The Power of Imagination To Make Dreams a Reality

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. Michelangelo

Imagine. Just imagine. Divine imagination. Close your eyes and surrender to divine imagination. It sees what eyes cannot see, hears what ears cannot hear and feels what bodies cannot feel. It’s a different way of sensing the future that breaks the shackles of the acceptable and stretches towards your wildest dreams. It turns status quo into status flow, resignation into inspiration.

Imagination is your memory of the future, not a fantasy imagining things that are not really there, but truly seeing what was inside of you and awaiting your attention all along. Do you see it? Do you hear it? Listen….the soul of the universe is whispering to you through her mythic imagination, calling you to believe – in yourself, in your potential, in your dreams. This is a self belief that bubbles up in you, through random images, daydreams, and stories, while jogging and resting and singing in the shower, often from beyond your conscious awareness, carefree in the face of reason’s tight lipped caution.

Imagination sees a single snowflake and imagines a pyramid, smells a coconut and pictures a tropical island or hears the wind and imagines God. The liberty to imagine things other than they appear is the basis for a belief in growth and progress. It opens you to new connections and adventures. When you dare to engage this open space, the doors of imagination flung wide, you imagine the possibilities for a life and a world filled with peace and justice, and say with clarity and passion, “Why not?”

Why not? This is imagination’s first and favorite question. It is also your soul’s question. Why not?

Imagine a life lived with love and acceptance- why not?
Imagine a life of conviction and purpose- why not?
Imagine a life lived out loud, free and authentic- why not?
Imagine a life of presence and peace- why not?
Imagine a world without war and violence- Why not?
Imagine a world where we celebrate diversity rather than fear difference- Why not?
Imagine a world where religions respect each other and seek peace- Why not?
Imagine a world without oil spills and ecological abuse- Why not?
Imagine a world of love and respect for all- Why not?

You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope today you’ll join me, and the world will be as one

Imagine that. Imagine. Just imagine. Do you see it? Do you hear it? Do you feel it? Now be it. Open your eyes and make it your intention to live peace and unity. Begin making your dreams a reality today.

PLEASE NOTE- Meg and I have just launched an affirmation site we are very excited about. www.soulseeds.com. Please stop by and make yourself at home. There are a huge range of resources and affirmations. We are also transitioning some of our blogs over to that site. My blog will be posted at the Grapevine page and Meg’s blog will be posted at the Grassroots page.

Please sign up for a newsletter at Soulseeds. This newsletter will include both Meg's and my writings and many other resources.

I plan to keep posting here at Aussie Heretic as well as sending emails to subscribers of this blog. You will still receive writings here that Soulseeds won't include.

Thanks for all your support. This is an exciting step for us, and we couldn’t do it without you.

Much love and light. Ian

We’re All in this Together

On September 18, 1793, George Washington laid the corner stone for the United States Capitol building in Washington D.C. It was a grand occasion, and many portrayals of the event show Washington dressed in full Masonic attire. The freemasons were attentive to space and architectural design. They attempted to create space that matched their values. Buildings such as the Capitol, with Egyptian, Greek and Roman themes, direct people to the universal wisdom in all traditions that there is creative unity even in diversity.

At the top of the dome of the Capitol is the enigmatic Statue of Freedom standing on a sphere, which probably represents the earth. Around this globe is the saying “E Pluribus Unum” which translates as “Out of Many, One.”

George Washington seemed to be influenced by the great tenets of freemasonry that all people have a spark of divinity within them, and that the role of government is to preserve the conditions whereby all people can practice their beliefs without fear of persecution.

In the 1790s, Washington was part of the writing of a peace treaty that said, “As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion, there should be no cause for conflict over differences of “religious opinion” between countries.” (Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli)

George Washington was a man well ahead of his time, but he wasn’t even the most radical of the founders. Thomas Paine famously said, “My own mind is my church” and Thomas Jefferson rewrote the Bible so as to remove any superstition that was unbelievable to modern minds.

The point here is that far from being founded as a Christian nation, a good argument can be made that the United States was founded as a spiritual but not religious nation. The founding values were common sense, reason, tolerance, freedom and respect. These principles are consistent with the Christian tradition, but they are not unique to Christianity. They are at the center of all spiritual traditions.

