Tag: America

Karma is a ‘Beaut

Homeless Jesus, on unsplash by Randall Greene

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Karma is a ‘Beaut

By Jane Tawel

September 12, 2025

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Back where I am from there is a saying “She’s a ‘Beaut, Isn’t She?” (Pronounced “Byoot”) Translated out of Midwestern or Southern dialect, one might say, “That is very Beautiful” or “She is a Beauty”. Calling something a “beaut”. is often used when referring to a new purchase like a car, or a baby crib, or a cow. There is another saying that may have come to some minds when they read my title, another “B” word that we often link to Karma. It is a word which, as a woman, I dislike intensely and try never to utter. But then also, I have come to connect Karma not with the idea that many Westerners do, which is a type of justice or just deserts (pronounced as in “desserts” with two s’s although spelled with one “s”). Karma is the idea that every action — good, bad, and neutral — have logical and unerringly correct consequences. It goes along with the other spiritual teachings and all true historical worldviews, and along the lines of “Do good and good will come to you”; “You reap what you sow”; poetic justice and just deserts; and so forth. “True Truth, Karma is”, (said in the voice of that wise one called Yoda). Then there is the karmic connection that one can not help but come to mind when I have seen the latest news and social media hype about a person who died last week, and that karmic saying really often does feel like it deserves the other “B” word: “you live by the sword, and you will die by the sword”. Or in America, translated as, “You preached that everyone should be allowed to own and use a gun whenever and however and now you have been killed by a gun that someone had the freedom to use because of people like you.” Karma is often, indeed, if not the “B-word”, oh, so situationally ironic.

I know there are people who are sad about the death of this man who was killed by a gun. In this country, as perhaps in many Western countries, there are several problems surrounding this. The first is that we deny the fact of death and the very real reality that everyone is going to die. So we are just super-duper shocked when someone actually dies. And what with the uber hype of social media and the talking heads that claim they are giving us “news” (Definition of “news” according to the dictionary: newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events.) Hence, I try these days to skim headlines, just to make sure I don’t have to pack my car for the next SoCal fire or to inform myself on what I might expect to find (or not find) at my local grocery, and I move on to more important things — like reruns of “Columbo” on Netflix. Otherwise I can lose whole decades and globs of hair I tear out obsessing about the latest machinations and tweets of crazy people.

The second thing that social media does to skew our view is to make us feel we “know” people that we don’t actually know. I am very glad I never knew anything about — not even the name — of this man that was killed by a gun this past week. He is possibly rolling in his grave to hear that, but there it is. I try my darnedest to spend my valuable and rapidly running out days left on this earth reading about people past and present who matter and who share or increase my understanding of what I, as a little human being, have been called to do (or not do) while I exist as matter on this earth so that in some way, I might matter — not because I am great or famous but because I love. And I believe one thing when I can’t seem to believe anything else, and that is that Love never dies. Love is in some way, some how — Eternal. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that every one, whether they know it or not, lives according to a WORLD- VIEW. I believe my greatest task left to me is to walk that so-called, “narrow path”, The Trustful, Truthful Way, the Tao — and to try my best to stop doing harm, to spread light and love, and to find the peace that passes my current understanding, with trust that God is Good, and that no matter how many times the Earth is destroyed or we destroy it, that Life, and True Life will keep regenerating from our ashes.

Thirdly, there are so many people in this country, and maybe the world, who have no idea what sorrow is and how to grieve. In fact, we deny being sad (we are depressed); we deny grieving (“mama is in heaven now so be happy”); and we deny the fact that we have allowed violence and injustice to thrive in this nation in the name of some idiotic idea that it means we have freedom. In fact, in America, we have taken the word and idea of “freedom”, and made it into a prison of selfish individualism in a nation that cares nothing for its citizens but only for the illusory chimera of wealth for the few and the “bread and circus” promises of winning the lottery for the majority.

Now I am, after having read more headlines about this man who was killed this past week, actually very, very glad I had no idea who he was until recently and that I have no history with ever hearing any thing that came out of his mouth. And please, can we be clear? This man was not “assassinated” like people who were actually killed for speaking up about justice or racial inequity, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This man was not a martyr for his ideals, like Ghandi. This man was murdered by someone who was simply exercising his Second Amendment rights — according to the man who was killed. Do I rejoice in his death? Absolutely not. But not because of him, but because, as that beautiful Christian poet, John Donne, who suffered and sorrowed much, especially over the death of his young son, I believe that “every death diminishes me”. However, do I think this man’s death warrants the hoopla surrounding it. Nope. So, stop reading here if this offends somehow your sensibilities or if you feel that not faking sorrow for a man who did not live in goodness or love for others is a bad thing.

I will tell you about a few of the people that I do not know that I actually do mourn. I mourn the twenty INNOCENT children and six teachers who were murdered at Sandy Hook. (Those children didn’t know that a crazy man was just exercising his Second Amendment rights.) I mourn the deaths of the fourteen students and three staff members killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. (I once lost a job at a Christian school, in part because I allowed my class to participate in the six minutes and twenty seconds of silence for the first “March for Our Lives” national movement day. Long after the scars have healed over, the irony still catches my breath.) I mourn the wives and mothers killed by gun violence in their own homes because their spouse or partner is allowed to keep a weapon despite the fact he is a known domestic abuser. I mourn Trayvon Martin and George Floyd; I mourn Matthew Shephard and Harvey Milk; and already and still — despite the fact it is not the current hot news du jour, I mourn the twenty-nine deaths and sixty serious injuries from school (SCHOOL!!!!) shootings in America in 2025 so far. (When did we stop being shocked by school shootings? That must be the day the soul of America truly died.) And if you get me started on some parts of the rest of the world where children are left to starve and innocent civilians are killed, I will probably implode with disbelief and sorrow to the point I will never stop mourning. “Every death diminishes me”, but the death of innocent children and the death of the innocent reduces me to a pool of sorrow.

