People need to know

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I awoke one morning in early September, choked with emotion and angry with compassion…my dream before waking was so much more than a dream, and it wasn’t just for me. It’s for you, too. It’s a story that must be reported, but one nobody is seeing because of the implications.

The banksters don’t want you to know. But people need to know. I needed to know. I needed a personal, visceral knowing.  ~ Blessings,  Libby

People Need to Know 

The image was gorgeous; the sun was rising and rays of light shot out over the white sand beach. Then the light changed, becoming muddled and foreboding. Panorama-fashion, the image zoomed around to a different viewpoint. My dream-state intuition was on high alert.

Right out there in the open, on the dew-covered concrete in front of the big Baptist Church, she laid curled up, cold and dead. She lay on her left side, a pool of congealing blood beneath her emaciated frame. Her eyes were closed and a slight smile remained on her lips. Her smooth skin said she was quite young. The tiny little girl wrapped in a sling made of a threadbare old sheet and held in her arms was also dead.

Her right hand gripped three sheets of yellowed notebook paper, words written in black ink, fading to pencil and back to purple ink near the end. Her final wish: to tell her story, “People Need to Know.” She wanted to awaken awareness and compassion. The chunk of bloodied green glass sharpened to an edge found near her body told the story of suicide, but her hand-written story told a starker truth: murder by “civilized” society.

As I gazed upon the image of God’s holy daughter, so hopeless she would choose to die, I realized I was dreaming. Simultaneously, my consciousness became hers and I watched her story play out as though I was in attendance at her life-review. I could feel emotional states wash through her; her feelings were mine and I felt them intensely; her anger and sorrow and shame, her mercy and forgiveness.

This is her story, conveyed in images and words and feelings.

I’m not using a name because my name doesn’t matter any more. I’m labeled instead. I am “the poor.” I became “the homeless.” I was “whore” and “lazy bum” and “drug addict” and “worthless” cruelly hurled through open car windows more times than I could count. But I always knew I was more: a mother, a daughter, an educated, respectable person. I was raised a Christian. In my hunger I saw Jesus in my inner vision. I relied upon him to be there, and he was. And guess what? Jesus won’t condemn me to hell for wanting to be free of the hell we were in, my baby girl and me. God loves me no matter what. It’s people who don’t.

My stomach muscles are beginning to relax. I didn’t know you could feel tension in your spirit, but I guess since I’ve been holding my breath, afraid of everything and everyone for such a long time, even my consciousness is taut and clutching. I’m beginning to be able to focus on one thing, slowly, luxuriously, instead of darting about furtively every waking moment and even in semi-sleep. You don’t get much real sleep when you’re homeless.

I’m a normal American girl, a regular good kid. I went to a community college and got good grades. That’s where I met my husband, who doesn’t have a name that matters either. When you don’t have money or power you don’t matter, and I learned that by the age of 23, even though my childhood, schooling and community never told me any such thing – they told me I was special and that I could do anything. I’m a white girl. I played in the band and my husband was an honor student: we were white-bread Americans.  I guess I should have gotten a little clue about how people really are when his family thought I was not the right girl for their son – they wanted a girl who was not only a member of their fundamentalist denomination; they wanted one who was a member of their particular church so they could feel assured I was “raised right.” In front of my face they discussed their assumption that I couldn’t possible be a virgin. They thought I was “uppity” and way too “worldly” for their son. Maybe so. (All through this I felt her hot tears and anguish over feeling betrayed by every adult she had ever known, and then all the anguish was extinguished in a soft, comforting pool of mercy emanating from her (my?) consciousness. So beautiful.) 

When you don’t have any money, it’s hard to find people who care. You mostly find people who are worn out and do their best not to care. They’ve got to be able to keep their jobs, so they go through the motions. They fill out the paperwork, pretending something will come of it. They call the next person and do it again. You’ve never seen dead people until you’ve applied for public aid. Dead eyes.

