I recently had the privilege to review a wonderful children's book, "Peaceful Thoughts" by Robin Thumann. I highly recommend it for parents to read with their children ages 4-10, in these times that challenge parent/child relationships. You may visit her website at www.peacefulthoughts.net. The following is my review:

"Peaceful Thoughts", opens parents and children to a reading experience where they can calmly connect with one another and explore values with each other. Robin's healing words toned by the gentle rhymes of poetry offer the rhythms of well-being that permeate the thoughts and emotions of both parent and child. Secure healing images in her art illustrations, calm the mind so that parent and child can cherish their moments in understanding life situations and discover their inner strengths together.

Dr. Darryl Pokea

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway!

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway!

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway!

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway!

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway!

The biggest (people) with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest (people) with the smallest minds. Think big anyway!

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for some underdog anyway!

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway!

People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help people anyway!

Give the world the best you have, and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you've got anyway!

As we each evolve following our path in our return to home, "Om", our consciousness changes. If our self-discovery is particularly intense, it is possible for our perceptual barriers to dissolve and allow for the deepest experiences of compassion towards others and ourselves. With no barriers in thoughts and perceptions, all the pseudo-monsters and angels inside each of us must be faced. They are both different manifestations of the same wide range of human experience possible in our longing for the Divine. With any process of expanding consciousness, we can choose to accept the multitude of ways that courage and compassion are offered to us in the true nature of Creation. Regarding this process, Rollo May commented that creativity unexpressed can turn inward destructively. We can never squash our evolution or consciousness in our longing for the Divine without destroying all that we are.

In the movie, "Jacob's Ladder", the profound words of Meister Eckart, a 15th. Century alchemist, are recalled to soothe the main character as he wrestles with his own monsters:

"The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life. your memories,...your attachments. They (devils) burn them all away. But they're not punishing you; he (Eckart) said they (devils) will free your soul. So the way he sees it.... if you're frightened of dying and you're holding on.... you'll see devils tearing your life away...if you've made your peace...then the devils are really angels, freeing you, from the earth...it's just a matter of how you look at it.... that's all."

The psuedo-monsters and angels are inside all of us. Embracing them both is part of the process in our longing for the Divine. We can remain conscious through all events and experiences in daily life, through prayer, meditation, and living in courage and compassion.

"The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others."  Albert Schweitzer

"The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another"  Thomas Merton

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."  Dalai Lama

"At the center of the universe is a loving heart that continues to beat and that wants the best for every person. Anything we can do to help foster the intellect and spirit and emotional growth of our fellow human beings, that is our job. Those of us who have this particular vision must continue against all odds. Life is for service."  Fred Rogers (of "Mister Rogers" TV fame)

"Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man will not find peace."  Albert Schweitzer

In the following passage, Rudyard Kipling shares his view of the dimensions that characterize a mature adult.

If you can keep your head when all others about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all persons doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired of waiting or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;

If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken be twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, and lose, and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them "hold on;"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virture, or walk with kings...nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all people count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.....yours is the earth and everything that's in it and.....which is much greater.........you will be a mature adult.

Writer and Poet, Rudyard Kipling

The challenges of recent world events can lead our minds into the illusions of hopelessness, helplessness, and despair. There accompanies these congested processes, equally intense offerings of hope, courage, healing and enlightenment through our Creator's image in each, our truly loving spirits.

I am a gentle paradigm buster, who realizes that old paradigms cannot be taken away without having something else to replace them. Our species struggled for centuries, in dissolving the geo-centric view. In this view, we thought of the earth and ourselves, as the center of the universe, and yet, remnants of this paradigm still remain. This old paradigm lingers each time we choose to worship our own minds' self-centered view about the way we think things should be, rather than how they are. The rest of the universe in its many dimensions, simply does not operate as if all is centered around our planet and ourselves. Our current pain and suffering may be viewed as a result of clinging to remnants of this old geo/self-centric paradigm.

The Everlasting Paradigm is eternally changing and not fixed by mind, but rather embraced by our spirits. We each are invited to participate in the Divine Paradigm, as the Divine Reverence for the unfolding of our own consciousness is omnipresent and infinitely respectful of our choices. Indeed, there are choices. We can choose to fall down and worship our own mind and its very limited views. We can choose to worship the minds of others, some of whom are 'gatekeepers' who reward us for surrendering our thoughts to their minds' control. A third choice is to allow each of our minds to reach unlimited potential by a greater participation with the Divine. In this later choice, Divine providence with complete reverence for our unfolding process, offers knowledge, compassion and understanding according to what we are receptive to receive in our next stage of personal and/or our collective evolution.

Divine knowledge and understanding offered, depends on whatever we can handle in our evolution. This can be illustrated by several people on the planet at the turn of the century who were open to the idea that human flight was possible. Their connecting to more expansive paradigms allowed for a receptivity to Divine Inspiration in the design of an airplane for human flight. Certainly the early French & American designers were met with mockery and ridicule, as is the case with all visionaries. Yet 100 years later, for most on our planet, the "man can never fly paradigm" is essentially dissolved.

We are in a new millennium now. The evolution of our species cannot be thwarted without destructive consequences. This is perhaps one explanation for the overwhelming conflagrations that seem to be peaking in these times. We are multi-dimensional beings, who like atoms in a nuclear reaction, are rapidly reaching critical mass in our developing consciousness. Our evolution requires that we each express the full dimensions and potentials of who we really are. Rollo May once stated that Creativity, unexpressed, gets turns inward destructively. Allowing others to limit or deny, the full multiplicity of our being, leads to this destruction and consequential loss of our humanity. More importantly, these times, with all of their intense challenges, equally provide, the deepest learning experiences in being fully human.

I recognize that there are as many pathways to the Divine as there are people in the world. We are not limited to those paths deemed "correct" by the gatekeepers' minds. Our real strength is in the great diversity throughout our species, respectful that paradigmatic attitudes can be slow to change because of fear. The release of such fear, is this author's view, is only possible by a greater participation in Divine mind which transcends the fear and creates through our Spirits. The Creator has infinite reverence for the individual and collective choices in our species' unfolding evolution. New constellations of thoughts and compassion are emerging. In Providence, we can reclaim our humanity, kindle it in our children, and consciously live it more fully again.   Back to top.