(This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the interaction of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of Conversations with God, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The “New Spirituality” is defined by the author as “a new way to experience and express our natural impulse toward the Divine without making others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.”)

HIGHLIGHTS OF TODAY’S BLOG…
* Spiritual wisdom can be difficult to embrace
* Is Hurricane Dean an ‘act of God’?
* The role that humans play in our collective reality
* A prayer offering for those in trouble today

This is going to be a difficult blog to write. And it may be even more difficult to read.
It is difficult to place Eternal Truths about Life and God in the space of our experience when that in-the-moment encounter is so devastatingly impactful. Hurricane Dean, for instance. Its impact is devastating, and at times such as this the words of our wisdom traditions can seem hollow — and almost painful in their spiritual awareness.
Nevertheless, I should like to offer an awareness today, and see if you share it. As Messengers of God (which, by the way, we all are. More on that in Thursday’s entry…), I think we all are invited to lend our awareness to the global consciousness now. Because it is precisely in moments like these that spiritual awareness can awaken humanity.
No one, of course, has the One and Only Answer. Let us start there. Let us begin with an understanding that there is no One Right Answer to the largest questions of life. Some of our religions tell us there is, but, with respect, I gently disagree. So if we can come from a place of deep knowing that “ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way,” we can offer some spiritual insight, perhaps even some emotional comfort, at this hour as Hurricane Dean sweeps across a swath of our Home Planet.
I have a personal connection to this particular geological weather event because a graduate of the Life Education Program that is offered by our non-profit Conversations with God Foundation lives in Jamaica. He and his family are right in Dean’s path. Perhaps you, too, know someone in Dean’s corridor. If so, you are aware of…

…the very real danger to which they are now exposed. What is occurring here is no small matter. This is a killer storm, and it is raging. And we are going to see more of these. I don’t want to jump here into scare tactics here, but Al Gore is right. This is our Inconvenient Truth. We are going to see many more of these utterly massive, utterly devastating weather occurrences in the months and years ahead, and our planet had better get used to them and get ready for them.
What this means, among other things, is an immediate alteration in the development pattern of our land mass on this planet. Put simply, a movement away from our shorelines, and inland. In the very near future the most “desirable” land will not be the beach front or oceanside property, but the more protected land away from our seashores.
Global Warming is here. The effects of Global Warming are now being visited upon us.
And just where is God in all of this? Can praying help at this stage? Is there anything we can do to reverse the impact of this planetary temperature shift, now so clearly and obviously real?
Okay, one question at a time. First, “God in all of this” is where God is in all of everything: Everywhere Present and Everywhere Manifest.

Wait a minute! Are you saying that God is present in Hurricane Dean? Are you saying that this death and destruction is God made manifest?

Yes. Do not even traditional religions call events such a hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes “acts of God”?

Then are these acts of God meant to be God’s punishment for humanity’s evil behavior?

No. God does not judge, condemn, or punish.

Then why is God doing this!!!?

God is “doing” this because we are doing this.

I’m sorry?

The tone of the question carries an assumption that God is somehow separate from us; that we are “over here” and God is “over there” doing things to us. My truth is that God and we are not separate — nor is God separate from anything at all. Therefore, God “doing this” is US “doing this.”
We are the ones who have created this. We are the ones who have produced this outcome. And that is what is hard for me to share today. It is the spiritual insight that is difficult to hear and incredibly challenging to embrace at times such as this. Yet here it is, in uncompromising terms: We created Hurricane Dean.

We did it by a variety of creative means. And the creation was not accomplished in moments or minutes, nor even in hours or days, but, rather, across a span of many months and many years. Yet we are as responsible for these events of today as we are responsible for the events of tomorrow…and for what we are now producing in the lives of our children and theirs.
You see, as it turns out, God creates slowly.
Well, not exclusively slowly. God sometimes creates very rapidly. When God does that, we call it “miracles.” When God creates slowly, we call it “nature.” Yet all of it is our doing. We do not stand outside the circle of responsibility. We are not mere bystanders, mere audience members, in the process called life. We are the essential elements in that process — and our only problem is our lack of willingness to admit that.
Global Warming is NOT man-made, we declare. We had nothing to do with it!
Hurricane Dean is NOT our responsibility, it is NOT our creation! And so we continue to go out (read the latest statistics) and buy our SUVs and our other gas-guzzling cars in record numbers; we continue to refuse in large numbers to take mass transit to get where we need to go; we continue to allow our industries to pollute our atmosphere (we must have commerce, after all), we continue to withdraw from international treaties that beg us, as one of the most powerful economies on earth, to reduce our greenhouse emissions and bring under control our environmental degradation…
We continue our self-destructive behaviors as if we were not Gods, have nothing to do with how life is proceeding on this planet, and we wish that spiritual Awkeners who say things such as I am saying here would just keep quiet and go away.
But those messengers cannot. Not if they care a twit about tomorrow.
Yet now is the time, too, to offer a word of comfort to those who are being so devastatingly impacted by the events of this moment. God’s grace and God’s strength are with you today, open to you, available to you, and being sent to you in the thoughts and prayers and deep concerns and heartfelt wishes of all of us. Even as the lot of us has created the conditions which spawned Hurricane Dean, so, too, can the All of Us send healing energies now to every person touched by this disaster, bringing miracles into their lives, hope into their hearts, and God into their here-and-now experience. Prayer works. This I know from experience, and this I believe at the depth of my being.
So, then, let us pray…
Dear God, we ask today that You cover Your children,
now in the path of destruction,
with Your grace, with Your strength, with Your protection,
and with Your Divine Guidance. Help them now, Dear God,
to find a path to You, that in Your heart they may find refuge,
in Your wisdom they may find resourcefulness and answers,
in Your goodness they may find escape from the worst of this tragedy,
and in Your Everlasting Love they may find peace,
even in the midst of this great danger.
We ask this, Dear God, as our Miracle Request for this day…
and we know that even as we ask, You will have answered.
Amen, and amen.
P.S. Okay, now I want you to tell me that prayer doesn’t work…
Yesterday the predictions were that Dean would hit Jamaica square on, causing very, very heavy damage and loss of life. It is 3:40 in the morning EDT as I write this, and as I continue to monitor the situation, and repeat the prayer that appears above. And just now I found this on the Internet…

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (CNN) — Hurricane Dean battered the southern coast of Jamaica with heavy rains and surf as its eye passed offshore late Sunday, apparently sparing the Caribbean island the worst of its 145 mph winds.

Enough said?