Valuable, Precious, Seen

We live on a lifeboat called Earth. It is a fragile place, and the life on it is even more fragile. Put the name of the most despicable person you can think of in the forefront of your mind. This person is valuable, precious, and seen. Consider his or her point of view. I mean it. Let go of all you and inhabit the skin of someone you don't care for. Empathy, putting aside my truth to listen to your truth. It doesn't just happen. 

Here is someone I see in the news a lot: Kim Jong Un, a guy puts his stamp of approval camps 80,000 and 130,000 inmates held for political reasons. It cites evidence of systematic murder, including infanticide, and torture, persecution of Christians, rape, forced abortions, starvation and overwork leading to “countless deaths”. Now, go look up at the staggering loss of life during the Korean War in North Korea. If I had been born in North Korea and learned that one of the richest, most powerful nations on Earth led to the destruction of 30% of the people in my country, I might struggle to forgive. I might feel that nothing I have done is that bad, even if I made people who disagree with me slaves. I can feel empathy for a despot threating to kill me. Empathy does not make the despot right. It makes me merciful. 

All this empathy also makes me pray for chains to be broken in the mind and for captives to be set free. By the way, I am of the firm belief that the universe is created by a being of love who values everything in every crevice of this universe. I am unbendable in the belief. Hence I know that I'm heard. I fight against the hate with my whole soul. Back in 1908, Tolstoy was writing to Gandi: It is natural for men to help and to love one another, but not to torture and to kill one another. These words were written in a time of great turmoil and people were fighting with every breath warning about what was coming - WWI, WWII, etc. I pray for our better natures to rise. 

We need to love, strong love that stands against injustice not with violence, but with kindness. Don't use the hate speech of your enemies. Believe that better days will come. Cry out for leaders who are will to pay the price of love. Currently, the world is heating up with turmoil that I fear will lead to grim self-inflicted adversity planetwide. Let us evolve. If they throw a nuclear weapon at us because they are bullies and hateful, what will be our response? The stakes are very high. Our playground battles have escalated with toys that cause mass destruction. Will we act like children or grown-ups? Join the love team.  Blessed are the merciful, for they receive mercy.   

Whoever you are angry at, show mercy today. If a madman leads your nation, remember that insanity is a disease of the mind. The madman needs care and help. Not hate. Not curses. Frame every thought with love. Don't stuff cotton in your ears and act like injustice isn't happening. Call it out in love. Respond with the full force of truth, but truth not bound by love is not truth. Love is not hotheaded. It's not unkind. It doesn't fail. Ever. Make love your life's purpose. 

All are valuable, precious, and seen. ALL. Let us love one another. 

A quote for your pocket...

Here are the closing words of Tolstoy to Gandi:

What are wanted for the Indian as for the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, and the Russian, are not Constitutions and Revolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many ingenious devices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation, nor powerful explosives, nor all sorts of conveniences to add to the enjoyment of the rich, ruling classes; nor new schools and universities with innumerable faculties of science, nor an augmentation of papers and books, nor gramophones and cinematographs, nor those childish and for the most part corrupt stupidities termed art — but one thing only is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific superstitions — the truth that for our life one law is valid — the law of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind. Free your minds from those overgrown, mountainous imbecilities which hinder your recognition of it, and at once the truth will emerge from amid the pseudo-religious nonsense that has been smothering it: the indubitable, eternal truth inherent in man, which is one and the same in all the great religions of the world.

Close to the Bone: Barbara

Hi, folks, this week I'm going to write my version of The Valley of Dry Bones in the first of a series called Close to the Bone.

When I was in my twenties, I joined a cult. It was a short-lived thing that was all about religious propaganda to control others. This propaganda was wrapped up in a big quilt called the ABSOLUTE TRUTH. Of course, there was a booming preacher (a modern day apostle) called Brother because we would not want to be too familiar. He had a direct line to God; everyone needed to hear his message to be part of the true church. He answered to no one but God.

Under his guidance, we learned important truths. Church had to be attended at least four times a week. Friends outside the Church weren't a good idea. Birth control wasn't a good idea. Sending your children to public school wasn't a good idea. God had big plans, and you needed to be in the Ship of Safety.  Demonic forces were roaming around out there that would take you down...Trying to live up to this holy propaganda was sort of like having all the flesh ripped from your body and leaving you as a pile of dry bones.

So I stuck to this mess for almost eight years. I never did leave; the cult imploded around me. I wish I had left, but I was shredded instead. There is nothing noble or redeeming about my story. Toward the end, my friend Barbara was losing weight. Too much. She was probably under a hundred pounds. I'd found it all. I had gained three children and seventy pounds in three and a half years. Barbara, like me, would give large chunks of her money to the church. We didn't need anything; God was on our side. I'd saved up some extra money from collecting aluminum cans (five dollars) and took the money over to her house to help her meet her rent.  I also wrote a little poem about how on the other side of life we would find peace. Barbara took the money. I hugged her and said goodbye.

A few hours later, I was at church when I was told Barbara drove her car onto a train track and stopped. Beautiful Barbara was crushed by a screaming train on her way to pay the rent. I cannot express the panic that I felt when I learned how she had died.  We were God's chosen people. Weren't we? I was numb and bleeding inside. I kept saying the same old religious propaganda but my belief in the ABSOLUTE TRUTH died with Barbara. I am crying while writing this. It was 25 years ago, but part of me always lives in that moment. My friend took her life and where was I?

I had my part in it. I'd tied myself in knots trying to support an unsupportable vision of God brought to me by an uneducated self-styled apostle who I should have declared as wrong.  Who knew there was so much power in just standing up and saying something is wrong? Everyone but me. Here is my message. If there is something you need to stand up for, please do. Please. Please. Please. Even if it sets the world on fire. I am standing here, handing you the torch.

Thanks for dropping by. I will continue with Close to the Bone.  I hope that my story will inform yours.

Instead of a doodle I'm posting a picture of Barbara.  A light lost.

Paraphrase from the book of Ezekiel 37: 2a-3:

I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. The Lord asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”