Conspiracies and Fear

At the age of nineteen, my dad toured the U.S. in a Hudson convertible and met people of all walks of life. He grew up during the Great Depression, saw the government slaughter thousands of cows when people in the world were starving—and spent the rest of his life looking for solutions to counteract the greed he saw running the planet. He loved people, kids and animals. And he loved the earth, and he chose to practice farming in a manner that returned to the soil the goodness that he harvested from it.

A dear friend of his who shared his vision of a greater, more compassionate world once said to Dad, "If I have two nickels in my pocket and someone in the world is lacking, then I have one nickel too many."

Dad took the expression to heart—and made a practice of giving away both of his nickels. We’d buy him gifts for holidays, and he’d pass them along to someone who "needed it more than he did." Needless to say, it wasn’t easy for our mom (a partner in raising eight kids), but she understood his intention and his passion, and she often told me that she learned long ago that it was useless to try and change him, or anyone else, but oneself.

As a result of my dad’s journeys, my siblings and I grew up on world bank and government conspiracies, UFOs and aliens (only made sense to me that God would create more than one type of human life form), stories of the Illuminati and the Tri-lateral Commission—to name a few. Dad would take off and be gone for days on end—I remember him calling to check in with Mom only once—her motto was, "No news is good news." And he had some chilling encounters with some very challenging individuals.

It was then only natural that I would delve into the things Dad talked about in order to, at first, simply make my own contribution to making this a better world. In the early nineties, there was a group in the Minneapolis/St.Paul area called Freeman’s Education, and this was a gathering place for people who were interested in the other side of stories not seen in mainstream media sources.

Dad had always told me to not believe everything that was printed in the newspapers or reported on TV, because all those sources were owned by pretty much the same group of individuals. And often people’s quotes were taken out of context or censored in order to fit the owner’s agenda.

In short, there really is no such thing as "unbiased" reporting by any human, whether intentional or otherwise. How we perceive our personal experiences is always going to influence how we perceive, and talk about, anything from that point on.

I had seen a film (this was shortly after the Jacob Wetterling kidnapping, which happened in a small town in Minnesota in the early 90s) on how some high-ranking officials were "allegedly" using kidnapped children for sexual abuse and snuff films. Now, to be honest, I had no way of knowing whether this film was true or not—I believed it to be so at the time. And it troubled me so greatly then that my taxes were being used in this manner, that I opted out of the tax system for a period of a few years.

That’s a whole other unpleasant period in my life, but one in which I walked away determined to be at peace within myself and to have my own answers to my own questions and to not rely on someone outside of me to tell me what is true or not.

I also came to the realization through this walk, that two people could take the same scripture like, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s"--and interpret it to mean exactly two polar opposites as to whether or not to pay taxes. I had no way of knowing which was right—they both made sense.

Also, I met people who were so frightened of the conspirators they were fighting against that they had a gleam in their eyes that was just as frightening as those who were "their enemy." It was disconcerting.

After going over here, and then over there, and every which direction someone outside of me told me to go, I finally arrived at the conclusion that all the answers for me would be found WITHIN MYSELF.

This, of course, is the time I picked up the Bible and read it all for myself, and I found scriptures that appeared to say to trust what you know within, instead of anyone outside—and I’ve held that to my heart and used it ever since.

I finally found the peace I was searching for all these years—and it lies here within me.

Yes, the world has quite a bit of chaos going on, but I believe that if I’m running around telling everyone to be afraid of conspiracies, other races, other religions, other sexualities, the devil, or food, water and fuel shortages—then I’m only contributing to the creation of more chaos and rioting, killing and greed—the very thing my own dad had set out to keep from happening.

I choose instead to remind each person that I touch of the power of LOVE--that he/she holds the goodness of God within himself/herself and to remember that. And when life gets scary and overwhelming, remember to go within to that SAFE and SACRED SPACE and just be still, BREATHE DEEPLY, until one’s own sense of peace has a chance to take over the reins of life.

Jesus’s reminder to "love your enemies" kept me searching within myself for a means to genuinely do that, and not just say the flowery words--while, secretly wanting to kill off my perceived enemy, instead.

May peace be with you…the GOODNESS of GOD is...