Isn’t there some way to walk the middle path?

Recently, on one of our internet forums, I had the opportunity to read one of the 2020 memos that have been sent out from Headquarters.

The 2020 project involves earmarking 20 countries in various parts of the globe as nations that currently have the most evident potential to develop a national level of restorational victory by the 100th anniversary of Father’s birth.

In the forum that I frequent, this memo elicited a lot of responses. Given the recent challenges our community has faced, it is perhaps understandable that many people feel somewhat cynical about what the memo means and about whether it should be taken seriously. Yet, I was taken aback by the level of scepticism I saw.

Nevertheless, as I reflected on the responses that I read, I had to ask myself:

Isn’t there some way to walk the middle path? Some way to follow the Golden Mean? By this I mean the path between being objective, accountable and transparent on the one hand, yet not falling into cynicism, lack of faith and lack of vision on the other.

It used to be that in our community, we focused on our spiritual growth, our practice of faith, and we revelled in a high dimension of spiritual heart that gave deep and penetrating significance to whatever we undertook and whatever we did. And part of that process was a grappling with the issues.

Recently, however, it seems more and more that our focus is on grappling with the issues, but not in a positive way. Rather, in a way that seems to expect the least, a way that focuses on the faults and dares not express unbridled faith and hope. Bridled faith, beaten down even. Not unbridled, by any means.

Further reflecting on this point, it occurs to me that if one loses faith that although there are faults, the essence is good, true and pure, then one gets more and more entangled in seeing how ugly things are and not how beautiful they are or even what they could potentially be.

Truly, if you can see what things potentially “could be’ or “can be”, then you have a way to find the seed for that potential in the present. If you can identify that seed, you see the future in the present. And that’s not faith. That’s vision.

To my mind, the reality is all there. All the seeds are there: the seeds of failure and the seeds of growth, the seeds of sorrow and the seeds of love and success. Both aspects are present. The question of faith, however, is, “What do we decide to focus on?” This is important because whatever we focus on grows.

This is a simple yet powerful fact. What we focus on grows. Where we give our attention, expansion occurs. And part of the game of the other side, the dark side if you will, is to get us to focus more on the seeds of failure than otherwise. To convince us, or allow us to convince ourselves, that indeed, those ugly seeds are the only seeds that are really there.

But, in the end, it is a choice. In one sense, Faith is simply a choice about “which aspect”, “which seed,” “which element” I decide to focus on. Because, in reality, they are both there. And I, in my position as a child of the Universe, have the power to make one of them grow. That’s my choice. That’s my birth right.

It’s not that only one of those elements is there, or the other. No. The idea that it is only either one way or the other simply allows us to objectify the entire situation and avoid the real crux of the matter: what I am “choosing” to focus on? What am I choosing to foster? To encourage? To develop?

These are the thoughts that occurred to me as I read the responses from my brothers and sisters regarding this 2020 memo.

Maybe it’s just that this is a time for sorting and sifting. Many of us have been through the crapper the last few months, few years, few decades. If we are correct that there is a new heavenly tide flowing, then it makes complete sense that we will find ourselves challenged in the content of our internal processes. What do we believe in? Where do we choose to put our focus? This is the choice that is freely available to each and every one of us.

Nevertheless, I kind of wonder where our current collective focus is.

Perhaps we haven’t been accessing the high spiritual realm of heart quite as much as we used to. That’s not an accusation. It’s… an impression. It’s feedback.

Whichever the case, I wish you peace and love for all.

Andrew Lausberg, Grad. Dip. Korean, Japanese and English translation, based in Australia.