LET ME JUST SAY THIS ABOUT THAT AND THAT IS THIS…

While we’re busy fighting for the right to get stoned and for rights we already have, Big Business is killing America. Wake up, America, and do some real research. Turn off ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC propaganda…

America’s Congress has 535 representatives sitting in the House and Senate in Washington D.C. Add to that number one president and 9 Supreme Court justices and we have 545 people in our nation’s capital who are supposed to be serving us. We are all very aware of the corruption and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars that [...]

And we thought the Communists were going to attack us all these years. They didn’t have to. They simply joined the Democrat Party and Americans voluntarily voted Communists into the White House.

The miraculous process of restoring sanity to an insane person has to start with the humble admission that one’s thinking has perhaps become askew. The evidence commonly includes being divorced and so unable to raise your own children, being incarcerated, drug and/or alcohol addicted, being abusive to your spouse or children or abused by them, homelessness, or being trapped in obsessive or negative thinking and/or compulsive behavior. I think we’ll all agree that sound thinking doesn’t typically facilitate circumstances I just listed. Collectively speaking, however, many people’s life experiences include situations such as these. That’s because collectively speaking, America is fairly insane right now.

 For those of you who aren’t so offended that you stopped reading already, let me expand on that. One of the dynamics of Human behavior is when we are in groups we tend to gravitate to the lowest common denominator. Our personal principles take a back seat to behavior which we find unacceptable in our own lives, yet we say nothing when others cross those lines which we’ve drawn for ourselves. Profanity is a perfect example. Perhaps our personal foundation doesn’t include profanity and because we find it offensive and/or crude, we’ve gone so far as to teach our children that it’s wrong and punish or correct them if they use foul language. When gathered with other people, however, we suddenly become quiet about things which we find important to us. Timidity appears to be the posture of the day when someone who embraces crude talk and lewd behavior stretches out and makes their lack of principles known to all within earshot.

I’ve watched it a thousand times, and have even been guilty of it myself, as the entire group either quickly or slowly joins in on the crude language as we collectively gravitate to the lowest common denominator, the unprincipled, undisciplined, commonly insensitive and self-centered individual.

Growing up in America has been quite the adventure. Like most of us, enthusiastically Liberal through my high school years and twenties, then growing up and waking up in my thirties to recognize what “an open mind”, “personal responsibility” and “humility” really mean, I’ve embraced a more conservative approach to life since then. That is, I no longer subscribe to the liberal “If it feels good do it” lifestyle. After watching some of my friends die from reckless behavior and drug overdoses, and watching their children growing up without the benefit of having Mom and Dad to raise them due to dying or divorce, seeing the kids suffer from an unbalanced and uncertain lifestyle helped snap me out of the liberal stupor that commonly accompanies youth. It was easy to ascertain that the children were picking up the tab thanks to parents who lacked the humility and perseverance and self-discipline and ability to truly love one another. Divorced dads typically move on with their lives, creating new families and having new children, sometimes seeing the kids from their broken marriage on weekends, and some of them abandoning their first round of children completely. Moms almost always set out to find new ‘daddies’ for their children, seemingly completely unaware that their children already have a dad and their children would likely never see a new “daddy” as their father.

Without going on and on and on again, my point is, once again, that unprincipled living commonly results in selfishness, self-centeredness, failed or strained relationships, oftentimes accompanied by offensive, illegal and/or lowbrow behavior, the pursuit of lower companionship and personal problems which can appear to be insurmountable and unchangeable. That is, people who have embraced a selfish, self-centered lifestyle usually consider themselves “victims” of the mythological “They”, as in “If only ‘they’ wouldn’t have done that” and “They don’t know who they’re dealing with” or “They don’t know what they’re talking about”, “They can’t do that to me” and “They never gave me a chance”. The excuses are endless when “they” are responsible for our plight. The truth is, however, that “they” are not responsible for our plight. We are.

We adults are responsible for our lives. We make the decisions that result in our children growing up with their father in the home, or not. We are responsible for our children’s needs being met, or not being met. We are responsible for missing important opportunities in our lives due to our own lack of principles which always – yes, ALWAYS – results in self-centeredness and sometimes self-obsession. We are responsible for dreams unfulfilled. We are responsible for where we are in our lives, no matter what hand was dealt to us in the beginning. We are responsible for being stuck in careers we don’t even like and for being in relationships which are abusive and/or cold. We are responsible for everything about our lives which we do not enjoy and we are responsible for changing our lives because there is a way to change our lives, if only we’d become humble enough to go there.

The challenge is that we lack the power and the wisdom to actually facilitate the kinds of change which would be necessary in our hearts and minds in order to change our lives from that of struggle into lives filled with victories and blessings and hope and love. We cannot change ourselves. (Sorry if you think we can change ourselves, I simply disagree completely and this is my column, after all Any attempts at changing ourselves from selfish to selfless are always brief and temporary, at best. We haven’t the power to change our personalities. We don’t commonly have the discipline required to turn our focus from inside (feelings and thoughts) to outside (seeking God and helping others). And our society demands that we become like “them” – selfish, self-seeking, self-worshipping and empty. That is what the lowest common denominator drags us all down toward. That is, unprincipled living always results in selfishness and self-centeredness, and Self is virtually never powerful enough to manifest the joyful life that most of us seek, unless we lower the bar and settle for a Boloney Sandwich Life rather than a Filet Mignon Life.

