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1.10.2004
Saturday, January 10, 2004
It is a sign of the sickness of our media culture that in order to promote his TV career, stay on top, and keep raising the bar of sensationalism that that crocodile guy would bring his baby into the cage with the reptile. He has been on Larry King live now and on the other talk shows. This story is not just about him. It is about all of us and all of our culture and what sells and what it takes to titlillate us. We have become so numb to our own inner lives and to all sensation that, like a drug addict, we need more drugs and better drugs than the ones we had yesterday in order to stimulate us into an awakened state. We seek quick-flash spikes in our adrenaline instead of any long-lasting deep serenity in our souls. We want a rush, now. Peace bores us. Love and compassion bore us.
But there is a more important point. We aren't upset at this crocodile incident. Deep inside we love it because it gives us something to talk about right now that is sensational, instead of facing up to the real problems of the children of this world. It gives us a chance to get self-righteous about something we don't have to do anything about instead of getting righteous about the things we should do something about. Children are devoured every second of every minute of every day in this world - by poverty, by hunger, by malnutrition, by war, by land-mines, by AIDS, by urban violence. We don't put society on Larry King Live to answer to that, now do we? How ironic, once again, that we are up in arms because of one child put needlessly in harm's way while we put millions in harm's way needlessly every day. How ironic that we are horrified by the potential that one child could be eaten by a crocodile while a million children who don't have enough to eat are eaten by their own bodies, their hunger devouring their muscle mass to eke out one more day of life on this earth.
1.09.2004
Friday, January 9, 2004
The leading cause of death of children in the world is diarrhea. This is no joke. Dehydration and water-bourne diseases in the developing countries of the world - problems that we could easily solve with the smallest bit of international resolve, are what take the lives of millions of children each day. This is the kind of thing - this and eradicating AIDS - things that we have it in our power to do now, that we should be dreaming of. It is all well and good to want to go to the moon and Mars, and I am all for it. But if we think that is how we will re-capture the idealism of the Kennedy era we are wrong - we must do the things that seem impossible in this age - we must set our own new goals. We killed John Kennedy. We will not revive his spirit by copying his dream. We will only revive it by dreaming as boldly as he did and by confronting the issues of our time with the bravery that he and Martin Luther King and Gandhi and Robert Kennedy and Rosa Parks and the others of their era did.
1.08.2004
Thursday, January 8, 2004
Can you imagine what it would do for the defense of the United States and the protection of our national interests if we took it upon ourselves to end the global AIDS epidemic? An act of compassion of that magnitude would confirm America as the true champion of freedom in the world. Have no doubt that that gift of love would be returned to us and multiplied by all the nations and all the peoples' of the world. The might of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines combined are not now nor ever will be any match for the overwhelming strength and protection of love and kindness.
1.06.2004
Wednesday, January 7, 2004
Isn't it wonderful to see the NASA scientists jumping up and down like children with joy at the sight of their rover landing safely on Mars? What amazing gifts God has given human beings, that we are able to achieve such miraculous things. To land on the precise spot they wanted on a tiny little red glowing dot far away in outer space. Magic! Some will say that we should be focused on the problems at home instead of going to Mars. Interestingly, these people are never very concerned about the problems at home until it gives them an excuse to criticize something as idealistic as the little Mars Rover. And in any event, why can't we do both? If we do not exercise our capacity to dream, then we will never end AIDS or hunger or any of the other things, for it is only a dream that will eradicate these problems. It is not by killing one dream that we will advance the cause of another. It is only by nurturing dreams that more dreams can materialize. Such is the nature of dreams. They are not limited in nature, but unlimited. The more we dream of Mars, the more we dream, period, and the more we dream, period, the more we will see the multitude of our dreams come true.
Tuesday, January 6, 2004
"The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by the skeptics and the cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who dream of things that never were." John F. Kennedy
1.05.2004
Monday, January 5, 2004, Second Post
Stirring excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essay on Self-Reliance:
"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."
"Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members."
"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist."
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think."
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do."
"It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views."
"Travelling is a fool's paradise."
"Insist on yourself; never imitate."
"Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other."
"The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet."
"Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not."
"And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance."
"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."
Monday, January 5, 2004
"The theology of love must seek to deal realistically with the evil and injustice in the world, and not merely to compromise with them. Such a theology will have to take note of the ambiguous realities of politics, without embracing the specious myth of a 'realism' that merely justifies force in the service of established power. Theology does not exist merely to appease the already too untroubled conscience of the powerful and the established. A theology of love may also conceivably turn out to be a theology of revolution. In any case, it is a theology of resistance, a refusal of the evil that reduces a brother to a homicidal desperation."
Thomas Merton, Faith and Violence, 1968
Sunday, January 4, 2004
"Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you're alive, it isn't."
Richard Bach
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