My Dear URI Friends,
Greetings of love and peace.
I offer these words as I find myself once again at the edge of despair...
The innocent dead don’t care how noble or despicable the motives of those who killed them.
The innocent dead don’t care whether they were killed by an American drone attack or a Taliban mortar or an Israeli bomb or a Palestinian rocket or a bullet from the rifle of government or a rebel soldier – or die of starvation or preventable illness while the world goes mad with spending on armaments – and, yes, the United States leads the world by far in this spending – that will never ultimately make the world safer.
Mahatma Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye and the whole world will be blind."
The English poet John Donne wrote – Any [one’s] death diminishes me for I am involved in [hu]mankind.
We are blinded. Our humanity is diminished.
And all the arguments about who is right and who is wrong will not bring back the dead, or save the lives of those, so many women and children, who are innocently in the way of the next bomb or bullet, or feed a hungry person or cure a preventable disease or build a better future.
So what are we, the living, to do, blinded and diminished as we are?
We can raise our voices against this madness. We can redouble our efforts to weave the fabric of a new community of mutual respect. We can rededicate ourselves to use our combined resources only for nonviolent, compassionate action, to awaken to our deepest truths, and to manifest love and justice among all life in our Earth community.
Faithfully,
Charles
