America's Heart: The Need for a New Awakening

Into the present moment, with all its division and conflict in relation to the current administration's policies on both national and international levels, comes an urgent call to awaken to the need for a return to America's heart.

This nation of America, born more than two hundred years ago, whose reason for being was to bring to the world a measure of compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and equality that the world had never seen before - this nation, whose values are historical in origin, founded in light and truth, embracing of all souls with equal love and respect, excluding of none from its collective desire to improve the lot of mankind - this nation must be remembered in its essential goodness.

The America of generosity and of forbearance, of tolerance for diversity and of welcoming to all whose need brought them to her shores, is disappearing into the shadows of a new version that is self-protective instead of generous, self-seeking instead of embracing of the world, and aggressively in pursuit of its own ends, instead of patient and committed to a search for a way to find greater cooperation between nations. This America has lost touch with its essential heart.

The heart of a nation is what it stands for both outwardly in the world of nations, and inwardly in the world of Spirit. It is the vital lifeblood or pulse that courses through souls who become the citizens of a nation, and that colors its collective outlook on the world as much as it colors the outlook of individuals. The heart of a nation consists of those things that it values above all else, not just in material or social terms, but in spiritual terms and in terms of the goals and destiny of a nation. For each nation has its own goals and destiny; each has come into being with its own need to express a certain portion of Divine truth for the benefit of the planetary family and the global harmonic between nations. Each nation is at its best when it is doing so - when it is willingly pursuing the values that are at the heart of its founding and part of the original impulse that gave it birth.

Today, we see a vast departure from the values that live within America's heart. The music is still there, the rhythm still beats within her veins, but the expression of that music and that rhythm is no longer the same. Instead, there is superimposed upon that innate and natural rhythm, a song that is created from another place and another level, one that corresponds to the beliefs and ideas that a certain group of people hold about America's destiny. This mental picture of what America is, was, and can become is not the heart of America. It is not even the future of America, for America's future is not something that can be turned into an ideological victory for one group. But it is a strongly held set of beliefs that have given rise to actions that are influencing the course of events in this country today. And this set of beliefs, held with great conviction by some, are capable of influencing many so that they no longer see the difference between words that are spoken and the truth that lives in the heart. These words that no longer express generosity toward those born in distant lands, these words that are unwilling to see certain others as worthy of even speaking to or negotiating with because they are cast in terms that are black and white, these words that instigate war in the name of peace, are words that are spoken from a mind that is separate from America's heart and that must be reunited again.

In the present moment, as we watch the government and the governed become more separate from each other and as we see the frustration, despair, anger, and hopelessness that many in this country have begun to feel, we must give full reign to our desire for peace and for the love and generosity at the heart of America to make its appearance again. At the same time, we must deny that the world conforms to a black and white picture of those who are with us and those who are against us. This is never the case, for life does not simplify itself into those terms. Nevertheless, it is possible to instigate and promote actions which can lead others as well as oneself to act as if the world were divided into black and white, and for this not to happen must be everyone's concern.

Let peace and thoughts of peace be in every person's heart, and let a prayer for the heart of America be on every person's lips. For the return to the central guiding principles and vision which moved America's founders to create a land of liberty is the necessity of this time, and only pursuit of this vision will lead to a genuine and lasting peace.

See also "The Patriotism of Diversity" Video