Eckhart Tolle has helped me see the current state of many countries in the world, and especially my own nation of the, now seemingly ironically named, “United” States of America. Remember the Corona Virus (for those of you who still believe in science)? Well, we currently have, as Tolle brilliantly sees, a serious mental virus. I would, along with Jesus, be so bold as to call it a spiritual virus as well. That is the only way to explain the absolute insanity of what our government (and others); and some non-government leaders (like those in churches or synagogues or schools); and some random, known and unknown, citizens are believing and “preaching” and doing. It is — no other word for it — INSANE INSANITY. And just as Germany woke up after years of murdering innocent people and labeling people as less than human during the fascist regime of the past (not the current ones). And just as the nation I have loved and long lived in, woke up after we burned women for being witches at the stake because they were strong and outspoken and healers; and woke up after we stole human beings from their land to use as slaves, deeming them less “human” than we were because of their color; and just as we woke up after realizing that women were smart enough to vote and have their own money and property — we might still wake up in time. We might wake up from this horrible nightmare of our own creation in time to save our nation. We might even wake up in time to save other parts of our world, as America has often rallied and risen-up to do. We may even have the guts and righteous reasoning to save our planet.

But we may not.

And with each passing, fearful day, I begin to think perhaps this Insanity Virus, that so many in my country seem to have been infected with, will not be recognized in time and that we will not have the strength or the truthfulness to diagnosis the real problem we have and to turn to the Healers and the Helpers.

And it is, I regret to point out, in great part because we keep breathing in the toxic fumes of people like the man who was murdered this past week. And of course, we keep sucking in the nuclear waste of the supposed leaders who react and mourn this guy who died but not the actual recent assassination of Minnesota Representative Melissa Hotrman.

And we keep denying we have become sick to the point of spiritual death by caring more for what we have (or think we once had) than what we are called to BE. And we think somehow there is not enough to go around, when there is plenty if we are willing to share. And we believe in some future “good” when what we need to do is believe the Truthful Ones, like Jesus, who said, “The Reality of Heaven is NOW, not Then and not Someday. Live Light now, for you are the Light of Awareness and Truth and Love”. And if we lived that way, then we really wouldn’t have to fear death. We could mourn the loss of those who die without losing the sense that as individuals we are impermanent but when we live together in Oneness as part of The One, then death is simply transformation.

When I was in high school, I memorized some scriptures whose meaning has morphed as I have aged and has definitely morphed since I began to see my nation, my world, and myself in different ways. The shock of 2015 for me was that any one who claimed to know or want to know Jesus, the Christ, could ever catch the insanity virus. I thought the “Jesus-Worldview” would make any one immune to worshiping hatred and greed and lies. But as I saw people worship not the Golden Calf of the ancient Hebrews but the Golden Pig(s) of this Uber-Capitalistic Oligarchy, masquerading as supporters of “democracy” and as I witnessed people who would never say a swear word, blaspheming the name of God with their misrepresentation of what we have been told about The Way, and corrupting the ideas of the Judeo-Christian belief system — I realized — people really can go crazy without realizing it. People really have gone insane and I can not imagine they realize they have caught a deadly mental disease. “What does it profit a person if they gain the world (or the Congress or the White House) and lose their soul?”

So here are some things that continue to help me and why I don’t mourn some individual man who spread the Gospel of Hate and whose name will be forgotten in a few years, if not a few weeks. Here are my musings and my meditations on Galatians 2: 20,21)

“I am crucified with Christ”, (that is I die to ego and selfishness and greed and prejudice — and all those things that make me a prisoner of hate and fear) and I am crucified in the way Jesus accepted the reality of suffering and even death and I accept all suffering as crucibles and ultimately the way to Rebirth and Resurrection. “Nevertheless, I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me”, (I seek to know my true “Beingness”, my Soul, my Deep Self that Jesus knew and that God gives all who embrace the “holy spirit”; I seek to live in the Spirit which overcomes not only evil, but also overcomes death. So, when I die to ego and hate and greed and fear, I truly find Eternal Life.) “And the Life which I now live in the flesh, (while I still have a body and still have “stuff”), “I live through the faith of the Son of God” (I trust that I am, as Jesus was and is in a new form, a beloved Child of God), (and so are you, and you, and you, and you and yes, so is even that man who died by a gun and those men and women who are frantically and selfishly intent on destroying our world — we are all beloved children of God) (And so, there has only been and will always be only one Real Reality — and that is Love). (Jane’s current paraphrase of Galatians 2: 20–21)

I will share with you this paraphrased prayer, because I just don’t know what else to say to give you hope, except: May the peace which passes understanding, give you strength to keep fighting and to keep sorrowing and to keep loving to the End of Time and then Beyond Time.

