The tragedy unfolding in Israel, in Palestine, is an Old
Testament, eye poking, drama.
Retribution and revenge are natural human responses to actual or
perceived wrongs. However, when they
become profound, entrenched spiritual trappings of a society, as is becoming
more evident every day, that society is courting doom. The psychic damage done to a people by a
State that encourages and institutionalizes revenge is societally damning and right
action crippling. Revenge blinds us, we
blind others -- all becomes black.
Darkness is falling across Israel and the United States. Our two countries are the present masters of revenge. Israel is a product of and hostage to the Holocaust. The current American military and security apparatus' are products of and hostages to the tragedy of 9/11. Governments don't make good ascetics, sages or contemplatives. They have a mandate to protect their citizens. And as present situations and history show -- they can be equally effective and horrific at this. Governments will never solve the problem of evil done in response to evil -- we, citizens will have to do this.
We will have to viscerally connect to the dead child in Palestine and the dead son in Afghanistan. We can no longer hide, emotionally safe, behind the actions of our governments. When a rocket rips apart a child anywhere in the world, the blood is all over all of us. We must make ourselves look in the inconsolable Mothers eyes. We can no longer look away, disengaged, at our selfish, protected remove.
I voted for and asked others to vote for President
Obama. He is a Nobel Peace Prize
Winner. It's time to make him act like
one. The party of Jesus was defeated
because it was not the party of Jesus.
It was the party of Peter -- the denier.
Denying right or denying evil are flaws in the same cloth. Whether one is a Christian or not Jesus'
words echo hard across his homeland and ours -- " You
have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I
say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the
right cheek, turn to him the other also."
We must lay aside our strict ideologies and
cherished wrongs and find common purpose with all humanity: our neighbor or a
grizzled Afghan or a Palestinian militant and stop the insanity. Choosing to destroy the greater world's
children to protect our own is a bargain we will not survive.