Please Don't Protect Me...I'll Rely On God

Are We still burying non gun owners who are being killed because either gun owners failed to properly secure their legal guns, or they live with mentally unstable people and they don't see it? The kids have access to them...and the list goes on. Excuses, excuses that's what gun owners give the loved ones to bury their dead.
Fear is what fills their minds. Fear that they have created. Sadly We live in a country where people could have chosen freedom but became certain that fear was worth holding on to.

National Gun Ownership34 %

Sex
Male37 %
Female31 %

Race
White37 %
Non White32 %
Black33 %

Age
18 – 29 31 %
30 – 49 40 %
50 – 64 45 %
50 +42 %
65+38 %

Education
College Post Graduate30 %
College Graduate37 %
Some College41 %
High School Graduate or Less42 %

Income
$75,00047 %
$50,00049 %
$30,00044 %

Region
East22 %
Midwest39 %
South50 %
West37 %

And Then These Facts and Statistics...

10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down

Fact-checking some of the gun lobby's favorite arguments shows they're full of holes.

—By Dave Gilson

| Thu Jan. 31, 2013 7:01 AM EST

By cutting off federal funding for research and stymieing data collection and sharing, the National Rifle Association has tried to do to the study of gun violence what climate deniers have done to the science of global warming. No wonder: When it comes to hard numbers, some of the gun lobby's favorite arguments are full of holes.

Myth #1: They're coming for your guns.
Fact-check: No one knows the exact number of guns in America, but it's clear there's no practical way to round them all up (never mind that no one in Washington is proposing this). Yet if you fantasize about rifle-toting citizens facing down the government, you'll rest easy knowing that America's roughly 80 million gun owners already have the feds and cops outgunned by a factor of around 79 to 1.

Sources: Congressional Research Service (PDF), Small Arms Survey

Myth #2: Guns don't kill people—people kill people.
Fact-check: People with more guns tend to kill more people—with guns. The states with the highest gun ownership rates have a gun murder rate 114% higher than those with the lowest gun ownership rates. Also, gun death rates tend to be higher in states with higher rates of gun ownership. Gun death rates are generally lower in states with restrictions such as assault-weapons bans or safe-storage requirements.Update: A recent study looking at 30 years of homicide data in all 50 states found that for every one percent increase in a state's gun ownership rate, there is a nearly one percent increase in its firearm homicide rate.

Sources: Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Myth #3: An armed society is a polite society.
Fact-check: Drivers who carry guns are 44% more likely than unarmed drivers to make obscene gestures at other motorists, and 77% more likely to follow them aggressively.
• Among Texans convicted of serious crimes, those with concealed-handgun licenses were sentenced for threatening someone with a firearm 4.8 times more than those without.
• In states with Stand Your Ground and other laws making it easier to shoot in self-defense, those policies have been linked to a 7 to 10% increase in homicides.

• This Is How the NRA Lies to Gun Owners About Obama's Agenda
• NRA's School Security Plan Cites Phony Shooting
• This Collection of NRA Ads Reveals Its Descent Into Crazy
• The NRA Myth of Gun-Free Zones
• Gunmakers and the NRA Bet Big on Silencers. What Could Go Wrong?
• Investigators Discover NRA Materials in Newtown Killer's House
• EXCLUSIVE: Unmasking the NRA's Inner Circle
• Meet the NRA's Board of Directors
• The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys
• How the NRA and Its Allies Helped Spread a Radical Gun Law Nationwide

See our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America.

Myth #4: More good guys with guns can stop rampaging bad guys.
Fact-check: Mass shootings stopped by armed civilians in the past 30 years: 0
• Chances that a shooting at an ER involves guns taken from guards: 1 in 5

Myth #5: Keeping a gun at home makes you safer.
Fact-check: Owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun.
• For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.
• 43% of homes with guns and kids have at least one unlocked firearm.
• In one experiment, one third of 8-to-12-year-old boys who found a handgun pulled the trigger.

Myth #6: Carrying a gun for self-defense makes you safer.
Fact-check: In 2011, nearly 10 times more people were shot and killed in arguments than by civilians trying to stop a crime.
• In one survey, nearly 1% of Americans reported using guns to defend themselves or their property. However, a closer look at their claims found that more than 50%involved using guns in an aggressive manner, such as escalating an argument.
• A Philadelphia study found that the odds of an assault victim being shot were 4.5 times greater if he carried a gun. His odds of being killed were 4.2 times greater.

