Wayne Ferguson shared a previous post with us (see “The Universality of Christ”). Here is a 2014 piece from the blog God, Consciousness, & Cosmos that he sees as relevant to our March-April theme of Interfaith Action.

We seem to be going through an especially rough patch these days. Facing a wide variety of very serious challenges, it is unclear whether we will merely persist, creatively respond, or ultimately self-destruct.

But whatever the turn of events, YOU are needed… Your aware presence and alert stillness is what is called for! Your willingness to step up to the plate and to be fully present may be the difference between life and death– both for yourself and for others –for your family, your community, and for the world at large:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

NOW is the accepted time and YOU are needed like never before!

Perhaps this will sound to some people like fear mongering—to others, perhaps, like some kind of lame motivational rhetoric. But truth to tell, it is neither. Fear and despair are not viable options. And while motivational rhetoric may appear, at times, to carry the day, that kind of discourse is not ultimately up to the task, either (i.e. rhetoric alone will always fall short).

What is needed is for you—for all of us—to be fully and authentically present; to genuinely recognize and honor awareness; to recognize and honor the aware presence or alert stillness in which REALITY is revealed, here & now. To repeat, regardless of how (y)our personal, national, and global dramas seem to be unfolding, YOU are needed . . . here & now!

This undivided turning that we call the universe appears in and by virtue of the aware presence that you are; the alert stillness that I Am. From the standpoint of Christian faith, this is the light of the world–the light in which we see light (Psalms 36:9); the image of God in us—the image of God in which we are said to have been created in the beginning with God (Colossians 1:15-17; Genesis 1:27,31; cf. John 1:1-5,9).

By treating awareness —in ourselves and in others—always as an end (and never merely as a means), we begin to make contact with a level of intelligence that completely outstrips the cleverness of the egoic mind.

So doing, we help to arrest the cycle of senseless violence and self-destructive acquisitiveness that is putting our world at risk. And we do so without imagining that our opinions are in any sense infallible—and without attempting to manipulate other people and/or the turn of events based on our personal desires and limited understanding.

In short, by coming together in this light, we can begin to be the change we want to see. And by simply being in this way, we will tend to embody that light and reflect it out into the world through spontaneous acts of creativity and compassion —and, indeed, through periods of inspired inaction, as well—all of which will be called for during the apparently difficult times ahead.

Are you up for that?