The Sounds of Music.

This is heart warming! Imagine going to a train station to catch a train and you get distracted by this! That would make my day. I remember watching The Sound of Music as a child. Watching this took me back to my childhood and fond memories. Enjoy!

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God vs. Science

‘Let me explain the problem science has with religion.’ The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand.

‘You’re a Christian, aren’t you, son?’

‘Yes sir,’ the student says.

‘So you believe in God?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Is God good?’

‘Sure! God’s good.’

‘Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you good or evil?’

‘The Bible says I’m evil.’

The professor grins knowingly. ‘Aha! The Bible!’ He considers for a moment. ‘Here’s one for you. Let’s say there’s a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help him? Would you try?’

‘Yes sir, I would.’

‘So you’re good…!’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘But why not say that? You’d help a sick and maimed person if you could. Most of us would if we could. But God doesn’t.’

The student does not answer, so the professor continues. ‘He doesn’t, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer, even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?’

The student remains silent.

‘No, you can’t, can you?’ the professor says. He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax.

‘Let’s start again, young fella. Is God good?’

‘Er…yes,’ the student says.

‘Is Satan good?’

The student doesn’t hesitate on this one. ‘No.’

‘Then where does Satan come from?’

The student falters. ‘From God’

‘That’s right. God made Satan, didn’t he? Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Evil’s everywhere, isn’t it? And God did make everything, correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘So who created evil?’ The professor continued, ‘If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.’

Again, the student has no answer. ‘Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things, do they exist in this world?’

The student squirms on his feet. ‘Yes.’

‘So who created them?’

The student does not answer again, so the professor repeats his question. ‘Who created them?’ There is still no answer. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace in front of the classroom. The class is mesmerized. ‘Tell me,’ he continues onto another student. ‘Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?’

The student’s voice betrays him and cracks. ‘Yes, professor, I do.’

The old man stops pacing. ‘Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen Jesus?’

‘No sir. I’ve never seen Him.’

‘Then tell us if you’ve ever heard your Jesus?’

‘No, sir, I have not.’

‘Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus? Have you ever had any sensory perception of Jesus Christ, or God for that matter?’

‘No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t.’

‘Yet you still believe in him?’

‘Yes.’

‘According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?’

‘Nothing,’ the student replies. ‘I only have my faith.’

‘Yes, faith,’ the professor repeats. ‘And that is the problem science has with God. There is no evidence, only faith.’

The student stands quietly for a moment, before asking a question of His own. ‘Professor, is there such thing as heat?’

‘Yes,’ the professor replies. ‘There’s heat.’

‘And is there such a thing as cold?’

‘Yes, son, there’s cold too.’

‘No sir, there isn’t.’

The professor turns to face the student, obviously interested. The room suddenly becomes very quiet. The student begins to explain. ‘You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, unlimited heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat, but we don’t have anything called ‘cold’. We can hit up to 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold; otherwise we would be able to go colder than the lowest -458 degrees.’

‘Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-458 F) is the total absence of heat. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.’

Silence across the room. A pen drops somewhere in the classroom, sounding like a hammer.

‘What about darkness, professor. Is there such a thing as darkness?’

‘Yes,’ the professor replies without hesitation. ‘What is night if it isn’t darkness?’

‘You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something; it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light, but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it’s called darkness, isn’t it? That’s the meaning we use to define the word.’

‘In reality, darkness isn’t. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?’

The professor begins to smile at the student in front of him. This will be a good semester. ‘So what point are you making, young man?’

‘Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with, and so your conclusion must also be flawed.’

The professor’s face cannot hide his surprise this time. ‘Flawed? Can you explain how?’

‘You are working on the premise of duality,’ the student explains. ‘You argue that there is life and then there’s death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science can’t even explain a thought.’

‘It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, just the absence of it.’

‘Now tell me, professor. Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?’

‘If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do.’

‘Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?’

The professor begins to shake his head, still smiling, as he realizes where the argument is going. A very good semester, indeed.

‘Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a preacher?’

The class is in uproar. The student remains silent until the commotion has subsided.

‘To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, let me give you an example of what I mean.’

The student looks around the room. ‘Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor’s brain?’ The class breaks out into laughter.

