The giving of thanks is an expression of gratitude. Here in the U.S., Thanksgiving is celebrated as an expression of the Pilgrim’s gratitude for their escape from religious persecution in Europe and for their survival in the New World.
In England, our "Harvest Festival" is our way of giving thanks to God for the bounty of the harvest. The way it is expressed there is not so much by gorging turkey, green beans and sweet potatoes, but by bedecking out the churches with incredibly beautiful displays of all manner of produce that nature has bestowed upon the populace during that year and then, after church, going down to the pub for a pint of Britain’s Best.
But as Joseph Farah points out in his Between the Lines blog, "It wasn’t just an economic system that allowed the Pilgrims to prosper. It was their devotion to God and His laws. The Pilgrims recognized that everything we have is a gift from God – even our sorrows (my italics). Their Thanksgiving tradition was established to honor God and thank Him for His blessings and His grace."
The Pilgrims, it seems, understood the basic idea of Radical Forgiveness. Giving thanks to our Source (God, Spirit, Universe, Universal Intelligence, etc.), for "our sorrows" is to recognize and give thanks for the blessings that come from the challenges we are given and from which our soul has the opportunity to learn and grow.
If everything flows from our Source, even our sorrows, wisdom decrees that we must be willing to not only thank but forgive those who provide such opportunities, no matter how much they appear on the surface to be our enemies. The Pilgrims, it seems, understood that fundamental idea which is the basis of Radical Forgiveness. It’s all good and it’s all part of the Divine Plan. How willing are you to forgive on this basis?
Here’s my suggestion. When you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with your family and bow your heads in that special moment of thankfulness, make an effort to think of some of the people in your life that you might forgive . Allow yourself to become willing to entertain the possibility that the people you have judged, condemned, criticized and perhaps even punished, did what they did not so much TO or AGAINST you , but FOR you. Then try to feel some sense of thankfulness that their soul was willing to do this for you, knowing they would probably have to endure your ego’s negative reaction to them.
Fortunately, willingness is all that is required for Radical Forgiveness to occur. Belief is not necessary, neither is any understanding of the reasons why things happen the way they do. Try it and see what happens.Blessings,
Colin
"Radical Forgiveness is much more than the mere letting go of the past.
It is the key to creating the life that we want, and the world that we want.
It is the key to our own happiness and the key to world peace.
It is no longer an option. It is our destiny."
Monday, November 12, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Seeing the “Perfection” in the Situation – The Reframe
Do you find it difficult to make a Radical Forgiveness reframe? Many people do. It's not easy to get the idea grounded in reality that everything is unfolding according to a Divine plan and that there's nothing to forgive. This is especially so when you are in the middle of some crisis. Thank God we don't have to do more than express some willingness to see it as perfect! And thank Spirit for giving us the tools with which to do just that.
When we reframe a situation we basically exchange one set of assumptions rooted in the World of Humanity (as in the victim story), for another set rooted in the unseen and essentially mysterious World of Spirit. It matters not whether the reframe is "true;" rather it is how we frame it with assumptions anchored in the World of Spirit that constitutes the test as to whether it is indeed a Radical Forgiveness reframe or not.
It is very common for people, even seasoned Radical Forgiveness coaches and graduates, to express their reframes in terms of having received a ‘gift,’ a ‘lesson’ or even a ‘healing’ that remain, to all intents and purposes, firmly anchored in the World of Humanity, even though they are dressed up in spiritual language. They nevertheless fail the test.
During a conversation with a very good friend of mine who was herself a holocaust survivor, she told me about an exhibition in the Holocaust Museum in Auschwitz, Germany, that featured a huge pile of children’s shoes. All of them had been taken from the children before they were gassed. As you would expect, the exhibit has an extremely visceral and profound effect on anyone who confronts it.
As a student of Radical Forgiveness she made an attempt to reframe it, primarily so she could come to terms with it herself and integrate it somehow into her own personal history of having been part of that terrible experience. She said that perhaps the reframe was that the ‘gift’ (there’s that word again — always a trap), was that the souls of the children ‘volunteered’ to die in this way so that people who saw the pile of shoes would ensure that, since children are always the victims of war, they would never create war again. In that sense, there was a Divine purpose in what happened.
In that statement were indeed two assumptions rooted in the World of Spirit. One was that there is no death and souls choose when and how to make their transition both in and out of human form. The second was that there was Divine purpose even in this situation. It counts, perhaps, as a partial reframe to that extent. But making it about “stopping wars” snapped it right back into the World of Humanity. It therefore failed the test. It was not a true Radical Forgiveness reframe.
Even if such a result was to occur, which it never would because it doesn't get to the root of why humans kill each other, it would simply be an "effect," not a reframe. It would be simple cause and effect, which only operates in the World of Humanity, not in the World of Spirit.
Another example is saying that Jesus volunteered to die in order to teach us to be good and to love each other. He did teach that of course, but I don't believe that it was the purpose of his crucifixion. My reframe of that drama was “to show that death is not real and that life is present before we take on a body and it continues afterwards. Therefore, no one dies. Therefore death is not to be feared and life is to be lived free of that fear.”
