Posted by Roberta Grimes • August 03, 2019 • 33 Comments
Human Nature, Slavery
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” (From Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address)
The United States is more divided now than it has been since the start of the Civil War. And in the mid-1800s there were at least good reasons for Americans to battle one another! The Founders knew when our Constitution was written that the issue of slavery would have to be addressed; but if they had tried to enforce abolition then they could not have created a union. So they cobbled together a temporary patch, knowing that slavery was going to have to be abolished at some future point. And as is the way with politicians, the right moment to do something so politically difficult as ending slavery never came, so the issue festered for another three-quarters of a century before it was settled in blood. Historians argue over whether slavery was the reason for the Civil War, or whether the issue was whether or not states that had entered the Union had the right to leave it. Let’s embrace the healing power of “and”! The issue was whether states that preferred slavery over remaining in the Union still had the right to make that choice. These were two thorny, complex, and highly emotional issues that could not be easily resolved.
There are no such major issues now. The Constitution the Founders approved 231 
years ago, even despite its birth defect, has been the most successful attempt ever made in human history to guarantee to as many citizens as possible reasonable freedom, security, stability, and the opportunity to advance economically. And broad surveys show no present issue that is even remotely as divisive as either slavery or the right of a state to secede! A recent poll suggests that the current most important issue to Americans, with 21% putting it first, is illegal immigration. The second most important issue is healthcare, which was chosen first by only 7% of those who were polled. And both of these problems could be readily resolved! Our politicians could enact a way to manage illegal immigration if they did not prefer to maintain it as a political issue for the next election; and 85% of Americans are covered by either Medicare or private insurance, so closing that gap for the remaining 15% would be a simple matter. Yet shockingly, such trivial issues have contributed to creating what is arguably a greater division among Americans today than what resulted from even the highly contentious issues that precipitated our Civil War.
I am reluctant to suggest it here, but as I have done the research for this post I have come to think that the most significant issue that divides us now is the simple fact that 
many Americans wish the 2016 Presidential election had come out differently. There was some worry before the election that Donald Trump would refuse to accept the will of the people. This concern was perhaps best expressed in The Atlantic in October of 2016, in an article that is disconcerting to read now. To the surprise of many, Mr. Trump actually won the 2016 Presidential election; and it is not candidate Clinton, but rather it is some who had been her backers who have amazingly spent most of the past three years trying to unseat a sitting President. The party out of power is meant to serve as the loyal opposition, acting as a useful check on the party then holding the Presidency while respecting both the office and the one who holds it. That sort of orderly interface between our two main political parties simply is not happening now, but rather elements of the Democratic party have spent the past nearly three years attempting to impeach and destroy the sitting President. My dear younger friends, Americans of your parents’ generation or older will tell you that nothing about this is normal. As is suggested in a surprisingly blunt opinion piece on the carefully balanced website Real Clear Politics, what is going on now is appalling!
And all this vicious destructiveness is happening when, by objective measures, the start of Mr. Trump’s administration has been more economically successful for most Americans than have been the starts of the administrations of any of his more recent predecessors. African-Americans, especially, have enjoyed historically low unemployment and significant increases in earnings over the past few years.
It is time 
for all Americans of good will to step back from what looks to be an increasingly dangerous and counterproductive brink!
In case you wonder why I even would be bringing all of this up now, please know that the current turmoil in American politics is a terrible spiritual problem. We cannot unite spiritually when so many of us are so viciously divided politically, and our ambient rage is making it more difficult for us to ever practice real kindness and love. If we cannot empathize with all our neighbors, we can make no spiritual progress at all! And tragically, our terrible political and social climate is increasingly harming our next generation. In fact, some recent mass shootings seem to have been largely the result of our polarized culture’s inadvertent radicalization of a few lonely and troubled young men.
