What is Your Commitment to Life?, Asks Lucira Jane Nebelung

Opinion: by Lucira Jane Nebelung.

For This I Have Come: The Courage to Be Vulnerable.

Not too many years ago a friend observing my life said to me, "Lj, I don't understand your path." Well, that made two of us... the unknown is unsettling and can be "traumatic." Comprehension is not required; being fully present to both our internal and external experience is. MAC thank you for this pre-sent invitation... I trust you are well.

Are We "Lost In Translation"?- In Lenten Contemplation, I pointed to some mixed messages in the interpretations of the life and death of Jeshua. One reader suggested that calling "Jesus" something other than "Jesus" was "distracting" and "why not call him by his recognized Christian name?" I responded that Jeshua (Yeshua in Hebrew - he was Jewish) spoke Aramaic and it was his given name in his language; Jesus is the Greek spelling/translation. I prefer the original.

Here is a bit more her-esy to add to the earlier observations of the mixed messages of Jeshua: Traditional translations of the Gospels say that during his crucifixion Jeshua said: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Another message of the futility of Love, that we are forsaken by "God." Since a child, this never made "sense" to me.

Through successive hand transcriptions of the original text and translations, translations from/to Greek, Latin and Aramaic, and pointed revisions of the text by various hierarchies that likely changed meaning, who knows what was really said. One translation directly from ancient Aramaic texts suggests he said: "For this I was spared", an Aramaic idiom meaning "This was my destiny."

In the agony of judgment, isolation and death, Jeshua chose Love, Christos, over fear. His "crucifixion" was the "death" of fear. For this he came: To show us our destiny. We forsake Love; Love never forsakes us.

That's the point. We each have interpretations and translations of perceptions and experience. From our points of view we continuously live a choice: love or fear. What do we choose as our identity; who and what do we choose to be? Our origin is love; our destiny is determined by our choices. We Are the Alpha and the Omega. We redeem ourselves by being who We Are, the resurrection of Love.

For This I Have Come: One's Path is a committed, intimate relationship with Life. In Living the True Self: Leading as Love, I described what I "do." It is not, however, what and who I Be. How do I know mySelf, the underlying essence of who I Am and what I bring forth? Lucira, my "original" name, means the Power of Light. This is the energy, the consciousness, this life bears.

On sabbatical, I was present to myself as mySelf and experienced the material and the subtle aspects of Life's energies, creation and the reality of Love without distortion or manipulation. Some days the energy was so intense, it seemed I could not function. I learned Love moved me effortlessly to be present with only what truly needed to be done to serve.

I struggled and resisted owning who I Am, attributing the profound Love I feel to someone or something outside of myself. It's the "mistake" we all make; believing there needs to be an "object" of Love. What we feel is our own Love, ourSelf, reflected in and by the "other."

I am here, now as a mirror of the heart and soul. From the Centerpoint for Being, my Path and Purpose is to simply stand for and reflect the Truth of who we are: Christos. Life in Service to Love; Love in Service to Life. This is my Commitment to Life.

I have deeply experienced and witnessed every fear, just about every miscreation known to humankind and brought them into conscious awareness. I know boundless joy and the infinite, eternal unity with Life that is Love. I know judgment, rejection, isolation and despair. I know heart-wrenching sorrow and grief.

I know freedom and liberation. I know the struggle of the prison of attachment, addiction and avoidance. I know betrayal, abandonment, inadequacy and worthlessness. I know abiding peace. I know physical pain, dis-ease and death. I know incessant doubt. I know the tricks, excuses, justifications, and deceptions our mind uses to avoid Being and to run from who We Are. I know the anger and rage of not being in control.

I know contentment with Life. All reflected to me as human experience to be embraced as the seeds of compassion. As aspects of the Divine Feminine, Mary, Isis, Lilith, Kali, Ishtar, Magdalena, I chose to feel humanity's pain of separation, to own its shadows and to transmute them into Light.

My Path has stripped away all surface markers and labels of identity to uncover an original Centerpoint for Being to live, restored to Know a place of belonging in relation to the infinite and to inhabit it. It is a Path of integrating duality, bridging of worlds, living grounded at both ends of the bridge as spirit and matter. Truth is each and every one of us is this bridge; through our own consciousness we bring spirit and matter into unity, heaven to earth, and integrate all the polarities that now separate us.

