The Direction of Intention

Do you wonder, as I do, what has ever been achieved through war? Pick any war from the many, many, many that populate human history and ask, “What was gained?” Really? What was gained? How were we made better?

Certainly there have been useful technological advances. War has been a driver for innovation but I question whether we might have arrived at the same advances without the carnage. Could the advances in medicine been the result of goodwill? The desire to make lives better? And, have all of the technological advances really been advances? Wouldn’t our schools and our children be safer in a world without automatic weapons? Might we solve our differences as readily if war was not an option? Is cooperation and collaboration as potent a force in the world as conflict? Might they be more powerful?

I will be the first to admit that order inspires chaos and chaos necessitates order. It’s a cycle but I wonder if chaos really requires bloodletting?

Putin blames Ukraine for the aggression, Netanyahu blames the Palestinians for the aggression just as the current occupant of the White House blames Iran for the aggression. Hitler blamed the Jews and Pol Pot blamed the intellects. What has any of it achieved? Security? Certainly not. Prosperity? Well, weapons manufacturers are grateful for the business just as oil companies are applauding record profits from the ongoing closer of the Strait of Hormuz. Are we really that shallow? Is it really so impossible to share resources? Do we really need to learn again and again how interconnected our economies – our resources – our planet -our lives – really are?

Kerri took a photo of the storm clouds gathering in the sky. It is made beautiful by the safety of home. Home looks like a place but it is in actuality a wide web of supportive relationships. Home does not exist in isolation.

Elie Wiesel wrote that solidarity is essential for existence, “Alone we disappear.” Solidarity: unity, agreement, fellowship. Are these not also essential forces in the world? Martin Prechtel writes of community as “mutual indebtedness”. Is it not incumbent upon me to make sure you have food to eat, and you to ensure that I have fresh water to drink? If I poison the well will not I also suffer? Isn’t the imperative to bridge our loneliness – the necessity to reach across the void to each other – a more powerful force than war? Why else do we send probes into outer space? Rather than war, doesn’t it make more sense to reach across oceans to say, “We are here,” and ask, “How can we get to know you?”

Is it so hard to imagine?

*This song was the first contact I had with a woman named Kerri Sherwood. I’d written a newsletter entitled, “You Make A Difference” and a few days after publishing my newsletter an email popped in my box with this song. She wrote that my words had touched her and she hoped that her song of the same title would touch me. Well…

Kerri’s music-that-can-change-your-life is available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about POSSIBILITY

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Filed under: Awakening, Identity, KS Friday, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: Agreement, artistry, chaos, collaboration, community, cooperation, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, goodwill, innovation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mutual indebtedness, order, peace, solidarity, story, studio melange, the melange, unity, war |