Myth #7: Guns make women safer.
Fact-check: In 2010, nearly 6 times more women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex-partners than murdered by male strangers.
• A woman's chances of being killed by her abuser increase more than 5 times if he has access to a gun.
• One study found that women in states with higher gun ownership rates were 4.9 times more likely to be murdered by a gun than women in states with lower gun ownership rates.

Myth #8: "Vicious, violent video games" deserve more blame than guns.
Fact-check: So said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre after Newtown. So what's up with Japan?

	United States	Japan
Per capita spending on video games	$44	$55
Civilian firearms per 100 people	88	0.6
Gun homicides in 2008	11,030	11

Sources: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Small Arms Survey (PDF), UN Office on Drugs and Crime

Myth #9: More and more Americans are becoming gun owners. 
Fact-check: More guns are being sold, but they're owned by a shrinking portion of the population.
• About 50% of Americans said they had a gun in their homes in 1973. Today, about45% say they do. Overall, 35% of Americans personally own a gun.
• Around 80% of gun owners are men. On average they own 7.9 guns each.

Myth #10: We don't need more gun laws—we just need to enforce the ones we have.
Fact-check: Weak laws and loopholes backed by the gun lobby make it easier to get guns illegally.
• Around 40% of all legal gun sales involve private sellers and don't require background checks. 40% of prison inmates who used guns in their crimes got them this way.
• An investigation found 62% of online gun sellers were willing to sell to buyers who said they couldn't pass a background check.
• 20% of licensed California gun dealers agreed to sell handguns to researchers posing as illegal "straw" buyers.
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives did not have apermanent director for 7 years, due to an NRA-backed requirement that the Senate approve nominees.

A 3-year-old, a 6-year-old, cops and robbers and a gun ...then tragedy

The 3-year-old boy who was one of two people killed in city shootings since Saturday night was accidentally shot by his 6-year-old brother while the two were playing cops and robbers, according to police.
The boy, whom authorities identified as Eian Santiago, was at a residence at about 9:05 p.m. in the 1000 block of North Francisco Avenue in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side when his 6-year-old brother got hold of a revolver and shot him in the head.
According to Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, the two had been playing "cops and robbers" when the 6-year-old saw the handgun atop a refrigerator, took it and fired it in the direction of his brother. Guglielmi could not further describe the weapon other than saying it was a handgun.
The boys' father, 25-year-old Michael Santiago, was charged with felony child endangerment in connection with the shooting. He kept a loaded gun on top of a refrigerator, according to police. He is expected to appear in bond court Sunday.
Guglielmi said that Michael Santiago told police he was a former member of the Spanish Cobras gang and that he had purchased the gun from another gang member for protection. Guglielmi said police are in the process of tracing the weapon.
After the shooting, the boy's family members took him to Norwegian American Hospital. He later was transferred to Mount Sinai Hospital, where family members gathered as word of the shooting spread.
As word of the shooting spread, people walked up to the ambulance bay at Mount Sinai in groups of two or three. By 11:20 p.m., about two dozen people were waiting in the cold, including a young woman who had been wailing almost nonstop for half an hour.
"Why can't I go in?" she asked someone inside, sobbing.
A few minutes later, she screamed in the same direction.
"What do you mean, he's dead?" she screamed. "What do you mean, we can't go in?"
"No, no, no, no," said one man as he walked up to the hospital. He came to the wall and sank into a crouch.
"Oh, God, why," he said, his voice ragged.
In other shootings:
At about 2 a.m., a man was killed and another was wounded in a shooting in Rosemoor, said Chicago Police spokesman Officer Hector Alfaro said.
They were pulling away from a curb in a vehicle in the 10600 block of South Prairie Avenue when people walked up and fired shots.
The driver, a 22-year-old man, was shot in the upper back and pronounced dead on the scene. A 19-year-old man was shot in the knee and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center. His condition was stabilized.
At 10:10 p.m., a 37-year-old man was shot in West Chatham, Alfaro said.
He was discovered on the sidewalk in the 7900 block of South Lafayette Avenue with a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition.
At 9:15 p.m., a 36-year-old man was shot in Cragin, Alfaro said.
He was in the 5500 block of West Altgeld Street when he was shot in the calf. He was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in good condition. No information was available about the man's exact age or the circumstances of the shooting.
At about 9 p.m., a 22-year-old man was shot in the Washington Park neighborhood, police said.
He was in a vehicle that was stopped at an intersection in the 5300 block of South Michigan Avenue when a car pulled up alongside and someone inside began shooting, Alfaro said. He was hit in the leg and taken to Stroger Hospital. His condition was stabilized.
About 8:45 p.m., a 26-year-old man was shot in the Fifth City neighborhood on the West Side, Alfaro said.
He was in the 0-100 block of South Homan Avenue when he was robbed and shot in the leg, Alfaro said. He went to Mount Sinai Hospital, and his condition was stabilized.
Police initially said the person was a juvenile who had been shot in the 3300 block of West Monroe Street.
At 8:40 p.m., a 35-year-old man was shot in Woodlawn, Alfaro said.
He was in a parked car in the 6100 block of South Ellis Avenue when another car pulled up alongside and someone inside fired shots. The man was shot in the head and taken to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized. A law enforcement source said the man was conscious and talking.
Police initially said the shooting happened in the 6400 block of South Ellis Avenue.
About 2:30, a 40-year-old man was shot in the Scottsdale neighborhood, police said.
He was in the 8500 block of South Pulaski Road when he was shot in the hip. He drove himself to Advocate Christ Medical Center and his condition was stabilized.
The Chicago Tribune's Deanese Williams-Harris contributed.


