Monday, December 30, 2013

2013 / THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY











The tide is rapidly closing in on this year but there is still time to reflect on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of 2013 ~ which I summarize as the Good with the political emergence of Elizabeth Warren, the Bad reality of the growing poverty and social inequality of America and the persistent Ugly eye sore and continuing injustice of Guantanamo: Allen L Roland

I'm glad 2014 is coming to a close ~ I'm tired of living on the edge, of watching the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, of witnessing the seeming triumph of selfishness over altruism, of experiencing the slow erosion of the planet through climate change and global warming as well as the common deep disappointment in our political leaders ~ that is until now.















These words of truth from T.S. Eliot give me hope going into 2014 for the changing tide of time always brings new voices ~ and one of the bright populist voices of 2013 is Elizabeth Warren. She is also my early leading candidate for president in 2016.















Warren's recent support for raising Social Security benefits is exactly what we need to shift the national discussion on retirement income from the negative to the positive. As Dean Baker correctly writes in AlterNet ~ " While Social Security does keep most seniors out of poverty, the $1,300 average monthly benefit is certainly not enough for a comfortable retirement for people who lack another source of support. A modest increase in benefits to retirees in the bottom half of the income distribution would make a big difference in their standard of living at relatively little cost to the program."

Here's her recent short speech on the Senate floor on the retirement crisis ~ "This is partly about math, but it's partly about our values. This is about what kind of a people we are, what kind of a country we are trying to build."  6 minute video















The BAD of 2013 is the crippling poverty that exists throughout America ~ Poverty, joblessness, and economic insecurity are a daily reality for the vast majority of the American population. According to WSWS ~ By one survey, four in five Americans have lived in near-poverty, been unemployed, or used welfare for a year or more during their lives and replacing one big-business politician with another will do nothing …   " and the only way to address the vast social problems of poverty and social inequality that loom over contemporary society is to build a political party that represents working people, armed with a program of reorganizing society on the basis of meeting social needs, not the enrichment of the super-wealthy."
See article ~

And get this, Nearly 40 percent of all workers in the country made less than $20,000 last year, according to data from the Social Security Administration ~ and more than 50% made less than $30,000 a rear which doesn’t include figures on benefits such as health insurance or pensions. That’s below the federal poverty threshold for a family of four and close to the line for a family of three. On average, these workers earned just $17,459.55.











Twelve years too long. Of the 779 prisoners kidnapped and subjected to extraordinary rendition by the United States government, 693, or 89%, have been freed because there was no evidence against them. 79 more prisoners have been cleared for release years ago but are still being held. (photo: Reuters)

The UGLY is the continuing injustice of Guantanamo ~ A testament to the shame and disgrace of the 9/11 official story as well as the ongoing isolation, torture as well as civil rights violations of the prisoners of Guantanamo ~ the vast majority of who are innocent.

Everyone has heard of Guantanamo and most people know it's bad ~ but you have no idea that it is well beyond bad and is still America's ugliest symbol of moral injustice.
Video BBC : 47 minute must see Video

So there you have it, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly as the tide of change erases 2013 but voices are being raised, and true leaders of the people are emerging as America faces a mid-term election in 2014 as well as another opportunity to return to our true moral values, and very possibly change history.















HAPPY NEW YEAR

Allen L Roland

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and transformational counselor Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com
 
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Friday, December 20, 2013

FINDING THE CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS
































To find the Christ in Christmas we must go beneath the lights, ornaments, Santa Claus and the seeming profound insanity of our present external world and enter the sacred inner kingdom of the soul and rediscover a world of  Love and soul consciousness ~ the ultimate transmutation and stabilizing agent for mankind: Allen L Roland

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”


On December 13, 2013, Tristin A. Shaw wrote a thought provoking  column in Information Clearing house (ICH) entitled ~ The great Unknown ~ Modernity's Great Unraveling.

Tristin's main point was correctly identifying our ultimate tasks as human beings ~ "The time has come for all you compassionate observers to honestly confront the darkness of which so much is written. So, I say, waste no more intellect critiquing the benighted ultra-rich who we hear so much about, those contemptible faces of capitalism, and commit your efforts to the ultimate task at hand: your moral responsibility in the age of profound insanity."

A great question and here's my answer ~ How can we find our moral responsibility in this age of profound insanity without surrendering to love, social cooperation and altruism. 

