I have to ask my conservative friends. What are you trying to conserve? Because if you look back at the past as a more friendly time, don't forget that the past was not a more friendly time for everybody. If "conservativism" has genuinely shed it's attachment to racism, elitism, and economic unfairness and even oppression, then I'm a conservative myself. I consider myself a "liberal" because I don't think we are entirely free from that past. And tomorrow is a day that we should consider what that past and present was about. People had to struggle to be where they are now. They had to struggle to have the luxury to "jump ship" from their brothers and sisters on the poor side of town and to join with the folks for whom "ownership society" has an entirely different reality from what they claim they mean.
And one of the pioneers of this was Martin Luther King. His famous essay, see;
"http://www.almaz.com/nobel/peace/MLK-jail.html
"I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid."
So is justice here in truth?
His essay is an extended call to justice. To the roots of Western ethics. Inspired by the unified universal unimaginable he went to fight for justice and freedom. This unbound and un-ownable spiritual unity calls to all of us -- though few listen. This ultimate source of reality speaks to all of us, though our minds are so clouded by dreams sometimes that we missunderstand the truth even when we hear it. This law is for all human beings, though there are many laws which seek to make it reality. And Martin Luther King made the case for why people can't lie down and "wait" for people to be somehow "ready" for change.
If one waits for change, people not only never will be ready, but those who aren't waiting will take advantage and make things worse. If one takes ones inspirations and understandings and sets them aside in favor of massaging the ignorance and myths of one's audience, one will eat well but never do anyone any lasting good. And one will die with a life of falseness, and the sages teach us one will receive the reward of incessent suffering. Suffering continues so much because people are unwilling to challenge it. Injustice continues because too many people are willing to cut corners or set aside their conscience for expedience.
But if one respects and loves oneself, and those around him enough to put aside such selfish ways and "do the right thing" then something better can indeed come of one's efforts. Then the dreams and myths one works with will be sustaining ones that can indeed change the world. Then one will indeed be working with truth. The sages say:
"HEALING OF THE COLLECTIVE MUST ALWAYS BEGIN WITH THE REPAIR OF THE INDIVIDUAL. "
and: "INNER PAIN IS ONLY REMOVED BY INNER HEALING. INNER HEALING IS ONLY ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH INNER WORK. INNER WORK REQUIRES EFFORT, DISCIPLINE AND SACRIFICE."
So let's work together. Let us continue our great Metta-waves prayer of chanting the daimoku. Let us pray for the repose of souls like Martin Luther Kings, and that more people will follow in his footsteps and the footsteps of other sages and sit at their feet to learn truth. For they taught things because they were true.
Posted by cholte at January 16, 2005 05:34 PM