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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.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Ferguson and Such: Root Cause



Michael Nagler is exactly right in his commentary on “Beyond Ferguson”.

Without getting at the root cause of such brutal incidents, the traumas and tragedies will never go away. Focusing on the details of one incident or another as if a legal investigation would reveal some sort of truth is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Also, an essential part of getting at the root cause is “the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society,” as Nagler quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., as saying with regard to the Vietnam War.

Violence, militarism, and materialism, I believe, are a consequence of our cultural worldview of separation, fear, and thus the need for protection from one another (and from nature, as well, by the way). On the contrary, the best protection is connection, not separation.