Author Virginia Mudd

HOW DO WE BEAR the constant barrage of news about the suffering, deaths and crises in all parts of the world without becoming immobilized with grief and despair? How can we witness man’s inhumanity to man—and other species and the planet—and stay positive? How can we bear the suffering and pain of loved ones close to us without being overwhelmed with sorrow?

I struggle mightily with this and would like to share what has helped me over the years. Well-known activist and teacher, Joanna Macy, (author of Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age and Coming Back to Life and others) calls us to the first, and hardest, step—acknowledging and expressing “our pain for the world;” anger, fear, guilt, grief, confusion, helplessness. Allowing our hearts to break open connects us with compassion for all who are suffering, which paradoxically brings us more inner peace and energy for doing something to alleviate suffering. I invite you to read this brief interview with her for more understanding of her teaching.

Another wise teacher, Pema Chodron, offers the practice of Tonglen for “overcoming fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of the heart.” Here is a short description of Tonglen.

IT’S ALL ABOUT BALANCE
Ram Dass once said, “Does knowing the sorrow of the world mean that we don't throw the Frisbee on the beach?”

I always need to remind myself that in spite of the world’s suffering—or maybe because of it—I need to be open to the joys, beauty, and love that are always a part of my daily life. These are some practices that help me keep that balance:
• I tell myself not to feed the forces of negativity and darkness by dwelling on bad news or problems. “Don’t go there,” I say to myself when I’m drawn to think of upsetting situations, but I do my best to release painful emotions.
• I meditate every day, and my dog makes sure I get energetic outdoor exercise. It’s good to get out in a natural place as much as possible. This poem by Wendell Berry speaks to the healing power of nature.

The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

• I subscribe to daily email messages of inspiration and guidance for keeping an open mind, an open heart and a vision for creating a positive future for all. Conscious Connections and The Center for Action and Contemplation are favorites.
• I also have to look at my own thoughts and beliefs to see if they are adding to or creating suffering.
• I look for stories, films, online sources, books, magazines (like Yes!), for good news of positive stuff happening all over the world.
• I choose to watch daily news but don’t look at images that I know will upset me.
• When I find myself feeling unable to bear some suffering in myself or others, I pray. I pray that God, the Universe, the Indwelling Presence and Divine Source of Love, will help me bear the unbearable.
• I join with others—sometimes even in an online forum—for mutual emotional and spiritual support.

So let's not forget to throw the Frisbee, and take in the beauty, love and joy that is with us every moment.

It has disturbed me for a long time that we do a lot of looking at the dead and wounded bodies coming downstream, and railing at the perpetrators of the violence, but we don’t talk so much about what's going on upstream, and WHY people are committing these atrocities? What’s motivating them? While I don’t feel qualified to speak of the complexities and intricacies of violence and terrorism, I have a deep sense that our approach is not working, and that we must find another way to end violence. I know I am not alone in this. I’ve read several articles (linked below) that present explanations for and solutions to turning this epidemic of violence around that flesh out my overview.

For decades we have pushed our consumer culture, our economic and political system on the rest of the world in what Rabbi Michael Lerner calls the “strategy of dominance.” I believe this has created much of the hostility and violence toward the West, and America in particular.

The “American Dream” for the World!
Promoting our American “brand”—our fashion, our food, our lifestyle, our entertainment, our religion, our stuff, our consumer culture, our economic system, our media, our advertisements—all over the world is one force of domination. Corporations promoting our consumer culture are always looking for new markets, and have now inserted our stuff and our values into just about every remote region of the planet. Once a new infrastructure is established in “undeveloped” regions to open these new markets, cheap foreign goods become available and are made more desirable than local products through advertizing. Younger people are drawn to new, glamorized urban centers to compete for jobs while the local communities they leave can no longer be self-reliant and self-supportive. The process creates poverty, competition and tension that did not previously exist.

Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of Local Futures, says, “I am convinced that becoming connected to the global consumer economy doesn’t just exacerbate existing tensions, in many cases it actually creates them. The arrival of the global economy breaks down human-scale structures, destroys bonds of reciprocity and mutual dependence, and pressures the young to substitute their own culture and values with the artificial values of advertising and the media. In effect this means rejecting one’s own cultural identity and rejecting oneself.”