In fact, when we ignore our Creator, which many Americans have taken to doing over the past forty years, we limit our opportunities, our dreams, our power and our abilities, and likely end up either gravitating toward the lowest common denominator folks in our lives, or becoming the lowest common denominator to those around us. We sell ourselves short when we ignore the One who has all power and embrace the delusion that somehow “we” are responsible for our little world’s being how they are. We didn’t create our lives. We didn’t decide when our lives began and we don’t decide when our lives will end. Yet, left to our own devices, many people ignore the One who created them who makes all those decisions for us. It really is insanity, if you think about it.

Selfish people start comparing themselves to other people, and because we all fall short of perfect and because none of us naturally have a real and clear view of ourselves, our little egos commonly become big egos as we become like turds comparing themselves to other turds. Completely oblivious and unaware of who really should be admired, we euphemistically ignore the dog who laid these turds. You’ve seen it and I’ve seen it. Big fish in little ponds, all puffed up and enthralled with themselves, surrounded by smaller, less aggressive fish who envy and feed (love/hate) Big Fish’s ego, all of them stuck in self-reliance and open or secret narcissism. I’ve heard “ego” described as an acronym for “edging God out”, and it is clearly an apt description.

Mat 15:14 “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” While folks are busy worshipping the self-centered, self-promoting, faithless shills who are currently posing as our political leaders, yet another generation of children are virtually raising themselves. With the help of the internet and their neglected and parentless friends, another generation is launching into the same loveless and obsessive self-worship modeled for them by their parents. Idolizing dysfunctional behavior and dirt, and sacrificing real Truth for their overvalued opinions (aka “my truth/your truth”), it seems that only the humble and those whose lives have burned to the ground or who have been figuratively slammed to the mat have awakened from the drunken stupor that Liberalism causes. “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth” said the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the most important man and significant individual who ever lived. Words of wisdom, and words to live by. Then why is America ignoring this wisdom? Why, in fact, is America obsessed with Self and worshipping dysfunction and crime and rebelliousness? Who is it that has stolen America’s virtue, is killing her spirit and who has destroyed any semblance of moral character in the public sector?

Who was it again who came to steal, kill and destroy? Is it any wonder that many have collectively turned their backs on God and embraced all that His Word warns us about? Is it any wonder that our nation is now bankrupt financially, morally, spiritually and personally? 

Ah, but I must be careful not to focus on the negative. Amen? “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” The Miracle is a process in which the spiritually, emotionally and personally lost embrace the truth about life, about themselves and about the world around them. It starts with an honest and forthright personal assessment, which must lead to an intense inventory of one’s motives, behavior and Self. Consider this a good start, and a step in the right direction.

(“The Miracle” is an ongoing series of articles by Don Cobb regarding the process through which an individual and/or a group of individuals or even a nation get and stay right-side up. Addiction, sexual, life, social or relationship issues, regardless how deep or serious, are all resolved through this miraculous transformation.)

© Don Cobb

America didn’t get sick overnight. No one gets sick overnight. It takes time and effort, albeit an effort oftentimes unbeknownst to us, being unconscious or subconscious. It’s funny that we all get it that physical health commonly takes an effort. We don’t seem to get it that emotional and mental health require our attention, or that by practicing selfishness we get sick, mentally, emotionally and psychologically. 

Marketing in America is geared toward isolating us all, to get us alone for a moment and even to make us feel disconnected to one another. What? You’re surprised? How long have you lived in America then? There is a very simply process upon which marketing relies: make a person feel alone, point out their weakness or a perceived need, and then sell them your product which you claim will strengthen them or fill a need, real or imagined. From the time Man made the transition from supplying a real value to the community, to realizing that he could make a lot more money if he sold as many as possible (greed), marketers have been busy convincing us that we need things we simply do not need at all. 

It’s harder to trick a crowd into buying what you’re selling than it is to get someone alone and pick at their weaknesses. In fact, when dealing with selfish individuals (America is in a period of extreme selfishness right now, btw) it’s easy to make them feel less-than. 

United we stand, divided we fall. It’s true of our nation (look out, because we’re not united right now in any respect), true of men and women of faith, and it’s true of every individual on the planet, as well. When we have support by our side, when there is accountability in our lives, we are far more capable of being men and women of integrity than when left to our own devices. We have a saying in the recovery community: There are no Lone Rangers in recovery. It just doesn’t happen. People don’t overcome addiction when isolation is involved. People overcome addictions and obsessions and sexual dysfunction and character flaws like selfishness, jealousy, greed and envy by learning to practice principles like honesty, patience, humility and acceptance. 

