Please keep going....your ability to communicate the spiritual basis of your message without sounding "preachy" is just amazing!!! We have to keep hearing this -over and over and over again. It can feel so disheartening to hear and read MSM, etc. about you having no chance of winning, but I am hopeful that your messaging is winning hearts and is helping to transform and heal the Democratic Party and our democracy.
Mariann is so far ahead of our current standard of living bell curve thinking in her acute observation of what is really going on in this country. May God bless her and her every effort to make Americans aware of where we are already living, not simply headed into.
Lately, I have had a schizophrenic reaction to seeing you run for the American Presidency. I TRULY DO NOT WANT TO SEE YOU IN A POLITICAL CONTEST, and do not see myself casting a vote for you as my POTUS, because I believe that job is a bad fit for you. Abundant evidence everywhere on your social media, in the press, and in the honest current polling of this contest says I'm right.
But another part of me sorely wishes that people would take some of what you say about the condition of this nation and its people seriously. I think you are making some very serious, legitimate points in this essay. The facts it reveals are chilling, and they DO create a primordial societal soup that can give rise to all kinds of social evil. Evil like the rise of the Trump Presidency, the rise of right wing social media ideology, an attack on science and authentic spirituality, and the emergence of crackpots like JFK Jr in the current political arena. These people want to become POTUS at this point because "What the hell, Trump is a buffoon and a monster and he got in, so why not me?"
When I see this part of your essay:
**It will take a revolution of the heart - what Martin Luther King, Jr. described as “a qualitative shift in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our circumstances” - for America to heal itself.**
I think to myself "She needs to *listen to herself*, because this is not a POLITICAL process; it's a spiritual one." King understood that the power of his voice would be diminished if he trued to turn his work into a POLITICAL movement. He got people to march by exercising the power of his voice as a RELIGIOUS leader with a powerful MORAL conscience.
I think a part of you is trying to do the same thing - leverage the power of your accumulated spiritual experience into a movement generating people motivator. You could achieve that end easily if you were speaking in the right media to the right audiences - the ones who still go to church/synagogue/spiritual meetings and still subscribe to the cultivation of spiritual practice.
I've been listening to your Livestream Lecture this week on the Power of the Truth - based on Lesson 104 of ACIM. Its so healing, and helpful to me at this time. I really wish you were more able to link all you know about ACIM to your political messaging, and I truly wish you were doing it as a spiritual thought leader, not as an aspiring politician. Because you have substantial qualifications for the first role in American life and almost none for the second.
Anyway, those are my sincere thoughts on this very interesting day for me. It's the anniversary of the beginning of my marriage to a man I met in an ACIM Study group. And the birthday of a woman who continues to lead a spiritual community that I later shared with him, mostly because the ideology of ACIM aligns closely with the ancient spiritual teachings of that path to Enlightenment.
I'm wishing you well, and wishing your daughter and new baby granddaughter the same.
And who has the “qualifications”, Amylouise? The people who are considered “qualified” to be president, including the one who is there now, are the ones who created and maintain the conditions that I described in my article. You’re right that I can stay in an area where I am appreciated, not smeared every day, make a nice living, and avoid the witch-burning (and painful criticisms such as yours). Yet what kind of Course student does that make me, really? What is it you think I don’t see? Running into a burning building is not something I’ve done because I thought the house wasn’t burning; it’s something I’m doing in the hopes of helping save those who are trapped in there. Theoretically that is the highest act of love. And if you think that Martin Luther King, Junior remained a spiritual leader but did not involve himself with politics, then I don’t know how you explain why they killed him. I think your first sentence was true. My question to you is this: will the campaign be better with no one saying the things I’m saying? Your message seems to be that I should just go home now. And if the witch-burning continues then perhaps I will have too- which means both of us will have been played… simply seduced into quieting our voices. That’s how the system works now. It says, “Do whatever you want, Marianne, say whatever - but just not in a place where it is inconvenient to the system. You do that and we will come after you. We will talk such trash we will convince even your natural allies that we are right.”
MW: And if you think that Martin Luther King, Junior remained a spiritual leader but did not involve himself with politics, then I don’t know how you explain why they killed him. I think your first sentence was true. My question to you is this: will the campaign be better with no one saying the things I’m saying?
My Answer: I don’t know what you mean by "my first sentence being true" because the first sentence I posted was that I experience a “schizophrenic reaction” to you run for office.