This way lies madness! If we don’t like the current President, then as has been true for 231 years and counting, our solution is to campaign against him and remove him at the ballot box. We know by now that no chief executive can harm the United States so much that a later incumbent won’t be able to fix it; but the same cannot be said of those who still continue to attack President Trump so viciously that they are even using the prestige of their nation as a political weapon. The United States has sunk to an unprecedented level of internal chaos, so I am relieved to tell you that a few Americans have begun to work in various ways to heal what seems to have become so broken in this nation’s civic life.
David Brooks is a New York Times columnist who has long seemed to this observer to be nothing more than a pampered aristocrat disassociated from the daily realities that most 
people face. So I was heartened to see his recent Ted talk, and to find him setting a larger-spirited tone. I urge you to watch it! Here is a very successful man discovering rather late in life some of the same essential truths that you and I talk about each week. The organization he mentions, the Weavers, is making an effort to repair communities under the auspices of the nonpartisan Aspen Institute.
And this spring I joined a new organization called Better Angels, a name that hearkens back to the words of Abraham Lincoln that begin this message. The idea behind Better Angels is that Americans actually have much more in common than whatever might separate us, and once we learn to discuss even difficult issues without political rancor, we will be able to work together to truly heal and prosper our nation.
I have attended three Better Angels events in the past few months. The organization is only two years old, so it is still determining how best to carry out its mission; and the chapter in my city is barely a year old, which means that all of us are learners. Everything Better Angels does includes “red” and “blue” members in roughly equal numbers, and the rules are designed to encourage meaningful discussions without anger or disrespect. So far we have tackled both illegal immigration and gun control, so we haven’t shied away from the most divisive topics! And here is some of what I have learned in my first few months with Better Angels:
There are Better Angels chapters now forming nationwide. If you are an American and you can find a chapter in your area, I urge you to give it a try! As we work to help one another grow spiritually, let us also begin the essential work of healing and better prospering first this nation and then the world.
Dear Roberta,
Thank you for this clear-headed rational call to action. Sadly as this blog entry appears and I write this, another mass shooting by another angry young man has just taken us “by surprise.” But unsurprisingly, the reports of the event come from the same predetermined corners with the same rhetoric.
The silver lining is that this gives us, in the spirit of “start where you are,” the impetus to start over by making another tipping point into a turning point.
We can choose to respond differently.
There is no better way to ensure a problem won’t be solved than to politicize it.
Dear Mike, I love your phrase: “making another tipping point into a turning point.” Yes! If we always do what we always did, then we will always get what we always got. And that way lies madness.
We can indeed choose to respond differently! We can listen to one another in kindness and respect, and then speak to one another out of love for our listeners, our nation, and all mankind. It is important, for example, that we make certain that we all are hearing and using the same facts! What happened in El Paso this past weekend, for example – where twenty innocent people died! – didn’t need to happen at all, and it must not be allowed to happen ever again. But, how do we stop it? Here are some facts, in no particular order:
1) “Gun control” is not going to happen in the United States to an extent that can prevent even one aspiring shooter who wants a gun from getting a gun, so it is time to call out all the politicians who think calling for “gun control” is a winning strategy! There are more guns in this country than there are citizens, and there is a strong and vibrant culture of responsible gun ownership and use that enjoys Constitutional protection. We can tinker around the edges, but most gun owners would defy any attempt to disarm them. Especially with the glaring example of Venezuela in our recent past, where forced disarmament in 2012-13 led to tyranny and the destruction of their culture almost at once!
2) Nearly all young mass shooters – more than 90% – are males who grew up with minimal or absent fathers. This is a nationwide tragedy that we must address before many more people are killed and lives destroyed!
3) The one thing that all mass shootings in recent years have in common is the fact that nearly all of them happened in gun-restricted or gun-free zones. Such places are essentially unprotected hunting ranges where innocents can be mowed down with impunity during the five to ten minutes it takes police to arrive… even in the best of conditions.