After I got my associate’s degree in pharmacy work, (which my counselor said would guarantee me a job) we got married and moved south for my husband’s career. In no time both of us had good jobs in our booming coastal town. It was 2007. I was 20 and he was 23. We had health insurance and birth control, because we knew we weren’t ready for a family. We were too naïve to know all the other stuff we weren’t ready for! We thought we were so happy, living the material life on our own now, going shopping, seeing movies, hanging around with friends and doing our jobs. My husband had a cool regional cell phone sales job and we had the latest technology. His company was purchased by another company, and suddenly his job was “consolidated.” I never knew consolidated meant over, but that’s what happened on Halloween day, 2009.

I didn’t know anything about leveraged buy-outs or financial markets or mortgage-backed securities. I had just turned 21. Really, does anyone know anything about how life really works when they’re 21? But from out of nowhere, these things changed my life. They started a dark domino effect that toppled too many to count…all nameless.

Two-thirds of our income was gone. We were completely embarrassed (my cheeks grew hot with embarrassment!) I never learned anything about budgeting money either. Growing up, my family never had to – we had plenty – no worries. We gave to the church and lived positively, so we were prosperous. They told me that was how it worked, and I believed them. My husband had been utterly coddled. I don’t know who his parents thought would take care of him…their church maybe? We figured out how to apply for unemployment, but that wouldn’t pay our mortgage, because yes, we qualified for a huge mortgage. Inexperienced idiots in a complex world, we faced the fact that we’d have to sell the house and move to an apartment.

A leveraged buy-out was what caused my husband’s job to be consolidated. The financial markets made their appearance in our lives when my husband’s 401K statement came in the mail. We thought it was worth about $10,000. We cashed a check for $797 and splurged on a chocolate bar after paying overdue bills. Even dead, I’m probably still on the hook for my college loans, and probably my husband’s too.

Next, our realtor’s news was not good. As in totally bad. That’s the mortgaged-backed securities part. (I had a nanosecond vision of her sitting in the library, reading issues of Rolling Stone to find out about the financial mess. A homeless guy told her that’s where she could find the truth.)

We stayed until the bank sent cops to evict us. Another family in our neighborhood was evicted the same day. By then I was pregnant but I didn’t know it. The day I found out I was pregnant with a test from my pharmacy was the day our store got the news that we were closing. I was pregnant because I could no longer use my husband’s better insurance, and my co-pay for birth control was $50. I was two days late getting my prescription filled.

Everything around us, our whole neighborhood, the wonderful new planned community where we had so proudly lived and shopped and worked, was collapsing.

My husband’s unemployment was over. There were no real jobs, and we were down to one old car. He worked some temps and odd jobs but he was really unable to take it. He started muttering, thinking his parents were right; that he had married the wrong person against God’s Will, like they said. I just don’t get how that attitude comes from Jesus. How is one person’s Christianity better than another’s? They were all invented by people. To me, loving your neighbor as yourself means we’re equals. Anyway, it was so hard to get through to him. I had unemployment and we applied for food stamps. We sold almost everything that we hadn’t already left in the house and moved to a tiny studio apartment that was month-to-month. We had to verify income to keep the place.

It was inevitable: one month we couldn’t verify any income.

We were now jobless and homeless. My baby girl born on the state’s welfare was four months old. All we had was what would fit in the car. My baby’s crib was a battered car seat from Goodwill. Now we didn’t have an address, but I could not have known what being without an address was going to mean.

Having an address is one of the keys to being considered a person.

Things have to be documented. Stuff has to be signed and returned on actual paper when you don’t have internet access. It was a rare luxury to get to the internet at the library. Usually the guard was standing there shooing the horrid homeless away.

It got really, really bad, and I had to be the one in charge. My husband was incapable, but at least his parents would accept him back. Not me. I was not welcome; I was the one to blame. He didn’t bother to tell them about our little girl. He begged for money from them and left us one day. He just didn’t come back. (This brought an emotional roller-coaster from despair to betrayal to abandonment…to softness and merciful forgiveness in a flash.)