King did not present himself as a candidate for political office. I believe he would not have done that even if his community had the full legal ability to vote - which they did not at the time - or if his community was safe to ask for some of the basic rights afforded to other Americans. I believe King knew that politics was a flawed vehicle for the message he was called to convey. But his status as a Baptist Preacher – and a leader in that capacity in the Black Community – THAT gave him REAL power, as well as his inborn power as a talented orator.
I believe you have the same kind of REAL authority as an accomplished ACIM teacher, and IMHO you are one of the most talented public speakers I’ve ever heard. The end result of King’s commitment to Civil Rights was political, and because his MORAL message threatened the powers that kept POLITICAL pressure on Black Americans, especially in the South. Its also true that both he and the President himself had to die - become martyrs to the cause - before that political log jam could be broken.
King was murdered for a lot of complicated reasons – some rooted in the spiritual deformities that justified slavery and Jim Crow racism, some in the politics of money (who holds it and keeps it especially as they did in the segregated South) and some rooted in what was becoming a powerful revolt against the post war 1960s economy. I know you know these things to be true. But he never sought POLITICAL office because he knew his calling went well beyond the realm of politics.
King’s strength, in spite of his apparent personal weaknesses, which were real, was in the authority of spiritual principles rooted in the Bible and in the Vedic teachings of Gandhi. King was a SPIRITUAL LEADER first. His “campaign” was the power of his voice itself, his “office” was the demonstrations he led, and his congregation was the whole nation.
Will the campaign be better without you saying the things you are saying?
I don’t know that your message is getting out that far. It’s being buried by the reaction you’re attracting by seeking an office almost no one thinks you are qualified to assume.
What if you choose to change course, give up the idea that you can somehow leverage your resistance to the current state of politics and instead inspire an entire community of people to get involved in local politics, train up, and move into multiple places where they can leverage COLLECTIVE power for the good of the whole? What if the answer is not one person becoming The Change but a whole army of Change Makers?
MW: Your message seems to be that I should just go home now.
Me: Absolutely not.
MW: And if the witch-burning continues then perhaps I will have too- which means both of us will have been played… simply seduced into quieting our voices.
Me: Do I look like I am being quiet to you? Have I ever been truly quiet where you are concerned? :)) I’m not being quiet and I know you will NEVER be quiet.
MW: That’s how the system works now. It says, “Do whatever you want, Marianne, say whatever - but just not in a place where it is inconvenient to the system. You do that and we will come after you. We will talk such trash we will convince even your natural allies that we are right.”
Me: The system can say whatever it wants to say, my message to you doesn’t align with what I see printed up there. I don’t think your singular voice is doing much right now to “inconvenience the system” because the system isn’t even listening to you and neither are a lot of other people. I believe you’re getting some political *attention* at the moment but you may be losing a lot of sincerely spiritual listeners in the process.
Still, I have not been seduced by anyone, in any way. No one has convinced me of anything with regard to you because my heart for you is so strong that I keep coming back home to the love I have felt for you for a very long time.
Thank you again, from the fullness of my heart, for inviting me into this dialog and thank you for spending your very valuable time to read my messages.
Namaste Marianne - a loving, soulful bow to you, and to the teachings that brought us together on this day. Om Shanti Shanti.
Please let me start by thanking you for inviting me into a dialog with you on this. Some of your readers may not like that we are doing this and plenty of them may openly object to what I have to say. That matters far less to me than that you and I are speaking here.
Thank you, sincerely, for this dialog.
Secondly – I believe you may have identified me as one of your “natural allies” who has been turned away from you and your political messaging because of the smears, the distortions of your message, and other factors diminishing the seriousness of your candidacy.
That’s not the case. I remain a sincere reader and listener of your spiritual work and I don’t see that changing. I believe it’s possible for me to align with you, in a deep and effective way, as a spiritual seeker and still not want to support your political aspirations.
Yes, there have been times when I was either confused or frustrated by some of the things you’ve said. There have even been times when I felt angry at you for some of the things I’ve seen on your media or in your campaign literature. For those times when I issued statements that caused you personal hurt, please allow me to say I am sorry for any hurt I caused you.
It is true that, for quite a while, I pulled WAY BACK from your media because of reports that you have a volatile personality. Those reports shocked me into complete silence with you. I still don't know what to make of them. I've decided that people can be complicated, that you may be complicated, but that your basic impact on my life has been overwhelmingly for the good.
