Monday, July 27, 2009

Batman is out of business...

How often do you fly from the streets of everyday onto a horribly overcrowded highway totally ignoring the bright yellow signs that softly whisper, “Merge?”

It doesn’t say honk, holler or sharply twist the steering wheel into a wall of well presented traffic…it says, “merge.” No morning passes that our radios are blanketed with traffic reports about someone who forgot to follow an easily spotted single and extremely simple rule…merge.

But where does ignoring the “merge” sign begin? The mirror…

Michael Jackson constantly saw a man in the mirror and penned out years worth of lyrics that creatively offered fans and listeners every chance to do one thing… change.

On a highway, merging means carefully changing lanes. Most of us use our mirrors to make the escape from the back roads to openness of four lanes and no traffic lights. Making the correct lane changes gets you places and it’s at that point we come face to face with our search and rescue as to why we have stopped merging.

The ego asks, “How can I make the current situation fulfill my current needs?”

Author Eckhart Tolle follows with a rather deep perception that 99.9% of us will not merge slowly into. We’d rather yank the wheel of the bright red beat up Ford pickup across ten lanes of traffic to get away from it.

Presence is a state of inner spaciousness. While there, we ask how to respond to the needs of this situation. When reacting most don’t merge with the ideas connected to new dimensions, the quick fisted decision is to shoot up then out in ways that allow others to remember us for it.

Being alert as well as aware of mirrored images puts you inside the right action; once achieved there’s a sense of stillness. Take the most recent unemployment numbers in Chester County, South Carolina it’s nearly 22% which is almost at depression levels. The average consumer, coworker, company and church leader is fully aware of the current situation but because of unheard of national bailouts, stimulus checks, government medical and food programs the idea of merging into this unspoken crisis on our free soil feels more like a fishtail whipping effect a car makes when diving between the presence of others on the very highway we’re speeding 101 mph down.

Suicide numbers are up 45%. Robbery and murder are taking place in once assumed safe zones and its happening to everyone not just a select few but every walk of life.

The right action isn’t to spin the car around and solidly rely on non-profit organizations; a slipped out of place economy is quickly forcing them to become nearly obsolete. The fulfillment Tolle speaks of, the instant warmth of an open palm pulling your life and challenges back in line is disappearing, funds are down and so are the volunteers whose valuable time and energy is now spent surviving their personal journeys.

Like a vein meant to give blood, the presence of our current situation has begun to fade. The idea of trying to become part of it no longer exists. Like it or not we’re being introduced to inner spaciousness. Rather than listen to it in ways of creating stronger paths to higher grounds, look around you…the visual is earth shattering in the way of developing the proper attitude to survive but at a cost of party til you drop.

A recent newspaper article printed a story about the younger business men and women renting $400,000 dollar homes in groups of five and six people at a rate of one thousand dollars per. They're living the high life without realizing why the home is available.

Even if lawmakers could fine tune a plan that doesn’t hike up federal and state taxes while harnessing a medical plan meant for all…the end result is still a large number of very capable people torching the trails leading to the highway without having compassion for the drivers already there.

The idea of merging into a new America doesn’t fit well with those who’d rather hit control alt delete on a computer. Why should we stop at a four way when they’ve made life easier with roundabouts?

The right action isn’t to pull out 100% then make way for the new and improved. Your parents and their parents crafted a country designed to rehabilitate its presentation. Where there is presence, a need to become part of it will forever remain. Basically meaning we want but very few are willing to give.

So we’ve entered the realm of inner spaciousness. Without it silence will become the calm before the storm, the giant billowing fluffy clouds that rip through the atmosphere and straight to the moon, the circular motion of gathered raindrops that bring 200 mph winds to the gulf coast, a headache that woke you last evening and now its taken over your entire being.

A small group of Pilgrim’s sat around a large wooden table…tired of high taxes and their freedom of religion constantly being attacked; they fought and fought and fought. Until one day when they no longer had the energy to sink an idea of survival within, a place of silence created a new wave to chase, “I know…lets go to this new land called America.”

A few hundred chapters past the front page families connected to the Pilgrim’s try daily to make their way through the upheaval of overspending, an addiction to shopping and the idea all things are brilliant if the price is right. Now that we’ve been tested and change hasn’t taken place…hundreds if not millions are locked in the knees wondering whose dreams are we really chasing?

What if we stopped darting through traffic and took up merging? If you’re taking credit for the good times felt in the 1980’s and 90’s that’s ego. The goal is to make sure each level of spaciousness presented no longer sits obscured. Put more power in a willingness to merge.

arroecollins@clearchannel.com

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