The Price of Right and Wrong

We live in a world of right and wrong. When we are confronted with a person or object or situation, we immediately assign it a category and rank and decide whether or not it is acceptable in our world. We then dig our heels in, defending our beliefs, at times to the point of death. All conflict that exists in our world is the result of such thinking.

Who determines right and wrong? God? Society? Some internal knowledge of truth? My personal belief is that societies create the concepts of right and wrong. The proof is how the definitions of right and wrong have changed throughout history. For example, today in conservative Christian America, it is definitely a sin the sleep with anyone other than your spouse. However, there were ancient cultures where sex was considered a sacred act, and it was practiced with various partners in religious settings. The rules change over time because they are not based on any one standard.

How in the world can we achieve peace and harmony when we have two warring sides? Someday everyone will magically see "the truth" and they will naturally be drawn to what is "right"? It hasn't happened in thousands of years of recorded human history. Why should it happen now? Because God is on our side? I've got news for you. God doesn't choose sides!


Time to adopt another paradigm. Time to look past the labels we place on everything in our world and see things for the perfection they truly are. When all is acceptance instead of fear, the energies that make up who we are and our Universe are allowed to flow freely without hindrance. It is then we can truly have peace and harmony. Thinking in terms of right and wrong, by its very nature, can only lead to destruction. It's a price I am not willing to pay. Are you?

And I Weep

There are days when
I look at the world
And all I can do
Is weep.

So much pain.
So much anger.
So much judgment.
So much ignorance.

People live their lives
Believing
What they have been taught
Is truth.

Truth is not
"Out there".
Truth resides
Within.

So we live in a world of pain
And anger,
Judgment
And Ignorance.

We live in a world
Separated from itself
And we do it
By choice.

And I weep
For I mourn that which
Could be
But is not chosen.

~Cindy Shippy Evans

Glasses: A Parable

There was once a man who wore glasses so thick that, without them, the world looked monstrous and horrible. It hadn't always been that way. When he was very small, he didn't need glasses at all to see the world perfectly. Life was always beautiful with his crystal clear vision.

Then one day, someone pointed to something in the distance, and the boy realized he could not see it. Try as he might, those objects pointed out to him by others were blurry and misshapen. He could not perceive what others saw! He must be having vision problems! His mother took him to an eye specialist, who indeed pronounced him to have less than perfect sight. A pair of glasses was prescribed for him, and they corrected his vision...for a while.

Gradually over time, the distortions came on so strong he finally needed the strongest prescription possible, and even that didn't seem to help anymore. Indeed, his current eye doctor had recently told him he could not do anything else for him. If his eyesight continued to get worse, he would be blind.

It was in this state of near helplessness that the man heard about a new doctor who had just come to town--a miracle worker some were calling him! He was helping people all over town to see better. Some of them had even been pronounced blind by their other local eye doctors. He made an appointment to see this new vision expert.

The doctor checked the man's eyes, asked him to read the eye chart with and without the glasses on and asked him the usual questions. With some trepidation, the man asked, "So doc, is there anything you can do to help my sight?" The doctor's enthusiastic reply was, "Absolutely!" Without further ado, the doctor walked over to his new patient, snatched the eyeglasses off of his face, and wildly threw the glasses on the floor, breaking them into hundreds of tiny pieces.

"What are you doing?" the man cried! "I am almost blind with those glasses on, and now you have broken them into a million pieces! However will I see? However will I even take care of myself?"

The doctor looked at him, smiled, and with a very gentle tone said, "Your sight needs a rest. Go home, relax, and allow your vision to return to you without the glasses."

The man was furious! "That's all you're going to do? I paid hundreds of dollars to you in the hope that you would restore my vision and all you do is break my glasses? How will that help?"

"Make another appointment with my receptionist in one month's time. In the meantime, go home, rest, and allow yourself to see your world without the benefit of your glasses. I assure you, the world will look very different when you return."

The man, still clearly angry, walked out of the examination room, but did make a new appointment with the receptionist. As he was the last patient of the day, she offered to drive him home and patiently saw him to his door.

The man's neighbors, hearing about his fiasco at the doctor's office, immediately came to his aid with offers of food and help with laundry and errands. He smiled at the thought there were so many people out there who cared for him, and he quickly got over his anger.

The next morning when he awoke, the man realized something. Colors he had not noticed before were appearing in the room--the black rim of the clock, the red of the curtains, the yellow of the sunshine that peeped through his window. He could not see them clearly, but it was enough for the man to know the colors were there. He continued to relax, not pushing himself, but occasionally opening his eyes to see what else he might perceive.

Over the course of the next month, others things began appearing to him as well. He could now distinguish softer, more subtle colors. He also began to see distinct outlines of furniture and other objects in his home. Every day, he could recognize more and more until he was finally at the place he could do everything that needed to be done to take care of himself. He was amazed at the difference one month without his glasses had made!   He began to look forward to his follow up appointment to the eye doctor.

