so Real". Don't miss this chance!

Have you ever had a puppy? They know joy!!! They love to play and are so happy and joyful. It is a pleasure to come home and have them leap for joy when we arrive. They have such amazing love... it pours out of them like a fountain. I want to be like that. I want to have that kind of joy and love in my heart. I want to have the heart of a child, to sing, to dance, to play, to laugh and to love. What could be better than that?

Living spontaneously, joyfully, with an open and pure heart is what we were made for. To appreciate the Creator as well as the creation is our purpose. To do good, to care for the needy, to help the hurting, to heal the sick and wounded, to have compassion and understanding is our calling. To speak the truth in love to those than need to hear it is our mission. We can be creative and expressive and loving and live a life that is not only rewarding now, but also in the higher level of existence that the faithful will attain in the future. We live in the matrix... the material realm is a crumbling illusion. The true reality is spiritual. When we seem to be surrounded by earthquakes and floods and nuclear disasters and the world seems to be spinning into chaos, the answer, the freedom, the liberty, the peace we seek will not be found in matter. It is found in a simple song of praise that elevates you above the matrix. Joy unspeakable is yours if you have the heart of a child!

Spaghetti Sandwich

Creativity involves putting together elements that are not usually associated with each other and coming up with a surprising result. The two conditions necessary for being granted a patent are 'novelty' and 'non-obviousness'. The invention needs to be 'new to the world', and it needs to be a bit of a surprise. The other day, I had some leftover spaghetti, but it wasn't enough for a meal. I thought I'd have some bread with it (the idea came from restaurant dining, where bread is often served with a meal), but I didn't have any butter. Then (bing!), I thought, I can put the spaghetti between two slices of bread... that would be just enough food, the bread wouldn't be dry, and it would be neat and easy to eat. I did, and the result was actually quite tasty (sort of like an eggplant or chicken parm sub with pasta instead). Now this invention was new to me (I had never heard of a spaghetti sandwich), but was it new to the world? I typed "spaghetti sandwich" into Google images and got several pictures of spaghetti sandwiches and quickly found out the invention had been thought of previously. It therefore lacked 'novelty', and could never be patented (not that I would... this is just a silly example).

Now a lot of people might go,"Yuck!" at the thought of a spaghetti sandwich, but only because it is unfamiliar and seems strange. When I was a young child, one of my favorite books was "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss. It was all about breaking the paradigm of unfamiliar being bad... at first the Cat in the Hat refused to eat the green eggs and ham, but after lengthy persuasion, agreed to try it... only to find that he actually loved it!

When I was in college at WPI, I minored in 'Creativity and Creative Problem Solving'. As part of my education, I put together a 3 day course on how to be more creative, which was held during winter break. In order to promote the course, I put up flyer around the campus that said (with the words formed into a question mark that covered the page), "Are you strange? Would you like to be stranger?” followed by enough info to know how to sign up for the course. I got 18 students to sign up. If you want to be creative and inventive, you really have to be excited about adventuring into the strange and unknown. You need to look at things from a different and unusual perspective. You need to be comfortable with ambiguity and willing to mix and match things that are at most tangentially related (i.e. at least 2-3 degrees of separation). Often, when I am trying to find a solution to a problem, I will isolate one aspect of the problem, generalize it, and then explore how others have solved the general problem. After finding some interesting solutions, I bring them back to the original problem and see if they unlock a novel solution. Often, they do.

Another common element of creative people is that they will use what is already around them in new ways. Creative people will tend to collect things and educate themselves about all kinds of things so that when that opportunity arises, the needed components and information will be readily at hand.

One important distinction to recognize is that there is an important difference between innovation and creativity. Creativity is fun and play and surprising and humorous and joyful and rewarding... but, more often than not, the outcome is rapidly forgotten. Innovation is where creativity produces something that has social, economic, emotional, or some other form of value, and that value is recognized, and the invention is subsequently duplicated, distributed, and adopted because of its clear value.

Often the innovation will be improved upon as people tailor it for their particular application. This is user innovation on top of existing innovation, and it takes place because (a) people have a specific need that the invention (in its current form) does not fully address, (b) they typically have at hand the tools that can be integrated into the invention, and (c) they have a certain expertise in that field. These user innovations frequently becomes the next generation of the invention. A research study done at MIT found that approximately 3/4 of innovations come from users. Users really understand the need (often better than the manufacturer), and, often by serendipity, will have some skill or talent that enables them to modify the innovation in a way that makes it better for them. It was somewhat shocking to me how often a product would be launched without the marketing person ever using the product themselves. If we are to be really good at innovation, we need to be personally involved to get the richest solutions, and we need to learn new skills and achieve new levels of understanding so that we can apply that to future innovations. Finally, understand the users, and look for unique and interesting applications and modifications to your innovation. That could be your next generation success story!

