To See With One Eye: A Call To Action Beyond Polarized Times

Events continue on since 9/11. The twin towers of polarized thinking can no longer stand up under the pressure of honest reflection of self and other and world. It has become both too easy and yet impossible to say that this or that is the only right or the only wrong way to see or do things.

It is so essential to remember in these times that, while there are universal truths when seen through the eyes of the divine, truth is more relative to the beholder when the eyes are human. We must remember that few of us on any given day maintain the vision of the one over the vision of the other. We have to be patient with ourselves. But, how hard it is to be patient when our own nation seems to betray its own higher principles.

When nations are rendered apparently powerless, voiceless and desperate, they take desperate measures. If given the opportunity, they will do all that they can to render powerless that which they believe has overpowered them--even if they are mistaken as to just who or what has done them wrong? As nations, we demand an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But with the weapons of destruction as absolute as they are today, how much further can we go until there are no teeth and there are no eyes left to demand?

So, how do we ensure that the US-led response to terrorism does not degenerate into a worldwide struggle that leaves us cast in the image of the very darkness we must oppose? Do we become terrorists to fight terrorism; fundamentalists to fight fundamentalism; or become ourselves imprisoned by the very measures we take to protect our liberty? Are there alternatives to redress the wrongs done to us or must we always fight fire with fire? When do we — can we — turn the other cheek?

These are the questions and the times that try men's souls and tried they must be--but not in the military tribunal of conventional truisms based on the laws of petty minds and fear. We have always been far too willing to sacrifice higher ideals for security, wealth or power; far too willing to turn our backs on national and global abuses rather than risk loosing any comforts secured by denial. This is what has gotten us into such compromising positions in the first place with the likes of an Osama bin Laden, as we've dallied with one petty tyrant after another around the world. Now, the costs of our denial are unsustainable. We must have the courage as a nation to stand for our higher principles no matter how vulnerable to attack or loss that makes us.

But a nation has only as much courage and allegiance to higher principles as its own people have. It takes time for a culture to evolve to its highest potential, just as it takes time for an individual soul. Until larger numbers of us see as if with one eye beyond the polarization and into the sacredness of all being, how can we expect nations — our own or others — to see from the place of universal truth in times of such great threat? Until enough of us have the courage to stand for our higher principles without becoming that which we oppose, how can we expect our nation or others to do so?

This nation was infused with Puritanism from its very start, even as its adherents themselves sought religious freedom. We have suffered waves of McCarthy-like suppression throughout our history, and we will suffer them again and again until we are no longer afraid of diverse perspectives or of others' judgements of our own. Freedom, civil liberties, higher ideals can be lost in a minute to the twin accomplices of cowardice and abusive power. Human rights have been lost, over and over again in this century, in one country after another, while the rest of us looked the other way because it was not convenient to take action. Life is not convenient.

Yet what stands should be taken when there is nothing simple about the events of the world today? There are paradoxes, mirrors, and shadows aplenty and, as the righteous battle the righteous, opposites flow into and out of one another, at times becoming more like one another than opposed.

We can only now hope that the very complexity of our times provides us with the creative matrix for the maturation of our world culture into a new culture able to go beyond the mudslinging of shame and blame, tit for tat, and right and wrong of schoolyard politics. It takes courage to admit one's mistakes as an individual and as a nation. It takes courage to stand for your truth, as well. Only when adversaries can stop to reflect that truth can be found in all perspectives, just as easily as error, can they come together to resolve conflicts in a peaceable way.

Few of us committed to a positive future wanted a military response to terrorism. But good things may be coming from the US bombing of Afghanistan. Women may have rights who have lived without them in horrid conditions under five years of Taliban rule and even before, under the Alliance. People who were starving to death before 9/11 may have food for themselves and their children more quickly than they might have had without the outside military intervention.

The terrorist attacks on American soil were abominable. But good things may be rising from the ashes. Americans are awakening from their narcissistic frenzy of years past to consider what is truly valuable in their lives. Families have reconciled who could never have dreamed of doing so before 9/11. A whole nation is struggling with redefining itself, its purpose, its mission, its responsibility. All of this would have been a long time coming without such a wake-up call.

Now, it is up to each of us to ensure that the work continues--that the birthing of this new culture is not aborted by the impulse to return to the safe and the familiar. For instance, the pressure that people throughout the world have put on the United States and the United Nations (much of it coming from the Internet) to recognize the needs of Afghani women and starving families must continue. Without such pressure there is no guarantee that their needs will be met.

There are those in our government who would brand as traitorous such introspection as this. We must not let them. Let us stand together without ourselves casting judgement, understanding the fear that grips the souls of those who do such things.

There are forces in this country that would think only in terms of the oil that we can carry across Afghanistan, if we win. The pipeline may help bring recovery to Afghanistan, but let us not stop pressuring for alternatives for Afghani economic recovery and alternatives to our dependency on oil.

Likewise, there are those who would have us plunder our Alaskan wilderness for oil if they could convince the American people that it is in the national interest. But the American people have not been duped. They did take a stand and, so far, all efforts to open more land in Alaska for oil dredging have failed. We must continue to make our voices heard.

It takes time to educate oneself. It takes time to educate a nation and a world. Let us continue to work towards an awakened humanity, but let us remember as we do so, to look as with one eye, knowing the sacredness of all creation, even the sacredness of those who would do us harm. In the eyes of the divine, the pain and suffering of any people are the pain and suffering of us all. We are the midwives of the future. We cannot, for a minute, stop caring or stop acting.