Being conscious is quite interesting, isn't it? When we wake up every day and return to a state of consciousness, something changes. We are no longer a passive body being operated by an unconscious mind. Suddenly we are a being that is aware of our surroundings. We are able to think rationally and to make intentional choices.

So what is consciousness? Whatever it is, it isn't material. No additional matter is added to our body or our mind when we become conscious in the morning. Therefore consciousness is non-material. It isn't anything that we can touch or see or hand to someone.

Is our consciousness real? If not, we all have great imaginations. But how is it possible that our awareness of everything that we understand and react to in our environment and in other people could be imagination? Almost every human being will agree that our consciousness is real.

Consciousness: It is real even though it can't be proven or measured in a test tube. So if there can be one non-material reality, like human consciousness, why can't there be other non-material reality?

Although God is non-material, He is as real as your consciousness.

The courage of Joan Baez shines through a new documentary about her that aired on PBS recently. Through out her life, Joan has been bold to openly and consistently express her view that violence, even in war, is evil. She has spent her career singing against and protesting violence and war.

However, unlike Joan, it seems that most pacifists (people who believe that violence, even in war, is evil) are in the closet. It seems that people tend to be unwilling to boldly write or speak against war. But not Joan Baez. It was inspiring and challenging to see her lifetime commitment to stand against violence.

It is easy to be a closet pacifist -- to be silently offended by war. However, in our day it seems that almost everybody has come out of the closet to display their beliefs and behaviors. So why shouldn't pacifists?

War has caused humanity far more hurt, destruction, evil, and grief than all the natural disasters in history combined. Isn't it time that people begin to publicly and courageously speak out against it?

I've been a closet pacifist. Since I was a small child I have believed that war is wrong. As a little boy, I used to cry and ask my parents questions like: "Why are there wars?" and "Why do people kill people?" I would say that if I had to go to war that I would rather get shot than to shoot somebody. I don't know why that all my life, I've had such deep feelings against violence and war.

However, I've been mainly silent about my pacifism. Oh, I have written about the non-violence of Gandhi and King and William Lloyd Garrison and Leo Tolstoy, but I have hesitated to say that I agree with them.

Perhaps it takes a lot more courage to be against war than to be for war. The belief in war as a legitimate activity for nations is almost universal. To publicly disagree puts one in the tiniest of minorities. It is much easier to passively be a pacifist than to publicly be one.

The few times that I have expressed my belief in pacifism, the reaction has been one of shock and awe and even offense. So it has been easy to keep quiet about it.

However, after watching the documentary about Joan, I am inspired to say: I believe that war is morally wrong. Violence is not the way to settle disputes between individuals or between nations. As human beings we need to turn away from our reliance on violence and war and begin to practice nonviolence in all our relationships. There are always other options than punching someone in the face or bombing her village.

A landfill is a place used for the disposal of trash by putting it into a huge hole and covering it with dirt. A landfill is a receptacle for filth, junk, and refuse.

As human beings we are all born with an amazing receptacle that I call a mindfill. The human brain is capable of collecting and holding huge amounts of information -- experiences, evaluations, emotions, and details. Just like a landfill the brain is continually receives the stuff of life.

Nowadays landfills have become selective. You can't dump just anything in them anymore. They have standards (values). In order to protect the environment, certain hazardous chemicals and toxic materials are not allowed in landfills.

Many mindfills, however, are still accepting harmful ideas, images, and words that create havoc in their environment. They are still taking toxic thoughts that taunt, torment, and torture their owner. However, a wide open mindfill soon becomes a mental wasteland inhabited by anxiety, worry, guilt, and fear.

A human mindfill is a terrible thing to fill with waste. It is not designed to be a receptacle for filth, but a reservoir of peace. Humans have a choice. A huge hole in the earth can be used as a landfill or as a fresh water lake.

Your mindfill can be overflowing with nonsense, negativity, and nastiness or it can be filled with love, joy, kindness, goodness, and peace. It is your job to make that decision. Don't passively allow our culture and media to stuff your mindfill with toxicity.

Instead open your mindfill to the refreshing rain of hope, encouragement, trust, contentment, and optimism. Why not make your mindfill a reservoir of beauty?

During a recent show, David Letterman said: "I got in my car this morning and the navigation lady wasn't speaking to me. Ouch."

And he's right. It is painful to try to run your life without a navigational system. You just drift around, aimlessly making mistakes and causing pain.

Letterman, referring to having sex with several of his staffers said: "Thanks to the staff for once again putting up with something stupid (he didn't mean his "Stupid Pet Tricks") I've gotten myself involved in." Speaking about his wife, he said: "She has been horribly hurt by my behavior."

Speaking about his sexual exploits, Letterman said: "I'm terribly sorry that I put the staff in that position." Then he said: "The staff here has been wonderfully supportive to me." (Perhaps they were too "supportive." and too cooperative with his sexual agenda.)

Letterman said: "I'd give anything to be hiking on the Appalachian Trail." Now South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford used hiking the Appalachian Trail as a lie to try and cover up his adultery. However, if a person really goes for a nature hike, it can help him find a navigational system.

There is something spiritually moving about being alone in the woods. Image, prestige, money -- all of that means nothing in the wilderness. Life on the Appalachian Trail is simple -- nature all around you and the voice of GPS (God's Positioning System) within you.

David Letterman said: "If you hurt a person, and it's your responsibility, you try to fix it." Even though the navigation lady may not be speaking to Letterman, if he will get away from the hustle and get quiet in nature, God's Positioning System will talk to him and show him how to heal the hurt he has caused himself and others.

P.S. God's Positioning System will also work for you and me, if we will but take the time to listen and obey.

Our popular culture has developed a rather odd and twisted belief in regards to morality. Popular culture teaches us that everybody's view of morals is right (at least for them) -- that nobody can tell another person that her/his behavior is immoral.

Nowadays we are constantly being brainwashed with the idea that each person gets to determine what is right or wrong for herself. If you think that a behavior is okay, then it is alright for you to do it, no matter what anybody else thinks or says. Not only that, if anyone should criticize your behavior, she/he is judgmental, prejudice, racist, old fashioned, and filled with hate. Society continually gives us this message: "You're a good girl or good boy no matter what you do, as long as you believe it to be morally right."

However, our society's view of virtue is contradictory. It tells us: "Everybody's correct and nobody's correct." We are taught that everybody is correct in their self-righteous justification of their own behavior, but nobody is correct in their opinion that another person's behavior is immoral. We are morally right in our self-justification, but wrong if we believe our moral standards apply to anyone else.

This contemporary belief that everybody is morally right and that there are no absolutes anymore, is becoming a moral absolute. It has been called "absolute moral relativism." How ironic -- about the only thing absolute now seems to be this unfounded idea that morality is relative. When anybody publicly disagrees with that viewpoint, they are condemned for thinking for themselves and not dancing to society's self-destructive song.

And should anyone actually acknowledge that the shared moral views of the majority of human societies through out human history are correct; such as, "sex outside of marriage is morally wrong;" look out. The sparks will fly.