Destructive Gentleness

 

DESTRUCTIVE GENTLENESS

So practical and understandable, the building of armies, the toughening of the children.

How inept, weak, and incompetent I feel in comparison to the guys who are tough, the professionals who are accomplished, the heroes who have survived.

Is their path superior?  Is it the better path to study martial arts, to prioritize toughness and combat skills?

Does gentleness have a place anywhere?

Is gentleness counterproductive? 

Is gentleness destructive?

Is gentleness so impractical, so irrelevant, so pointless that we would be better off relegating it to a wish-list but not wasting precious life on trying to practice it, unless with our own children in the safety of our well defended home?

We live in a world of walls.

We  surround ourselves with walls out of necessity.

How appealing it is, that image of security and privacy!

How imprisoning that is, that image of security and privacy.

What place gentleness and vulnerability in this world?

Gentleness and vulnerability appear only in brief flashes in scriptures and texts, and are for the most part carefully avoided in creeds and dogma.

We, of whatever religion, recite our beliefs, claiming we believe in this or that and such or the other, delightful intellectual constructs for our minds.  But seldom do our recitals of beliefs about theology and eschatology or our mantras of methods for enlightenment and transcendence invoke the word “gentleness”.

Our media, our sports, and our heroes hardly hammer home admonitions to practice gentleness.

For a politician “gentleness” might be misinterpreted as weakness.

Gentleness is far too impractical, and mainly, far too dangerous, to ever survive as a political position or religious dictate, much less as a way of life.

So, the world continues as it always has, practical and pragmatic, violent and tragic.

Those we would follow, cheer, and vote for must have big muscles or expansive egos, not big hearts and expansive souls.

Gentleness remains unencouraged and unnoticed. 

Yet we are always grateful when we are the recipient of it.  Its salt in the cauldron of humanity keeps the world from devolving into even worse violence and brutality.  With no rewards for it, no hall-of-fame for it, no high titles for it, and no job openings for it, gentleness avoids spotlights and awards - quietly laying its foundations for lives and growth and healing in even the midst of the clash and combat of this world, gentleness quietly revealing the real meaning of strength and courage.

 Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.

For the Children

FOR THE CHILDREN

As I listen to reports from Sudan, as I watch reports from the wars in Gaza and Ukraine and Democratic Republic of the Congo, I wonder how the opposing peoples’ goals so violently diverge.

If you look to opposing sides in any conflict, business - tribal - sectarian - religious - international or military, and ask what they ultimately want, down at the personal level of daily real life, might we find anything in common?

Would everyone want security for their children?  Would everyone want enough nutritious food?  Would everyone want health?  Would everyone want peace and security?

If you had these discussions even with fundamentalists who believe the only way to achieve their ends is through war and violence (apparently their God being too enfeebled to construct their pending Kingdom or Paradise without our help) would even those fundamentalists not still hope for the same ultimate objectives for their children?

Do our differences come down only to the means by which to attain the same unknowingly shared goal?

What if we focused on that goal, on the longed-for goal, on our dreams and aspirations, on our highest hopes, might we not find some ground for agreement?

If we first established that, if we first established the realization among warring parties that they ultimately all seek the same basic outcome and differ only in the path to reach it, might such revelation not dramatically improve the odds of discerning some uncontested, mutually shared objective?

Perhaps parties who enter the negotiations with the belief that their optimal outcome can be attained only upon the extermination of their enemies might recognize their enemies are not so different after all.  If two parties were forced to acknowledge that they share the same wants, needs, and desires, if they were forced to look into the eyes of each other’s children, might that at least in some incremental way temper the stridency and ameliorate some of the hatred?

When we enter discussions on the basis that “they” want to destroy us, of course we feel we must first destroy them.  But what if destroying us is not their objective?  What if they simply want to raise their children in safety and security and in the culture, society, traditions,  and  religion of their mothers and fathers? 

If in negotiations we could strive not to win, not to conquer, not to inflict our beliefs – religion - economic system - political system - ruling monarchy - and ancient prophecies on those others, but instead enter negotiations with the avowed goal of securing safety and security and health for our children - and their children - might we surprisingly find ourselves on the same side?

If we knew our children could grow up with the religion and beliefs and culture and dress and mores and leaders of our choosing, would we really feel so compelled to attack the other side’s children?