Left to our own devices, we are easy prey for predators of all kinds. Our children, left alone in today’s sick world, are snapped up by pedophiles. Wandering the streets at night alone makes us easy targets for criminals and gang member wannabes. Sitting alone at the TV facilitates people sending large sums of money to televangelists, buying useless crap as long as it’s not more than $19.99, and folks will switch brands regularly when effective marketing convinces them it’s a smart move. That’s because left to our own devices, we become vulnerable, foolish and easy to manipulate. The recent presidential campaign is a perfect example of this. Sitting alone in our homes at night, we were easy targets for the more than $600 million marketing campaign that really said little more than “Change! Change! Change!”, and millions of Americans bought it. No experience necessary, but with more than $600 million dollars available for his campaign, this stranger to America walked in and convinced enough people that he was a messiah and America bought into it. 

After examining the man’s character, the people he associates with, and the shallow emptiness of his ‘message’, intelligent people, one would think, would recognize that this man lacks the character and experience that America needs at the helm in today’s world. Unwilling to produce his real birth certificate, for example, should have been a red flag to everyone. But it wasn’t. Sitting at home, disconnected from the rest of the world, more than $600,000,000 of effective advertising convinced intelligent people to disregard the truth about this man, and so he becomes the poster child for my point.

Left to our own devices, we are easy prey for predators of all kinds. Isolation most often leads to ignorance, confusion, and the manifestation of evil. Separating us from the pack makes it easy to take advantage of us. Television marketing is exactly that. It takes advantage of the fact that we are alone in our own little oftentimes dysfunctional households, and we become easy to convince of just about anything if we hear it often enough when it appeals to our fears, our weaknesses, or plays into our selfishness. Nationally and individually, we need one another in order to establish what is healthy and in the best interest of our nation and ourselves personally. Recovery from anything (drugs, gambling, any obsession or addiction) doesn’t happen one person at a time without the benefit of others standing with them. There is wisdom in the counsel of many. 

We no longer know our neighbors like we did in the ‘60s, when everyone knew every neighbor around them. We have become a nation isolated by our own fears, with predators called “the media” busy trying to get us to buy their newspapers and watch their news shows and using our own fears to drive that bus. There are predators called “politicians” as well, who believe we are all too stupid to use our collective wisdom to steer this train called America, and so they let their own greediness be the guiding light today. There are also predators in our own homes who are preying on American children, even today, abusing, molesting, and trying to break down their children’s wills so that life might become easier for the parent(s). None of these predators can touch us when we are connected to one another, communicating to each other, being honest about the facts of our lives. 

Evil manifests itself in the dark. It cannot exist in the light because when the light of truth shines on evil good men and women rise up and step on it’s ugly head. But America has become victim to mass marketing and collectively our fears have driven us into our homes where we hope we’ll be safe. Alcoholism, abusive relationships, molestation, isolation – all manifest themselves in the dark where no one else can see. 

So what’s the answer? It’s a process. We talked already about getting honest with ourselves, humbling ourselves enough to admit that we have a problem (selfishness, not reaching our potential, addiction, abusive nature, timidity, etc.). Now we need to find someone with whom to be honest. Confession is like magic and we all need what confession facilitates. We need to have someone in our lives with whom we can be rigorously honest, to tell everything to, even our deepest darkest secrets and thoughts. We need to learn to trust someone, or better yet, a group of others who wish to get healthier right now. In fact, we need to choose to trust someone, and that isn’t always an easy or a wise choice, depending on who we’re considering. Nonetheless, we need to find at least one person – they used to be called “Father” or “Mother” or “mentor” or “friend”, but today more commonly are referred to as “sponsor”). Honest confession works like magic to root out evil. 

If America doesn’t learn to get the hell out of our homes and connect with someone on a real and personal level, someone trustworthy who will keep our secrets and give us honest feedback about our thoughts and plans and opinions, this nosedive into unethical and immoral behavior will continue, and our country will no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave. We will become strangers in our own land, subservient to our own government, and our children and grandchildren will never experience the kind of liberty and freedom I grew up with (Baby Boomer). 

The answer for our nation is the same answer for us as individuals. We need to get honest. We need to stop being afraid. We need to find someone to be accountable to, and accountable for. We need to shine light on our lives and shortcomings and thoughts. For if we do this as individuals, the Truth will reveal itself in clear and obvious ways, and as you and I all know, the Truth will set us free.

(“The Miracle” is an ongoing series of articles by Don Cobb regarding the process through which an individual and/or a group of individuals or nation get right-side up. Addiction, sexual, life, or relationship issues regardless how deep or serious are all resolved through this miraculous transformation.)

© Don Cobb

April 29, 2009

By Don Cobb

Principled living is about making right choices. Faith is initially a choice. It takes on a life of it’s own after we’ve chosen to “have faith” a time or two and see that our Creator is faithful and that prayer works. Prayer is a faith builder, and praying is a choice, as well. Prayer starts a healthy cycle which sets Spiritual development in motion, in which Spiritual development actually begins.

Perhaps choosing to trust our Creator isn’t quite as easy a choice as faith might be, but it, too, becomes part of the foundation of one’s Spiritual development. Both faith and trust are choices, Spiritual principles which are actions we choose to take, or not. Seemingly mysterious, these Spiritual principles in particular tend to be the most elusive, because the Spiritual realm is nothing like the physical realm. God’s ways are not our ways. The magnificence of our Creator, when revealed through answered prayer, confounds the mind and baffles us all. Ongoing coincidences experienced by those who choose to pray regularly are nothing short of amazing, and yet are so predictable when one has chosen to become a prayer.

