From Ecuador with Love — Resurrecting Jesus
New People, New Story, New Game, New Toys, New Money, New Vision
Today, December 25, celebrates the birth of a remarkable man. A little over 2000 years ago, Jesus brought us a message of peace and love, with simple words: “I and my Father are one,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and “Even so as you do unto the least of them, so also you do unto me,” and “I am the light and the Way,” and – the big one if we choose to take on the assignment that each of us is offered – “Go thou and do likewise.”
Jesus Talks to Trump Below the Fold
Jesus’ words and, even more, the example he lived with his life, told the world that there is a reality far greater than the material reality we perceive with our five senses. Indeed, perhaps his most profound message was twofold: first, in his brutal death at the hands of the oligarchy who saw his message as one that profoundly threatened their power. He said simply, “Forgive them. They know not what they do.” And second, in his resurrection, which proved the point that there’s more to reality than this life, that life goes on after we shed the body.
You look at things very differently and live your life very differently if you truly believe that we’re here forever. And that seems to be Jesus’ message to us.
Over almost seventy three years that I’ve been alive on our lovely but troubled Earth, I’ve come to appreciate greatly the lessons this humble carpenter taught us and to believe that we’re here to serve a Good that is far far greater than anything we can imagine…and that we’re here to help anchor this Great Good here on Earth. “As above, so below.” In Jesus’ teachings we find the core values that can guide us, even as we move forward in what seem like incredibly perilous times with little hope for the future.
Near the end of the 1990s, I took stock of what I had come to understand after almost 30 years of searching for solutions to humanity’s most persistent problems of ignorance, fear, poverty, hunger, disease and war.
How is it, I mulled, that so many of us want the same thing – loving relationships, knowledge and wisdom, abundance, health and a world of peace and well-being – but, yet, all the basic human problems continue?
While more recently much has come to light about the “deep state” and a psychopathic tiny elite that works behind the curtain a la the Wizard of Oz to manipulate humanity in many devious and brutal ways to support that elite’s continuing control, it occurred to me back then in the late 1990s, that we, humanity, might learn some core lessons from examining from the eagle’s perspective the four major revolutions of the last couple hundred years.
With that in mind, I began studying the American, French, Soviet and Chinese revolutions, looking for what elements they all had in common.
The driving force that motivated me was the thought that perhaps if we could identify what all these revolutions have in common, we could use those same elements as a kind of template to design a “more perfect union.” Perhaps, I reasoned, we could design a non-violent process to move us toward a world of peace, health, prosperity and justice. Toward a world that works for all of us, rather than just for a privileged few.
In this study that ensued, I identified over time five elements that these major revolutions had in common. I’m confident that there are likely to be more elements that others will find to add great intelligence to these five, but the initial five I found provide us very useful and simple guideposts as we move into 2017 and beyond, seeking to reshape constructively the course of human events.
Five core elements the American, French, Soviet and Chinese revolutions had in common
1– New People – each of these revolutions began with the emergence of new people who had new values and new surrounding circumstances that shaped their thinking and worldviews. These gave them a new sense of their own capacities to create “something new.”
2– New Story – these New People began to develop and tell a New Story about reality, about what's going on, about what's possible and about what’s desirable to create (future story).
We live in a reality that is far greater than we can possibly understand with our minds. Because of this, we walk around trying to make sense of our lives and of reality. We do this by making up stories about reality – and, the kicker, we then come to believe that our stories about reality ARE reality.
And, the second kicker, all too often we then proceed to kill each other over our different stories about reality.
When we come to understand that reality is infinite and eternal and conscious, capable of giving us solutions to all our problems, I submit we will then live our lives quite differently.
3– New Game – these New People who tell a New Story then go out and do different things in their lives than they were doing before. This new activity, or “life game” springs forth from their New Story about reality.
So, for example, it you genuinely embrace the “story” that Jesus taught us about reality (see paragraph one), you absolutely will play a different kind of “life game” from the competitive dog-eat-dog games that seem to run much of the world today. Instead you play a collaborative and mutually enriching game, looking to create a healthy biosphere and more interesting and enjoyable civilization. “You or me” gives way to “we”.
4– New “Toys” – these are all the emerging tools, technologies, management systems, and material “stuff” we are collectively creating.
I should first explain why I use the word “Toys” rather than the more obvious “tools and technology.” I am utterly convinced that we need to be able to explain these five elements to very small children who understand “Toys.” When the little ones understand what we’re doing, in transforming civilization, we’ll make a huge leap forward in our “New Game” to design a more peaceful, collaborative world. Small children have enormous energy and boundless desire to contribute. We need to create vehicles for even very young children to participate and share all that energy and love.
“New Toys” include such things as computers and mobile devices, the internet, the blockchain protocol, fablabs with 3-D printers and laser cutters (etc.) that can all help us tell the New Story more widely and play the New Game better.
Management systems, too, like the Theory of Constraint and the Thinking Processes, the KEEPRAH Holistic Approach to Community Development, Open Space Technology, Open Source Everything and other new ways of organizing human knowledge and wisdom – these all can help us “mold the world nearer our hearts’ desire.”
Finally, we have the fifth element,
5– New Money – a new medium of exchange that facilitates transactions of all kinds, with a gentle bias toward making life work well for everyone, as well as for our biosphere upon which all life depends. Yes, money is one of the “New Tools,” but creating new money seems to have been so hugely important to carrying out the last four major revolutions that I chose to create it as a separate category.
The Old Money (currently designed to concentrate ever more in a small number of hands) is controlled by the Old People who are telling the Old Story and Playing the Old Game while using both the Old Toys and New Toys, as the latter come online to promote their Old Story and Old Game.
Since money is THE universal “thing” that enables us to buy all other “things” (and people’s time and attention), it seems clear that when you create New Money, this helps enormously to spread the New Story, play the New Game and create / buy the New Toys, as well as Old Toys that still serve.
Past revolutions never dug deep enough into the deep architecture of money to design it to benefit everyone. Nor did they have the benefits of a rapidly developing digital environment and all that empowers. Old Money is “stuff” while today the emerging New Money is infinitely create-able and can be created by very different rules.
In conclusion, I believe we can bring about the most remarkable transformation the world has ever seen and that we can do it in a non-violent, enjoyable manner by engaging constructively in those five areas. We can create attractive memes that can go viral and engage more and more people, until we arrive at a civilization that is as different from today’s civilization as a butterfly is from an earthbound voracious caterpillar.
I believe we have everything we need to do this current, urgently needed transformation quite elegantly, enjoyably and rapidly.
A new vision for humanity – “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
The corollary is, “Where there is vision, the people prosper.”
With this corollary in mind, I’ve distilled to its essence a new vision for America and for the world:
“Universal Superhealth within one generation.”
I define “Superhealth” as “humanity functioning on all cylinders” or, more formally, “The full development, alignment and integration of the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical aspects of Self, for all human beings.”
To accomplish this, we will need to collaborate in new ways, applying our best knowledge and wisdom to the task of creating an inspiring iterative PROCESS for transforming all of our systems (political, economic, health, education, etc.) to support regeneration of the biosphere, healthy human beings living in a sustainable way in a peaceful, healthy, prosperous, just world, as outlined in The Best Game on Earth, www.bestgame.org).
Many thanks to each of you for all your good work – and heartfelt wishes that we may bring the Spirit of Christmas – of hope and renewal and love – into the coming year, and may we make much progress together in carrying out The Great Work.
