Tag Archives: possibility

What Just Happened?

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Many across the United States and the world are in a period of shock as we take in and process what just happened in our recent elections. The result was surprising and has left most of us trying to understand what this means for us. This seems to be true even if our candidate won. President-elect Trump was a different kind of candidate than any in my lifetime.

Regardless of political affiliation, including those with no party affiliation, it seems we are all being called to something. If this recent election is symbolized by anything, it seems to be a desire for great change. My recent blog, The Deeper Call of the Election, turned out to be quite prophetic in retrospect as I spoke of this desire for change as the reason why such different candidates as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump gained popularity.

In discussion since the election, someone made the point that many argued that Donald Trump’s supporters included many who were uneducated, implying that those with less education somehow don’t deserve to be heard. Embarrassingly, I had to acknowledge that I was one who had referenced this fact.

Another wake up call for me was when I spoke to two young gay men in their twenties in Denver, a rather liberal city. They indicated they had voted for Donald Trump and I literally thought they were joking as they did not fit my profile of a Trump supporter in any way. What was the reason for their vote? They feel the country needs a major change.

This brought home to me what I had already wrote about – this is a time ripe for change as so many people are no longer willing to accept the status quo.

While some who voted for Trump may share some of his more extreme views that could be interpreted as racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory, it is hard to ignore this greater phenomenon of people insisting and demanding that we create a different kind of world.

It seems that our future hangs in the balance and each one of us is called to ask what kind of world we want to create. While many are anxious about what the President-elect will do once in office, rather than give in to fear, our energies are more worthy of being focused on what this is calling each of us to step up to.

Certainly, we should be vigilant and stand up to anything that would roll back progress around equality or in any other arena. At the same time, I believe the greater call is to take the opportunity to see where we each are not fully stepping up to fulfilling our own calling.

Many whom I’ve talked to are now feeling and acting on a greater sense of urgency and immediacy to usher in a world that represents the highest of what we want to create. It has been said that nature abhors a vacuum, and, in this atmosphere that is so ripe for change, there will likely be great change. Therefore, this is not a time to stand on the sidelines. Rather it is a time to be active with our voices, our actions, and our spiritual practice.

While the process of creation is not often comfortable, if we can open ourselves to the great possibilities that lay before us and replace resistance to change with active participation in change, it can also be a very exciting time.

With candidate Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote, Donald Trump winning the electoral college vote based on voting by state, Bernie Sanders winning a significant percentage of votes in the primaries, third party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson getting significant interest, and President Barack Obama leaving office with a high approval rating, there is no mandate for anyone.

Let us join in prayer and action to create a world that works for everyone.

Enjoy the journey.

Getting Out of Your Way

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Ralph Waldo Emerson is famously quoted as saying “Get your bloated nothingness out of the way of the divine circuits.” While this may seem a little harsh, it has always resonated with me because it illustrates so well how we can sometimes get in the way of all the good that is trying to happen through us and for us.

A story is told that when Columbus sailed his ships to America, the indigenous people who inhabited the land couldn’t see the ships because the concept of ships like Columbus’ was not like anything they had seen before. I have always been a little skeptical of this idea and I’m still not sure that I believe it happened that way. However, I recently discovered my own example of where my present concepts did not allow me to see what was right in from of me.

For several years I had worked very closely with two individuals. Our roles were highly intertwined and we were colleagues in every sense of the word. We also became friends and socialized together. When I was nearing my last day at the company, my two colleagues offered to take me to dinner as a farewell. I agreed and we met at a place we had often frequented. While we were having dinner, one of them told me that she was in love. Excited to hear this, I asked if it was anyone I knew.

My colleague replied “yes” and I ventured a guess that was far off the mark. I couldn’t think of who else it could be so I asked her to tell me who it was. She replied, “He is sitting right next to you.” While I understood what those words meant, I still did not understand what she was conveying. After she repeated it a few times and I still looked puzzled, she finally said it was our colleague sitting at the table who she was in love with, and said his name. While I was a bit in shock, I finally got it – she was in love with our mutual colleague, and he was in love with her.

My entrenched idea of the three of us as colleagues did not allow me to see what was right in front of me. It was too far out of the realm of how I had thought about the three of us for six years. We all laughed at this and have shared this story with many other friends. However, it is the story’s relevance to how our minds sometimes work that causes me to tell it here.

The story illustrates how our present concepts can limit our ability to see new possibilities. While the particular story shared here may seem a bit unusual, the phenomenon is not so unusual.

I invite you to consider today where your present concepts or way of seeing life might be hindering your ability to see possibilities that are right in front of you. This could be an exciting exercise. Perhaps that seemingly intractable problem or issue in your life has an obvious solution, just waiting for your recognition. First, we might need to ask, what do I believe about the situation? Then we might question our own beliefs. How true are they, and to what extent have we given them credence because we’ve held the beliefs for so long?

Remember one of my favorite bumper stickers: “Don’t believe everything you think!”

Enjoy the journey.

Letting Go Into Your Greater Possibility

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by Gregory Toole

So often it seems as human beings we are waiting for the right moment or the right opportunity in order to step into something greater. Yet, metaphysically we know that we co-create our own experience.

Creating that great new opportunity is as much about letting go as it is about accepting the new. In order to create the new, we must let go of the old. The Christian scripture guides us not to pour new wine into old wine skins.

Right now, for the third time in my career, I am releasing a position without a clearly defined next position in sight. Many people look very surprised when I tell them that. Some even look like they are about to administer me a sanity test.

In my experience, however, I find that sometimes I need to let go of what is, before I can discover the new, that it’s a challenge to hold on to the old, while at the same time bringing forth the new. As I write this, I am imagining an interesting visual of someone carrying around a big sack called “the past” on his back, laboring under its weight, while at the same time attempting to be nimble in navigating the newness that is calling him. It’s not a very graceful picture.

In holding onto what is, we get to feel safer and more comfortable, but perhaps that is a false sense of comfort since nothing in the outer world represents our security and all temporal experiences can change. What if we put our sense of security and comfort in our inner power and creativity, our ability to co-create our experience?

Then we’d be able to move as Spirit moves us, rather than as human comfort dictates. Then we wouldn’t be holding so tightly to things and experiences of the world. Grace would be our experience. Change would not concern us very much at all because we’d be in the flow of change, welcoming it, trusting it, knowing it is always a movement toward greater good in our lives.

I would suggest this way of being is what we are being called to. It is a more natural way for us to live in alignment with our spiritual nature.

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