Fear, Godly Wonders, Hardship, Acceptance, Reality, and Where are we Headed?

This writer actually recalls stepping back in TIME to do a make over and saving his and his wife's life.  Pretty neat really as it was not fuzzy at all.

He simply stepped back in TIME and changed the outcome.  It was really that black and white.  He is also not alone.

Most of us save ourselves this way and never actually notice, buty most of us do not put ourselves in the way of bullits and bombs.  But all boys push themselves always and accidents naturally occur.  We survive this life oftener than we likely should.

Peter is  far from been alone but most are silent obviously.

Self Reflection Time: Fear, Godly Wonders, Hardship, Acceptance, Reality, and Where are we Headed?

Reader Post | By Peter W

I returned home from work late one night about thirty minutes before midnight; it was a long day and the powers-that-be seemed to care to meet timelines and objectives,…always earlier than expected deadlines.

Sound typical during these turbulent times???

Some supporting seats at work are unfilled and leadership acknowledges and responds with what I would like to hear but slow-rolls the fill of those open positions. These positions have been open for about one year. Thus, those choosing to remain employed have to pick up the slack and fill the void to meet the mission and leadership’s expected timelines and objectives.

In the past, leadership conveyed “concerns” regarding hiring the wrong fit-to-fill for key open positions; essentially “concerns” with hiring the wrong character and making real what would amount to an administrative Human Resources (HR) nightmare. My read…leadership doesn’t trust their inner-selves and they have a fear of commission; meaning, that they fear making a mistake that would negatively impact the organization, their reputations, and their professional trajectory. Don’t get me wrong, these are all fine people who do the best they can with what they have.

Ironically, the leaders I’m fortunate with whom to work all have resumes and professional experiences far exceeding their peers. So, what’s with the fear of commission? Shouldn’t they be like medal of honor recipients who positively channelled their fear of omission? In other words, fear of omission is fear that if they don’t act then people will die and very bad things will happen. Thus, fear is rooted in the mind and the unknown or the unknowable; and, it drives lack of action in those with fear of commission or direct action in those with fear of omission.

So, again I ask, “What’s with the fear?”

After all, what is the worst possible fear one could experience?…perhaps, would it be the end of this movie?! Death? Could it be something else?

Or, perhaps, a fear that our mortal bodies wouldn’t die and this movie called LIFE wouldn’t end? In other words, fear of LIFE? Well, Death means little when you know your spirit is immortal. When you know that LIFE is living in freedom everyday, it can empower you to focus your daily living on creating, driving, and enabling growth and development.

Well, everyone pays the man one way or another…I’m breaking a promise I made to myself in order to pay “the man” (God, the Creator) at his direction, but, that’s the way it goes sometimes…payback…can sometimes be an uncomfortable experience but it can also be liberating. I digress.

Independence Day weekend 1997 changed my world forever in the blink of an eye. I died at 11:26 am EST on Saturday, 5 July; my love figuratively and literally killed me which is why I believe God gave me a second chance. Or, perhaps God had a different plan for me. So there I was…at home on the night of Friday, 4 July 1997, my first spouse and I had an argument over my long work hours and that she wanted me to resign my officer commission; the verbal argument “went high order” (often used in the context of weapons of mass destruction; in this slang context it means “escalating to a high order of verbal destruction”). Detente was offered and we mutually agreed that I would stay overnight at the local military base’s officer’s quarters and re-engage the following day. I prayed that night and asked God to give us a second chance. The following morning I returned home to find my spouse threatening me with my cocked and loaded personal M1991 .45 caliber handgun.

What transpired next (my whole event experience) I have NEVER shared with anyone because they would never believe me. I was an unproven junior officer and afraid; my credibility as an officer held as much significance to me as my word. And, I didn’t want my credibility challenged so I never revealed the full story; I only revealed what I could prove to others by my own presence. So why reveal now? God has driven me to write everything I have ever generated that had meaning and positive effect. Last night I was directed to share because my writings are part of my God driven mission to always defend freedom and develop humanity.