People are getting shot by toddlers on a weekly basis this year

© The Washington Post

This week a 2-year-old in South Carolina found a gun in the back seat of the car he was riding in and accidentally shot his grandmother, who was sitting in the passenger seat. This type of thing happens from time to time: a little kid finds a gun, fires it, and hurts or kills himself or someone else. These cases rarely bubble up to the national level except when someone, like a parent, ends up dead.
But cases like this happen a lot more frequently than you might think. After spending a few hours sifting through news reports, I've found at least 43 instances this year of somebody being shot by a toddler 3 or younger. In 31 of those 43 cases, a toddler found a gun and shot himself or herself.
In August, for instance, a 21-month-old in the St. Louis area found a loaded handgun at his grandmother's house and shot himself in the torso. His mother took him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Earlier in the year a Michigan 3-year-old found a loaded .40-caliber handgun in a closet while his dad and brother were outside. He shot himself in the head and died before rescue workers arrived.
[This is what one year of gun deaths in America looks like]
The stories go on and on like this: Roughly once a week this year, on average, a small child has found a gun, pointed it at himself or someone else, and pulled the trigger. Boys are disproportionately likely to do this: I could find only three cases where a girl under the age of 4 wounded someone with a gun. In 13 of the 43 total incidents, a child's self-inflicted injuries were fatal. In two other cases, another person died after being shot by a toddler: a father in Alabama, and a 1-year-old in Ohio.
In one instance, a 3-year-old managed to wound both of his parents with a single gunshot at an Albuquerque motel.
Shootings by toddlers have happened in 24 states so far this year. Missouri has seen the most, with five separate incidents. Florida has had four. Texas, three. Due to the low number of total cases and the isolated nature of these incidents I'd caution against drawing broad conclusions from the map above. But it is worth noting that the shootings don't necessarily follow broader population trends. California, the most populous state in the nation, hasn't had any. Nobody has been shot by a toddler in New England or the Upper Midwest.
These numbers are probably an undercount. There are likely instances of toddlers shooting people that result in minor injuries and no media coverage. And there are probably many more cases where a little kid inadvertently shoots a gun and doesn't hit anyone, resulting in little more than a scared kid and (hopefully) chastened parents.
Notably, these numbers don't include cases where toddlers are shot, intentionally or otherwise, by older children or adults. Dozens of preschoolers are killed in acts of homicide each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But I haven't included those figures here.
[How often do children in the U.S. unintentionally shoot and kill people? We don’t know.]
These cases are invariably referred to as "accidents" in media reports. But as Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that advocates for stricter gun laws, argues, many incidents like this are preventable. In a study of accidental shootings by children of all ages (not just toddlers), they estimate that "more than two-thirds of these tragedies could be avoided if gun owners stored their guns responsibly and prevented children from accessing them."
There are policy and technical responses to preventable childhood gun deaths as well. States and localities could require guns to be locked up at home, a policy supported by 67 percent of Americans. Various types of smart gun technology, which prevent anyone other than their owners from firing a given gun, exist as well. But gun lock requirements and smart guns have been vehemently opposed by the National Rifle Association and its allies.
Instead, the NRA continues to promote a response that seeks to solve gun problems with more guns, and aims to broaden the saturation of firearms in nearly every sphere of public and private life, from homes to schools to churches to bars to airports and beyond. In a country with more guns than people, it's only natural that a certain number of small children are going get their hands on an unsecured firearm, with tragic consequences.
[Guns in America: For every criminal killed in self-defense, 34 innocent people die]
Depending on where you stand on gun policy, you may feel that 13 dead toddlers in 10 months is too many. Or, you might reason that stuff happens, and that this is part of the price we must pay to protect our gun rights.
I've included my tally of toddler shootings below. News sources are linked in the City column. Know of any this year that I missed? Drop me a line.

