7-17-13 RMB Seek the Light

7-17-13 RMB Seek the Light 

Dear Rita Mae Brown,

In Bingo, I like that one of Mr. Pierre’s versions of a miracle is the early start of Nickel’s life and that she survived at all. I agree. With that rocky start that so mirrors your own, it’s a wonder that she survived in the story. It’s a wonder that you survived and are here with us now.

I like that his second miracle is about the war he fought in and how he and a Korean boy stood shooting at one another, managing not to even wound each another. “There is nothing noble about killing another human being…”, he elaborates, basically saying ‘for any reason at all’. He was referring to “organized violence.”

Even the phrase is creepy, “organized violence”, think Hitler, consider the village mob chasing after Frankenstein. Jennifer Silva Redmond wrote a poem that has stuck with me since I first heard it read, a decade ago. It talks about “This War, Any War”…words that would fit any war, every war.

And what of the levels that lead to violence…prejudice, discrimination, suppression, lack of acknowledgement, indifference, selfishness, resentment ?

To all things there is a path. Where does the path to organized violence begin and what can alter its course???

Perhaps energy is better placed on promoting rather than preventing. Rather than preventing violence, how can we encourage cooperation, kindness, caring, affection, appreciation?

In a discussion at Reverend Millie Landis’ church once, the idea of the devil was examined. One perspective offered is that there is no single devil, no evil entity out to get us, trying to turn us evil. But there is a lack of goodness that, in itself, leads us to evil deeds. Hell is anywhere that God is absent and Heaven is anywhere God is present.

If you are one that dislikes the image or titles God, Heaven and Hell, replace them. Evil lives where goodness is absent. The greater good, the greatest good that we can be, it conquers the wicked. Where there is light there cannot be darkness. Where we bring the light, we create our own paradise.

As with all things, what we seek we find, if we seek the light, the greatest good, we find it, and in doing so, vanquish the dark.

Aspiring for the best,

Loraine