Breaking the Cycle

Comment by lynda cole on May 3, 2011 at 6:08pm

If its not too long, I am forwarding a touching story from facebook

My first cousin who I am close with was literally blown up in WTC Bldg II. She is one of only 8 people who survived from above the blast of the second jet, of many hundreds who came from floors above and were down on the 92nd floor, and told to wait (for Bldg I) to evacuate. For my family, waiting to hear that she survived that day, and her recovery (and life-long physical and emotional effects), was as you can imagine. ... Yet as the news comes in today of Bin Laden's death, it brings me no joy, it only makes me sad. Sad that we live in a world where we cheer the death of someone, like we do. Are we so stuck in our identities, so identified with our nationality, that we do not feel simply part of one family? Don't misunderstand me, he deserved to die, under the precepts of war, or justice. But I cannot cheer the death of a human. ... Let me share a few words of humility from my cousin: this is true... One day in early May 2001, I was renting a room in Montclair, Oakland, and had it listed on Craigslist, and I had a call from one of the hijackers. I know this, because of the way that I interviewed the literally hundreds of people I've interviewed, during the decade I had maybe 20 housemates in large houses. I was never shy about asking questions, in full depth and detail, before even scheduling a time to show the house. We talked about his time in flight school - it struck me as odd that he was not pursuing a career as a pilot, and he literally said he was learning to fly jets, the fact that he said very openly he wanted a room only until September. He told me that he had lived earlier in the area, when he went to Holy Names college in the Oakland Hills. There was a lot more to this story and 20 minute conversation (I did not meet him, because, as I literally thought intuitively, "the dots don't connect."... One day, seven or eiight years ago, I told this story to my cousin. Within minutes, I was crying, hating myself with guilt for feeling so selfish that I would tell her this. I asked her, if she was not too upset, and to accept my apology. She said she was not upset. I didn't understand, I couldn't understand her coolness about this. And I asked, was she not angry, anything? At me? "No." Was she not angry about hearing about the hijacker, who nearly killed her and who killed all the people she worked with at one company, for 20 years, the people who were trapped or too injured and literally asked her to bring final words back to wives and husbands? "No." No? you are not angry??? "No." But, Why, I asked, Why not? "Because," she said, "He was just a guy that needed a place to live." We talked more about this, just enough for me to understand, and hear, that to her, he was just a person, like us, guided, mis-guided, caught in his world. I can only paraphrase or interpret from here, but she was saying that in god's eyes we were all equal, not evil, going through our time on this planet, each with our own destiny, and this was his. ... It's one thing to see compassionate people, people who do not express hate, it was quite another thing to see my cousin, under the weight of her experience, her surgeries, and her unspeakable traumas and eyewitness accounts, embody this. ... When the news that day finally came through that she got out, that she survived and was in surgery but was expected to live, I cried and shouted that "there's only two people who could get out of that alive, her and Harrison Ford!!!" I believed if anyone could do it, she could. She was my Hero and my chest burst with gladness and feeling proud of her. ... But on this day, she is once again my Hero. It is not the special forces or the President. ... I know on this day, she would not be shouting with joy or even expressing a whisper of glee, but she will be quietly contemplating this news, sad, and coming a little more to closure and healing. ... I do not think there is any joy in today's news. I do not feel proud of my country-men screaming in the streets. I am not happy, or glad, by any stretch. (I do not disagree at all with the military operation.) ... May I borrow Marlene's post, today: "We can no longer afford to worship the God of Hate, or bow before the Alter of Retaliation." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Comment by O'Douce Morand on May 4, 2011 at 2:05pm

Today in the 13Moon calendar of Peace it is the Yellow Magnetic Human day..

I unify  in order to  influence attracting with Wisdom for my purpose  which is to Free Will..

I Am guided by Free Will, Power Double.

Could it be that all this story has been invented to steer peoples hatred and

to use this information as a thermometer to see  the evolution of Humanity.

United States is the Blue Monkey in our Earth Planetary Holon

which the Blue Monkey is

play illusion and Magic...What kind of Magic does the USA play?

If it's off balance the Magic will be detrimental..

