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His father was a union organizer in Milwaukee and he saw firsthand the huge impact that politics--and union decisions--had on the amount of food he ate and the quality of clothing he wore--and those of his friends around him. On weekends, his father would gather the whole family around the radio to listen to President Roosevelt admonish the nation to be brave and fearless. Politics was to be respected, politicians revered. That is how Neale Donald Walsch says he was raised.
With that brief bio, then, it's not as surprising to hear that Neale Donald Walsch, international bestselling author of the Conversations with God trilogy and Friendship with God, whose books have invited millions of readers to hear the intimate details of his divine conversations, has returned to his political roots. And in going back to his roots at age 57, Walsch says he is actually charging back out into the political arena to help renew the whole process, from the ground up. In fact, he feels so strongly about the urgency of the mission that he is embarking on a 14-city lecture tour to bring his readers up to date on his thinking--and engage them in an uncommon dialogue on spirituality and politics.
Walsch will bring his message to southeast Iowa on Friday, April 14, at the Best Western Fairfield Inn in a talk entitled "Spirituality and Politics: An Uncommon Dialogue." Walsch will be joined by his friend John Hagelin, Ph.D., a world-renowned quantum physicist and presidential candidate of the Natural Law Party.
"We are facing the most important juncture of our lives, because now for the first time in human history, we have the ability to annihilate ourselves--unilaterally and completely," Walsch says. "I don't mean simply with weapons of mass destruction. I mean with the sudden and simultaneous dismantling of every system which has supported any kind of life on this planet--from our ecology to our economy, from our politics to our spirituality. And if we are not careful, we will dismantle this all too soon."
That is why Walsch believes that America has reached a point of true decision. "This first election of the new millennium will set the tone and establish the nuance for all future elections to come. We must use this shift of energy that has been generated by the arrival of the new millennium to create not just a new time in our history, but a new way for us to create the history of tomorrow and a new approach to our political expression--a new approach to our collective experience in this country."
Walsch says that Friendship with God states clearly, "Politics is spirituality, demonstrated." And if it isn't, he says, "then spirituality is nothing. But when spirituality is expressed through our political, our economic, our social, our religious, and our educational decisions and choices, then our spirituality lives. It is real not just in concept or in word, but in deed. And when spirituality is real in deed, then it is indeed real."
Walsch is urging people to get involved, to turn their personal transformations into social and political renewal.
"It's time to step away from our collective apathy, our collective disinterest, and, for that matter, our collective political snobbishness. It's time to get off of all of those attitudes which have stopped us from owning our own political system. It's time to reclaim ownership in the system by acknowledging that it is the system which creates the conditions of the life that we are living."
And who should make the change? "I've always been impressed by that ancient Jewish wisdom: 'If not now, when? If not me, who?' Leaders are not found, they're self-declared," Walsch says. "Leadership is not something that you find outside yourself, but something you decide upon. When you choose to be a leader, you are. And if you are tired of not finding enough true leadership in the political process, maybe it's because the void is waiting for you to fill it.
"Ask yourself, 'What part of the void that I observe am I willing to fill?' That's the key question. I urge you to look at that question deeply and find the answer in what you hear from within your own soul."
To register for "Spirituality and Politics: An Uncommon Dialogue," call (515) 469-2029 or visit website <www.spiritualityandpolitics.org>. Tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the door. The talk begins at 8:00 p.m. at the Best Western Fairfield Inn in Fairfield.
