Relational Reality, Monday, December 17, 2012:

Wellness Without Walls is about bringing down the walls and flattening the hierarchal chasm obstructing WholeHealth Wealth in our world.  We are not going to turn an upside down world right side up with a few people over here making a change or two. . .another small group over there tweeting, connecting a couple of dots.  Rather what is required is observing the big picture, the patterns of life and co-creating a morphed energy field from the collective efforts our of new conscious conversations.  Ideas, efforts and passions grow stronger institutionally when shared.  Individually, we get more aligned with our natural selves and spiritually guided as greater wisdom emerges in our environment.  Therefore our efforts are a two sided economic coin.  Wellness Without Walls operates on two planes:  Individually, grassroots and Institutionally, main street specifically to support local small businesses and community organizations.

We are ‘C’ students on a good day, meaning “We know what to do, but we aren’t doing it.”  Being ‘kind of, sort of, spouting off’ committed does not cut it in a country with a crisis literally on every causal corner.  It’s great that we offer money to our favorite church or charity, that we talk a good game, but the Leadership, Sentient Humans required for this Radical Revolution calls US to BE the CHANGE with OUR LIFE AS OUR MESSAGE NOW. . .otherwise as Gandhi says “We are NOT in our RIGHT minds.”   We all just witnessed what that looks like. . .again.  So, how long do we accept the same ole, status quo?  What is it going to take to break these cycles of violence we allow to happen ‘en masse’ on this earth and to our planet?  GK Chesterton was asked to respond to an article, What’s Wrong with the World, and he wrote back simply saying, “I Am!”   This world is a reflection of who we are and what we are about as a nation, simply note the patterns and connect the dots. Some might conclude we are ‘failing’ actually.

The Wealth of WholeHealth: Part V, Well Being

Well Being.. Wellbeing has its roots in a number of languages; among them, Latin (salus), Hebrew (shalom), Arabic (salaam), French (sante), Italian (salut) and Spanish (salud). Cognates: health, welfare, peace, wellbeing, integrity, whole(ness), salutary.

“Regardless of culture or creed and whether one is religious or not, humans share basic spiritual . . .needs for love, faith, hope, virtue and beauty. . .which when unfulfilled can lead to significant spiritual suffering.” Bartel, 2004. “People have a fundamental right to have their cultural, psychosocial, spiritual and personal values, beliefs and preferences respected.” JCAHO, 2006.

 Therefore it is the role of individuals and institutions to protect those rights, it is the right thing to do if we care about health, as opposed to more disease which, without change, is coming. Spirituality is the way we find meaning, purpose, hope, connection, inner peace, relationship with ourselves and others and with the transcendent where the transcendent, is understood in different ways: God, the Sacred, the Divine, Higher Power, Mystery, or that which is of ultimate meaning or highest value. Spirituality provides the Well Being of the people helping them to know who they are, what their gift is to their family and the planet, the deeper meaning of life, why there is evil in this world, why there is suffering. In this view, spirituality is the ‘existential core of human well being.

 Bottom Line: There is a very strong relationship between spirituality and well being. It is the window for personal transformation and growth so that all of us become responsible for the Wealth WholeHealth can offer this country. This means we have the rights to refuse treatment and request treatment of our choosing. If we are about creating Holy/Healthy Ground for our Beloved Communities I propose we examine, research and rethink:

· Social Justice: Empowering people to take a stand and find their own meaning, value and voice it.

· Politics: Helping people more with life’s deeper questions.

· Economics: Welcome paradox, ambiguity and trusting what emerges.

· Education: Crafting centers, circles, methodology groups of greater listening & conversation.

· Well Being: Awaken people to their true nature.

The second tenet of the Declaration of Independence states that all men¹⁴ are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness . . . ." Therefore there is a spiritual quality to the fundamental nature of our civil government I want to respect here.  Spirit means breath and breath is the essence of our life force.  We are losing our health, we are losing our country and in order to course correct, we must recover a reverence for our life force, we must regain a sense of the sacredness about this planet, and each other in order to assure a sustainable society of well being.

The Wealth of WholeHealth: Part IV Education

Education. Etymologically educare means "to lead out"--to liberate, to set free. Education is an exodus from ignorance and provides an exodus from poverty and disease (dis-ease). Now, to learn O.E. leornian “to get knowledge’ be cultivated, read, think about. O.H.G lenen “to learn” with a base sense to follow and find the track. 

