Losing My Skill for Fear

Hey In There,

You’ve practiced being afraid for so long, you’ve become good at it. So good that it’s easy. So easy, that you don’t even know you’re doing it and the only evidence you have for your fear is that you don’t know if you’re right or wrong. You’re afraid of being alone and afraid of finding the right person. You’re afraid of changing and afraid if you do something different, you will have abandoned something meaningful. You’re afraid lying and also afraid of being so honest that you’ll believe what you‘ve rejected for so long --- the obvious. You’re afraid of loving completely and totally unsure if your love is sufficient. You’re afraid of being wrong and you’re afraid if you’re right you’ll lose everything you value. You’re afraid of questioning God and afraid to admit your ignorance. You’re afraid of living effortlessly and afraid of working so hard you’ll miss your life. You’re afraid to admit you don’t have it all and afraid to admit you don’t need it all. You’ve actually believed you can go or be somewhere ---ANYWHERE and find God missing so that just makes you afraid to show up.

The evidence for this is clear whenever you are not present. Fear perhaps is not just simply false evidence appearing real. It is proof you have projected and tried to live somewhere in your future. It doesn’t matter how near or distant that future is. Any attempt to excavate yourself from the present moment is proof that you are good at being afraid. It doesn’t matter that you are planning your future. That’s easily a noble excuse just to be distracted and miss who you are and the beauty of what is being. The most efficient way to plan for the future is in the present moment. So rather than focusing on any other moment, why not just optimize being in this one and the necessary resources will find you in each moment just as they have in this one. Trust it. Trust this and fear not.

Fear is senseless…

If you fear death and your death is imminent, what profit is it for you to fear the inevitable? Would that not just cause you to waste the moments of your viability? Your viability, by the way, is irrefutably immanent. You ARE alive NOW. So could death really be upon you? Really? And if you’re afraid of someone other than yourself dying, it’s because you are afraid of missing what you think you COULD have. You can’t lose a past that’s non-negotiable and changeless. All your memories are secure even if you forget them and any future moment can only live in a fantasy. Pay attention NOW and love living.

What was the last thing you were afraid of that destroyed you?

I know the answer… NOTHING!

Have you become so good at being afraid that you have failed to see your success in simply remaining… being… lasting… continuing… expanding… evolving?

You could just as easily practice being fearless. You do this by just simply loving. You do this by accepting. You do this by choosing not to argue with truth. The truth is here to serve you---serve us. It’s been said, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” If this is true then embracing any truth is the pathway to freedom. Do you think you could not use your fear to judge the truth? Any attempt to judge the truth is an attempt to evidence or give proof to the lie. There is no lie which has proof to it. There is no truth which has the power to harm you. All truth has the power to free you if you “know” it. And if you know something other than the truth, it’s just simply a lie. Don’t believe it; don’t practice the lie anymore. Lose your skill for fear.

The truth is real.
The lie is false.
What is real exists-
What is false does not exist.
The lie does not exist.
Only Truth

Working You Out,

Marquis

The Xchange Live

The Xchange Live

God Bless America

Congratulations President Elect, Barak Obama & Americans everywhere.

Every moment is a brand new opportunity for unlimited possibilities and we have done something worthy of hope and fortified with promise. We have given ourselves a chance to build a new earth. We have demonstrated to the world our ability to something progressively different. I am grateful we have embraced a leader who speaks the language of maturity and distinction.

We are awakened to a new moment, a new dream, and new faith.

America can now take pride in a substantive intellect which now pervades the highest office in our country. We can take courage in a depth of spirituallity burgeoning in the hearts of the American citizens.

President Elect, Barak Obama, accepted a mandate 21 months ago and has kept to his message and his charge. In, his campaign, he delivered this country from the chasm of mundane ambiguity and his presidency will lift us, abundantly exceeding our wildest imaginings. This is a precious moment to be alive and it exists as the opportune moment to contribute significantly to the building of a great society.

We can take solace in a freedom built on a canvas which makes loving easier and prosperity more visible. This is a beautiful moment to be alive. So...

Live To Love.

God Bless the United States of America and may America learn to use its strength to bless the world.

