Jack Burns Lives!

Tonight, my heart is wrecked with sadness for the children whose lives are ravaged by war.

War fueled by the profit motivated machinations of evil men.

There are so many wondrous joys in this world, yet the actions of a few often casts a pallor over my spirit, and I can’t enjoy the beauty of it all. Waiving between anger and anguish, I struggle to find meaning it all. Some purpose in the madness.

There is none.

The only meaning in life is that we see meaning in life. That we find some purpose, a calling, I suppose. Something we can do to ease the pain of suffering. Something to preserve life. Both human and non-human.

Despite it all, I can still find joy and love in my heart. Love for the little animals in my yard. The joy of seeing a kestrel soar above the trees in a azure summer sky. And more than anything, the indescribable joy and love I feel for my friends and my family.

You sustain me and make me complete.

But I weep for those I seemingly cannot help. Those in far away lands. Lands easily reached with machines that run on oil, a substance that some have decided is more important than life itself.

“Amuse me, I’m bored.”
“Okay. Here’s one for you. A real conundrum. What is the difference between the Lone Ranger and God?”
Bonnie thought about it as they rattled through the woods. She rolled a little cigarette and thought and thought. At last she said, “What a stupid conundrum. I give up.”
Hayduke said, “There really is a Lone Ranger.”-From The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey

I recently returned from an out of town trip that I hoped would recharge the batteries, reinvigorate the senses and inspire me to say something worthwhile. Something positive, informative and of interest.

Instead, I returned even more despondent about the world than when I left.

Is it only me? Am I the only one that sees the world over flowing with self-serving, duplicitous leeches, people out to take advantage of every situation and pad their pockets at the expense of all the living things around them? Or, am I entirely too cynical and negative, failing to see enough good in people?

I’m beginning to suspect my values and mores are very different from the rest of the country. I value all life. The little sparrows that were on my patio this morning. The bears in the Smokies. The spiders in my garden. The poor and less fortunate in the inner city. The illegal immigrant trying to cross a ridiculous man made border to find a better life. The red rock of Utah. The aspen of Colorado, the majestic redwood of California, wilderness and all of the environment, which by the way, is all habitat were something is attempting to live. All of it has worth and all of it deserves not only protection, but reverence.

I don’t see myself as all important. I see myself as just one part of a complex system that’s not entitled to more than my share or to use resources at the expense of others. To the degree that it is possible, I try to live within sustainable limits. I think about such things and wonder why more people don’t.

The notions that life is a “struggle against all” in a continual war of mutual aggression and it’s the “survival of the fittest” are both not only idealogically distorted but factually wrong. Life doesn’t have to be that way, and in fact it is universally not that way.

I’d give my last dollar to a friend or even a needly stranger. I’d defend my friends, my family and my home with my life, if necessary, but only against threats that are real, not nefarious threats invented by our government. I basically find joy in life through service to others, in defending the voiceless and the weak and in challenging the status quo. I stand firmly opposed to those that would bring harm to the weak.

“I would never betray a friend to serve a cause. Never reject a friend to help an institution. Great nations may fall in ruin before I would sell a friend to save them.”-Edward Abbey
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