Where Does the Answer Lie
by Kevin York
As I drove to my church family for prayer on Tuesday evening, I was
struck by the fact that that every House of Worship had full parking
lots. People all over Cape Cod — indeed, around the country —
had turned to God on this darkest of days in America. With the carnage
raging in New York, our streets were peaceful and a Higher Power was
foremost in our minds. Although I heard a number of voices enraged and
seeking vengeance, I heard many more voices reaching out to dear ones;
speaking words of love and comfort. All I wanted to do was hug my wife.
Yes, America is forever changed.
We are just now — in this moment — creating how that change
will look. We can go down the dark path of revenge and retribution,
or we can change our consciousness, and change the planet. Revenge and
retribution was the driving idea in the minds of the men who boarded
planes with the intent of using them as ghastly weapons of destruction.
We can act from the same idea, or we can change our minds, and find
a better way.
We are a Nation of Laws, and we can use the example of Lockerbie, and
the first World Trade Center bombing - by seeking justice through our
courts, not through the barrel of a gun. The calls for reprisal will
be long and loud, but we need to resist the impulse to strike out in
the same way that terrorists have struck at us. Using an old clich "an
eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." True enough.
The same thoughts of separateness, intolerance, prejudice and righteousness
that ran through the minds of the terrorists, run deep in our own society.
These killers massacred thousands in one fell swoop, while we react
in ho-hum fashion as similar barbaric acts are perpetrated on our fellow
citizens, one soul at a time. We looked shocked and stunned as scores
of bodies are piled up in moments, but barely notice as hundreds of
thousands of men, women, and babies die in acts of cruelty around our
globe.
Will September 11th, 2001 mark the beginning of positive change for
our country and the planet? Or, will we spiral into ever-greater depths
of depravity? Will we wake up and figure out that we are all part of
one human family? Or, will we insist on thinking of ourselves as separate,
and better, and more holy?
Bombs and bullets are not the answer. Love, forgiveness, compassion,
responsibility, freedom, and justice - for all of humankind - is where
the answer lies. God help us all!
Namaste,
Kevin York
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