 The Gettysberg address: “this nation, under god, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863.

 And it’s not that we need these sacred writings; our sacred writings, to be living truths, need us. It is the task of this generation (especially 60’s children) to break through the walls before us to atone for our errors and reactivate our commitment to the promulgation of our strengths. Never has there been a time in our history when it was more imperative for people to think for themselves. Lots of people today have opinions, but too few are doing their very best thinking. The prophetic voice in America today is we must (Repent, which literally means Rethink and Change). We are failing collectively to be vigilant on behalf of our own good.

There is a dire need to align priorities with new Realities.  One reason we are so stressed out and messed up today is that we spend way too much time on things that are not important, period.  Our institutions, our cities, our society, our nation are all in crisis on multiple levels.  WholeHealth is after no less than the integration of five major components : Social Justice, Politics, Economics, Education, Well Being.  Without this systems strategy there will be no healing for the individual and no healing of America because we are not LEARNING.

When the Gettsberg address was written, Lincoln wrote "of the people, by the people, and for the people" and assumed we would have a ‘highly educated culture’ with a free press. Our people are not getting the best education in the world, our people are not getting the best healthcare, food, clean energy sources, or accurate information on all of the above.

 The antidote to the current dissolution is renewed dedication to the people because people, can’t give what they don’t have, people can’t do what they don’t know.  But when people  know better, they do better. G.K. Chesterton, often referred to as "The Prince of Paradox"  was asked, “What do you see as the biggest problem in the world today, and he responded I AM.” When we can ask the question, what do you see as the greatest solution for the world today, and our  esponse is,  "I AM", now, we’re getting somewhere.

The Wealth of WholeHealth, Part III Economics

Economics. From the Greek oikonomia, which means literally the management of the household (oikos): making sure everyone has enough. A cognate is oikumene (community) from which is derived our word, ecumenical. United we stand, divided we fall. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Jesus the Christ and President Lincoln.

“You can either have large amounts of money in the hands of the few, or you can have democracy, but you can’t have both.” Justice Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court, 1939.

Our current economic scenario of inequality is severe and more serious than it was in 1929. Both political parties are hand maidens to the unjust economic order by which corporations have undue power on our political situation. When you have a social-economic-political system that has strayed this far with the majority of the money in the hands of a few you have a major threat to our equality, to our freedom, to the health and well being of a country.

George Washington in his farewell address warned us about political parties saying:

 “They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the Nation, the will of a party; often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the Community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the Mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or Associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, and to usurp for themselves the reins of Government; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. Let me now. . .warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party.” September 19, 1796.

The warning about the spirit of the party couldn’t be more timely.  In the past it has been the role of religion (from the Latin religio) “to bind together.”  That is the root (radical) meaning.  It lies at the heart of our faith and undergirds the health of our nation.

The Wealth of WholeHealth Movement therefore is a radically required revolution integrating five major components: Social Justice, Politics, Economics, Learning and Well Being.  We are moving beyond the bubble, and as Ben Franklin said, “Either we all hang together or we’ll hang separately.”  Doing nothing is not an option as our countries Wealth and Health depends on us.

The Wealth of WholeHealth: Part II, Politics

Politics: From the Greek (politikos), meaning civic or civil. Ironically, civil discourse seems to have largely vanished from the public square. Our Missouri state motto is "Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law." Civics has to do with citizens, the beloved community a citizenship where justice reigns.  Right, and if this seem believable to you, if this is your experience today, you will want to read on:

“A good government implies two things. First is fidelity to the object of government, is the happiness of the people. The second is a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.” James Madison, 1788.

 Consider the Wealth of WholeHealth as a movement today no different than the Abolitionist, the Suffragettes, the Civil Rights activists who were not asking for New Rules, but rather demanding their constitutional rights. It is the means to an end, standing on truth already given. This isn’t just a NEW IDEA.   Rather, we merely going back to our original state, where we are  stewards of equality, freedom, economics, learning and well being for the world. Therefore, if the job of our generation is to bequeath the blessings of the Wealth of WholeHealth to our children then I say we need to start Movin and Shakin to make the Shift now. We are not moving forward folks we are not even going backward. We are on a slippery slope of collapse if there is not and new ‘infra-structure’ integrated for an evolution.