Metamorphosis

When we think of metamorphosis, the image that immediately pops to mind is the transformation from a caterpillar to a butterfly. While that is a powerful and almost shocking example of transformation, there is another type of metamorphosis as well, which is more gradual, such as the transition from a tadpole to a frog. In a sense, one is like a revolution and the other is like an evolution. Both are valid means of reaching a desired end. In each case there is a dramatic difference between the 'before' and 'after'.

Curious about the word, I learned that during the pupa stage, a caterfly butterpillar will actually emit digestive fluids that cause the cell death and dissolution of its own former body, and the dissolved components are then recombined into a brand new living structure... literal death and rebirth. Other species, in more evolutionary metamorphosis, undergo dramatic transformations of their organs, such as the flounder, for example, whose eyes start on opposite sides of the fish larvae and end up together on the same side of the adult fish.

Another revelation came upon seeing that the antonym for metamorphosis is 'stagnation'. As growing, learning, evolving human beings, surely metamorphosis is preferable to stagnation!

A common but less cited example of metamorphosis is one that we have all gone through. We started off as two separate single cell organisms in two entirely different ecosystems. One merged into the other, and in an unbelievably complex microscopic dance, the DNA of both individual organisms combined to form a brand new and totally unique single cell organism. This organism then began replicating itself in another miraculous transformation. Then groups of identical cells began to express differentiation from other cells, eventually forming organs. Our form evolved visibly as we were transformed from a blob to a fish-like form to a human form, and then, pop! we went from liquid breathing to air breathing. Next, we are transformed from helpless babies into fantastically creative learning beings as children, and then into teen and adulthood.

Finally, as adults, some people go through a metamorphosis in their personal, psychological and/or spiritual makeup. Once successful businessmen can get addicted to drugs or alcohol and undergo a dark metamorphosis, at the end of which they wake up on a street corner homeless and penniless. Some will undergo another metamorphosis by going into a 12 step program, kick the habit, take the 12 steps to heart, and will emerge as a kinder, healthier, more ethical, stronger and more humble individual than they were before they started. Other people will find God and will be transformed from self-centered narcissistic individuals to loving and spiritual giants. The walk of faith is truly one about transformation... metamorphosis. It is about putting to death the 'old man' (fallen, sinful, corrupt), being born of the spirit, and bringing to life the 'new man' (enlightened, connected to God through Christ). In the central and pivotal verse of the New Testament, Romans 12:2 ("And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."), the Greek the word from which the word 'transformed' is translated is 'metamorpho'... look familiar?

It is said of businesses, that if you are not growing, you are dying. A business that is not innovating and progressing will soon be outflanked by its competitors and eventually become an annotation in the history books. The same is true, to a certain extent, with us as individuals. We need to continue to grow, to learn, to innovate, to change, to rise above. Some may go through radical, revolutionary transformation, while others may evolve more slowly. If we stop moving, we will stagnate. If we don't try each day to be better people, to answer our higher calling, to give more and to love more, then we are slipping into mediocrity and anonymity.

You can achieve great things! You can undergo a daily renewal and transformation so that you become stronger and healthier and wiser each day. As you grow, you will be able to accomplish more. Never stop learning. Never stop discovering. Seek the source of light and truth, then seek the transformation of your very soul. As you do, you will find yourself accomplishing things you never dreamed possible, reaching unimagined heights, and appreciating with renewed humility and joy the creative expression of God!

Innovation Nation

In less than a brief 200 years (3 average lifetimes), the United States of America went from a ragtag republic to the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth. We are now on the brink of losing the good that we have accomplished in the world, as we gaze with wonder and confusion while the world around us begins to unravel. How did we get to where we are today? How can we get back to where we were a few short years ago? The answers are varied and complex, but here, I think, are a few big pieces to the puzzle.

