The Presence Process

Writing this blog is not easy for me. I am a private person and maybe even hide behind some posts which are interesting and thought provoking. My own experience of life is so unnerving most of the time that I wouldn’t know how to convey it even if the desire to do so was present.

But this morning I want to acknowledge Michael Brown. The story of how he learned the Presence Process has been an inspiration to me. He had a very painful illness and discovered that the discomfort abated as he became more present in the Now.

My condition is not physical, but rather emotional – at least that is how it feels. And frankly, I regard myself as a sick person whose ailment manifests in an outwardly turbulent life.

Michael says that he experienced “daily bouts of indescribable agony.” Maybe we all get the type and intensity of suffering that is needed to help us change – I don’t know, and don’t want to philosophize about something so difficult.

But the point in even attempting this blog was to say that I believe and hope that healing is possible – not just for Michael, but for the many others of us that also suffer daily bouts of indescribable agony.

Maybe we call it Presence or the Now, maybe we call it Jesus Christ, maybe we don’t even have a name – just a feeling inside of longing for an ancient all-embracing Love.

Whatever it is, may we find it - and may it find us.

Wise Guidance

Wise Guidance

In the face of the radical change, what do people really need? Entities who successfully answer this question will be the survivors of our current global crisis. They will be the ones emerging as leaders in the years leading up to 2012 and beyond, because they perceived and responded to the shifting tectonic plates of human consciousness.

Radical transformation is disorienting – just take a look at the global economic situation for proof. People are scared and angry; they want someone to “take control” and make everything all right again – preferably “the way it used to be.” There can be a profound sense of loss, vulnerability, helplessness and uncertainty.

In this climate people do not need new cars. They don’t need new high definition televisions, fancy gadgets or non-essentials of any kind. They don’t need to give or receive unnecessary gifts just because it is the holiday season and merchants want to sell wares. The sense of crisis forces them to evaluate what is vital (from Latin vite, “giving life”) and what is not.

Someone lost in a blinding snowstorm needs one vital thing: guidance. They want to know how to find safety and how to get to it before freezing to death.

BUT! The guidance must be true – that is, it must be based on wisdom, and wisdom comes from real experience combined with insight. Anyone with wise guidance has something priceless to offer in a crisis. This is a service that can generate life-saving hope. It is like giving a blind person sight again.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18). In this world right now are millions of people without a vision who don’t know what is happening or why it is happening. They may feel death looming - figuratively if not actually. What they want more than anything is wise guidance.

Michael Brown’s “Living in Aberdeen” blog (http://navigating2012.blogspot.com) has a fascinating quote from the late Nelson Fernandez of the Mohave Tribe:

"Dreams are for sleeping people - waking people have visions. This is why America is in such a mess; the people here are chasing their American dream. What about their American vision?"

The Bible suggests something similar through the Old Testament prophet Joel. An idea so important that it is repeated also in the New Testament Book of Acts:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions” (Joel 2:28).

The old men, which is to say the “old man,” dreams. But the young men, or the new men, the people of the new consciousness, have visions. And those visions can be a source of hope for new life to those who are still asleep and dreaming.