So yes…. Karma is indeed a ‘beaut. Because just as the followers of Jesus wrote, quoted above (albeit in Jane “strange-speak” language), the amazing, wonderous, awesome thing about being a human BEING is that we can, if we choose to, elect to change our overall karmic arc. There are just so many examples of those who have changed their karma — the trajectory of their lives — through one intentionally good action at a time — So many little and great human beings have changed the moral/ karmic arc of their own lives and of history, that the pages in The Good Book can not hold all their names. “We can not all do great things, but we can all do small things with great love”, as that Good Karma Saint, Teresa taught us. And maybe, just maybe, if each one of us allows the Light of Love and Truth and Trust and Hope, to shine through our dense selves, then we will Light a path for those who choose darkness over light, those “blind guides” who choose to lead with hate and fear rather than love and faith. As the children’s song says, “This little light of mine. I’m gonna’ let it shine. Won’t let Satan blow it out — No! I’m gonna’ let it shine”. God willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I will.

I went to a funny little concert a few weeks ago, outside in a big park here in SoCal (SoCal — epicenter of the war waged from afar on justice and kindness). And at the last song of the concert, everyone got out their cell phones and turned on their flashlights and waved them around. Back in the day, we all had lighters to do that, even if we didn’t smoke, and the symbol of a little blaze of fire waving around in one’s teenaged hand was a more complete metaphor back then because of, well, fire. But still, at my recent concert, as you looked around and back and in front and on the overhead screens, you saw a vast ocean of waving lights. All it took, was for this one person to bring the light, and then that one person to bring the light, and then that one, and that one, and that one…. Fear not, my friend and stay strong. And Bring the Light.

You are the “Light of the World”. Let your Light so shine before all human beings, and someday, when you are “going towards the Light”, in those final moments, well, we don’t know what happens next, not really, but if we “do not walk in darkness, we will (for certain) have in hope and in fact, the Light of Eternal Life”. The Great Teachers have pinky promised us that; and I am going to trust them on that promise. One precious moment at a time.

© Jane Tawel, 2025

Will I Stand Up?

by Jane Tawel

Peter Muscutt on Unsplash

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Will I Stand Up?

By Jane Tawel

February 2, 2025

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Will I stand up,

if courage fails?

If lies prevail

and all seems lost?

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Will I stand up

when others scoff?

When I’m cast off

as weak and frail?

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Today I stand

upon The Rock

and weep to see

a House once strong,

now willful, prideful

tearing down

its firm foundations

its Cornerstone,

erecting bent beliefs

on shifting sands.

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Will I stand up

when hope is torn

from bleeding Heart

from bleeding Hands?

No — 

I shall fall…

But I will raise

No flag,

No creed,

No weapon but,

The Banner of

God’s Love for All,

Yes! — “All!” I’ll cry,

with my last breath,

and though I can not stand — 

I’ll crawl.

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© Jane Tawel

Never Regret Betting on Hope, Even if it Seems Your Horse Badly Lost the Race

by Jane Tawel

kazuend on Unsplash

Never Regret Betting on Hope, Even if it Seems Your Horse Badly Lost the Race

By Jane Tawel

November 14, 2024

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A couple days after the shockwaves of what America and many Americans have become was revealed on November 5, 2024, my husband turned to me and sadly said, “I want my money back”. He felt he had bet on the wrong “horse” in the race to save America.

A lot of people may feel that they took a chance, made a bet and somehow, they made a mistake because they lost a race (or several races as the case may be). I imagine there has been among the “losing horses” in our recent national and state races, as so often is the case, of what I think is called “fifth quarter quarterbacking” (I may have that idiom wrong as I am not an acolyte of the religion of football). But I have ignored all news since that day when America chose evil over good (yes, I will say it because it is obviously the case). I have never been a looky-loo and when I see a horrible accident on the side of the road, I purposely turn away. I did my part in trying to prevent the train-wreck that Americans seem to want to create and now, frankly, I need to focus on, what someone once wisely called “the things that shall remain” — faith, hope, and love. As Jesus advised, I will give “Caesar” what is “Caesar’s” and I will turn towards the things I can do both for the little world I actually inhabit, and the Earth that I need to do my part to save, but most importantly, I will turn inward and work on my Self, and Soul. More than ever before in my life, I will work on forgiving others, and take to heart, mind, and soul, the profound words of Jesus: “What does it profit anyone if they gain both houses and the White House — I mean — gain the World — but lose their own precious soul?”

And so, I said to my husband, “I understand your disappointment, but never regret placing a bet on hope.”

All races are temporal, but when you choose Hope, you are connecting with what is divine and of that which is eternal. Because when we are gone from this “mortal coil”, we have to believe that all the spiritual wise Ones were right — the things that are True, the things that are Noble, the things that are deeply and truly in us of faith, hope, Goodness, Righteousness, Nobility, Honesty, and above all what is in us of Love — will somehow, somewhere, in some way — Remain — eternally Being.

And I choose today to also forgive those who chose to place their bets on a horse that may have won, but that is full of literal and figurative disease and corruption. I am working on it, but I am more and more finding it in my heart to pity the “winners” who have no idea what they have actually lost. For what does it profit you if you win everything — the whole enchilada — but do so by losing hope, love, joy, kindness, truthfulness, and open-minded acceptance of others? Why would I ever want to live a life where I have no love for other people, who in their differences are really just like I? I choose to pity people who seem to have everything but don’t understand the words of Jesus — I pity them because I, too, have been just like them at times. And so, when I forgive them, I am on the path to forgiving myself. What does it profit you if you gain “stuff” — if you gain a false certainty about you, your ego and your beliefs and your “team”, but lose the One thing that matters — Love, The Oneness? I remind myself each day: Forgiveness and Pity — those are things I try to do for me and my soul, even if no one knows I forgive them. Even if they don’t think they need it. So, I encourage you to forgive. And to pity. For as Jesus said, “in the measure you forgive, you will find forgiveness.” Forgive the foolish ones. But also forgive the evil ones. Eva Kor, a survivor of the Holocaust, amazingly was able to say this: “Anger is a seed for war. Forgiveness is a seed for peace”; and “Forgive your worst enemy. It will heal your soul and set you free.” Plant the right seeds in your soul today. Seeds of love, hope, forgiveness, and peace. Bloom where you are planted — which is really just your “own back yard”.