Of course, the fundamentalists and psychopaths and the greedy will always choose war and killing for the sake of war and killing.  We can only pray there are not enough fundamentalists and psychopaths and greed driven executives to provide the critical mass necessary to sustain war.

It is fear, fear for our children, it is injustice, injustice for our children, that stoke our condoning of and participation in the wars.  Hence the fundamentalists and psychopaths and greed riddled executives always have to portray the “others” as threatening.  Then, in the face of perceived threat, we rise to the occasion to defend our children.

Truth be known, the north/south Koreans have little interest in destroying the other.  They just don’t want to be destroyed themselves.  Most Sunni and Shia could care less about differences in opinion about inherited power more than a millennia ago.  They just don’t want to have their children’s school blown up.  Even Israelis (excluding the most rabid Zionists) might give up the quest for genocidal Zionist expansion between the Nile and Euphrates if they knew their children could grow and thrive with Jewish identity in safety and security.

I speak of people, not leaders, for the power of leadership attracts those individuals most afflicted by neuroses, psychoses, and all too often, outright madness, and the power drives mad those not already mad. 

Imagine negotiations held by juries, people drafted from the general populace, people drafted with one requirement, that they be parents of young children, children they bring to the negotiations.  Imagine negotiations held with one formal agenda item: both sides begin with statements of what they seek at the most personal level, while excluding mention of political system, economic system, religious system, or boundaries on a map.

Imagine one more thing.  The negotiations are held without the usual embarrassing childish silliness of arguing about table shape and who sits where, but one critical item of décor is uncompromisingly dictated.  The walls and the table of the conference room will be adorned with pictures of children.

 Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.

It Is Good, It Is Very Good

 

IT IS GOOD, IT IS VERY GOOD

So much to do!  

So much to contemplate.

So many lives to impact.

So much love needed.

So many people needing the touch of God.

God’s will be done, and we have to do it.

So much to learn.

So much damaged by ignorance.

Actions of love,

actions of life misdirected,

competence and effort,

incompetence and effort,

comfort level and skill level,

how to reach, how to touch,

each doing a job,

each of us doing our job,

wondering, guessing,

the art of life,

the ambiguous, desperate art of life.

A hand reached out,

a hand clenched,

both trying,

overcoming fear,

testing, testing,

testing the soul,

the children showing the way,

our desperation driving the effort,

and through it all

growth,

growth while waiting,

waiting to understand,

doing something anyway,

running forward toward flickering Light,

beauty in the effort,

the blind, loving effort,

charging out of our defensive bunkers to act in the name of caring,

taking the chance,

accepting the risk,

in order to help as best we can,

playing to strengths,

dealing with weakness,

the human drama, the human creation.

Will God ever again be able to look and say, “it is good, it is very good.”

God’s will waiting to be done……

…….by us.

Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.

Know

 

KNOW

Beware the lessons of the leaders.

They will make you believe,

and once you believe,

they own you.

Beware what you want to believe,

for it is too easy.

Eschew belief. 

 In its place discover ineffable certainty. 

The worldly projection of that certainty will change with living.

Its forms and practice will evolve.

Its name will routinely don new clothing.

But underneath the trappings and vestments with which your mind must  adorn it,

it remains immutable.

Yes, there is Truth,

disguised in various worldly forms.

There is something to know, 

to know much more deeply than the glare of "belief".

Beliefs have to be dearly held because they can so easily blow away in the next gust of wind.  

But some things, something, can be known, known because it is part of you, because you are an expression of it.  You know it as you know yourself, you dear soul you.  You need not put it into words, for our words are of this world, useful only for communicating worldly concepts.

 Belief deals with details.  Knowing deals with essence.  Know, with each new day, know ever more deeply, perhaps discovering that something you so wanted to believe is indeed true.

Digitally Fractured Beliefs

 

DIGITALLY FRACTURED BELIEFS

Only belief unites people, for going to war or for civic projects.  It is only belief, ungrounded - arbitrary - unsubstantiated shared belief.

Belief, and only belief, gets an army to march, the members to pledge, a populace to serve. 

Belief driven societies underlie all of human history. 

Shattering of shared belief underlies today’s fractured political landscape. 

In hindsight the unravelling of nations and civilization by the internet was quite predictable because the internet and fractured media facilitated the shattering of shared belief.

The collapse of a unified belief system, neighbors holding different beliefs, family members holding conflicting faiths, this is exponentially amplified by today’s diverse digital media environment.