We Build the Bridge as We Walk on It: Life itself is Love, Living One Vibrational Energy. Life itself is Grace, a Gift, a Miracle, if we allow its presence and flow. One might think of retiring our operating system of fear as there can be no more updates. The practices of Living the True Self bring the operating system of Love fully online and functional.

You cannot get away from Being You. What you do not make peace with now, you will have to make peace with later. You do not have to understand, agree or approve of Life, only accept and allow you to be You, living in a whole-hearted way, as integrated wholeness. "Letting go" is really "allowing in" a gift offered that is beyond words and comprehension, and any needs, wants or desires of the ego-personality.

Love is the energy of creation. Being Love is an emptiness that is bursting with possibility.

Living the True Self as the Centerpoint for Being is the mastery of who You Are, your greatest freedom. It is what calls you, the focal point for the Love that you are, for what you came to Be. Life asks only that we be this True Self, to align and integrate our unconscious and conscious minds and actions with the supraconscious, the greater intelligence of Spirit, of the heart and soul. This is the one "change" that transforms everything.

Allowing Love's presence opens the heart to know itself as Love and one's own presence as Life's radiant gift. It's viral. When one opens one's own heart, Love spreads like a wildfire, jumping from heart to heart, igniting its flame.

I Am present as Love, Christos, so all who choose may attune to their own essence, their own unique Love. Only You Know what this is for you. Together we open a conduit to our inner nature, illuminate and call forth one another's Light, the movement of Love, this unity within. This wide-open space also illuminates limiting patterns, the subtle and ingrained beliefs that no longer serve. There is no place to go, nothing to "do"... we simply relax, allow and open into Being what we are, engaged with Life here and now.

Love evokes the Light that illuminates the mind and ignites the Sacred Hearts of humankind. What is Your Commitment to Life?

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* Lucira Jane Nebelung, Founder & Principal of "Leading as Love" and faculty member at The Graduate Institute, writes from Connecticut, USA.

* Do you have a Story, News, Photos or Views to share? sent them to: onlinewoolwich@yahoo.co.uk.

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Social Conflict: Keeping The Peace Through Talk! Talk!! Talk!!!, Not War! War!! War!!!

by Benson Agoha

Achieving peace has been elusive for generations and as former US President, John F. Kennedy said "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

MC Scott's 'Rome: The Art of War' showed graphically, how power tussles generated conflicts, created and exposed divided loyalties and led to wars that were very crudely and mercilessly fought.

As has been seen again and again, conflict is conflict no matter where it develops. And when it is a product of social dynamics, it often has the same effect, except it is properly managed.

Personal conflicts is a different issue because it exists and revolves within the individual based on his/her peculiar circumstances. In this sense, the process of resolution begins with self analysis and developing the capacity to brace one's self up and face realities.

Still, people can be cruel, even to themselves, and will not make the necessary reality check, when moderation and compromises could make a difference. But who has the right to judge others, really?

Do people show any willingness to understand us when we have rational reasons to cling to our beliefs, even if that translates to 'self-harming' meanness?

Conflicts in groups is such that, whether we like it or not, we often face some element of circumscription. We are reminded of the need to play by the rules, respect the norm, or be ready to face the consequences.

But facing the music can be brutishly applied. There again, the circumstance before a group, test's a leader's capacity to lead - in times of challenge and in times when the group faces adversity.

Oranisations are group's, made up of different implement-bearing personalities and an egg-head, with his litany of aids, to harness the various competences of these members and point them towards a certain goal.

But whether you are in a village group or an organisational settings, crude implements, selfishness, brutal methods or incursions into another's territory as well as hawkish ambitions often create similar ill-feeling and resentment.

For all its achievements, war never manages to solve problems, at least not on a sustainable basis. The reason is that, though it may suppress in the short term, it often leaves frayed nerves.

Overtime, mankind has learnt, and indeed has sought ways to ensure that conflicts, if they cannot be excluded from society, must at least be controlled - contained within rules that are generally recognised and respected.

But have we managed to achieve peace. No. Have we managed to articulate a solution. No. Are we likely to do that in the near future. Not yet. Because as Mahatma Gandhi "An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

The last question has been part of Prem Rewat's message as he traversed continents with his message of peace. Prem has a generous heart and a good message. But the world are just not listening - for the same reason as an individual experiencing internal conflict clings to his beliefs.

But far from his crude ways from generations past, humanity has made many gains. They have learnt to accept that arguments, itself a sign of conflict, do not always have to lead to war. And that efforts can be dispensed in search of peaceful solutions, when disagreements erupt up.

