"worldwide conversation of the heart"

[Jeff Aitken]

>From Deena Metzger, poet.

"It is time to meet with each other calmly and generously.  Not to find
blame and not to accuse and not to make enemies, but rather to relieve each
others fear and to find faith in each others wisdom and thoughtfulness."

Friday, March 29, 2002

Dear Friend:

I am writing to call all of us to gather together into the peaceful center
in the storm of the violence surrounding us.

We are aware that the U.S. government is considering violence against Iraq
and/or other countries despite negative responses and grave concerns
expressed in almost every nation in the world.  Violence against Iraq, or
the other countries targeted, only raises the possibility of terrorist
retaliation.  The escalating cycles of violence in Israel/Palestine makes
this clear.

Military activities of the kind being considered by the U. S. government
may well unleash retaliations that have for the last 50 years or so been
kept in the realm of the unthinkable.  Once nuclear warfare, on whatever
scale, is unleashed, no one in the United States or anywhere on the planet
will ever be safe again.  None of us wish our children to be the victims of
nuclear or biological terrorism while government leaders try to avoid the
same fate in bunkers.

Imagine the dilemma of President Bush.  An unelected president is called to
face the unprecedented situation of September 11th.  As president he is
responsible to protect the nation.  But how?  The wisdom and intelligence
needed to meet our circumstances do not, cannot, lie in any single person
or administration.

What shall we do?  The wisdom we need to guide us is among us.  The wisdom
we need to guide us is among all of us.

Let us, therefore, insist that the President and his administration refrain
from the reflexive response of initiating dangerous and irreversible
military actions.   Let us insist that the unthinkable be avoided.  As a
country, let us gather and trust in the kind of slow and careful
deliberations that all of our wise ancestors understood are necessary in
such times.

When one is afflicted by fear, rage, pain or shock - no matter what the
cause - one must stop, must pause, so that oneís response is reasoned.
This is a time for great restraint.  This is a time for deep thought.  This
is not the time for heroic action, but the time for everyone - everyone --
to enter into deep, heartfelt, selfless, tempered thought and prayer.  This
is not the time for opinions.  This is the time for careful consideration.
This is the time to take all the time necessary to save our lives.

Let us turn, each of us, to the wisdom in our traditions and in our
communities.  Let us bring together everything we know and everything our
ancestors and fore-parents have ever known about mediation, problem solving
and peacemaking.  There are ways to live and respond in which no one is the
loser.   These will be revealed when everyone engages in heartfelt
interchanges before irrevocable actions are undertaken.  When we each act
for restraint in the ways that are right for each of us.  When we support
each other to have the courage of peacemaking.

Let us turn to the wisdom of our hearts and the intelligence of compassion.
Let us meet with each other in neighborhoods, places of prayer, public and
private forums, councils, schools, parks, homes, across the Internet,
across the miles, across national boundaries.  Avoiding blame and without
accusing each other, refusing to make enemies, let us take all the time we
need to enter into prayerful discussion with each other.  Let us, the
people of this country, with the people of this planet, discover how, in
these unprecedented circumstances, we will find the ways to address these
critical issues so that our children will live and foster other generations.

I urge everyone who receives this plea to do everything that she or he can
do to influence the government to restrain its actions for as long as may
be necessary to come to reasoned understanding.  As we move toward
restraint, let us all enter into long, deep, contemplative consideration of
the current dilemmas that confront us.  It is certain that we all want the
same thing: that the world survive, that our children will live, that the
lives of our loved ones will not end in a nuclear holocaust.

There is wisdom everywhere.  This is not a partisan issue.  It is time to
meet with each other calmly and generously.  Not to find blame and not to
accuse and not to make enemies, but rather to relieve each otherís fear and
to find faith in each otherís wisdom and thoughtfulness.  To discover in
dialogue and among each other how to be, how to act, what to do.

We have the wisdom among us.  We have the heart among us.  We have the
intelligence among us.  If we look to each other, as we must now, for
understanding, something beautiful will come of it that will save all our
lives.

Peace and Blessings,

Deena Metzger

P.S. Please circulate this to everyone you know so that, ultimately,
everyone will participate, contributing his or her particular wisdom and
insight at this critical time.  Please circulate this to the media.  Please
post this on your web sites.  Feel free to add your name to this Call for
Deliberation.  Let us now begin the worldwide conversation of the heart
that is calling all of us.

-
Jeff Aitken
(+01) 707-829-8256
Sebastopol CA USA
http://www.sustainablesonoma.org

There is time only to work slowly.
There is no time not to love.
--  Deena Metzger

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