Meeting the News of the Day

How are we as conscious spiritual beings to meet the news of today, where events of the world can seem to compete daily for how extreme and outrageous they can be?

One strategy used by many spiritual seekers and practitioners is to avoid the news. This strategy has the advantage that it allows us to keep our attention on that which we choose and therefore to align with a vibration more conducive to creating the world of our choosing.

Whether we choose to avoid the news or not, we are not completely untouched by it. We are still touched by the collective vibration of all that is taking place in our world.

Many, including this author, have chosen to see everything that is taking place in the world as a prayer request or as an opportunity to steep even more in the vibration of love, oneness, and wholeness.

When we realize that all beings essentially want the same things – love, respect, and honor – then we can see the most outrageous behaviors as a deep cry for those wants. While this knowledge doesn’t excuse harmful actions, it does keep us from going into a sense of separation or hatred, and it takes us deeper into ourselves to expand our capacity for love and compassion.

It is easy to get caught up in effects, or appearances, and miss the deeper underlying meaning of what they are calling us to. In saying this, I don’t mean to minimize the appearances, because they are highly impactful and at times greatly harmful to many. But as Einstein, and many others after him, said, we can’t solve the problem at the level of the problem, or with the consciousness that created the problem.

We can’t stop bombing with more bombing, hatred with more hatred, or ruthlessness with more ruthlessness. Compassion and wisdom together form the basis of what we individually and collectively are called to cultivate in order to truly create a world where all feel loved, honored, and respected. When we truly feel whole, we act whole and are incapable of harmful acts.

What we see, in so many corners of life today, is an implicit demand: see me, accept me, respect me, honor me; and an apparent desperate desire to have that demand met.

The invitation today is to give what is so desperately being asked for: really see those you encounter, notice their pain as well as their longings. Find ways to communicate “I honor you, I respect you, I have compassion for you.” When reading of atrocities, offer the same in your heart to the victims and perpetrators in the situation, “I honor you, I respect you, I have compassion for you.” Surely it is challenging to do this with those we see as the perpetrators, but wisdom guides us to remember the underlying cause of so much that is taking place – a sense of separation and isolation from one’s fellow beings.

Yes, the invitation today is big, and I know we can do it, and I know it is what is needed if we are going to truly meet the news of today.

Enjoy the journey.