May 21, Thursday

There came a time maybe 15 years ago when I gave up on changing the world. Up until that time I spent a lot of my energy figuring out what was wrong with the world and trying to make it right, or even just a little more right. It's OK that I made that transition because the world has gone on changing without my help. I needed to back off because I could see that I had the wrong approach. I was deeply stuck in the world of "duality" as the Buddhist's call it, the world of "I'm right and you're wrong", of either-or and of self righteousness. I wasn't alone there. I had lots of company.

One instance of insight that stands out in my memory was when I was working with a group to bring attention to the abuses of the prison system in Colorado. Our group put so much pressure on the Colorado State Prison officials that the warden of one of the prisons agreed to talk with us at our meeting. I can remember grilling him with an attitude of superiority. He answered, I'm sure as he was trained, in measured tones of civility while justifying egregious prison practices. I can remember hating this man that night.

The next day, as I was checking all the local papers for their coverage of the event, I saw in the Canyon City News a picture of this warden with his arm around his beautiful daughter on her high school graduation day. She was looking up at him with obvious love as he beamed down at her with pride. I was shocked to remember that this was another human being not just the cruel warden that I hated the night before. At least that one time I questioned my own over simplification of the situation which resembled a story of comic book villains and heroes more than the complex reality of life.

It seems that this world and her problems are vast, unknowable and maybe, though I hate saying it, unsolvable. Isn't it better to just concentrate on your own inner development, to learn to be more fully human so that you might have a positive effect on your own small cirlce of influence? Is it really necessary to get into the big issues or those which seem far from home?

This may be one of those life-long questions for me. At this point I generally don't put my energy into problems far from home or that do not directly involve me or those I love. You may rightly ask, what is not close to home on our small planet and what problem of injustice does not involve us all? I know! I know! But it's so overwhelming, let's not go there. For self-protection I keep control over my compassion. Do you think for a minute that we could weep for every murder victim on the evening news, every woman raped, every child who is beaten, every river polluted, every forest that is decimated or every species that is gone forever? It only stands to reason that we have to draw limits. Or does It? I don't pretend to know the answer.

I only know that yesterday, when I wasn't expecting it, while reading a web-site with the innocuous name Episcopal Cafe, my heart broke open in pain. I read the appeal of Gary Foxcroft who is working in Nigeria where thousands of children have been branded witches by followers of some of the Christian churches. These children are tortured and ostracized and sometimes murdered by their families who blame them for every bad thing that happens in the community. The video documenting this atrocity shows a Nigerian priest stating that he thinks there are 2.3 million child witches in Nigeria. He says that each child must be killed or the witch exorcised. He charges the usually impoverished parents large sums of money, to carry this out.

I guess it was the sheer craziness of it that got to me. As if it is not enough that we have the more perhaps understandable problems of over-population, famine, climate change and all the environmental disasters, even international and civil wars - now there is this horror that is just that, horror, killing and torturing children. Stepping Stones based in the UK is the main organization working to end this child witch hunt. For now I will make a contribution and write a letter to the Nigerian government reminding them that the whole world is watching, etc, etc. I will try to keep track of the issue to see if there are other ways I can help. I think it would also be good to write to the administrations of mainstream US churches and remind them of their responsibility since this witch hunt is being done in the name of Christ and the Christian Church which has proselytized heavily in Nigera where 35% of the population identify themselves as Christian. Somehow it has happened all over again, Christianity taken to the extremes of hell. We in this country cannot point fingers at the Nigerians without looking at our own Christian witch hunts past and present.

For me the lesson is that I cannot protect my heart when it's ready to be opened. What opens my heart may not be the same thing that opens yours. The natural instincts of our hearts to open to others may be what finally saves us. On the other hand, the natural instinct to protect our hearts must be honored too. But the older I get the more I remember that the end of the world for all of us is death. At this point it seems preferable to die of a bleeding heart rather than to die of a hardened heart. Or is it all the same? No duality here either?