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 **************** What is a GOOD secret? ******************* Where can one find an answer to peace without using conflict interpersonally, and war internationally, to reach it? This is not questioning the christian belief in the Peace that passeth understanding found in Christ, nor the peace acquired by attaining Nirvana or such philosophical panaceas for soul unrest, but the inter and intrapersonal seeking, striving for distress-free neighbourliness whether it be within the household, between households, communities or countries. How far does the "agreeing to disagree" enable unity to be maintained ? It would seem religious groups cannot accomplish this - hence new groups spring up with every advent of spiritual stirrings and inspiration proposedly God- given, and if the one time honoured ethics of professed christian belief and tenets cannot bring about peace - from what, then, is peace among men derived? The watering of this seedling thought could grow foliage needed to spread as covering for the whole tormented world. ********************** What would happen to the world if everyone were to be totally honest? Think about this honestly! ******************* So many billions of dollars have been spent on space travel to the moon and other planets yet, from what has been discovered in marine biological explorations, the mysteries of the Deep could be seen perhaps as more attractive to the common man, the beauty, the detail and exotic oceanic life has been photographed to entrance millions. What then is the message that the skies and galaxies have had a greater draw and are given vastly more dollar funding over the myriad wonders of the ocean floor and underwater treasures? Is the message benign or malignant? OR, am I not cognizant of the financial division of monies between sea and sky, and both are accorded equal importance in research but Space travel has been more publicized ? Prodded along no doubt, by Star Trek: Voyager and like genre. ***************** When the life deviates from the teaching, the teaching must become dogma to support its tenets for there is no other backing. When the dogma kicks in, is, in my mind, when harm, untold damage and suffering can decimate the souls of men. ************* Having grown up in Sussex during all of WWII , shivering in the air raid shelters, wondering where the doodle bugs would land, waiting for the All Clear to sound and so on, not understanding one whit, (and who does?) the logic that war is the means to peace, killing one life justifies another to live, that victory can only arrive through defeat and recently, the question posed asking what experience might I have had that has brought home to me the reality of good and evil? There is one picture of the concentration camps that will forever stand out on my mind. It is of a bird's nest box nailed up on one of the wooden posts where the barbed wire strung between them kept imprisoned, skeletal forms with sunken eyes unaware of the freedom they did not see beyond the wire because their inner visions were a far more real and vivid landsacpe than the scenery outside the camp. How to reconcile the evil of the guards willing, without feeling or conscience, to strip off a living prisoner's tattooed skin to make a contraversial lampshade and those same human instruments of torture being sensitive enough to provide a safe home for a small winged creature? Feeding and protecting it to make sure the eggs would hatch their precious lives to soar to a freedom denied their prisoners. Even as a child I had this question - how can such evil and such good be found in the same place? Another, perhaps even greater consideration, (with NO minimization meant of the Holocaust childrens' deaths) is what has been the experience of the reality of good and evil in ones personal life apart from the impact of what has been seen in the lives of others? This is the place of extreme vulnerability, exposing self to others, (strangers to whit), as one looks at the reality of finding good in the evil quagmire of personal abuse. For me, the profunditiy of evil is that which destroys or seeks to destroy a person's soul. There are no graphs that can record the altitude and heights used to inflict what might accomplish this. The Germans paid men and women to think up new tortures, more refined ways and methods to inlfict pain and mental torture - their "Excelsiors!" rang from the highest peaks of depravity. There are no fathoms deep enough to measure the lowest point a man or woman can descend who tries to climb out of the hell holes of abuse. I have experienced the reality of goodness - the joy of friendships, the beauty of Nature, the inspiration of music, art, literature, the humanity of man in those who love. I have also experienced the opposite, the ugliness of human nature out of control, the grief of loveless, friendless isolation, the barreness of a world without laughter, compassion, comfort or shared interests, and the inhumanity of man to man in those who revel in their power, control and greed. I think good and evil can never balance the one with the other because the two are seperate in quality and quantity - but the very nature of their oppositeness, for me, has made life manageable, enjoyable in the bliss of experienced comparison, the one so hellish, the other so heavenly. A seedling thought to water, " In whose hands lies the control of which becomes the greatest reality in ones life ( good or evil) - does it lie in the hands of perpetrators, the good folk whose presence and friendships inlfuence our thinking and behaviour, or the hands of the One who created us? OR, perhaps, more relevant, should be, " How much do I, personally, exert influence and/or control over the greater reality of good or evil in myself?" ********************** I have been lying here thinking of the many many friends I have known through the years. What is it in someone that causes us to want to know them better and that tells us they will stand the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows and remain committed to the end? Is it better to be loved or trusted, and why? ***********************   
| SEEDLINGS A | SEEDLINGS B | SEEDLINGS C | SEEDLINGS D | | THE HEALING PROCESS | DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER | POETRY | Biographical Entries | THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE | STORIES FOR LITTLES (Pigmus and friends) | SEEDLING THOUGHTS TO WATER | |
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