There is something I would like to share with you. Some years ago I found myself called to express to many what I feel to be an important if not most important lesson - until now I have withheld this for a moment in which I could share and hopefully give greater understandings to what I have found to be a needed and deficient resource; a deficient energy, in a world that needs reservoirs of empowered souls to face adversity.
Some time ago I found myself on the very frontlines of Iraq. Clearing trenches, taking prisoners, and crossing mine fields. Fear and death walked hand in hand; a difficult and sacrificial experience I will always remember.
I recollect that in the midst of one battle with the Iraqi Republican Guard 26th Commando Brigade, I found two men. I found a disfigured man in the grips of death; missing his legs. He lay upon the back of another who had died minutes earlier. As this man bled near my feet, he blew me kisses as if to tell me "do not shoot me" "do not shoot me", I give up to you...please help me. We called the medics in an attempt to save his life, and while I waited I remember hugging the ground as bullets flew over my head. As men and war mingled in their deathly dance, I remember staring at the sun with an estrangement. I felt a separation from our planet; a disconnection in which I felt as if I had landed upon another land, another world. Was this anxiety? Traumatic stress reactions? Maybe, maybe not; but with certainty a comprehension of only survival with the absence of light in the very darkness of living. It was a modeling I had not witnessed; a contradiction of my civilized role and a contradiction of life's expectations. I witnessed no cohesion, but only conflict, hate and that which tears life from the limbs of purpose.
After my time was served I returned to the States, enrolling at Mott Community College and the The University of Michigan Flint School of Social Work. I began to interact and volunteer with communities, neighborhoods and people of all walks of life. After some time of study as well as working within the community I began to draw significant similarities between my experiences at war and the new experiences I had obtained right here at home.
It became apparent to me that injustice was everywhere. The impoverishment of woman, children, the disabled, veterans and many others gripped my heart as an emotional vice. I could not stand still. I could not be so arrogant to believe I deserved my circumstance...when they themselves could not meet their basic needs for a decent way of life, lacking equitable education, housing, health care and opportunity right here in America.
o The war dead of my mind are now the young people in our streets today shooting each other over scarce resources.
o The wounded casualties of our young sacrificing soldiers are now the emotionally, psychologically and physically abused children I have witnessed within the community due to impoverished environments and a lack of responsible parenting.
o From international to national leaders who have failed us from negotiations to military operations; so has the failed perceptions of those whom ignore the failings of an inequitable system that has assisted with less than able means considering our Nations vast resources.
With my experiences and perceptions; I realized that unjust circumstances, selfishness and conflicts tear at the hearts, minds, souls and lives of all people. Within these systems and processes of war; a war against poverty or a war against oppressive regimes; a conflict of values, ethnocentric positions and even the inability for people of all cultures to accept the different levels of values brought me to seek out the answer; that something of great substance was greatly lacking within our world.
With our ever changing world; socially, economically, politically and culturally, our unpredictable world seems to declare a message of individualistic selfishness and the abandonment of individual and social responsibility to care for others.
As the winds of globalization and the advancement of technology brings new and exciting challenges and a required need for the creation of new ideas in order to be a localized as well as globalized success in the presence of adversities. Success must be measured and will come not by representatives of power, but by leaders who will lead the light into the darkness by ensuring the selfless commitment to assist and empower individuals and the systems they are contingent to; allowing the opportunity to exist for all to meet their basic needs. Regardless of your history, your profession, your culture, your race, your religion... to relinquish inequity, to destroy individual and systemic injustice... you must be willing to be of unique character, energy and light; you must be willing to Love.
Igor Stravinsky once said "In order to create there must be a dynamic force and what force is more potent than Love?"
With this understood; our newly created ideas, interactions and our personal responsibility as members of our families, communities and societies for our future should be to plant these ideas into fertile soil. This uncommon decision so valuable for you as citizens, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers...as humans; is required in order to properly grow and flourish our future generations.
The elements of this fertile ground are expressed through commitment, personal responsibility, forgiveness, acceptance, acknowledgment of strengths and weaknesses, integrity, the value of all life, and the relentless pursuit to sacrifice oneself over others. This decision is one you all can till from the rows of your hearts and the plots of your minds.