So, here is an idea. If we really want to end tragedies like what happened this weekend, we should (a) counsel and support every fatherless and father-minimized boy from infancy, and (b) outlaw gun-free zones nationwide unless those maintaining the gun-free zone will pay for a legally-mandated level of armed security at all times they are open. If we begin to do both of these things, we should be able to almost entirely eliminate these tragedies; and frankly, nothing else we might propose – no matter how good it seems! – will do much good. (And yes, if you think I’m wrong, I’m happy to discuss it further. Or not. I don’t have a dog in this hunt beyond my desperate wish to end these tragedies!)
My intuition is that these are not normal times; if I believe that Republicans and the President were fighting for America, I would agree and just vote him out next election. The problem is Americans are not the only one voting; Russia is as well.
The only hope is that there is a tsunami of blue voters that can overcome the Russian influence.
Dear Valerie, I know many Republicans, including family members, and a dear friend of mine has been a friend of Donald Trump’s for decades. If it helps, I don’t know a single Republican who loves this nation and its people any less than you possibly could love this nation and its people, and I am told my someone who has known him for decades that the President feels the same way. Think about it: he is an old billionaire who could spend his retirement golfing and otherwise playing, but for the sake of his country he is spending what should be his golden years trying to fix the dysfunctional mess this nation has become. And this, even when he is being treated so horrendously by just about everyone!
I don’t know if your hearing this helps you, but your problem is certainly not that those who prefer Donald Trump to the current crop of candidates love this nation any less!
I am curious, too, where the notion that the Russians have a say comes in? I thought the whole Mueller investigation proved that the President’s team had nothing to do with Russian collusion in 2016? Especially now, with so many of the Democratic candidates running so far to the socialist left, if the Russians get involved at all in 2020, it will likely be as blue voters rather than as red voters.
Thank you for your kind reply to Valerie. I know people as well that know President Trump and his love for this country.
And thank you for saying this, dear Marilyn! Apparently those who actually know him are telling those of us who will listen to them pretty much all the same things: that he is not a racist, and that he is alarmed by the present state of this country and has devoted the rest of his life to working to repair the economy, to fixing appalling things like the unjust state of our federal criminal justice system, and to bringing to all African-Americans the full citizenship rights that they became entitled to more than 150 years ago. Those are three pretty humongous goals that will help all Americans! And he is beginning to carry them out. As someone emailed to me this morning, it doesn’t matter who you voted for in 2016 and it doesn’t matter who you plan to vote for in 2020, but right now Donald Trump is the President. And especially to the extent that he is working to advance those three big goals, the least that he deserves is our respect!
Dear Roberta,
Before I say anything, it’s important to note that I’m not a fan of HRC at all: nor do I deify Barack Obama. This isn’t about “my horse” losing the race in any way. But I must protest the beginning of your blog post…
It’s difficult to believe you think the people who wish #45 was gone via totally legal ways are somehow harming America. I’m not ignoring that bunch but wish to comment on behalf of the resistance you seem to think more destructive than Donald Trump’s policies. His racism alone is appalling enough, and I’m surprised it’s not registering as a legitimate complaint here.
I also suspect that it would be counter-productive to list the other things that make him, in nearly every historian’s estimation, the worst president we’ve ever had. (And there are enough true conservatives in that mix to make me feel comfortable with positing that particular percentage.) As for just plain old citizens, about 55% of the population is not happy with Donald Trump’s job. And this is a middle of the road poll overall statistic – not a convenient one I yanked from MSNBC. But to be fair: Say it’s “only” 50%. What are you saying? For us to roll over when he Tweets one of his 10K lies? Again – I’ll try to be fair. Let’s say there are only 5K lies – to give him a break.
Part of your blog entry sounds so much like condescension that – it may not seem so since I’m typing away – but I was actually hesitant to comment at all. This business about “nothing about this is normal” is a bit amazing, all told. Please tell me you’re not implying that those of us who defiantly resist what he’s doing in office is the result of sour grapes. It’s very much what it sounds like.
For some time now, I’ve worked to heed the words Jesus spoke and – happily – forgo those old religious connections to them. In that vein, there ARE a lot of totally hateful, invective-dependent resisters to this presidency. Every time they speak – or write – I cringe. (Hearing the heinous suffix “tard” from any side has become tiresome and cruel.) There are terrible, destructive positions and comments from both sides. I do not consider myself in hysterical brigade. Indeed, it’s exactly as wretched to be in the room with them as someone in a MAGA hat. Oy!