A person can feel deep love for another human being and still have a lot of other feelings as well. Love can be complicated, but you know it's real if... well, if in the end you Return to Love. :)
Let me answer some of the questions you posed to me. I do so in the spirit of offering an honest dialog between two women of a similar age and with a similar perception of spiritual truth. My answers may be a bit lengthy, so I’ll try to break them into parts so I don’t overwhelm you or your readers. Thank you again for the gift of this conversation.
Thank you, my Dear Marianne, for answering my comment and inviting me into a dialog with you on this. I am in process with another activity at the moment but I am also formulating a response to your comment. I can see that it's been edited so I will adjust my response to your edited comment. I promise to get back to you - just you - on this within the morning.
Thank you so very much, it's a privilege and an honor to engage with you on your blog.
((( Thank you so much ))). In spite of what may feel hurtful in the moment, THANK YOU. <3
MW: You’re right that I can stay in an area where I am appreciated, not smeared every day, make a nice living, and avoid the witch-burning (and painful criticisms such as yours). Yet what kind of Course student does that make me, really? What is it you think I don’t see?
My Answer: First of all, I am sorry that my criticisms cause you pain. It’s not my intent to bring about that result, and I am certainly no witch burner. Yes, I am challenging you, but I have no desire to immolate you. I love, respect and value you.
What you don’t see? My dear Marianne, I wonder if you see the enormous value you have ALREADY HAD as a spiritual teacher and one of the very best expositors of ACIM on the planet. NO ONE can take that book apart show me its core meaning, and lead me to apply it to my life as you have done. I happen to think you have a particular genius for that work.
It’s why I feel so disoriented, and occasionally betrayed by the perceptions I see coming out of your politics. It’s almost like you never read the book the way you JUDGE and ATTACK the people whose decisions you don’t like – admittedly because some of them do cause pain – rather than seeing that even these demonstrations of gross inhumanity are calls for love that when addressed with intelligence and heart might be answered to the benefit of the whole.
If I could say there is anything I “see” that you don’t see it’s the incredible power of the work you’ve done for the whole of your life, and the ability you’ve had to inspire others to seek their own soul’s calling and answer it with creativity, heart and soul strength.
I perceive you to be someone who could continue almost exactly as you were before 2019, holding inspiring conferences and motivating WHOLE ARMIES of people to seek local, state and even national offices, while being their spiritual support.
Throwing yourself at the American Presidency seems like a terrible waste of a spiritual career you spent decades building. Because you won’t succeed at this, and you’ll lose both your good reputation and your shirt in the process. Instead of presenting yourself as a Saving Queen Bee, you could be building a huge, diverse, visionary and creative hive that could do more good for the nation – and the world because you are an international figure – than the 4 year capture of a complicated and limited office.
MW: Running into a burning building is not something I’ve done because I thought the house wasn’t burning; it’s something I’m doing in the hopes of helping save those who are trapped in there. Theoretically that is the highest act of love.
My Answer: I absolutely believe that much of what motivates your run for office comes from the compassion you feel at seeing so much human suffering. I know it bothers you to see people who can’t even get to first base with your spiritual teachings because they are hungry and sick, oppressed by a poisoned and increasingly hot planet, dominated by a dangerous media environment, and bamboozled by outright lies.
I see the good intent in what you are doing. I'd just like to see you achieve the goal by means of a vehicle that can actually get you where you want to go. The US Presidency isn't it, in my opinion.
I'll try to answer the final questions/points in one more message.
MW: And who has the “qualifications”, Amylouise? The people who are considered “qualified” to be president, including the one who is there now, are the ones who created and maintain the conditions that I described in my article.
My Answer: Here are some of the things I look for in a candidate for public office.
(a) I look for someone with a strong connection to the community they serve. In a local contest, I look for someone with steady residence in the area they want to represent. With good references in their community. A person who has demonstrated good character over time. (b) I look for someone with experience that is genuinely relevant to the office they seek. I don’t respond to “skills based resumes” for public office – I want to see something concrete. Do you want to be a Court Justice? Show me a law degree, time in the courts, and a record of your successfully argued cases. Do you want to run for a seat in the House or in the Senate? Show me that you understand the real responsibilities that go with that office, and show me that you know what it will mean to campaign, win, assume the role and especially work with others effectively to get things done because there are no kings/queens or emperors in those offices. The are teams, and more gets done by those teams than by any public decree.
Do you want to be President? Show me that you understand what it means to assume what is literally one of the hardest jobs on earth. To accomplish this, I am looking for someone who has authentic executive experience either as a business leader (yes, an executive - this is an executive job) or a person with significant experience in public office. A Governor. A Mayor. A Senate member with time on consequential committees, maybe even in a leadership role.