My reframe of the shoes story, even though I haven't seen the exhibit, and it might well be different afterwards, might run something like this: "That the soul's who inhabited those children's bodies incarnated with a specific mission to be killed in a particularly gruesome manner to teach us that we are all One, that separation is not real, that death is not real and that when we senselessly kill a seemingly innocent child, we kill ourselves. And that we are all children of God; the One ‘Sonship.’"
It might also be part of a larger reframe which I have spoken of publicly in the past and have held seminars on; that the soul lesson inherent in the Holocaust was about our letting go of 'victim consciousness' which the Jewish people volunteered to exhibit to the extreme. It was also about the error of 'specialness' that the Germans volunteered to demonstrate to an equal extreme. The only meaningful opposite of victimhood and specialness is Oneness. The drama continues - the lessons still to be learned.
In anticipation of someone asserting that the reframe inherent in Jill’s Story (Chapter One in my book Radical Forgiveness, Making Room for the Miracle), fails the test because I made it about saving my sister’s marriage and ‘healing’ her core-negative belief that her father didn’t love her, let me say this. If it were just about that, it would fail the test. What it was really about though, and Jill really did get this, was that her own spiritual intelligence created the whole scenario as an opportunity to learn that she was loved, that she was whole and complete with or without a man, and that she was entirely responsible for her life and that only Spirit is real. The rest was simply an illusion — a victim story based in the World of Humanity which she was able to release.
I hope this helps you in the process of doing a Radical Forgiveness worksheet, in particular with Step number 18. Having said all this though, it really doesn’t matter what you write on the worksheet. Your intention to do it is enough. You cannot screw it up! Would God care if you failed the reframe test? I don’t think so.
Blessings,
Colin
P.S. I invite you to post a reply letting us know how you might have successfully reframed some event or circumstance in your life. This would be very helpful to a lot of people. Thanks.
When we reframe a situation we basically exchange one set of assumptions rooted in the World of Humanity (as in the victim story), for another set rooted in the unseen and essentially mysterious World of Spirit. It matters not whether the reframe is "true;" rather it is how we frame it with assumptions anchored in the World of Spirit that constitutes the test as to whether it is indeed a Radical Forgiveness reframe or not.
It is very common for people, even seasoned Radical Forgiveness coaches and graduates, to express their reframes in terms of having received a ‘gift,’ a ‘lesson’ or even a ‘healing’ that remain, to all intents and purposes, firmly anchored in the World of Humanity, even though they are dressed up in spiritual language. They nevertheless fail the test.
During a conversation with a very good friend of mine who was herself a holocaust survivor, she told me about an exhibition in the Holocaust Museum in Auschwitz, Germany, that featured a huge pile of children’s shoes. All of them had been taken from the children before they were gassed. As you would expect, the exhibit has an extremely visceral and profound effect on anyone who confronts it.
As a student of Radical Forgiveness she made an attempt to reframe it, primarily so she could come to terms with it herself and integrate it somehow into her own personal history of having been part of that terrible experience. She said that perhaps the reframe was that the ‘gift’ (there’s that word again — always a trap), was that the souls of the children ‘volunteered’ to die in this way so that people who saw the pile of shoes would ensure that, since children are always the victims of war, they would never create war again. In that sense, there was a Divine purpose in what happened.
In that statement were indeed two assumptions rooted in the World of Spirit. One was that there is no death and souls choose when and how to make their transition both in and out of human form. The second was that there was Divine purpose even in this situation. It counts, perhaps, as a partial reframe to that extent. But making it about “stopping wars” snapped it right back into the World of Humanity. It therefore failed the test. It was not a true Radical Forgiveness reframe.
Even if such a result was to occur, which it never would because it doesn't get to the root of why humans kill each other, it would simply be an "effect," not a reframe. It would be simple cause and effect, which only operates in the World of Humanity, not in the World of Spirit.
Another example is saying that Jesus volunteered to die in order to teach us to be good and to love each other. He did teach that of course, but I don't believe that it was the purpose of his crucifixion. My reframe of that drama was “to show that death is not real and that life is present before we take on a body and it continues afterwards. Therefore, no one dies. Therefore death is not to be feared and life is to be lived free of that fear.”
My reframe of the shoes story, even though I haven't seen the exhibit, and it might well be different afterwards, might run something like this: "That the soul's who inhabited those children's bodies incarnated with a specific mission to be killed in a particularly gruesome manner to teach us that we are all One, that separation is not real, that death is not real and that when we senselessly kill a seemingly innocent child, we kill ourselves. And that we are all children of God; the One ‘Sonship.’"
It might also be part of a larger reframe which I have spoken of publicly in the past and have held seminars on; that the soul lesson inherent in the Holocaust was about our letting go of 'victim consciousness' which the Jewish people volunteered to exhibit to the extreme. It was also about the error of 'specialness' that the Germans volunteered to demonstrate to an equal extreme. The only meaningful opposite of victimhood and specialness is Oneness. The drama continues - the lessons still to be learned.