So I am seeking freedom from my thoughts and feelings about the past, and freedom from my fears about the future of this nation, this species, this planet. I am focusing only on taking the one step that is the only step I can actually take in the “journey of a thousand steps”. And I am trusting, having faith, that whatever is Good in me and others, will remain, and that all else will burn as dross. I am trusting that the words of that great Shakespearean politician and someone later revealed to be a shyster and power-monger, Marc Antony, are not true, and that “the evil that men do actually does die with them and will be interred with their bones, but that the Good will live long after them.” If that is not true, then I have been long mistaken about what kind of God might be in charge of this Cosmos. Hold tight to what you know in your heart must be true about reality. After all, how many quotes do you remember by bad, evil people and how many do we live by or try to live by when they are spoken by good people? As Martin Luther King, Jr. encourages us, “We shall overcome, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward Justice.”

Races come and go. Nations come and go. And while it is tragic and horrible to watch a nation I was born in, lived in, and loved my whole life, die a horrible death by its own foolish, greedy, mistaken, and for some, downright evil hands — America was bound to die some day. All nations do. The Bible predicts it. So did George Orwell. And while I am heartbroken that America has decided to die by means of suicide — you know — it is just a nation after all. Just a place and time in history that like all temporal things, is impermanent. Unlike me. Unlike you. Unlike Hope. Unlike Love.

I am all for people still trying to save America. There has always been so much possibility here, so if that is still motivating you, keep your chin up and keep working at it. But at the same time, I do believe that as Jesus and much later, C.S. Lewis taught, we live in whatever “Kingdom” we long for Now — Today. Either you — personally, in your heart, mind and will — live in a kingdom of heaven or you live today in a kingdom of hell. Either you are working for and living in the Kingdom of God and Light — of our better angels and nirvana and Good — or you live — today — now — in a kingdom of “Satan” — darkness — pride, greed, fear, anger, prejudice, racism, and control-freakishness. Either you choose to live in the Light of The Now, when you are all you need to be and have to live — fully and richly and joyfully, as Christ and all great spiritual truth-tellers lived and taught — or you choose to try to live in a past that never existed, because only the Present has ever existed, but you choose to believe there was a time in the Past where you had more, were more, and that the way for you to get back to that place is to take things from other people or inflict your beliefs on other people by force. Your choice.

And just because over half of Americans have made the wrong choice for their lives and for our nation — don’t regret your choice to bet on Hope, to live by the Light of Truth, to seek to love others as you love yourself, never forcing them to believe as you do, but simply letting your Light shine. And never regret a single moment when you felt joy or a single moment when you turned the other cheek or a single moment when you rose above your fears or anger or sorrow and chose to truly Hope and to truly Love. Psalms 51:10 is my prayer today: “God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

Two mornings after the end of the latest race in the world’s history of races, and fights between Good and Evil, and warmongers winning over peace-makers — I was running the trail with my very early morning people, most of whom I don’t know by name, only by sight. I did meet Paige and her wife one time, when we were both donating blood at the Red Cross. I said to her as she lay on the table, giving her blood for the sake of others (allusion to Jesus intentional), “Aren’t you on the trail in the wee hours?” She said, “Yes! I’m Paige. Aren’t you “hey-hey Woman”?” (My Kentucky ancestors come out strong in the wee hours on my jogs.) Since that time, many moons ago, Paige and Jane have said “Good Morning (Paige)” or “Hey-ya” (Jane) as we bop along on the trail and pass each other. On November 5th, Paige passed me and gave me the thumbs up sign. I said, “Here’s hoping!” Two days after November 5th, I started to pass Paige, and I saw even in the dark before dawn, tears welling up in her eyes. I stopped, and meekly, tentatively went to her and just put my hand lightly on her shoulder and said, “Take care of yourself today. Take care of your people. Love yourself and love those in your life.” Paige nodded and we went our opposite ways.

And so, with deep humility, I say to you as well: Take care of yourself today. And by that, I mean, take care of your soul — that which is eternal. And take care of your people. They need you. And yes, it is always darkest before the Dawn, but never regret spending your money, your time, or your energies on Hope. Or Joy. Or Love. Always keep hoping to create Good in the place you live in and the people you live with. Remember the words of The Greats, who lived in a world exactly like ours but overcame the negative and eternally live on forever in word and deed, and in Spirit. Keep letting the eternal things motivate you. Forget the Past. Let Tomorrow take care of itself — it is not within your power to do anything about it today — except to keep your hope alive and to keep trusting in the Power of Good.

