Question Everything: Overcoming Passivity in a Perilous World

By Lisbeth Ann Williams

Question Everything is a book about nature. It is about our human nature and Mother Nature—and our intimate relationship with her. You will be compelled, after reading this book, to see yourself as part of Nature and not something separate. You will be made to understand that Nature is our greatest teacher. You will come away with a different perspective, having been made to see and to question those things which you have unconsciously accepted.

The author has attempted to shed light on issues that have been previously ignored. She poses questions that will stimulate your understanding of humanity’s role in the world. You will be roused from your apathy about those subjects to which you have remained sightless and numb. You will be encouraged to recognize and value the importance of air, water, soil, and sunlight and know that we cannot continue to take them for granted or to exploit them. This book will awaken you to the sad plight of global warming, species loss, climate change, greed, and violence, to racial, political, and general imbalance. At the same time, you will see that we have the means by which we can solve these problems.

Although the author does not have the answers to the growing planetary dilemma in which we find ourselves, we can, by questioning everything, find the answers that will guide our planet toward healing and the bringing forth of a new paradigm. We can have a world without violence. We can have peace on Earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisbeth Ann Williams
• Release date: Jul 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005543662

Book preview

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Introduction

Many of us, growing up in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were touched deeply by the music that was created during that euphoric time. We were young, and we were invincible. Strangers flashed the peace sign to strangers. We believed that peace was possible.

Cat Stevens implored us to board the peace train. This was a song that needed to be played as loud as you dared, so you could feel its power. It was a time when the words to the music spoke of possibilities.

With John Lennon, we imagined no wars and everyone living in peace.

The Moody Blues encouraged us to open our hearts. So we opened and we stretched and we widened, to encompass a world without hate.

The Youngbloods urged us to get together and love one another.

It was a time when so many believed in love, not war. It was a magical time.

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Introduction

to the Second Edition

I began writing Question Everything in 2013. Many of the ideas I wrote about had been percolating for more than a decade. They were written in my journal and on numerous loose scraps of paper, which I eventually began to organize into something more cohesive. The first edition, after many months of laborious assembling and cutting and pasting, finally materialized into a book. It’s only been three years since the original book was published; however, I feel that the world at that time was not yet ready for it. The recent pandemic has caused upheaval in so many lives. Perhaps now the time is right, when so many are already asking questions. Perhaps now this book will be better received.

Nearly every single life has been touched in some way by COVID. Most of us know at least one person who has become ill or died from this virus. It has awakened the world from the lethargy into which it had fallen. Not only the pandemic, but many other events are bringing people to their knees, causing them to rethink and reevaluate what they have held to be true and what is truly important. Recent events are a test for humanity. There was an insurrection in our country’s capital. Police brutality has been brought under scrutiny. There is dissension everywhere you turn. We have Trumpsters fighting Democrats, vaxxers versus antivaxxers, right–to–life fundamentalists versus women’s rights, environmentalists versus oil and gas proponents, and the list goes on. Added to our human–caused problems, we have the growing threat of global warming. Alarms are going off in the form of wildfires, extensive droughts, and an increase in the number and ferocity of tornadoes and hurricanes. COVID has taken front and center stage, distracting us from the bigger, more consequential challenges that our planet faces.

There is a heightened sense of anxiety. Many people are suffering from depression, and suicides are becoming more common. But this is our opportunity to delve deep. This is the time to question. We cannot wait for things to return to normal. Normal does not exist. It’s time for humans to learn to coexist. We must accept one another in spite of our differences. I’m not talking only about our racial and ethnic differences. We must accept our differences of opinion. Can we learn to love each other despite the fact that another person’s views may not agree with ours? Can we work alongside one another for common goals? Can we allow others the freedom to think for themselves and not try to force our own beliefs on them? Are we willing to listen to other points of view?

If the current state of our world, and maybe even your own life, is causing you to think about things you have never before thought about, you are to be congratulated. We must stop taking our lives—and the life of our planet—for granted. The attempted coup in our nation's capital was not the answer to people’s frustrations. Staging riots and feeding the hungry mouth of anger will not satiate it. Ranting and raving on social media and spreading lies will not bring forth healing. The time has come for humanity to grow. That growth will not come without growing pains. Things could get much worse before they get better. This is our opportunity to elevate human consciousness. Will we choose to allow our basest nature to sink our world into darkness? Or will we turn toward the light and the dawning of a new age and a time of peace?

Shamans, mystics, and elders of indigenous peoples worldwide have spoken of the changes they foresaw and that we are now witnessing. Scientists predict that we may be headed for the sixth mass extinction on our planet. Human beings were the cause, rather than massive environmental changes occurring naturally, that precipitated previous extinctions. What human beings have come to accept as normal must be reconsidered. What if we have been wrong?

We have made substantial progress, but what if we have drawn the wrong conclusions and made false assumptions by allowing only our intelligence to rule, rather than our hearts? There has never been a more crucial time in history for humans to question every single aspect of the life we have come to accept.