In anticipation of someone asserting that the reframe inherent in Jill’s Story (Chapter One in my book Radical Forgiveness, Making Room for the Miracle), fails the test because I made it about saving my sister’s marriage and ‘healing’ her core-negative belief that her father didn’t love her, let me say this. If it were just about that, it would fail the test. What it was really about though, and Jill really did get this, was that her own spiritual intelligence created the whole scenario as an opportunity to learn that she was loved, that she was whole and complete with or without a man, and that she was entirely responsible for her life and that only Spirit is real. The rest was simply an illusion — a victim story based in the World of Humanity which she was able to release.
I hope this helps you in the process of doing a Radical Forgiveness worksheet, in particular with Step number 18. Having said all this though, it really doesn’t matter what you write on the worksheet. Your intention to do it is enough. You cannot screw it up! Would God care if you failed the reframe test? I don’t think so.
Blessings,
Colin
P.S. I invite you to post a reply letting us know how you might have successfully reframed some event or circumstance in your life. This would be very helpful to a lot of people. Thanks.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
When It’s Someone We Know
Today is July 4th. It is the day that we celebrate America. This year in particular, we might be more introspective than in years past, looking perhaps at what America has become and how it sees itself in 2007 and looks towards 2008.
Two things have happened this week that make me think that America is preparing itself for a healing crisis along the lines I predicted in my book, A Radical Incarnation, written in 2003. I had pointed out then that when we begin to heal deeply repressed shadow material, parts of it begin to come to the surface for healing. I see evidence of some of that appearing at this time. I think Michael Moore and Scooter Libby have both been instrumental in bringing it forth. Moore, in his film, "Sicko" is showing us our guilt about how we, as a society, take care of each other, while Libby’s case has brought forth our shame about our inhumane treatment of people caught up in the justice system.
My wife and I went to see "Sicko" today. We were shocked. I doubt that any American could sit through this movie and not feel the shame associated with how we as a society take care of the sick, the elderly, and others in need, and how corrupted the health-care system has become. It sure does look like a healing crisis to me and an opportunity to heal the part of the American collective psyche that must think of itself as cruel and uncaring. Otherwise why would it create such a system?
I should stress this is not an anti-American film. Moore goes to great lengths to say that Americans are compassionate, caring people who will always rise to the occasion to help others at great sacrifice to themselves. But he does show how corrupted the health-care system has become and how it puts American way down the bottom of the list in terms of infant mortality, life expectancy, general health, etc, in spite of its great wealth. He does not focus a whole lot on the uninsured either, but shows how people who thought they were insured regularly get screwed by the system in general and the insurance companies in particular. He takes you to Canada, England, France and Cuba to show us what a universal free healthcare system can be like. I’m English and can personally attest to the system there. He points to other socialized sections of even the American system, like the Fire Department, the Police Department, the Postal Service and many others that we take for granted. But we have demonized socialized medicine in order to support a money-based system that makes a lot of people rich but fails the majority of our population.
I urge you to see this film and look beyond any judgments that you hold about Moore. Of course it is skewed towards his point of view — documentaries always are — but not as much as in his previous films. If you have an ounce of compassion for people who are unlucky enough to fall ill and become ruined because of the system, you owe it to yourself to see this film. Why? Because it could easily happen to you, whether you are insured or not. It’s a wake-up call for everyone, but it is also a film about love for others, compassion for our neighbors, willingness to see beyond differences and our need to care for each other. It will touch your soul, I promise.
It is truly a spiritual film, one that all people who profess to live by spiritual principle should see. I say that because we as spiritual people should always be asking the kind of question that Moore himself asks in the film. "When we see what happens to people like this who are denied basic care, who have we, as a people, become?" That is a spiritual question and we need to ponder it deeply.
The other issue that caught my attention as a possible healing opportunity if we could get beyond the political rhetoric, is President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s 2-1/2 year sentence. I think it highlights how when, instead of demonizing criminals, we actually give them a human face and identify them as friend, family member or colleague, we realize how inhumane and ineffective it is to imprison them for long periods of time, no matter what they have done. (There are far more effective ways of ‘correcting,’ them but that’s another story.)
Yes, Libby was a friend of the President and well connected to other important people who felt compassion for him and who lobbied for clemency on his behalf. Yes, they were probably the same people who supported all the "tough-on-crime" policies that over the years have resulted in absurd sentences and treatment like that of the poor guy who got a mandatory 10 years for consensual oral sex with a 15 year old girl at a party, or the guy who petitioned Bush for a pardon having done 10 years of a 20 year sentence for having two ounces of crack in his possession. (Bush denied it.)
The popular interpretation is that Libby got off because of his position, race, class and connections. That’s true as far as it goes, but suppose Bush really got to know, at a deep personal level, some of the other 4,000 people for whom he has recently denied pardons. Would he then have the same compassion for them as he had for Libby? I feel sure that he would. Once we connect to someone’s humanity, it is almost impossible not to forgive them.
Personally I am happy for Libby that he doesn’t have to waste two and a half years of his life in some stupid prison, even though it would have been in a very light security one, no doubt — and he probably would only have done a few months anyway before being released. But I grieve for all those hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are utterly wasted having received very long demeaning and dehumanizing sentences for crimes far less serious than Libby’s and for whom there is not the slightest hope of mercy, least of all from George W. Bush who is not known for giving pardons.