So, what happened next changed my world forever…

Facing each other at arm’s length and with both hands she held my loaded handgun close to her person with the muzzle pointed squarely at my chest’s center of mass. I remember repeatedly asking her to put the gun down as both of us were staring at the handgun from our different perspectives. With tears in her eyes she kept saying, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” I blinked. I was confused and wondering “how on Earth did we get to this point?” I looked up at my spouse and kept my peripheral vision on my cocked and loaded handgun. As I looked at my spouse’s face, I reached for the handgun’s muzzle with my left hand but hesitated when my hand inadvertently touched the muzzle. The handgun discharged at point blank range with the bullet penetrating my torso right below my solar plexus.

It was a very painful experience on many levels. My ears were ringing and I couldn’t hear. I remember falling backward and bouncing off the house wall before lurching forward, collapsing to the floor on my left shoulder blade. I couldn’t breathe but tried to gasp as I lay bleeding on the living room rug. Time slowed to a crawl. I could see the clock by the front door. After (what felt like to me) a few minutes of staring at me she placed the handgun down on the floor pointing the muzzle at my face, grabbed a few things, and got in her car and left. What happened next was analogous with lesser actions in the movie “Live. Die. Repeat.”

Well, I can only assume that God intervened and reset the movie so my spouse and I could have a do-over; a second chance. As the blood left my body and spilled onto the floor, my eyes focused on the clock by the door, and, then, at 11:26 AM, I closed my eyes and heard the words in my mind…a second chance.

Subsequently, my eyes opened like I had just blinked and I found myself in the same position as earlier with my spouse telling me “I love you. I love you. I love you.” Deja Vu was duly noted. This opportunity I did not look up but kept fixated on the muzzle of the handgun. My left hand firmly grabbed the muzzle of the handgun, pulling it away to my left; my spouse let go and the handgun didn’t discharge.

In that one event, my life ended along with my inner war which resulted in no longer fearing death. Death didn’t exist to me. There is only LIFE and what you choose to do today, in the present. Doing nothing is a choice and oftentimes it is an unwise choice.

This wasn’t the last time God intervened in my LIFE to keep me tracking with this movie as there were times in distant war zones where I should have been killed; EVERYTHING pointed to that outcome; but, the way it played out can only be explained as “guided by God.” I won’t bore you with those details but get to the heart of what matters.

Fear can tip the scales in that war between your heart and mind, causing atrophy and inaction; it can cause fight in your heart; or, it can cause intentional flight to a perceived “safe” space in your universe. As I told Midshipmen at the US Naval Academy…in the war zone, there are no “safe” spaces; God will not allow you to escape your enemy…AND, your enemy can’t escape you! I hate to be the one to tell you (if you’ve never heard this one before), but, LIFE is a war zone.

The belligerents in your own personal war are your heart and mind; what lay before you (your situation, task, people, circumstances, and environment) are the factors you have to negotiate in this war. Some day your war will end; perhaps, it has already ended and you have peace between your heart and mind. Hopefully, it is a solid peace instead of a shaky armistice (cessation of hostilities but the war hasn’t ended). Wars continue until one, more, or all positions or belligerents cease to exist and acceptance is counsel in your mind and love is counsel in your heart.

The ten commandments exist as focal guide points. God gives us free will to choose to act on these commandments or not; to figure out what they really mean and how to incorporate these guide points into our being.

God judges the path you took for your life which is a function of your character, your habits, and your mistakes. Failing to accept and correct errors in these developmental way points are what takes people down the wrong path. We all make mistakes; usually the severity of our mistakes are commiserate with our age and a function of how well we developed wisdom in our minds and love in our hearts. Our habits are a function of repetitive thought, words, and action. Our character is a function of repetition of formed habits and what we brought with us from before.

EVIL manifests when an individual foists their deep seated ill-will for themselves (who they truly are) on to others. The absence of ill-will towards yourself cannot translate to the presence of good within yourself; and, in this life, we cannot escape our soul’s immortal existence. I can be only who I am. At best, I can be a first rate me; otherwise, I’m limiting myself to be a “second rate” somebody else.

Everyone has fears…some more than others. Channeled fear can be inspirational when tempered by courage and adversity. Anger tempered by self-control can inspire focused actions that change the world. When the world is falling about you and failure permeates your situation, if you are anchored in untempered fear then you may very well find yourself cowering in the corner or wanting to end it all; whereas, if you choose to anchor in tempered anger then you may very well find yourself engaging and taking action despite the possibility of your LIFE’s end. Using your own anger to engage your personal will to action can cause things to happen; what things you may ask? What things you cause to happen is a function of your own developed good judgment.