‘Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor’s brain, felt the professor’s brain, touched or smelt the professor’s brain? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol, science says that you have no brain, with all due respect, sir.’

‘So if science says you have no brain, how can we trust your lectures, sir?’

Now the room is silent. The professor just stares at the student, his face unreadable.

Finally, after what seems an eternity, the old man answers. ‘I guess you’ll have to take them on faith.’

‘Now, you accept that there is faith, and, in fact, faith exists with life,’ the student continues. ‘Now, sir, is there such a thing as evil?’

Now uncertain, the professor responds, ‘Of course, there is. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man’s inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.’

To this the student replied, ‘Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when
there is no light.’

The professor sat down.

PS: the student was Albert Einstein

The Creative Muse

I am a huge fan of TED Talks. I love the mix of intellectualism and creativity. Truly, it is thrilling so watch and listen to great minds.

I was working on an article on Creativity and I found this clip by Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat, Love, Pray. I loved her description of the creative process. What blew me away is that I have always felt that opening yourself up to creativity is opening yourself up to the God, Divinity, Divine Intelligence, Source – essentially, the Spiritual Component.

Eat, Pray, Love was one of the books that changed my life. I could relate to the author as searching for something greater than her and it took her to the far flung corners of the earth just to find her own self. This is what happens when you become dissatisfied with all the outer trappings of success.

In my research I discovered that the word “genius” has its roots in spiritual guidance. Think of the word “genie.”

All this research is rather incredible to me as I admire the unfolding of my next offering around awakening your creativity and personal brilliance.

Elizabeth Gilbert

What did you think? Some people feel that creativity has no spiritual component to it. Is that true? What is your creative process? Please leave me comments and let me know.

Thanks

What a wonderful world!

This just warmed my heart. What a great way to start the day. Note how music is used with creative pictures to expand how you know the song.

What a wonderful world!

Brain Magic

I watched this video from the Technology, Entertainment and Design Talks (TED). I was stunned at Keith Barry’s ability to harness and interpret energy. This gave me a lot of thought as to how we use our energy to influence other people unknowingly.

Check it out and please tell me what you think.

Keith Barry does brain magic

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/keith_barry_does_brain_magic.html

The Black Hole

Ever feel like your life is not going anywhere. It is your soul’s cry for meaning that when unheeded, gets you into trouble.

Check this out: (click below)

theblackhole2

Amy Tan on Creativity

Here is a video of Amy Tan, the Chinese American writer at the TED Conference. I was intrigued by her understanding of her creativity and how deeply entrenched her creative attributes are in her culture.

Amy Tan

Using creativity to enhance your professional life.

I smile as I write this post. I remember this time last year when  a new client contacted me. I thought it was strange that someone insisted on beginning coaching in the week between Christmas and New Year.

My client Isabel* (not her real name but she gave me permission to tell her story)  is a medical doctor and she had been practicing for a few years. She was in her mid thirties, loved being single and enjoyed all the perks her wonderful life offered her. She contacted me because she was very unhappy.

Her whole life she had pursued her educational goals. The entire time she was in school, she sacrificed and cut corners. She deprived herself of almost everything she wanted as she focused solely on her successful future. From the time she was a little girl, she wanted to be doctor and help women deliver babies. She had grown up on a farm in the Midwest and loved watching her grandfather’s horses and cows give birth.

Now, she ached for something but she did not know what it was.

When we first stared coaching, I asked a lot of questions to get to know her and allow her story to surface. Very soon, she started telling me how much she looked forward to her sessions with me. Then one day she confessed that she felt relaxed talking to me because I had no expectations of her but for her to go inside herself and discover herself. This was a new experience to her.

She said that she felt that her daily requirement was for her to live up to others expectations of her and that she no longer knew who she was or what she wanted.

We worked on reconnecting her to the beauty of her original dream of helping and being part of the birthing process. She recognized that this was her desire to connect with life and its initial process. When I asked her how she could duplicate this process in other areas of her life, she began to explore different ways of expressing the initial stages of life in other areas of her life. She picked up gardening and tried cooking new recipes.