I couldn’t call my family. All I had left was my Dad, and he’s been in and out of rehab since my Mom died. My brother, who only watches FOX and listens to Rush every day on the radio, could easily have been one of the ones who called me “whore” and “lazy bum” from his car window. There was no way I would call him.

I found what I thought would be a good place to park our home. It was between two vacant buildings, back behind a fence that was covered in vines. I looked for work, for food, for anything worthwhile, carrying my baby around in a sling I made from ripping up some old sheets. We didn’t have diapers so the sheets got pretty wet some days, but it was a really hot summer anyway. I didn’t have breast milk anymore but she didn’t fuss much. We were hungry, but we managed to stay clean because the beach was close. We used the bathrooms on the beach. Usually twilight was the best time. I wasn’t having periods any more, luckily.

Three days ago I found a cash job – two days working at a festival on the beach. I would be able to eat and buy more formula for my baby. Just this tiniest bit of good news was enough to fill me with hope. The first morning I left my daughter with another homeless mom who promised to look after her for me.

The work was disgusting and demeaning because of the drunks, but during one short break I got to eat some greasy food. I drank a coke for the first time in months. When I retrieved my daughter it was well after dark, so I gave my friend half my tips. She cried.

The next day started out and went the same as the day before. The festival’s greasy food wouldn’t stay down though, so by the end of the day my stomach was clutching. I was really hungry. Walking toward the place where I left my baby, I felt the most awful dread. I ran.

Did you know there are wild people living in the cities? Feral boys and girls, never raised. Did you know?

I didn’t.

Two wild boys raped my daughter that day. They tore her up. My friend was in shock, shaking, horrified, her eyes black saucers in her gaunt face. The wild boys got her son. He was dead.

My baby girl was alive, but I knew she was slipping away. She looked deep into my eyes, seeking some understanding, I guess. The soul does shine through your eyes, because her soul was smooth and calm, but questioning. I had nothing. Nothing. I didn’t know the why of anything. Nothing about my life was the way they told me. Nothing at all.

I gave my friend all the money, every cent, and took my daughter down to the water. We washed away the day in the cool night water and she even smiled a little. I pray she was numb, God. I pray her little body and mind were numb. She was very weak and wouldn’t suck. I wrapped her in a clean sling from my backpack. The baby slept and I sat under the light of the moon and wrote, sitting at a picnic table at the beach. My hunger-dulled brain thought writing about everything would be therapeutic for me; would fill me up somehow. It’s funny how the mind works. I had a black pen and used it until it ran out of ink, then a pencil stub until it was too dull. I found a purple pen near a trash can and finished my story the best I could. It did fill me up, in a way.

People need to know what is happening. People need to know.

When I finished, we headed home. I don’t know why I wasn’t afraid any more. I just walked as if I owned the road, like nothing could hurt me now.

Our car had been towed.

I stood there looking, and a plan blossomed complete in my mind. I had sharpened up a pretty piece of green beach glass and had been using it as my knife and scissors. It was in a battered plastic box of stuff that wouldn’t fit inside our home. The box was there; the glass was where I left it. I opened the sling to see my girl. Her tiny face was so relaxed. She was barely breathing.

Resolutely – and believe me, I never knew resolute like this before – I walked to the Baptist Church on the street by the water. Hundreds, maybe a thousand people drive by there every day. The cadence of my footsteps kept saying “people need to know.” People need to know the effects of the immoral crimes committed by big business. Humans are not ready to be self-regulating. We need guidelines, rules and regulations until power and greed are no longer seductive.

Somehow, I felt free already, but maybe when I prayed for my baby to be numb my prayer was for me, too.

I sat down on the concrete steps, still warm from the day’s sunshine. There was no point in checking the door: churches aren’t open any more. You can’t call them shelters. I turned the sling around and looked at the angelic face of my flesh and blood. She was gone. I nuzzled her still-warm skin, smelling her, touching her, and whispered my love.

With the sling holding her close, at first I just pushed hard against the skin of my left wrist with the rounded side of the green glass, then turning it quickly I sliced through the veins. It was much easier than I thought it would be. Dropping the glass, I picked up my story and held on tight. I sighed, closed my eyes and whispered like a mantra “people need to know.”