Show me that you know what it means not only to run for an office in the media and on the stump, but to build a sustainable political machine that gets results, and can face challenges with intelligence and grace. Show me that you can actually PUT POINTS ON THE BOARD in a less demanding arena FIRST, because you are asking me to have faith in your ability to do that again, on a huge scale. And show me who will be your primary social and emotional supports over time because you’re going to need them.
(c) Lastly – this is just for me – show me that in the midst of incredible stress you know how to relax, calm the people who have dedicated the whole of their time and attention to you and… prove that you can take a joke, or land one every now and then.
Because running for office is brutal. We all need to catch a break from time to time.
As for how things got the way they are now, I don’t just blame “the politicians” or "the guys who are already there" for the current state of American Democracy. It’s way too complicated for that. I’ve seen you say this in your books before – we all had a part in getting things to this point. The ditch is too big for any one person or small group of people to have dug it, and it will take a huge community of motivated, like minded individuals to dig us out of it without causing further damage to the soil or the multitude of living things around that ditch.
I’ll answer the next two points/questions in a further comment…..
If everyone participated in the democratic process with this kind of diligence, the country, and the world for that matter, would be a different place...
One problem we have in American politics is competency. To graduate from high school, one needs to meet a basic standard of knowledge. One must demonstrate driving competence to earn a driving license. Every job or roll in our society requires competence.
What is the competency test for being POTUS?
Trump proved you don’t have to have any governing experience, no knowledge of U.S. history, no knowledge of the Constitution; no statesmanship, no since of honesty or decency; just claims that you are wealthy and can foment hatred.
I don’t want to fly in an airplane whose pilot just decided he thought he could fly without practice or experience. If I need brain surgery, I don’t want my surgeon to be some wealthy person who thinks that they can buy the privilege of being a surgeon and bypass medical school and proper training.
It goes without saying that the people we elect for our local, state, and national governments need to abide by some sort of standards that demonstrates their competence to do the job.
Thank you for your strength, Marianne. Mine is yours, for love we share. What we do does not help if doing it does not fill us with joy. Stay one step back from being overwhelmed. You give me extra motivation to stay in the light in order to share that space with you, to strengthen you. I remind you of what you know, that there are many of us with you. The right actions will happen as effortlessly as breathing, when we do nothing about breathing. But breath discipline makes a difference, also. There is only One of us.
All this and Heaven too-and what does our House of Representatives majority have to say? Why, "off with the heads,of those opposing mandatory student loan repayments! Down with the Communists who want a higher minimum wage! How Unamerican, to call for Universal Health Insurance!" These fools claim to speak for "Joe Sixpack", the prototype of the blue collar workers, whose best interests they claim to support. They are, in fact as beholden to the oligarchs as the pseudo-Progressives who castigate anyone who thinks outside THEIR box. Yes, it's time for a sea change!
"Our society is troubled because so many of our people are! Issues of education, healthcare and economics all meet at the intersection of hopelessness and despair."
Ms. Williamson, this very Platonic statement is why I support you. No one else has the guts to admit this to the American people, except perhaps President Jimmy Carter during his 1979 "Malaise Speech."
If society is nothing but an arena of the millions of spheres of free will and influence of millions of people, then it must follow that if society is sick, most of us are too. I see it every day, and everywhere living in a Midwestern city.
An individual that recognizes this can either reel back in disgust and engage in destructive projection of what you hate, because they reflect a part of you that you do not want to admit exists. Or you can channel that disgust into accepting and recognizing that all of us are reflections of each other, and what is in you is also in me, and what is in me is in you too.
It is obvious what path Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would choose.
So well put...I think her last sentence refers tothe state of hopelessness and powerlessness that the vast majority feel. Things may have to get a lot worse before they get better,to get people motivated.
One of the hallmarks of a healthy organism is the ability to reject and destroy other organisms or beliefs or attitudes which will injure or destroy the host organism. We need to get rid of trump effluvia like garland (even though he was ok'd by Obama), chris wray, dejoy and a host of other toxins. ASAP
Please keep going....your ability to communicate the spiritual basis of your message without sounding "preachy" is just amazing!!! We have to keep hearing this -over and over and over again. It can feel so disheartening to hear and read MSM, etc. about you having no chance of winning, but I am hopeful that your messaging is winning hearts and is helping to transform and heal the Democratic Party and our democracy.