There are many stories and legends that soon after the completion of the Capitol building, the cornerstone went missing. Some say that Masons took it out to preserve and protect it. The significance of the missing cornerstone in terms of my topic today is that tolerance and the rights of all people to practice and believe in ways that make sense to the individual are the cornerstone of this country. When one religious group attempts to force their practice and beliefs on others, and persecute any who believe differently, then the very cornerstone of this country’s values is lost.

Religious Intolerance

When Fox News ran a short piece on our name change and cross removal, I was curious to see the response. I gave a very brief summary of who we are as a community, a summary that would have in my opinion met with George Washington’s approval. I said that this is a community where all people are safe to come and engage in spiritual practice and global healing without fear of persecution because of religious belief or gender or sexuality or race.

The response was interesting. The fact that I received disapproving emails from Fox viewers didn’t surprise me. This freedom of speech is also a mark of a democracy. The fact that many of these emails contained personal attacks on me was a little more surprising. I had no idea that there were so many creative variations on calling someone the anti Christ. The fact that some emails suggested that our inclusive perspective threatens the Christian values of this country truly surprised me. A few even went so far as to question how an Australian can come to America and undermine the Christian principles of this country. It’s at this point that religious exclusiveness comes dangerously close to racism. Similarly, exclusive patriotism comes dangerously close to racism.

Jesus is the Cornerstone of Inclusion

What would Jesus think about what we are doing here at C3 Exchange? What would Jesus think of the Fox News response? Quoting the Prophet Isaiah, the New Testament describes Jesus as being the cornerstone. So what is the significance of a cornerstone? The cornerstone provides both the pattern for those who follow and also holds the whole together. The cornerstone is the point where two lines meet. The cornerstone is a symbol of unity. So what is the pattern of Jesus’ life that we should follow? Surely it is inclusion. Jesus tore down the dividing wall that kept people apart. He put aside religious practice that created an in group and an out group. He included all, and celebrated all. Ephesians 2 even goes so far as to say that all people, regardless of race or religion, are the dwelling place for God. This sounds very close to the spirit of freemasonry and beautifully similar to the self evident truth of the Declaration of Independence-

“That all are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Jesus offered an awesome example of democracy and liberty for all. I love the example of Jesus. I just don’t think much of the religion that was built around his example. As Ghandi said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” That seems like a harsh over generalizing, but I can certainly relate after a week of “pleasantries” from Fox viewers.

This is one of the reasons I call myself spiritual but not religious. I think it’s awesome to believe in God. I just don’t think that God is a Christian. I believe that God dwells in all people and all situations. When people start to think that theirs is the only true understanding of God, then we so often end up with violence and prejudice.

I admire and follow Jesus. I just don’t think Jesus was a Christian. Nor did Jesus show any interest in establishing a religion. Jesus was more interested in inclusion than religion. When people create a savior Jesus in the image of their need for an in group and an out group, then we often end up with exclusive religion.

The change of our name and the removal of our cross are two actions patterned after the life of Jesus and the text in Ephesians 2. We have torn down two of the walls that divide people and create an in and an out group. The first century temple had a literal wall that divided Jew from Gentile. Gentiles who crossed the dividing line risked punishment by death. The temple also had a line that divided Jewish men from Jewish women. Religion then and now tends to deeply divide people according to racial and gender lines. Jesus had no part in this system. He mixed openly with men and women of all races and backgrounds.

I heard an amazing true story about tearing down the walls that divide. A man returned home to his small Tennessee home each Christmas. Every year he visited his friend who owned a café on the main street of town. The café had a curtain in it that separated the front half of the café from the back. Whites sat in the front, and blacks sat at the back behind the curtain. One particular year the two friends had a heart to heart conversation about the curtain. The friend who owned the café was conflicted about the curtain. He confided in his buddy, “I take that curtain down, and I lose my customers; I leave that curtain up, and I lose my soul!”

When you live with integrity, there is no choice to be made. You live by your soul, even if it means losing friends or customers. Many of us are discovering here that when you make a stand for inclusion, pieces of the crumbling wall sometimes land on you. It hurts. You sometimes have to pay the price for inclusion, which might be a spiritual but not religious summary of the life and death of Jesus.

An Inclusive Step Towards Unity

Even though we are not exclusively a Christian community any more, we are very much engaged in the vision that Jesus had for a world united. We now understand that whenever one person, or one group is excluded, all are weaker. We now understand that patriotism is good and healthy, but that we have a higher loyalty to the family of all beings, including the earth.

