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Spirit & Stardust In our soul's Magnificat, we become conscious
of the cosmos within us. We hear the music of peace, we hear the music
of cooperation, we hear music of love. We hear harmony, a celestial
symphony. In our soul's forgetting, we become unconscious of our cosmic
birthright, plighted with disharmony, disunity, torn asunder from the
stars in a disaster well- described by Matthew Arnold in Dover Beach:
" . . . the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of
dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor
love, nor light, nor certitude nor peace, nor help for pain. And we
are here, as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle
and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night." Today Dover Beach is upon the shores of
the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Our leaders think the unthinkable
and speak of the unspeakable inevitability of nuclear war; of a nuclear
attack on New York City, of terrorist attacks throughout our nation;
of war against Iraq using nuclear weapons; of biological and chemical
weapon attacks on civilian populations; of catastrophic global climate
change; of war in outer space. When death (not life) becomes inevitable,
we are presented with an opportunity for great clarity, for a great
awakening, to rescue the human spirit from the arms of Morpheus through
love, through compassion and through integrating spiritual vision and
active citizenship to restore peace to our world. The moment that one
world is about to end, a new world is about to begin. We need to remember
where we came from. Because the path home is also the way to the future.
In the city I represent in the United
States Congress, there is a memorial to Peace, named by its sculptor,
Marshall A. Fredericks the "Fountain of Eternal Life". A figure
rises from the flames, his gaze fixed to the stars, his hands positioned
sextant-like, as if measuring the distance. Though flames of war from
the millions of hearts and the dozens of places wherein it rages, may
lick at our consciousness, our gaze must be fixed upward to invoke universal
principles of unity, of co-operation, of compassion, to infuse our world
with peace, to ask for the active presence of peace, to expand our capacity
to receive it and to express it in our everyday life. We must do this
fearlessly and courageously and not breathe in the poison gas of terror.
As we receive, so shall we give. |
“In our soul's Magnificat, we become conscious of the cosmos within us. We hear the music of peace, we hear the music of cooperation, we hear music of love.” |
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