Love is the ultimate transmutation and stabilizing agent for mankind ~ whereas we all eventually evolve from ego consciousness to soul consciousness through the proven innate driving evolutionary force of social cooperation and altruism, not survival of the fittest or the strategies and devices of the ego.

I like Courtney Walsh's definition of love where he correctly says ~ "Love doesn't require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up and do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It's enough ~ it's plenty "  and is, in itself, an act of love.

Love is all about authenticity and the willingness to be vulnerable ~ it is the ultimate YES to yourself and is the foundation of self love as well as self acceptance and worthiness.

Once that individual shift to our true self is accomplished, through love and gratefulness, we begin to see through different eyes as well as experience a new state of consciousness ~  a Unified Field of soul consciousness that exists beyond time and space and whose principle property is the universal urge to unite ~ and we are all a living part of it.

Tristan is absolutely correct when he writes "The suffering born of darkness, through which the human species is now propelled, will open up the grand doors of Justice, restoring a resonant harmony that corrects the old and fortifies the new, that paves alternative possibilities for social and spiritual liberty and that shatters the amoral nature of systemic structures like capitalism. And once the smoke is settled and fate unfolded, a new consciousness will have arisen. A consciousness that sees the ALL as “I” and the “I” as ALL. A consciousness that does not condemn the past (for condemnation is the enemy of understanding), but understands it."  

As such, the great unraveling of mankind becomes a far greater unveiling of a new consciousness ~ a transformation of awareness and a shift in priorities from selfishness to service.

In other words, by surrendering to love, self-forgiveness and gratefulness we not only begin to see through different eyes but we also humbly recognize and play our part in this slowly evolving all-encompassing loving plan. But we also finally understand our past ~ as I most certainly do as well as empower others to do.

In my healing work with over 60 combat veterans with PTSD, I have essentially tapped into their innate need to love, through gratefulness, which is far greater than their military imposed will to hate ~ as well as a key ingredient in their self-healing process.

As such, PTSD is a form of Post Traumatic Heart Disorder and many people suffer the same symptoms of combat veterans with PTSD when they have been rejected, abandoned, hurt or felt guilt in a love relationship.

Here's a classic holiday example of this dramatic shift in consciousness as well as seeing through different eyes as written by Charles Dickens and immortalized in the Christmas Carol ~ but it is also the same shift in consciousness, as well as a shift from selfishness to service, that I have seen in countless clients, especially combat veterans with PTSD, who have broken through their guilt and unworthiness issues and embraced their far deeper feelings of love, gratefulness, joy, delight and service. 
 
In Stave One of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol when Scrooge first encounters (his former deceased partner) Marley's Ghost, the Ghost asks: Man of the worldly mind, do you believe in me or not?
I do, I must, Scrooge replies, but why do spirits walk the earth and why do they come to me? 

Marley's Ghost answers him: It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world and witness what it cannot share but might have shared on earth and turned to happiness! 

But you were always a good man of business, falters Scrooge, trying to console the Ghost.

Business! cries Marley's Ghost, wringing its hands. " Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop in the water of the great ocean of my business."

Precisely, Mr Dickens and when we finally go beyond the fear, pain and guilt of how we have lived our lives ~ we tap into a well of gratefulness, joy and delight and experience exactly what Scrooge profoundly exclaimed and felt on Christmas morning ~ "I'm not the man I was."  

In the film version of Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol, starring Alistair Sims, Scrooge wakes up transformed after being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future ~ and I maintain that mankind is already getting painful glimpses of Christmas future in the form of dramatic climate change and we're also being asked to transform before it's too late. 7 minute classic video ~

Once again, it's my guess that we have already been visited by the ghost of Christmas future in the form of severe climate change and that we will be reluctantly forced to break down our social barriers and cooperate with one another within the next ten years or face the potential of extinction. Here's Dahr Jamail with the latest climate change scoreboard and it's pretty terrifying. See article

In the spirit and delight of one, who is also not the person I once was, but  whose eyes have been opened through love, gratefulness, celebration and service ~ Merry Christmas but please take note ~ there may not be too many more unless we begin to love one another in the evolutionary spirit of social cooperation and altruism.

Thus, finding the Christ in Christmas means finding the Christ within ourselves and letting that light shine forth to all others throughout the year.

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
Charles Dickens


Allen L Roland

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and transformational counselor Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com
 
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net