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<DIV>Greetings All,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The organization I work with sponsored a public forum this week concerning
recent world events. The purpose was to enter into a dialogue about what
happened and what our response should be. I found myself silenced by the
way in which the panel and the audience defined the issues. (This was not
an OST event.) We focused most of our two hours on the distinction between
war and crime, leaving us with the options of retaliation and punishment for
response. Afterward, I learned that those present with different
views felt this level of discussion was a necessary precondition to moving to
the discussion they would like to have. For that reason, many of us chose
silence at that first community meeting.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As I was silently sitting and watching and thinking, I found myself
thinking of all these events in a new way. In some ways, it helped me
think about the discussion we are having on this list from a different
perspective. For that reason, I want to share my thoughts with you.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Several years ago I happened upon the book <U>A Different Drum</U> by M.
Scott Peck. That book is memorable to me because it introduced me to
the concept of stages of spiritual development. My recollection of
those stages as described by Peck is this:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Stage 1 is the stage of chaos. People at this stage don't have rules
to guide their lives or behavior. Life is chaotic and uncertain.
Survival depends on taking from the world what is required to maintain
life. When we decide there must be a different and better way, we move to
Stage 2. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Stage 2 is the stage of rules. The yearning for those just emerging
from Stage 1 is for order and certainty. The natural place to find
order and certainty is in rules. Some people find meaningful rules in
prison or in the military. Others find meaningful rules in religious
orders. The common characteristic is a seeking for rules by which
life can be ordered and understood. This makes perfect sense when the only
available alternative is a return to chaos. After a time, however, rules
become unsatisfying. We learn that rules are shells empty of
meaning. The strict application of rules often violates our sense of
humanity. Rules too often hurt someone. Many see that even religious
rules hurt. As disillusion with rules matures, we move to Stage 3.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Stage 3 is the stage of skepticism. The skeptic rejects the rules of
religious orders and most anything that cannot be verified in the physical
world. Skeptics often embrace science as a meaningful way to understand
the world. Most skeptics shudder at the words God, religion, and
spirituality because they view all those words as embracing concepts they find
naive and immature. They have a hard time believing anyone still thinks
that way anymore. And yet...... over time skeptics find people they
respect and like who use these words passionately, and they find they have
moments when they wonder what other meanings the world might have. Some
begin moving toward Stage 4.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Stage 4 is the stage of the mystic. The mystic embraces the essence
of religion and spirituality. Unlike the religious fundamentalist who
might talk in terms of rules, the mystic will most often talk in terms of
principles. Love and all of its manifestations is the principle common
to all mystics I am aware of. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So...... as I was sitting with my community talking about war and crime and
retaliation and punishment, trying to absorb the deeper meaning the conversation
had for so many in the room, it suddenly occurred to me that this was a
conversation the Skeptic was having with itself. And moving just a
bit deeper, I realized that much of the strength of the United States lies in
its many skeptics. The scientific achievements of our many skeptics has
created a world undreamed of even a century ago. As a culture, I think we
are probably predominantly skeptics. Our primary collective identity, I
think, is that of the skeptic.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And then...... I saw how sheltered we all have been. We have had the
opportunity to maintain ourselves as a people in the stage of skepticism because
for the most part we have not been challenged to respond to gripping tragedy in
our own backyard. We have perhaps been guilty of acts of Omission
(not seeing the pain in other's lives, not responding to what we did see,
isolating ourselves from others much less physically fortunate than ourselves,
maintaining a willingness to be a "have" in the world of "haves" and
"have-nots"), but we have not had so many times when we were faced with
Comission of harm to others. (I know in some ways that statement rings
false, but in some ways it also rings true.)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I began to wonder whether another way to see all of this is as a
challenge to the Skeptic. Maybe the ante just got upped. Maybe the
old question was whether the skeptic can maintain that place (that stage of
development) when not faced with the hard life and death questions. When
the hardest moral and ethical questions have to do with our professions, not
with who will live and who will die. When we never have to face ourselves
and ask, "for what am I willing to kill?" And under what authority?
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So the new question to the skeptic is exactly that: when is killing
justified, and under what authority? When are we justified in
committing or supporting the deliberate destruction of another
being? Now that we are facing the prospect of massive killing in all
directions, do we need to rethink our ideas about killing?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I think the framing of the question of what is happening as "is it war or
is it a crime" is an attempt to understand what is happening within a construct
that cannot hold the question. The framing is too narrow,
incomplete. And that is why we all keep talking. We know there
is something happening here we haven't quite grasped yet. And we know it
is important. I'm beginning to wonder whether as a people we are being
forced to move off our place of skepticism. Are we being forced to move
backward to the place of rules or forward to the place of the mystic? Or
is it something else that is going on?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I feel that all that I have said here is incomplete, and that I'm simply
scratching at a surface I don't understand. The value to me in giving it
to all of you is that if there is dialogue, all of our understanding might
deepen.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Julie</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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