As the man walked into the doctor's office the next day, the smile on the doctor's face told the man the doctor knew of his progress. The doctor checked his eyes once again and had him read the eye chart, this time read almost perfectly. The doctor told the man he was pleased with his progress and would require no more visits.

The man, filled with a new awe and respect for the doctor he had been so upset with one month before, asked the doctor a simple question. "How did you know all I needed to do was to get rid of the glasses?"

"It's simple, really," the doctor replied. "Most of us live our entire lives looking through objects created by others which distort our true vision. We become so dependent on this view of the world we can no longer tell the difference between what is real and what is not. In order to see clearly, all we need to do is remove the distortion."

"I could have thrown away my glasses years ago! Are you telling me the power to fix my sight was within my grasp all this time?"

"Of course. The problem is, we often rely so much on the opinions of others we feel the need to ask for help in order to make the leap. The power to see and heal has always been yours. You were just afraid to use it."

And with that, the man walked out of the doctor's office a new creation--full of hope and the understanding that everything he needed to see was already inside of him.

Ascension

Ascension

We see the world divided—“Us” and “Them”.

It is the “Us” that stands illumined in the sunshine.

Darkness is not what we are about.

Darkness is left for “Them”.

We rage and fight, conquer and destroy,

In the belief that All should be “Us”.

We believe that force is necessary for conversion,

But force usually only brings resentment.

Throw off the shackles of light and dark!

They are the tools of bitterness and slavery.

Understand that All contain sun and shadow.

Life can only flow by allowing both.

We are not “Us” and “Them”.

We are All. We are One.

It is only when we see “Them” as “Us” will we have peace.

It is only when we see “Them” as “Us” will we be One.

            ~Cindy Shippy Evans 

The Power of Asking Questions

Do you want more power in your life? Do you want to put your creativity to use to learn and grow? You have the power! It all begins with asking new questions! There is a reason the Bible says "Ask and ye shall receive."

Think about this: when you don't ask any questions you believe you already have the answers. If you have the answers, do you need anything else? Answers are conclusions, and conclusions are final. When you come to a conclusion, what you do in effect is stop the flow of energy in your life! You turn your back on life's possibilities and don't allow new things to come in! It's that simple.

Begin your journey of empowerment today! Ask new questions! The doors this simple act opens will amaze you and change your life in very powerful ways.

Who Died and Made YOU Judge?

I read a story this morning about a couple in Oregon who were just convicted of manslaughter because they had a child born two months prematurely and died when they failed to call for medical help. They did not seek medical help because the attend a church that believes in faith healing instead of using standard medical care. (To view full story, click here.)

The story struck a real nerve with me. While I do use the American medical system, I use it very sparingly. I'm not one who believes America has the best medical care in the world--just the most expensive. I'm very skeptical of the cut and poison practice currently in use. I will use alternative solutions first. Still if I were to go into labor two months early, I would have the baby in the hospital where they do have some procedures to increase the odds of survival. The question I had to ask myself was, is it okay to judge someone for their personal beliefs using your personal standards (or the standards of the majority)?

My next question becomes, do we really have religious freedom? Are we truly free to practice a religion that does not believe in the same standard of medical care as the majority? Can the government force us into medical treatment that we do not want and do not believe in? Children have been taken away from their parents because their parents sought alternative treatment for their child's cancer instead of the poisoning that occurs with chemotherapy. Is this truly in the child's best interest?

What about a religion that practices polygamy? Who gets to decide if this practice is okay? Not all polygamists force their underage daughters into polygamist marriages. Why is polygamy not okay? They aren't hurting you or anybody else.

Who gets to decide how you live your life? By whose standards are we judged? Man's? God's? Who died and made YOU judge?   

If You Really Knew Me...

If you really knew me

It would not matter that my skin was white

Or black

Or brown

Or yellow

Or red

Or pink

Or blue with green polka dots.

If you really knew me

It would not matter that I drive a Mercedes-Benz

Or a beat up pickup truck with no air conditioning or radio.

You wouldn’t care if my home was a mansion

Or the alley behind the post office.

You would not care about the tattoos all over my body

Or the crew cut haircut I love to wear.

If you really knew me

It would not matter that I spoke English

Or Japanese

Or Hindi

Or Spanish

Or Swahili.

If you really knew me

You would not care that I was lazy,

Or an atheist,

Slept around,

Cheated on my taxes,

Stripped for a living,

Or shot up heroin.

You would not even care if I was a fundamentalist Christian

Or a radical Muslim. 

If you really knew me

You would understand that the anger and rage I take out on you

Is not about you.

It’s about me—my experiences,

My traumas,

My pains,

Being expressed in the only way I know how.

If you really knew me

You would acknowledge me for who I am—

A being full of light,

And love,

And joy!

You would see my perfection

And would not seek to change me

Or control me.

You would know my life journey is about

My own personal growth and evolution.

You would honor me,

Just as I honor you,

If you really knew me.

~Cindy Shippy Evans