But let’s not focus on what is wrong in the world. Clearly, we have a lot of work to do. Let us instead look at this as an opportunity to bring wholeness and health back to our planet. Every other species knows that its ultimate purpose is to ensure the survival of future generations. We need to ensure survival for our grandchildren and for the generations that follow. We have been selfish. We have been incredibly ignorant and violent, but this is our opportunity to usher in wisdom and understanding. Once we understand that we are all connected—that we are spiritual beings, not just human beings—we create an opening to a higher, collective consciousness. Can we all rise, collectively, to meet these challenges?

I had the privilege recently of listening to talks given by several speakers in the Earthkeepers Summit. Author Andrew Harvey suggests that we embark on sacred activism. He asks, What breaks your heart? I invite you to look around at the pain and hurt that are so prevalent in our world at this time and determine what you find most heart–wrenching. This will give you a clue as to what you can do to fire up your own activism. We must each do our part, and it will take all of us together to turn the tide. I’m not a surfer. In fact, I can barely swim. But I ask you: Are you willing to be drowned by the wave of apathy that is sweeping toward us, or will you rise to the top and ride it out to a new paradigm for mankind?

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Chapter I

Rocking the Boat

This book is intended to rock the boat of your belief system. It is meant to incite an avalanche of questioning, to create a breakdown and rearranging of current paradigms. It is intended to bring awareness to you, its readers, helping you to see the many problems facing our world. While it touches on a multitude of subjects, I implore you to read it with an open mind. The topics discussed may invoke in you a feeling of unrest. You may feel shocked, disheartened, or even angered by the questions I raise. Some of you may find it blasphemous. You may resist the scrutiny aimed at those elements of modern life that have become part of the status quo. Statements in the following paragraphs will entice you to think outside the box. They are meant to challenge you to question without judgment or a sense of righteousness and to ponder with a sense of curiosity. It is my hope that you will be motivated to make changes for future generations, and most importantly, for our beloved planet. It has been too long taken for granted.

If you grew up in one of the more progressive states during the 1960s and early 1970s, you may have paraded around in bell–bottom jeans and proudly displayed the peace sign to passersby. Perhaps you drove around in a VW Bug or a hippie bus that you adorned with bumper stickers reflecting your rebellious beliefs. These were bold statements like "Make Love, Not War, or War Is Not the Answer, or even a simple, flowery peace sign. One of the more popular maxims, Question Authority, reflected the words of Timothy Leary, the psychedelic guru of the times, who is known for saying, Think for yourself and question authority. But 200 years before his time, one of America’s Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, was quoted as saying, It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." In the following pages, I hope to confirm in your mind that this is true. It is our inalienable right to question authority; it is our duty and our obligation to question every belief that we have accepted as true.

Beyond the basic physical requirements, such as air, water, food, shelter, and warmth, all species deserve freedom. We all desire the freedom to be who we were born to be and to live the life that we were designed to live. Modern human beings, unlike other species, are not content to take only what they need. Neither are they content to live and let live. They have a very bad habit of denying freedom to others in an unnatural attempt to control the world and others around them. Life is miraculous, but it is also challenging. The success of most species depends to some extent upon survival of the fittest, but mostly it depends on their symbiotic relationships with other species and their ability to adapt to change.

Our human success has endured because of our cleverness rather than our physical strength. However, we have allowed intelligence to take precedence over wisdom and remained ignorant of the fact that all species depend upon one another. It is in our denying others their right to be here that we have grossly misunderstood our own. We are each one thread in the complex pattern of the fabric of life.

We are often conflicted because we have so many others telling us who and what we should be: society, the government, our families, our churches, and even our friends. When our gut feelings do not agree with everything we have been told, it creates discord at a deep level. This subconscious discontent results, for many, in mild to severe depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, or any number of social misbehaviors. The peace that we crave will arrive when we finally honor who we are, ignoring outside pressure, and at the same time grant others the freedom to agree or disagree with us.

A small percentage of us have spent our lives on the outskirts of society, observing and rarely joining in, because we did not fit in. Perhaps you are one who has lived apart from the mainstream, avoided the mad rush up the ladder, and managed to remain out of reach of the vacuum of consumerism. You may have led a simpler life, followed a different drummer, a less traveled path. Or your world may have suddenly been turned upside down, bringing you back to where you began, to begin again. You may embark upon what Joseph Campbell has called the hero’s journey. When the journey is done, you emerge with a Holy Grail of sorts, a pair of new eyes with which to see the world. The Holy Grail is the wisdom you have acquired through your suffering. This book is the story of such a journey and the discoveries that were made along the way. It is an invitation to others to begin their own journeys.

I believe that some of us are vaguely aware, as children, of our true purpose. Unfortunately, we are conditioned by family and society to fit into preconceived molds, so we often discard and forget our biggest dreams. We were not supported, or we may have been laughed at for our grandiose ideals. We never set out on the hero’s journey because we were afraid and unwilling to trust that we could survive the adventure. We closed the shutters of our inner eyes and surrendered our sight to the will of others, handing them the reins to a destination not of our own choosing. We buried our dreams in the deepest recesses of our soul and then distracted ourselves from the painful remembrance of them.