Mindboggling is the word that I think best describes the “coincidences” (actually God incidences) that occur when one begins to be prayerful and invite God to intervene in our lives. People just showing up out of nowhere after many years, and folks who suddenly overcome lifetimes of drug abuse and alcohol to become people who don’t want to drink or use drugs anymore. Opportunities, cars, places to live appear in ways which defy logic in how they show up in our lives and/or present themselves after one becomes committed to prayer about issues such as these. There is no way to deny our Creator once we’ve tried prayer. No one can convince us that God doesn’t exist or that He doesn’t care about us once we’ve chosen to step out in faith and trust that He is there and begin to pray about circumstances, needs and people in our lives. Choosing initially to have faith and trust in God is the very means by which our faith grows when one beings to pray. We have not because we ask not.

I admit that the Human condition automatically seems to dictate that when we encounter an obstacle in our lives, we first reach for a hammer to pound it into submission to our will. If that doesn’t work, we’ll go get a bigger hammer and try to pound Life into submission. The frustration which comes from trying to control that which is out of our control (people, circumstances, the future and the past) definitely seems to justify self-medicating at some point during the day, be it alcohol or other drugs, prescription or street drugs like pot, cocaine, methamphetamine or heroin. It seems logical that, after a hard day of pounding our head against things about which we apparently have no real control (like other people or life circumstances or even our own feelings), ‘taking the edge off’ seems to make sense. A drink or a bong hit or two seem to bring us the relief we long for when life gets hard.

But does alcohol or pot or any other drug or medication ever solve a single problem we might have? Does smoking pot change the people around us who aren’t behaving in the way we would like them to? Does a few drinks help us overcome our personal problems (weight problems, relationship problems) or grant us the job opportunities we’d like to have? Does getting medicated ever change our lives for the better, really? Of course not. It changes our perception of things, but using substances does not change a single thing about our lives for the better. Things just seem better. It is an illusion, even when using substances in moderation.

In the 1960′s my generation (Baby Boomers) decided to “turn on, tune in, and drop out,” which translated for the majority to get stoned and rebel against society. The problem with that philosophy, retrospectively speaking, is that we still have a generation who is self-reliant, stoned, drunk, who never grew up emotionally, who have raised children who witnessed drug/alcohol use/abuse as coping tools for living. Now our childrens’ generation, more addicted and drug/alcohol dependent than the Baby Boomers, are raising their own children in oftentimes abusive and addicted households. The problem with self-reliance is that it doesn’t work. When Humans choose to operate out of self-reliance, making decisions, choosing relationships, raising children, reliant on their own limited wisdom and power and intellect, the result (see Baby Boomers) is a generation of drug/alcohol dependent, emotionally immature people who make selfish, foolish and brutal decisions (killing 4,000 babies every day; oddly honoring sexual dysfunction; re-electing criminal politicians again and again; abandoning their children to ‘start new lives’; ignoring personal responsibility; etc.).

This is America today, to a great degree. Upside down. Right is wrong and bad is good. Jesus is bad and the Devil is fun. Selfishness is acceptable and self-sacrifice is rare. Keeping commitments (marriage) is stupid, and lying and being unfaithful is normal. Being self-reliant is the rule, and being God-reliant is the exception. Killing babies before they’re born is normal, and accepting the fact that your sexual behavior has accidentally blessed you with a child is almost unheard of.

In order to turn this country around, and in order to turn our personal lives around, we need to take a look on the inside, all of us. Choices are critical at this time in our nation’s history. We either collectively return to principled living, or we finish letting evil have its way with all of us. We can choose to have faith in our Creator and become people who pray, who seek His righteousness, or we can just let the government finish taking away the rest of our liberties and freedom, fall into our own filth and let the next generation suffer for our selfishness as we continue to stumble down the path of foolishness.

Faith and trusting God are choices. We can either make those choices, or not. So far, it appears that many are not. I pray that changes today, and that this change starts with you.

Next up: Conversation, confession, honesty (there’s that word again)…

(“The Miracle” is an ongoing series of articles by Don Cobb regarding the process through which an individual and/or a group of individuals or nation get right-side up. Addiction, sexual, life, or relationship issues regardless how deep or serious are all resolved through this miraculous transformation.)

© Don Cobb

April 16, 2009

By Don Cobb

Since Americans kicked God out of the classroom and started letting 1% of the offended population dictate to the other 99%, principled living has taken a backseat to feeling good. The problem is that feeling good, when facilitated by substances or circumstances, is both fleeting and temporary. That’s because endorphins and adrenalin only last so long. We can look back at America’s past 40 years and see what “If it feels good, do it” has accomplished in our society. Selfishness beyond belief, millions of dead babies by abortions, trillions of dollars of taxpayer money stolen by our own usurper government that WE (make that YOU, not me) elected.