I no longer need to behave like you.  Unseen influencers in Moscow or Austin can shape my behavior, and your behavior.  Even your family need not worship as you do.  A media multitude will tell them they need not worship at all.

The great clashes of civilizations are simply clashes of beliefs, beliefs that conveniently justified the raping and pillaging that reside in our dark souls.  The belief could be in a king or prophet or political system, as long as it was a shared belief.  .  

For millennia, family and society defined our beliefs.  Now we can believe whatever we want, with affirmation from people all over the world.  It is a heady feeling, a disorienting feeling, inducing a spiritual vertigo.  It is liberating, one would think.  Yet instead, it is more fearful than liberating, because we are exposed to so many people, people near and far, who do not share our beliefs and even threaten our beliefs.

This is new for humanity.  Our beliefs are ultimately our identity.  Contradictory beliefs in such close proximity are a threat to the core essence of our being.  

Historically humanity accommodates a sudden exposure to conflicting beliefs by invoking violence, cataclysm, and terror on the infidels, heathens, and gentiles.  But this time the differing beliefs are not across a border, not conveniently wearing a uniform, not even demonstrating the courtesy of self-identifying with a different skin color or facial structure.  

This is existential conflict of beliefs, beliefs identified only by channels watched and newsfeeds subscribed.  

Differing beliefs can coexist if there is some shared overarching belief subsuming the divergent beliefs, or if the differing belief is entertained by such a small cross section of population as to not pose a threat.  On Sunday mornings it was OK to drive past those other churches that were not really that different from ours.  It was OK to tolerate some minority opinions and ethnic groups when all were under an umbrella of shared patriotism and faith in a political system.  But remove the umbrella of overarching belief, partition a subcontinent or dissolve an authoritarian Balkan country, and the next lower level of beliefs  come to the fore, beliefs now in conflict.  The people that have always been in that other house of worship now seem threatening.  

In the United States and western Europe, the overarching blanket of beliefs is being stripped away, not by imposition of new borders or eradication of central governments, but by profitable exploitation of fears and ignorance.  Nothing has changed, but you and I now believe completely contradictory claims.

Shatter beliefs and shatter a nation, fragment beliefs and destroy a civilization.

When my neighbor shares almost none of my beliefs, it takes little provocation,  a provocation based on fervently held belief, for my neighbor to become a threat.

That is the world (dis)order of the internet, repeating the lessons of history but now worldwide, a history driven in its triumphs and tragedies by beliefs, beliefs now dispersed and mixed and scattered and stirred, terrifying diversity right next door,  even in our own living room, history waiting, waiting, to see if humanity will find any belief in common, anything overarching, some belief to share and unite, before the digital media incited conflicting beliefs turn our own neighborhood into the 1861 U.S., 1919 Russia, 1935 China, 1947 India, 1965 Indonesia, 1992 Balkans, 2024 Ukraine, 2025 Palestine…….

Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.

Beware Beliefs

 

BEWARE BELIEFS

 

Beware your beliefs, 

beware your bonds, 

lest they turn without warning,

into bullets and bombs.

Copyright 2025 Don Ray.  Please share.

Inevitable War?

INEVITABLE WAR? 

Is it inevitable, the wars?  Is it built into God's unholy system? 

In our holiest expression of universal Purpose, we connect with - bond with - unite with other human souls, connection facilitated by shared experience – beliefs - identity.  We are naturally and rightly drawn to support these family members – teammates - comrades.  Then, in the process of that mutual support, we inflict atrocities on those in that other competing family – sect - or army.  

Is it inevitable?  Can we not be loyal to our nation without being party to destruction of the other nation?  Can we love and support and be loyal to the warrior while not supporting and condoning the war?  

Individually, in some situations, we can abjure war while embracing the warrior.  But surely many cases demand supporting the active combat or else watching the loved comrade or family member fall victim.  

in spite of entropy and resource shortages, God's Creation does not dictate inevitable wars.  Wars arise from freely chosen evil in the hearts of malevolent and politically popular leaders.  These leaders are in turn enthusiastically empowered by the willful evil in our hearts, we the humanity that eagerly follow.  The ensuing conflagration then sweeps up individuals, participation motivated by loyalty to family, tribe, and comrades,...... inevitable participation in the not inevitable wars.