What we CAN do.

We are more powerful than we can ever know.

There’s an old episode of the original Star Trek tv show where Captain Kirk and friends are captured by aliens who hypnotize them into perceiving a false reality. When Kirk starts strangling one of them the big headed guy turns into an ape, further confirming Kirk’s suspicions that all is not as it looks.

Kirk persists. As the alien’s mind grip weakens, Kirk sees the real world. The first thing he notices is holes everywhere. Apparently their blaster weapons were actually working… they just couldn’t see it.

I’ve never forgotten this, as a metaphor for how we are always affecting our environment and others with our energy (like flipping someone off on the road or having a hateful thought about a politician we disagree with) … yet we rarely see the effects. I was reminded of this listening to a podcast interview with Mark Zuckerberg of Face Book / Meta who talked about how when he and his friends played video games the first thing they did is to shoot each other. He laughed and said, “Well, of course we wouldn’t do that in real life.”

I was stunned by his ignorance. Maybe he wouldn’t shoot people in real life but others sure do. Is there any connection? It’s a long standing debate: do violent video games contribute to violence in society. Duh… come on, that’s not even a real question. Of course they do. As do violent films. But we’re hypnotized into not seeing the connection. There’s no consequences in that virtual world, right? Wrong!

But, there’s a hopeful clue in this. If violent behavior “on line” increases violence in the real world, so does peaceful behavior. So, there’s something we can do about the increasing chaos we witness in the world. We can broadcast peace and love into it.

Too woo woo? I expect that most of my readers understand the concept. And you’re used to reading my comments about prayer and meditation; some of you may be in the Noon Club, pausing at every day at noon when your phone alert goes off for a moment of conscious transmission through the ether.

Well, we’re called to take things up a few notches.

What do we do with our minds throughout the day? Most of the time we’re just cruising along on auto pilot, thoughts come and go, we talk, we listen, and we watch the hours go by. Unless something dramatic happens, there’s not much sense of urgency.

Something dramatic has happened.

Israel. the Ukraine. Maui. What’s next. One crisis follows another. What are we doing about them? How terrible do things need to become before we acknowledge that we are living in a constant emergency? We can donate, we might even get physically involved by feeding and helping house those displaced and suffering. But that seems ineffective because the disasters are so overwhelming.

What we CAN do is become Prayer Warriors.

What’s a Prayer Warrior? The term - probably around for a long while - came into my life through my wife who heard her aged mother declare that this was what she had chosen to do, when all else had failed her. Wanting to contribute but physically unable to do much more than just survive day to day, she embraced this role, to pray all day long.

This became her life priority at the end of her life. Why don’t we be inspired by her example and commitment and join the army of Prayer Warriors? What’s involved?

1. Agree that what we express in thought and emotion and words and actions have consequences for others.

2. Decide to transmit positive energy no matter what.

3. Commit to this as our priority day by day.

4. Get better with practice.

I hope you explore what this would mean in your life as I am in mine. Send me a comment and stay tuned for the beta test I’m designing. Thanks to those of you who already signed up, I’ll be sending out more details as I have them. Our start date is Nov 8 through Nov 22.

See you in the ether!