On the celebrated day, November 11, when violence should be the last thing on our mind the guns are blazing. On the streets we see daily all kinds of violence. Didn’t they say the day the guns fell silent was also the end of the war? The headlines from the Occupy sites in Canada and the US, from Syria, and from Gaza tell a different story. Real peace is nowhere to be found. and those who say they have it know it is fleeting.
It would be great if we could find a single entity who is at perfect peace and faces no threats or challenges. The guns are not silent, because men are still intent on being the lords of this earth without regard to the common debt of love.
Two days after the grand recognition of our fallen soldiers our neighbors are still falling and there seems to be no way out. Nuclear weapons, threats to civil aviation, and the groundswell of popular rebellion and revolution are the main ingredients of earth’s seething pot.. If only the gunmen would realize that the silencers on their guns are not functioning. We can still hear the reports of the weapons of war all around us.
Guns come in various guises. When Jerusalem silences the crime of Ahab in East Jerusalem we will see peace breaking out in the hot-spots. When the plight of workers and the poor come off the back-burner in western capitals we will breathe equality’s fresh air and when women and children are granted their full human rights all across the planet then we can say the guns are silent.
Somewhere a bullet is screaming towards one of us!
Stop! Silence, you guns of the sons of Adam.
Blue Lady! Always Jovial
After jumping over the withering form of her sibling there is not much left for the blue lady to traverse. She’s not afraid jinxes will end her reign, not when she seen so much of victory and phoenixes rising.
Great sheroes are not made in palaces: they arise just in time from ditches of disaster to be someone’s sister. The search for absolute justice ends with the Blue Lady. Lives soaked in pain are often blue, and seem best to speak for us because they have been where the flames actually strengthen, giving cause for appropriate jubilation.
So when the dust clears, eyes twinkle, awareness joined, nothing prevents the blue from being actively joyous, always jovial.
That Girl Grace
Most of us know someone named “Grace”. That would include all the Hannahs, Caras, Charitas, and so on. Fur Christians, grace is God’s expression of His goodness to us – everyone on the planet. The story of divine grace comes to us in the Biblical saga of the Mesopotamian Abraham and his descendants.
Grace for Christians and Jews are different beasts even though the need and the source are identical. My girl “Grace” is reason for gratitude, not pride in achievement or acquisition. The notion of grace is scorned by people who consider themselves self-sufficient aces. Grace is for cripples and beggars, but no individual or nation has yet shown mastery of this place we call home. We are all, somehow, missing the mark of master. We are at the mercy of upheavals of nature and people in motion.
Grace is definitely not a statue; she is motion personified, moving those who are willing to new vistas of peaace, contentment and joy. So why do so many people despise Grace? Why are so many people content to live in the shadow of their own achievements, no matter how fleeting or minuscule?
Standing in need of assistance is very human, from birth to death, and people either stand afar off aand claim to know Grace when in reality Grace is accessed only by intimacy. So are we really gods or humans? The answer is too obvious: ingratitude and inhospitable attitudes are the favourite halos of the present generation. When a new set of eyes begin to peer into the secret chambers of productive life Grace will no longer be an orphan or find herself neglected.
Look at What They’re Doing to My Child
You are not kidding! A child bearing the brunt of insensitive and ignorant peers is not new. Racist environments foster violence and we live in one now, and we have ourselves – in some way – been shaped by societies that could not see the future and care little about the past.
Feigning ignorance is an old racist ploy, but what if people really do not see the problem with certain discriminatory expressions and behaviours? What if the newspapers and watchdogs are equally biased against people of another race?
Someone needs to advocate for the child. Take the case to the primary perpetrators. Waiting is not an option. Things only get worse and the likelihood of permanent effect of this kind of pressure on a young child is too great to ignore.
Parents are the best judge of the actions that should be followed, with, of course, due consideration to the advice of professionals in the field of psychology and spirituality. The school system can be cruelly apathetic to the needs of children and in this day and age they can be easily called to account, publicly or privately.
You will know that your struggle for decency and justice is having the desired effect when the perpetrators and their supporters are heard saying “Look at what they’re doing to my school!”
The Silence is Ironic
If people were thinking that a revolution was really happening in the Middle East they can start thinking again. The states being racked by protests and revolts have shown their true colour: repression, cruelty, ignorance, and religious phoniness. The neighbours seem to lack the courage to condemn the use of military power to suppress the call for freedom.
The casualties caused by government troops in Syria, Libya, and by Islamic miltants in Pakistan are not heroes, not yet. The survivors need reliable allies. It is diagnostic that the honourable voices in these countries are no-where to be found. The Arab League and Islam have failed to show their connection to Arab and Islamic populations. How can any sane person, westerner or easterner, put any confidence in dictatorships and imams who seem willing to be silent about their own failures?
Is it really hard to explain how so much religious tradition be a hindrance to justice and freedom? One should not forget the devastating effect of western imperialism, Jewish Zionism, bigotry from Pacific powers, Russian oligarchy and others. It would seem that people are assuming that there is a corollary to western justice. I do not want to assume anything when there is so much evidence of moral bankruptcy, which makes Middle Eastern corruption easy to explain, but nontheless daunting to terminate.