With so-called “free-trade agreements” (like NAFTA and TPP) governments continue to undermine cultural identity through policies promoting a worldwide monoculture for the benefit of global corporations and banks. These policies lead to more poverty, alienation and frustration for those people who are already disenfranchised.

When people who have been impoverished for decades discover that the “American Dream” is not possible (we would need four planet Earths for all people to live like we in the U.S. do), they are naturally frustrated and angry, particularly at Americans who seem to have it all, according to advertising and the media. Ironically, the “American Dream” is not even possible for most people in our own country anymore. We have cooked up a recipe for violence, and then lay the blame on “those people.”

Terrorist groups offer these disenfranchised young men, who have lost self-respect and hope, and feel alienated, a chance to do something meaningful, and perhaps change their situations. If they join up they believe they can at least regain their sense of dignity and self-worth.

The U.S. and Rise of ISIS
The second huge force driving especially young men to join terrorist groups is the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Our invasion and the ensuing war and economic sanctions, killed over a million Iraqis. Their homes, livelihoods and family members were destroyed and killed, so why wouldn’t they want to join a terrorist group to retaliate? We showed little care and respect for the lives of those Iraqi people caught in this terrible act of war. Collateral damage we called it. Worse still, the invasion and war were justified by the falsely concocted presence of weapons of mass destruction.

In his article “The U.S. and the Rise of ISIS” Stephen Zunes says, “The rise of ISIS (also known as Daesh, ISIL, or “the Islamic State”) is a direct consequence of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. While there are a number of other contributing factors as well, that fateful decision is paramount.” He describes that interviews with ISIS prisoners show how younger recruits were drawn not by religious zealotry but by bitterness over how they and their families had suffered under the U.S. occupation and the corrupt and repressive U.S. backed government in Baghdad.

Is it any wonder that the West and America are the prime targets for attacks by terrorist groups?

The Way Forward
Many others can speak with considerable experience and expertise on ways to end violence; I stand with those who express the urgent desire to change the way we approach ending violence. It seems to me that strategies fall into two categories: spiritual and practical.

ON A SPIRITUAL LEVEL we need to understand where people who commit hateful acts are coming from. We need to put ourselves in their place, consider what grievances have motivated them to violent acts. We condemn their acts but we need to respect them as part of the human family. Peter Gabel (“Humiliation is the Root of All Terrorism”) says, “Empathy can be only about crawling inside a person’s perspective for the sake of helping to anticipate and head off future attacks.” We say we are a Christian country, but we don’t hear too much these days about loving our neighbor, much less our enemy, and rarely do we hear that we are in part responsible for the rise of violence.

ON A PRACTICAL LEVEL we can adopt what Rabbi Lerner describes as a “strategy of generosity” as opposed to a “strategy of dominance.” He proposes a Global Marshall Plan, which, among other things, would rebuild communities, infrastructure and economies of countries which have been destroyed by war and poverty. We would focus on developing local, self-reliant communities, which Helena Norberg-Hodge describes as “localization,” as opposed to “globalization." We would absolutely NOT RATIFY THE TPP, and would renegotiate existing trade treaties to benefit people and the environment rather than multinational corporations. We would GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS. We would initiate Truth and Reconciliation processes to reconnect with people who have been marginalized and abused. We would make illegal the manufacture, sale or possession of semi-automatic assault weapons.

Obviously we need to defend ourselves from attacks as best we can, but let us also focus at least as much energy on preventing them in the first place so we start decreasing the number of bodies coming downstream.

The world is in a transition and these recent acts of violence are painful reminders of the need for transformation at all levels of society, from personal to planetary.
Stephen Dinan. The Shift Network

RESOURCES
These are all excellent articles.
I especially recommend “Globalization and Terror” by Helena Norberg-Hodge
for her broad and insightful view of the problem.

"Initiate Truth and Reconciliation Processes", YES! magazine

The following articles can be found at Overcoming Isis; An Ongoing Tikkujn Forum:
"Introduction to Tikkun’s Approach," by Rabbi Michael Lerner
"Humiliation is the Root of All Terrorism," by Peter Gabel
"The U.S and the Rise of ISIS, "by Stephen Zunes
"Empathizing with ISIS: An Unthinkable Necessity Explained," by John McFadden
"Fighting Terrorism with Love," Philip McKibbin

Photograph: "The Knotted Gun" by Carl Fredrik Reutersward

Why do we need to step out of the consumer culture when our whole system is designed for and sustained by consumerism. How do we change that?

