London calling

[EVERETT813 at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/10/05 10:17:25 AM, raffi at bk.ru writes:


> And at the end of the day, all we have is Open Space, as banal as that
> may sound. So, I may butterfly into a session on muslims and read your
> report...
> 

Raffi, et. al.,

There won't be any such a session led by me. Can't say anything for others.   
If there is a conversation, it will be a private one between myself and 
Masud, presuming he is there and even wants one.   He may not.   

I'm sorry if you assumed there would be a session on "muslims" at Halifax.   
Never was in my mind at all.   I was surprised to see that it somehow arose in 
yours.   And I tend to agree with you that such a session would 'go nowhere', 
as I witnessed one such between Jews and Palestinians at the Practice of 
Peace here in Washington State a year or so ago.   Excellent points were made, 
ideas exchanged, lots of tension, correction, testy exchanges, etc., but I doubt 
any minds were changed.   No blows were exchanged, either.   And, as far as I 
can tell, which isn't far, nothing of substance changed in the situation, 
either.

At that conference, a fundamental question arose in my mind and led to a 
joint session led by myself and Harrison, which was: "If we agree that war, 
violence and conflict is horrible and that we don't want it, why are we not already 
peaceful??"   My 'answer' relates to the Gandhian paraphrase in another letter 
on this thread, and that is that we are Unconscious in greater or lesser 
degrees.   Thus we still see the another person different from us as Other and 
they do likewise.   

A second issue is that we don't have a way to live in agreement about what 
story is going to be 'told'; that is, what are the rules we are going to live by 
in our body politic?   Hence, we live in protracted conflict.   I don't see 
that ever changing until we get Conscious.   Therefore, I don't really know 
what the practice of peace means other than within my own self.   And there are 
days I certainly don't feel peaceful.     

Here in the USA the rise of the religious right has manifested itself in the 
idea of teaching "intelligent design" in our schools, which is a code word for 
the Christian idea of all creation occurring five or six thousand years ago 
by God.   Never mind that the Universe is at least 14 billion years old, etc.   
Especially that strong evidence exists for Darwinism in action.   That's to 
be ignored.   Ah, yes.   Anti-science, anti-reason, anti-logic again raising 
its ugly head.   We have seen it all before down through the ages.   Frightened 
people grasping at certainty in an uncertain, seemingly arbitrary world.   The 
death of Colin M. and 50 others in Britain is such an example of fate and 
chance from which we flee, to no avail.   (The Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex speaks 
to this dilemma).   It was ever thus in every religion and culture in the 
world.   (Although sometimes light breaks through, as in the US Constitution, and a 
new relationship of people and government is formed, more freedom is created, 
with all its messiness.)

As for the MacDonald's comment---we never eat there.   But, one in six meals 
eaten out in the USA are eaten at MacDonald's.   I differ, rather profoundly, 
that such is brainwashing.   But, that's a whole other conversation about 
inner demons, projection, and etc.

Be Well,

Paul Everett   

*
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