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cedar_groveFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
As the Chinese sage Lao-tzu said 2,500 years ago, "The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail...Whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding a disciple of life.'
Is it strange to begin an entry responding to this post by saying that I am afraid; afraid for the planet, the 'world' and the people in it?
I turned on my computer earlier and downloaded my e-mail only to find there was breaking news from ABC about an earthquake that had happened this morning in Turkey. It wasn't a small earthquake… it was 7.2. News coverage can be seen here. Since the morning there have been 20 more quakes in the same region… all over 5 on the Richter scale.
These things are becoming more and more frequent: earthquakes, tsunami, wildfires, hurricanes… as if the world is trying to shrug her shoulders and throw off all of her burdens. At the same time human unrest is peaking… wars, civil unrest, the rejection of unjust, tyrannical regimes amid chaos and violence… as if we too are 'snapping' in the winds of change.
While I was waiting for the news – to find out more about Turkey – I had to sit through all the human ugliness that is the death of Gadaffi. While I agree that we shouldn't suffer dictators, should not sit idly by and allow one individual to rule by fear and violence, I'm still somewhat uncomfortable about the whole manner of what happened to him, and uncertain about how I feel about what's happening to his body right now. My flag is somewhat stiff at my own sense of right and wrong… but on the news they interviewed the colonel of the Libyan army, who had a different perspective. He basically said (and I felt myself shocked at his answer) when asked about what he thought would and should happen to the body, and I'm paraphrasing from what I can remember: "I don't care. Look, what is important is that he is gone, no more in the world, and he represented all that was bad in the world. Look at what he did to others, they will either bury him or not." No matter what was said to him, and I think the reporter talking to him was just as shocked at his attitude as I was and was trying to call him on it, he just kept on going back to the stark reality of it. Stuff happens in war and it's not going to be nice stuff. Gadaffi did bad stuff and was a dictator. He's gone and now we must move on lest what lingers should tear our flags to pieces… but still… I worry yet again over our human nature. Is all of this happening because we are so rigid, so set in our ways and therefore have become the disciples of our own death?
A flag goes boneless as it assumes
the shape of the wind that snaps it
and so I love.
As the Chinese sage Lao-tzu said 2,500 years ago, "The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail...Whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding a disciple of life.'
Is it strange to begin an entry responding to this post by saying that I am afraid; afraid for the planet, the 'world' and the people in it?
I turned on my computer earlier and downloaded my e-mail only to find there was breaking news from ABC about an earthquake that had happened this morning in Turkey. It wasn't a small earthquake… it was 7.2. News coverage can be seen here. Since the morning there have been 20 more quakes in the same region… all over 5 on the Richter scale.
These things are becoming more and more frequent: earthquakes, tsunami, wildfires, hurricanes… as if the world is trying to shrug her shoulders and throw off all of her burdens. At the same time human unrest is peaking… wars, civil unrest, the rejection of unjust, tyrannical regimes amid chaos and violence… as if we too are 'snapping' in the winds of change.
While I was waiting for the news – to find out more about Turkey – I had to sit through all the human ugliness that is the death of Gadaffi. While I agree that we shouldn't suffer dictators, should not sit idly by and allow one individual to rule by fear and violence, I'm still somewhat uncomfortable about the whole manner of what happened to him, and uncertain about how I feel about what's happening to his body right now. My flag is somewhat stiff at my own sense of right and wrong… but on the news they interviewed the colonel of the Libyan army, who had a different perspective. He basically said (and I felt myself shocked at his answer) when asked about what he thought would and should happen to the body, and I'm paraphrasing from what I can remember: "I don't care. Look, what is important is that he is gone, no more in the world, and he represented all that was bad in the world. Look at what he did to others, they will either bury him or not." No matter what was said to him, and I think the reporter talking to him was just as shocked at his attitude as I was and was trying to call him on it, he just kept on going back to the stark reality of it. Stuff happens in war and it's not going to be nice stuff. Gadaffi did bad stuff and was a dictator. He's gone and now we must move on lest what lingers should tear our flags to pieces… but still… I worry yet again over our human nature. Is all of this happening because we are so rigid, so set in our ways and therefore have become the disciples of our own death?