We cannot leave our homes unlocked anymore, because “if it feels good” then someone will steal our stuff. We cannot leave the keys in our cars parked in front of our homes like we could in the 60s because “if it feels good” then someone will steal our car. We cannot let our children go play in the neighborhood because “if it feels good” then someone will molest, rape, steal and/or murder our children. We’re the most obese nation in the history of the planet because “if it feels good” then we’re going to eat it. We’ve become the laziest nation on Earth because “if it feels good” we’re going to do nothing but sit there watching TV getting fatter and fatter by the minute. We lie on our taxes because “it feels good” not to pay them. Because we habitually lie on our taxes, unfortunately, habits tend to bleed over into other areas of our lives, and now we lie to our children and to each other because the philosophy of “my truth” and “your truth” establishes that if you can’t prove I’m lying, then I’m not lying. If “it feels good” to get our way, then we will lie to whomever about whatever, and our society CONDONES lying now, because “if it feels good, do it.”

Again, just for some clarity and perspective, the slogan “If it feels good, do it” did not come from some clever marketing campaign. No, there isn’t a marketing professional on the planet who could come up with a slogan that could so impact, so devastate, so destroy the moral and ethical fabric of a once-great nation as “If it feels good, do it” has done to America. So where did the slogan come from, this mantra that has led America into the pit of personal and collective Hell, where our children are at risk every day, where we no longer trust each other, and where we’re literally eating ourselves to death and committing suicide with drugs and alcohol?

I said it before, and I’m reminding you now: “Do what thou wilt.” Google it for yourself. This is the philosophy reworded into “If it feels good, do it.” It is not a healthy philosophy. It is not a Godly philosophy. It is not a loving philosophy. It is the philosophy of Selfishness, and it is the philosophy of Satanists. Now does it make more sense, what’s going on in America today? Wrong is right, and right is wrong. Homosexuality is good, and Christianity is bad. Black people have replaced White people as the racists in our country. America is completely upside down now. That is because too many of us bought into the lie from Hell that promises personal pleasure: “If it feels good, do it.” Unfortunately, when you buy into Satanic philosophy, you invite all that comes with Satanism and it comes in like a flood.

Faith in God is out the door. Trust in anyone but yourself is gone. Fear reigns in America today, both in and out of our own homes. Socialists have taken over America and those who have bought into the Satanic mantra are responsible for electing them to office, simply because their campaign chanted “Change! Change! Change!” and useful idiots flocked to their side like mindless lemmings.

America is trapped right now in a headlock it sees no way out of. Fortunately, there is a way out of this dilemma. One day, our children CAN roam our neighborhoods without risk, and our children entrusted to us by our Creator WON’T be ripped from their mother’s womb because “if it feels good, do it.” One day we WILL be able to trust one another, and America will be right-side up rather than upside down, evil will be considered bad and honesty won’t be considered weak and God and Christianity and Judaism will be considered good again. Right will be right and wrong will be wrong, and America will get back on her feet morally and ethically, Spiritually and financially. Right now, America is laying down, allowing Evil to take advantage of this once great nation. Americans, in fact, invited this Evil to have its way with us, and continues that open invitation today.

Leaning on our own understanding rather than seeking the greater wisdom held by our Creator has led us into the enemy’s bedroom, and there is nothing pretty going on in there right now. We are officially the victims of our own selfishness, and there is only one way out of this nightmare: Principled living must resume in America.

Acceptance of this fact is paramount to any change for the better. Acknowledgement of our Creator is, as every person whose life was torn asunder by this same Enemy has learned in their personal trek back to sanity, vital, crucial, critical, and necessary. As long as we continue to rely on our own limited wisdom, we are easy prey for powers and principalities which are far more powerful than we are individually and collectively. Again, for those who might be completely Spiritually undeveloped or asleep, too many Americans have chosen to run with the Devil. That is why we’re not safe in our own homes any longer. That is why our children are not safe at school or in our own neighborhoods, or even in their own beds. That is why our divorce rate is more than 50% today, despite our commitment to “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.” One cannot live a principled life without God’s help. One cannot live a principled life and continue to embrace the philosophy “if it feels good, do it.” One cannot serve two masters, and unfortunately, embracing Satanic philosophy invites one master in. That is what America has done. That is what America is still doing.

Now you know what to do to change this nightmare America has become. Seek your Creator with all your heart. It’s not complicated: pray. Ask Him to reveal Himself then pay attention. He will show you that He is there. Then continue to pray. Talk to one another about what you’re thinking. It’s called “confession” in some social circles, and it works to help keep the Enemy at bay. It matters not who you think God is or isn’t when it comes to drawing closer to Him. Nothing you can say or do or believe will change anything about who God actually is. God isn’t a matter of opinion. God simply is. Seek Him and you will find Him. If you want America to become healthy again, the good news is it starts with you. The bad news is that you cannot continue to subscribe to the selfishness of “If it feels good, do it.”

It feels good to do the right thing. It feels good to be a man of integrity. It feels good to be submitted to my Creator, asking for and receiving His protection, direction, correction and blessings every day. It feels good to do the right thing, no matter what. The rewards are great. Our children benefit when we live this way, rather than “if it feels good, do it.”