E M Forster wrote an essay called, “Two Cheers for Democracy.” He wrote it in 1938 when Hitler was building momentum. He raised some important questions about loyalty and priorities. He wrote in it, “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the decency to betray my country.”

What are your priorities? If you had to choose between your family and your country, what would you choose? If you had to choose between your country, and the earth, what would you choose?

Thankfully, these are rarely the choices we have to make. Usually, what’s good for the bee is good for the hive. When you are at peace with yourself, you are at peace with the world. What is truly good for the community is usually good for the nation. What is truly good for the nation is usually good for the world. We have now learnt from the destruction of the earth that all the world is intimately related both physically and metaphysically.

Celebrate this country’s awesome history of tolerance and respect for diversity. Honor the cornerstones of this country, the founders who built a nation without religious exclusion. And celebrate the sometimes challenging role that we have as a truly independent community that offers a warm welcome to all people to come together and seek healing in the world.

Imagine all the people, living life in peace. Why not?

For Further Reflection


Do you think America was founded as a Christian nation?
What do you think were the founders’ attitudes to religion in America?

What does the image of the cornerstone mean to you?

In what ways are you tearing down walls that divide people?

Books and Resources
Templars in America: From the Crusades to the New World by Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins
Two Cheers For Democracy by E.M. Forster

Life is a Series of Meaningful Coincidence

"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be experienced." Joseph Campbell

I have been asked to write about synchronicity and serendipity. What are they? Is there any difference between them? I relish the opportunity to put down in words my profound appreciation for synchronicity and serendipity, as they are two of life’s gifts that fill me with deep gratitude and wonder.

Let me say up front that I have no idea whether the meaning that I find in events and people and nature is created inside my own mind, or whether I am bending my mind and heart to make life meaningful. Who can say? This distinction is not important to me and the question is distracting. It’s a little like being at the peak of a roller coaster and pausing the scene to analyze whether I am just making up the feeling of exhilaration. Just feel the moment and enjoy the feeling. What is important is that I experience meaning and miracle as much as possible.

In order for an event to qualify as synchronicity or serendipity it has to be surprising. It has to shake you out of some habitual mindset that deludes you into believing that life has predictable patterns that you can control and explain. Some situations defy easy answers. Déjà vu, uncanny premonitions, recurring dreams, ridiculously improbable meetings, outrageous “jinx” moments – these are all beautiful, if sometimes eerie, experiences.

There is no particular causal link. For example, I am eating in a restaurant on the other side of the world in a place I have never been and there is my neighbor at the next table. We didn’t plan it. There is no rhyme or reason as to why this should happen. And yet, it feels like more than coincidence. We have a conversation that the frenetic pace of home life never allowed for. We forge a new bond. A friendship is born.

As Swiss psychologist Carl Jung said, it’s "more than chance, and less than causality". It’s a meaningful coincidence, even if just because it leaves me gasping at the possibility of miracles in every day moments.

Birds and creatures so often seem to be agents of meaningful coincidences, like a white dove hovering at the baptism of Jesus. The hummingbird appears at particular moments of self reflection as if to remind you to be gentle with yourself. The crow reappears high on the pole as if to warn you to pay attention. Jung had his own meaningful encounter with a beetle. A patient was telling him about a dream that involved a golden scarab beetle, when he heard a tap at his window. Jung opened the window and in flew a scarab beetle. Its colors matched the description of her dream. The scarab beetle was rare in that part of the world. It was an unexpected visitor. He handed the beetle to the woman and said, “Here is your scarab.” By all reports, the woman had some major breakthroughs as a result of the experience. The beetle became a symbol for transformation and wholeness.

So often, moments of synchronicity and serendipity occur at times of crisis and vulnerability. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. The teacher may be a person or a beetle, a meeting or an event.

What is the difference between synchronicity and serendipity? It’s a very subtle difference, and not one that is particularly important. Serendipity is a surprising event or meeting that feels meaningful. Serendipity is running into someone and in the course of the conversation realizing that this is exact connection necessary at this point in your life. Synchronicity is two or more events that seem meaningful because they happen at the same time. Synchronicity is hearing the same phrase used several times in the same day and realizing that it’s the piece of a thought puzzle you had been looking for.