Date	City	State	Child's age	Child's gender
1/8/15	High Rock Lake	NC	3	male
1/21/15	East Lake	FL	2	male
1/21/15	Benton Harbor	MI	3	male
1/24/15	Las Vegas	NV	3	male
1/31/15	Albuquerque	NM	3	male
2/3/15	Davie	FL	3	male
2/9/15	LeBleu Settlement	LA	3	female
2/23/15	Florissant	MO	3	male
2/27/15	Houston	TX	3	male
3/3/15	Hillsboro	TN	3	male
3/8/15	Green River	UT	3	male
3/19/15	Chatsworth	GA	2	female
3/26/15	Montoursville	PA	2	male
3/30/15	Jefferson	GA	3	male
4/3/15	Raleigh	NC	2	male
4/12/15	Cleveland	OH	3	male
4/30/15	Peoria	AZ	2	male
5/9/15	Louisville	KY	2	male
5/9/15	San Antonio	TX	3	male
5/15/15	Oklahoma City	OK	2	male
5/17/15	Venice	FL	3	male
5/19/15	Snowville	UT	3	male
5/23/15	Jackson	MS	3	male
5/25/15	Lunenburg	VA	2	male
5/30/15	Myrtle Beach	SC	3	male
6/12/15	Jeffersonville	IN	2	male
6/12/15	Cincinnati	OH	3	male
6/15/15	York	PA	3	male
6/26/15	Pontiac	MI	3	male
6/29/15	Franklin Township	MI	3	male
7/2/15	Shreveport	LA	3	male
7/6/15	Spring	TX	3	male
7/14/15	Conway	SC	3	male
7/15/15	Kansas City	MO	3	female
7/18/15	Columbia	MO	3	male
7/21/15	St. Louis	MO	3	male
8/4/15	Miami	FL	3	male
8/5/15	South Anchorage	AK	3	male
8/18/15	Hoover	AL	2	male
8/25/15	Hanley Hills	MO	1	male
9/22/15	Lake Placid	NY	3	male
9/22/15	Dallas	OR	2	male
10/12/15	Rock Hill	SC	2	male

More on guns and gun policy:
There are now more guns than people in the United States
So far in 2015, we’ve had 274 days and 294 mass shootings
This photo captures America's relationship with guns
You have to see how many more people are killed by guns in America to actually believe it

Billions in Change Official Trailer (2015) - Manoj Bhargava

President Obama speaks a mountain of the Truth

Check out @WhiteHouse's Tweet: https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/645422150568964096?s=09

DOES GOD HAVE A PLAN FOR US?

The big question…

DOES GOD HAVE A PLAN FOR US?

by Neale Donald Walsch

August 23, 2015

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I am excited to be able to use this space on the Internet as a place in which we can join together to ignite a worldwide exploration of some of the most revolutionary theological ideas to come along in a long time.

The ideas I intend to use this space for in the immediate future are the ideas found in GOD’S MESSAGE TO THE WORLD: You’ve Got Me All Wrong.  I believe this new book (published last October by Rainbow Ridge Books) places before our species some of the most important “What if” questions that could be contemplated by contemporary society.

The questions are important because they invite us to ponder some of the most self-damaging ideas about God ever embraced by our species.  For example, the statement that…God has a plan for us.

Much of the world believes in a God who has a particular plan in mind for every human being. This is a God who is said to have handed out to each of us specific talents and attributes, equipping each of us to undertake particular missions, perform discrete functions, and fulfill distinct and disjunctive purposes over the course of our lives.