I’ll talk more about Faith and Trust next…

(“The Miracle” is an ongoing series of articles by Don Cobb regarding the process through which an individual and/or a group of individuals or nation get right-side up. Addiction, sexual, life, or relationship issues regardless how deep or serious are all resolved through this miraculous transformation.)

© Don Cobb

April 5, 2009

By Don Cobb

I think we all know it’s true. Honesty really is the best policy. It is not, however, one of the Spiritual principles practiced much in America today. Political correctness (PC) takes priority over honesty today in many arenas. Many people in America lack the courage of their convictions these days; falling victim to what they perceive is acceptable and unacceptable socially. Honesty is almost certainly the first principle shown the door when PC comes into play. Socially speaking, honesty oftentimes becomes the death knell.

Take politics, for example. Is the American political arena the bastion of honest disclosure? Hardly. In fact, quite the contrary in many cases. It sickens me to hear a recent news blurb regarding a certain Asian politician in San Francisco (http://cbs5.com/local/ed.jew.prison.2.975403.html). Now that he has been sentenced to prison, another SF Asian Supervisor made a statement to the effect of “I know the majority of public servants are honest…” It makes me sick to hear such blatant lying in public statements. You know it’s a lie. I know it’s a lie. But PC allows someone the right to lie in public and not get called on it. There is no accountability in American politics today. That is why there is so much corruption, lying and dishonesty. I would love to start hearing follow ups to those who lie publicly, testimonies which address the politicians’ lies, along the lines of “Recently Joe Crook said he never spoke with Willie Crackdealer and that they have never met. It turns out that they bought a house together and are business partners in Richmond.”

Dishonesty is expected from politicians today. Those who represent Northern California are a classic example. One woman defrauded welfare, yet with enough signs posted all around the North Bay, she still got herself elected and re-elected to represent Californians in the state Congress. I’ve seen polls in which no one can list a single beneficial thing this woman has done during her years in Congress, yet she still gets re-elected. All it takes to get elected in California, it seems, is enough money for enough signs. Good character is no longer a requirement for leadership in America. It needs to be.

We’re so used to lying to one another that commercials now use liars regularly, presenting the liar as “cute,” as if the lie were harmless. Time was that no successful company would ever associate themselves with lies. Those days are gone. People expect politicians to be dishonest, they expect corporations to be dishonest and they expect each other to be dishonest. That’s because Americans have bought into the lie that “Everyone lies.” That is a lie. Everyone doesn’t lie. That is the reason that America’s divorce rate is around 50% today. Moral character is not reviled. Money, sex and looking good are what are worshipped in America today. God has taken a back seat to Self, it seems.

The Social bar has been lowered so far that no one is surprised when they’re lied to anymore. We expect companies to do it in their advertising, we expect bosses to do it to their employees, and we lie to our own friends and families. Why is that, and when did that start happening? The truth is that we lie to our own children, oftentimes, because it seems easier than finding a way to tell the truth. So our children learn to lie from us, like we learned from our parents. And so on.

“If it feels good, do it.” Sound familiar? The mantra of the liberal 70′s has manifested itself in our society. That alone has given license to allow selfishness to become a way of life in the USA today. That is what gave the green light to lying in America. We decided that nothing is more important than feeling good. That, in and of itself, is a lie, but we bought it, hook, line and sinker. That mantra, by the way, was not something original which was thought up in the 70′s. That is the same mantra embraced and practiced by Satanists for centuries. “Do as thou wilt” is the original phrase which is the Satanic mantra, and it so appealed to the selfishness of Americans in the 1970′s that we adopted it as a lifestyle. It’s the Satanist lifestyle. Get it yet? That’s why lying has become acceptable and even expected these days. Our nation has been deceived and has bought into Satanism, although these days we call it “Liberalism.” Liberalism didn’t used to be based on selfishness and intolerance like it is today. Liberalism was, like the Democratic Party was recently, hijacked by people who subscribe to all that opposes what America was intended to be.

Those with a Spiritual foundation understand exactly what I’m referring to. Those who have not chosen a Spiritual path will scoff. I’m okay with that, as I’ve walked both paths, so I understand what it means to be blind in this way. But for those who hear what I’m saying, who see the truth about our dilemma today, for you I encourage you to adopt a lifestyle which includes honesty, rigorous, uncompromised honesty.

There is always a way to tell the truth with love. I believe that honesty, without love, can be brutality. But when expressed with a loving intention, honesty will set a person free. The truth will set you free. It’s not just an old saying, a scripture which is irrelevant today. It’s the truth and it’s the same yesterday, today and forever.

If The Miracle is going to happen in your life, or in our nation, then the process of transformation will always start with humility, rigorous honesty, and then faith. If we are going to personally and collectively go from being upside down to right-side up, then we need to start getting honest about everything. It needs to start now. It needs to start with you. No longer can we pretend that it’s okay to lie to our children or to each other. We need to choose to walk with dignity, letting no one force us into the dark where we are afraid to tell the truth about anything. We need to abandon the never-ending, never satisfied craving for personal pleasure and learn to have faith in the truth. The more honest we become, the more joyful becomes our lifestyle. Granted, when we express ourselves honestly and without reservation, people who don’t like us will suddenly move away, which makes room for people who do like us to draw closer. Suddenly, we’re surrounded by people who like us for who we really are, not for who we’ve pretended to be. Life suddenly gets real again and that feels good…so do it.