One of the most amazing moments of serendipity I have ever heard about was the story of a Jewish man from Ohio who visited the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The man had some unresolved tension with his deceased father. He was blaming himself for his father’s death and decided to leave a note to his father in the wall. It is commonly believed that the stones in the wall have healing power. His note said, "Dear Father, I beg you to forgive me for the pain I caused you. I loved you very much and I will never forget you. And please know that nothing that you taught me was in vain. I will not betray your family's deaths. I promise." He placed the note into a small crack in the wall and in the process dislodged another note. He couldn’t resist reading it. Incredibly, it turned out to be a note from his father. It said, “My Dear Son Joey, If you should ever happen to come to Israel and somehow miraculously find this note, this is what I want you to know: I always loved you even when you hurt me, and I will never stop loving you. You are, and always will be, my beloved son. And Joey, please know that I forgive you for everything, and only hope that you in turn will forgive a foolish old man."

The son was ready, and the teacher came in the form of the most amazing and transformative coincidence. Maybe the long and short of it all is to have an open mind and heart so that more and more situations feel meaningful and significant. Choose to live as if coincidences are God’s way of staying anonymous. Choose to believe that people and events, especially the surprising ones, are sacred experiences.

For my part, I choose to believe that my meeting with the love of my life twenty years ago was serendipity. There was no logical reason why we should meet, coming from different cities and worlds. The meeting was meaningful and created a family and a life calling. The birth of my three children, the moves from Australia to New Zealand to America, the encounter with some of the most amazing people in the world – these and more situations are encounters with a mystery that sources my life and fills me with joy.

Serendipity and synchronicity call me beyond the thoughts I’ve known to soar like a bird and shine like a golden beetle. They remind me to trust life which surely has more plans and purposes than I could ever imagine. So many moments are tapping at the window of my consciousness, asking to come in. All I need to do is open the window.

But don’t take my word for it. Look to your own experience. As Rumi said, “Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth." Find your own meaning. Realize your own miracles. The universe is waiting to greet your openness. Fill the hunger in your spirit by discovering the miracle and meaning that is lurking in every moment. This is the true joy of being alive. Celebrate the conspiracy of coincidences that are collaborating in the creation of your life’s calling.

Spiritual but not Religious

I am comfortable describing myself as spiritual but not religious and to name Jesus among my spiritual inspirations. When I say I am spiritual but not religious, I mean this and more.

I am inspired by the life and example of Jesus who wasn’t a Christian, not even a religious person but a lover of life and a champion of the poor. The only time he is recorded as having gone to church was to protest religious corruption and hypocrisy.

I feel the presence of divine beauty all around me without being limited by the gods of one religion or another.

I find inspiration in the Bible as poetry without reading it literally or feeling limited by the lens of a particular tradition.

I experience every moment as a miracle without having to deny science or natural laws.

I live my life with optimism and love without needing to look over my shoulder in guilt or fear of judgment.

There is a verse (Isaiah 6:1) that illustrates some of these spiritual but not religious principles.

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up, sitting upon a throne, and his train filled the whole temple.” A little later in the same chapter, “The whole earth is full of His glory.”

These verses CANNOT possible be understood literally. The dimensions of the temple are well known. It was HUGE. When Princess Diana got married, the train on her wedding gown was 25 feet long? That’s impressive, but wouldn’t fill a temple. The longest train ever worn was 4468 feet in Cyprus a few years back. That’s almost obscene, but still wouldn’t fill a temple.

Understood literally, the words lose all meaning. Understood as poetry, the train becomes a beautiful metaphor. The train of a gown or robe has no function, other than the hint of mystery. It hints at what lies just beneath the surface, where life comes alive with new awareness and wide eyed joy. Life is an outrageous miracle full of abundant mystery and extravagant wonder like a massive train.

It speaks of the mysterious connectedness of life, the bricolage of seamless entities that fills my life with synchronicity and meaning. It reminds me that I am connected to the world around me in so many ways. I am connected to the people around me – every one of them is an expression of divine beauty. I am connected to my passions and when my passions intersect with the world’s needs, healing takes place. The world becomes filled with possibility.