The USA was founded on some basic beliefs that, at the time, were aspirational goals which were largely untested. Almost all governments up to that time were based on a ruling class that made decisions for the 'ignorant masses'. Government (typically a monarchy) was centrally based and handed down the rules that everyone had to live by. Having seen how this usually ended up in tyranny, the Founding Fathers sought to establish a form of government that was 'for the people and by the people', based on the assumption of innocence until proven guilty, a fair trial by a jury of one's peers, and a firm conviction that all men are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government was to respond to the will of the people, not the other way around. The goal was to minimize the infringement of the government on the rights of the individual. They believed that if we were given the freedom and opportunity to achieve great things, it was the nature of man to do so, and we would. They were right.

The trick was to find the right balance between anarchy and tyranny. Through much prayer, blood, sweat and tears, inspiration came as they rested on the values that they had learned as a result of their Judeo-Christian heritage. Much like the government of Israel in the Old Testament, as much power as possible was delegated to local representatives, who were closest to the problems and, generally could do the most good. Bigger and more difficult problems were elevated upward, and only the most challenging issues were addressed at the highest levels. The greatest leaders were to be the greatest servants (modeled by Jesus washing the feet of the disciples). Liberty was a gift from God, not to be taken lightly. As the ink dried on the US Constitution, the grand experiment took flight.

No longer constrained by burdensome rules and regulations and excessive taxation, innovation became the hallmark of this young nation. Benjamin Franklin, besides being a founding father, was a tireless inventor (bifocals, the Franklin stove, the lightning rod and daylight savings time were a few of his inventions). Thomas Jefferson was also a prolific inventor. Their efforts helped assure that the fledgling government was also innovation friendly.

Strong faith and reliance upon God was the norm of the day. The Master of Life had declared in his mortal frame, "Allow the little children to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of God." Having a childlike spontaneity is the greatest single key to creativity and innovation. A selfless desire to do good and help people motivated men like George Washington Carver, who's epitaph read,"He could have added fortune to fame, but, caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world." In an atmosphere of freedom and adventure, questioning one's assumptions was a virtue, not a vice, and living with ambiguity was a way of life in this rapidly evolving nation. These are all strengths common to the giants of creativity and innovation. This can-do culture gave wings to men like the Wright brothers, Thomas Edison, Alexander Bell, Nicola Tesla, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, and many more.

So what happened? In the US today, only about 3% of students receive college degrees in engineering or the sciences... in China, that number is around 42%. A recent study ranked the U.S. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness, but 40th out of 40 (dead last!) in “the rate of change in innovation capacity” over the past decade. In 2000 the U.S. exported $29 billion more high-tech products than it imported, but by 2007 that had turned into a $54 billion trade deficit, and it has only gotten worse since then. In 1960, one in three jobs was in manufacturing. Today, it is less than one in ten. Our country is surviving largely on money we borrow from the Chinese. How far we have fallen...

Why? God and the foundation of morals and ethics have been driven from our schools and the halls of government, the traditional family is nowhere to be found, and life is no longer valued. The desire to invent something that will help our fellow man has been replaced by corporate greed, leading to endless outsourcing. Government control seems to be becoming more and more invasive every day, so that things that were once simple are now increadibly complex if not impossible. Instead of teaching people how to think for themselves, our education system teaches rote memorization and conformity to a single standard. Other countries reward innovation... ours regulates and/or taxes it to death.

Can we turn this ship around? I don't know. But I do know each individual can turn themselves around. If enough individuals turn themselves around, maybe, just maybe, it will make a difference. Maybe we can restore a bit of the shine on the tarnished liberty bell. I can't speak for my country, but I can speak for myself. I can choose to think more creatively. I can choose to see a need and try to figure out how to make other's lives better. I can, and so can you. Make somebody else's life better, and then ask them to pass it on. Every bit of good we can do is a step in the right direction. You can make a difference... believe in yourself, believe that you have a higher calling, and with a prayer for divine guidance go out there and rock the world!

Breaking the Programming

Have you noticed how many pharmaceutical ads there are these days? You can't seem to get through a single commercial break without being bombarded by one or more ads suggesting that you might have some disease, and they have the fix. Then they list all the horrible things that could happen if you take their remedy (often including long term disability or even death) and then say, "Ask your doctor if ___ is right for you". What is going on here? This is a form of mental programming. They start by instilling a bit of fear (Do I have that disease?), activating the reptilian mind (see previous blog), which, through the pleasure/pain response is closely connected to our subconscious. Mental suggestion can often induce the now deeply rooted perception that one has the condition that is being suggested, and ultimately (through the power of suggestion and belief - sort of a reverse placebo effect) one can ultimately display enough of the suggested symptoms that a doctor will agree with your proposed disease diagnosis, and prescribe the suggested 'cure'. Only the cure isn't a cure, as the side effects are commonly worse than the relief it claims to bring. You then are led to take another pill for those symptoms, and so on and so on. By the time people are seniors, many are taking 7-10 different medications, lining the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies while polluting and damaging their bodies with a semi-toxic chemical cocktail.