So, if you are finding yourself today still in a “mountain of despair”, believe as the great Black Preacher and Christ follower told us, in every mountain we must climb, there is a “stone of hope”. Believe as Jesus taught that it not through faith in any one else or anything else, it is Your Faith that will heal you. And believe as he did, that it is you and your soul that above all is a “pearl beyond all price”. You above everything are worth saving. You may not save this nation. You may not be able to save even those you love from making bad choices. And we may not still have time to save ourselves from the most immediate future of trials and tribulations. But we can save and hold fast and tight to those things that remain forever — faith, love, and hope.

© Jane Tawel, 2024

Postscript:

My words are meager, but please remember the words of better folks than I who kept betting on hope, no matter what.

Remember the words of Saint Emily:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops — at all –

And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet — never — in Extremity,

It asked a crumb — of me.

Remember the words of the Healer (Doctor) Martin Luther King spoken two months before he gave his life for us by an assassin’s bullet, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope”.

Remember the words of the Psalms. Psalms 37, 51, 34, and so forth: Hope renews your strength.

And remember how you felt, probably like I did, when you had hope and joy and love. Claim them for yourself and your loved ones, right now. They are not a bad bet — they are your right and they will help you heal the world, heal the planet, and heal your soul.

© Jane Tawel, 2024

Living in Historical Times

by Jane Tawel

“Justice Is Blind” by Jo Zimny Photos is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

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Living in Historical Times

By Jane Tawel

June 10, 2023

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So, today my country makes history, yet again. This time, the history making event, is one of huge proportions, of criminality, of power abused, and the abuse of power revealed and charged.

Today, the purpose of the American judicial system is revealed for what it was, at its best, meant to achieve. No one is privileged under the rule of law, which is meant to be the same for every citizen of a democratic nation. It has rarely, rarely, rarely been in this country, or any country, but today it is. Today, my nation also takes seriously, and lets every citizen know, that espionage, is still a “thing”, and it is dangerous and it is punishable by the highest courts in the nation. There have been many who escape our laws, because they have enough money to do so. Today, at least for a while, we can believe that whether you are white or black, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, born here or born elsewhere and melded into the American quilt of

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore”; no matter what your last name is or how many buildings you may have it emblazoned on or spray painted on; that we, the American people, will assume you are innocent, but if you are proved guilty, you will be brought to justice, because we, the American people, deserve justice for all.

The last time I felt the kind of “we are making history” feeling, I have today, was when I got my first Covid shot, in a big tented parking lot at Cal Poly University, where nurses from all over the United States had been flown to various other locations, put up in hotels, away from their families, but dedicated to the cause of helping us fight the first world pandemic since the early 20th Century. Masked, and still afraid after months of fear, I felt so very brave. I felt that I was connected to the many Americans, not only getting a vaccine shot today to keep themselves and others safe and alive, but to the many Americans who had lived through rations during World Wars, who had fought for a cause other than oil or land, but for human rights and to defeat those nations who would abuse their power by making racism or greed an excuse for the horrors of war. I felt that as the smallest of all citizens in this nation, I was, by doing my part, a part of the Whole. I was making history.

And the time before that, when I, with very little hope that it could happen, experienced the pure elation of seeing history in the making, a night when I spontaneously wept with the joy of disbelief, was the night I gathered with my family, around our television set, and watched history being made with the announcement that my nation now had a Black President. I am not the one who has the right to enumerate my country’s sad history of racially motivated wrongs, (beginning with the genocide of First Nation peoples), but in this case, more specifically the enslavement and horrors inflicted upon African, i.e. Black slaves, and I can not speak to the heart-wrenching stories I read daily of the American racism that leads to the abuse of power, biased judicial rulings and imprisonments, and insane worship of an old document’s amendment to make excuses for the greed that rules our gun laws in this nation, of which Black citizens are most at risk for being the victims of. But I can speak to the moment, on November 4, 2008, when my four children, my husband and I, heard the most amazing thing, I never thought I would hear: The next President of The United States is Barack Obama. And I, as the most insignificant little person, in what was meant to be, “One Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”; I had one little vote to cast, and with that vote, I was part of an historical moment, that had never happened before.

Sometimes, the moment of making history in the world, is clouded and unseen. We may never have the privilege of knowing that what is happening today in our country, will have ramifications for good or evil, for better or worse. History is mostly hindsight, and it will be for others to write, as Charles Dickens once famously wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

There are many days, to quote another profound writer, I fear I am but one little ant, “living a quiet life of desperation”, and that we Americans will never turn the corner of helping our nation return to its once lofty goals, or that, God help us (literally) we humans will never manage to save our gasping for air, poor Mother Earth, or that people of good conscience will never humble themselves to understand what their God desires for them and all, “The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love” (Psalm 33:5). But today, there is, in the midst of so much darkness, light; in the midst of so much injustice, equality; in the midst of so much fear, hope. And I feel hope for my nation, and for all of us who foolishly believe that we need something we do not have when what we have is all we need — because we have each other, and we have the freedom, and the right, and the oh, so very important necessity to say:

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary…. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…..He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good……And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” (from The Declaration of Independence, 1776)

History being made doesn’t always feel good. It certainly has never been, nor should it be, easy. But then, most good things, most right things, most important things, and all sacred things and sacred trusts, have never come easy, nor should they. For we humans are meant to understand that not only are we privileged with godlike rights on this Earth, but we are tasked with God-like responsibilities. We are created to be our best when we are creative, not destructive; when we are truthful, not deceptive; when we are united, not divided; when we are just, not unjust; and when we give up our prejudices, our covetousness, our fears, and our hatred, for the freedom of treating others, as we would require and wish all to be treated.

