by Bill Cumming
Dear, Dear Friends, Members of Our Family of Humankind!
For the past few months, I have been telling myself that our absence from both the newsletter and mindful moments (and I do apologize for the unannounced vacation) was about new websites and new formats, technology, you know. Horse poop!
It has been about not knowing how to say more clearly what I have been saying for the past thirty-five years. Here’s the real truth. If you want to see the world become a world that works for everyone, there are a few things that are going to have to happen. Here’s the preamble to what I have been pointing to during these years:
There are two things that make up the essence of my life and most of my communication: loving people and allowing them to know that they are powerful enough in any moment to take charge of their lives. It’s my experience that once people know they are truly loved and their worth and value are a given, they naturally begin to be good to themselves and to others.
I discovered the power of loving-kindness bass-ackwards as I was trying to understand where violence came from in our society. Upon the rape of one of my children, my immediate response was to want to kill. (This beautiful child, now forty, is well and is a continuing inspiration to me.) The irony of wanting to solve damage with damage hit me immediately. In my search for understanding, I met a man who’d been damaged in his youth. He admitted to me – in a maximum security prison in Somers, Connecticut – that he had killed and raped. He also, at the end of a very long day, told me he was sorry that my daughter had been raped.
I am the recipient of loving-kindness from a person who has done great damage and, regardless of any good I might have done, I am capable of great violence.
The capacity for everything is within each of us. If you use the Judeo-Christian story of creation, God created the earth and then Adam and Eve. And we are each related to those who come from them. Using Darwin’s notion, when we go back through humans, mammals, birds, and reptiles we come to the single-celled amoeba. We are related and we share our capacities with the whole human race.
The question is: What will I water today? I begin each day by reminding myself that this day is precious. I am alive and breathing. Everything is interconnected. Everything we do makes a difference. The only question is: Will it be a positive difference or a negative difference? The only thing I control is me, so how do I choose to be today? I choose to be about loving-kindness today. And if I forget that this is a miracle, I take a step back, breathe, and begin to love again.
So here are the basics of what I see now:
Everything we do counts.
We do not need more gurus or belief systems.
We certainly do not need any more belief systems that make others wrong for not agreeing with them. THAT’S WHAT GOT US THE MESS IN THE SUDAN, GAZA CITY AND THAT FACT THAT WE ARE SURE WE ARE ALWAYS RIGHT.
If you are not in a place of absolute and unconditional loving-kindness, aware that you live in a miracle, go do something that will bring you to that place before you talk to anyone or make decisions that effect people’s lives. I call that process self-care. You may call it God, Mother Nature, natural knowing.
Marianne Williamson puts it quite clearly:
That’s the greatest miracle, and ultimately the only one: that you awaken from the dream of separation and become a different kind of person. People are constantly concerning themselves with what they do: have I achieved enough, written the greatest screenplay, formed the most powerful company? But the world will not be saved by another great novel, great movie, or great business venture. It will only be saved by the appearance of great people.
Until we’re healed of our internal demons, our fearful mental habits, we will turn every situation into the same painful drama as the one before. Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we’re frantic, life will be frantic. If we’re peaceful, life will be peaceful.
So we work within the worldly illusion, politically, socially, environmentally, etc., but we recognize that the real transformation of the world comes not from what we are doing, but from the consciousness with which we’re doing it.
The past is over. It doesn’t matter who we are, where we came from, what Mommy said, what Daddy did, what mistakes we made, what diseases we have, or how depressed we feel. The future can be reprogrammed in this moment. We don’t need another seminar, another degree, another lifetime, or anyone’s approval in order for this to happen. All we have to do is ask for a miracle and allow it to happen, not resist it. There can be a new beginning, a life unlike the past. Our relationships shall be made new. Our careers shall be made new. Our bodies shall be made new. Our planet shall be made new. Not later, but now. Not elsewhere, but here. Not through pain, but through peace. So be it. Amen.
If you want to work with me know that this quote from George Bernard Shaw’s play, “Man and Superman,” will be part of that conversation;
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
The newsletter from this point forward will be about stories of mastery and contribution.
The “mindful moments” may have an edge from time to time. We will see if we can move the conversation forward.
The new online course at www.whateverypersoncando.org will give you the disciplines of our work. The cost of the program is normally $149. For a limited time, you can purchase the program for the introductory price of $79.95 upon checkout. You will have to let in that you are loved at least by me and that your value is a given in order for it to take effect.
Every Friday, there will be a call for those enrolled in the “What Every Person Can Do” online course and the Boothby Community as a whole to answer questions about the work specifically or raise issues of interest. The call will be at 3 P.M. EDT; 8 P.M. in the UK and Noon PDT. The call will be hosted by Bill Cumming or another convener. Please mute your phone as soon as you dial in unless you are speaking. The Number is 407-318-2772.
We actually can create a world that works for everyone!
With all my love and every blessing!
Namaste!
