Marianne Williamson
Marianne Williamson
Marianne Deborah Williamson is an American spiritual teacher, author and lecturer. She has published eleven books, including four New York Times number one bestsellers. She is the founder of Project Angel Food, a meals-on-wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los Angeles area, and the co-founder of The Peace Alliance, a grassroots campaign supporting legislation to establish a United States Department of Peace. She serves on the Board of Directors of the RESULTS organization, which works to...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSelf-Help Author
Date of Birth8 July 1952
CityHouston, TX
CountryUnited States of America
I would never, ever in my life say, 'I want to go to Washington to heal the soul of Washington.'
In my first book, 'A Return to Love', I wrote about things in the outer world that need to change - how we need to ameliorate deep poverty, heal the earth, end war.
Hope lies in having more faith in the power of God to heal us than in the power of anything to hurt or destroy us. In realizing that as children of God we are bigger than our problems, we have the power at last to confront them.
What is happening in politics today is a similar process to what happened in the medical world a few decades ago: realizing that there's more to healing than just addressing symptoms. Primary paradigm when it comes to dealing with political and social disease is allopathic: Pass a law, lock someone up, engage in warfare. And the state of the world today makes it clear that such allopathic measures have not exactly brought peace to all.
There is no way that carrying fifty or sixty extra pounds is easy on your heart, your lungs, or your liver. That's a fact. Every person in the world, no matter what size, shape, or form they are, deserves respect and love. But that doesn't mean we are supposed to pretend that something is healthy when in fact it is not.
Truth will always reassert itself, given a symbolic three days. Three days represents the time it takes between the crucifixion and the resurrection, between an open-hearted response to hurt and the experience of rebirth that will always follow.
In the Holy Relationship, it's understood that we all have unhealed places, and that healing is the purpose of our being with another person. We don't hide our weaknesses, but rather we understand that the relationship is a context for healing through mutual forgiveness.
The secret of success is to realize that the crisis on our planet is much larger than just deciding what to do with your own life, and if the system under which we live the structure of western civilization begins to collapse because of our selfishness and greed, then it will make no difference whether you have $1 million dollars when the crash comes or just $1.00. The only work that will ultimately bring any good to any of us is the work of contributing to the healing of the world.
Sometimes a miracle is a change in material conditions, such as physical healing. At other times, it is a psychological or emotional change.
To appeal to God is to appeal to the action of universal love. Love never fails to come when we call to it, but it will always seem to fail us when our bidding is self-centered. The most powerful prayers are simply for God's will to be done, because God's will is healing for all living things.
The power of nonviolence is not circumstance-specific. It is as applicable to the problems that confront us now, as to problems that confronted generations in the past. It is not a medicine or a solution so much as a healing process. It is the active spiritual immune system of humanity.
The Department of Peace would take a more human approach to healing our society, looking not merely for ways we can destroy an enemy, but for more powerful ways to create new friends. While the State Department engages in international diplomacy, there is no domestic parallel. There is no department seeking to harness the power of a nonviolent heart.
When we're in our right minds, we are hopeful. Because the arc of the moral universe does bend toward justice, nature does bend toward healing, and the heart does bend toward love.
The world is healed one loving thought at a time.