If it is aware and Harmonious it will be exstatic..

Obama this year is the white Magnetic Mirror

His purpose is to reflect Order  with he Power of Endlessness..

A reflection aren't we all One to One Another?

You are talking here of a Culture shift?

 yes I agree a Culture of Peace  is already emerging for many years it has, and We are all part of it .

Ready to activate new paradigms? join hands in the Spiral of Cooperation

 

 

Comment by O'Douce Morand on May 4, 2011 at 2:48pm

AhAh Ah sense of Humor is

SORRY FRIENDS .. AN ILLUSION JUST SLIPPED THROUGH..

I mistaken the day of a count

and it is today the Blue Magnetic Monkey..

I unify in order to play attracting illusion

I seal the Process of Magic with the Magnetic tone of purpose

i Am guided by Magic power double!

Have fun for the next 13 days...

Comment by Hilarie Roseman on May 10, 2011 at 1:24am

Professor Tom Scheff, of the Sociological Imagaination Group, has spent his life studying shame.  If you shame someone there begins a cycle of violence that spirals out of control.  I believe this to be true.  Dr,. Evelyn Lindner, of Dignity and Humiliation Studies exhorts us to never use humiliation as a control tactic.  We are all to respect one another.  I am a Christian.  Jesus Christ told us to love our enemy and pray for those who poersecute us.  Can I do all  this in my own life?  Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't.  In my recent research into the construction of peace, based on the common Abrahamic text to love God and Neighfour, my participants all said there are time when we have to try harder.  This is such a time.    Hilarie Roseman

Comment by lynda cole on May 10, 2011 at 1:15pm

 A beautiful comment and reminder Hilarie. Humiliating someone continues the cycle of abuse and hatred.

I met a young soldier who had been in Iraq for two tours of duty. His troop went door to door in one village doing very detailed and distructive searches. At one home the owner came out during the search and brought each of the soldiers tea with a very gracious attitude.That one act changed his whole attitude to what actions bring about change.He returned to the states and bicycled across country with a message of peace. Appreciation and graciousness are much more powerful tools of transformation then people realise.

Comment by David W. Gotshall on May 11, 2011 at 10:59am

I now believe that true peace requires more courage than war. Let us all pray that the leaders of the world can start to demonstrate the necessary courage/

Comment by Hilarie Roseman on May 11, 2011 at 6:24pm

Yes, I agree with David.  But where do we get courage from?  The fear of personal failure, the fear of 'knowing' and then putting that inowleedge into a communication that can be accessed by many people, the terror from terror that clings to you like a black cl.oud, the fear of having to support your knowledge, and those who give it to you.  The obstructions and the abyss that opens up before you.  My only courage, in my work with Jews, Christians and Muslims, comes from the one God whose express will was, and is, and will be, to love God and neighbour.  However, many people today say to me, but I do not know how to pray.  Let us sit down, relax, open our mind and our heart to the God of our ancestors and say together, Thy Will be Done.  Not in our strength, but in God's strength.

Comment by lynda cole on May 11, 2011 at 6:51pm

Well said. Brain scan studies now show that people who meditate have enlarged areas of the brain that relate to feelings of peacefulness and compassion. Regular prayer/ and or meditation actually changes brain chemistry and makes it easier to cope with pain and distress, as well as stay in the place of compassion instead of ego based reactivity. I think if more people placed a value on including prayer and meditation in their lives, the courage for peace would increase. It would also increase if our society valued our peaceful warriors and demonstrated that in films, etc instead of all the violent warriors represented as our heros on TV

Comment by Hilarie Roseman on May 11, 2011 at 7:20pm

I have further information, there is the belief now that our brains are PLASTIC.  This is unbelievable!  It means that they can be rewired.  There is a man called Bruce Perry who says that affirmation can rewire a person's brain who has been affected by bad, negative experiences.  That affirmation, and as my participants say, hospitality, can rewire a person's brain so that they can leave behind all that "stuff" of negativity.  This is so absolutley incredible, when you think of all those bombs and guns,, that you have to shake your mind out.  I can affirm and give hospitality to those around me.  I can begin to make the world a better place.

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