Thanks Dennis. I would also like to offer something from Confucious. I
think that this is the world that we all want to live in. It's written
more than 2000 years ago, but it's the ideal that we need to strive
towards:
"When that perfect order prevails, the world is like a home shared by
all. Virtuous men are elected to public office, and capable men hold
posts of gainful employment in society; peace and trust among all men
are the maxims of living. All men love and respect their own parents
and children, as well as the parents and children of others. There is
caring for the old; there are jobs for the adults; there are nourishment
and education for the children. There is a means of support for the
widows, and the widowers; for all who find themselves alone in the
world; and for the disabled. Every man and woman has an apprepriate
role to play in the family and society. A sense of sharing displaces
the effects of selfishness and materialism. A devotion to public duty
leaves no room for idlenss. Intrigues and conniving for ill gains are
unknown. Villians such as thieves and robbers do not exist. The door
to every home need never be locked and bolted by day or night. These
are the characteristics of an ideal world, the commonwealth state."
He's such a wise man......
Here is a link to some more of his teaching:
http://www.confucius.org/maine.htm
Thank you for providing us with an open space to share our voice. Happy
Holidays and a Great New Year!!!
>>> Dennis Raphael <[log in to unmask]> 12/20/06 6:11
PM >>>
The World's One Hope
1 Is oppression as old as the moss around ponds?
The moss around ponds is not avoidable.
Perhaps everything I see is natural, and I am sick and want to remove
what
cannot be removed?
I have read songs of the Egyptians, of their men who built the pyramids.
They complained of their loads and asked when oppression would cease.
That's four thousand years ago.
Oppression, it would seem, is like the moss and unavoidable.
2 When a child is about to be run down by a car one pulls it on to the
pavement.
Not the kindly man does that, to whom they put up monuments.
Anyone pulls the child away from the car.
But here many have been run down, and many pass by and do nothing of the
sort.
Is that because it's so many who are suffering? Should one not help them
all the more because they are many? One helps them less. Even the kindly
walk past and after that are as kindly as ever they were before walking
past.
3 The more there are suffering, then, the more natural their sufferings
appear. Who wants to prevent the fishes in the sea from getting wet?
And the suffering themselves share this callousness towards themselves
and
are lacking in kindness towards themselves.
It is terrible that human beings so easily put up with existing
conditions, not only with the sufferings of strangers but also with
their
own.
All those who have thought about the bad state of things refuse to
appeal
to the compassion of one group of people for another. But the compassion
of the oppressed for the oppressed is indispensable.
It is the world's one hope.
Bertolt Brecht - 1938
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2127719,00.html
http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/bertolt_brecht
http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesf/goodwoman/brecht_bio.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Happy Holidays and a Great New Year!!
Dennis Raphael
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