Welcoming Voices of Truth, Voices of Compassion

The difficulty of sustaining empathy in a time of seemingly perpetual bombardment of anger and hatred, is my greatest struggle, and I believe it is a universal struggle. I am no different from any other living being on this planet. In these United States, we don't really believe that our lives could be snuffed out in a second, that the next exhalation of breath could be our last . . . this is the final frontier between me and death. Yet if I were an Iraqi woman, or an Afghan woman, or a Somalian woman, or a Haitian woman, et. al., I would surely sob in great joy and wonder at the water tumbling out of the kitchen sink as I wash dinner dishes. We are losing our perspective on the massive suffering going on in the world . . . we have been coaxed into a lethargy of blind unconcern because we are all sated with the goods plundered from the poorest on earth who are left to die. We must acknowledge this death-filled era. We must look death full in the face of it. We must see the truth of death. And only then can we turn to its cause . . . everything has a cause. If we can dismantle the cause . . . what kind of world would we have? I am suggesting only non-violent dismantlings. O Gandhi! Arise like a Lazarus and lead us now! O Martin Luther King, we so need a Good King like you! Help us to see the truth, speak the truth, walk the true path of healing. It is never too late to purify bad karma from the most heinous actions. It is possible . . . there is good reason to hope.