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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Sunday, October 9, 2022

Just like me

A Buddhist practice to help us connect with others is, during meditation, to chant “Just like me…”

          Brian Miller, Reducing Secondary Traumatic Stress

_______________________

 

the strategists know

those foul propogandists whose job is it

to secure our alliance to one country, one leader, one party, one ideology

that the best way to do that is to create separation

 

all they have to do

is create an abyss between us in the other

make us focus on differences

make those differences terminal

 

all the have to do

is convince us that “those people” are our enemy

and are not like us

 

while we are good and noble

while our values are appropriate

and our priorities and goals sacrosanct

 

they are evil and deplorable

with values that will destroy life as we know it

and priorities and goals that are despicable and disgusting

 

common good, indeed!

Capitalism, indeed!

 

our ideology is logical, ethical, and even blessed

their ideology violates everything that is good

 

it is only a small step from there to the idea

that we are superior

not only superior, but indeed different, at a profound level

 

we are those created in God’s image

endowed with original blessing and saturated with the Sacred

they?

 

they are creatures, caricatures

dehumanized monsters

beings without faces

 

objects who don’t count, don’t matter

and thus do not have to treated with respect

they can be used an abused

manipulated and expended on our behalf

 

women, who are turned into soulless “vessels”

minorities who are nothing more than cheap labor

soldiers who are damaged in many ways, for the sake of profit

the list goes on

and on

 

and soon these people are so vague

that we can not only hate them, not only use them,

lie to them, manipulate them, send them to their deaths

but we can literally kill them

 

As Sam Keen suggests in this book Faces of the Enemy

 In the beginning we created the enemy

Before the weapon comes the image

We think others to death

Then invent the [weapon] with which to actually kill them

 

And so it is

As we walk through this world

Dealing with people we love

And people who disgust us

 

We breath

Breath in and out

Breathing in hate, breathing out love

And muttering under our breath

 

That person is “just like me”

We are brother and sister

We are part of the human family

We are children of God

 

That person just wants to feel safe, just like me

That person wants to be valued, just like me

That person wants comfort, just like me

That person is greedy, (sadly) just like me

Fearful, angry, reactive, threatened…  just like me

 

I am a child of God

They are a child of God

They have a face I can see.  Eyes I can look into

A soul to which I can connect

Issues for which I can have compassion

 

They are just like me

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