Our job is to figure out what that plan is, and then to follow that plan as well as we can. Or, at best, to “go with the plan” as it makes itself obvious through the events of our days and nights.

Now comes The Great What If . . .

What if God has no specific plan for any of us? What if God has no preference in the matter of how we live our lives, or what we do, in the specific sense, with our days from birth to death?

Would it make a difference? Does it matter? In the overall scheme of things, would it have any significant impact in our planetary experience?

Yes. First, it would relieve us of the burden of having to figure out what we are “supposed” to be doing here, and how. We could end our search, stop our pursuit, quit our quest, and conclude what we have constructed in our reality as our sacred seeking for God’s sacred assignment.

Then, we could begin at last, in full awareness and in earnest, the journey upon which we really came to the earth to embark. This is not God’s “plan,” this is the soul’s desire. And this always has to do with what we are being, not what we are doing in and with our lives.

If we thought that God did not have a specific agenda in mind for us, we could pay attention to what our life has to offer us in terms of beingness opportunities, rather than what we think God has planned on our behalf (either for beingness or doingness). And we would stop seeing certain occurrences, coincidences, and confluences as “a sign from God” that we can now move forward with “God’s plan.”

As well, if we thought there was no such thing as God’s plan for us, we could drop many of the notions of religion, all the ideas of pre-destiny, and every imagining that a hidden agenda for us exists in divine mind, which God is simply not making obvious and clear to us (for reasons that are not evident).

We could also stop killing each other out of an idea that it is “God’s plan” that a nation of “God’s people” who believe in God and practice God’s will in a particular way must exist upon the earth—even if it requires the killing of thousands of other people to create it.

God has been telling us from the very beginning, and it is becoming more clear to us every day, that humanity’s Ancient Cultural Story about God having a plan for us is plainly and simply inaccurate.

It is okay now to remove this ancient teaching from our current story, and to stop telling this to ourselves and to our children.

If God had a particular plan for every human being on the earth—or, for that matter, for the human race as a collective—God would have made it known to us long ago.

God would have no reason not to tell you in crystal clear, specific, and direct terms what God’s Plan for you is. Why would God devise a particular course of action for every single individual on the earth and then not reveal it to any of them?

And to those who say, “God does tell us what it is. We are just not paying attention,” is this an assertion that God is talking directly to each human being, and that we are simply not listening?

And there are larger questions as well. Why would God have a specific plan for every individual in the world in the first place? What divine purpose would this serve?

Would it not serve a greater divine purpose for God to simply supply the power and to provide the mechanism with which all sentient beings might decide, declare, express, and experience for themselves who they wish to be, instead of having to follow a plan set in place for each of them ahead of time?

There is a divine purpose being served by life. But a purpose is not a plan. A purpose is the reason we’re going to do things. A plan is an outline of the things we’re going to do.

This experience we are all having on the earth is not just a happenstance, not merely the latest in a million-year-old sequence of biological events. There is more going on here than simply the living out of physical life for no reason whatsoever except to complete a process that began for us without our involvement or agreement. And that purpose is much larger in scope than the mere encountering and living through a series of pre-planned occurrences.

The agenda of God is that all life forms in the physical realm express divinity. Each soul, as an Individuation of Divinity, has an eternity in which to do this, and an infinite number of ways to accomplish it.

The soul willfully and intentionally uses life in the physical as a means with which to express and experience all the aspects of divinity that it is possible to experience. These aspects are limitless, thus, life itself would have to be without end in order to experience them. And so it is.

Each separate physical expression of a soul’s infinite life offers it an opportunity to select and express any aspect or aspects of its divine nature that it chooses. Thus, the soul comes to each lifetime with an agenda, but not with a plan. The soul’s agenda may be to express and experience compassion, for instance, or patience and understanding. But the soul does not come to physical life with a predestined decision to do so by becoming a nurse, or by writing a book on human psychology.

To reiterate then, an agenda is the underlying intention or motive of a particular person or group. An agenda has to do with purpose. A plan has to do with process. It is a specific way to achieve a purpose, to follow through on intention. God and the soul have an agenda, but neither God nor the soul dictates or plans how a particular person should, or is going to, fulfill that agenda.

