Bet you can guess many times over re the content of today's blog. If you can, then you are ahead of the game with me, for I am not sure of what will emerge from my typing fingers. I did set out with an idea in mind and then a foolish error. I began to skim headlines and lead articles and decided that no one knows for sure anything in this world of ours. No one and nothing. Pretty grim premise is that not. However, take a good look around, check it out and then assess the findings. Can you skip around the room in joyful confidence that our world will be okay, that our problems are surmountable?
Do you have any idea at all of a good solution to any of the myriad complex issues plaguing the nations of the world? If so, I direct you to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, or Mar a Lago or the Kremlin or the Champs Elysee or Berlin or anywhere there are supposed to be people of sufficient stature and weight to raise voices, attract the attention of the world, and present a menu of choices. Yes, sometimes, many times, the options are not exactly tasty or tempting; however, one must begin somewhere, or we will reach an end before we can even begin. That is the worst option of all. Nor can we "start at the very beginning" as the nanny/nun sings in The Sound of Music, for that beginning is fraught with pitfalls and blocks with passage nigh unto impossible at crucial forks in the road. Where to start? Hey, I do not get paid enough to know that or even to suggest that point. However, there are those who can. We simply must find them, overcome their reluctance, hear them, and forge onward in an extremely difficult path, but doable if we set our minds to it. Difficult indeed, as so many of us have already lost our minds, compromised our sanity while ensconced in an evil maelstrom - of our own making! All on us.
So, anyone ready? Overwhelmed at the very first word, are we? Overload. Tilt! But we cannot call the game because of imbalance. New skills of balance must be formulated, as best they can. These efforts will not be categorized as games, for the survival of the world is at stake, along with exactly what the picture of that survival will be.
Hints may be found in songs of the world. Perhaps we can even learn to sing them with complete honesty and full-throated enthusiasm. " Acheinu, kol Beit Yisroel - we are brothers, all of the House of Israel". Do we remember that most times? No, sadly not, until we are forced to recall that familial relationship. Due to an ugly present and the threat of a worse future, we wake up. Too often, too little too late and with but a modicum of commonsense and foresight we might have avoided or lessened the negative impacts upon our world.
The rest of the world does not get away free of blame. Their holiday songs sing of peace, even as the cadence of marching feet and voices raised in deep throated nationalism belied those songs. Holy Night - for one night in WWI. The world promised to be, of peace and brotherhood, ignored, negated, as 6 million individuals were exterminated, dreams, hopes, love, families - trashed, brutalized. Along with the "collateral' damage.
Nor do other religions get off without their earned share of blame. Hindus, Moslems, all talk of peaceful nations, of beliefs good for mankind, along with adherents of Buddha. However, sadly so, there is much lost between the words, the presented translations and meanings, and reality. Constant battles, rivalry, armed weapons. ragged deadly gangs. Always and forever, competition and hate between and among religion adherents who present themselves as men and women of peace but are most empathically not. So, was Marx correct in his defiance and evaluation of religion? I think not, for it is not religion per se but the very faulty misinterpretation, misuse of the precepts and tenets of religion which are at fault, yet another fault to lay at the feet of those responsible - be it via definite purpose, error, of simple stupidity and venality. Take your choice. The results are the same.
Now, on to the world as a whole. Have we not yet learned that we are one. If those oft suspected ETs actually do arrive, they will target ALL of us, not Americans, or Arabs, or agnostics, Jews or Christians of whatever sect - but all humans, period. Our nations are so interwoven that I wonder why we have not reached an understanding of that critical reality. How are nations to wage war when the raw materials for producing armaments are to be found and purchased from an enemy nation! Stalemate! Back to clubs and spears and sharpened stones. Is that better??
The war between the Israelis and World Jewry, ever so graciously invited into the bloody chaos and horror instigated by our Semitic cousins, the power grabs and greed of their leaders. Will there ever be peace there? I wish it were so. I wish we could all sit down together and sing of the time when truly, the swords are melted, repurposed, to plowshares and such. I wish, but do others? Are we enough? What and where are the answers to set forth? I have none. Nor, apparently, do others. The blame game, the numbers games, the aggrieved, oh so righteous voices of religious fanatics, of crazed nationalists and isolationists, the demented voices of self-appointed wannabe dictators and their numb supporters, the inane enforcers of kerchiefs -where does it end -if ever? Will we ever become that United Federation of the movies? Another pipe dream?
Bonnie Tyler sings, "we need a hero"- and we surely do. Of the Don Quixote type or the George Washington or Eleanor Roosevelt or can we mix and match and acknowledge and accept that all heroes have feet of clay, and we must work with them rather than against.
If there is to be a better present and a good future, we must come to our senses. No other viable option. None, as I see it. But then again, I am one old lady, so what the hell do I know. Apparently, more than some of our supposed leaders do!
Wake up, folks, wake up before the alarm is turned off for good.
Yitzy, you remain the wonderful, sweet boy we knew and so love.
Always and forever, always and forever.
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