As a rule, Lightworkers are a compassionate bunch dedicated to some type of service. Being a Lightworker simply means that you came to the planet not just to take, but to give back a little more than you received; to help bring some spiritual light to the planet. However, this is a daunting job in a profit-driven, globalized, materialistic world. It requires a tricky balancing act of empathy, compassion, and toughness, essentially becoming the peaceful warrior.* It requires listening to your heart. It requires you to grasp what happened in the past, see what is happening now, and sense what is coming down the pike in the future. It requires you to feel for those who have been displaced or harmed, to realize that it could be you or your loved ones next.

I have Lightworker friends who refuse to watch the news or keep up with world events because it is too depressing. They say it brings them down, especially if they are empaths. They literally feel the pain they are observing. Nevertheless, despite how Airy Fairy Spiritual we may feel, we all volunteered to come to University Earth to help raise its energy into the love and healing vibration. I guess we didn’t read the fine print in the Earth Manual very carefully, because I suspect a lot of us were shocked with how low the vibration was—war, prejudice, hatred, corporate greed, family violence, ego, and so on—and how dense and challengingt it was to move it upwards into love, peace, tolerance, serenity, and sanity.

Still, we came here to make a difference on the material and physical plain, which requires a lot of hard work both metaphysically (prayer, meditation, healing) and physically (getting your hands dirty action in the world). We came here to make life better for ourselves, our children, our neighbors, our coworkers and employees, and our world. Most of us just can’t do it from a cave meditating our lives away and contemplating our navel. This is an action world and only a special few are called to balance the energies from a cave in the Himalayas. Besides, most of us have already taken that Path of Renunciation in prior lives; preparing us for this life of the Active Path of the Soul. It is not easy to stay balanced in the midst of the urban chaos, but we have had the prior training—if we will just remember it.

So, here is an example of something you need to know NOW for it will affect you, your friends and loved ones, our neighbors, and the poor and middle class in our country. The United States Senate has put forth a Republican health care bill without hearings or public input, and may try to pass it within the week. From the draft that was just put out, it appears it will have devastating consequences for tens of millions of Americans. It will take a meat cleaver to Medicaid; cutting $800 billion (yes you read right, billion) from the program over the next ten years while giving wealthy families in this country a $600 billion-dollar tax cut. What you may not know is:

• 49% of the babies born in the U.S. are delivered through Medicaid Insurance—that’s half the kids in this country. We have friends and church members who could not have afforded or received prenatal care and delivery if it were not for Medicaid.

• 76% of disabled children receive their insurance and care through Medicaid.

• 30% of disabled adults (including many veterans) receive their insurance and care (wheel chairs, home health nurses, medicines, home handicapped improvements, transportation, and medical care) from Medicaid.

• It is estimated the Medicaid cutbacks will devastate hospitals, nursing homes, medical suppliers, home health agencies, ambulance and medical transportation companies-- many will be forced to close—and all the people who work for them. Is this the Jobs Program the government wants to inspire—massive layoffs in the medical services industry?

All in all, this terrible bill may deprive 25 million people from receiving affordable health coverage and negatively affect another 25 million in the health services industry. Just from the data above, will this affect any of you or anyone you know? Should you care? I trust the answer to that is yes. When Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” he wasn’t just talking about the people next door or in your neighborhood. He saw everyone as our neighbor. How are you going to help your neighbors regarding this inhumane legislation?

Here are some of the things you can do about this vital health care issue, as well as the many other critical matters that will continue to crop up (take your pick): the environment and climate change, racism and sexism, immigration, LGBT rights, media rights, foreign interventions and war, Russian hacking of our elections, voting rights, easing of banking and business regulations--yes, the list goes on and on.

• Stay informed. I don’t care if it is The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, CNN or MSNBC, John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight or The Daily Show. Find something that keeps you reasonably up to date with relatively responsible coverage of the issues.

• If the news depresses you, you are a Lightworker—so bring some light to the subject. If you are horrified by the treatment of the disabled protesters by the Capitol Police, or the nerve gas attack on the children in Syria, or another terrorist car plowing into innocent civilians, another mass shooting, or whatever pushes your pain and compassion buttons, then immediately say a prayer for all involved (victims, oppressor, terrorist, police, family and friends, country) and surround everyone involved with Purple-Violet Light (the flame of transmutation of dark energy into light) followed by a beautiful Golden Light. You have just worked multi-dimensionally to raise their vibrational energy and yours. Make sure the prayer is without judgment or vengeful feelings, but that all involved will choose lighter paths in the future and that we learn the spiritual lessons surrounding the issue.

• Get off your butt and do something. Attend a town hall with your representative. Write letters to or call your representatives and senators. Volunteer for a nonprofit (Big Brothers/Sisters, Camillus House, Lauren’s Kids, etc.). Write a blog or a book. Cathy and I registered voters in our neighborhood door-to-door before the last election. Help the candidates you believe in get elected (City, County, State and National) so we can truly have public servants who remember who they serve. Bring your light energy into the physical-material world. It creates energy and motion and support. It moves things and gets things done. It is a selfless form of service to others and our world.

• Stay on track and ignore the daily deluge of distractions from the government to the media to the continuous computer updates and spam coming at you from all directions.

Marching is great. You feel very alive and committed, like you are doing something. You are, but it is only one small piece of the puzzle. Real change requires millions of Lightworkers to do the millions of little things that create change. The actions noted above are many of the essential puzzle pieces. The activist Eldridge Cleaver once said, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” Plain and simple, we came down here to be part of the solution!

* The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and This Fight is Our Fight by Elizabeth Warren ought to get you revved up for peaceful warrior action.