Disaster Opens the World’s Heart

As I write, the world is pouring out its heart to the survivors of the Haiti earthquake.  I watch, stunned at the magnitude of the devastation and awed by the magnitude of the generosity this tragedy has elicited. Something about natural disasters brings out the best in people. Perhaps this is because we would want others to treat us with compassion were we the ones in desperate need.

Having

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 Summer Inquiry  As the days of the Bush presidency wane and as we in the US prepare to elect a new President, I have been thinking about what lies ahead for the world.  I have been looking at my own failures of committed action over the past eight years when I saw the present administration act in ways  I knew were bound for disaster.  Will the next administration repeat the same errors and wreak more havoc on the globe? Why Were We So Ineffective? Reports now coming out reveal the sheer cruelty which the present administration became committed to in its response to 9/11. Why did we let this happen? How did it come to pass that the US  is now practicing torture? Why did the US Senate and House of Representatives vote for the Iraq War despite the fact that so many Americans were opposed to it?

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 Calming The Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism.  Thich Nhat Hanh. Parallax Press: Berkeley, CA, 2005. On An Idyllic Fall Day In September Seven years have passed since those haunting days in September 2001 when the airplanes hit the twin towers in NYC and Washington DC. As I sit here on this idyllic summer afternoon, it could even be today, and thousands could be going to their deaths.  In fact, in Afghanistan right now, they are. For terrorism is not over. To read the newspapers  it has barely gotten started.

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People who are concerned about the state of the planet spend a lot of time and energy giving to others to make their visions a reality. We tend to be the ones that more cynical types call bleeding heart liberals, tree huggers and other not-so-nice epithets to put down the love and compassion that flows so freely from us, or sometimes, the judgment and hypocrisy that they also see coming from us. No matter. There is however, one way which all of us who care about the current situation of the world, frequently find ourselves in but rarely talk about. Whether we are right wing or left wing, whether we are activists or take a more embracing stance, all of us suffer from one common disease: we get very tired. And we get discouraged.

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