But, as far as action taken? I am proud to do what I can to get people to vote even if it’s just sending postcards like last year. I haven’t rallied for impeachment. To make it seem as if we’re mad or anti American is just plain misbegotten. But this presidency isn’t normal. Why should the resistance be?
You know why I think impeachment is a bad idea? Simply because we’re so near Civil War already. (Which was totally about humans owning other humans and it’s disingenuous to say otherwise. I’m from Alabama. Heard that states’ rights thing for ages. And nearly always from people who used the ‘n’ word in daily conversation. I’m sorry that this bears saying.) Yes I’m against impeaching because we’re on the brink. That’s the only reason. I believe that one day history will call him and his administration exactly who and what they are.
Here’s what “gets me” about your post, though, if I may: If you, of all people, can’t see where this particular president is a divider all on his own – without those, for the moment, who clamor to unseat him, those who so disturb you – then I’m truly surprised. (Now it probably sounds as if I’m deifying you!)
And yes, I’m quite tender this morning. These shootings will do that to people. Especially when I feel the malevolence of #45’s Tweets serve as a locus for ramped up hate crimes, etc. (Please, please look at the statistics for hate crimes in cities where his rallies have been AFTER the rallies are over. Nothing about THIS is normal. Nothing.) I love this quote from Ben Franklin: “Injustice will not be destroyed until those not affected by it are as outraged as those who are.” And I hope I’ll be forgiven for saying how much that statement reminds me of Jesus, too.
It’s hard to read your comments about black people being ‘better off’, etc. when almost every black person I know in America is afraid in ways they have never been before. This is not hyperbole.
Finally – yes I’ll hush – I have been and AM so grateful for your hard work and spirit conveying that GOOD NEWS which is imperative for people to know in this life that never ends. It’s been my great delight to forward your words and a few of your books to people I dearly love only to hear their relieved and even elated responses to that wacky no hellfire, eternal love from our Father in heaven you insist on transmittingm Hopefully, my letter is about babies and bathwater.
Thank you for the opportunity to post these thoughts which are from the heart –
God bless you. And God help us all.
Love,
Brett Butler
PS I pray that my words do not come across as a diatribe. We need a healing in America and I’m probably naive to think a leader in politics could ever bring one but, unlike you, I think it’ll take a lot more than the next president to heal what’s broken here. Selah.
A Course In Miracles provides different perception of everyone and everything in the world, and understanding that is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see and feel
Dear Brett, I am so confused! My blog post begins with the honored words of Abraham Lincoln, and my own first paragraph talks about the causes of the Civil War. Why would you feel the need to protest any of that??
Dear wonderful friend, I hope that writing this has made you feel better! Actually, you have made my point about the need for all of us to join Better Angels much better than I ever could. In fact, I try to follow what is going on, but I altogether avoid Fox, CNN, MSNBC, the NYT, WaPo, and all the other very biased sources of news. I can see, though, that if you follow any of that, you likely would believe some awful things about the President. I follow just a few more neutral aggregator sites, and I also have a friend in common with DJT, and so far I have seen nothing that backs up the notion that he is a racist. On the contrary, I saw his predecessor and some on his predecessor’s team do and say things that were much more racist! Why was that okay?
I’m sorry to have said that what is going on now isn’t normal, if in fact you feel that it is normal. Please forgive me for that! I have never been much involved in politics at all, and it just seems to me that this obsession with impeaching the newly-elected President which began even before his inauguration is creepy in the extreme. In my experience, people find an actual crime, and THEN they try to impeach! I didn’t agree at all with what was done to Bill Clinton, but at least the calls for his impeachment didn’t begin until arguably he committed perjury (I think it was).