Spirituality without religion honors science and common sense without being limited by literalism or dogma. I can honor facts and scientific knowledge and yet spirituality is an awareness that certain facts give me goosebumps. They change me from the inside out and motivate me to be all that I hope for in the world.

Look around you! The whole earth is filled with the train of God, the hint of mystery and the miracle of love.

This is part of what it means for me to be spiritual but not religious. What does it mean for you?

How Do You Like Your Eggs? The Power of Self Knowledge

How well do you know yourself? What’s your favorite color? What makes you giggle like a five year old? How do you like your eggs?

There is a scene from the movie Runaway Bride which offers a nice analogy for how well you know yourself. Maggie keeps finding fiancés and then running away just before the ceremony. She also can’t seem to decide what eggs she likes. When she is with one man, she likes scrambled eggs. With another, she likes fried. With another, poached and so on. It seems that she likes whatever eggs the man likes.

At the end of the movie she comes to an amazing realization.

“When I was walking down the aisle, I was walking toward somebody... who had no idea who I really was. And it was only half the other person's fault... because I had done everything to convince him... that I was exactly what he wanted. So, it was good that I didn't go through with it because it would've been a lie.……I love eggs Benedict. I hate all the other kinds of eggs. I hate big weddings, everybody staring. I'd like to get married on a weekday while everybody's at work. And if I ride off into the sunset, I want my own horse.”

She got engaged to avoid truly getting to know herself, just in case she didn’t like what she saw. As Goethe said, “Know thyself? If I knew myself, I’d run away.” There are other ways to run away. Some people drink. I tend to eat. What do you do? Awareness is the beginning of knowledge. Awareness with acceptance is even better. Awareness with outrageous appreciation for your own unique style is best.

Get to know yourself. Learn your own preferences without judgment. Be boldly yourself. As for me, I like my eggs lots of different ways. I like eggs nuked in a McMuffin style sandwich. I like devilled eggs in a sandwich, but the sandwich has to be quartered of course. I like my eggs fried on toast but poached on spinach. Call me eggcentric, but eggs are diverse and so are my tastes.

Knowing how you like your eggs is part of the first layer of self knowledge. Take your self knowledge a step further. Ask yourself why certain knowledge moves you, and makes your skin tingle. Just as your body has tickle spots, your spirit is moved by different knowledge. What makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end? Last night nature put on the type of fireworks show that you couldn’t pay for. I had a physical reaction, as if the electricity was running through my body. Knowledge is my awareness that the distance between the thunder and lightning shows how close the storm is. Spiritual knowledge is my awareness that the storm evokes fear and wonder in me and moves me to ponder my place in the scheme of things and the fragility of existence.

Spiritual self knowledge is not so much about what I know but why certain experiences move and change me from the inside out. Knowledge is my awareness of what a CD is, and how the CD player works. Spiritual knowledge is my awareness that certain music can lift my spirit out of a limited perspective and fill me with optimism.

Knowledge is my awareness that I love my wife for rational reasons, such as she is creative, fun and getting ever more sexy with every passing day. Spiritual knowledge is my awareness that I can enjoy the miracle of love because I have come to a place of self love. As Ayn Rand said, “To say ‘I love you’, you must first be able to say the ‘I’”

In my best moments, I know that life is a spiritual shiver constantly looking for a spine to run up and down. Let it be me, easing wonder's zipper along the connection between my mind, body and spirit. Let it be me. I offer my spine to life’s shivers any time she wants to surprise me. I long for spiritual knowledge that moves and shakes my spirit. I long for self knowledge that knows what I like, why I like what I like, and what is emerging inside me.

Knowing facts is intelligence. Knowing myself is wisdom. Knowing skills leads to strength. Knowing myself is the power of self mastery that open doors of possibility beyond my wildest imagination. As Thoreau said,

"My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant."

Celebrating and Nurturing the Miracle of Life

Happy Father’s Day. Here’s to all fathers and the fatherly heart in all – fathers, grandfathers, uncles, coaches, big brother mentors and all those in the village, men and women, who take seriously your role in guiding the next generation of young lives. Be the best person you can be, Families come in all shapes and sizes. There are one and two parents families, by design and by circumstance. There are no judgments on any family type. The true measure of your life and your family will be the love you leave behind when you’re done.


Start by giving thanks for the privilege of partaking in the miracle of life. Feel this joy deeply. Each moment is a miracle. Let the beauty wash over your mind, body and spirit. If you are a parent celebrate your special, co-creative role in the miracle of life.