My consciousness was once again looking at the physical scene of the crime, and I saw her spirit rise up from the crumpled heap of body. Her eyes looked directly into mine. She bowed slightly, smiling, and said “I thank you for hearing me.”

I sat straight up in bed. My dream-consciousness stayed and remained mingled with hers. I saw her newly-radiant face. Her glowing, angelic baby daughter sat laughing with delight on her lap. She placed her hands together over her heart and conveyed honor and blessing with her eyes. “Now people will know,” she smiled.

I am her reporter, first on the “scene” of something people need to know.

Jubilee!

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The world is one mixed-up muddled-up place. We have problems galore and few solutions. The solutions we think we have are the subject of left-wing, right-wing name-calling and blame-gaming. Most of our collective problems have one source: greed. The love of money, it turns out, is indeed the root of all evil.

God had an idea we humans would act like this, so way back in the time of Moses He laid out a practical plan to deflate greed and maintain compassionate economic fairness. He even made it enticing and the Jews considered it a high holy-day (holiday) with feasting and merriment. But even Jews don’t practice it today.

I think God was on to something. I think it’s time to ACTUALLY trust that our Holy Parent might know a thing or two and give His plan a chance.  Let’s Jubilee!  ~ Libby

The Jubilee Atonement

Atonement gets plenty of attention in the Bible. “The Bible’s central message is atonement; that God has provided a way for humankind to come back into harmonious relationship with Him.” (Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary) The atonement is the entire purpose and subject matter of A Course in Miracles. Atonement for one’s deeds is a central tenet to the teachings of Alcoholics Anonymous. At a much-publicized recent gathering inTexas, Rick Perry (whether you like him or not) called for a “day of prayer and atonement for a nation in crisis.”

Do you even know the meaning of the word?

Atonement can mean ‘the making of amends or reparation for an offense of injury; satisfaction.’ It can mean ‘the reconciliation between God and people,’ often seen as the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. In Christian Science, atonement means ‘the exemplifying of human oneness with God.’ Charles Fillmore, founder of Unity, defines atonement as “reconciliation of God and man through Christ; the uniting of our consciousness with the higher consciousness.” We have our atonement through Christ, and for this purpose Jesus demonstrated “the way.”

The word actually defines itself: at-one-ment, perfect reconciliation between you and God, united in consciousness as one mind, fully becoming the Christ by following for yourself, in your own unique manner, the way, the truth and the life of Jesus the Christ.

Tragically, the pure idea of atonement became attached to the ancient image of blood and gore: the sacrifice of animals on the altar to God, which morphed into the son of God being the blood sacrifice that would atone for all of us…Please – blood sacrifice is not what atonement is about. Atonement is about humility and renunciation of whatever it is that separates us from God. It’s time to detach old, grotesque ideas from your understanding of the atonement. Surely we’ve grown up enough to realize that blood sacrifice isn’t the way to God!

Atonement = At-One-ment. Not separate: whole.

Oneness with Source, the Creator of All-that-Is, the cosmic Father-Mother.

One with all beings and all beingness.

Yom Kippur

Translated as the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year for Jews. Even Jews who do not otherwise observe Jewish holidays observe Yom Kippur, much like secular Christians observe Christmas and Easter if nothing else. Yom Kippur happens in the early fall, the final day of a week-long celebration beginning with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. The intervening days are called the Days of Awe, ‘awe’ meaning humility before the awesome power of the Almighty. Yom Kippur, atonement, is commanded by God in the Law of Moses as a day of being humble before God as a people. The Jews of the Old Testament sacrificed a bullock (male calf), two goats and a ram or lamb on the altar of God in atonement for the sins of the people. The rituals were elaborate and followed to the letter. What most people don’t know is that animal sacrifice was common among hunter-gatherers way before sacrifice was written down as a ritual in the Old Testament writings, so perhaps God was simply using an already-ancient custom to symbolize a spiritual truth…

Yom Kippur is approached with fasting and prayer and rest. It takes serious personal reflection to commit to the Day of Atonement because this is a time commanded by God for personal forgiveness: everyone forgives everyone else for all slights and harms and misdeeds and misperceptions. After the ritual of personal forgiveness, the Jewish congregation speaks together three times: “May all the people of Israel be forgiven, including the strangers who live in their midst, for all the people are in fault.”

