A Trip to Paradise: Where Do We Meet Ourselves?

What does paradise mean to us? Heaven? The garden of Eden? A place of perfection, or of beauty and wonder? The end of war? Safety and security? Justice? A political revolution? Or a moment of peace and quiet?

 

Maybe the yearning for paradise has accompanied humans ever since we came to exist? Or, more likely, since we first created art and language, and expanded our ability to think abstractly or to mentally journey into the future and past?

 

To enter some of the paleolithic art caves required crawling through tight passages or tunnels and leaving behind the sun-lit world. They were not dwelling places. In the famous cave at Lascaux, in the Dordogne area of southwestern France, there was evidence of oil lamps, rope, scaffolding, as well as sophisticated paintings. Were the ancient caves not just places to create art but temples meant to take people beyond time and into eternity? A place for performing hunting magic? An expression not only of a drive for artistic creation but for paradise?

 

One of my favorite books of the Bible, and best known generally, is Genesis, which begins, of course, with the beginning, with creation. And soon takes us to the garden of Eden.

 

Gardens have long been associated with, or used as living metaphors for, paradise. Journalist, author, and travel writer Pico Iyer’s book, The Half-Known Life: In Search of Paradise, begins with traveling to Iran, continues to North Korea, Kashmir, Ireland, Jerusalem, Ladakh, India, Japan, etc. and ends with realizing the most important journey is within himself. The New York Times comprehensively reviewed the book and recently listed it as one of the 100 notable of the year.

 

Modern Iran was once Persia, central to the Fertile Crescent where human farming and larger-scale societies might have begun, and where humans might have first left Eden. The word ‘paradise’ itself is from Persia, old Iranian, ‘paradaijah.’ The Farsi word for garden means paradise. Iran is a land of beautiful poetry and traditional architecture, as well as gardens of physical poetry pointing our eyes toward divinity. It is place of reverence for the “unseen life.”

 

Yet, today, Iyer shows us a place where the government tries to watch and record all that its people hide, think, and do, while the people try to find out what the government is hiding. One motif of the architecture is the inclusion of tiny mirrors, hints of an infinity of reflections and creations. But the mirrors, today, also might remind the people to keep a perpetual watch over their shoulders.

 

Maybe all nations have such contradictions. Iyer describes the “People’s Paradise” of North Korea as a place where people “seemed beside the point and perfection was the ruthless elimination of every imperfection.” Or I’m reminded that in the U. S., the “land of the free,” and leader of the democratic world, one of the two probable presidential candidates in the 2024 election promises to end democracy and rule as a dictator.

 

We must be careful with our yearning for paradise….

 

*To read the whole blog, please go to The Good Men Project.

Do We Love Ourselves Enough, and Love the World Enough to Save It? When We Feel a Hole in the Center of Our Lives, Loving Action Can Heal It

We know this. So much climate suffering. Droughts. Then rains. Then dangerous smog from fires. Then heat, heat domes so large and deep people are not just sweltering but burning. Dying. And it’s increasing. We are burning our earth around us. The earth itself is crying out to us. The city of Phoenix had over 19 days straight days of 110 degrees or more. Residents of south Florida might be tempted to swim in the ocean to cool off from the extreme heat, but the ocean temperature itself is about 100 degrees. We can, we need to do all we can to stop the policies, the ways of thinking and behaving that contribute to global warming.

 

And our leaders? I don’t agree with all that President Biden has done, or not done. But he has given us and our earth a chance. He has pushed helpful legislation for the environment, and  accomplished a great deal that benefits most of us⎼ for the economy and international situation, but so much more is needed. And he’s managed to do this despite a political opposition not seen since possibly the Civil War, and so virulent that many denied that he fairly and legally won the presidency. Several GOP lawmakers even supported a violent insurrection against him. Many news outlets severely under-report his accomplishments.

 

The GOP in general have no shame, or care about the state of the world; don’t care about our rights, health, children, or the democracy they are sworn to serve. One of their favored governors stated some blacks benefitted from being slaves. They let free their own hate, lusts, and other unethical behavior, while they act to restrict the right to vote to young, black, brown people. To take away a woman’s right to control her own health. They lie about who they are, and so much else, including the science of climate change.

