With palms together,
Good Morning All,
Killing is wrong. Enough already. All of the reasons are just words in the wind. Palestine this, Israel that. Men, women, and children die, suffer greatly, and their deaths and suffering become the cause of the next round of bombs and rockets.
We must be better than this. We must be smarter than this. We must have enough courage to live in peace.
Such a challenge, it seems. Forgiveness and compassion for our enemies is so difficult. Perhaps it is really beyond our capabilities. We always done it this way. You throw something at me, I throw something at you. You take this, I take that. Its only human nature, right?
And so the whole world is dead and no one is left to cry for us. In our graves we will be happy that we were avenged.
How childish.
To live is peace is to live in courage. To live in love is to live in understanding. To live in suffering is to live in compassion. These are the resources we must develop and nurture. These must be our foundation.
Be well.
Violence permeates all life. We do not grieve over the "war" between the birds and the worms. To have been spared the most personally destructive forms of violence, to have found some personal peace - this is grace indeed. To be able to feel compassion is a rare, unearned privilege for which I must be daily thankful, and in wonder.
ReplyDeleteharvey-san, your words are mostly right of course.. but, all of the reasons for war are not just words in the wind in israel's case. the jews did not defend themselves well against this type of enemy only a few generations back. I do not believe they will ever allow that to happen again. I think they are doing the right thing to wage war now. they have a right to exist.
ReplyDeleteThe Palestinian Arabs did not resist when their land was taken to create Israel by the Balfour Declaration. They soon vowed that would never happen again. They believe they are doing the right thing to wage war now. They think they have a right to exist. And hatred grows. And violence grows. And anti-semitism blossoms again in Europe and the United states, as does anti-Arabism. We march together to a new Crusade, and a new Auschwitz.
ReplyDeleteNon-violence does not hold that violence is immoral. It holds that it never works. The Quakers are the best at it.
I think the problem is that violence works all too well. it is comforting to believe otherwise but history suggests that those willing to be violent will usually get their way at least in the short term. Maybe things will be different some day but today life is violent and no one escapes suffering. Humans don't, Birds don't and worms don't.
ReplyDelete