We have learnt that we can always agree to disagree or disagree to agree. If only this is acceptable to all and respected, we should be more positive with peaceful efforts.

But a simple model for peace appears to suggest that a search for mutual co-existence must include the following suggestions:

a) There must be rules that both lovers of conflicts, war mongers and lovers of peace, must be willing and ready to recognise and accept.

b) No matter what you preach, ensure that keeping the peace is your 'watchword'. This posture or mindset encourages avoidance of war and search for peace.

c) If you must fight, ensure you engage in winnable wars. Often times, this is either difficult because people are unable to appropriately analyse their competences or hope for some luck or intervention from higher planes.

d) If the conflict does not look good or the war appears unwinnable, you must know when and how to quit. This gives you the chance to retain an element of grace.

e) If you are already loosing, terribly under-eqquiped, under-tooled or under-manned, recognise when to abort, abdicate and or surrender.

f) Know when to avoid making unacceptable negotiations requests, except you clearly indicate an intension to surrender.

g) If you decide to surrender, expect to be disarmed and make it easier for yourself and members of your group.

h) When you have surrendered, disarmed or not, avoid making further troubles.

Above all, the search for peace must be through 'talk! talk!! talk!!!, not war! war!! war!!!'

* Follow me on Twitter(follow): @bensonagoha and @woolwichonline.

Checking Bullies: Why Our Response Matters More Than Their Words

by Benson Agoha

Bullies are provocative, sometimes intimidating and despicable bunch. And it has the potential to become a scourge because it can be infectious.

Bullies often overlook their own short-comings, in their rabid desperation to intimidate or hurt others. Then, they claim it was all for fun. 'Just having a little fun here - looks like you take things too seriously', you could hear them say as they try to placate their way out of indictment.

Of the myriads ob bullies one can experience, the worse among them are mental health bullies. These group, with as much deficiency as anyone else, manage to mask theirs with a translucent veneer of complex they wear for garment, and try to project the opposite. It actually takes little to unmask them.

A few months ago, I met several new faces from the Greenwich Twitter community at this meet-and-greet session. But among the lot was a perfectly masked bully with decadence that an observant person will recognise as a camouflage.

Camouflages are a trigger for alertness but when worn as a uniform, they become fashionable and appealing. If only we remember never to take camouflages at face value.

So this lady projected an image of a conditioned, cultured and well polished city girl who would regard anyone capable of hurting a fly with disdain.

By the time, I left them to it, I had formed an opinion, to 'watch' her. And remained doing it even though we communicated in the days following that first meeting. By the time she 'came out', I was neither surprised nor disappointed.

No one can say exactly what triggers bullying in people, because while some do it for fun, others do it in reaction to the environmental displacement.

When subjected to pressure or other forms of stressful situation, people have been seen to react differently. While some people are as sweet as honey when they have money - or hope to have it, and become monsters when they don't, others have sleep and wake up relishing bullying.

All these abnormal behaviours from bullies show that a normal person can actually behave abnormally and may consequently require a more urgent attention for mental health professionals. Yet, until they take themselves there or are reported, they will carry on, and be seen as 'normal'.

The Home Treatment Team at the Oxleas House have capable mental health professionals who access patients, treat them where necessary and or make necessary recommendations and referrals.

But on the inside wall is a poster with the inscription "Did you know that, as a proven fact, 1 in 4 persons, have mental ill-health?

Very interesting wouldn't you say? But the statement is designed to encourage you to be honest and face reality. It is also designed to provide a psychological boost against bullying.

If you are aware that he who was bullying you faced even worse condition, and still passes off as 'normal', would you take their bullying so seriously? Or simply give it back to them and move on?

Parents should teach their children to develop a strong mental attitude early, which is a potent weapon against the effect of an act that emanate from very cruel, evil minded, ill-conceived and degrading minds.

Teach them to have a sense of self-worth and self-belief. It is this combination that enables you to strengthen your inhibitions so that you are immune to hurtful words and acts of bullies.

The reality of our world is that everybody cannot be cultured - even if you taught them. So, since there certainly will be deviants, it makes sense to prepare children to expect them, and know how to deal with them.

I have received a fair share of slurs and bullying. And actually firstly, I think, heard the word 'wanker' thrown at me from bullies at a Wood Green based shop. I had to ask colleagues for the meaning, and then trivialised it by telling them the abuse was hauled at my back, and not meant for me.

