The Creator Has A Master Plan (It’s Not What You Think)

2016 A.D., Earth, Milky Way

This has been a rough ride. But it has always been a rough ride. Our ability to communicate across great distances has merely awakened us to all that is.

This weekend I was reflecting after a hell of a week while I lay with our youngest daughter, listening to Pharoah Sanders on Pandora. This is a week where I counseled students through some heavy shit (including one who watched a man bleed out in front of his door). Worst of all, I found out my cousin was murdered after being in the wind for 2 years. She is the fourth cousin in my same generation we have lost in the past year, the second to horrific violence. We as a people have seen the normalization of violent, xenophobic, racist, sexist rhetoric.

But I had some thoughts while I reflected on all of this. Because while I experienced all of this, I experienced it alongside loved ones. I experienced it with other human beings that I know care as much about humanity and the health of our ecosystems as I do. Some people don’t have that. Their view on the world is shaped by that. Some people are taught that they only have themselves. Some are taught that they only have themselves and a bipolar, selectively vindictive God. They are taught that other people, especially those who do not look or believe like them, are just evil.

I started to think about God. Those who know me know that I subscribe to no particular religion. Those who don’t know me assume that this means that I listen to no one. Au contraire. It means I listen to everyone. And what I have gleaned from deep listening, and probing, over 43 years is that there is a “God”. But God is not some dude with a beard that favors some of us over others because we chant words and wear the right outfits. God is that which courses through us all. And, as Leon Thomas sang so many years ago, The Creator Has A Master Plan. That plan is for us to finally figure out that we are inextricably connected. We may have to traverse a lot of pain and loss to get there. But it is clear to me that not only is that our best future but how we will flourish.

There is a place where love forever shines
And rainbows are the shadows of a presence so divine
And the glow of that love lights the heavens above
And it’s free, can’t you see, come with me
-Pharoah Sanders/Leon Thomas, 1969

All the available evidence across “subjects” and “disciplines” shows me that humanity is at its best when we are not stepping on each other but digging in the dirt together. We have made ourselves dependent on the far-flung power centers, those who have hoarded. This detaches us from those we share space with. We become familiar lap dogs of powerful strangers and vicious attack dogs to those we are supposed to depend on. We sit in our homes, 20 feet apart, glued to the words of someone we will never meet. Name 20 celebrities. Tell me what they are doing this week. Name 20 neighbors. Tell me what they do for your community. If you can, that is great! Do you think most people can? Where do you think the balance is?

Like it or not, we live in a global society full of many different cultures and value systems that are Venn diagrams of different sized circles. Do you really think we are going to tease all that apart and go back to small clusters? I don’t. I think we need to figure out how to live as clusters within clusters. This means that we have to stop playing zero sum games. If some people win everything, and others must be assumed to deserve everything to assuage guilt in the first group, we are always headed to war. It is always only a matter of time.

This twisted view I see in some who call themselves Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist that we achieve our highest calling via individual achievement or the amassing of trinkets and account codes is truly evil. We achieve our highest calling only when we are collaborative, connected beings. We see glimpses of this after a tragedy. Then we snap back to the grid.

Some will read this, and assume that I am advocating for socialism, communism. Guess what? I don’t like isms at all. All isms are precursors to trickle down. We need a higher consciousness in ourselves and each other. Right now, most systems are governed by those trying to flip the switches to make themselves winners. Some will assume that I don’t think there are differences between people, or that I think it’s easy. I don’t think it’s easy. I just like to work hard and am tired of folks arguing for a passive, laissez-faire view on the progress of our species.

I have grown weary of
these excuse-laden plans
Of the evil wrought
By all manner of hand
Of detachment from plight
In near and distant lands
Fantastic flights paid for
On backs of woman and man
-the hood neuro, 2016

We are not designed to be powerful singularly because we are individually favored by some holy version of American Idol. That is a lie propagated by the sickest among us. Just like viruses, philosophical sickness replicates more quickly than understanding, because it is a simpler organism.