Thus, it is not “God’s Plan” for a particular person to be in a car accident as a child, or experience the divorce of parents, or marry three times, or have no children, or have four children, or contract leukemia, or move to Nebraska, or become a famous painter, or meet just the right person at just the right time to move their career forward.

It is not “God’s Plan” for one particular person to be a minister rather than a professional football player, or another to be the dynamic leader of a country rather than a dynamic country music star.

It is God’s agenda, carried into the realm of the physical by the soul, for that soul to experience states of Being—the sum total of which equal the All that we call God. Or, as it was said just above: The agenda of God is that all life forms in the Physical Realm of the Spiritual express Divinity. Each Soul, as an Individuation of Divinity, has an eternity in which to do this, and an infinite number of ways in which it may be accomplished.

What are these states of being that represent the many parts or aspects of God? With this as our soul’s agenda, life invites us to be many things.

• Creative, for instance. Or compassionate.
• Understanding, for instance. Or patient.
• Helpful, for instance. Or generous.
• Loving, for instance. Or healing.

All of these are states of being. And these, plus many more, may be experienced in any moment of Evernow, individually or simultaneously.

Now you may think, “Is that it? It that all that life is about? I was hoping to actually do something. Something that really mattered. Something that made a difference. Something that contributed to others and to the world at large. Something that allowed me to feel fulfilled.”

Yet that is precisely what the agenda of expressing and experiencing states of being is all about. When we examine life closely we realize that everything and anything we could do with our life is nothing more than an approach, a method, a process, an impulse that leads us into a state of being. Every thought, word, and action creates beingness. That is their only purpose. As Conversations with God says: Every act is an act of self-definition.

As to how you can know what beingness your soul has chosen, simply look to see what brings you the most joy. What impulse calls you? What feeling magnetizes you more than any other?

When you truly internalize this, your whole life can change. And the next step following such a realization is the awareness that what you hoped you would be able to be by doing a particular thing in a particular way, you can be in any number of ways.

And that becomes life’s greatest freedom. The freedom from living as if a specific and particular kind of doing is required of you in your life in order for you to be what your soul deeply desires to be.

Now the road ahead is wide open. Now the path is yours to choose. Because you can be what you’ve chosen to be by doing anything—or by not doing anything at all. You can also decide to change what you choose to be, by simply changing your mind about that. And as you take the path that brings you the greatest joy, you can at last make a life rather than a living.

It is true that sometimes things seem to fall into place so perfectly in our lives that we are tempted to exclaim, “It’s God’s plan!” Or things may not work out the way we had hoped or imagined they would, and we may say, “God had other plans for me.”

Such figures of speech reveal to us just how deeply the notion that God has specific ideas for each of our lives has seeped into our culture. It would be beneficial, however, not to let those figures of speech turn into actual, factual conclusions about “how things are.” Otherwise, we will indeed be tempted to spend a huge amount of our time “trying to figure out how to figure out what God has figured out for us.”

We’ll measure every nuance, every energy, every event against whether we feel this is what God has in mind for us—all the while God has nothing in mind for us at all. Not in the sense of us being a “butcher, baker, or candlestick maker.”

Only in the sense of us using life to experience the highest and most joyful aspects of Who We Really Are and How We Choose to Be.

Indeed, the purpose of life everywhere, in every form, is to express divinity—physicality being the vehicle through which God experiences Itself as all that It knows Itself to be.

This is done through God differentiating Itself, then giving its multitudinous and magnificent parts the wherewithal to express life variously—but without specific instructions, directions, requirements, or plans of any kind for every individual expression.

Life forms in the cosmos have been imbued with varying levels of consciousness, or what might be called self-awareness. This inbuilt ability to know oneself as an Individuation of Divinity is present in all sentient beings, and is increasingly experienced by each such being through the process called evolution.

The evolving into the full experience and demonstration of Who We Are is the journey upon which every soul has embarked, and the completion of that journey is achieved in every moment in which our highest notion of divinity is expressed.

The process of life (as opposed to “the plan”) is that we all simply do this, in whatever way we freely and spontaneously choose, given the possibilities to which we are daily opened by the collaborative creation of all the souls co-creating with us.

Completion of the soul’s journey is, therefore, not something that is experienced once, but over and over again throughout the ongoing manifestation that is life itself—now and eternally.

 There can be what seems like a down side to this for many people. Humans feel more comfortable when they feel guided.