What part of the American shadow harbors both of these forms of injustice and chooses to ignore them? Where is our protest and our outrage? Do we really not care? What makes us so passionate about preventing a frozen embryo from contributing to life-saving research that would otherwise be thrown down the sink, while at the same time so callously ignoring the pain and suffering of our fellow human beings — that is, unless we happen to know them personally?
The only solution I can offer is Radical Forgiveness. It is a technology for healing our own shadow material and I contend it offers the best chance we have of healing the shadow of America. Let’s start by facing up to what we have created in both the legal and healthcare systems and forgiving ourselves for doing so, for we are all complicit. Then we can begin putting something in their place which reflects the principles for which we stand and which are enshrined in the Constitution. Eventually we might have something we could be proud of.
Colin Tipping. July 4th, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
England’s Rose:
The Party of the Year for Diana, Woman of the Century
By Colin Tipping.
England is readying itself for a posthumous birthday bash in the form of a star-studded concert on Sunday, July 1st — the tenth anniversary of her passing. It is being given by her sons as a tribute to her life and her fun-loving and generous spirit. It is likely to fill all 90,000 seats at London’s Wembly Stadium. She would have loved it — far more than any church service. It’s also in line with her mission because music opens the heart. Obviously, her son’s really get it!
In the year 2000, as the millenium turned, there was much discussion in the media about who should be named ‘Personality of the Century.’ At a family dinner party, I was asked who I thought should be "Woman of the Century." Unhesitatingly, I said "Princess Diana."
She got my vote, not because of her comparatively modest worldly achievements, but because of what she achieved at the soul level, both for herself and for the country. Diana came into this lifetime with a mission to open the heart chakra of Great Britain and, without doubt, she succeeded. (I explain this at length in my book, Radical Forgiveness, Making Room for the Miracle. The specific section can also be downloaded at no charge from my website, www.radicalforgiveness.com)
She did it by first choosing (at the soul level before incarnating), a lifetime of emotional discomfort, self-loathing, abandonment, humiliation, rejection and pain that would, courtesy of the mass media, be made extremely public. (Bear in mind that this was in a country renowned for keeping emotional pain totally repressed, out of sight and, if displayed at all, subject to intense shame!)
Then she chose to break that deeply rooted taboo by sharing her wounds openly and intimately with the whole world. By so doing she single-handedly liberated the British people from their stuck emotional selves and from the emotional history of the entire race. She completely blew open their first, second and third chakras!
And yet, powerful as that was, it did not break open their heart chakras. That required the unfolding of the next part of the Divine plan - her seemingly violent and tragic (though in truth perfectly timed, divinely orchestrated), death. That event finally connected people to their deeply buried pain. They were able to then feel it and express it openly. And so they did - in front of the whole world - for days on end. Diana had enabled them to heal many generations of collective pain. The British heart chakra had opened at last. Mission accomplished! Time to go home!
Diana is my Woman of the Century because her story is the ultimate Radical Forgiveness story. It is everyone’s story. It teaches us to see that, beneath the apparent circumstances of our lives, a Divine plan is unfolding and everything is perfect. It lifts us up by finally giving meaning to our seemingly little lives. It teaches us that death is not real and that in fact, we all have a mission. Diana’s story enables us to connect to the Divinity in ourselves and to realize that we all qualify to be the Person of the Century – because we are all ONE.
Even though I shall not be physically present at the concert, I will be there in spirit to celebrate her life and to give thanks for her willingness to fulfill such a large and important mission. As an Englishman, and therefore someone who shares the collective consciousness of that country, I feel my heart open every time I think of her. That was her gift to us all and I give thanks to her.
She is still England’s Rose and, for me, Woman of the Century..
© Colin Tipping, 2007
Thursday, March 8, 2007
The Secret - A Critique and a Solution
As you are no doubt aware, "The Secret" is a popular metaphysical video that is sweeping this nation. It has been featured on CNN and twice on Oprah. It’s not-so-secret "secret" is that you create your own reality and you can, therefore, call forth from the "field of infinite possibility" anything you desire, using the law of attraction.
This important message is so powerfully presented in the video that I have included it as part of the resource materials for my Radical Manifestation Workshop and I strongly suggest that participants watch it prior to attending. The video also supports the message of my book, Radical Manifestation, The Fine Art of Creating the Life You Want, so I am happy that is getting so much attention.
However, as you might expect, it is receiving some criticism. Most notably among the mainstream print media. Newsweek ran a four-page article pouring scorn and ridicule upon it. This was to be expected, of course, but one that did catch my interest was a stinging critique by Greg Mackie who is a teacher with The Circle of Atonement and a teacher of A Course in Miracles.
His main complaint, separate from some of the more esoteric and extremely interesting ACIM related distinctions that he makes between the two thought systems, is that The Secret is totally materialistic and entirely self-centered in its focus. Mackie points out that, "..every example given in The Secret, without exception, depicts using the law of attraction to achieve worldly goals......Virtually absent from all this is the idea of a larger mission that transcends personal goals. It’s all about us.... Without there being anything approaching a self-transcending mission there is complete a lack of any real notion of helping others."
