After letting things breathe a bit I think it is fair on my part to say a bit more about the tragedy that plagued my country eight years ago. Terrorism is akin to gang activity on a global scale, and new and innovative methods are needed to not only protect citizens at home and abroad, but diplomacy is the only course of action. I am sure that those who are charged with protecting our rights and freedoms are working to protect us in this matter. The human heart is the most complicated thing known to humanity, it is so admired through that ages that it was the only organ in the body that Egyptians placed back in the body when mummified in the hopes that it would guide them in the next world. The book of Psalms a collection of prayers written by King David expresses himself very candidly in the presence of the divine. In the 120th Psalm, David the Psalmist cries to the Lord in the spirit of breveavment over his course of action, in response to something that was causing him a great deal of pain. I am not sure what his course of action was after the fact but he is hailed as one of the greatest men who ever lived. The last line of the Psalm goes: I am a man of peace but when I speak they are for war. No one knows what happened after this but the creator and David, but one could assume that the best course of action was taken to cause the least amount of harm. His successor, and son Solomon spread wisdom like seeds on fresh fertile soil; in his offering of Proverbs he speaks a lot to the frailties of the mind and heart of foolish men. The perpetrators of 9/11 were very foolish men with no sight of what the true aim of their spiritual tradition beckons in all that choose that path.
The divine has been trying to reach us via his messengers for ages, and like stubborn children we have been hanging up the phone. The perpetrators of the America’s new day of infamy were lonely, tired souls, who may have been taken advantage of because of their affinity for the Divine. The spiritual tradition that I subscribe to tells me to love my enemies, but I never forget that I am counseled by Christ in that he tells us “to be sly as the serpent and innocent as doves.” I am not opposed to war just unwise unjust wars. I know peace can sound all corny, and Lennonesque (John Lennon that is) but if you know peace you understand. After being urged by Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King spoke out against the war in Vietnam he quipped in response to the ‘political’ climate at the time “ my nation is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” Dr. King gave his heart to the country that he loved, as did those men and women in uniform today that lay their lives on the line to protect what we call freedom here in America. But I challenge it is extremely hard to sell a ‘product’ like peace and democracy at the wrong end of a rifle. I think what Dr. King was saying in reference to the raging war in Vietnam, when he said ‘one of the greatest in the world today’ is that there is a possibility of change and redemption. Even for a nation’s collective sins.
The divine has been trying to reach us via his messengers for ages, and like stubborn children we have been hanging up the phone. The perpetrators of the America’s new day of infamy were lonely, tired souls, who may have been taken advantage of because of their affinity for the Divine. The spiritual tradition that I subscribe to tells me to love my enemies, but I never forget that I am counseled by Christ in that he tells us “to be sly as the serpent and innocent as doves.” I am not opposed to war just unwise unjust wars. I know peace can sound all corny, and Lennonesque (John Lennon that is) but if you know peace you understand. After being urged by Thich Nhat Hanh, Martin Luther King spoke out against the war in Vietnam he quipped in response to the ‘political’ climate at the time “ my nation is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” Dr. King gave his heart to the country that he loved, as did those men and women in uniform today that lay their lives on the line to protect what we call freedom here in America. But I challenge it is extremely hard to sell a ‘product’ like peace and democracy at the wrong end of a rifle. I think what Dr. King was saying in reference to the raging war in Vietnam, when he said ‘one of the greatest in the world today’ is that there is a possibility of change and redemption. Even for a nation’s collective sins.
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