April 17, 2022
War churns afresh on our earth. And I wonder, why? Not only why now, in Ukraine. Why, in Eritrea? Why Myanmar? Palestine? Afghanistan? Why?
Poets and priests, statesmen and soldiers have each in their way grappled and opined upon war and peace, over time immemorial. I'm no bard, nor any kind of wise old head, no. Still, I wonder.
10,000 years, or more, we've been riding this terrible merry-go-round, spinning on one violent struggle after another. And we just keep buying more tickets, trading more treasure for bombs and guns to aim at some, instead of securing shelter and sustenance for all. Don't you ever wonder about that?
While so many thousands, all around the world, are suffering, I trust that we each ask, in our own time: "What can I do?".
Well, we must choose, yes? Pick one side to support, the other to despise?
Yet thus, the vicious cycle's roots are not cut, but fed.
My mind and heart, too, vie in their own eternal contest. Do yours'?
Halfway 'round the world from me, Mr. Putin's "dirty little war" is entering it's third week. There's also generations of tension accreted, at the Khyber Pass. And the West Bank. Generations, too, of murder, open hostility and cultural warfare or simple neglect towards Americans of color, the physically and mentally challenged, those trapped in houselessness,
one following another,
And I've asked myself, why? Just, why? In mind, I feel outrage at the injustice of any armed strife. At heart, compassion yearns for the relief of all who are being wounded, body and soul. Must I choose mind's view, or heart's feeling? Maybe both are inescapably entwined, stepping to some kind of fatal fandango?
I've inquired upon how much of my anger or scorn would touch a single neuron of that one particularly troubled mind, so isolated in his Kremlin perch? Could my condemnation reach to Teheran? My righteous wrath, as far as Caracas? Could I summon enough hatred or imagined wrath to sway even one stitch of any of those immortal souls?
And an answer came: "Nay, but sure, any of those certainly *will* touch you.".
Can't I somehow stop the madness? Offer more prayer, perhaps? Make a donation to Médecins Sans Frontières? Have I love in my heart sufficient to overcome this evil?
The reply that came, "Aye, and touch *you* any of these, also, certainly will.".
There is, I've decided, only this "non-choice" to make. Let me not answer violence with violence - not even in my mind. Pray from my heart, for no people less so than for any others. To meditate, not in opposition to war, but on contributing to peace, for all of life on earth.
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