This is one example of intentional mental programming by an industry with power and money and access to your life through television, radio, and the internet. Bankers are another industry that has us, as a society, well programmed. Your credit limit is touted as an indicator of your prosperity and personal worth. Once upon a time, living within your means meant only spending the money you have... now we have been trained to think it means living within your available credit limits. They then convince you to buy the biggest house that 'you can afford' (based on the amount of money that they are willing to lend to you), the best car, the biggest TV, etc., etc., until your credit is maxed out. At that point you are likely paying hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars in interest to the banks every month. They feed off of you and millions of others using money that they created out of thin air (research 'fractional reserve banking') commonly backed (at a 1:10 ratio) by money they got from the Federal Reserve (a private company) at zero percent interest (or close to it). The Fed gets its money as a result of 'The Federal Reserve Act' (passed in the middle of the night during Christmas break in 1913). Instead of the US government printing its own money (as the Founders had intended), when the government needs money, the Federal Reserve tells the US Treasury (a government agency) how much money to 'print' (either physically or electronically). They then take the money that the Treasury 'prints', and loan it to our government with interest. The Federal Reserve (reminder - a private company) gets rich off of the the government (i.e. our taxpayer dollars), and then loans that money out to banks. In the meantime, our government goes deeper into debt (they have fallen into the same mental trap, reinforcing the false perception) and they (the banks) get richer, though they did no real work to accumulate that wealth. Quite a gig, if you can get it, wouldn't you say? Yet the banks have convinced us this is all for our benefit, so, "Go shopping! Go ahead, max out that card! Borrow as much as we will let you! You are entitled to it! Give us full control over your life! If you can't pay your bills, we'll take everything and you may end up homeless and hungry, but don't think about that. It would never happen to you!"

A third mental programming for you to consider goes under the label of 'terrorism'. Because of the fear of 'terrorism', millions of American citizens now must agree to either be electronically stripped naked at airports using potentially dangerous technology, or to subject themselves to sexual molestation by a complete stranger in a uniform. In another example, in London (a city at the forefront of citizen control), it is estimated that there are 4.2 million CCTV cameras, roughly one camera for every 2 citizens of that city. It has also been reported in the US that the phone calls, internet activities, and even the location (via phone GPS) of a significant percentage of US citizens is being tracked by our government. Can you say, "Big Brother'? Why are we allowing this? It is all because we have been conditioned to fear 'terrorism'. We are at least a sixty times more likely to die in a car crash than to be hit by terrorism, but we still drive (number based on an average over 10 years, including the events of 9/11). Yet we will subject ourselves to all kinds of invasions of privacy and government control over our lives in order to 'protect us' from supposed 'terrorism'. It is little more than a ruse to gain control over every aspect of our lives.

These are three classic and prevalent forms of mental programming designed to get each and every one of us (if possible) under their control to feed their systems, concentrating the wealth and power of the world into the hands of a few. Awareness of how others attempt to manipulate us for their own benefit is the first step in 'recovery'.

Once we are aware of how others try to program our thinking to their benefit, we can start to take steps to counter their mental programming. We can mute the TV every time a drug ad comes on TV (or better yet, shut off the TV altogether). We can learn how to maintain and improve our health by eating more healthy natural foods and maintaining a positive mindset. We can work to get out of debt and commit to "if we can't pay cash, we won't buy it". We can buy houses that we can easily afford. We can refuse to live in fear of 'terrorism' and do everything we can to protect our freedoms. Instead of living in fear of disease, fear of bankruptcy, and fear of terrorism, we can choose to live wisely and be free from fear. Fear constrains us... causing us to live a 'fight or flight' existence, submitting ourselves to the rule of others who claim to have 'the answer' (not!). Truth makes us free.

There is a higher way to live. We can choose to live a life that is guided by love and compassion, by spontaneity and creativity, by charity and humility, by truth and wisdom, by divine majesty. We can work to make today better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today. We can learn to love a little better every day. We can pray to God. We can let the Book of Life speak to us and teach us the meaning of life.

As the Master of Life once said,
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the good news to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed..."

If we are willing to follow his example, then it will be said of us:
"Those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint."

The truth will make you free!