William Barclay stated that: "Selfless love or Agape love has to do with the mind; it is not simply an emotion that rises unbidden within our hearts. It is a principle by which we deliberately live."
"William Barclay tells the enlightening story of how Edwin Stanton was the bitter opponent of Abraham Lincoln in the early days of their political careers. Stanton characterized the awkward-looking Lincoln as a clown, a gorilla, etc. When Lincoln became president, however, he appointed Stanton as his secretary of war, because he felt that he was the best man for the job. Later, when President Lincoln lay dead from Booth's bullet, at the bedside Stanton tearfully said: "There lies the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen."
Abe Lincoln was truly a man that lived a principle of love - but today, so many speak of it; but too few express it.
"It is the ladder to scale the walls of pride. It is a shelter in which to hide. It is uncommon among the common life. It is the fuel that lights our life. Cowards hate, cowards take; but heroes live to love. No machine, no theory, no knowledge, no thought, no man...can make, create or even fully explain the powers love contains."
There was a statement made by a King in The Lord of The Rings story of the Twin Towers. This wonderful story by J.R. Tolken displays a similar reflection of our situation today in post modernized society. The King states as his castle is being taken over by evil fighters."What can men do in the presence of such reckless hate?" This is a brilliant description of today's interactions in society. Such reckless hate exists; such evil overwhelms our minds and lives; how can one survive? Evil expressed, defined and declared by the pursuit to destroy that which lives; to destroy the pleasure of living a life. To take the purpose from our reality itself.
"There is only one way to combat such tyranny. To purposely and militantly love. Hate and darkness is outmatched and incompatible with such power. In the presence of light, darkness cannot hide."
You who listen; you who have been loved and have been given the opportunity to make choices and opportunity in your lives. You have not been given opportunity, resources or maybe even wealth to seem better than others or to have more than others, but to give and love more than you have ever done before. This is your responsibility for yourself and your future.
As you have discovered, life is unpredictable and all of us have suffered in one way or another. This suffering must be turned inside out; used as energy for loving rather than hating; giving rather than taking. You must carry sharpened swords through darkened doors. One must sharpen a blade dulled by negative circumstances in order to cut deep through armor of the soldiers of darkness. One must love.
- For you teachers: a young child in your class is hungry, abused and in need of compassion in order to obtain a decent education. To that child you must be more than just a teacher. Their futures depend upon it, our futures depend upon it.
- For you nurses: a young man is dying of a rare disease. He seeks an ear to listen. You must be more than a Nurse. His sanity and our humanity depend upon it.
- Business owners: Someday you may have to decide between higher profits or affordable health care for your workers; what will you decide? Will you rationalize or prioritize?
- For any and all of us: People must be loved; it is a basic need; you must be more than a common citizen. You must be a human that loves beyond all circumstances, beyond all negative events, beyond all negative thoughts and feelings, you must choose to Love.
- Years from now our generations, our families and even our existence will depend upon our choices. Our choice to love, or hate? To destroy or make? What might you decide?
You must make that difference; the difference is what love makes...the difference to change the world.
In concluding, we as citizens of many groups, races, cultures...as humans always seek and love to be a success, but you cannot truly succeed in anything you do without loving others. I want to encourage you that in the midst of your lives and competition for resources within our individualistic society, that you measure your success by how much you loved, and gave in your professions, families, communities and society; and to ignore individualistic ideas of selfishness. If you will commit to this uncommon endeavor you will discover that loving others changes everything... loving others even changes you!
Let us set ourselves apart; leading by example as we develop the character and personal fortitude to make the right decisions within our professional and personal lives that will carry a positive impact for generations to come.
The world, the inequitable systems that oppress and take from others are governed, designed and transpired through all of us. The poor, the oppressed, the vulnerable, are depending upon your transformation to consistently love. Together as leaders and citizens of our future we can make a better, more equitable, more hopeful... a more selfless tomorrow...marked by light rather than darkness...marked by shine than shadow.
Fellow citizens,
...go shine.
Copyright2005 Compassionpwr@juno.com
See L.J.Riley Jr. Bio on other articles
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