Year of Hope - Find Signs of Hope

First, let me apologize for not posting for a bit. The new puppy has kept us quite busy in the White Wolf household. I think in a way, that was a good thing. When I was told in my prayers that this year I was to deliver a message of hope, that I was to show people that there are signs that things will change, frankly I thought this task insurmountable. Here we were coming into this new year with us still in Iraq, still struggling to pay outrageous energy prices that force some to choose between food and heat,  and so many other issues. The political shenanigans once again were showing that we were probably going to get more of the same. Powerful people controlling what we hear, see, and think, by excluding potential candidates from debates, only covering their poster people, or blatantly telling us that this one or that one is going to win in hopes that we will vote for them because otherwise we would feel we were going to throw our vote away if we voted otherwise.
It just seems that everything is stacked up for an implosion to come. I mean, how long can things keep going the way they are. At some point the pressure cooker has to let go of the pressure or it will just blow. It seemed that even when it comes to global warming and trying to get us away from big oil that we find ourselves backed against the wall. Some say a move to ethanol would help, but then the pressures that is putting on the price of corn, soybean, and other crops is driving food prices up. Of course, the news comes out that all those mortgage deals that seemed so creative to get people into homes that helped with the home market surge, now were blowing up and we had a market collapse and a jump in foreclosures. Some banks were willing to rework the loans, but others either because of the greed of the bank or the greed of the investors who bought the loans, refused. Who does that serve? Who wins when they foreclose instead of reworking the deal? That is another story, though. Greed is a nasty disease.
So, you ask, where can we find hope?  Isn't this year supposed to be one of hope? Well, I was asking myself these same questions when I was given the task of finding glimmers of hope that we can nurture and bring into reality. Maybe having a puppy come into my life allowed me to lift the jaded veil that I saw the world through for a moment. I don't know, but some things started to catch my eye. I will speak of three things that I saw in just the past week or so. Maybe by pointing these things out, we all can start seeing the positive, hopeful things that are happening around us. Maybe by putting less focus on the negative that we are being fed, we can start to focus on the positive and maybe bring them into reality. Is this not what quantum physicists have been telling us? Our intentions, our focus, brings things into being? Maybe that world of unity and connectedness I wrote about last year, can be brought into fruition by our thoughts and visions of hope.
The first event, if you will that caught my eye was to do with a new book that is coming out. Acts of Faith, a book written by a Muslim man Eboo Patel. The book was to be talked about on Good Morning America last week. http://abcnews.go.com/abcnewsnow/GMANow/story?id=4193128&page=1
Now, they could have just had him in and talk up his book, but they did something different. They brought in young men and woman from varying faiths to have a roundtable discussion on their beliefs. Here was a coming together of varying faiths to talk openly about their beliefs and maybe dispel some misconceptions regarding the truths of their various religions. When you think about it, how many wars could have been averted had people learned about the others faith and honored their path instead of going to war to try to convert them. When the Europeans first came to Turtle Island, they found that they found a truth in the way the American Indian lived their life. They left the colonies and joined the various tribes. Unfortunately, those who wished to cling to power did not like this and soon created laws to prevent this from happening. They sought the return of the people and when refused, they attacked the villages. What would have happened had those in power had less control and the people told them to go bang and rather than the "dominant culture" overrunning the indigneous culture, but that the colonists were assimilated into the indigenous culture? You would think that religions that are meant to be about God, would be more tolerant. I am reminded of the story of the Methodist minister who took part in the ecuminical service after 9/11. It was meant to be a healing service. The Methodist elders sought to have him excommunicated for taking part in the service. They felt that in his doing so, he was recognizing these other religions. Here was a man of compassion who saw the pain and anger from 9/11 and sought to do God's work and bring healing and he was set upon by the powers that be because they felt he was accepting these other religions. Is that the way of God? So to hear on GMA that they were having this roundtable to bring the young people of varying faiths together to help remove the ignorance and bring peace and harmony between them, I saw in this a sign of hope.
Yesterday, I had read an email from my dear friend Wahela Bluejay regarding the increase in food prices due to ethanol production. It talked about how we were going to create a worldwide food shortage and drive up the prices if corn and soybean production was shifted to making fuel. The affects were all ready being felt around the world. Of course, since food is one of the most basic elements of survival, this will affect the poor most quickly. So another dark aspect where we once saw some hope to break the bindings of oil slavery, we now saw that there were some ramifications to this shift. I guess someone forgot to think seven generations ahead on that one. So once again, a negative that showed that maybe there wasn't any hope to move away from oil. That was until I read an  email from a Zdnet. A small line that was almost missed, Biofuel start-up to make ethanol at $1 a gallon. http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-news/?p=2011  Basically, in a snippet from the article: Coskata, a firm from Illinois promises to produce ethanol for less than $1 a gallon from a process that uses bacteria for ethanol generation from organic material. Note that last part, from organic material. They want to use waste material to create fuel. Wow, if this works it takes care of two issues, fuel and waste disposal. So though, the one article was telling us that the demand for ethanol was going to create a food shortage and drive up prices, the other article says waiti a minute, we don't need to use our food supply, but rather what is left over. We are talking the corn husks and stalks and such and other material like it.
This leads me to the one I heard about just this morning. This had to do with a woodworking shop in Massachusetts. Rather than just throw out all the wood scraps and sawdust, they found a way to use that material to heat their building. As one person commented, we are now off the gas grid. They are also looking to get off the electric grid. If this one shop can do this, why can't others?
In all three examples, we have seen that people are starting to come together and share ideas. In this we can build hope. Maybe the children can overcome the stoicism of their parents and overcome the ignorance that keeps religions separate and at each others throats. Maybe, the idea of creating biofuel from waste material will take off and solve two problems at the same time. And maybe the work of one small shop will inspire other shops, other manufacturers to also "get off the grid". Maybe there is hope that we can turn things around. That we can inspire each other to "Go Green" in new ways. Inspire each other to return balance and harmony to the earth and help bring healing to Earth Mother.
I ask for you help. Open your eyes and your heart. Seek out the signs of hope in your lives. Share them with me and others so that we can reconnect and bring about the world we all hope for. Let us build on the little signs of hope, to bring into view a world of harmony, balance, and beauty.
We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are at the crossroads. Which road will you choose?
My heart to your heart, one heart, one spirit.