I would add that there is a notable lack of any strong advocacy for using the law of attraction to create large-scale, collectively-enhanced intentions that would serve humanity as a whole, like, for instance, a solution to global warming, freedom for the oppressed, or even world peace. You would think that with so many top-tier spiritual leaders featured on the video there might have been a strong emphasis on using the law of attraction to create for the greater good of humanity and for the planet, especially bearing in mind how both are threatened. (To be fair to them, this may have gotten lost in the editing, but the video is highly repetitive and overly extended so it could not have been through the lack of time or space that such content was omitted. Marketing is more likely the answer.) Jo Vitale, who was featured in the video has since commented, "I love The Secret, but if I had been producing it, I would have added something more about serving others."
Appealing to our cultural norm that glorifies conspicuous consumption, the video also promotes the idea that getting the ‘things’ you want will make you happy and fulfilled. The idea that we can simply create unlimited goodies for ourselves, now that we know "the secret," is indeed very seductive. But, if our spiritual learning has taught us anything, we know that ‘things’ don’t necessarily bring happiness.
Now, there is nothing wrong in wanting to use the law of attraction to bring material things to us, including unlimited supplies of money. It is a question of both balance and vibration. In my book, Radical Manifestation: The Fine Art of Creating the Life You Want, which was written some months prior to The Secret being released, I anticipated these very objections by suggesting that we reference our intentions and goals to a heirachy of values. I suggested three levels of intention as follows:
1. Spiritual Intentions
These are for attracting peace, happiness, oneness, abundance, joy of giving and receiving, freedom, justice and opportunities to be of service to others. The attributes they would lead you to have are things such as unconditionality, non-attachment, surrender, gratitude, generosity, love and joy. The end state that such goals lead to is Divine consciousness and a desire to connect to Source.
2. Transformational Intentions
These arise out of a desire for personal transformation and growth to reach the state of awakening consciousness. Examples might be to attract circumstances that would help us to awaken, to know our purpose and mission, and to find a level of real appreciation and acceptance of what is. Others might be to develop the willingness to forgive and let go, desire to serve others and to connect with Spirit. We would also include goals of a more collective nature that might contribute to the transformation of all of humanity and the planet. The attributes these goals would lead you towards would be compassion, trust, forgiveness, humility, openness and conviction. In meeting these goals you would experience synchronicity, insight, epiphanies, and heightened awareness.
3. Baseline Intentions or Materialistic Goals
These are desires rooted in the material world. Examples might be physical comfort, wealth, material goods, freedom to act, good health, respect, status, success, power, control, recognition, etc. The attributes these lead to are material success, pride, practical knowledge, groundedness and health. The values at this baseline level are likely to be physical survival, comfort, recognition and material success.
The point I was making was each level should reference the one above it. In other words, when you give a reason why you wish to manifest something material, the reason should come at least from the transformational level, or even the inspirational level, rather than just from the baseline level. In that way, you invoke the values of those higher levels to drive the practical or materialistic goals, thereby giving your goals a higher vibration and your life more meaning. Bear in mind too, that it takes quite a lot of energy to create through the law of attraction. What people often find is that when they question the value, beyond the baseline level, that a goal might have, they find it to be less important than they first thought and give it up.
There is no doubt that The Secret and the "secret" it reveals is over-marketed and overhyped — even dangerously so. It will create a lot of false expectations and cause a lot of disappointment, not to mention self-induced guilt about not being "spiritual enough" to make it work in the ways depicted in the video. But it has done a great service in opening the conversation about what many people throughout the ages have known to be true in their own lives — that thought and feelings, if properly channeled and focused, can have precise effects on the physical world.
What is required now, as a follow-on from The Secret, is a technology that ordinary people can realistically use to make it work in their everyday lives. That is precisely what we have begun creating in our Radical Manifestation programs. For more information go to www.radicalmanifestation.com.
Blessings,
Colin
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Loyalty - A Dangerous Virtue
Today is a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther-King, Jr. Three of my greatest heroes are black men and he is one of them. King was a moral giant with enormous reservoir of courage, integrity and passion. The other two are Louis Armstrong and Mohammed Ali both of whom, in their own fields, exhibited similar virtues.
Armstrong virtually single-handedly created jazz, a wholly new, and essentially black art form that is also quintessentially American. I love that music. Ali brought grace and beauty to brutal sport which, until I experienced Ali, I had considered totally barbaric.
All three of these men knew exactly who they were and, in spite of great pressure from the establishment, refused to sell out or to be, as the renowned intellectual and Princeton Professor, Cornel West put it — Santa Claus-eted. I don’t know how he would spell it, but what he meant when he said this about Martin Luther King Jr., on the Tavis Smiley show last night on PBS, was ‘de-fanged’ or made to seem like a cozy old man who was basically harmless, even though he was extremely dangerous.
King was dangerous because he challenged people to look deeply into themselves, to critically examine what they found in there and then to fess up to, and accept, their profound limitations. He made people look at the real meaning of words like justice, equality, compassion and freedom and to examine how they were living up to those ideals in their everyday lives, or not. That was dangerous stuff, so they de-fanged’ him by making a caricature of him and (reluctantly, of course), naming a holiday for him. Each year, the media gives the obligatory sound-bite of his “I Have a Dream” speech but seldom is he held up or revered as an example of one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all Americans, which I believe he was. I once heard a black kid ask, “If Martin Luther-King was such a great man, why do all the schools named after him look so badly run down and neglected?”
