From Paul to Julie Smith

[J. Paul Everett]

Dear Julie,

Thank you for your thoughtful and caring reply.  Guess I'm still too much the
engineer in this world of reality to deal with the truly Hating person.
Vigorous disagreement I can handle.  Hate is very tough, at least for me.
Maybe the Giraffe guy can do it.  It hurts my body when I come around it.
So, opening up my body/heart to more of that doesn't work very well for me.
I'll follow the law of two feet, I think.

Nobody has done it sufficiently well for the Sinn Fein to truly lay down
their arms, despite monumental work by thousands tired of the war, with
skilled negotiators.  They (Sinn Fein) prattle on about not being a defeated
army and therefore can't give up the weapons, as they agreed to do.  What
they can't really give up is the "four counties under John Bull's tyranny",
as they see it.  Protestants don't count, in their view.  They still can't
let someone else exist free of ecclesiastical coercion.

Ditto Palestine, where the existence of Israel, and it's right to exist, is
still denied in many quarters; Kosovo where the done-to are now the
doer's-to.  It was ever thus.  The revenge cycle goes on.  Maybe this planet
will shift it's consciousness into a forgiveness cycle??  Maybe Gaia will get
tired of mankind and flip on it's axis, as I understand Mercury does rather
frequently, and make all these matters moot.  Now, that would be a cataclysm.
 lol

No, as long as the current level of consciousness prevails, I see little hope
for escape from the revenge cycle except in very unusual circumstances, and
those not really large or systemic.  After Gandhi was assassinated,
everything went gunnysack over there.  Despite the Dalai Lama's long
spiritual training, he had to flee to save his life.  He could not 'reason'
with, or 'open his spirit' wide enough for his attackers to see the wisdom of
his way and the folly of theirs.  (I do understand that he has not even
spoken against the perpetrators, despite their killing of a number of his
friends, but I could be wrong about that.)

I have to look to myself, I think.  How am I forgiving the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune?  The guy or gal who cuts me off or nearly collides
with me in the insane Seattle traffic?  The persons who cheated me out of a
couple of million dollars?  Not too well, sometimes.  What would I do if
something really important happened?  Like the death of one of my children or
my spouse by terrorists?  I don't really know and hope I don't face that
issue.

What am I to do in the face of this level of Hatred we experienced this week?
 I certainly don't want them to do it again, or retain the ability to do it
somewhere else in the world.  So, what might be an effective program that
would stop them without alienating 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide?  That's
really, really tough, imho.  I'm praying for GW and company to be guided by
wisdom and compassion.  Remembering that God's will, known in advance, isn't
God's will (long discussion here, which I'm too tired to type).  GW needs all
the guidance he can get.  Perhaps we if pray, and see him making brilliant
decisions, it will happen.  Perhaps not.

Namaste,

Paul

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu,
Visit:

http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html