Today, is that paradigm of an historical moment that is both sad and happy, both shocking and reassuring, both frightening and hopeful. Today, I am a part of history. You are a part of history. And of course, once we realize we are alive to see history being made, all there is really left for us to do is ask ourselves, “What will we who are privileged to be alive today, leave for our children?” For history is never made to make a name for those alive in it, for all names are eventually forgotten in the tides of time and men. History-making is to make a future for the children, and the grandchildren, and the beautiful, beautiful planet on which we are privileged to come from and return to. For “from dust we are made, and to dust we will return.” But today, a little speck of history’s dust has landed upon my shoulders, and I shall hold it carefully, as a sacred trust of hope, that sometimes, the very present moment can assure us, that “it is well and all will be well.”

© Jane Tawel, 2023

Auschwitz, America, and Jesus on the Cross 

“Easter at Taizé” by Maciej Biłas is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

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Auschwitz, America, and Jesus on the Cross

By Jane Tawel

April 8, 2023

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My title sounds kind of like a long string of swear words, doesn’t it? Maybe all swear words come from the cry of the heart to understand and the realization that gosh darn it, I just don’t understand and never will and that makes me crazy. So here is a rapidly written improvisation on thoughts that go way, way down deep inside of me and a reflection on the season and my choice of how to spend the Big Day.

*

Please do not think that in any way I have the ability or the right to speak about the horrors of the Holocaust or the experience in history of being a Jewish person. I do however, hope to be a person who tries to “come alongside” others in what makes us different and what makes us have the commonality of being human beings. I have also spent a long life trying to understand a religion that began honorably as the religion of the Hebrews or Jews, and that has morphed into a religion based supposedly and almost solely on the experience and life of one Jewish man named Yeshua, Joshua, or now known as Jesus.

*

There are far better scholars, historians, theologians, and mystics than I who can write about Auschwitz, America, and Jesus. But tomorrow I hope to spend what will be for me, the strangest Easter day I have ever chosen to spend. Tomorrow I will go spend the day in which others are celebrating spring, and chocolate, and the idea that one man conquered death, by rising from a grave; and I will spend it by visiting the world-renowned exhibit, “Auschwitz”, now at the Reagan Library in Southern California. Yes — I know, your head just went — POW! Your mind is exploding with just, like, okay, wow — so much to unpack there, Miss Jane.

*

I will spend tomorrow at a presidential library, that is a super wonderful place to go to look through a historical lens, and my husband and I have enjoyed learning much at the Reagan Library among other museums throughout America and the world. But let’s be clear, on the other hand, our American monuments have been created in honor of a nation of exacerbating excess and ego and power and greed as only an uber-capitalistic nation can be, and as, if you look to history and any spiritual teaching, all nations are prone to go, more or less, sooner or later.

Tomorrow, I will be looking at the truth of the horrors and evil that humans can do to other humans in the name of nation or religion and the underlying reasons of power and excess and ego and greed, and I will do that while the world celebrates a man who was crucified by a nation and religion dedicated to power and excess and ego and greed. And I will have to look deeply within myself at my own proclivity to “sin”, my desire and use of my own human tendency to deny who I am created to be and who all of us were created to be, and instead act on my own dedication to power and excess and ego and greed. My own evolving worldview continually throws up at me that there can be no “hostis humani generis” (enemies of mankind) if there is no acceptance on my part of mea maxima culpa (my own most grievous fault).

*

And what I hope is that as I desire more and more to live a life of Rising, a life of Resurrection to the Divinity in myself and therefore, in each Child of God; a life that dies to the excess and power-needs and greed and false sense of ego within myself; I hope and yes, pray that I will glimpse that there is a Life that is the opposite of all those things because True Life has no need of them. I honestly believe that deep down, to riff on the famous quote by the dear suffering, murdered Jewish girl of the Holocaust, Anne Frank, that “people are really truly longing to be good at heart.” I want to believe that every one of us, really only desires a Life without fear or hatred that is eternal, full of Truth and Love. And I hope I will find tomorrow, in the remembrance of a horrible, horrible thing that humans did to others humans, and the despair I feel knowing it happens again and again in my world, over and over again and is happening in my very own backyard now — I hope I will also remember and as those who suffered most at Auschwitz say to “never forget”, that there is also, even in the darkest of times, the darkest of days, the darkest of hopes, there is always a remnant, there is always a person, there are always those who Rise above and create in themselves that which Jesus created in himself, there is always a harbinger of Light. Today, may you accept, may I accept, this assurance from Jesus, “You are the Light of the World. Let your light shine”.

*

May I, who so often, fear there is no more light at the end of this tunnel, know that, though the tomb may be sealed and death may be certain, there will always be just enough, just enough of us, to keep the Divine Light of the Human Spirit Alive! And that that Holy Spirit will always find a way to Rise above. Tomorrow I will choose to suffer with those who have suffered the worst that a human being can suffer. I will remember the Jews of Auschwitz and those others who are “different” according to the Powers that Currently Are. Tomorrow I will let my heart and mind suffer with those who suffered for their belief in a God Who is their One Truth, The One Love, The One Who Saves. I will honor with my small little day upon this Earth, those Jews who suffered as the descendants of a man named Yeshua /Jesus. Tomorrow, I will come to pay my respects to those who also had to suffer the worst that a human being can suffer for their belief in One God, a god above all others, a god above all nations and other powers that would fear the power of Love. And tomorrow, on a day that we celebrate the Risen Spirit of Salvation, I will pay my respects to the Jew, Yeshua, called the Christ, who was a single little human being who in his fight against nations and the religions who worship the power of nations, in his fight against the false gods of excess, greed and ego, conquered them all by simply dying to all of them, and rising to a whole new existence and a whole new awareness of what it means to be a Child of God.