Another black man who I once admired, who has since fallen off the pedestal, is Colin Powell. I now consider him a real traitor. As Secretary of State at the time that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld axis was pushing to go to war in Iraq, Powell was against it. He must have known that he had it within his power to put an end to the adventure by publicly coming out against it, or even resigning. But he didn’t do either. He was a traitor not only to his country, but to himself.
The plan was, after all, completely against the Powell Doctrine of “overwhelming force and a clear plan to win,” a policy that was established in the wake of the lessons of Vietnam, and enshrined in the Pentagon Operations Manual about how to fight a war. He was the architect of that doctrine and Rumsfeld was about to stamp all over it with his lean and mean ‘shock and awe’ approach.
Since Powell was the only member of the administration that had any sort of credibility and respect, both at home and within the international community, his public dissent and resignation from office would almost certainly have prevented the war. It would have broken the extreme myopia and denial that existed within the U.S., and what little international support there was for the war would have collapsed. The American media would have been forced to wake up and Congress, in the wake of his resignation, would have had to have held hearings. And we wouldn’t be in the mess that we find ourselves in today regarding Iraq.
Instead he chose to invoke loyalty to the President as his reason for acquiescing and saying “Yes, Mr. President,” even though he knew that he had the power to change the course of history and save thousands of lives. Bush went to war on the back of Powell’s reputation, and then soon after, fired him.
Colin Powell put the weakest of all virtues above the very ones that we celebrate in Martin Luther-King, Jr. — courage, honesty, integrity, service to country and dedication to truth and justice. You never hear King being revered for his loyalty to any leader other than his own conscience and God.
I believe that had Martin Luther-King Jr., or, come to that, Armstrong or Ali, both of whom bucked the government a few times, been in Powell’s shoes, he would have said “No, Mr. President. I cannot do it. In spite of my respect for the Office of the President of the United States, my moral compass won’t let me. So I must resign my post since I cannot, in all honesty, carry out a policy or go to the U.N to sell a war about which I have the gravest doubts.” Powell clearly was unable to take the high road. Loyalty to a chief executive who didn’t deserve it cost the country dearly. Loyalty is a dangerous virtue.
This ‘loyalty thing’ seems peculiarly American. Yesterday I heard some senior media correspondents discussing the likelihood and even the desirability of Republican Senator, Chuck Hagel, running for President. They all agreed that he would be a viable choice for the Republicans, but to a man, they said that he would never be forgiven by his party for voting against the war — even though history has proven him to have possessed, at that time, great wisdom, foresight and immense courage, of which his colleagues had little. Nevertheless, his disloyalty to the party line, they said, trumped every other virtue and basically disqualified him.
Tony Blair must be very envious of his ‘mate’ George Bush being treated more like a king than a chief executive by his loyal servants. If you’ve ever seen Blair at the Dispatch Box in the hurly-burly of Question Time in the House of Commons, taking hard questions directly from the Opposition every Friday of every week, to which he must give immediate answers, you will understand what I mean.
Such a premium on loyalty as we see in American political life leads to a profound unwillingness to tell a leader anything that he doesn’t want to hear for fear he should interpret it as disloyalty. Witness the case of General Shinsecki who paid dearly for his professional honesty and his accurate foresight.
The government has given us a great lesson about the danger of elevating this virtue above all others. It can be like a cancer in an organization run by people who are loyalty freaks like Bush and Rumsfeld, because it feeds on fear, stifles creativity and promotes inertia. It also leads to an extraordinary reluctance to ask for, or even accept when it is offered, a resignation from officials who are clearly incompetent, out of touch or beyond redemption. Rumsfeld’s head, among many, should have rolled years ago.
Given the spiritual big picture perspective, I can radically forgive Powell and recognize that he had a role to play at the soul level in the healing of America, along with Bush and all the others. I have written extensively about my take on that scenario, so I’ll say no more about that today.
But, let us not forget that Radical Forgiveness does not absolve us from being the best we can be as human beings. That means having a moral compass that can guide us and lead us to see what virtue or ethical principle should take precedence over all others, given the circumstances we find ourselves in at any one time. Loyalty, I believe should be very low on that list of virtues.
I am only too aware of my own limitations in the areas of courage and integrity, but I thank God that there are people like Martin Luther King, Jr., who come along from time to time to serve as a beacon for the strongest of virtues, not the weakest. Loyalty has its place, but it is dangerous to elevate it above those virtues that we intuitively recognize in people like Louis Armstrong, Mohammed Ali and Martin Luther-King Jr., and for which we are, thankfully, given a holiday.
I hope you enjoy it.
Colin Tipping January 15th 2007
Armstrong virtually single-handedly created jazz, a wholly new, and essentially black art form that is also quintessentially American. I love that music. Ali brought grace and beauty to brutal sport which, until I experienced Ali, I had considered totally barbaric.