We need atonement, for all the people are in fault.

The Jubilee Year

Every 50 years (give or take) on Yom Kippur, the joyful shout of trumpets announced the Jewish year of Jubilee. The Jubilee year was actually a two year period of magnified atonement, restitution and restoration, during which even the land was left uncultivated so that the earth herself could rest. Debts were cancelled, slaves were emancipated and land that had been sold reverted to the former owners. Woo hoo! The Jubilee was a time of joyous introspection, rest, renewal and celebration. The Jubilee year is actually a command from YHWH given to Moses on Mt.Sinai for the benefit of the Israelites, an extension of the idea of the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week during which Jews were commanded to rest and focus on their God YHWH. The Jubilee year allowed God’s people and their land to rest and begin again, liberated from the bondage of debt or slavery. You can read all about it in Leviticus, Chapter 25.

YHWH was trying to establish a systematic program of forgiveness for the people, a kind of re-set button to prevent the extremes of poverty and uber-wealth we see in the world today. YHWH was offering us a gift of profound grace with His command, teaching us to extend the concepts of times for activity and rest, forgiveness and humility into all aspects of our lives, including the life of our earth, our families, communities, and even nations. Sadly, the practice of Jubilee generally died out during the Babylonian captivity of the Hebrew people, and there is no longer any agreement about when the next actual jubilee year might be.

However, it is becoming very clear: if we do not act voluntarily to forgive debt (use YHWH’s system), the human-created greed-machine system will do it. With violence.

Let’s declare a Jubilee Atonement!

Atonement is a matter of consciousness, not time – so any time is the right time. What if we simply declare the Jubilee RIGHT NOW? Since the Jews haven’t called it in centuries, we could begin a Jubilee that lasts until “Israel [Israel means ‘he who wrestles with God’ or in other words, me and you!] is cleansed from all guilt of fornication and uncleanness, pollution, sin and error, and dwells with confidence in all the land, and there will be no more a satan or any evil one, and the land will be clean from that time for evermore.” (Book of Jubilees)

Part 1: Debt

What would your life be like if you were not a slave to debt? Romans 18:8-10 (NIV):

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”

Like it or not, St. Paul’s view in Romans is quite similar to the Muslim view of debt. The longest ayah (book) in the Quran is the ayah of debt. Muslims are strongly encouraged to buy only what they have money for, agree to a fixed price and avoid interest. Muslims believe that people in debt speak lies, break promises and will find it difficult to enterParadise.

What would your life be like…no mortgage on the house or loan on your car(s), no credit card bills, the IRS off your back, no medical bills or college loans, no payments to parents or friends or poker buddies, nothing owed to the title loan company…

Did you feel a sense of longing? Do you feel like it would be easier to love yourself, love your family and even love the world without the stress of being a slave to debt?

Could you be able to relieve others of their debts to you? What about those loans to people you know will never pay you back? Could you actually forgive your debts and debtors?

The ladder of debt forgiveness could extend higher and further: what if all banks forgave all loans and every loan the banks owed was also forgiven, all the way up and down the line? Could it work? What if theUSgovernment forgave all loans to states and cities? What if every country forgave loans owed by other countries? What if we all just declared do-overs?

What if we actually had the courage to use God’s system, the Jubilee Year re-set button?

As I write, a hopeful sign that people are getting the message has emerged: there is a movement in theUnited Statesto boost the economy by forgiving all student loan debt.

But don’t wait. Everything begins at the level of you and me. Robert F. Kennedy said “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation… it is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

It’s up to us to do what we can do. If someone owes you money and you are doing okay without it, forgive the debt! Suggest the forgiven party to ‘pay it forward’ and forgive another’s debt. Can you feel the healing potential inherent in this idea? Can you feel the ‘pay it forward’ sweeping around the globe?