Mariann is so far ahead of our current standard of living bell curve thinking in her acute observation of what is really going on in this country. May God bless her and her every effort to make Americans aware of where we are already living, not simply headed into.
Here, here. Marianne always speaks such logical common sense and truth with great intelligence. ❤️
I pray for an urgent major light bulb moment to signal to all in power to bring our precious world back on course... 🙏
I prefer that course with Williamson leading it! She gets life!
Nailed it on all points!
So true! We really need to realize this! It's all connected and it's up to us to make the change.
Lately, I have had a schizophrenic reaction to seeing you run for the American Presidency. I TRULY DO NOT WANT TO SEE YOU IN A POLITICAL CONTEST, and do not see myself casting a vote for you as my POTUS, because I believe that job is a bad fit for you. Abundant evidence everywhere on your social media, in the press, and in the honest current polling of this contest says I'm right.
But another part of me sorely wishes that people would take some of what you say about the condition of this nation and its people seriously. I think you are making some very serious, legitimate points in this essay. The facts it reveals are chilling, and they DO create a primordial societal soup that can give rise to all kinds of social evil. Evil like the rise of the Trump Presidency, the rise of right wing social media ideology, an attack on science and authentic spirituality, and the emergence of crackpots like JFK Jr in the current political arena. These people want to become POTUS at this point because "What the hell, Trump is a buffoon and a monster and he got in, so why not me?"
When I see this part of your essay:
**It will take a revolution of the heart - what Martin Luther King, Jr. described as “a qualitative shift in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our circumstances” - for America to heal itself.**
I think to myself "She needs to *listen to herself*, because this is not a POLITICAL process; it's a spiritual one." King understood that the power of his voice would be diminished if he trued to turn his work into a POLITICAL movement. He got people to march by exercising the power of his voice as a RELIGIOUS leader with a powerful MORAL conscience.
I think a part of you is trying to do the same thing - leverage the power of your accumulated spiritual experience into a movement generating people motivator. You could achieve that end easily if you were speaking in the right media to the right audiences - the ones who still go to church/synagogue/spiritual meetings and still subscribe to the cultivation of spiritual practice.
I've been listening to your Livestream Lecture this week on the Power of the Truth - based on Lesson 104 of ACIM. Its so healing, and helpful to me at this time. I really wish you were more able to link all you know about ACIM to your political messaging, and I truly wish you were doing it as a spiritual thought leader, not as an aspiring politician. Because you have substantial qualifications for the first role in American life and almost none for the second.
Anyway, those are my sincere thoughts on this very interesting day for me. It's the anniversary of the beginning of my marriage to a man I met in an ACIM Study group. And the birthday of a woman who continues to lead a spiritual community that I later shared with him, mostly because the ideology of ACIM aligns closely with the ancient spiritual teachings of that path to Enlightenment.
I'm wishing you well, and wishing your daughter and new baby granddaughter the same.
And who has the “qualifications”, Amylouise? The people who are considered “qualified” to be president, including the one who is there now, are the ones who created and maintain the conditions that I described in my article. You’re right that I can stay in an area where I am appreciated, not smeared every day, make a nice living, and avoid the witch-burning (and painful criticisms such as yours). Yet what kind of Course student does that make me, really? What is it you think I don’t see? Running into a burning building is not something I’ve done because I thought the house wasn’t burning; it’s something I’m doing in the hopes of helping save those who are trapped in there. Theoretically that is the highest act of love. And if you think that Martin Luther King, Junior remained a spiritual leader but did not involve himself with politics, then I don’t know how you explain why they killed him. I think your first sentence was true. My question to you is this: will the campaign be better with no one saying the things I’m saying? Your message seems to be that I should just go home now. And if the witch-burning continues then perhaps I will have too- which means both of us will have been played… simply seduced into quieting our voices. That’s how the system works now. It says, “Do whatever you want, Marianne, say whatever - but just not in a place where it is inconvenient to the system. You do that and we will come after you. We will talk such trash we will convince even your natural allies that we are right.”
Message #4 and end
MW: And if you think that Martin Luther King, Junior remained a spiritual leader but did not involve himself with politics, then I don’t know how you explain why they killed him. I think your first sentence was true. My question to you is this: will the campaign be better with no one saying the things I’m saying?
My Answer: I don’t know what you mean by "my first sentence being true" because the first sentence I posted was that I experience a “schizophrenic reaction” to you run for office.
