ignited

I say these things in full support of our troops and the cause they fight for.  I don’t say it to patronize or to anger.  I say it to inspire thought, or maybe even to inspire cause.

“The cause is peace.” The man said after he prayed over yet another lost life to the war in Iraq.   These words struck me most of all as I watched the H.B.O. show “Baghdad ER.”  Watching the death, the broken spirits, the terrified Iraqis, I completely forgot about peace. They all (or most of them at least) hope and pray and believe that this is the cause of their suffering.  I hope that peace is the cause too.  But I fear that the world has lost sight of this cause.   Especially in Iraq. Was peace ever the point? Maybe it was for some people, maybe not for others.  I feel it has become a government, oil, and money game of fear.   Now we are there fighting to stop the fighting, but peace seems to be the farthest thing from our grip, or often even our minds, now.  It’s such a risky business, violence for peace.  But is there any other way?

Some fifty years ago this country embarked on a somewhat catastrophic war in Vietnam.   But it didn’t take long for an American Revolution to begin within our streets.  People came together in a tapestry of anger and spirit and yes, drugs, to protest something they knew was wrong.  Unfortunately the war took until 1975 to end.  But America still rose up in that time.  What an exciting time to be alive; a time when there seemed to be an overwhelming amount of passion for life and humanity that I can’t seem to find in this era.   Of course I wasn’t there so I don’t really know, but I certainly don’t feel like this is that exciting of a time to be alive.  It feels so much more morose than that.  I could be exciting – we could rise up.  There are genocides going on and a war that seems be spiraling into the depths of hell and yet it is like pulling teeth for use to get even a few people gathered at STAND meetings or rallies.  Where is the passion? Why don’t people care anymore?

As humans, we are failing ourselves.  This country especially is breeding an amount of complacency and laziness that frightens me to my very core.  We have to rise up.  It has to be everyone.  I wish I knew how to make this happen.  How it is that we can rise up peacefully.  But I do know that there is an alarming lack of passion for life and humanity in the air that I have felt for some time now.  The spirit to see something that is wrong and want to change it.    We need to wake up.

The cause is peace.  The cause is life. We won’t be able to afford much longer to pretend that we live in a great world or a great society.

Oh de foof

Sarah

~ by violetsprout on May 27, 2008.