All three of these men knew exactly who they were and, in spite of great pressure from the establishment, refused to sell out or to be, as the renowned intellectual and Princeton Professor, Cornel West put it — Santa Claus-eted. I don’t know how he would spell it, but what he meant when he said this about Martin Luther King Jr., on the Tavis Smiley show last night on PBS, was ‘de-fanged’ or made to seem like a cozy old man who was basically harmless, even though he was extremely dangerous.
King was dangerous because he challenged people to look deeply into themselves, to critically examine what they found in there and then to fess up to, and accept, their profound limitations. He made people look at the real meaning of words like justice, equality, compassion and freedom and to examine how they were living up to those ideals in their everyday lives, or not. That was dangerous stuff, so they de-fanged’ him by making a caricature of him and (reluctantly, of course), naming a holiday for him. Each year, the media gives the obligatory sound-bite of his “I Have a Dream” speech but seldom is he held up or revered as an example of one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all Americans, which I believe he was. I once heard a black kid ask, “If Martin Luther-King was such a great man, why do all the schools named after him look so badly run down and neglected?”
Another black man who I once admired, who has since fallen off the pedestal, is Colin Powell. I now consider him a real traitor. As Secretary of State at the time that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld axis was pushing to go to war in Iraq, Powell was against it. He must have known that he had it within his power to put an end to the adventure by publicly coming out against it, or even resigning. But he didn’t do either. He was a traitor not only to his country, but to himself.
The plan was, after all, completely against the Powell Doctrine of “overwhelming force and a clear plan to win,” a policy that was established in the wake of the lessons of Vietnam, and enshrined in the Pentagon Operations Manual about how to fight a war. He was the architect of that doctrine and Rumsfeld was about to stamp all over it with his lean and mean ‘shock and awe’ approach.
Since Powell was the only member of the administration that had any sort of credibility and respect, both at home and within the international community, his public dissent and resignation from office would almost certainly have prevented the war. It would have broken the extreme myopia and denial that existed within the U.S., and what little international support there was for the war would have collapsed. The American media would have been forced to wake up and Congress, in the wake of his resignation, would have had to have held hearings. And we wouldn’t be in the mess that we find ourselves in today regarding Iraq.
Instead he chose to invoke loyalty to the President as his reason for acquiescing and saying “Yes, Mr. President,” even though he knew that he had the power to change the course of history and save thousands of lives. Bush went to war on the back of Powell’s reputation, and then soon after, fired him.
Colin Powell put the weakest of all virtues above the very ones that we celebrate in Martin Luther-King, Jr. — courage, honesty, integrity, service to country and dedication to truth and justice. You never hear King being revered for his loyalty to any leader other than his own conscience and God.
I believe that had Martin Luther-King Jr., or, come to that, Armstrong or Ali, both of whom bucked the government a few times, been in Powell’s shoes, he would have said “No, Mr. President. I cannot do it. In spite of my respect for the Office of the President of the United States, my moral compass won’t let me. So I must resign my post since I cannot, in all honesty, carry out a policy or go to the U.N to sell a war about which I have the gravest doubts.” Powell clearly was unable to take the high road. Loyalty to a chief executive who didn’t deserve it cost the country dearly. Loyalty is a dangerous virtue.
This ‘loyalty thing’ seems peculiarly American. Yesterday I heard some senior media correspondents discussing the likelihood and even the desirability of Republican Senator, Chuck Hagel, running for President. They all agreed that he would be a viable choice for the Republicans, but to a man, they said that he would never be forgiven by his party for voting against the war — even though history has proven him to have possessed, at that time, great wisdom, foresight and immense courage, of which his colleagues had little. Nevertheless, his disloyalty to the party line, they said, trumped every other virtue and basically disqualified him.
Tony Blair must be very envious of his ‘mate’ George Bush being treated more like a king than a chief executive by his loyal servants. If you’ve ever seen Blair at the Dispatch Box in the hurly-burly of Question Time in the House of Commons, taking hard questions directly from the Opposition every Friday of every week, to which he must give immediate answers, you will understand what I mean.
Such a premium on loyalty as we see in American political life leads to a profound unwillingness to tell a leader anything that he doesn’t want to hear for fear he should interpret it as disloyalty. Witness the case of General Shinsecki who paid dearly for his professional honesty and his accurate foresight.
The government has given us a great lesson about the danger of elevating this virtue above all others. It can be like a cancer in an organization run by people who are loyalty freaks like Bush and Rumsfeld, because it feeds on fear, stifles creativity and promotes inertia. It also leads to an extraordinary reluctance to ask for, or even accept when it is offered, a resignation from officials who are clearly incompetent, out of touch or beyond redemption. Rumsfeld’s head, among many, should have rolled years ago.
Given the spiritual big picture perspective, I can radically forgive Powell and recognize that he had a role to play at the soul level in the healing of America, along with Bush and all the others. I have written extensively about my take on that scenario, so I’ll say no more about that today.
But, let us not forget that Radical Forgiveness does not absolve us from being the best we can be as human beings. That means having a moral compass that can guide us and lead us to see what virtue or ethical principle should take precedence over all others, given the circumstances we find ourselves in at any one time. Loyalty, I believe should be very low on that list of virtues.