King did not present himself as a candidate for political office. I believe he would not have done that even if his community had the full legal ability to vote - which they did not at the time - or if his community was safe to ask for some of the basic rights afforded to other Americans. I believe King knew that politics was a flawed vehicle for the message he was called to convey. But his status as a Baptist Preacher – and a leader in that capacity in the Black Community – THAT gave him REAL power, as well as his inborn power as a talented orator.
I believe you have the same kind of REAL authority as an accomplished ACIM teacher, and IMHO you are one of the most talented public speakers I’ve ever heard. The end result of King’s commitment to Civil Rights was political, and because his MORAL message threatened the powers that kept POLITICAL pressure on Black Americans, especially in the South. Its also true that both he and the President himself had to die - become martyrs to the cause - before that political log jam could be broken.
King was murdered for a lot of complicated reasons – some rooted in the spiritual deformities that justified slavery and Jim Crow racism, some in the politics of money (who holds it and keeps it especially as they did in the segregated South) and some rooted in what was becoming a powerful revolt against the post war 1960s economy. I know you know these things to be true. But he never sought POLITICAL office because he knew his calling went well beyond the realm of politics.
King’s strength, in spite of his apparent personal weaknesses, which were real, was in the authority of spiritual principles rooted in the Bible and in the Vedic teachings of Gandhi. King was a SPIRITUAL LEADER first. His “campaign” was the power of his voice itself, his “office” was the demonstrations he led, and his congregation was the whole nation.
Will the campaign be better without you saying the things you are saying?
I don’t know that your message is getting out that far. It’s being buried by the reaction you’re attracting by seeking an office almost no one thinks you are qualified to assume.
What if you choose to change course, give up the idea that you can somehow leverage your resistance to the current state of politics and instead inspire an entire community of people to get involved in local politics, train up, and move into multiple places where they can leverage COLLECTIVE power for the good of the whole? What if the answer is not one person becoming The Change but a whole army of Change Makers?
MW: Your message seems to be that I should just go home now.
Me: Absolutely not.
MW: And if the witch-burning continues then perhaps I will have too- which means both of us will have been played… simply seduced into quieting our voices.
Me: Do I look like I am being quiet to you? Have I ever been truly quiet where you are concerned? :)) I’m not being quiet and I know you will NEVER be quiet.
MW: That’s how the system works now. It says, “Do whatever you want, Marianne, say whatever - but just not in a place where it is inconvenient to the system. You do that and we will come after you. We will talk such trash we will convince even your natural allies that we are right.”
Me: The system can say whatever it wants to say, my message to you doesn’t align with what I see printed up there. I don’t think your singular voice is doing much right now to “inconvenience the system” because the system isn’t even listening to you and neither are a lot of other people. I believe you’re getting some political *attention* at the moment but you may be losing a lot of sincerely spiritual listeners in the process.
Still, I have not been seduced by anyone, in any way. No one has convinced me of anything with regard to you because my heart for you is so strong that I keep coming back home to the love I have felt for you for a very long time.
Thank you again, from the fullness of my heart, for inviting me into this dialog and thank you for spending your very valuable time to read my messages.
Namaste Marianne - a loving, soulful bow to you, and to the teachings that brought us together on this day. Om Shanti Shanti.
Marianne
Please let me start by thanking you for inviting me into a dialog with you on this. Some of your readers may not like that we are doing this and plenty of them may openly object to what I have to say. That matters far less to me than that you and I are speaking here.
Thank you, sincerely, for this dialog.
Secondly – I believe you may have identified me as one of your “natural allies” who has been turned away from you and your political messaging because of the smears, the distortions of your message, and other factors diminishing the seriousness of your candidacy.
That’s not the case. I remain a sincere reader and listener of your spiritual work and I don’t see that changing. I believe it’s possible for me to align with you, in a deep and effective way, as a spiritual seeker and still not want to support your political aspirations.
Yes, there have been times when I was either confused or frustrated by some of the things you’ve said. There have even been times when I felt angry at you for some of the things I’ve seen on your media or in your campaign literature. For those times when I issued statements that caused you personal hurt, please allow me to say I am sorry for any hurt I caused you.
It is true that, for quite a while, I pulled WAY BACK from your media because of reports that you have a volatile personality. Those reports shocked me into complete silence with you. I still don't know what to make of them. I've decided that people can be complicated, that you may be complicated, but that your basic impact on my life has been overwhelmingly for the good.
