Several Views On Relationships With Your Enemies, Followed By Newt Gringrich's View
Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt. -Graham Greene
Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: viz., avarice, ambition, envy, anger and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace. -Petrarca Petrarch
Am I not destroying my enemies," Lincoln gently replied, "when I make them my friends?-Abraham Lincoln
Matthew 5:44-48 (NKJV) "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 "that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.Jesus Christ
Love your enemies, for they will tell you your faults. -Benjamin Franklin
Count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self. -Aristotle
So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs. -Elbert Hubbard
"You don't appease your enemies — you defeat them." -Newt Gingrich
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father,
Who Art in Heaven,
Hallowed Be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom Come,
Thy Will Be Done,
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the Kingdom and Power and the Glory,
Forever and Ever,
Amen.
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Thy Will Be Done,
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
I was told in Sunday school that at the time that Jesus said this prayer that the idea of his kingdom coming to earth had not come because he had not yet died and resurrected. After the resurrection Jesus' kingdom was set up on Earth and that part of the prayer is no longer applicable to us now.
However, it is not hard to see that things here on earth are not as they are in Heaven.
Sometimes it seems in the world and in our lives that things on earth becoming as they are in Heaven is probably not going to
happen.
But this is part of the prayer that Jesus prayed. And this prayer was given to us, in the form of an instruction, in answer to the question, "How should we pray?
This prayer is should be considered a gift that not only can transform the world, but also transform right where the transformation needs to start-within ourselves.
Couple of Things For Ya To Check Out
WIE, or
What Is Enlightenmentis a bi-monthly magazine that has been around for 15 years, and they interview a lot of spiritual teachers and what not relating to the 21st Century Spiritual Awakening. If you liked the movie "What The Bleep Do We Know"(I did), then you will probably like this magazine.
Their current issue is kind of a 'best of' throughout their past 15 years of publishing. This is a great way to check out the breadth of their scope.
And wouldn't you know it, they have a website!
www.wie.org--------
Are you fed up with Myspace? Are you not fed up with Myspace, but just want something a little more, I don't know,
spiritual?
www.zaadz.com is a way for the enlightened to connect, but of course the goal is to change the world. It's a bit more selective than Myspace...in fact they are looking for something specific.
They say it better than I can:
Our Plan. Ours involves Conscious Capitalism infused with Spirituality and a healthy dose of Enthusiasm, Love, Service, Inspiration, Passion, Humor and Teamwork. People CRAZY enough to think they can change the world, Courageous enough to do something about it, AND Committed enough to stick to it when they feel like giving up.
So not just any 12 year old or creep with a computer can just get a password-you have to be approved.
Not that Myspace is just full of creeps and 12 year olds, but you get the idea.
So check it out and have them check you out, and maybe I'll see ya!
3 Questions For Humanity and St Ignatius Loyola's Answer
Three Questions To Ponder
1 Who is God?
2 What is Love?
3 What do I have to do with any of it?
First Principle and Foundation-St Ignatius Loyola
Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created.
From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on to his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it.
For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it; so that, on our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring and choosing only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are creat
Cease Fire-No Winner
Originally posted 8/15/2006
Preface:
I am by no means anti-military. I believe we need the military in this day and age more than ever, and I respect the military personnel that serve our country in this way. I am saddened by any military personnel that perish in service to our country and I do not in anyway, shape, form or fashion condemn the US Military. If I point to any problem within the US I point only to the US as a whole, as a citizenry, myself included for the collective hate that we all possess.
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Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and President Bush are both claiming victory for themselves in the aftermath of the recent war involving Israel and Hezbollah.
In a sense everybody is right, and from another perspective everyone is wrong.
Terrorism is not concerned with winning a war, in the traditional sense that wars have been decided in the past. One only needs to consider 911. It was devastating, it was cruel, it was humanity at its worst. There is no country to do battle against, only a certain group of people who are spread out all over the world, some of them possibly still in this country.
Terrorism wins when we begin to be suspect of everyone we come into contact with. Terrorism wins, when we react like they do, when we play their game.
We have to protect ourselves, and the challenge is to do that without playing their game.
It's hard to have a war when there is not an opposing side.
In that sense, Hezbollah and all terrorists have won in this conflict. They reduced us all to continue participating in the madness that is fear and war, displacing many innocents who had nothing at all to do with the conflict. They were successful in spreading their message of fear and hate.
And our President only taunts them further, claiming 'Israel won', showing us further that we all lost. We lost an opportunity to encourage steps towards peace when it finally happened. Rather than affirm a cease-fire victory, which is where the real battle was won, we affirm victory in war. It is a fragile cease-fire. It is not real peace. The reasons for the outbreak still exist. The same suspicions and fears remain. The same taunting is still in place.