Consider the single cell you contributed to the miracle of new life. The cell was so small that you couldn’t see it with the naked eye, and the nucleus in the center of the cell that contained the DNA was even smaller. And yet if you unraveled the DNA of this single cell, unwound and uncoiled it, it would stretch to over six feet long. Now if you are like me and you look eye to six foot high eye with your kid, you are looking eye to eye with the miracle of life. In my case, I’m looking at a six foot bundle of creative potential with the world at his feet. Then I lower my gaze to my second, and I see a five foot bundle of gentle compassion who holds the world in his heart. Then I lower my gaze still further to my four foot miracle of sweetness with my heart wrapped around her finger.

Now as you look at your four, five or six foot miracles, consider that if you took all the DNA from all the 50 trillion cells in their body, and unraveled and uncoiled it, it would stretch to the moon and back multiple times. It’s no accident that this is also the amount that you love them. To the moon and back…. multiple times.

Let the miracle wash over you. No matter what has gone down between you and your father or the father figures in your life, the miracle that you are connected at a cellular level puts everything in perspective. Let go of bitterness or bad feeling. Let go of hurt and ill will. You are related at the most intimate level. Make this a day of forgiveness, letting go and moving on.

In the words of Ecclesiastes, ‘A three-fold chord is not easily broken.” I love this verse. The author of Ecclesiastes suggests that life is basically meaningless. There is no ultimate meaning in life other than the meaning you make of it. He does however say that there are better and worse ways of living. One of the better ways of living, that creates great meaning in your life, is to make a priority of relationships. You can work hard your whole life but if you don’t share the fruits of your labor with someone, what’s the point? Create chords of love and connection in your life and make these relationships your priority. A single chord is easily broken. A double chord is strong. A threefold chord is hard to break. Here is what I love about this analogy. If you look closely at an image of DNA, it looks like twisted, looping cords. It’s a long intertwined cord that connects you to life, to your children, to your ancestors, at a cellular level. How incredible! Let the miracle wash over you. Father’s Day is a celebration of the miracle of life down to the smallest detail and out to the largest perspective.

Evolution and Fatherhood

Maybe you think that this description of fatherhood is a little lofty for your experience of dads or of being a dad. We dads are often just goofy and embarrassing. Cornball humor is part of the job description of being a dad. What do you call the two people who embarrass you in front of your friends? Mum and Dad! Give thanks for all that is goofy and cringeworthy. There may be evolutionary reasons for the embarrassment. A psychologist in a University in the UK conducted an interesting experiment. He compared the dancing styles of different aged men. Men between the ages of 35 and 60 think they are awesome dancers. They let loose on the dance floor and attempt the most complex moves. But their lack of coordination is obvious to all except them, and it is especially obvious to their kids at a family wedding. The conclusion of the study is that middle aged men are atrocious dancers for an evolutionary reason – to divert the attention of young women away from them and onto younger, more appropriate partners.

So Dads, next time your kids mock you for your dancing, or general goofiness, let them know that it’s out of your hands. It’s an evolutionary survival instinct.

Here’s the point. Life goes in stages and each stage has its purposes and benefits. You are engaged in a push/pull relationship with your family for good reason. Your goofiness is drawing you close to younger kids, making them feel safe, and helping them to bond. And it’s helping older kids learn independence and appropriate boundaries. There is a reason and a season for everything – from bonding to embarrassment to independence.

Does your family get you down, frustrate and annoy you at times? Consider that they are just reminding you of the possibility of human growth and change, preparing you for life in the so called real world. The push/pull of parent/ child relationships is nothing new. It’s been going on for centuries. Remember Isaac’s eleventh hour reprieve from Abraham’s threatened human sacrifice. That is some crazy family rivalry. Give thanks for your fathers, even the goofy and annoying parts. They are reminding you to hold loosely to life and expect change. Give thanks for fathers and father figures, even those you have unresolved tension with. They are making you stronger and more independent.