As a Marketing Canvasser with a Home Improvements outfit in welling, I received remarks. Not from colleagues of course, but from a group of fun-seeking lads, presumably bored with nothing to do, chose to drive around after a good meal, and say something unkind to others. That too, I let fall off my 'none-stick' back.

Nothing prepares you better against bullies than knowing what to say back to them and when. And frankly, sometimes, it is not every remark that merits a response.

While visiting the French Southern Provence of Avignon, my host and guide once told me that surviving presence of 2000 year-old single lane Bridge, called St. Julien, was evidence that Europe was also colonised. But he said, they got over it and recovered to rebuild and become world economic and military powers. Then he asked, why can't Africa get over there's?

Of course he got no immediate answer from me, but his thought-provoking question did stir a wave of internal reviews that helped me develop into a more confident African.

But there is nothing good about bullying. It is an anti-social behaviour that insults and degrades people, and which has led to the untimely death of so many hurt souls, who lacked the capacity to tolerate it.

But think of it, why would you help a bully either by crying or taking your own life? Many of those who committed suicide in recent times have been children who have hardly defined their goals in life.

My son was more confident than I ever was as a child, knocked into a confident lad early on by a German Foundation school called SOS Village.

But you never grow up to your parents and everyday I ask myself whether there were things I should have told him, that I didn't. Teach your child the right things about bullies and help them stay alive longer.

The best and the greatest of minds, say they have been bullied, and that is with the statistics not withstanding.

The discovery of the Higgs Bossom was remarkable, but the theory was developed by a man who was bullied earlier on. Imagine if he had given up.

Professor Peter Higgs told the BBC Radio 4 programme that in the early days of his theory, "he was considered a bit more eccentric and may be cranky".

Ok, you may have to operationalise on the words to decide where to place them, but I don't see anything different other than bullying if you are considered strange, weird or an outcast.

In the end, it is our response to bullying that really matters.

* Follow me Twitter: @bensonagoha

Lenten Contemplation: Lucira Jane Nebelung Talks About 40 Days Of Fasting

by Lucira Jane Nebelung

In Christian traditions, today is Ash Wednesday.

This marks the start of 40 days of penance in preparation for the Holy Week of Jeshua's Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection at Easter. His life and death gave humanity not a single message, rather it gave mixed messages.

Jeshua stood for and taught the power of unconditional love and forgiveness. He came to show us that we are Christos, the conscious unity of our own hearts with life, that we are Love, the unity in all things.

Jeshua's "story" also imprinted humanity with subconscious beliefs that in living as love, we will experience betrayal, abandonment and crucifixion for defying the status quo of the elite - the money and power of religion, government and merchants. Humanity also carries a subconscious belief that we are inherently unworthy: Our love is inadequate and we lack the ability to overcome our "shortcomings." These beliefs have been reinforced by the patriarchal hierarchy and rules and rituals of humanity's institutions for the last 2,000 years.

The very nature of life is interwoven connection. We are not separate from this unity. We have a natural desire to belong and come together in community. The universal primal fears of betrayal, abandonment, execution, and unworthiness are what separate us from our true nature and one another. They are primal as they are fears we hold in our relationship to life aka "God."

In our mistrust, we have disconnected ourselves from the flow of life, pushing it out of balance. These inequities are unsustainable.

The breakdowns in our institutions and conflicts that we are witnessing are our collective creations based in these primal fears that are being revealed, brought from the shadows into the light of our consciousness.

These events might be considered current versions of the story of Jeshua overturning tables and throwing the money changers out of the temple.

Christian or not, during this time of spring's rebirth we all can choose to be free of our mind's fears and dissonant belief structures, resurrect our hearts and live the truth of our connection that is love. In other words, live as we are, as Christos in the unity of our hearts and create a new physical reality with the power of love, the unity in all things.

Jeshua's most powerful message is that we have a free will: Fear or love. It's our choice what we experience.

We are at the tipping point of a new expression of life. It is our consciousness that creates; there is no one here but us.

Much Love and Many Blessings!



* Lucira Jane Nebelung, Founder & Principal of "Leading as Love" and faculty member at The Graduate Institute, writes from Connecticut, USA.


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* Do you have a Story, News, Photos or Views to share? sent them to: onlinewoolwich@yahoo.co.uk.

* Articles for publication must have full contact details, including name, addres and telephone number of sender.

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