Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

Barack Obama’s second book is quite wonderful - not quite as fabulous as his first, but quite wonderful, nonetheless. ‘Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream’ is the subtitle.

His political career, his political and personal beliefs, his skepticism and his faith, his family - and the kind of world he wants to help create - are all in this book. He has been a professor of constitutional law, and it shows. He is clearly a historian and a sociologist as well. And, definitely, one of the best political writers around.

I still love the stories best, and this book has fewer of them. The story of his first meeting with Sen. Richard Byrd, the octagenarian who was a Klansman in his youth, is a beautiful tale of absolution and forgiveness, an amazing generosity of spirit exhibited.

The stories of his political campaigns, and of what he has learned from traveling among us so often, are there, as are stories about his wife, their partnership, their children, their amazing extended United Nations family.

I’d let you borrow my copy, but I’m reading it again!

Spent a powerful evening at the National Underground Freedom Center one evening last week, listening to Kevin Bales talk about his books and research on the new slavery in the global economy.

And, most importantly, his organization’s goal and plan for how we can end slavery - completely - in the next 20 years. There are now more slaves in the world than there ever have been. Many of them children. And there is slavery in nearly every country in the world - definitely in the United States, including household slaves and sex trade slaves.

The plan of freetheslaves.net is to work on freeing the easiest and largest numbers first ($100 can free an entire village of slaves in India), and then work on the harder problems - 4 and 5 years olds, for instance, used to work in boats on lakes in Africa, and young girls in brothels in Cambodia (that freedom can cost $400 per child). Plus the cost of educating and helping former slaves adjust to freedom and a world they may not know much about.

The best thing we can do is sign up to contribute monthly. Yes, let’s learn. Yes, let’s join with others. And YES, let’s give money. A little to us is a lot in the third world. Money anti-slavery organizations can rely on, so they can pay the workers, some ex-slaves, in each country to go in to the carpet factories and cocoa fields and literally free the slaves.

YES, we can eradicate slavery. Now.

When I first flipped The Secret open, it flipped to The Secret of Your Body, with several pages about using the Creative Process to lose weight. So I thought I’d trust that flip, and share some of these ideas. Diets don’t work, the Secret says, because you’re focused on losing weight, which attracts the need to lose more weight. And fat thoughts are implicated in the problem.

1) Ask for the weight you want to be.

2) Believe that you will receive and that the perfect weight is yours now.

3) Think about all the perfect things about You. As you think perfect thoughts, as you feel good about You, you are on the frequency of your perfect weight, and you are summoning perfection.

That all fits with what I know about weight. I’ve never felt that what I eat has anything to do with how much I weigh. What does have an impact is how I feel - the happier, the more perfect the weight. I’ve always known something’s wrong when my clothes have gotten a bit tight. So I stay focused on those happy thoughts!

Surely we’ve all heard about The Secret by this time! The wonderful DVD that brings together many of the best spiritual teachers on the planet right this minute. And now these ideas are in a book, which friend Carolyn gave me as a Christmas present last week. (Actually, that’s a pretty early Christmas for she and I, compared to some other years!)

Mike Dooley and Joe Vitale, from whom I’ve re-learned a lot that I already knew, are both included. Mike is tut.com - totally unique thoughts - where you can take the Adventurer’s Oath and receive a daily message from The Universe that will re-mind you of what you already know. Joe is the author of The Attractor Factor and Spiritual Marketing, both of which are used in the Spiritual Marketing- Language of Success class that a bunch of us teach.

Lots of other teachers you and I also know are on the list as well, plus several I haven’t heard of - I look forward to learning them and their thoughts. All these thoughts, as I skim the book, are familiar.

Here’s one from Bob Doyle: It’s really so simple. “What am I attracting right now?” Well, how do you feel? “I feel good.” Well good, keep doing that.

The book, the DVD - keep them around, so the ideas seep into your brain and your body. It is really simple!

Who would have believed this double bill? The Women of Troy by Euripedes and The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter, 2 one act plays on the same evening.

The Women were first, well played, well cast, a set that worked well, with modern quotes about the miseries of war interspersed. A perfect play to see 2 days after our modern Greek destroyer announces his personal plan to send more troops to Iraq, to create more Trojan women all these centuries later. Egregious cruelty on the part of the Greeks, but no worse than Abu Ghraib. The despair of these ancient women mirrors ours, as does the voice of the prophet Cassandra.

Then the Pinter, spare and simple, in a play that begins with a dark logic and watches the two assassin characters become lost as the situation loses its logic.

I had not seen either play before, and found them to be the perfect January bleakness after the over-the-top-ness of the holidays, which included the Shakes’ The Importance of Being Earnest. That was a great play for the holidays - these 2 are perfect for January!