Winners or losers in war don't matter anymore. But there are ways we can become winners whether or not any of us ever fire a gun or launch a missle.
Learning lessons in how to avoid war from experiencing these conflicts would be one of those ways.
It is worth noting that though we might have been close to WWIII more than once, the memories we have of those previous world wars has been enough to stop us from experiencing another world war.
The blood from Hiroshima and Nagasaki still cries out and keeps us from engaging in further nuclear holocaust.
In this way we have made progress in the world.
If we don't continue to be able to learn these lessons, then we will all have lost.
Sometimes it appears we have reverted back to simply throwing rocks at each other. The song remains the same, only the technology changes.
Let us rid our individual selves of pride, arrogance, and hate. Despite our beliefs, love is the highest form of humanity that we can strive to live for. Let us stop with insults and taunting, however harmless it seems. Let us imagine what would be left if we let go of these dangerous vices. Let us imagine what our country would be like, what our world would be like if we could all be of one mind in this regard.
This is the difference that we can make in our world.
Peace In The News
Originally Posted 8/01/06Another positive development comes from CNN, stating that Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska broke from the Bush line and stated that the US should "...end this madness...". http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/31/hagel.mideast/index.html
Clarification on Previous Two Posts
Originally posted 7/30/06 in my other blog.
I recently received an email response based on my previous two posts regarding peace and war. Because of the statements the individual made it became really apparent to me that the previous postings did not effectively communicate my ideas on this subject. I was allowed to post the response on this blog and provide answers to them. I did answer directly to the reader. However, in this format, for the sake of continuity and ease of understanding, I will address each paragraph individiually. I have also added some thoughts that were not part of my original reply to the submitter.
> Brian,
>
> In your blob you note the UN "consensus" as some
> sort of moral authority w.r.t. peace. The UN has
> *NEVER* prevented a war or any type of military
> conflict. In fact, they have allowed some of the
> worst monsters since WWII to prosper in the shadow
> of their inability to act and fulfill their original
> charter and allowed 100's of thousands (if not
> millions) to suffer unnecessarily while they have
> looked the other way.
> The UN is a political organization, not a peace
> organization. Members manipulate it for political
> advantage, not peace.
I have to agree with you about the UN not being a
preventer of war. The whole point of both my articles
on this issue is that responsibility for world peace
does not rest with anybody but ourselves.
I was attempting to show that through the actions of
Ms Rice at this meeting(I didn't know it was a UN
meeting)the United States continues with the ideology
that war is an option in case of conflict. This cannot
continue.
Now many peace activists are quick to point to Bush
and the current administration as being the fault of
all of this(current bumper sticker debate will bear
this out).
My prodding encourages us all to look within ourselves
to bring about peace. If there were to be a critical
mass of peace in the US, even the world, there would
be no more room for this kind of thinking.
That being said, it appears that at least in regard to the US offensive on Iraq and the current conflict in Israel, the UN has seemed to continue to be committed to peace at any cost.
> I agree that the root of the middle eastern
> instability is ultimately "hate", but I don't think
> that the west inherently hates Arabs. On the other
> hand there are a good number of fanatics in the Arab
> world that consider you and I part of the great
> Satan; they are systematically taught hate us from
> the time of their birth simply because we exist as
> an agent of evil.
Understand that hate as I see it does not regard the
source of the hate, it only recognizes hate for
whatever the reason.
Like a fire, there can be anything or several things
that might start a fire, but there are completely
different things that can keep it going. Either way, a
fire can quickly rage out of control.
> I think that we are at a point in history in which
> there is a great conflict between ideologies:
> Judeo-Christian vs Islamic Fascism. Of course there
> are many who would choose to hide (Germany, France)
> or manipulate this conflict to suit their interests
> (China, Russia), but many of us (you and me, for
> example) really don't have a choice in the matter,
> the other guys simply want us and our ideology to
> cease to exist by any means possible.
But at the root of these conflicts is hate.
We have had and always will have conflicts,
disagreements and different ways of looking
at the world. What you are really describing
is the collective hate in the world that bears
itself out in these conflicts.
I will challenge you with a concept that we
need to conisder when thinking about these
issues. The world as it is now is a fight
looking for a place to happen. I knew people
in school like this. There are people in our
adult lives that do this now. My challenege to
myself and every citizen of the world is that we
need to eradicate the hate within ourselves, which
in turn will eradicate the hate within the world,
which in turn will eradicate the violence, war
and other insanities that we have in the world now.
> I am not sure what point you are trying to make in
> your blog; "war" is not synonimous "hate" nor is
> "peace" unconditionally good. There are governments
> all over the world that systematically kill and
> torture those who oppose them to "preserve the
> peace." There are both righteous wars and
> unrighteous peaces.
I am not praising countries that use violence to
bring about peace. How can that be real peace?