With both west and east climbing the wannabe pole of Judeo with smatterings of Christianity) and a commitment to human dignity in Islamic states. One would also have to cover one’s eyes to explain how citizens of Canada can be engaged in peaceful resolution of crucial issues. No one should be holding their breath for religious groups in these crumbling states to break into the silence. Death and other really bad stuff await them. The absence of moderate Islamic voices is predictably shocking. Is it possible that milions even in North America whose voices we have been inclined to call moderate are acquiescing over the denial of human rights, the iconization of unspeakable violence. What could they be waiting for? Are they waiting for a backlash from Canadians? People are beginning to peek past the rhetoric of politicans and clerics. Many religious Canadian reject violence as a means to establish either religion or secularity, and their failure speak out shows that irony, as the nature of the world ruling powers, has already advanced to the doorstep of dirt-cheap propaganda.
What Will They Call You?
When power falls from the hands of other people who thought they were empire-builders and heros of social change things can get nasty. Name calling, intimidation, silence, isolation and denial of privileges take centre-stage. Most of us have found ourselves in situations where we are constrained to be agents of change, not merely agents for change. So we step up to the plate, to bat for those who we care about, we run for office, we offer ourselves for service. They can call you winner because the path never really included the empire-builders and the privileged crew . Those who have rejected change will call you every possible derogatory name , but you know who you are, and it is important to remmeber that names that your parents did not give you do not really matter.
Let’s say you do not have the face or body of a model, a TV or film star, or fitness guru, what does your mother call you? The same thing she called you when she first looked at your alien physique: “beautiful and precious”.
Let’s say you do have the face or body of a model, a TV or film star, or fitness guru, and let’s say the TV shows and social media aren’t exactly friendly and call you something other than what your dad would call you. What do you call yourself?
Knowing that name-calling can be a legal millstone around the neck I would prefer to call people by the name they most like to use. I would hope that everybody would see how much that name reflects the you that is in motion, forward or backward. For those whose activities can make others look bad, I offer one simple suggestion which I aply to myself: you call me what you are afraid of, and let me call you call what I am. Either way people will see the difference between what some people call and what you are.
Religion on the Lam
Got something to hide? Then the best advice would be to stay out of sight and earshot. Privacy and openness are important parts of the same roadway. Couples struggle to define the boundaries of the private and the public. Countries are usually at a loss to explain their flips and their flops. Why is this? All the whole constructs of human progress and stability have begun to fsall apart because people are demanding answers and personal participation. While governments seem to have the ball in their court they have rather poor records of being open and transparent.
This is why Christian services are wide open events. Our teachings are very public. Anyone is welcome. Islam has recently begun proselytizing using the media, but Judaism remains secretive and self-centred. That may be by divine design, since interest in Judaism has always been negligent, and Islam’s millions are a function of societal coercion. Islam and Judaism have converted few. There are no throngs of Canadian people, young or old, joining Islam or Judaism.
Religion has gotten a bad name and some retreat or defence is now inevitable. A recent (early 2011) BBC documentary skillfully traced the source and content of grade school education for Muslims in the United Kingdom back to the Saudi Government. The funding, and content were confirmed to be Saudi. When confronted with this information the Saudi embassy denied the connection. What was not clear was why the UK government was not aware of the criminal content on the curriculum. Undisguised hatred and myths about non-Muslims were the prominent features of the textbooks.
Hatred is acknowledged by most humans as unacceptable but when hate is made to appear as a virtue someone had better start bringing out the handcuffs. While some western governments have enacted legislation against hateful speech the perception is that only Christians are guilty and only Jews are the victims.
The BBC documentary brings to light the shocking lengths to which Islamic leaders have gone to cover up the fact that Islam has some fatal flaws when it comes to neighbourliness and respect for human rights. Most of us in Canada do not have Muslim friends, but we share workspace with men and women who are evidently sociable and decent. The CBC sitcom “Little Mosque on the Prairie” has probably convinced many Canadians that Muslims are (already) integrated into Canadian society, but along with Muslim-Canadian silence on the escalating violence against innocent people in Islamic republics the possibility that Canadians children are being taught to hate, shun, and discriminate against any one who is not a Muslim is a cause for concern. This would be criminal behaviour and should be recognized by Muslims as immoral. But alas, there seem to be few Muslim heads in that space.
Before bringing out the handcuffs, Canadian education authorities need to take a close look at Jewish and Muslim currricula and warn Canadians about the dangers lurking in both school, mosque and synangogue.
There ought to be no shock here. Jewish foundations are based on the demise of the Egyptians, destruction of Canaanite cities, and despising Gentiles. Bigotry is never far away, but religion does not have to be on the run. Christianity has always urged Canadian society to open doors to everyone, even though somewhat slowly and reluctantly. Religious Jews and Muslims are mortal threats to the kinds of freedoms everyone claims to cherish. So is this a time for the investigations? Is this a time for deportations to begin? Let the religions that thrive on hate run, all the way back to their homes.
Vocal and Radical People
The capture and demise of Osama Bin Laden has created ripples and tsunamis, often in the same place. The only voice that has registered on the global radar is Pakistani. People should not forget that Bin Laden, not unlike like the Jewish champions (Ezra, Samson) and other actors, militated for purging the acknowledged centre of Islam of western (foreign) influence and contamination.
Pakistani voices are decidedly not apologetic. All powerbrokers in Pakistani have been implicated in harbouring the 10 year fugitive, and their remonstrations about US violation of their sovereignty are never going to find an answer. If the loudest and most obvious speakers are really Muslim, the cat is out of the bag.