I am only too aware of my own limitations in the areas of courage and integrity, but I thank God that there are people like Martin Luther King, Jr., who come along from time to time to serve as a beacon for the strongest of virtues, not the weakest. Loyalty has its place, but it is dangerous to elevate it above those virtues that we intuitively recognize in people like Louis Armstrong, Mohammed Ali and Martin Luther-King Jr., and for which we are, thankfully, given a holiday.
I hope you enjoy it.
Colin Tipping January 15th 2007
Monday, January 1, 2007
President Gerald R. Ford
I was still living in England when in September, 1974, President Gerald R. Ford announced his unconditional pardon of Richard Nixon. I had stayed up until the early hours of the morning on many a night avidly watching the Senate Watergate hearings live from Washington, and I was outraged by his decision. Even as an Englishman, I wanted to see Nixon hung, drawn and quartered; shamed and humiliated. President Ford denied me my pound of flesh, my revenge, and I hated him for it.
Listening to this nation reviewing its collective memory about that event and its reaction to it, and arriving at the conclusion that it was in fact an act of great vision, wisdom, clarity, compassion, mercy — and, yes, pragmatism, I am confirmed in my own belief that forgiveness in the end is always the right decision. It is the right decision because it is healing in a way that revenge and retribution can never be, no matter how sweet it might feel at the outset when emotion is running high.
The Amish people in Pennsylvania, who most people had, until recently, dismissed as simply quaint, showed us all how to do it and, quite frankly, shamed us all. When they suffered the tragic death of ten young girls to a deranged gunman they not only rallied round the families of the dead girls, but also the family of the killer in the same spirit of love and compassion. In stark contrast to how most Americans, avidly supported by the media, deal with perpetrators and their families, they made it clear that their way, the only way, is to reach out with mercy and forgiveness.
This nation as whole has, I hope, just come to the same realization. Through the death of Gerald Ford, a President we once mocked, we have learned by our own experience that forgiveness is the only answer. It is the only form of ‘closure’ worth having. And we can be grateful to him for showing us that. His courage to do what he felt was the absolute right thing to do at that time, even though he knew that it would cost him the election, is something of which we all wish we were capable. He clearly did it for the country so it could heal Watergate and he could get on with governing the country, but it is my assessment that he also did it from the heart, purely out of a genuine desire to look beyond the crime, see the human being, be merciful and forgive a friend.
It is interesting that coincident with Ford’s death and our meeting with our own erstwhile lack of forgiveness in Nixon’s case, we have had the experience of seeing Saddam Hussein hanged for his crimes. I believe this, too, has made us think once more about what it means to condemn another. He was a monster but as I argued in the previous posting, we don’t really know what his life meant in terms of the bigger picture.
It was the same with Nixon. We will never know, and neither could we comprehend, what the spiritual gift was in Watergate and the part Nixon played in it, but Radical Forgiveness tells that there was one. Once we accept that the hand of God is in everything, we can bring humility and mercy to any situation and say quietly to ourselves, “There but for the Grace of God, go I.” It takes that kind of humility to truly forgive. And, by all accounts, Gerald Ford had it.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Listening to this nation reviewing its collective memory about that event and its reaction to it, and arriving at the conclusion that it was in fact an act of great vision, wisdom, clarity, compassion, mercy — and, yes, pragmatism, I am confirmed in my own belief that forgiveness in the end is always the right decision. It is the right decision because it is healing in a way that revenge and retribution can never be, no matter how sweet it might feel at the outset when emotion is running high.
The Amish people in Pennsylvania, who most people had, until recently, dismissed as simply quaint, showed us all how to do it and, quite frankly, shamed us all. When they suffered the tragic death of ten young girls to a deranged gunman they not only rallied round the families of the dead girls, but also the family of the killer in the same spirit of love and compassion. In stark contrast to how most Americans, avidly supported by the media, deal with perpetrators and their families, they made it clear that their way, the only way, is to reach out with mercy and forgiveness.
This nation as whole has, I hope, just come to the same realization. Through the death of Gerald Ford, a President we once mocked, we have learned by our own experience that forgiveness is the only answer. It is the only form of ‘closure’ worth having. And we can be grateful to him for showing us that. His courage to do what he felt was the absolute right thing to do at that time, even though he knew that it would cost him the election, is something of which we all wish we were capable. He clearly did it for the country so it could heal Watergate and he could get on with governing the country, but it is my assessment that he also did it from the heart, purely out of a genuine desire to look beyond the crime, see the human being, be merciful and forgive a friend.
It is interesting that coincident with Ford’s death and our meeting with our own erstwhile lack of forgiveness in Nixon’s case, we have had the experience of seeing Saddam Hussein hanged for his crimes. I believe this, too, has made us think once more about what it means to condemn another. He was a monster but as I argued in the previous posting, we don’t really know what his life meant in terms of the bigger picture.
It was the same with Nixon. We will never know, and neither could we comprehend, what the spiritual gift was in Watergate and the part Nixon played in it, but Radical Forgiveness tells that there was one. Once we accept that the hand of God is in everything, we can bring humility and mercy to any situation and say quietly to ourselves, “There but for the Grace of God, go I.” It takes that kind of humility to truly forgive. And, by all accounts, Gerald Ford had it.
Thank you, Mr. President.
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