4^th of July, Declaring our Independence again Today by Deepening the Dream.

“Power, properly understood, is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose.  And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposite, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love.  We’ve got to get this thing right.  What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.  Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.  It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our time.” Martin Luther King in 1967 in his last presidential address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

How to bring greater understanding, resonance relationships through liberty, freedom and rights of all people now?  I believe the words have to go into to us, we must embody them and our lives must model this in the world, but not in isolation, because no one can do this alone, but rather community.  We must have more truth, love and people willing to step up and give ‘voice’ to this in the toughest of circumstances.

Today, we are in the eye of the storm, a vast over-commitment of military reserves/resources, (out of control) healthcare costs, education challenged on every corner, twin deficits with no real plan for course correction, anti-Americanism around the world with so-so solutions there, climate change acting out all over the world and this isn’t the first time on any count.  What are we learning here?

For one, I say, given the current political divide people will tend to give up.  To restore the American Dream at a Deeper Level of resiliency, the people must unite.  Morning Joe began months ago talking about the grace and potential of simple political civility.  But, that didn’t last long.  If you watched last week you saw Mark Halpern, MSNBC Sr. Political Analysis, comment to the contrary, the controversy  and instant termination on that note.

I say we take civility to the next step of greater respect through ‘inclusiveness’, where we ‘integrate minds, systems, disciplines for greater performance/results.  We’ve seen this now in science, the arts, medicine and it is what I lovingly refer to as Whole Health. Whole health has roots in our ancient wisdom where Washington started us off combining faith and fairness in the period of Enlightenment, then Lincoln, a great systems strategist, reaching across the great divides, politically, spiritually, socially.  Fast forward to Franklin Roosevelt, a man of inclusion, and the partisan New Deal, add Truman, Kennedy before we got into ‘polarization and letting whatever thought slips into our brains, pop out of our mouths’.

How do we take the first step to being able to see ourselves and others together again?  I say, we have to be more thoughtful and think together, which is part of the new LifeLong Learning Series, starting at Webster Univ. in WingHaven this August 10 through the 25.  As soon as the kids are in school, you get into a league of your own with one day slated for whole health beginnings, the second for going deeper in Master Classes with local Masters.  We will see each other in different ways, think together in different ways, ask questions in different ways and experience a different freedom in different ways.  Starting with the freedom  of ‘illusion’.