Next: Faith and Trust — Critical and vital choices

(“The Miracle” is an ongoing series of articles by Don Cobb regarding the process through which an individual and/or a group of individuals or nation get right-side up. Addiction, sexual, life, or relationship issues regardless how deep or serious are all resolved through this miraculous transformation.)

© Don Cobb

March 25, 2009

By Don Cobb

If any change is going to take place in America, it will start with the humble admission that we’ve got problems, personally and nationally. The reason we have problems nationally is because we have problems personally. Granted, it’s been fun, this past 40 years. Let’s take a minute to remind ourselves of what 4 decades of self-will-run-riot has gotten us:

• We have the freedom to ‘do as thou wilt,’ answering to and being accountable to no one but ourselves, and oftentimes not even to ourselves.
• We’ve abandoned our neighbors, most of us no longer even knowing our neighbors’ names or who is living next door to us.
• American moms have killed more than 50 million of their babies by abortions
• Children are now killing children — which never happened prior to the 1960′s
• Elected officials have voted themselves so many pay raises that you can get rich being a public servant now.
• We’ve voluntarily given our right to freedom of speech, codepending those whose feelings might be hurt if we say things about them which they find offensive. It’s a crime now to insult some groups publicly, specifically called a “hate crime.” No longer do we have the right to freedom of speech in America. We gave it up due to leaning on our understanding and limited wisdom.
• The school system has to settle for crumbs off the floor while billions of dollars are being poured into the government behemoth that is quickly consuming all of America’s financial resources as Socialism is being put into place in America.
• We’re sliding down the slippery slope to Socialism, despite its complete failure in its promises of security, prosperity and equality, having delivered only poverty, misery, and tyranny. (USSR, China, Cuba — the list is long of failed attempts at Socialism). We seem to think we can make Socialism work where others have failed. Arrogance and ignorance, thy name is American politics today.
• Rather than enjoying the freedom of religion insured by our Constitution, America appears to have become a fairly Godless nation now, worshipping the environment and movie/rock stars, leaning on our own limited understanding and wisdom as social problems mount higher and higher, without any end in sight. There truly is, however, no savior among the Hollywood or Washington elite who has any real answers for us.

March 17, 2009

By Don Cobb

The United States of America is the greatest, most powerful, influential and charitable nation that ever existed in the history of the Earth. With the kind of freedom we’ve been blessed with comes responsibility. Personal responsibility demands personal sacrifice at times, and therein, it seems, lies the rub. Without the benefit of strong, humble and spiritual leaders, many Americans have misunderstood the incredible blessing that can come from living in a capitalistic society. Without the revelation that marketing is always to be taken with a grain of salt, one could easily buy into mass marketing’s general inference, which is “It’s all about me” and the Liberalism mantra (the Satanist’s mantra of “Do as thou wilt”) “If it feels good, do it.” It’s the nature of effective marketing to appeal to our most basic instincts, one such instinct being our sex drive, and another which is our self-centeredness, to create the illusion that all I need to worry about is me, and then the marketer proceeds to convince me that I needsomething. Egomania, puffed-up Self, self-importance, self-centeredness, self-reliance, and self-obsession appear to be the state of our nation today, generally speaking. I think we can all agree that Humility, of all Spiritual principles, is perhaps the least revered in America today.

If we’re going to change the world, in fact if we’re going to even get right with the world, and if we’re going to be a part of the solution, rather than the problem; if America is going to get stronger, rather than weaker, it has to begin with you and me. Hollywood, for example, chock full of every extrovert it can find, while in the process of sometimes feigninghumility, rejects true humility as though it were weakness. Hollywood mocks what is right and what is holy, scoffs at God, ridicules faith and believers and pretends nothing really matters. America needs to abandon its Liberal/Satanist philosophy. There is nothing principled in it, and yet America has chosen to elect leaders whom subscribe to that line of thinking. Is it any wonder, considering the path America has consciously and unconsciously chosen — to a great degree — to reject God and, unknowingly perhaps, embrace Satanism, that America now legally kills more than 5,000 babies every day, that we have had our freedom of speech taken away from us, are about to lose our freedom of religion, that our government just stole 1.3 trillion dollars of taxpayer money with which to convert our Republic into a Socialist government (socialized medical care and socialized banking is what Communists do, btw), and all with our permission?

Even many of those who were once faithful and Spiritual believers in God have abandoned Him in favor of Self, worried more now about what people think of us than about living principled lives. Hey, we don’t want to offend anyone by being honest, now do we? What if people find out we believe in God? What will happen to us in the work place, or with our family members who aren’t believers, or, Heaven forbid, our friends who don’t share our faith? What will they think? They might reject us, or not like us. They might discriminate against us because of our faith (Jew, Christian, Buddhist, whatever). It seems that the only safe Spiritual belief these days in America is to believe in Goddesses and witches, or reject God completely. No one gives the pagans a hard time anymore. Worshipping Self has become commonplace in America now, as well.