 

Their leader is a 2-time, and soon, possibly, a 4-time indicted criminal, liar, and sexual abuser who in public conspired to stop an election and end democracy. He continually  threatens violence against anyone who opposes him. He uses hate to serve his own personal aims, uses misogyny or hate against women, hate of black, brown, Asian, Jewish, Muslim and LGBTQ+ people. Maybe all those not white, Christian, patriarchal.

 

DJT even told us what he would do if he regained the White House. Historian Michael Beschloss described his goal as a “presidential dictatorship.” Others have labeled his goal as White Nationalism or Fascism/Nazism. The New York Times reports he and the GOP plan to expand the power of the President so deeply that his authority would cover every part of government.  They want the power to regulate the economy, control the Department of Justice, the courts, and dictate to Congress. All members of government agencies and bureaucracies would be chosen according to one principle—their allegiance to him, not to competence, not ethics. If we want a passport, loan, building permit, etc. we’d first have to pass a loyalty test.

 

This would convert the mission of the government to one goal⎼ to exert DJT’s narcissism, to free his lust for power and sense of entitlement so it covers the whole earth. And all of us, all creatures, would serve him. His followers think he would bring them freedom. But the only freedom they’d have is to serve him while expressing their grievances at the wrong people. This is almost unbelievable; but if we can stomach listening to him we can judge this for ourselves….

 

*To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.

Perceiving Ourselves More Clearly So, We Can Perceive the World Around Us More Clearly and Act More Powerfully

A wonderful friend wrote a powerful and frightening article about the situation we humans face right now. I can’t share it here because he’s sent it out and it hasn’t, yet, been published. But I would like to share its central insight.

 

Most of us already know how difficult the situation is now, between climate change, the threats of autocracy, hate-manipulated gun violence, war, etc. We might be consumed by so many concerns that we get lost in fears and retreat to the usual, the safe. But what we face is not usual and not at all safe.

 

I sometimes wonder if we can even conceive of the challenge we face. We need our rational minds to evaluate all the evidence. But maybe we need to feel it even more than grasp it. We certainly can imagine what a small town looks like after a massive tornado; or what a city like New Orleans looked like after the flooding of Katrina. Or what burned out towns in California look like or cities when sidewalks and streets melt from the increasing heat. This is the face of the climate emergency. And whatever we’ve seen in the past, we’ll probably be seeing worse in coming days and years.

 

We might read about what it was like living in cities like London before environmental regulations were passed, when people couldn’t go outdoors without getting sick due to torrential smog. Or we can imagine a world without any wildlife outside zoos, no lions, tigers, and bears, no elephants, no eagles and ravens, no owls. Or no honeybees. Without bees, no honey, no fruit, no crops.

 

Or what happens to a nation when increasing hate fueled violence, like in Buffalo, NY fills the streets. The number of hate crimes has more than doubled since 2015, when DJT first ran for office. Or what a dictator like Putin is doing to Ukraine or what would happen if a white nationalist or Nazis became president or Dictator.

 

Or what happens when children are forced to read or learn about only what people driven by hate, bigotry, and lust for power want them to read. Or when women are no longer allowed to control their own healthcare options or how their bodies are treated.

 

My friend feels the terrifying frustration of seeing a threat so clearly yet also feeling powerless to stop it. I think he speaks the fear and concern that a majority of Americans feel. But for him, only dramatic changes will be noticed. Little changes can get lost in the storm clouds of images of what might be coming. Crying out to the world, “Why can’t anyone stop this?” can drive anyone crazy.

 

Yet, a democracy is all about many people doing relatively small actions together. The wheels of law and change can move with painful slowness.

 

A few close friends talked with him about not obsessing over these awful possibilities. And he knows this. But words do not reach deep enough to lift us out of an image of oblivion.

 

He spells out or shouts out a clear line of action we can all take….

 

*To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.