This is indeed a daunting task and a tall order. We’ve all been raised on the “mother’s milk” of buying stuff to satisfy our every need—physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. If we are to change our ways—personally and systemically—it helps to know why we need to do this.

Here’s our situation:
Every single good or service or form of transportation we humans use requires energy. World energy demand continues to rise, and development of renewables has not been fast enough to satisfy this increased demand.

The bottom line is that we’re using up our resources faster than the Earth can regenerate them.

The fact that has shocked me the most is the Overshoot Day: By July 29th, we used up all the regenerative resources of 2019. From July 30 we started to consume more resources than the planet can regenerate in a year. It's very serious. It's a global emergency. —Pope Frances, August 2019

So what do we do? For starters we need to imagine a different way of having comfortable and fulfilling lives, and to see real life examples of how people are creating alternative ways of living that do not compromise their own well-being or the health of the planet. Quite the opposite. These alternatives are contributing to restoring natural environments and building thriving local communities and citizens. View the excellent film "The Economics of Happiness. The abridged version is 20 minutes.

More food for your imagination: We invite you to a journey of departure from this consumer culture. We ask you to imagine an alternative set of economic beliefs that have the capacity to evoke a culture where poverty, violence, and shrinking well-being are not inevitable—a culture in which the social order produces enough for all. . . . This departure into another kingdom might be closer to the reality of our nature and what works best for our humanity. . . . Luckily, the exodus from a consumer, globalized culture into a neighborly, localized communal and cooperative culture has begun. We join the chorus of other agents of the alternative economy: food hubs, cooperative and social enterprises, the climate change activists, health activists, [etc.]. . . . (Adapted from Peter Block, Walter Brueggemann, John McKnight, An Other Kingdom: Departing the Consumer Culture.)

Want more good ideas? Here are links to excellent articles that speak to the path of building an economy based on the well-being of all people and Earth, rather than the maximization of profit for a wealthy few.

Fr. Richard Rohr (the Center for Action and Contemplation) featured Daily Meditations (11/24-30) on what he calls “The Economy: Old and New.” Some titles are as follows,
“The Gift of Sufficiency”
“Moral Capitalism”
“Departing the Consumer Culture”
“Making Do with More”
"The Economy Old and New," by Fr. Richard Rohr.
"A Vision of a New America," by Gus Speth.

IF YOU CAN DREAM IT YOU CAN DO IT.
—Walt Disney

Let's do it!

We are all undoubtedly distressed about the gun violence in this country rising to the point of it being an epidemic.

It has disturbed me for a long time that we do a lot of looking at the dead and wounded bodies coming downstream, and railing at the perpetrators of the violence, but we don’t talk so much about what's going on upstream, and WHY people are committing these atrocities? What’s motivating them?

While I don’t feel qualified to speak of the complexities and intricacies of violence and terrorism, I have a deep sense that our approach is not working, and that we must find another way to end violence. I know I am not alone in this.

Here are some brief ideas about why so much violence.
• People aren’t getting what they need or want, and feel unfulfilled.
• Many feel powerless, helpless and worthless. This brings me back to the ideas from Frances Moore Lappe´that we humans need Agency, Meaning and Connection. Many don’t have that.
• Excessive and extreme violence on TV and video games encourages violent behavior and thinking.
• Our economic system (it has been called “predatory capitalism”) promotes selfishness and a win / lose mentality. Competition “trumps” collaboration and cooperation. Everyone is out for her or himself in this culture that promotes self-sufficiency and independence rather than interdependence.
• The former president encouraged hatred and fear of others. For four years he incited verbal and physical violence. I am reminded, still with disbelief, of the jacket the former First Lady wore on her way to a migrant camp. It read, “I don’t really care, do u?” Is it any wonder there is an increase in abusive behavior and language?

Making Soul Boxes is one way people are bringing awareness to this epidemic of violence. Millions of people do care. Close to 200,000 Soul Boxes have been made to date. Let’s make more in remembrance of those who have died or been injured, and to call attention to this problem.

The Soul Box Project