I really am sorry about everything that is going on now. Wonderful people of good will are being tormented about things that they cannot fix, so to me our best course is to fairly severely limit our intake of the negative poison that today passes for “news.” Yes, by all means we should help to get out the vote! And please, dear friends, let’s also learn to talk together with love and compassion. That’s another plug for Better Angels ;-).
One thing that friends and I are talking about doing is creating a website that would invite Democratic and Republican candidates to post their facts and their platforms, and would also invite experts to give us their versions of whatever the facts are as they see them. If we have a truly open marketplace of ideas that is slanted to either side as little as possible, I do believe that all Americans will make the choices that they believe are in the best interests of the nation we all love!
Thank you ♥️ Much love to you and prayers for continued balance in the thoughts you share with readers.
Dear Kimberly, you are an angel! It really is difficult, isn’t it, in this highly politicized and extremely negative environment for any of us to maintain that balance, as hard as we might try? But you are so right! None of this awful political negativity is of any value to anyone, and it is up to all of us as perfectly loving eternal beings to support one another through this mess. In the end, if enough of us can simply raise our personal vibrations sufficiently, the earth will become the garden of love that it always was meant to be! Blessings on your head, dear beautiful friend ;-).
Good morning Mrs Grimes. Can you tell me what happens to evil people who executed these mass shootings? What would Jesus and god feel about this? What happens to these people when they transition to the other side? This cannot go unpunished right? Just curious. Thanks for reading this post. God bless you.
Thank you for this, Tony! Terrific questions, and I’m sure that many people are wondering the same things about now. In this extremely polarized political climate, so rife as it is with negativity, I know that not everyone will like these answers. But here goes….
It is important first to understand that nobody really died. Twenty people got to go home a little early in El Paso,and nine more in Dayton. Other people were injured, and they have some healing to go through; but it appears from a lot of evidence that (a) some of this may actually have been part of the life-plans of some of the victims, or it will now be built into new and even more ambitious life-plans; and (b) from the perspective of the highest levels of reality, this is something on the level of your bratty one-year-old spilling his milk on the carpet. God continues to love the shooters, and Jesus continues to show them compassion.
When others who have done awful things on earth have gone home, they have been love-bombed. I imagine it would be that way in this case as well. There is no eternal punishment, but there is indeed that &^%^$$%# life-review! The shooters will get to feel how they made all their victims and the victims’ families feel, and then they will be asked to forgive themselves. There is lots of counseling and help available, but it seems that generally people who have done something that was comparably awful have found forgiving themselves to be impossible. After all, they are back in their vast, eternal minds, and they know they have no excuses! So their consciousness vibratory rate will accordingly decline until they find themselves in what Jesus called the Outer Darkness. Efforts will be made to rescue them from there – most notably, by the people they murdered! – but from the perspective of the killers, by then fully aware of the magnitude of the harm they caused – forgiving this oopsie could take eons.
Dearest Roberta,
Well, this week’s blog has quite a different ‘climate’, may I say.
Firstly, I am sorry for the loss of so many good, valuable lives in El Paso and in Dayton. I pray for the easy passage of those slain to the Light. I pray for the deep and abiding comfort of the families and loved ones of those taken away so suddenly. And I pray that the Angels help everyone in El Paso, Dayton and indeed in the US to be healed of the shock and hurt of what has happened.
And as to the enduring climate of political strife between the American left and right, I do hope the better angels of our nature prevail. Roberta, you are right that coming together to discuss and solve problems, in an atmosphere of mutual respect and love, is the only answer.
You know my family and friends here in Australia vote both left and right. This is fine because all are moderates and they don’t believe in putting politics before the person. Debates occur now and then, but not acrimonious arguments. I just wish the same was true the world over.
I do have American cousins. They are Floridians. They are Republicans and have therefore afforded me some really interesting discussions when they have visited in Sydney. And you know, they are lovely people who care deeply about the US. They are not homophobic or racialist, nor are they anything but generous and kind. They do believe in the right to bear arms and my cousin Natalie, who is the same age as me, owns handguns. She has become an excellent shot by practising regularly at the gun range. And Roberta, she has never fired a gun at so much as a mosquito.