6 Days 22 Hours

I recently saw a political play for power fostering ideas of a divided America. The McCain Palin ticket in concert with the GOP were avidly fertilizing the notion of separatism by pervasively propagating the premise of a “pro-America”. This pro-America was noted to be those indigenous folks who find themselves in small town and rural America. Fascinatingly, these pro-American politicians and pundits act like evangelists who claim to be the true patriots, protectors, and practitioners of the moral and nationalistic fiber of our democratic society. Those who think or live at variance with their stated ideology, it is intimated, are less than patriotic, potentially viral, and virtually anti-American. This is problematic and is an epidemic which will persist as long as conservatives continue to believe they - alone and exclusively - carry the holy grail of religion and morality. My question? “Where does this leave those who understand the moral obligation to develop the depth of intellect? Is there any place for a liberal soul in the heart of American and democratic patriotism?


There are those of us who for perhaps 2 hours a week find ourselves in religious engagement. In these moments, some of us are fueled with the hype of our own superiority. We have been promised to be the head and not the tail, above and not beneath. Fear has gripped us to the point we unconsciously crave some type of enemy. (Our theology usually requires us to have one – or two or three... ) It seems the promise of righteousness is the coveted caveat – a guarantee of someone being either behind us or beneath us. Whether it be church, temple, mosque or conclave, we give ourselves leave of the more established work week or our individualized living condition and claim entitlement to police morality . It is a good thing to recognize the need to awaken and nurture the spirit of humanity and even more beneficially to live in a continued awakened state. This, I think is the ideal aim or our weekly rituals yet I find myself wondering whether 2 hours is sufficient. It hardly proves to be enough when the notion of community rapidly dissipates. How does this happen? It happens by embracing the ritual benediction as a license to scatter into exclusion and separatism. Unfortunately for many Americans, the remaining 6 days and 22 hours which really hold our attention, represent our weekly diaspora from community rather than toward the community the benediction was intended to bless. We practice ritual where we should practice religion and religion in the place intended for ritual.


As for those who have roots in these “pro-America” parts of the country, I am one of them. I grew up in small-town Arkansas in a traditional and classical pentecostal church. However, it seems now, I find myself at variance with my own historic identity. If I am to believe the credibility of this ideology, I have to deny what I now find to be a more peaceful and fulfilling existence. For me, it has come to represent the process of spiritual and social maturation. And admittedly I find grave difficulty in managing and supborning moral exclusion when the beauty of living is found in the harmony of community and extended relations.


My beginnings were humble but pregnant with potential as I lived with a scholar father who necessitated the need for ritual and moral obligation. It is no secret that theological scholarship is not known to find its residence in the ecstatic tradition of Pentecostalism so in this respect, living in a small town and practicing a fringe religion, I was presented with the power to move beyond expectation perhaps even into exception. I was taught to appreciate the natural and evolutionary augmentations of spirituality and personal responsibility.


I was taught to attend church weekly (to put it mildly), and I even looked forward to the Sunday celebration. It was and continues to be the picture of fellowship and love for family both immediate and extended. So like many of you, I too found great comfort in the traditional form of 'praising God'. I was taught to do this and anticipated those Sunday-go-to-meeting extravaganzas. I am deeply in love with my roots, and I qualify to be a card carrying, bible toting member and cohort of pro-American conservative values. And as roots go, I find them best suited as a nourishment to life by being deeply grounded and perhaps sufficiently buried. After all, the life we celebrate is usually the life which lives above ground reaching into the sky and touching uncharted and perhaps unfamiliar Presence. This has now become the life I celebrate. It is the one which offers the joy of newness, openness, progress and evolution. It is the life I find beyond ritual in the span of 6 days and 22 hours – the time not spent in the designated slot for worship. It is in these moments that I fervently practice my religion.


What concerns me now among my peers and nostalgic contemporaries is how easily we remain attached to ritual without a larger connectedness to the deeper truths to which these rituals point. The old adage goes, “I pointed to the moon and all you saw was my finger.” It seems to me that this pro-America which is an often misguided, pious and overly conservative, finds the propensity to practice its religion only 2 hours weekly when, it would seem, the time to experience the beauty of Life and Love is in the perpetual development of relationships. This would be the relationships we form in the larger aspect of our mental devotion. We spend this time at work, at play, at home, and at school. This is when the fruit of ethics plays as a symphony, embraces the deference for diversity and distinguishes difference as the dynamics of beauty.


At least 2 hours out of the week, we can find a collective body of like minded individuals who will praise their God in a distinctly cultural and fervent way. But this praise is usually fashioned in ritual and seldom formidable in practice. It's a praise consisting of singing, dancing and, for some, screaming and shouting. In my religious heritage, we would scream and shout in ways that rivaled major athletic events. (If you haven't tried it, you should. It is packed with joy and excitement.) I liked it then and find great value in it now except for now I see more. Now I see the value praising beyond words into practice. This I do in the 6 and 22.