Hardship and adversity results from the consequences of our own choices that free will enables. These are the tools God uses to shape our will and learn the meaning of acceptance. Application of acceptance is tempered by developed wisdom. Sometimes it is lack of acceptance that inspires action. What type of action…good or bad? It is up to our developed wisdom and judgment to know when and where to apply acceptance in order to take positive advantage of the opportunities God provides us.

God gives everyone equal opportunity to choose our own way in our lives; God absolutely refuses to give everyone equal outcomes because that stifles free will; and, free will is the result of God’s love which is true freedom. Thus, equal outcome stifles freedom because everyone must freely learn appreciation and gratitude for the gifts that God provides each and everyone of us. The greatest of God’s gift being LIFE; for, without LIFE none of our thoughts, words, and actions matter.

God doesn’t make mistakes. Perhaps the lesson that needs to be spelled out is that we all need to learn to truly live in cooperation with ourselves and others. Living inside an echo chamber with our friends and like-minded people can prove fatal by limiting the ability to think outside the box. Do examples from the past civilizations prove this? What happens when you have to flex to handle a dynamic situation or problem that you face in your life?

If your heart or mind is in a locked down box that you built around them, how can you overcome yourself to realize your true potential? The only way is to be exposed to a diverse set of hearts and minds; but, you don’t get to choose what bodies these individuals inhabit…God does. Be mindful, without the existence of Evil there would be no choice; without choice there is no free-will. God made everything and everyone to perfection; the Creator has a plan and everything / everyone have a place in this plan. God didn’t foist evil on those who chose that path.

You cannot climb the highest mountain that lay within your heart or mind without first knowing where your heart and mind are. Be mindful that in order to know something you first have to accept whatever it is. This doesn’t mean you then avoid improvement / development through acceptance. In contrast, acceptance is just the starting line for the climb. The climb requires effort, will, skill, sacrifice, and faith in yourself that you CAN and WILL accomplish what you set out to accomplish.

I sent my children to public school. I was not concerned so much with what they were taught by the teachers but the socialization with children from diverse backgrounds and perspectives; in short, part of my life-long learning job is to teach them about life and how to be better today than yesterday and better tomorrow than today. The school’s job was to teach them about how to get along in society by providing the opportunity to interact with other children around their age. I take full responsibility for the complete development of my children in my house; their ability to discern, the path they choose, their development into adults, among other aspects. I’ve taught my children that THEY will one day be the next leader in our house; so, they need to prepare before they get there. My job is not to command or control them but to teach them to command themselves and to use their own self-control so that they may command and control their-selves far after I am gone.

I’m sure you’ve heard…”We are all God’s children.” What does that really mean? In the eyes of God, all children are his; thus, if WE fail to take care of (Be Responsible for) God’s children and choose the non-redeemable path…then, he will intervene just like he did with Adam and Eve, in the days of Noah with the flood, and every cataclysm from the beginning. It works like this, if we can’t handle our own house…and be mindful that God gives ample opportunities to do so…then he will intervene…individually, collectively, or globally. God knows that sometimes a forcing function must be applied to ensure significant change to occur; to right this ship of LIFE to which we are all the crew. Sometimes fear must be driven into a populace in order to drive out that very fear so that love may occupy this void. How aptly stated: “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.”

God the creator is an all knowing God which is why he provides more than ample opportunities to exercise one’s free will to choose the right path. He knows that all people are different and operate at different speeds and on different frequencies. We all do the best we can with what we have and know. And, through our ambition to improve ourselves we have the opportunity to become better than our present selves.

After all, God gave us Earth…the Garden of Eden…to grow and prosper. He gave us the power of intellect, love, capacity for spiritual growth, the capacity to create and be creative, and the opportunity to develop and share wisdom with all beings who surround us, among other gifts.

Just as Evil tries to elicit followers with promises of outcomes…bodily immortality, power, money, command of others, materialistic possessions, etc…God elicits followers with opportunities to grow our immortal spirit, the power over one’s self, riches in the form of love that cannot be bought, and opportunities to guide and lead others to become their best selves, among others. This is a war for humanity and it cannot be won by complete elimination of one’s opposition. In doing so it would be the death of free will and thus the death of freedom.