A person can feel deep love for another human being and still have a lot of other feelings as well. Love can be complicated, but you know it's real if... well, if in the end you Return to Love. :)
Let me answer some of the questions you posed to me. I do so in the spirit of offering an honest dialog between two women of a similar age and with a similar perception of spiritual truth. My answers may be a bit lengthy, so I’ll try to break them into parts so I don’t overwhelm you or your readers. Thank you again for the gift of this conversation.
Thank you, my Dear Marianne, for answering my comment and inviting me into a dialog with you on this. I am in process with another activity at the moment but I am also formulating a response to your comment. I can see that it's been edited so I will adjust my response to your edited comment. I promise to get back to you - just you - on this within the morning.
Thank you so very much, it's a privilege and an honor to engage with you on your blog.
((( Thank you so much ))). In spite of what may feel hurtful in the moment, THANK YOU. <3
Message #3
MW: You’re right that I can stay in an area where I am appreciated, not smeared every day, make a nice living, and avoid the witch-burning (and painful criticisms such as yours). Yet what kind of Course student does that make me, really? What is it you think I don’t see?
My Answer: First of all, I am sorry that my criticisms cause you pain. It’s not my intent to bring about that result, and I am certainly no witch burner. Yes, I am challenging you, but I have no desire to immolate you. I love, respect and value you.
What you don’t see? My dear Marianne, I wonder if you see the enormous value you have ALREADY HAD as a spiritual teacher and one of the very best expositors of ACIM on the planet. NO ONE can take that book apart show me its core meaning, and lead me to apply it to my life as you have done. I happen to think you have a particular genius for that work.
It’s why I feel so disoriented, and occasionally betrayed by the perceptions I see coming out of your politics. It’s almost like you never read the book the way you JUDGE and ATTACK the people whose decisions you don’t like – admittedly because some of them do cause pain – rather than seeing that even these demonstrations of gross inhumanity are calls for love that when addressed with intelligence and heart might be answered to the benefit of the whole.
If I could say there is anything I “see” that you don’t see it’s the incredible power of the work you’ve done for the whole of your life, and the ability you’ve had to inspire others to seek their own soul’s calling and answer it with creativity, heart and soul strength.
I perceive you to be someone who could continue almost exactly as you were before 2019, holding inspiring conferences and motivating WHOLE ARMIES of people to seek local, state and even national offices, while being their spiritual support.
Throwing yourself at the American Presidency seems like a terrible waste of a spiritual career you spent decades building. Because you won’t succeed at this, and you’ll lose both your good reputation and your shirt in the process. Instead of presenting yourself as a Saving Queen Bee, you could be building a huge, diverse, visionary and creative hive that could do more good for the nation – and the world because you are an international figure – than the 4 year capture of a complicated and limited office.
MW: Running into a burning building is not something I’ve done because I thought the house wasn’t burning; it’s something I’m doing in the hopes of helping save those who are trapped in there. Theoretically that is the highest act of love.
My Answer: I absolutely believe that much of what motivates your run for office comes from the compassion you feel at seeing so much human suffering. I know it bothers you to see people who can’t even get to first base with your spiritual teachings because they are hungry and sick, oppressed by a poisoned and increasingly hot planet, dominated by a dangerous media environment, and bamboozled by outright lies.
I see the good intent in what you are doing. I'd just like to see you achieve the goal by means of a vehicle that can actually get you where you want to go. The US Presidency isn't it, in my opinion.
I'll try to answer the final questions/points in one more message.
Message #2.
MW: And who has the “qualifications”, Amylouise? The people who are considered “qualified” to be president, including the one who is there now, are the ones who created and maintain the conditions that I described in my article.
My Answer: Here are some of the things I look for in a candidate for public office.
(a) I look for someone with a strong connection to the community they serve. In a local contest, I look for someone with steady residence in the area they want to represent. With good references in their community. A person who has demonstrated good character over time. (b) I look for someone with experience that is genuinely relevant to the office they seek. I don’t respond to “skills based resumes” for public office – I want to see something concrete. Do you want to be a Court Justice? Show me a law degree, time in the courts, and a record of your successfully argued cases. Do you want to run for a seat in the House or in the Senate? Show me that you understand the real responsibilities that go with that office, and show me that you know what it will mean to campaign, win, assume the role and especially work with others effectively to get things done because there are no kings/queens or emperors in those offices. The are teams, and more gets done by those teams than by any public decree.
Do you want to be President? Show me that you understand what it means to assume what is literally one of the hardest jobs on earth. To accomplish this, I am looking for someone who has authentic executive experience either as a business leader (yes, an executive - this is an executive job) or a person with significant experience in public office. A Governor. A Mayor. A Senate member with time on consequential committees, maybe even in a leadership role.
