On the strength of our opinions and beliefs we daily pass judgment upon our world, incarcerating it or setting it free. 

When we look at another person and somehow see their suffering, ignorance, righteousness or any other such moral whitewash we perpetuate the alienation of a people and unconsciously justify confrontation. 

When we see another person from the perspective of our own need to be correct we often demoralize the gifts they bring.  We see those gifts as judgments of our own choices and then we are apt to see wrongness in benign actions.

An excellent example of how this works for us is found in the words we learned as children.  We learn those words with a particular accent and from then forward continue to prove in our own minds, if not in the world, the correctness of their pronunciation.  How is it that with our pronunciation of words we could establish a moral value of ourselves as people? Yet we do.  Unconsciously we make ourselves right and, by proxy, make others wrong. 

We can notice this tendency in old folk songs we have learned. We learn them in a certain way with a certain tune and set of words as young children, then years later we hear someone humming ‘our’ little ditty with the ‘wrong’ words. In that moment we have passed judgment and in the smallest way added to our condemnation of the world.  It is so subtle when we do it that we don’t even see the action. Most times we would argue this as discomfort and deny any judgment in the action; maybe, maybe not. 

The other day the pope released a statement causing a stirring of emotion in the Christian community.  He declared the Catholic Church to be the only true Church and thereby invalidated the gathering places (churches) of every other Christian denomination.

My question, I suppose, is what difference does it make?  Why even go there?   Jesus is not physically present to declare who is right about his ultimate purpose.  And if he was I’m quite convinced he’d tear down the temple again.  Virtually all that I have read about his sayings and doings belied any intention of an organized movement in his name.  He clearly sought people to live his teachings, not build edifices to glorify him.

A couple years ago a woman and her son where drowned in an accident in Nova Scotia.  They were drowned for between twenty minutes and a half hour before they were pulled out.  Both mother and son were resuscitated and live today without any visible side effects.  The story of Shelley Yates and her son is remarkable not just from a medical perspective but also for what it did to her in consciousness.  Shelley was transformed.  Through her experience she received new direction in her life.  She describes a strange vision of alien-like entities who directed her to organize a global meditation to, as she calls it, fire the grid.  She was told this event should occur simultaneously around the world at 4:11 AM pacific standard time on the 17^th of July, 2007.