Do you sometimes get discouraged that you aren’t appreciated in your family? It happens to most of us at some point. Smile as you consider that everyone is growing and doing the best they can in the moment. See beyond the superficial frustrations to the deep connections that are a threefold chord. There aren’t many days that go by when I don’t say to my youngest and only girl, “You are the sweetiest sweety in the whole world.” Do you know what she does? She rolls her eyes at me. But I can see in her rolling eyes the glint of recognition that she is loved and accepted. It’s a simple thing, but it’s a miracle and a gift. If you feel unappreciated, give more love, encouragement and praise and watch it all come back to you in spades.

Fatherhood Across the Generations

Maybe you are sandwiched in the middle of three generations – with children who are pushing and pulling, and parents who are growing to depend on you more and more. It’s an interesting stage in life, with its own challenges. There’s a great scene in the Simpsons TV show where Homer is trying to bond with his son Bart. Homer’s Dad, Grandpa Simpson is standing by watching.

Homer says, “Hey boy! Wanna play catch?” Bart says: “No thanks dad.”
Homer mutters under his breath, “When a son doesn’t want to play catch with his father something is definitely wrong.” Grandpa Simpson over hears his son and chimes in, “I’ll play catch with you son!” 
Homer says, “Go home old man.”

Parent/ child relationships are changing all the time. So much family suffering comes from expecting otherwise. I remember the day soon after I was received as a minister in the Anglican Church, and my recently retired Dad began attending the church I was running. Now you have to understand how much I respect my father. I had sat at his feet, and learnt so much from him. It was a dream come true to have him at my church. He said to me after the first service, “My son is now my father.” That stopped me in my tracks. Our relationship was changing and growing. It took me a while to fully process the change. We all have these changing roles and relationships.

It’s a little like the man who married a widow. His father then married the widow’s daughter. So his father became his son-in-law and he became his father’s father-in-law. Legally his daughter became his mother and his wife his grandmother. Things became even more complicated when he had a son. His son became his father’s brother and his own uncle. It got completely out of hand when his father had a son. Now his father’s son was both his brother and his grandson. The poor confused man was his own grandfather and his own grandson.

Learn to flow with the natural changes in relationship that take place in families and you will enjoy incredible family bliss. Each stage is important and has important lessons to teach you if you stay alert to its wisdom. There is a season and a reason for everything.

Being the best Father you can be

Who are your role models for being the best father and father figure you can be? When Senator Ted Kennedy died recently, one of the things that truly inspired me was when his children talked about their Dad. Kennedy’s public credentials were legendary, and he was widely respected. It was inspiring to me to hear that his private life was also rich and full of integrity. When his son gave the eulogy at his funeral he told a story that really captivated me. Ted Kennedy junior lost a leg to bone cancer at age 12. He was still getting used to his artificial leg when they were out sledding on a steep driveway. Ted Kennedy junior slipped and fell. He started to cry and said, “I’ll never be able to climb up the hill.”
His Dad lifted him up and said to him, “I know you can do it. There is nothing you can’t do. We’re going to climb the hill together even if it takes us all day.”

That’s the fatherly heart, and you have it as well. You have the divine joy and responsibility of making young people in your life feel safe, protected, empowered and optimistic.
Did you know that the root Hebrew words for teacher and parent are the same? Use all your wisdom and experience to prepare children for the realities of life.

Teach your sons that size and speed may matter but depth matters even more.

Teach your daughters that diversity is beautiful and beauty is diverse and that they are beautiful and completely accepted just as they are.

Remind your sons and daughters that you have their back. They can set out in search of their dreams and you will be there through thick and thin.

Calling All Fathers

I don’t need to tell you the awful statistics as they relate to fathers. Fathers are absent from homes in epidemic proportions, and the consequences are devastating. The situation is even worse in the African American community. Both fatherlessness and our prison population are at all-time highs and these two facts are not unrelated. In 1960 less than 10 million children were growing up in father absent families. Today it’s over 24 million. One in three children in America will go to bed tonight without their fathers in the home. 40% of children who don’t live with their fathers haven’t seen their dads in the past year. One half have never even set foot in their father’s home.

Children who live apart from their fathers are 5 to 6 times more likely to be poor. They are twice as likely to manifest emotional disorders, to abuse alcohol and drugs, to drop out of school and twice as likely to end up in jail. According to a Princeton University study each year spent without a dad in the home increased the odds of future incarceration by 5 percent.

Calling all fathers! It’s time to take your place in the family and in society. What you do matters. If you have chosen a family without a father, then make sure there are healthy male figures in your child’s life.