They like to be instructed, directed, told what to do. As an emerging species, this is their proclivity. Like children, they feel safe when clear boundaries are drawn, and specific commands or orders are given. Then all they have to do is meet the requirements and they’re home free. This accounts for the immense popularity of religion. It allows humans to follow their deep inner impulse toward The Divine without having to figure out how to do it.

It is therefore a disappointment to some people to learn that God has no plan for us, no instructions to give us, no guidelines we must follow, and no commands to heed. It can be at once both freeing and frightening to realize that God’s agenda is for us to decide who we wish to be and how we wish to demonstrate that, not spend our life trying to figure out how to figure out what God has figured out for us.

Yet God is like the master teacher in an art class. The best art teachers do not tell budding artists, “Here is your canvas. Use this next hour to create. Oh, but make sure that there is maroon and a big splotch of orange in the picture, and be certain to place the orange in the upper right-hand corner. Also, I need to see a three-dimensional effect, and there have to be children in the foreground and a telephone somewhere.”

The master teacher knows that the purpose of education is not to put something into the student, but to draw something out; not to instruct, but to extract. And so the master teacher simply places before the student all the implements—all the crayons, sketch pencils, brushes, oil paints, watercolors, and dyes—needed to work in any medium, then says with a smile, “Joyously create!”

“But what if I don’t get it right?” the timid pupil cries.

“There’s no way not to get it ‘right’,” the master teacher assures. “This is art!”

There Is No Love But Gods

Perhaps you think that different kinds of love are possible. Perhaps you think there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another. Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergence's and no distinctions. It is like itself, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son.

Love's meaning is obscure to anyone who thinks that love can change. He does not see that changing love must be impossible. And thus he thinks that he can love at times, and hate at other times. He also thinks that love can be bestowed on one, and yet remain itself although it is withheld from others. To believe these things of love is not to understand it. If it could make such distinctions, it would have to judge between the righteous and the sinner, and perceive the Son of God in separate parts.

Love cannot judge. As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Its meaning lies in oneness. And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. There is no love but God's, and all of love is His. There is no other principle that rules where love is not. Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds Them both forever as the same.

No course whose purpose is to teach you to remember what you really are could fail to emphasize that there can never be a difference in what you really are and what love is. Love's meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself. For what you are is what He is. There is no love but His, and what He is, is everything there is. There is no limit placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well.

No law the world obeys can help you grasp love's meaning. What the world believes was made to hide love's meaning, and to keep it dark and secret. There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the truth of what love is, and what you are as well.

Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear love's Voice. Today we practice making free your mind of all the laws you think you must obey; of all the limits under which you live, and all the changes that you think are part of human destiny. Today we take the largest single step this course requests in your advance towards its established goal.

If you achieve the faintest glimmering of what love means today, you have advanced in distance without measure and in time beyond the count of years to your release. Let us together, then, be glad to give some time to God today, and understand there is no better use for time than this.

For fifteen minutes twice today escape from every law in which you now believe. Open your mind and rest. The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be escaped by anyone who does not hold it dear. Withdraw all value you have placed upon its meager offerings and senseless gifts, and let the gift of God replace them all.

Call to your Father, certain that His Voice will answer. He Himself has promised this. And He Himself will place a spark of truth within your mind wherever you give up a false belief, a dark illusion of your own reality and what love means. He will shine through your idle thoughts today, and help you understand the truth of love. In loving gentleness He will abide with you, as you allow His Voice to teach love's meaning to your clean and open mind. And He will bless the lesson with His Love.

Today the legion of the future years of waiting for salvation disappears before the timelessness of what you learn. Let us give thanks today that we are spared a future like the past. Today we leave the past behind us, nevermore to be remembered. And we raise our eyes upon a different present, where a future dawns unlike the past in every attribute.

The world in infancy is newly born. And we will watch it grow in health and strength, to shed its blessing upon all who come to learn to cast aside the world they thought was made in hate to be love's enemy. Now are they all made free, along with us. Now are they all our brothers in God's Love.

We will remember them throughout the day, because we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self. At least three times an hour think of one who makes the journey with you, and who came to learn what you must learn. And as he comes to mind, give him this message from your Self:

I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I would
share with you. For I would learn the joyous lesson that
there is no love but God's and yours and mine and everyone's.

An excerpt from ACIM Lesson 127