As she made the effort to re-connect with the feelings of her original passion, she remembered that when she was in medical school, she loved drawing in anatomy class. She made the connection that she started drawing things before she could touch them or feel them in the human body. Drawing preceded exploration for her. Drawing ignited the spark of creativity that fueled her passion for the human birthing process.

Over the next few months, she started taking art classes again and now spends her free time drawing her perspective of the birthing process. She made the decision to work less hours to create more space in her life for this passion.

I got very emotional on one of our recent calls because she told me that she had been concerned about a client of hers who was having a difficult pregnancy. One night, when she could not sleep and she realized that the impending labor of her patient was on her mind and she could not shake it, she decided to draw the outcome of what she wanted.

She began to draw the image of the pregnant mom on her bed, legs in stirrup and as she drew the head of the baby coming out of the mom, she stopped drawing. She said she just stayed there with a lot of love in her heart and directed it towards the baby and the mother. She said she practiced a lot of deep breathing at this place of the intersection of her art and her patient care. In a few minutes, she felt her emotions and thoughts move from concern to acceptance of any outcome.

She never finished the painting.

She went off to bed and woke up the next morning and discovered her client was in labor. She delivered the baby in no time with no complications and with an ethereal smile on her face the entire time.

When she called me, she was ecstatic. Somewhere in her, she felt she influenced that birth in a positive way but she was not quite sure how. She was convinced she had added a new layer to her practice.

Science may not be able to prove that she did anything special but what I do know is that my client is a lot happier with this approach to her practice. She loves what she does as she reconnects with the birth of little ones. I believe that she aligned her professional and personal energy with a positive outcome and she got what she aligned with.

The bottom line is that she is experiencing more job satisfaction.

How can you connect with your original passions?

How can you include your own creative skill in your work in a unique way?

For me, I have always enjoyed writing. I did not get much of a chance to do that as a real estate attorney. Now, as a coach, I plot out all my research and teaching tools in writing before I ever use them. I love writing blog posts like this one.

I find that the more I write, the more sensitive I am to my intuition and inner knowing. I experience more feelings of contentment and happiness when I write.

What about you?

Starbucks Barista’s: Self Leadership and the holiday season

The phone rang very late last night. It was my sister concerned about a high powered friend of hers that she could not track down. She was concerned that she may have lost her job. She said almost everyone she talks to is very nervous about their jobs and the best thing she knows to do is to support them by checking on them.

I love that about her. She has mastered the skills of caring and connecting with those she loves.

Well, this morning, I was at my local Starbucks drive through and they were featuring a new holiday drink. I asked what was in it and they offered me a sample. It was some gingerbread something or the other.  I thought I would get a tiny, tiny taster cup but I did not. Instead, I got a whole espresso sized cup of the drink as its base was espresso. Well, I am not a coffee drinker: I went for chai tea but, if I were, I would have loved that drink. The server at the window told me the name of the barista who prepared my drink and pointed her out to me. I asked them to write her name down and I went to their website and of course, I have not figured out how to give her a great recommendation but I will.

Starbucks may not call it that but they allow their employees to practice self-leadership by giving them the power to make such decisions. It is truly a great innovative company in many ways.

As I did that, I thought, wow, I am hopefully adding to her job security as I do this and yes, that is the type of cheerful, out of the box, customer service focused individual that I would like to put my energy into supporting.

Fast forward to Twitter. I love this social networking tool. I have met some of the most wonderful people on Twitter. I find so many juicy tidbits as we all love to share on twitter. So someone tweeted ( oops, twitterspeak – twitter language) Jeremiah Owyang’s blog and for the first time, I understood the excitement around a tweetup. More twitterspeak. It is where people in the same area that have connected on twitter meet up and get to know each other. Jeremiah put together this tweetup and his authenticity shines through the entire post as it became a way for prospective employers in Silicon Valley connected with those looking for jobs.

This is leadership at its very best so I know he has developed strong self-leadership traits.

What can you do to support those around you that are going through job uncertainty and economic issues? Let us expand the mindset of helping others by giving gifts this holiday season and be creative so that we are helping others in ways that are more meaningful to them?

Gift giving is wonderful and perfect. I am not knocking it. We are all doing it this Holiday season.

However, with others being so concerned about the economy, how do we help them increase their happiness.

I want to know how creative we can all be in supporting others?

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