In the beginning were the heavens, the earth and an endless array of life forms.

Man among them inhabited the earth. Man in his many races and creeds was carefully consigned to the land. And on that land, in the many villages, some men had access to water. Some to fertile land. Others to minerals and ores. So man had to communicate and trade to survive. This kind of localized trading among tribes and villages naturally promoted the value of each community to the other. But man's mind and ego, in their universal duality, are both a unique gift and a powerful curse. Some men chose not to share their resources. Others chose to war and conquer to obtain the resources they wanted. -There are two choices men have in any one lifetime. Create things. Or live among and in service to those things that are created. This is a wonderfully simple order that supports life in its unending function - to create. The universe as it exists does nothing but create. Creation is life. And everything that is created dies. In fact it starts dying the instant it comes into existence. This profound fact of existence, that death is a part of life, illustrates a key reality - that there are only two sure things in existence: 1) Death, and 2) Change. Simply stated, everything will die and things as we know them in any instant will change. We live in a world that continually changes, a world where thoughts, things, and experiences are all continually changing. Our world is not static, and God is not dead and did not leave the world unattended. We live in a living world, with a living omniscient creative intelligent force. With these two stark realities in tow, we can begin to piece together why our lives seem so unfulfilled and why so many are left out of the immense prosperity enjoyed by the privileged few. The reason for our suffering, both individually and collectively? Fear. Fear and our acceptance of it as a

driving force in our thoughts and reasoning. Many great texts and scholars have pointed to fear as avenerable debilitating and compromising force. But what is fear? Fear is defined as both "Extreme reverence or awe, as toward a supreme power." and "a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined." I define fear as our minds response when it cannot do what it does, think and solve problems. This condition is rampant in our lives in light of the previously mentioned realities of death and change. So, since we wake up each day not really knowing if we'll even make it out of bed, our minds go to work creating conditions it can do its work on. We concentrate our thoughts on, and invent things we can control. We create plans and schedules. We invent rules and make agreements to be bound by them. We teach these rules as foundation understandings to our children. We spend the overwhelming majority of our precious time and thoughts on organizing and managing our lives functioning in the realm of those things we invent that provide sense of being in control. And all the while life happens around us. While we are locked in the narrow scope of these understandings and agreements, some of us are operating beyond the confines of these understandings and daring to dream new things. To create. To fashion new designs into new things. And whenever we dare to look into the unknown using our thoughts as the blueprint for our future reality our world is changed and we go to work making use of these new things. We revise the rules to accommodate how we choose to use them. Fear plays a key role in shaping what we do. And what we do shapes our future. So ultimately we are responsible for finding the balance between embracing and putting aside our fears. We decide our fate, our future. we are God. Here are some thoughts on how to cope with the unknown that is our lives. Understand what is meant by core concepts like eternal life and forgiveness. They provide a foundation for overcoming our fears.

Eternal life is the endlessly unfolding moment in which we exist. It is each one of us, as we are, in each instant. And forgiveness is granted to us eternally, for in any moment we have the opportunity to choose what we will think and do. Those choices we make in each moment dictate the future. This knowing is the foundation for freedom. This knowing is the evidence that fear of the unknown future is unwarranted. For the future is unknown precisely so we can create it. We have this power, each one of us. And we use it every day without giving it the attention and reverence it warrants. It is the thoughtless use of this great power that creates undesired outcomes and causes suffering. I am taking responsibility for my power. It is an immensely challenging job to challenge all my core beliefs and assume power over my thoughts and reality. But it is an awesome journey that highlights how really interdependent we are. We literally need one another to have a shared vision, a shared view if we are to achieve any desired outcome. That is why we can accomplish so much in groups, where we combine our thoughts and desires into a common vision. So the key is to move beyond our microgroups and create larger macro groups with collective visions based on our natural aspirations for peace and prosperity. This is why the "brotherhood of man" is so commonly referred to in theological texts of all faiths. Ernest Holmes wrote "Find me one person who is for something and against nothing, who is redeemed enough not to condemn others out of the burden of his soul, and I will find another savior, another Jesus, and an exalted human being. Find me one person who no longer has any fear of the universe, or of God, or of man, or of anything else, and you will have brought to me someone in whose presence we may sit and fear shall vanish as clouds before the sunlight.

Find me someone who has redeemed his own soul, and he shall become my redeemer. Find me someone who has given all that he has in love, without morbidity, and I will have found the lover of my soul. Is not this true? Why? Because he will have revealed to me the nature of God and proved to me the possibility of all human souls." I am grateful for another day with all of you in it.