The problem with worshipping Self is that one cannot practice Spiritual principles while engaged in self-worship. Humility is impossible. Faith becomes paper thin when one becomes self-reliant because we all inherently know that our power, our wisdom, and our abilities are incredibly limited. Trust? Another Spiritual principle, and who are we going to trust? Ourselves? LOL Our friends? We allfall short of perfect. Oh sure, it’s fun to believe we’re the center of the Universe, except that we all know in our heart of hearts that we did not create this Universe. We cannot create even one little dirt clod, left to our own devices. The reason America is in deep doo-doo right now, losing more liberties and freedoms every single day, is because we lack the Humility to acknowledge our Creator, which would thus right our relationship with the Universe. Our personal relationships are as out of balance with the Universe as the mother or father who has abandoned their family in their effort to create a new life. The problem is that the old life doesn’t go away; it simply becomes bastardized and broken — unbalanced now by the loss of the given vital family element.

Even former drug addicts, sex addicts, alcoholics, and victims of abuse, sexual, food, gambling or homeless issues know that in order to right a lilting ship — that is, to get in right relationship with themselves, with others and with their Creator: to get their lives back on track— there must be a decision made to humble themselves. Recovering from the damage of abusive relationships, traumatic experiences such as molestation, rape or violence, abandonment, neglect and addictions of all kinds requires an initial humbling of one’s Self. It’s required. Recovery from mental, emotional or psychological trauma will not happen without Humility setting the process in motion. Personally, and collectively, if we are going to be all that we can be, we must get right with ourselves, with those around us, and with our Creator. It’s essential that we at least be willing to humble ourselves enough to admit that we have a problem. That is what this process which I call “The Miracle” accomplishes.

America has a problem right now, so we have problem too. There is only one way to right this sinking ship, and it starts with us individually. We must take a moment, a private moment perhaps, to acknowledge that our freedom and liberty — both on a personal level and nationally — have been slipping away from us, and that we’re in danger of losing it. We must start by admitting there is a problem, and, more importantly, that we cannot fix it, left to our own devices. No man, no matter how intelligent or accomplished or well-liked can solve our problems for us. We’ve seen this phenomena exacerbated every year by those whom we’ve propped up as our “saviors,” supposedly to save us from destruction, from the enemy, from terrorists. The truth is that we are the problem. We can begin restoring the integrity of our nation by initiating the process which will restore our personal integrity, and it begins — like it or not — with Humility. Getting humble starts with prayer, and with an honest admission that I cannot change myself or anyone else, nor can I change our nation, but that God can.

It matters not that you might not be a pray-er. It’s irrelevant to Him if you’ve never prayed a sincere prayer in your life. God hears us when we pray. That is why people have prayed for thousands of years. He appreciates our humility as we seek His help, admitting that we don’t have the answers we need. He answers prayers. It’s not always going to be comfortable, adopting a humble lifestyle. It will, however, be healthier than the self-will-run-riot approach to life that comes with the “Do as thou wilt”/”If it feels good do it” lifestyle. And it is the pathway to a peace that surpasses all understanding. It starts with Humility.

If you want your life to change for the better, for our nation to become more secure and free again and if you want to become a better person — stronger, more courageous, wise, healthy, free from the trappings that come with the Human experience — if you want to become a man or woman of integrity whom perhaps you’ve always fancied yourself to be, then our nation will also become a stronger, healthier place to be. Find a private place if you must, and get on your knees. I know it’s not comfortable at first, but you will get itthat it is the right posture to have in this lifetime. There is something very right about being on our knees, and I guarantee that once you get past your (perhaps) giant ego and your little Self, you’ll agree.

We find a quiet moment, and then ask God to help us. It doesn’t need to be complicated. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in God, in fact. If you need help, then ask for it. It can be as simple as “God, please help me.” He knows how we need to be helped, all of us. He knows we need His help. He made us this way, to need Him in order to experience real peace and joy in this lifetime. You and I have both heard countless stories of answered prayers. Your unbelief can not stop the power of our Creator, who created the Heavens, this Earth and all that is in it. God is who He is, and what we believe or don’t believe about Him doesn’t change who He is. No matter who you might think God is or isn’t, the evidence of a Creator is all around us. Coincidence is really His way of staying anonymous, quietly helping us without demanding our attention. A former unbeliever, I, and millions of others, have changed our lives dramatically by starting in this fashion. I did not believe in God when I first got on my knees, but I knew I needed help, and was told to start this way. If you want to see personal change take place in your life and in America, the miracle starts with you, and it starts with a humble admission that “I need help.”

If we can manage that much, then we are ready to put the next Spiritual principle into play: uncompromised Honesty. I’ll talk about that next. In the meantime, thank God that He loves you so much, and continue to ask for His help every day. If you’ll do this much right now, an entirely new level of freedom will ensue, as the miracle has now begun to be set into motion. There is hope for America, and for you personally. There is hope for all of us. We can do this, and it starts with you…

© Don Cobb