Our firearm culture down under is different, because average people are not allowed guns in Australia, and we don’t look at gun ownership as the hallmark of freedom, as my Floridian cousins do. So even as Natalie, who lives in Orlando, still mourns those innocent people slain in the Pulse Nightclub a few years ago, she does not think that gun limitations are the answer.
Now I have also known various American Democrat voters while teaching in various high schools previously. A teacher exchange program between Australia and the US allows people to spend some years teaching in each other’s countries. The Democrats I have known have been real humanitarians and supporters of peace and the enfranchisement of the poor and disadvantaged. Again, lovely, passionate people.
So should we but see the good in each other and realize that we can come together to solve the big problems, the positivity this would release would truly move mountains. (Imagine how much the bright souls on the other side would help us should we do this!)
Also my dear, let me say that I think that you are brave to discuss this issue in your blog: There are so many easier things that you (and of course Thomas) could have chosen. However, you chose this particular topic. From what I know of you Roberta, overcoming this deep political rift in understanding must be of crucial importance, else you would not have broached the subject. Seeing how emotionally charged this issue is for people has only convinced me doubly of this.
One thing that helped me understand this thing more deeply, was a little experiment that I did on myself: I closed my eyes and thought of an argument that I had witnessed between two people who cared for and respected each other. I pictured the words used, gestures, expressions, how it proceeded and how it ended. I remembered how the arguers felt about each other at the end.
Then later, I closed my eyes again and replayed in my mind an argument that I had witnessed between two people who did not like nor respect each other. I saw how that went and how it ended for those involved.
Actually dear Roberta, what I learned from the resulting contrast astounded me. The difference in the ‘vibrational climate’ of each argument had huge knock on effects! This is a great experiment to try and I’d suggest it to anyone.
Thank you for being you.
Love and respect, Efrem 🙏🏼❣️
Dear Efrem, bravo! Let me add from Canada another perspective to your thought experiment:
Imagine everything from the perspective of a 1,000 year old tribal shaman’s wife or daughter. All of the things happening now are interrelated, and there therefore can be no “interference” — only various inputs into a range of outcomes.
The “interference” only seems so because of indifference to the larger process. And if you are indifferent to the process of input, then why would the outcome seem to have surprises, since there can be no surprises in a world of indifference.
So if outcomes matter to us, we must not blame others for having input, but indeed be sure that we add our own (constructively) when we have the opportunity.
Dear Mike, what you say here from the viewpoint of Arrow is a great point. In fact, those who are guiding each of us always are interfacing with the material world through us, especially to the extent that they are helping so many of us to carry out our deeply interrelated life-plans. So for each of us to be always listening to Spirit is going to be crucial if the success of Spirit’s plan to elevate this planet’s consciousness ever is to unfold in this world as so many of us have agreed to help it to unfold!
Roberta, I may be on vacation but she’s always on the job! Her compassion and patience never wearies.
Dear Mike,
I love Arrow’s wisdom. That’s really a big picture point of view that is not bound to our time’s limited, attached perceptions and conditioning.
IE: I love this view and I can start to see something of it… I can reflect deeply on this.
Please don’t ever stop sharing Arrow’s wisdom with us. 🙏🏼
Oh dear Efrem, you are always such a breath of fresh air and wisdom! And your beautiful light is especially welcome now, when I have just taken abuse from someone in your glorious country who is certain that I could not be spiritual if I do not agree with her political views. I had not approved her attempt to comment because all she had said was a one-sentence attack on me at a time when we didn’t need more negativity here! Then this morning she sent a long and heartfelt screed of the sort that you, dear wise Efrem, would find it impossible to write. You would have no way even to process that level of hatred! Wonderfully, though, just now I have received a thoughtful email from someone who really understands the need for surmounting negativity and achieving political peace, so it evens out ;-).
