Power or Peace

I don't remember when I first realized that the world situation is a mirror of our individual lives.  We are after all, just a great big family. Today, especially, that family is fairly dysfunctional, almost as much as the news that reports on it.  Sadly, attention goes to the biggest noisemaker.  So, what does the bloody situation in the Middle East say about our human family?  What does it say about us also as individuals? I think we are in trouble and need a new story and a new hope.  

But, first, I think there are three components to this out of control scenario. The first, loudest and most obvious, is that the government leaders have complete control over the people.  In fact, they are even willing to kill an entire nation to keep that tight control.  The second loudest and also fairly obvious, are the masses of victims, even children who are too often the ones who suffer the most in a dysfunctional family.  And, then, there's NATO, which represents the savior, those who would help the victims by slaying or eliminating those in control.

Most people wear one of those three faces of control and almost all people wear all of them at some point in their lives.  It's a symbiotic dance in which we all participate.  The only way to stop dancing to to simply stop dancing.  When you think about it, if you know someone who is a "victim" of some circumstance or another, it is clearly because at some point in his life, his personal boundaries were violated and he was taught and reinforced to allow those boundaries to be violated.  And literally volumes could be written to define what are "boundaries."  For some countries, it's literally a geographic boundary, or a cultural boundary, or familial boundary.  For others, it's less obvious.  For others, it may be that another person guilts you into doing something you don't want to do, or convinces (just attempting to "convince" someone is controlling) you to do something you wouldn't normally have thought to do by assuring you that you will be more lovable, desirable, beautiful, employable - something more than what you are already, which clearly says between the lines that the way you are right now isn't good enough, already a great unspoken fear by most of us.  

So, now, just stop and think for a moment. Are you feeling like you're good enough exactly the way you are?  If you are feeling a nagging discomfort level within yourself, is that coming from yourself or is it an internalized learned value that you absorbed (learned) from another?  We have all become puppets of something, someone or some system.  I don't know if we can find our way home, back to our natural homeostasis because we've been so deeply programmed by all the different religions, systems, corporate and government voices that blare their messages to get us - manipulate us - into giving them what they want.  

Both children and parents are controlled respectively.  Some parents are controlled by their children, who are controlled by the market place and the media and a sense of entitlement.  So, parents feel guilty, and work themselves half into the grave to provide for their children.  And there are children who are slaves to their alcoholic or drug addicted parents' whims only to gain a crumb of affection from their parents.  There are also hundreds of millions of workers across this nation whose very livelihoods are at the mercy of their bosses who can fire them "at will" anytime, for almost any reason.  So, on some level, we're all victims, slaves to something outside ourselves that holds either a carrot or a belt.  Yet, as long as we play by the rules of this control game, we are all "enablers," those who would reinforce the abuser's pattern of control by not challenging it.  

In the Middle East, the victims have risen up to challenge - albeit a bit late - their ruthless tyrannical dictators.  They are standing up at the cost of their lives.  They are reacting, again one of the ploys induced by manipulative controllers, and yet they've been victims for so long they don't know any other way.  Who is there to teach them?  A savy savior doesn't teach, rather he reaches in to the powerless victim and pulls him out (rather than teaching him how to help himself) in order to reinforce their own sense of self importance and power and furthering the victim's spiritual poverty. So, even a savior can be victimizing.

Until we all become free on this wheel of abuse - step off it entirely - we will each stay trapped in its web and none of us will be free.  It is like the Matrix.  We are all feeding this insane system, this dysfunctional wheel of misfortune.  As I write this this morning, I am aware of a friend's anguish over choosing between doing what is right for her at the risk of her teenage daughters' judgment and disapproval.  I'm thinking of another friend who has decided to step away from a relationship with her husband who demands she meet his every need and has begun to notice that his behavior has become increasingly abusive and she's worried about her own safety and that of her children. I am also sadly aware that as our economy continues to decline millions of talented, creative, brilliant people may have to give up on their dreams to work low level jobs to feed their children. And, what kind of message does this send to the children? 

I urge us all to take more time for reflection, for really thinking about what holds you, what controls you and who do you hold hostage and who do you attempt to rescue?  When you attempt to rescue someone, often you are attempting to rescue a part of your own self that you didn't even know needed rescuing.  When you attempt to control, it's often because there's a part of yourself out of (self) control.  And, the flip side of that is the victim, who actually may have more control over his own mind and life than the others, yet is unable to defend his boundaries.  As you look at the wheel, turn it, and turn it and turn it, and you see the world spinning out of control on its axis of dysfunction.

The answer?  The answer, for me, is God,  acceptance and surrender.  Surrender doesn't mean you allow yourself to become a victim.  Fighting in reaction means that.  Surrender means that you are giving God the control and inviting God to bring forward a solution.  Surrender with hope and acceptance with a dream mean that you don't give up, but you don't give in either. Rather, you wait patiently on God with full awareness of your place in the circle of life and stay aware of opportunities to grow, heal, gain in strength and speak out.  We all must wake up to what is buried deep within us, listen to it, listen to our feelings - because feelings don't lie - and then have the courage to give up our addictions, stop controlling others in all the many small and less noticeable ways until we enter into peace.  In that peace, we will find our power - not a power to control, but a power not to control. We can't change the world outside ourselves until we change, or rather heal, our own souls.  

I would say that the first step in the peace process is looking at your own life, peering deeply into your own soul, and being honest with yourself.  Too often we control (or allow) ourselves to be controlled in order to win external rewards - like the teenage girl who diets herself to death because the thin girls get the clothes and the boys.  Adults often work their years away for reasons that don't serve their souls.  I think it's urgent that we all stop and listen to our hearts and wake up to our own inner voice. Then, someday, there will be peace - at home and around the world.