May I, as I look upon the cross of Auschwitz, know what it means to “take up my own cross”. Yes. I must choose, in much smaller ways every day, to suffer with others, to suffer for what I have chosen wrongly, and then to know that we all have a choice every day — to stay in the tomb, to stay in the suffering, or to Resurrect to New Life.

May all the faith and love and goodness that lies within you today, be resurrected to the hope of salvation and the assurance that eternal life is yours to choose in Divine Love. Today. Let your light so shine.

*

© Jane Tawel, Saturday before the Resurrection, 2023

Loss of IQ in America Leads to Killings

Loss of IQ in America Leads to Killings

by Jane Tawel

Victims’ Families outside Colorado Springs LGBTQ Night Club

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My daughter told me the other day that there is a documentary detailing the extreme loss of IQ Americans had due to lead in our water and houses and gasoline etc. etc. That is the only thing I can think of that could possibly be the reason for how insane I find current America to be. We are waking up today with another mass shooting — another murder of five people, five families, countless friends and co-workers destroyed by the lack of IQ and complete loss of true ethics of an entire nation by default — and no it wasn’t senseless — it was the sense of hatred and the rational of “freedom” which has become simply a freedom to do evil because the rich and powerful like staying rich and powerful behind their bodyguards and protected security details while the rest of us are confused by the fact they say they want to save fetuses but we forget they don’t want to save our actual children. And this country will not look itself in the face and say, hey, this hasn’t been a democracy for a long time — it’s an oligarchy and it is time to look at what this country is really based on — greed at the top and fear at the bottom.

And all I can do is say, well, I have to do better myself. I have to stop the greed in myself. I have to stop the fear in myself. And I will not be silent but I will also not put my hope in anything but a different way of living. And I will try not to fear but I will stay angry and I will try to find some religious offering tables to turn over and I will paint sacrificial blood on the door of my heart that I will not return hatred in return for hatred and that fear will not visit the house of my mind and heart today but that I will see the American Pharaohs for what they are and always have been and always will be, and I will find that I must put my trust and hope elsewhere.

Let us find each other, and put our hope and trust in each other’s capacity and will to Love. Today I will pray for the mothers and fathers and siblings and friends of those most recent victims and martyrs to American Hatred and Greed and I will — Look to the helpers, as Mr. Rogers said. Look to the poor in spirit, as the Christ would say. Look to The Way, The Tao that all spiritually evolved saviors point to and then I will ask myself, “well, what can I do?” Well….. maybe just like Seuss’ Who’s in Whoville, if enough of us say “We are here. We are here. Here am I, Lord, send me.” — well, maybe…. maybe we can save this poor ole good idea for a kingdom/nation called America, and maybe we can save the world, and maybe we can save the planet. But…. today I will weep because we can’t save five more innocent people in Colorado Springs, America. When will we care enough about each other to say, “Enough!”?

© Jane Tawel, 2022

Dead Angels

Angel by Capt Piper

Dead Angels

By Jane Tawel

June 29, 2022

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“Your angels are dying,” She said.

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And so, we found our excuses

to offer to the God,

we had created —  all red, white and blue,

in our own image.

But if we had read it correctly,

we would have known;

there is only One God,

and He is the one who accepts,

no excuses.

*

“Your angels are dying,” She said.

*

The problem is, angels need a lot of care.

And we were once unwilling,

we are now, unwilling;

the nation was unwilling;

the churches were unwilling;

and so, the Spirit of the Age,

began to shrivel and clutch,

in very wealthy widow’s weeds.

*

I don’t know how it is in other places,

but here I know we worship money;

we worship power;

we worship who we think we are.

And we put little God stickers on the outside of it all,

reducing a Savior’s price,

so we can get more buyers.

We pray prayers of helplessness,

to make us feel safer,

to get us off the hook of actually doing anything,

to make sure Jesus takes the fall. Again.

And while outside, our Easter finery is shiny,

like newly minted thirty pieces of silver,

inside, we are rotting like hidden corpses,

hiding from ourselves,

hiding from The Source.

*

“Your angels are dying,” She said.

*

A Human-being once called us ‘white-washed tombs’.

and while we focus on unfulfilled wombs,

we don’t mind killing, no not at all,

while America’s better angels go AWOL

As long as our left hand is in the till,

our right hand ignores the Pearls — for swill.

And so, the Angels of America writhe.

And while we think we can buy God with our tithe,

we take God’s name in vain.

Our worship is profane,

because we keep leaving out Love,

and the freedom to choose

from the Eternal Equation of

God + me =Living Christ.

Instead, we have made God in our own image,

and not in the image of Them,

and we have left Christ on the cross,

so we can go shopping and buy cheaper gas.

Because who needs angels,

when we have nuclear weapons and assault rifles?

Who needs angels,

when we can blame our inner demons,

on some one who is not like us?

*

“Your angels are dying,” She said.

*

Now let us bow our heads,

in the prayer of Our Holy Flag,

and place our hope in a worship of past successes,

and the catechism of power-full-ness,

and the holy rites of more-ness-ness,

and the “our way or the highway”

of laws without consequences

for anyone but Lazarus at the gate.