As you know, my dear beautiful friend, it is Thomas who chooses these topics and then guides their production, and I groaned when I saw what it was to be for this weekend! No, he doesn’t shy away from the controversial stuff. And he is right: if we cannot get beyond our now entirely poisoned political battling and learn to speak with one another with love and respect, then raising this planet’s consciousness vibration is going to be impossible for us.
Like you, I have friends and family of all political stripes, from extreme socialist left to extreme Constitutionalist and gun-loving right, and at just about every stop in between. And like you, I love every one of them! I know for a fact that they are all good people and each of them deeply wants to build a world that is entirely based in love. This is why I continue to live in hope, the fact that I can see that at bottom all the people of good will in the world just want what is going to be good for everyone!
Dear Roberta,
Whenever I feel angst about current affairs in this country, I remember two things and it brings me comfort and peace.
You already touched on the first, and that is that the both the left and right genuinely love this country. Sometimes the most outspoken seem to be the voice for everyone, but they are not. In reality, the citizens of the United States agree on so many more things than they disagree.
The Second is that our country is stronger and more free because of the work on both sides of the camp. We would be in great danger if one ideology ruled the outcome of every debated policy.
Lastly, I must admit I did something this morning that I regret now. I read that over the weekend, the speaker of the Senate fell and broke his shoulder, and I sort of smiled as I am not a fan of his to put it nicely, and I thought this must be karma. I was so wrong to think lightly of his accident. I am trying so hard not to label someone I don’t really know, but oh is it hard in today’s political climate.
Have a Great Day!
Dear wonderful Timothy, you do make me smile! I’m not a fan of Big Mitch’s either, so I guess I might be past the urge to see bad things befall not-so-good-seeming people. Thank you for giving me that happy realization!
And yes, we are a much stronger nation because of the debates that can arise when people who come from different political directions all put their minds toward solving our biggest problems together. Here is another plug for Better Angels! After participating in only three of their events, I am already better equipped to hear out some with whom I disagree politically. This might be the start of something really good… !
The comments posted here this week are simply wonderful. This subject is highly emotional. I was going to ask the same question that Tony did concerning what may happen at the time of death to people who do these things. However, he beat me to it. To say that a person who guns down perfect strangers is evil is a rational conclusion to come to from the perspective of what we learned on earth from religious teachings etc., but it isn’t enough to call people evil and then forget about them. We know very little about the human mind and how certain situations can effect the brain and the thinking capacity of a human being. I am not defending those people, as their actions have resulted in almost insurmountable tragedy, but instead of worrying about changing the laws for gun ownership, I believe more studies should be done on the human brain. In fact, these studies have recently begun. Dr. Koenig is among several who are involved in this, and they have found through MRI’s that the brains of “normal” people are completely different than those of psychopaths, especially in areas of the brain that control the ability to have empathy and to make rational decisions. Perhaps on the other side, these brain abnormalities are taken quite seriously. If physical defects are dispensed with in the spirit world, then brain abnormalities and defects should fall into that category as well.
Dear beautiful Lola, you are always the voice of the sweetest wisdom! Yes, there are a number of reasons why someone might go so desperately wrong as to carry out a mass shooting; and always, behind it all, is the fact that human beings do indeed have free will (despite claims by some scientists to the contrary). We are told by those that we used to think were dead that no one comes into a lifetime planning to actively harm others; but we have the right and the power to resist the guidance of our guides, and to allow ourselves to be misled by the Internet or by unfortunate companions into doing some appalling things.
And whether it is defects in the brain or misguidance by friends or even by negative entities that precipitates such disastrous behavior, once we go home we are stripped of whatever excuses we might have given to ourselves in life. The result is the deep and appalling awareness that we REALLY have screwed up this time! We know how some of those situation turned out for the perpetrators of terrible acts, since they have put themselves into the Outer Darkness and others more recently dead have told us their fate. Some of them have created torment for themselves – their own individual hell, as it were – and put themselves there for eons. Dear friends, carrying out an attack on innocents is always a VERY bad idea!
