You are moving into a fearsome arc of history when light and dark struggle for dominance, but what you must remember is that dominance alone will never win the day in the long run.
Ann: General Washington?
George Washington: Yes, Ann. I appreciate your letting me come through your channel.
Ann: I understand you have sometime to say to us about war.
General Washington: I do. I feel you recoil, I feel the horror that comes over you and many of us when we contemplate what the word means in terms of human suffering, and, in particular, in your time when images of far off horrors are brought into your living rooms, and, more importantly, into your hearts. Hard it is to contemplate the magnitude of suffering, the overwhelming misery seemingly almost impossible to alleviate in any significant manner.
You are waiting for me to say “but,” to offer a reason why it is legitimate to inflict this carnage on one another, but I am afraid, Ann, I cannot give you that comfort.
Yes, it is true that I fought a bloody and what seemed interminable war in the most horrific of conditions. My men hated me and all that I asked them to do, and yet, when there was no way out but through, we persevered together until we won freedom for at least some portion of the population. It has taken much longer and through many more wars, both explicit and undeclared, to achieve an expanding freedom that is today once again under attack.
When to fight? When is it permissible, when is it blessed to kill in the name of a cause?
Ann: You tell me because I don’t know. And yet I can see myself pushed to those lengths to defend myself or those I love, maybe even my property. Mr. Gandhi did not see it that way, and I would hope that I could follow his course, but I don’t know.
General Washington: Your great leader Dr. King came to understand the way of that great master Bapu,* the affectionate name that Mahatma Gandhi was known by, and emulated it to great affect. Both these great leaders used love to defeat the forces of tyranny, and that, Ann, is the way of Source, of Spirit, of the mighty teacher Jesus Christ who put us on this planet to learn to get along.
Ann: You didn’t take that road.
General Washington: No, I did not. I was ambitious, I was young enough to think that I could defeat the overseer never realizing that in so doing I became that myself. As the British wanted to do to the colonies, so did the white man do to native and enslaved populations. I was as guilty as the next, and, though I freed my slaves at death, I took off their backs the wealth that empowered me even though I knew, I knew, it was wrong.
“Civilization” has a way of making us blind to the truth. If we can get enough of our fellows to go along with our self-created mores, then we call ourselves civilized and proclaim our values noble and dismiss any other ideas as inferior. And then we wage war.
What you see today is the oppressed over time becoming the oppressors, justifying what they do, the seizure of land from those who did them no harm to perpetuate another cycle of violence and death just as the white man did when he came to the Americas to civilize the heathens.
In every civilization it has been thus, and I played my part in perpetuating this travesty. Except. Except what you see in America is the progression of inclusivity driven by words and ideals never understood but nevertheless enshrined in our Constitution.
Gradually, ever so gradually, legal citizenship has expanded, each heretofore denied subclass claiming for themselves the full mantle of freedom promised and enshrined in our Constitution by that slave owning jackass Thomas Jefferson, a hypocrite if ever there was one though blessed with the tongue of an angels.
We are an imperfect race. We harbor both angels of light and demons of darkness in our souls. Every day, each moment of every day we are asked to affirm one and deny the other. And we have been doing it in fits and starts until one privileged group gets pushed to the wall and does their damndest to pull the rug out from under the rest of us.
This is what is happening now. Gandhi and Dr. King would tell you to resist but not to fight, and they achieved great things, lasting good in their heroic stands against oppression and cruelty because, when it is put out in front of God and everybody that the children of god who only ask for food and water are being tortured and put to death, then the world cannot turn away and a spark is lit for real change.
I didn’t do it that way. Our revolution was founded upon “I want” under the banner of heaven’s grace and the ego's massive illusions of power-based freedom. I saw no other way and I was a warrior in training and existential heritage. And yet I wept for all hose who suffered. Nevertheless, I saw freedom as a fundamental right and this I was willing to die for, to fight for, and to kill for. Not just my freedom but the freedom of those in my society, those like me who had felt the heavy hand of tyranny crush hope, dreams, and the right to try to create God’s creation on earth.
Oh yes, we saw ourselves in that light and then we imposed our way of life on others with a heavier hand that any British General could devise.
Ann: How should we see what is happening now? How can we be a part of a solution?
General Washington: Pray for peace but not just peace. Pray for honor and dignity and then in your own lives, take every step you can to bring that reality close to home. Empower the powerless, raise up the down trodden. Not just with a handout but with a helping hand. Stand if you can with Martin and Mahatma. And if you can’t emulate these pilgrims, fight the encroaching evil with honor, respect, and humility, for those whom you defeat in combat can become the downtrodden who rise up to perpetuate the cycle of war.
You are moving into a fearsome arc of history when light and dark struggle for dominance, but what you must remember is that dominance alone will never win the day in the long run. It is love, honour, and courage carried forth in a relentless and steadfast manner that will turn the tide of humanity.
Victory will be achieved in increments and in massive waves. Both will be needed to turn the tide. Find your place in this revolution and do your part each and every day, and indeed, if we all do our part, in heaven’s arc, the tide will turn.
October 23, 2023
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