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WELCOME TO THE GREEN PEN!

It's my personal soapbox, a place for me to express thoughts and feelings, musings and rants, reflections and recollections; to have fun with words -- about things spiritual, environmental, social, political, economic, and, from time to time, personal. And of course about peace. Soapboxes are in public places (as London's legendary Hyde Park) on purpose, and so I invite conversations with you, for it is through civil discourse that we can gain some perspective on the seeming chaos of these changing times and learn together how to shape a positive future for ourselves, our communities, and the generations to come.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Hanging On and Hanging In There

There is much news almost every day about the old order hanging on for dear life by going to greater and greater extremes in mongering fear and, hence, the critical need for even more military interventions, securing of the borders, secret drone assassinations, internet censorship, military arrest and trial for U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, increased authority for domestic surveillance, and so on. A friend of mine, upon reading yet another such news item, asked in desperation, "How can we look at this constructively?" 

I think we have to look at it philosophically and keep in mind the bigger picture of transformation and the spread of a culture of peace. That transformation is unstoppable, though it may very well not be pretty in the short term. The shift is unstoppable because the worldview of separation, fear, scarcity, and win-lose competition upon which the old order is based is flat out wrong as a model of reality and therefore cannot be sustained. By hanging on so persistently, it is only hastening its own collapse. Even Western science (quantum physics, evolutionary biology, neurobiology, cosmology)  is increasingly discovering that the world is really one of connection, abundance, love, and win-win interdependence. The West’s militarism, imperialism, scarcity- and resource-extraction-based economics, and hubris of the 19th and 20th centuries aren’t going away quietly, however. But go away they will, and I believe sooner than we might think.

In my opinion, the best we can do falls in the categories of intention, personal modeling of peaceful attitudes and relationships, and hanging in there with support for and action in such movements as Occupy, Transition Towns, Resilient Communities, and the like – all of which are experiments with and demonstrations of new, more locally oriented forms and processes of social, economic, and political organization. In other words, put attention to building peace in your own life, family, and community, and, hard as it may be, try to not get caught up in or immobilized by the drama and trauma of the collapse of the old order as it futilely tries to maintain its grip on its past inglorious glory.

Have hope! The shift is happening!

3 comments:

  1. Well said.
    It makes me think of Monty Python's song:
    "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life...
    Always look on the Light Side of Life..." ~^0^~

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    1. Thanks for keeping me grounded and hopeful. Sometimes it is hard to have faith when the powers that be keep hammering on the old ways of thinking and acting. We need to support each other as we do our best to help the old order die a quiet death while the new Life supporting ALL continues the birthing process in all of its diverse forms. TOGETHER WE CAN.

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  2. THE PURSUIT OF PEACE IS NOT FOR COWARDS

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