Part 2: Forgiveness

Can you forgive? When you’re keeping score or holding a grudge, you keep yourself and the other in bondage, attached to the past and unable to move on. Forgiveness offers freedom from bondage to the past. Did you just think of someone? Forgive! Remember, all the people are in fault, including you. Expand your mind and think of more you could forgive. Maybe you could forgive your ex for being such an ass. Maybe you could forgive your parents or your neighbor or the guy who cut you off in traffic. Maybe you could forgive your former boss for laying you off when he had no choice. Maybe you could forgive the politicians or the media or the terrorists or the Wall Street bigwigs or the corporatist manipulators…this forgiveness thing can (and must) be extended: religions must forgive other religions, nations must forgive other nations, races must forgive religions and nations – none of us are free when we live in bondage to our communal past, to ancient hurts and out-dated ideas.

Our deep desire is the perfect freedom of being forgiven. But real, lasting forgiveness has another requirement.

Part 3: Humility

The alcoholic knows the drill: Alcoholics Anonymous makes sure of it. Just like the alcoholic, we all need to make amends or reparations to be deserving of forgiveness. We need to humble ourselves, apologize and come clean before the person we harmed. Humility is not the American way, but it is Yahweh. It is the way of the Christ. Jesus humbled himself and became a servant to humanity and remains so. The Pope needs to apologize to abused children and Catholic parents and American Indians and Africans and Jews to make the Catholic Church deserving of forgiveness. The United States of America needs to apologize to Iraq and Afghanistan (among others) for bombing their women and babies and calling it collateral damage. We need to apologize to Mexico for demanding their money-producing crops and their people for low-wage employment and then punishing them for answering our calls. BP and Exxon and hundreds of other corporations need to apologize for having so little regard for the earth and for humanity. Wall Street and Congress need to apologize for creating such a financial mess. We need to see remorse and shame and responsibility to be able to forgive.

Humility is cleansing. It purifies the soul. Humility restores relationships, from the individual to national to global.

Part 4: Sacrifice

“What is the real meaning of sacrifice? It is the cost of believing in illusions. It is the price that must be paid for the denial of truth.” (A Course in Miracles)

In the spirit of the symbolism of the Hebrew blood sacrifice, I pray:

Holy YHWH, I offer myself upon Your altar of at-one-ment. I accept your gift of grace. My offering to You is my stubborn bullish nature. I offer my dual goat nature, my arrogant ego and my shadowy scapegoat. I offer myself as the lamb, humbled, cleansed and purified. Together with Jesus the Christ I atone for the sins of the world. I apologize for us all, YHWH. I choose to see through the illusions. I will not deny the truth. Father-Mother, forgive us for we know not what we do. Amen

As above, so below

Isaiah 47:11 says “But evil shall come upon you, which you will not know how to charm away; disaster shall fall upon you, for which you will not be able to atone; and ruin shall come upon you suddenly, of which you know nothing.”

Disaster has befallen us for which we are not able to atone. Ruin is upon us and we certainly seem to know nothing. We need God’s wisdom. We need God’s inspiration. Albert Einstein said “A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” We need You, YHWH.

Take heart! A Course in Miracles says “There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not “harder” or “bigger” than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.” God (by any name) can do this “save the world” thing – all He asks is that we follow His system.

American Indian prophecies point to the current human predicament, and all agree that by a return to the ways of “the people,” our Earth and humankind will not only survive, but thrive. As a culture, “the people” do not share our concept of personal ownership or possession. One practice that is common to almost every American Indian nation is called a “giveaway,” and if you attend a powwow or any other ceremonial event, you may witness a giveaway. Giving is central to being an American Indian, a way of giving thanks, bestowing honor, teaching about relationship, distributing goods for the survival of all and for maintaining balance within the community.

Sounds like the American Indians lived a heavenly life of giving and receiving. I’m for returning to the ways of “the people.”

Until then, why not try God’s cosmic re-set button?

Let’s be free.

Let’s Jubilee!