We do not receive the true power of God/The Gods by virtue of being a chosen “one” or a chosen “few”. We only become powerful in the realm of God where we choose to seek harmony and understanding. Now, some think that “harmony” equals perfection and utopia. It does not. Harmony is not always soft, or clean. It is simply finding an accordance with the highest vibration of us, us meaning all that is.

See, people have been selling us twisted messaging embedded in the quilt of righteousness, even of love, for the longest time. They embed this message in the promise of reward and pleasure.

I am the soul thief
I chelate your pain
Promise dopamine release
I will mask your shame
In untold riches
Spill blood. Crack bones.
I will grant your wishes
-the hood neuro, 2016

This is the propaganda of the viral hoarders. People will even convince you that it is their “right” to grab as much as they can hold. Then they run away, all of their treasure poisoning them and the rest of us as they tighten their grip. They leave us standing there holding the empty bag. We are angered in the valley when we look at our neighbor and see one more slice of bread, not realizing that the loaf is atop the hill. The hill seems too steep, so we attack our neighbor in the valley. We worship their “success”, not realizing that they are nothing but dry and thirsty. So, in our ignorance, we replicate their virus at a cellular level.

I see through your
Sugar sprinkled propaganda
Ain’t no good for the
Goose or the gander
Propaganda is just lies
That have been glammed up
We drink in these lies to
Rationalize our eyes
-the hood neuro, 2016

We convince ourselves that kids who just want to play are “bad”. We convince ourselves that our homeless neighbor “deserves” it. Because we believe the lie that “God wants” us to achieve material wealth. But God does not want. God just is. It is we who want. We continually remake God in the image of whatever we want for ourselves. And you know this. If you really look, you already know good and damn well that “God” does not care about your damned BMW. God is subatomic and the whole. God is to be vibed, not a favor to be won. God is only present when we are individuals who see each other as ONE.

Our collective and individual inability to realize all of this is frustrating.

I have left so many conversations on social media in the past few years, and even lashed out, out of frustration. I am frustrated by the blinders people voluntarily glue to their faces.

Having debates about whether someone deserved to die for yelling that they were tired of being stopped is frustrating. That we are questioning whether some oppression or “oppression light” is acceptable reminds me of the time during every semester when my students ask for a curve, and it is frustrating. That we pretend children are only as valuable as their future ability to produce fatter profit margins for Fortune 500 companies is frustrating.

When we value the amassing of trinkets and speed of delivery over the health of our natural environment or our health in it — frustrating. We argue for why art and play are “special” things, instead of “regular” things children do. We ask permission to take a sick child to the doctor. We feel guilty for spending quality time with our families when we have “work to do”. Our excuses for lording over others’ bodies are frustrating.

Big time investors call money “skin”, and say people who work every day have no “skin in the game”. That is frustrating since in the case of a business failure they would have slightly less money and the worker would be homeless. They are called “hedge funds”. Those of us who work have no hedge life. But because money is valued over lives, phrases like that exist.

But I will not let anger consume me. That is what disconnects us. And I am guilty. I am as guilty of it as anyone. I cannot allow that of myself. I think anger is useful only as fuel for greater resolve. Does this mean I am going to be candy sweet when someone excuses what I know to be evil? No. This means that I am going to be measured, and I am going to pick not only my battles but my tactics. I am using my pen so that my sword may remain in its scabbard, and thus must not turn my pen into the proxy of that sword. I will never apologize for feeling when the vibe is not right. But I will not allow myself to drink of hate.

Does all this mean I think we can just flip a switch? No, and while there are things to look back to (like tighter knit communities and families), there is nothing to go back to. Let us also remember that some of those tight-knit communities were themselves the product of exclusion/subjugation, and some of those tight-knit families were low key abusive. We need to progress.

I only say all of this to ask: Who is with me in 2017? Will we continue to compete for MVP of the zero sum all-star team? Will we continue to debate aggressively for the justification of mistreatment/oppression/subjugation/ or can we find our higher vibration together? Get outside. Move. Meet others not like you. Watch them laugh and play with their children. Enjoy breaking bread and dancing as you have not before. Create a multicultural hiking expedition. Love your own culture without allowing your thoughts to travel toward denigrating another’s.