| Subject: Down Here in the Dark |
Author:
Kate
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Date Posted: 15:58:23 09/14/01 Fri
In reply to:
Paul
's message, "Re: Global Mutuality?" on 13:09:17 09/14/01 Fri
There are all kinds of ways of reacting to events, from exploding (or IMploding) with rage and contemplating revenge to attempting the transcendental leap beyond all this pain. This INHERENT pain: bodies can, and will, suffer; bodies can, and will, die. Human beings, including ME, are capable of the most hideous acts as well as the most courageous. Not one of us is a stranger to any of this darkness. That's the stupefying truth, the starkest outline of the meditation in the charnel house. Which is where events have catapulted us, summarily.
I don't know about you, but I am not surprised to find myself here: I'm no stranger here as a matter of personal history, or as a citizen of this planet. I've been here, one way or another, with each of my children. I've been here as the Vietnam War unfolded, the Central American tragedies, the Gulf War, Bosnia, Rwanda. The river of blood, of bodies, of deaths "justified" in the eyes of all the murderers by the very human rage that demands an eye for an eye, blood for blood. That very human dissociation that is more outraged by the suffering, the deaths, of "ours" than of "theirs." That very human attempt to achieve relief by blinding our hearts SOMEHOW: THEY are evil and wrong and deserve to be exterminated; *I* am an innocent victim. THEY are down in this bewildered, tormented human life; *I* am serenely abiding in a transcended state above it all. All this pain is OVER THERE; I am safe here in the richest, most powerful nation on Earth.
I'm not sure that I would characterize the realization that "every man's death diminishes me" as an abstract, or "upbeat" one. I don't personally notice particularly "tenderness" in Bin Laden's face; but I expect there is a blind passion for vengeance, for all those Islamic "children of God" whose blood is on "infidels'" hands. By association, on yours and mine; if we tell the truth, by a closer association than exists between a Middle Eastern-LOOKING gas jockey and a Middle-Eastern terrorist organization.
We're all here, cornered by the hellacious truth: there is no ESCAPE, up, down, or sideways, from human suffering. So the question is: is this ALL there is? Is this ALL we are? Is this ALL I am?
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