Roberta: In the ten or so years that I have been studying the works of fabulous mediums such as Suzanne Giesemann and Suzanne Wilson (I mention these two as I know you are very familiar with them), I have never heard of any of them making contact with even one person who committed a heinous act such as serial killings or mass shootings. Is it because those in “outer darkness” are unable to do so? Or is it because mediums wish to ignore them? I have always found this rather odd, but maybe you have heard of such a thing. I was never able to find out by reading books by mediums or @AOL.comby listening to their lectures if such contact ever occurred. If you know of any, I would really appreciate it if you could clue me in as to where I can find out this information
Dear Lola, the evidence strongly suggests that we are very unlikely ever to hear from a serial killer or other highly negative being, for these reasons:
1) When someone who has badly bungled in life returns home, there is generally very intensive counseling; and it seems usually to happen outside the “general population,” as it were. People who have had a debilitating illness in life will often be hospitalized for a time as well, and the evidence is that they also are often beyond contact until their minds have more fully recovered from their earth-traumas.
2) Many people who have harmed others in life will put themselves into the outer darkness, and sometimes they do it even before they can be counseled. The evidence is strong that no one who has sunk so low vibrationally can be contacted through a medium.
3) Even if people are not in the outer darkness levels and are not hospitalized, they are sometimes under strict supervision about whether and to what extent they can speak to people still in bodies. I found a few such instances in my early research, among people who were contacted a century ago. They were mostly people who seem to have led less than exemplary lives, and they would abruptly say to their loved ones in the room, “I am told that I can tell you only this,” or “I’m being told I have to stop talking now.” That sort of thing. It creeped me out back then, but now I realize that the upper-level beings who are always in charge were being careful about how much people at the second and third primary levels said to people who were still in bodies, since those in the lower levels of the afterlife realities really have no idea what is going on above them.
So in short, dear Lola, I know of no instance where a very negative or low-vibration being not in a body has contacted the living through a medium, and I think that seems to be by design!
This is why it is so cosmically vital to see the larger picture and forgive these self-exiled people. They cannot forgive themselves.
Yes, dear Mike! As hard as it may be for us to forgive such heinous human crimes, we are called upon to forgive everything… as if it never had happened at all. In truth, no one has died. Every human mind is eternal, by definition. Refusing to forgive lowers our own consciousness vibrations – it really only harms ourselves! And knowing that many who died in the Holocaust are now working to reach and free their tormentors who are stuck in the Outer Darkness, can you and I do any less?
The AOL.com in my above question was put there by mistake, so please ignore it……..sorry about that.
My understanding of mediumship – as opposed to psychic awareness of the presence of a discarnate – is that a medium provides a channel of communication between one dimension and the next. It also implies a reason for that communication rather than it being random contact as would be the situation with a multiple killer. (for example)
It MIGHT be that the spirit of such an individual could seek out a medium or psychic in order to try to express their remorse for what they did but in reality it doesn’t seem to be the case. The reasons for that make interesting reading but a conversation about them is better in a free-form format such as that of Roberta’s forum-based website, afterlifeforums.com. 🙂
Thank you Roberta, Mike and Mac. Your comments were very helpful and Roberta’s explanation of a medium’s vibration being too high to make a connection to a much lower vibration is certainly true. Why I didn’t think of that before is amazing, but it makes perfect sense. Also, Mike’s comment is true as well. They are likely self exiled. Sorry I put this topic on here, but I thought it might tie in with the love and forgiveness messages that are so often discussed here.
Thanks for dropping in to visit with us. 🙂
And it did tie in nicely, dear Lola, as you can see ;-).
Thank you Roberta for this courageous post. I’m inspired by the compassion, empathy, and truly listening to others that I’ve seen in this discussion – things this world needs much more of in these times. Turning people one doesn’t like or agree with into the OTHER, possibly not really even human, worthy of whatever abuse or even death, is how so many wars have been started over human history, not to mention the atrocities we’ve just seen. To circle back to Abe Lincoln at the beginning of your post, another quote of his that I like is, “I do not like that man. I must get to know him better.” ♥️🙏