Even fathers who are at home are often confused, not knowing how to be an effective father. What does it mean to be a dad in this season of life? If in doubt, just be present and alert and see how you can serve your family. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as we make things. Calling all fathers. Get together and inspire each other to get serious about your role.

Calling all fathers, and the father heart in all. Take a moment to honor the miracle of life that you helped bring into the world. But conception was just the beginning. Now you have the responsibility to nurture and lead these young ones to take their place as responsible citizens. It’s a responsibility. It’s a privilege and it’s a joy.

I honor the father heart in you, and greet you from my father heart. Namaste.

For Further Reflection

What do you appreciate about your father and father figures?

In what ways do you experience gratitude, even for the difficult family times?

Who are your models for living with an open fatherly heart?

One With the Sun- Taking an Evolutionary Perspective

You know you’re getting a little long in the tooth when you describe your life in decades. “I did such and such in the 80s, the 90s were a blur and the noughties were all diapers and Hop on Pop.” A decade feels like a long time. But when you think about time from an evolutionary perspective, a decade is a blink of an eye. As Richard Dawkins said,

“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?”

We have only brief decades in the sun. How do we make them meaningful? Is there a meaning in life or is there only the meaning that we make?

The cranky Old Testament book Ecclesiastes uses the phrase “under the sun”. “There is nothing new under the sun. All is meaningless and vain under the sun.” What does this mean? The usual interpretation is that everything worldly is under the sun, and everything heavenly is above the sun. Many of us were taught in religious classes that without eternal salvation everything on earth is pointless. This worldview was trapped in its own three tiered universe. Heaven was literally above the sun. We know more about cosmology now. There is a spiritual perspective that honors evolution, deep time and infinite fields of connected possibility without needing supernatural causes and effects. As above so below is an ancient intuition of an evolutionary truth. Everything is connected, including the mysteries of time and space.

I wonder about a new interpretation of “under the sun”. The sun was seen as heaven’s porch light in the ancient world. It was also a tool for measuring time. Maybe Ecclesiastes was saying something profound about time. If you take a narrow view of time, there is nothing new or meaningful. If you expect time to stand still, you can expect suffering and frustration. If you are held captive by time, you can become paralyzed by interpretations of the past or anxieties about the future. If you think you can conquer time, time will make a fool of you. As Pink Floyd sang, “You run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it’s sinking, and racing around to come up behind you again.”

A deep time perspective adds life to decades and meaning to life. When you make peace with time, it warms your life like our middle aged sun’s rays. When you expand your consciousness to include the millions of suns that circle millions of planets that circle millions of galaxies that dwarf the pale dot of earth and see your decades old life as a “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam” then life falls into clearer perspective.

When you see yourself as created out of stardust and our sun as earth’s closest star but still 90 million miles away, light bulbs go off in your mind. It’s all related. We are part of an immense symphony. Every breath you take, every move you make, every meal you eat, every song you sing, every decade you live, is a result of our sun’s ancient drama.

The timely lessons of the sun are both mind blowing, consciousness expanding, and also ordinary and practical. No matter what scars the decades have left in your life, you can always, always start over again. There is no end. Everything is becoming, including you. Do your best in each moment. Change or stay the same. Either way, life will continue to move forward. If you need to miss a step, just pick up with the next beat. Get in tune with your past, but don’t be held captive to the past. Plan your future, but don’t be held prisoner by your plans.

No matter how it feels, you are not alone. The nighttime coliseum of stars is your family tree. Join the dots on your awesome connections all the way back. Look again and you will see something new and beautiful. They look closer than they are, reminding you that the inner light that shines your path is nearer and more accessible than you imagine.

If this all feels a little “out there” take the advice of Vincent Van Goth who said, "If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle."

Either way, pay attention. Whether in the radiance of a beaming sun or the glint in a baby’s eyes, hear in this moment the wise silence, see the immense beauty, the universal intelligence, the awesome grandeur to which everyone and everything is related. You are Life becoming more alive, God becoming more divine, Spirit itself in action. Tippy toe from moment to wonder filled moment, stride from discovery to breathtaking discovery, leap from realization to earth shattering realization. Life evolves from cell to organism, question to deeper mystery, ever more complex, connected and conscious, sourced by a great unknown, and bound by the elastic string called time.