If we want or expect to see change in the world we need to first realize that we cannot vote change into office, a new president, while powerful, should never be our first or final solution.
What we need is to discover for ourselves alternatives to the systems and situations we can see are negative. From personal everyday interactions to choices of food and entertainment, it is possible for us to honor our ability to understand how we feel about our lives and why.
Please read that one more time.
This may be the hardest action we take upon ourselves as individuals. To be witness to and take responsibility for our own lives. Only from this point can we finally stand up for ourselves and our ideas. Only from this point can we foster the massive creative community necessary for human evolution.
This is the foundation of the spiritual journey. We empower ourselves when we fully understand that the way we live is determined not by outside dictators but by our own actions, our own willing choices. When we trust in our own spiritual nature and discover our true feelings about our lifestyle we can begin to deeply question the situations in which we live.
The situations I personally ponder include broken families and relationships, power struggles between individuals as well as nations, why athletes are so well paid while farmers providing our sustenance barely survive, dying ecosystems, losses of biodiversity, connections between pollution and cancer outbreaks. This is only a scratch into the possibilities.
There was and still is a club known as the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, with many chapters in different towns and cities. I was introduced to the Order in the book "We All Got History: The Memory Books of Amos Weber" by Nick Salvatore. During Amos' time, the Odd Fellows would meet on a designated day, often Sunday as the fewest people worked on that day, and they would don colorful robes and march through the center of town to their meeting place. The Odd Fellows would then discuss local or regionally significant news and events with a focus on communities, ethics, and morality.
I mention this group not because I think we need more moral discussions in our communities, but because here was a group of local citizens meeting to discuss many issues, to share ideas, opinions, and personal feelings about these different issues. How else can we really understand the concerns, the realities, the beautiful diversity alive in our own communities. We participate by attending school functions, art gallery shows, music concerts, or local disaster efforts; but how often do we turn to someone to discuss the spiritual implications of that painting or those lyrics, or to discuss what is or is not being taught to the children.
Real positive change is realized when we empower ourselves to make it, sharing our ideas, innovations and personal experiences and feelings is how it spreads and from there, well there is no limit to how far we can go, to what is possible. From there the potential is infinite and our lives become more rich, more meaningful, more positive.
A positive future, a positive present is all I am personally willing to accept, how about you?