Have those dreams begun to steal back into your awareness? Or have you been hit in the head by the great cosmic 2x4, pulling and pushing you, kicking and screaming, into a life that was not the one you had planned? You may awaken and embark upon a voyage into the unknown, steering carefully and moving toward something greater than your wildest imaginings; or you may feign indifference, lie down upon the lifeboat, and let it float you aimlessly through a meaningless life.

Those of us who have not been so easily caught in the web of society's expectations have come to see our connection to other life forms. We have had those Aha! moments when wisdom and understanding dawned, and we were touched intimately by something greater than ourselves. Our hearts were opened up, allowing us to grow unhindered by the filters that blind most people. The majority of people sleepwalk through life, distracted, manipulated, and closed off, but we remain wide awake.

Can we make a difference? Will our words reach a few, like a fairy quietly whispering in their ears? Are we willing to be a voice speaking on behalf of this planet? Can we dedicate our lives to all the wildlife and plants that have suffered immeasurably from the selfish actions of our human brothers and sisters? Can we be the great example, showing others how human beings can learn to peacefully coexist, not only with each other, but with all species?

The ideas set forth here are intended to allure you and to induce you to begin asking questions. It’s time to make a shift and wake up our digitally dulled senses to the imminent and inevitable winds of change. Our world is facing disaster. If you believe that you are powerless to change the world, think again. If you have always lived passively, ignoring those things that you believed you could do nothing about, stop and think again. If you have been unmindful of the world’s problems, realize that it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to recognize the peril our planet now faces. We can make a difference every single moment of every single day. Not only can we do this; we must do this. Our planet and our very lives are at the edge of a precipice. In asking those questions that you have never before dared to ask, you will be guided to a new awareness and a higher understanding. You will begin to know on a deep level that all life is sacred.

This book could potentially rebirth the peace movement, because peace is not just the absence of war. Peace is living in harmony with all the people, animals, and plants that we share this life with. We need to begin questioning the morality of our governments. We need to consider, not the control of weapons, but the very existence of them in a world where peace is no longer an option but a requirement for a new age. It is time to end our love affair with power. We must recognize that love is the only real power, and only love for our world and for each other can heal our planet.

It is my hope that this book will not merely be read and set aside, but that it will be absorbed and embodied, empowering its readers to make their lives a living legacy. As you read the following chapters, consider keeping a pencil and a piece of paper beside you, because questions may arise that have not yet been asked. If we all begin asking our questions, the answers will come. It may be difficult at first to push over the walls with which we have boxed ourselves into a restricted set of beliefs. But if you are willing to push your thinking beyond illusory boundaries, you may find surprising ideas flooding your consciousness. You may have a sense of lightness as you discard the burden of your long–held convictions. In order to receive new insights, you must first ask questions. We can create a healthy, peaceful planet. The time to begin is now!

Is peace possible? We may participate in world peace prayers and attend peace rallies, but will this truly give us everlasting peace? Time has a way of erasing the lessons of the past, which is why history tends to repeat itself. If we usher in the light of love and hope, darkness can be dispelled—overpowered without force—delivering the world from the shadows. This is the magic of light. Are we willing to allow the light to shine through us? Can we offer our lives as vessels through which light may shine, in order to drive the gloom from our planet?

We are simultaneously insignificant yet valuable, inconsequential yet precious. We are as important as we choose to be. Life will go on with or without us, but we can choose to use our life in a manner that will benefit all. This is the magic of intention. Will we continue to sleepwalk through our lives, or will we rouse ourselves, sit up, and take notice of the world around us? Are we willing to step out of our comfort zones and our personal egos? Is it possible that our lives are not about us, with our problems and crises and wants and desires, but about how we can be of service to the world around us?

Are you at peace with your soul? Is all well within your world? Or do you have that nagging, unsettling feeling that keeps tugging and pulling, gently or not so gently, urging you from the deep fathoms of self–righteousness? Do you hear the whispering that there is more truth to be uncovered? Are you grasping, searching, reaching, striving, for some unknown something that you cannot quite wrap your mind around? Do you know, deep down in those dark, hidden recesses of your being, that some things simply are not right?

Will you continue to ignore, to distract, and turn your back upon yourself, in order to fit in, comply, obey, and stop the waves from cresting? At what point will you honor your soul’s request to resurrect it from the shackles of the status quo? Are you ready to embark upon the quest? If not, the universe may catapult you out upon the road unexpectedly, baring you and rendering you vulnerable to the uncontrollable elements of strife. It’s the wakeup call for which you did not set the alarm. This is our earthly reckoning, which will not wait for some heavenly myth. We must pay our dues now, not after we have crossed the finish line of life.

When life points us in a direction, it’s best to not resist. Set your sail. Begin the journey. Seek the holy relic of your soul’s longing to know itself, and know that the journey never really ends. There is yet more knowledge to be uncovered in your excavation of the truth—every day, every hour. It calls and beckons you to go forth, to reconsider, and to awaken to new ideas as ancient as Earth herself. Open and do not close yourself to the raging storm within you. You will feel alone, cast out by the world at large, for this is a lonely journey, but know that others have gone before you. You will recognize them by the light