Both political parties in this country today unfortunately would appear to be no more than mere hand maidens to an unjust economic order by which corporations have undo power on our political situation.  We have one political group saying to the people, “Yes, times are tough we feel your pain, but government does not have the responsibility to heal your pain, that is what non-profits and charities are for.”

Another political party looks at the suffering of the people and respond to them, “This is horrible, why this is so bad, we are committed to do whatever it takes to fix this, Yes, we can!”  Unfortunately, they are no more capable of challenging the ‘status quo’ that makes all this inevitable than the other party or the non-profits and charities.  Why?

Because we have a corpratocracy that unilaterally, like a vacuum cleaner sucks out the human life, wealth & resources of America into the hands of a few without blinking.   Both political parties will be raising around a billion dollars each of their political campaign while citizens of this country are without jobs, losing homes in mass, our children dying of starvation, the scope and scale of disease is epidemic proportions, and people without affordable healthcare and we call this equality?

The Declaration of Independence has as their first principle: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”  I ask you, “How happy are you with this practice? AND How is this reality impacting the health of the people today?”

The Wealth of a WholeHealth Movement

The Wealth of a WholeHealth Movement is among us.

The Wealth of WholeHealth, Bigger Story perspective integrates our life to include Five Disciplines for the Clergy to take on Healing themselves, the People, and Healing America. This healing is only sustainable when it gets as systemic as “Of the People, By the People, For the People.” We must restore the Memory, the Hope, the Passion for the People to Pick up the Mantle and Take it on and then we will have the Wealth of WholeHealth in the World with the power for radical change.

#1). Social Justice   Justice (with cognates in Middle English, Old French, Latin and Italian) has to do with righteousness and equity, fairness, equality under the law. Social Justice claims these virtues, this ethic, for the society at large. "Righteous exalts a nation . . . ." (Proverbs 14:34)

 “The moral arc of the universe is long but bends toward justice.” Martin Luther King, Jr., March 14, 1968. 

William Penn, a Quaker, and notable founder of this country believed in equality. His religion taught him that every man, woman and child had the same light in them as anyone else, meaning they had the same rights, meaning they did not need to bow to any other human being. That is healthy! However, this is not the attitude of the country today given the facts of the ‘great divide’ William Penn, a Quaker & Shaker, took on back in 1718. Remember William Penn repudiated the Monarch, power in the hands of the few to include the Aristocracy who took whatever they wanted leaving the crumbs for the Serfs to survive but only to serve this hierarchy. ”.

Point: So given the state of the state today, how are we doing? We’ve come a long way haven’t we. . .but a long ways from social justice. Therefore, we are not doing well.

Loving Liberation

With 100 Degree temperatures on the radar now for far too long, it is no wonder, I’m thinking about "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens  Additionally, this story is too potent to withhold for the winter months and I know of people who NEED to hear this now. 

When Scrooge awakens from his ‘dream,’ it is Christmas Day.  “I haven’t missed it,” he declares with child-like wonder.  “The Spirits have done it all in one night.  They can do anything they like!”

Yes, they can and too bad for those not believing in miracles.  Even though we forge our own chains of lead, link by heavy link, weighing us down. . .it is possible to let it go or turn them into gold.  An alchemist knows that and you can learn it too if you stay open to the healing lessons.

You all know I bring the wellness venue of WholeHealth to the table because it is timeless and it breaks down heavy attitudes, memories & more.  The weight of our history will affect our biology (the issues are in the tissues).  This must be cleared, the body needs cleansing of toxins (all kinds) before the rebuilding can begin, but we still have spade work before we are shovel ready, so let’s get started.

Lots of healing stories abound, but here is one from my ministry days.  Jesus is approached by the Jewish friend of a Roman centurion whose servant is near death (Luke 7:1-10).  They ask Jesus on his behalf for a healing.  Quickly, however, the centurion himself sends word to Jesus, saying, never mind, he will heal the servant simply by willing to.  Jesus is astonished at the man’s level of faith and heals the man’s servant at a distance.

Relationship between one’s ability to receive a timeless healing and one’s ability to release the linear limitations of the world abound.  So, what is your limiting belief, limiting contracts constraining your ‘timeless’ potential?  This is the point of these stories. . .the Bigger Story in my mind  however is how are we held back not  addressing the Social Justice issues of the day which, of course, for me would be healthcare with a WholeHealth redirect.  We want to spread the word.  Are you with me?

“Change takes but an instant.  It’s the resistance to change that can take a lifetime.” Hebrew Proverb