David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2017 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters please let us know at info@Lorian.org.
DAVID’S DESK #121 - THANK YOU
This essay starts my eleventh year of writing David’s Desk. When I started, George W. Bush had one year yet to go on his second term as President. Obama had been a United States Senator for two years and was starting to organize his Presidential campaign, though he was hardly a blip on anyone’s radar. Hillary Clinton was the favorite for being the Democratic nominee the following year.
Here’s another incredible thought. David’s Desk is the same age as the iPhone. It was introduced to the world and put on sale the same year as I began writing these essays. Seems like a lifetime ago, so ubiquitous and important have smartphones become in our lives.
Time, as they say, marches on.
What has been constant through all the changes of the past ten years has been your support. For this, I thank you.
It has been an honor knowing that these little essays are going to be part of your life each month, hopefully providing inspiration and helpful ways of looking at things. As it says in the prologue, it’s my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey, and I do so as a companion sharing that same journey.
Some months the ideas flow easily and quickly. I know exactly what I’d like to share with you and how to do so. Other months, I stare at my computer screen on and off for hours, even days, and wonder if I’ll ever have anything useful to say again. Frustrated when the ideas and words don’t come, I’ll think, “Why did I ever start doing this?” But then I think about you, dear reader, and what a privilege it is to share a few minutes of your time each month with the possibility and the hope of offering something that will at least bring a smile.
So again, thank you for your support and for giving me the opportunity to do this.
Much of my daily work involves writing about Incarnational Spirituality and about the interactions with the non-physical or “subtle” dimensions of life in service to the emergence of greater wholeness in our world. Most people would probably think of this work as “esoteric,” though for me it is perfectly normal and ordinary. In fact, conveying this sense of normality in dealing with the subtle worlds is a major objective of mine.
When it comes to writing these essays, though, I decided to refrain from discussing esoteric matters and to focus instead on the intersection of spirituality with our ordinary, everyday life. If anyone is interested in the esoteric side of things, I have written plenty of books on such matters, and I have a journal to which one may subscribe that is wholly dedicated to exploring the subtle worlds. Most people, though, are challenged (and delighted) enough with the ordinary aspects of life without worrying about non-physical realms. It’s to these people that I want David’s Desk to be relevant.
I also decided that I did not want to use these essays to warn about dangers or to raise alarms. There’s plenty in the world to be concerned and alarmed about, and there are dangers, to be sure. But many people are writing about these things. A strident urgency enters into our common discourse that can be appropriate at times but more often than not simply keeps our emotions stirred up to a fever pitch without offering resolution. We can find ourselves going through our days angry, afraid, and adversarial. For all that fear can provide a useful warning, anger can be justified and lead to positive actions, and there are things in the world to be opposed, these cannot be the mainstays of a life. They diminish our ability to be centered, calm, and collaborative. They crowd out love and hope, and they feed a desire to demonize and divide.
Consequently, I have chosen to write on topics that will give us inspiration, strength, and hope and that celebrate our generative and creative possibilities as individuals. As I say, tools for the spiritual journey.
Some months, though, when I sit down to write my David’s Desk, I feel a temptation to write to the news, to speak to events in the world as reported by the major media, on the assumption that what these reports stir up in our lives is something with which we all must deal. Part of this comes from a desire to be “relevant.” But there is more happening in our world than just what we see or hear through the filters of the six o’clock news or the morning newspaper. Politics, economics, even the changes in weather, do not define nor circumscribe the richness of our lives—at least, I hope not! Being relevant means, to me, speaking to the spirit within us and how it may emerge on a day to day basis with hope, with love, with compassion, with courage, and with resilience. This is what I will continue to address in writing these essays.
Looking back at the past decade, I am amazed at how much the world has changed and how much it is the same, presenting us with the same challenges and the same potentials. We are all more interconnected than ever with our smartphones and social media, yet we are seemingly more divided as well. We can feel just as isolated, alone, and fearful as ever. Tweeting or posting on Facebook doesn’t alleviate this in the long run. For this, we must tap the spirit within us, the spirit that transcends boundaries and draws us together in mutual humanity. We must practice the timeless art of caring for each other.
The Romans built an extensive and impressive system of roads across their empire to facilitate the movement of their legions for conquest. Yet it was these very roads that the early Christians used to spread a message of love and peace. We are building digital roads that connect more and more humans together. We will probably see this accelerate and take even more astonishing forms in the next decade. At the moment these roads are often routes for hate and fear to spread, routes for war in cyberspace, routes for lies and misinformation. But they can also be roads for a new wave of love and caring to reach out to the hearts of men and women across the globe. Initiating, spreading, nourishing that wave is within the power of each of us, if we decide to use it.
The next ten years will be….well, interesting hardly begins to cover it. Transformative is probably not too strong a word to use if the past decade is any measure. How they are transformative will depend on you, on me, on all of us, in part on what we send marching down the new roads of cyberspace as well as what we do in the real world around us. And through it all, God willing, I shall continue to offer David’s Desk to help with the journey.
Thank you!
David Spangler's quarterly journal Views from the Borderland is going into its 7th year! Click here to learn more and to subscribe.