WAR IN IRAQ and other difficult realities

[john engle]

dear mark,

i appreciate your reminder. i do believe that it is easy for those of us who
do experience much freedom in our daily lives and who are not constantly
under the threat of violence to not be adequately conscious of the realities
of those who are.

for instance, birgitt, i read your words, "When you have this visual, it is
a reminder that within the organization, no matter how closed it appears, is
the open space."

I am curious how you define open space. For instance, I know children in
haiti who live in servitude. In the families where they live (is not a
household of people-could be three could be 15-not an organization?), which
are not their own. These children, called restaveks, number in the hundreds
of thousands. They frequently get beat and are often abused sexually. They
don't go to school. Many of the thousands of children that live on the
streets of Port au Prince, were restaveks. Yes, we can say that there was
enough space that they were able to escape, but to what? and, how many
today, are still deciding to not escape but to endure beatings and sexual
abuse because they know about the horrors that children who live on the
streets endure.

i know that i am offering a situation far from the norm. it just happens to
be that which i see daily. i know personally many children and adults who
have lived what i am talking about. thus, it was the norm for them. and,
there are so many people in the world who might not have extremes such as
this, but who do have other constraints in their space. i could talk about
haitian women in sweatshops who sleep with bosses to keep their dollar a day
job so that they can feed their children. or, how many hundreds of
thousands of people today are living under curfew which means if they step
out of their house they could be beaten, killed, arrested, etc. true, their
is openness to the extent that they can decide to step out of their house.
but, it is at risk of bodily harm.

i'll stop rambling. thank you for reminding us about the pending war, mark.
may we open our spirits to the hundreds of thousands of people in iraq who
are wondering if they and their families will be bombed. ...and in addition
to opening my spirit, what else should i be doing?

john

http://www.beyondborders.net/experiment.htm

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