by Bill Cumming

(A request, if I may. Please let me know what you think about the following. Respond to bill@oneperson.net. Also let me know if I may publish your response. With all my love and gratitude for considering this request! Namaste! bc.)

A World That Works for Everyone……

Food, shelter and medical care are a guaranteed condition for all people.

Violence of every kind has ended, including country to country, verbal, physical and sexual abuse.

There is no human trafficking, slavery or any other systematic means of class abuse.

We are consciously aware at all times of our impact on the environment and work diligently to keep it healthy.

There is one premise that underlies my experience that a world that works for everyone is possible and attainable in a relatively short period of time. Think years, not centuries. Because it is simply a matter of choice!

First and foremost, the world continues to be dysfunctional because individuals are dysfunctional, dysfunctional here defined as willing to do damage to self and others. Until individuals see their own wellness at the center of wellness for the planet, we will continue to build strategies on foundations that are not stable. Most religions boil down to, learn to love God/Allah/The Buddha and grow in wisdom. Most wars have been and are fought in the name of religious rightness, followed closely by greed. Churches, for years, covered up the abuses of their clergy. When I first went to North Carolina in 1964, churches were all white or all black with precious few exceptions. The Buddha said that what was important was how we treated each other. Now there are thousands of Buddhist sects arguing about who is “right.”

If an individual can get well, become disciplined, live their life out of loving-kindness and generosity – and they can or you would not be reading these words – then groups of individuals can get well, governments, schools, businesses, NGOs.

What might happen if 10 or 100 or 1000 institutions of every kind got well, really well – individuals knowing that they are loved, that their value and worth are a given and that there is always a choice?

Organizations that are grounded in wellness operate better. We have to be able to demonstrate that to people not connected to those organizations.

There is only one thing necessary in order to accomplish it: the pure courage to be willing to be about loving-kindness, no matter what.

And that might have a very high cost.

You must be willing to die. And I do mean die. Dead. No breathe. No more choices. No more complaining. No more blame, fault, shame. Done.

Not that you will have to and you must be willing.

We must decide where we will take our stand in life.

If you recognize that this is the only second you have any guarantee of, do you want to be engaged in activities that have the possibility of creating a world that works for everyone or a continuation of fear and insecurity that creates a world where we think we can “control” others?

It is also not likely to happen unless we come clean about and take responsibility for the things we have done, large and small that have done damage to others.

This is not about blaming anyone.

It is not about blaming soldiers who have brought us to a place where we have a choice.

All damage arises from damage.

Blaming others will only contribute to a continuation of the desire to be “right” about our points of view.

When will we acknowledge that the United States was not founded in the “New World?”

When will we own the use of slaves to create a viable economy?

When will churches own the human nature of our priests/ministers?

When will there be no more attempts to be right about religion?

When will we stop using children as pawns in the battles of adults?

When will we no longer devise ways to kill thousands of non-combatants as a way of getting even?

When will we stop attempting to correct people into wellness?

When will we recognize that there is no person better than another?

What belongs on this list from your point of view?

The Queen of England or the President of the United States are no more valuable than the poorest person on Earth.

When will we be willing to speak the truth from our experience without belittling a person who sees things differently?

I would never have known what I know without…

The individuals within the KKK burning down the Recreation Building at Palmer Memorial Institute on the first day of founding the Palmer Summer Institute, later to be Upward Bound.

Being hit by a car driven by a young man high enough for him to lie about having stolen his Mother’s car.

The rape of my Daughter, which taught me that I have the capacity to kill.

Experiencing loving-kindness from a person who had killed and raped.

All there is, is what you and I choose to do now, in this second, today and tomorrow!

What kind of a day will you decide to create?

What kind of a world will we decide to create?

Damage or Loving-Kindness, the choice is ours.