The practice of praise is not merely vociferous and clamorous shouts to Diety. It is, in truth, the (praise) recognition, and acknowledgment of Life and Living, Love and Loving. If we infantilize ritual, we will cheat progress and call evolution sinful or even anti-American. If we practice praise, by leaving childish things behind, we will bring incessant attention to the practice of Life and Love in all moments by spreading peace and prosperity similar to the way we see water seeking its own level with no discrimination to form.


The true practice of religion is a Doorway into the many more dimensions of the world of possibilities rather than and escape from the world in which we spend most of our time. The “pro-American” religious ideology is rapidly becoming bankrupt in its ability to provide for its followers the ability to live out its promise in the moments of actualization. Praising in the traditional sense keeps alive the deflection that has found its residence in too many of our lives. There is no legitimate benefit to saying “hallelujah” if it is not seen as an instruction to foster a living reflection which will attend to the presence of life and love in every breathing moment.
The practice of praise is best utilized in the 6 days and 22 hours of our week. This is our most interactive time of living. It is when ritual is supposed to give life to function and make the practice of Living the recreation of Loving.

First Punch

In our school systems from kindergarten through twelfth grade there usually is some policy forbiding violence of any kind. In some schools, as it is here in Arkansas, there is what they call a 'no tolerance anti-bullying policy'. Simply report the bully and the bully gets disciplined. It's very difficult to, however, to identify a bully without witness and accusation. Funny thing is, faculty seldom spots the bully because the bullies never bully in the presence of someone they believe can bully them. So when the bullied reports the threat, he or she usually looks like a wimp and a whiner. The bullied needs to stand up, but HOW?
What happens when there is a punch thrown by the bully? We will give him a name and call him, Maverick, but just for the sake of this fiction. Maverick threatens to fight dirty and does it, but no one sees him. He's just a clever student who knows how to get away with deception. Maverick keeps threatening and after so long he realizes that no one really cares to stand up to him so he picks up more and more victoms. We'll call the victoms, Changers. Maverick eventually gets bold enough to start swingng and attacking. Changer is just sitting there taking the punches because it's against the rules to fight back. If Changer fights back by punching and swinging then, he along with Maverick gets into trouble and comes off as just as much of a bully as Maverick.
Maverick wins and is satiated because he gets to punch with no recourse and bruise with no restriction . Changer gets weakened in the process and by doing nothing, is accused of being weak and soft on bully-terrorists. If Changer fights back, he then looses his credibility as a good student. He's not disciplined enough to follow the rules; he's not above the fray; he's now below average and can't be trusted.
So if Changer can't fight back without risk of great loss to his reputation and to not fight back, he loses his credibility, who then stands up to Maverick?
YOU DO.

VOTE!!

Say It Ain't So, Joe

It is a less than commensurate and clearly the antithesis of dignity to go on lauding a presidential (vice) candidate who has utter disrespect and contempt for our government, political system, and the citizens of this nation – not to mention intellectual depth. Is it an act of patriotism or condescension to offer congeniality as a proxy for substance? I am soon to be convinced (and I hope I won't be) that in this massively cosmologized pop culture we may prefer to be obfuscated rather than substantiated. Sarah Palin deftly played for us the perfect characterization of Tina Fey. Perhaps this is the reason that even in entertainment we have replaced artistic depth with a pandering amusement. This may fly in a world where drama is fiction, comedy is medicine and war is an action flick. In this America, however, the real drama is a war which has no end in sight costing money with no deference to fiscal responsibility, a health care system which is failing to reach those who need it most, and an economy that has turned up the volume on depression and so much so that laughing is perhaps the only way we can assuage or recess our pain and trepidation. Milli-Vanilli convinced us they were legit, won a Grammy and we were duped. Style may work on stage for a while but somewhere along the way, it takes skill to build a lasting relic rather than an embarrassing spectacle.

The presidential debate series is intended to distinguish, for those of us who can't actually have a face to face dialog with them, who among the candidates actually have a plausible and comprehensive insight as to where we are, how we got here and what might be the most efficient way to optimize our ability and move us into a better and more efficient posture. Are the questions designed to be answered at all? At this rate, inky, blinky, and nod can be president. Have we actually come to the point when we hope that a “wink” is all we need to fix the economy? “Say it ain't so, JOE.” Seriously, Joe Sixpack, and Joe Shmo speak up. Joe Biden has already. It's likely that being so crafty at dodging an issue in debate may be sufficient reason to suspect that one may dodge issues at large– a real one – like strong fundamentals of our economy, or a senseless war turned poorly prosecuted war. Are we amazed or amused? Palin pontifficates the Bush doctrine as a past policy, But is it really an offering of the past or the machinations of the present posturing to be the trend of the future in a McCain/Palin ticket? If we accept this charismatically seductive petting from those who duck and dodge, we are destined to make America and its politic a dangerously formidable cinematic option.

