|
|
 |
|
 Forgive Them, Father I woke up one morning thinking about the overly zealous glint I'd seen in President Bush's eyes on clips I'd caught from one of his "making Iraq free" speeches. Scary. I'm thinking about Bob Woodward, around the time that his book was first released, talking about how our president makes "gut" decisions on his own -- not the all-night-in-depth-discussions-with-many-advisors we've heard about when other presidents were in the throes of crisis. Scary again. I'm thinking about that night in March 2003 watching the eerie green glow of the Baghdad night as CNN covered our imminent attack of this great city. Through the horror my heart was feeling, I kept hearing the words "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do," and somehow that phrase remains excruciatingly appropriate as the months and years have gone by.
I'm thinking about an Oprah show maybe two weeks prior to our illustrious Iraq invasion. Please know that I'm a big Oprah fan. I think her spirit is stupendous and the healing energy she brings to our world, an invaluable gift. However, on one of the segments of this particular show we saw Oprah and her crew at, I believe, a navy boot camp. This was "graduation day." These kids had been training arduously for weeks and we were there to salute them and offer our gratitude for their willingness to go over to Iraq and fight for "our freedom." (I didn't resonate with that then, and I surely don't now.) We saw clips of these young people going through their paces. We saw and heard the drill sergeant bellowing at them, "Are you ready to kill for your country?" and this great roar of a YEAH! as the response. And then "Are you ready to die for your country?" And another roar of thunderous assent. I looked at these shiny young faces -- our children -- 18,19, 20 year olds -- and thought, dear God, we're training our children to kill and shipping them off to hell. What's going on here?
Oprah, in her ever-generous way, had the mess tent outfitted to look like the Waldorf, with white table cloths, little vases and wine glasses. Tuxedoed waiters served a lobster dinner to our newly anointed warriors, who had been up and running for over 24 hours. I don't know about you, but a lobster dinner and a glass of wine would be the last thing my stomach would want at the end of a 24-hour-plus day. However, the film crew captured a good time being had by all and to complete the festivities, the "soon to be shipped off" were each given a camera with which they could record their upcoming experiences. Arg!
On some level all this seems like a wonderfully thoughtful event. And in the context of the world in which we live, it was just lovely. But, I'm questioning the appropriateness of celebrating this world context any longer and continuing to feed into this grossly dysfunctional mass consciousness. How can we even begin to wonder about the ever so publicized prison atrocities when we've meticulously and methodically indoctrinated psychologically and emotionally immature hearts and minds with violence? During my health crisis, I had the profound gift of another type of indoctrination. Though it wasn't the 24/7 of boot camp, it was extremely intense in its own way. It had to do with exploring the vast resources of our "inner space" which turn out to be the creator of the "outer spaces" that we project. When we don't have our 'inner' in good shape, our "outer" is a train wreck, hence the state of our world today. All the posturing and the blah, blah, blah about making the world safe for democracy seem to me to be just that. If the bottom line does not embrace our having deep respect and compassion for all of life, we're just shouting into a meringue. My indoctrination, which literally saved my life, was Love - what my spiritual teacher, Hilda Charleton, referred to as the glue of the Universe. We can call it God, The Force, The Source, Spirit, Universal Energy, whatever -- it is the all pervasive creative and healing force of the Universe. It is not owned and operated by any one special religion or group. It is the energy that unceasingly beats all our hearts and breathes us all - and moves the tides in the oceans and blooms the flowers in Spring. It is Love - It is Life. Its joyful expression can be experienced within our own hearts anytime we choose to "go there" and connect with it.
This energy teaches us that we are all one - despite our different cultures and languages and ideologies. We are family. We are brothers and sisters. As Dr. Henry Grayson said in his article in the April 2004 Oprah magazine, "We share the same last name, which is God." So why are we relentlessly pursuing ever more atrocious methods for torturing and killing each other, with the added perk of perhaps rendering our planet uninhabitable for millennia? Do we really want to continue down this road?
The enormous economic complexities, which clearly call the shots in our world (no pun intended), are admittedly a mystery to me. Truth be told, I feel that very few have a handle on them. Nevertheless, if each of us (corporate moguls and all) were daily tuned to the integrity channel and had the well being of the planet and all who reside on her as the ongoing goal, we'd have a much different world.
Let us please reinvent the education of our children. It all starts with that very basic universal law: what you put out comes back to you. Violence begets violence. Love begets love. Creativity begets more creativity. (We could all benefit from a refresher course in this law, GW included.)
By our love and caring let us teach the children love and caring and encourage them to delight in the differences they perceive in others instead of fearing them. By our respect for all living things let us teach them deep respect and appreciation for all of life. Let the child in all of us "grown ups" morph into our minds and hearts a new wonder and enthusiasm for life that thrills us and lifts our dreams for our own lives and the well being of our world to exciting new heights. The challenge is enormous. And the only place to start is here - in our own bodies, minds and hearts -- each one of us caring in a more profound and ever expanding way. Being in that place will guide us to what we are here to do. And we'd better do it soon.
Links to Elizabeth's "Come Home to Your Heart" columns: |
