ORDER FORM | HOME PAGE | SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
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GO FROM HERE? By Gregg Braden |
The tragedy that has fallen upon our nation has placed world leaders and individuals alike into the uneasy position of uncharted territory. There are no models, strategies or manuals, no one to turn to with detailed procedures as to where we go from here.
The magnitude of what has happened is surpassed only by the uncertainty of what comes next. The events that have unfolded leave us at a particularly perilous crossroads teetering between our emotions of outrage and the need for retribution, and a longing for reason.
The choices made in the next hours and days will set the course of human history for generations to come, with lasting consequences and irreversible effects.
These events have opened a deep wound in the consciousness of our nation and the world, a void that seeks to be filled quickly. There is nothing that we can do to any individual or any nation to bring back the lives that have been lost. Do we fill the void with an overwhelming display of force and power to quell the pain of a grieving nation, or do we fill the void with the measured response of a nation demonstrating to the world that we have truly entered an unprecedented era of dealing with conflict through new and innovative ways? Albert Einstein stated that the problems of our world cannot be solved with the same thinking that created the problems to begin with.
There is no "them" and "us." We share the same world and there is a "we"--different aspects of the same conscious body. When the dust has settled, we must look deep within ourselves to know what it is within ourselves that is mirrored by increasingly greater acts of terror and destruction. From dysfunctional families, to school shootings, to acts of terror against the United States on foreign soil, to the attacks upon our own soil, we are witnessing a pattern of increasingly greater acts of anger and lack of respect for human life directed toward Americans. Imposing a military action on the "outside" does not change the thinking that led to the acts to begin with. If we have the wisdom to recognize the language of "mirrors," we will have witnessed an obvious indication of the need for change.
I invite you to join me in a prayer empowering our leaders with the wisdom of a greater power as they implement their choices of response. Utilizing our "lost mode of prayer" identified in the Great Isaiah Scroll, in which we feel as if the outcome has already occurred rather than asking for intervention, our prayer may begin as:
Dear God,
In this time of great tragedy, we give thanks for the courage within our leaders to recognize the difference between the anger in their minds and the wisdom of their hearts, and the courage to act wisely in their choices.
May each leader have the strength to act for the good of all people, in all nations and our collective future as a global family.
Through this prayer we claim that peace, democracy and human life are stronger and more enduring than the buildings that symbolize them. We breathe life into their existence from the dust of hate that is transformed by our soil.
For these blessings in our lives, we give thanks,
Amen