Could we not have just had a debate where Palin realized 90 minutes with Gwyn Iffil was not intended to be be synonymous with “Survivor”. The difference? The Vice-Presidential Debate is reality and Survivor is a reality show. No one is being voted off an island (however tempting the thought), someone is being voted into the office of President. Now, to be fair – this play of showmanship and charisma may 'shore up' support among those who want to know that someone average, with whom we might have a beer, is in office running things. Bush was Joe-sixpack. It's not that we've been there and done that. We ARE there and we ARE doing that. However, it will not shore up the support which serves as a sufficient embankment to build a legitimately stabilized infrastructure which can and will fortify us as a credible nation both domestic and abroad.

Being What is Needed

Help when it is needed is a call for balance
Help, when it is given is an answer to injustice
Help, when it is desired is the banner of humility
Help, when it is unquestionably extended is the posture of Divinity

What do I do when I am ignorant of what is needed?

I usually just pass over an opportunity to make a miracle, answer a prayer, or even save a life.

At first glance, this question may seem insignificant but can you imagine being in a place where someone had exactly the thing that could change your life. They possessed those critical elements which would help you in establishing a peaceful existence and yet, they offered you nothing. They did this only because you didn’t register in their mind. You weren’t recognized, remembered or even noticed.

You’ve been rescued before, yes? Do you remember what it felt like – to be in a vulnerable place with no hopeful perspective, no obvious path to freedom or prospect of peace? There seems to be agonizing on the inside and in these moments, life doesn’t seem so fair or equitable. You’ve reached for money and come up short. You’ve reached for peace and could not resist the conflict. You’ve reached for joy, but the grief is ever looming. You just wanted a break and found yourself broken. Everything and everyone around you seem to have all of the things they need and some of them have so much they seem to have exactly what you need as well. How did you get left out? Looked over? Passed by?

Remember the story of the ‘good Samaritan’? He helped someone who had been passed over and left multiple times to continue in agony. The Samaritan’s “good” became extraordinarily emphasized primarily because there were several who passed over the same opportunity and refused to extend help when it was obviously needed. Or maybe it wasn’t so obvious to them. Maybe, just maybe they were distracted by something ‘more’ important. Can you identify with this? Perhaps the quality of your life wasn’t so relevant either. It may have been easy to just ignore you because you were not seen as essential to the prevailing and profitable bottom line. Why would someone just leave you there?

I’ve been there… you’ve been there… we’ve been there.

And when I have been in this place, I didn’t want to talk about my pain or my perceived insufficiency – at least not around some people. Why? Because, in many of those moments, I would feel inadequate, embarrassed, rakishly exposed and sometimes just absolutely foolish. These things just really shouldn’t be. We should not give in to the fear of being helped. We shouldn’t even succumb to the notion of inferiority. Beyond these things, we should never sponsor these paralyzing notions in anyone breathing the very same air which sustains our own vitality.

There are times when we don’t know how to ask for help and then there are times we don’t want to ask. We often think that our asking may contribute to our looking weak. (We do this, you know – make people feel weak when we have a seeming position of power over them.) We have been conditioned to see help, when it is needed as a sign of inferiority and when it is given, as a sign of superiority. Actually it is neither. Help is the manifestation of a shared prosperity. It is the gift we have been given so that we can give again. We like gifts; we even pray for them. I know not one single person who prays who isn’t reaching for help. How are these prayers answered? Through people like you and people like me – but only if we are wise enough keep the Spirit of Life and Love moving unceasingly through us.

Helping is indeed a miracle and not merely a minor miracle; it is a miracle of Life. It is an act of Love enacted by those who are temporarily stronger for those who are temporarily weaker. And I should note that it is only temporary because once the miracle occurs, it restores balance. There is never a moment in our lives that does not present itself for us to be truly helpful.

Work your miracle in every moment
Bring your help in every hour
Pursue peace with every person
Live to love with every Life.

And remember…

Help when it is needed is a call for balance
Help, when it is given is an answer to injustice
Help, when it is desired is the banner of humility
Help, when unquestionably extended is the posture of Divinity