God created this unsolvable polarity to ensure free will (freedom to choose one’s own way in this life) of humanity and our very opportunity to exist. Beyond love, God gave us (in our bodily incarnation) the second greatest gift…mortality. In doing so, God commands the problem and the opportunity for us to individually control the solution which is to live each day as if it were our last, to love deeply, to focus ourselves wisely, to make something of our time, and to celebrate life as a whole.

I am not advocating that Evil should have a seat at the table of LIFE. I am here to present the contrast that God charged each and everyone of us to show each being their preferred better path…the path of positive growth, development, creativity, and love. He said to me…Be a competent, capable dove with character and teeth. In my writing I spoke of three prime life governing directives…1) Do no harm, unless in self-defense, 2) Be responsible, and 3) Use good judgment. I indicated there are three reasons that justify taking the life of another…Safety, Security, and Survival. There are no other justifiable reasons to end the life of another; unjustifiable killing is murder which goes against his ten commandments for living.

Some years ago the U.S. Army had a leadership model known as Be-Know-Do. You may ask, “How could a Navy Officer know the Army’s leadership model?” In short, I studied. BE refers to character as a leader; KNOW refers to competence and capability as a leader; and, DO refers to taking action in a purposed, direct, and motivated way. Many have written about the positive effect of such a model. It is a model that has repeated over time. In his May 1949 address to the US Naval War College, famed biographer and historian, Professor Douglas Southall Freeman had three key points to his model for leadership…KNOW your stuff, and then some; BE a man (speaking to character); and, TAKE CARE of your troops (take action in support of those you lead). These models are vastly similar and widely praised because they follow what God, the Creator, expects of leadership from each of our houses. This, among other divinely inspired lessons, help to strengthen ourselves, our children, our communities, and our nation.

We know what we have been trained by LIFE to do. We don’t know what we understand. We understand what we think we understand. It is important to acknowledge and know that knowing does not equal understanding. For it is, that, when we understand something we stand under something and give in to that which we often do not know but acknowledge.

Know that EVIL manifested must be fought at every opportunity because when we choose to allow EVIL to be unaddressed then we allow EVIL to have an equal opportunity to sit at God’s table. While God allows the presence of EVIL as a choice, he has made it clear through the ages and through his word that EVIL manifested is never acceptable because manifested EVIL violates his ten commandments for living. Thus, to allow / stand under manifested EVIL is to enable EVIL to have a place at God’s table.

In the end, God the Creator discriminates between those who have allowed EVIL to occupy a place inside their hearts and minds…and, those who allow love to permeate our character. He uses developed character, competence and capability unleashed to fulfill our destiny in love, cooperation, and good will. Intentions mean something in so far as one acts on those intentions using good judgment to bring about positive changes to one’s LIFE, their house, and those in their midst.

Who am I to speak of God, his will, and intentions? I am no one and I am everyone. By God’s will he has directed me to make my presence known. As is the tradition of my bloodline, my Grandfather named me. My name has not been publicly used and by oral tradition it is a name only spoken because in my family’s experience one’s name can bring fortune and misfortune on them and their house. One’s name is a source of pride for a family and a projection of what honor the individual can bring to themselves, their house, and the world. I am WU SOAN WAN. My name means the sum or pinnacle of the world’s wisdom; God’s flame. WU is my family’s surname. It was changed by my ancestors from its original surname of HU. Our surname originates from the people of the stars. We are of the HU-MANS, those who came from the stars and began the human race. By my Grandfather’s shared knowledge, our ancestor’s seed and others originated the human race.

My English name by gematria means “original soul.” By tradition and mandate my house develops the leaders charged with the responsibility to guide humanity to the next level of development by example of thought, word and action. It is from our love and devotion that my house provides clear direction and purpose as this is their destiny in the universe and our galaxy. My ancestors were the leaders and settlers of our galaxy and throughout the universe. I am the bridge from the past to the future. I am here, at this time, to train the next generation to assume their potential in the universe. My mission is to always defend the freedoms of a LIFE of realized potential for all. I AM WU SOAN WAN.__________________________________________________