And fingers crossed,

that we can keep believing that our own cross,

is bearing the pangs of the Dow Jones.

And hopefully, angels and demons are not real,

and the Kingdom of some old documents

can take the place of Heaven on Earth.

*

© Jane Tawel, June 2022

**Written with fear and trembling and much gratitude for the works of Walter Wink.

God, Racism, and America

By Jane Tawel

March 26, 2021

man in black suit holding white printer paper
https://unsplash.com/photos/72gPbaJt-_k

My friend got me thinking today about racist policies and systemic racism in this country. Well, how are not we thinking about that — we should not “move on” from incident to incident like lemmings. So I thought I would share some meditations on that here as well (does Jane never get tired of putting targets on her metaphorical back, you ask? No, heaven forbid when so many people of color have not just metaphorical but literal targets on their backs.)

Thank you, Kathleen — Tough conversations on racism in our policies and systems sounds like a good conversation. Especially religious people (and unbelievably sadly those who claim the religion of The Christ) people in this country seem to have totally lost any comprehension that evil, injustice, prejudice, selfishness, lies, false pride, yes, racism, misogyny, ignorance, hate, foolishness — all are not just part of the individual’s human condition, but also part of human created and run systems. How could it not be otherwise and yet we cling to an ignorant understanding that it is only about the morality and ethics of individuals and not communities, businesses, and nations.

By denying systemic racism, or any other ill, we can hide in our closets of self-protected self-denial — the “I’m not racist” argument. Which for Bible readers should make us tremble since it sounds much like the defensive arguments of the goats on Christ’s judgment day. America’s worship of individualism and what makes someone a success is in complete contradiction to the principles of any religion’s idea of God’s mandates, but it is a complete travesty of what Jesus taught and lived. Mea culpa!

Racist policies and a racist history that continues to be a racist present, when not seen as one of America’s great ongoing sins can never be fixed and healed if we don’t even acknowledge our mutual acceptance of “the ways things are”. By continuing to point fingers, we neglect the four pointing back at us. By focusing only on “me”, and whether I think I am racist, I will never see that just because I myself, am not drowning, does not mean I am not flailing about in the same sea of systemic racism. We need to pull everyone up on the raft, and then fix the ship, folks.

Any one who reads the Bible should know better, and yet…. In America, we keep looking at the individual and trying to assess with our excruciatingly self-centered thinking: “is he/ she racist or not?” But that is like looking at a whole forest and picking out one diseased tree that is racist in a forest of disease and racism. We must look to the forest’s diseases as well and join hands and hearts to root out the bad and heal and nurture the good. I must help to make the hard and good and Godly choices for all if I want to be better and good and Godly myself.

God, help me today to do something for someone else and help me to find whatever I can do to use my own little hand, joined with others’, to fight the breakage in the dam continuing to break with the weight of racism in this nation, in our world.

We Hold These Truths

from Jane Tawel

If only they had listened to Jefferson: “The idea of amending constitutions at regular intervals dates back to Thomas Jefferson. In a famous letter, he wrote that we should “provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods.” “Each generation” should have the “solemn opportunity” to update the constitution “every nineteen or twenty years,” thus allowing it to “be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of time.”(The New Republic)

Lately I have realized how little I know about how things “should” work in my own nation and how they “do or don’t” work comparatively. I completely agree it is time every citizen was more educated in civics and through that education that the people are heard in terms of changes that need to be made yesterday. We must ask ourselves — when does a document like a government charter (which is what our Constitution is) become an idol to worship and not a tool to use for the good of the people? There are a couple other idolized documents I can think of that we should be better educated in and asking these questions about as well, but that’s a whole other can of manna.

As Jesus, the brilliant student of Torah law and the expert in the government charters of Israel said, we are meant to fulfill and live out these truths as guides, not worship or desecrate our written guides by our inability to change and be changed by “these truths that God and humans hold self-evident”…. We will be thinking about the story of that great statesman Pilate soon and his sad, sarcastic, narcissistic and oh so telling question that he asked of Jesus: “What is Truth?” We should not put up with our officials today asking the same thing — we should be the answer — We are the Truth of which you are merely the temporary guardians of.

To riff on an oldie — instead of “following the money”, we must start to “Follow the Truth”. And the questions are always the same for individual, community, and nation: Who do we want to be? What are we called to do? What changes do we need to make to be and do that which is our highest calling?

~~ Let’s do this, folks. Let’s help each other. I know I could use it. ~~Jane

The Idols

by Jane Tawel

January 7, 2021

10 Weirdly Specific Gods Your Mythology Class Left Out - Listverse

I never understood how people could worship foolish looking, or stupid, or downright evil idols instead of the true God. I looked at history, both Biblical and not, and thought, well people are smarter now, people are better now, and surely people know about Jesus now, so idol-worship is over, right? I never understood how people could sacrifice their own children on the alter of nationalism or class- privilege or misguided entitlement in order to feel like they were going to be taken care of by the gods who merely laughed and ate their babies. I never really understood how people could do violence, not to get the bread they needed to survive or to fight for their rights or justice, but to placate a human-being they had made into a god — like a pharaoh, or a fuhrer or a president on his way out. I never really got how the Christ could say “people will claim they know me, but I sadly will have to say, ‘I never knew you'”. Then 2016 happened in this country, and then 2017, and 2018, and 2019, and 2020, and then yesterday happened, and that finally confirmed it; I think I understand. We may not be what we eat, but we are what we worship.