Hi Omss-
I wanted to send a note of heart-felt compassion to the people of Norway in the aftermath of the terrible attacks that occurred a few days ago.
I still remember the shock of the Columbine High School shooting in the late 90s. I was living in Colorado by then, and I knew of the neighborhood where it happened. But the recent tragedy in Norway is different; it has more in common with the Oklahoma City Bombing than with the Columbine Shooting. The attacks in Norway were an intentional act of terrorism by right-wing extremists trying to force their religious and social views on society.
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All people are children when they sleep.
there's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
-- God, teach me the language of sleep.
~ Rolf Jacobsen (Norway, 1907 1994)
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I thought it might be appropriate to resend some thoughts I wrote about a year ago in response to a different terrorist attack that occurred in Pakistan:
Each culture, each tradition has its violent extremists. We have Christian extremists. We have Jewish extremists. Islamic extremists have certainly grabbed headlines in recent years. There are Hindu extremists in India. Extremism is not a problem of a particular religion, it is a disruption in the human psyche in general.
Religious extremism has very little to do with religion, if you think about it. It's partly a reflexive response to the intensely fragmenting nature of the modern world. And it's partly a reaction against the unavoidable, sometimes unsettling encounters with different peoples and cultures and beliefs in our ever-more integrated and multi-layered world. But mostly-- mostly it is an act of desperation when the heart of true religion has been lost. People become violently obsessed with rules and traditions and texts only when they have lost the sense of what they really point to.
If you know where the Beloved lives, you are content, no need to argue with others over street names. Conflict only arises when you aren't so certain you know the way; that's when another person's map threatens your certainty. Fundamentalism and extremism and xenophobia are an admission of that spiritual uncertainty. Absolutism is not an expression of faith, it is a symptom of a lack of faith. It is a symptom of the lack of true spiritual experience and knowledge.
The real long-term solution to the problem of violent religious extremism in the world is to reawaken that sweet, secret, sacred bliss within ourselves, to gently and generously share it with others, to create environments conducive to that continuing quest. The more we fill the world's dry troughs with fresh water, the less likely it is that people will go insane with blind thirst.
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War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there's a word that changes
poison into butter and honey.
~ Yunus Emre (Turkey, 13th cent)
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Sending blessings, and love, and cool water to you all!
- Ivan
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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.
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