Show me that you know what it means not only to run for an office in the media and on the stump, but to build a sustainable political machine that gets results, and can face challenges with intelligence and grace. Show me that you can actually PUT POINTS ON THE BOARD in a less demanding arena FIRST, because you are asking me to have faith in your ability to do that again, on a huge scale. And show me who will be your primary social and emotional supports over time because you’re going to need them.
(c) Lastly – this is just for me – show me that in the midst of incredible stress you know how to relax, calm the people who have dedicated the whole of their time and attention to you and… prove that you can take a joke, or land one every now and then.
Because running for office is brutal. We all need to catch a break from time to time.
As for how things got the way they are now, I don’t just blame “the politicians” or "the guys who are already there" for the current state of American Democracy. It’s way too complicated for that. I’ve seen you say this in your books before – we all had a part in getting things to this point. The ditch is too big for any one person or small group of people to have dug it, and it will take a huge community of motivated, like minded individuals to dig us out of it without causing further damage to the soil or the multitude of living things around that ditch.
I’ll answer the next two points/questions in a further comment…..
If everyone participated in the democratic process with this kind of diligence, the country, and the world for that matter, would be a different place...
One problem we have in American politics is competency. To graduate from high school, one needs to meet a basic standard of knowledge. One must demonstrate driving competence to earn a driving license. Every job or roll in our society requires competence.
What is the competency test for being POTUS?
Trump proved you don’t have to have any governing experience, no knowledge of U.S. history, no knowledge of the Constitution; no statesmanship, no since of honesty or decency; just claims that you are wealthy and can foment hatred.
I don’t want to fly in an airplane whose pilot just decided he thought he could fly without practice or experience. If I need brain surgery, I don’t want my surgeon to be some wealthy person who thinks that they can buy the privilege of being a surgeon and bypass medical school and proper training.
It goes without saying that the people we elect for our local, state, and national governments need to abide by some sort of standards that demonstrates their competence to do the job.
Thank you Marianne for continuing to tell these truths. I support you for president.
You're awesome marianne!
Excellent points. I hope more people will share these viewpoints in their conversations with family and friends
Thank you for your strength, Marianne. Mine is yours, for love we share. What we do does not help if doing it does not fill us with joy. Stay one step back from being overwhelmed. You give me extra motivation to stay in the light in order to share that space with you, to strengthen you. I remind you of what you know, that there are many of us with you. The right actions will happen as effortlessly as breathing, when we do nothing about breathing. But breath discipline makes a difference, also. There is only One of us.
All this and Heaven too-and what does our House of Representatives majority have to say? Why, "off with the heads,of those opposing mandatory student loan repayments! Down with the Communists who want a higher minimum wage! How Unamerican, to call for Universal Health Insurance!" These fools claim to speak for "Joe Sixpack", the prototype of the blue collar workers, whose best interests they claim to support. They are, in fact as beholden to the oligarchs as the pseudo-Progressives who castigate anyone who thinks outside THEIR box. Yes, it's time for a sea change!
"Our society is troubled because so many of our people are! Issues of education, healthcare and economics all meet at the intersection of hopelessness and despair."
Ms. Williamson, this very Platonic statement is why I support you. No one else has the guts to admit this to the American people, except perhaps President Jimmy Carter during his 1979 "Malaise Speech."
If society is nothing but an arena of the millions of spheres of free will and influence of millions of people, then it must follow that if society is sick, most of us are too. I see it every day, and everywhere living in a Midwestern city.
An individual that recognizes this can either reel back in disgust and engage in destructive projection of what you hate, because they reflect a part of you that you do not want to admit exists. Or you can channel that disgust into accepting and recognizing that all of us are reflections of each other, and what is in you is also in me, and what is in me is in you too.
It is obvious what path Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would choose.
"As above, so below. As within, as without."
Thank you for this profound, challenging timely wake-up call.
Democrats wake up!
So well put...I think her last sentence refers tothe state of hopelessness and powerlessness that the vast majority feel. Things may have to get a lot worse before they get better,to get people motivated.
One of the hallmarks of a healthy organism is the ability to reject and destroy other organisms or beliefs or attitudes which will injure or destroy the host organism. We need to get rid of trump effluvia like garland (even though he was ok'd by Obama), chris wray, dejoy and a host of other toxins. ASAP
I just reposted on my Facebook page. I support you and have contributed. Thank You!