What if I were to tell you we are all gods? Would you crucify me? Would you tie me up to a stake and burn me alive? Would you banish me from your village or shoot me outside my New York apartment?
There was once a boy from Liverpool who sang songs about love. All you need is love, he said. Love is all you need. Someone shot him outside his apartment in Manhattan on December 8, 1980. That’s the day I began writing in my diary. I was eight. My inner voice had something to say back then, but even more so now.
I didn’t watch the news that day and didn’t know about the murder of the famous musician from Liverpool who sang about love, all you need is love. I didn’t read the book the murderer was carrying until I had been accepted into St. Francis Preparatory High School, and even then no one told me that particular book was in the pocket of the murderer, or in the pocket of the man who attempted to assassinate our president three months later. They censor books like that, banning them in schools and libraries across the country, but they also use them to teach.
I carried my 1951 first edition copy of The Catcher in the Rye to my English class every day of eleventh grade. No one noticed or cared. All the other students had newly purchased paperbacks. I borrowed my dad’s copy, the one he read when he was in high school. Its book jacket was missing. Only the black hard cover remained. Its pages were brown and smelled like musty old libraries supervised by crabby old librarians. I even found a bookworm in it as I turned the delicate pages that revealed a rebellious character who wanted to preserve the innocence of children. My English teacher, Sister Louise, said this was one of the most famous coming of age books of all time. The name Louise is of Old German origin, meaning famous warrior. I give the nun credit for being brave enough to put Catcher on the curriculum that year. Imagine, as the young man from Liverpool sang, if more people were brave.
My diaries are my coming of age books. They reveal my awakening, the realization that we are all divine beings, as sacred as the sycamore trees and butterflies that share this planet. But most of us have forgotten that. I even forgot for a while.
We are all gods and goddesses co-creating with the Universe, and more importantly, we have the power to heal. You don’t believe me? Let me tell you what I believe, and then you can decide if my ideas ring true to that inner voice, the child within you, the one that speaks to you at night when you are in bed, dreaming your dreams and imagining your future.
The Force is real.
Ever since the age of eight, when I used to carry my C-3PO action figure in my pocket like a hidden treasure, like a trusted friend, I understood the power of my sense of self worth. The Golden One, the Ewoks called C-3PO, mistaking him for a god. There was no mistake. We are all gods. As the fictional, but ever so wise, Jedi master Yoda said, luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. But sometimes we forget this universal and ancient wisdom. Children understand it naturally. They are more connected to the magic of the Universe. They sense the sacredness in everything, including themselves.
Why can’t we all be like my favorite character in Star Wars? R2-D2 is the droid who always saves the day at least once in every film. But what’s really special about this resourceful sidekick is that he’s never had a full memory wipe. The protocol after every mission out and about in the galaxy is that each droid receives a memory wipe in order to prevent classified information from falling into enemy hands. But Artoo is the rare droid who has generations of galactic history in his memory. It’s like having access to all your past lives and the evolution of your soul which would explain your current life’s purpose or mission.
Why do we have to forget who we are? Why can’t we remember we are all gods and goddesses on a divine mission of love in this journey toward enlightenment? The droid knows the answer. Start asking the questions.