A great, gritty, dismal movie that will leave you with a lot of hope! That’s the Children of Men, with Clive Own, one of my favorites, plus Michael Cain and lots of other great actors. A apocolyptic film with lots of violence, and yet….. human courage, human love shine through. Michael Caine’s love for his wife, Clive’s trust in the boat, once he realizes that’s all he’s got left.

Stunning performances, stunning cruelty, stunning love - and love wins the day, though not as you might expect.

You’ll get your 2007 off to a great start by seeing this movie - go for it!

A wonderful performance / one actor play at the Shelterhouse Theater at the Playhouse in the Park last week - thanks to the Rosenthals, who are behind much of the art and culture in Cincinnati these days - both through their openness to the edge, and their financial support.

Since the short run is finished, I’ll tell you that the primary character, Low, is a dramatic portrayal of Rha Goddess’ sister, and her slide into the mental health system, where she basically disintegrates. Ms. Goddess - I love writing that! - has chosen the name Rha Goddess as part of her own struggle to be real, to be free.

Her skills are formidable, her sense of the stage is awesome. With a single chair and great lighting choices, Rha Goddess uses all the stage and that chair to support the story.

Low is the first part of Meditations Trilogy. It will be interesting to see the other pieces. Another current project she’s working on is The Next Wave of Women & Power / We Got Issues! - an arts and civic engagement project that focuses on young women’s empowerment.

Rha Goddess clearly wants to change the world with her gifts - and she’s certainly well on her way! When she and her work return to Cincinnati, I’ll definitely let you know.

I know Senator Barack Obama has a current bestseller out, but I knew I wanted to read his first book first. And what a book it is!

It was written the year after he finished law school at Harvard, through a grant he received to do just that. He had a hard growing up in many ways, and a hard high school / college time as well - and tells us in this book honestly and simply all about it.

His father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas. They met in Hawaii, fell in love, got married. His father got a scholarship to work on his doctorate at Harvard, left when Barack was two, and only came back once, when Barack was 10. Barack lived in Indonesia as a child, with his mother, her second husband, and his Indonesian sister.

Barack’s life story really confirms the truth that we need all our experiences to become who we are. Every step, even the most painful, so clearly fits into his becoming the charismatic healer so many people feel he is. His multi-multi-cultural background, the fact that he had a scholarship to attend an upper class private school where he was one of the few African Americans and often angry, his college years, with the same weekends spent drinking and experiencing drugs that we know are common on campuses everywhere - each of those pieces fit so perfectly in creating his life today.

His intelligence and his increasing self-awareness really came to the fore when he became a community organizer in Chicago. That time both taught him and focused him on what role he wanted to take in the world, and led to Harvard. The last part of the book, which really ends just before he goes to law school, is set in Kenya, where much of his family still lives, and is again full of his ability to see all sides of the question, each situation, whiteness, blackness, wealth, poverty. The epilogue ties up many loose ends and lets us know about his wedding, which is a major multicultural event.

What a writer! And what a human being! If the only thing he had ever done with his life was to write this book, he would have already made a tremendous contribution to understanding and growth in this world.

Can’t wait to read The Audacity of Hope!

What an interesting film! Penelope Cruz is at the center of the movie, which is in Spanish with subtitles. Her sister, her mother, her daughter, her aunt, her friend, her husband each present puzzles and paradoxes in the middle of a lush feast of food and an excellent look at Spanish homes and scenery.

There is a bad guy, there are good guys, there is illness, death, crime, even a ghost. Confusion reigns through much of the film, as we are working on a number of story lines at once. Love is present in abundance, healing old hurts, finishing up old stories. Laughing out loud funny, and quiet chuckles, are also strong features. Justice is done and peace reigns, with no need for police, judge or jury.

Definitely didn’t feel like an American movie. No need for black / white, yes / no, up / down. Just lots of room for life to be lived and the stories to be told. What a joy!

I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to see this movie - a portrait of Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family in the week following Princess Diana’s death. I’ve always believed that the Queen should love her people, and tell them how wonderful they are. This stiff upper lip idea is clearly not an Irish one.

Helen Mirren, who played the Queen, is such a fabulous actress that we could see all that Elizabeth was not expressing, wasn’t even sure how to express, knew that she had been taught such things shouldn’t be expressed at all. Prince Charles came out a winner in many ways, as he tried personally and conspired to get his mother to do both the political and right thing.

Tony Blair’s portrayal was a great treat to see, as he, too, used every means at his disposal and every ally he could find to get Elizabeth to talk to her subjects about Diana. She finally began to understand that she was hurting the very monarchy itself with her coldness, and her loyalty to that institution swayed her behavior. Once begun on a more open path, she carried it off well. Prince Phillip did not come out a winner, but rather mostly as a regressive male who believed a tramp on the moors could fix anything, and that Elizabeth had no obligation to the public.

There was just enough of Diana’s death, the flowers and tears, the funeral, to remind us all of the light we lost in the world that day.

Beautiful countryside, that unforgettable stag, powerful performances - a good movie indeed!