What you are describing is people living in fear
of a government. Countries sometimes do that to achieve 'order'.The country of China comes to
mind. How can a peaceful country run over and
kill college students with military tanks in a
public place? Hate does not eradicate hate. Just
because somebody can't fight back does not mean
hate is not being fostered. Love does not know hate or fear.
You can't have war without hate...what else can you
call using violence to kill in order to force the will
of one over another? The people that are dying now are
innocents that have not a thing to do with the people
having the conflict.
Love would not allow war as an option. We will always
have conflict. Love encourages us to understand each
other and work things out. There is nothing unrighteous
about that kind of peace. In our society, I don't think
we can conceive of that kind of peace, we certainly haven't
ever experienced it.
In regards to a righteous war, I'm not sure that we are at
a point to make a determination about what defines a righteous
war. The Christian Crusades were about killing people for the
sake of Jesus. That was seen as a righteous cause at the time,
but now we know that it was a horrendous mistake.
Did God 'use the US' to take Sadaam out of power for the attrocities that he committed while he was in power? It's hard to be clear on that when the US committed similar attrocities in the same places that his regime did when he was taken out of power. Perhaps we should have waited for time to do that. History can tell us that powerful cruel dictators do not stay in power forever.
Hate Does Not Eradicate Hate
This was posted on my main blog on July 28, 2006, a couple of weeks after Israel attacked Lebanon. It was in response to a UN meeting held on the issue in which every nation except for the United States voted for a cease fire. The following is a quote from CNN in regards to the the war in the Middle East:
Friday's Washington meeting follows an Italian conference of key Middle East decision-makers that failed to agree on an immediate cease-fire as the United States, backed by Britain, insisted any halt to violence should be linked to a wider effort to disarm Hezbollah.
A senior U.N. diplomat has described the mood at those talks as somber. He said all the parties but the United States wanted an immediate cessation of fighting to make room for more negotiations and humanitarian aid.
Rice argued that taking such an approach would leave Hezbollah in place and armed with rockets.
It is clear from news like this that we have not reached the critical mass of peace in our country that we need to reach for our leaders to begin making decisions that will encourage peace.
Now some will continue to be critical of the current administration and Ms. Rice...but again, hate does not eradicate hate. Simply directing more hate to the administration will add to our collective hate and contine to make the problem worse. It's time to come to a critical mass of peace within ourselves to make this change.
Peace Love and War
It is starting to become clear to me that our society, our world and our earth can no longer tolerate war and violence of any kind.
We have got to begin to look at ourselves and see what we can do to get along with people all around us, those people different from us and people of different cultures and nations.
Furthermore we have got to look and see what our part is in continuing the cycle of war and violence.
Our world seems to have an immature mentality of social relations. Two children in a car are fighting, you ask them to stop, one of them says, 'he/she started it'.
We need to be the bigger one that stops it, and we need to get to a place in our hearts where that really is the accepted way to go.
There is always a reason for war and violence. Perhaps there are as many reasons as there are wars.
Our thinking in our relationships with others needs to be that war and violence is not an option.
I see protestors protesting war, but in doing so they seem to continue to perpetuate the anger and hate that is common to all those wagering in violence and war.
Hate has nothing to do with peace. Hate toward political leaders, hate towards enemies, hate towards anybody or anything at all has no relationship to the kind of world we desire to live in. Using hate to combat hate is not part of the solution in eradicating hate.
Soon we are going to discover out that the foundation and basis of the entire universe is peace and love.
We must align ourselves with love immediately, to stop further degradation of our earth, our world and our society.
WWII showed the world that the nation with the most powerful weapons becomes the leader of the world.
Now that other nations are trying to assert their place in the world, they are only following the examples that they have seen.
Don't we follow this own thinking in our own lives? Certainly I am not the only one who has ever heard 'the ones with the most toys wins'?
I see bumper stickers around town that say 'regime change begins at home'.
It is easy to look upon someone in a position of power to say, 'you should stop the war'. It's easier to tell anyone but ourselves what someone else should do to make the world a better place.
Most of us are not in a position of power of world influence. None of us can force anyone to do anything they don't want to do, but we try, time and time again.
We are only responsible for our own actions.
The need for positive change does not rest with somebody else. It rests within each and everyone of us.
Did I cut someone off in traffic today? Did I yell or insult someone I love today? Was I rude to someone to day in furtherance of my own objections?
There is a theory that suggests that Hitler could have only existed and risen to power if there was enough empathetic emotion in existence to get him there.
Indeed Hitler did represent not only the desire for Germany to become a major world power, but he also represented the Anti-Semitism attitude of Europe that had been in existence for many, many years.
Hitler, then was a product of his society.
If we are to produce heroes, then we must quit looking outside of ourselves for those heroes. We must become heroes ourselves.
