Sabbath Messages > Sabbath Message: August 6, 2005
Good Sabbath
August 6 , 2005
"Water flows over these hands.
May I use them skillfully to preserve our precious planet."
"Waking up this morning, I smile.
Twenty-four brand new hours are before me.
I vow to live fully in each moment
and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion."
(Thich Nhat Hahn)
"How can we open our eyes and see, taste and smell, hear and feel all the wondrous beauty of this world without profound appreciation?"
I was getting off the train from NJ to NY when I saw the huge headlines about the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It was astonishing what I didn't know and also my reaction at the terrible amount of presumed dead. The world changed when that bomb was dropped. The tragedy is always the possibility that mankind can't live in peace and now has weapons that are irrational in their destructive potential, but some can always rationalize why they will be used, whether it be a dehumanized terrorist or a political leader who is macho and needs some pelts to prove that he is a man. God, who was this Adam you created?
I thumb through the newspaper and note each war, some official and some just revolting and wonder about whether God plans for these inhumanities, or is also appalled by them, perhaps searching for another Noah? I observe the violence of humans and wonder whether "human" still describes something humane, kind, forgiving, golden relish? Or is human another animal wandering his turf, searching for self-gratification--no matter what the expense or environmental cost, no thought of tomorrows, just pleasuring our today's?
There is another evolution traveling our society and that is the erosion of our social institutions and communities in accelerating violence, terror and genocide. Do we ever learn? Do we really care, or is living today more precious than any other commodity? We need to rechannel ourselves, as wonderful Sam Penner exclaimed (Sheba Penner just passed away, a noble, troubled angelic creature who so missed her Sam).
"If we raise our children so that they are orphaned from nature, unable to feel comfortable and to live in productive harmony with nature, then they will be at mercy of unfeeling technology. But if we can give them a reverence for the earth and a confidence in their ability to live in productive harmony with nature, then technology will fit easily into a total, inter-related approach to life." (James Hubbell--friend, sculptor, artist, lover of nature and humankind).
So when we read about Niger's anguish, do we give it a thought or just mentally drift across "too bad" and then pass on to the sport section, or the latest Gulf hurricane as it changes our oil supply, or the Iranian race towards nuclear weaponry, or young Marines killed by the dozen, or that the U.S. ranks 139th out of 172 in voter turnout, or Ohio families struggling to love their insensitive leadership past the graves of their young dead, when some leaders vacation for a month while giving lip service to the dead as they stubbornly cling to rationalizations rather than thoughtfulness as the country lives normally and the young go out on patrol short of armor. A letter writer tells it this way: "we desperately need reminding that young men and women are dying every day and that their deaths are nearly unnoticed and largely unappreciated except by their families."
I am so sorry that my Sabbath thoughts are dominated by degrees of sorrow for the young dead, the older parents, the disillusionment with leadership that spends more time exercising his body than thinking his mind. Democracy is a failure when it selects leaders who have not led, not fought, not served, not thought or read, not grown, who think that their god speaks only to them--the ultimate threat to human progress and survival.
"Who is the man who desires life,
And loves days, that he may see good therein?
Keep thy tongue from evil,
And thy lips from speaking guile."
(Psalms 34:13:14)
"One person with a belief is a social power equal to 99 who have only interests."
(John Stuart Mill)
For moments we are mesmerized by astronauts doing simple repairs in space, hoping that this will bring them safely back to loved ones so we can celebrate their achievements as we drive to a baseball game.
The death of our young, whether American or Japanese, black, brown or pink, is cause for thoughtfulness. We owe them at least a moment of silence and of thought on this Sabbath day.
sandy
