Obviously that's a tiny snapshot of this man's life, but it's the relevant piece for this message. 

Fast forward now to December 19, 2010. Just 2 days ago. Vick leads the Eagles to a miraculous comeback in a huge Divisional game on the road against a rival team. After the game I head over to my local neighborhood sports bar to boast to a friend about my teams' wild win. I'm wearing a Vick jersey. Just like the one in the picture below.

 

I'm in that room for less than two minutes before someone yells angrily to me, "Hey, Dog Killer!"

You feelin' the Holiday Cheer yet? 

The Holidays. What are they about? Regardless of what you celebrate, what your believe, who or what you recognize, or don't, as a higher power, the Holidays are at least in part about love, compassion, joy, peace, celebration of life. Holidays. Holy Days. Holiness. Wholeness. One whole. One consciousness. Connectedness.

I learned a beautiful exercise at a Spiritual Retreat a few years back. The exercise has to do with practicing replacing the act of casting judgment upon others (or actively recognizing "separateness") with the act of acknowledging connectedness, or "sameness". In Sanskrit the practice is called Tat Tvam Asi. Loosely translated, that means That Thou Are, or That's Me.

The practice is simple. Each time I notice myself feeling emotionally charged by someone, either pleasantly or unpleasantly, I recite to myself the words Tat Tvam Asi, or That's Me. Why? So that I can acknowledge our inextricable connectedness. So I can practice recognizing that each of us contains the seeds of everything within us - Divine Grace, hatred, compassion, aggression, selflessness, greed. Not that we're acting on all of those seeds, but we contain them. Otherwise we could never recognize them in another.

Since all relationship is a mirror, when I'm reacting to someone else, what's really going on is I'm reacting to them reflecting myself back to me.

I wrote a more thorough blog post exactly one year ago on this. You can read it and watch a short video here: Tat Tvam Asi

I honor Michael Vick, and everyone else in the world who has chosen to grow from their mistakes - no matter how tragic. I honor him for demonstrating the courage to do what it takes to take ownership of those mistakes and then to transform. I honor him for modeling that for us, on a world stage. Because we NEED that kind of modeling. I honor him for reminding me that nothing could ever be inadequate about my truth, and that in every moment of my life I am capable of growing - that I am DESIGNED for growth!

I honor every organization, like The Philadelphia Eagles, and The SPCA, and every individual who demonstrates the courage to give a human the chance to demonstrate the ability to grow and transform from their mistakes.

This isn't about Vick. It isn't about The Eagles. I'm just using that because it's fresh and on Sunday I was called a Dog Killer by a complete stranger for wearing a certain sports jersey.

This is about heightening the collective consciousness of the planet. It's about waking up and transcending the conditioning of our pasts that would have us think it's useful and productive, or at all enlightened to refuse to issue forgiveness and instead propagate the destructive effects of practicing judging.

I want to finish by saying to you, Namaste. In Sanskrit it means I bow to you. Here's a beautiful alternative definition from spiritual teacher and author of the book, Be Here Now, Ram Das:

"I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One."