| Subject: Re: What about... |
Author:
Kyla
|
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
Date Posted: 06:54:45 09/16/01 Sun
In reply to:
Art
's message, "Re: What about..." on 23:44:24 09/15/01 Sat
Deidra, thank you for holding this the way you do. I am really groping and struggling here to understand where i went about the anger. I do acknowledge that I have a real difficulty in receiveing and holding it, and as i feel it makes my own responses wrong (whether or not this is accurate) I then make the anger itself wrong. Whenever I descend into my feelings about this anger what immediately gathers in me is a huge urgency of feeling that floods my heart: especially now, whatever is divisive or seems to be, just HURTS, so i look for ways to stitch up that divided place somehow, I go to what i do know about how our nation is perceived and how i believe that perception is justified, and how our record of failure to respect, honor, and even perceive other ways of being in other cultures has provided the climate in which SUPPORT for terrorism can thrive, and I fear that it is to the extent that we are unable to change this but instead come from the need for retribution, we will only make the situation worse, we will feed an escalation.
I do realize that i am feeling the impact of this disaster more than I have felt the impact of previous ones elsewhere. Part of this is because, if the whole of humanity is my family, residents of this land are closer relatives than people further away. But mostly it is because there is so much access to the stark facts of this brutality, on a level that has never been there about wars and disasters elsewhere -- access.
I cannot share in the anger and I fear it deeply -- though I am no stranger to anger and the desire for revenge in my personal life! I have a neighbor who is rich while the rest on this street are poor. He lives in a large house and actually looks down at the rest of us. He has a reputation for disdaining and reviling us and does not respect boundaries at all, there are lots of stories. i am right next to him. when once I tried to arrange it so i would not have to see his garbage everytime i stepped out my front door (although he has a huge fenced yard, he keeps his garbage on the street just STRADDLING the edge of my tiny front strip) he verbally attacked and threatened me and would not give me any chance to say my point of view, it meant nothing to him, he is immune and invulnerable. I hate this man even though i have at times felt some compassion for him and know that he must be a miserable person. Even so, every time i see him I wish him brought low, and if i could find a way to do it that would not rebound on me, i would be hard pressed not to take action! Another neighbor, who is nearly blind but can see enough to walk kept tripping over the hose the "bad" neighbor would routinely leave tangled in knots on the sidewalk -- the blind neighbor got soaked often by the spray from a leak in the hose that the "bad" neighbor would just leave for hours to spray over the sidewalk and street. Our blind neighbor finally called the cops who told the "bad" one to keep his hose from obstructing the public walkway. This did no good. One night, the blind neighbor went out with a knife and just cut the hose to pieces. (terrorism, small scale) No one around here is about to turn him in. (support for terrorism, small scale) No matter how angry the "bad" neighbor becomes -- the only thing that will turn this situation around is if the "bad" neighbor somehow has a change of heart. I have told him, in another exchange when he was shouting at me for trying to get his dog to go out of my garden, that the only thing I will listen to from him is an apology.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
| |
Feedback: 