There is a smell in the air. It is in our school books, our food, our laws and our leaders, running the anchor leg in the 100-year war relay. It is kneaded into our daily bread, sprinkled like chocolate on vanilla and according to this new gospel, the verdict is in. We alone have it and we alone shall spread it. Like Mr. Clean, it promises to make everything bright and shiny but instead, bleaches out our color and rearranges the texture of our humanness. And it stinks.
It is the smell of being right. It is the mantra of this patriot who says we alone have right on our side. That right is the key to good, when it has always been the other way round. Mr. Right loves to play tough, but he is not tough to find. He walks around in public with a piece of tissue stuck in his rear end. And he knows it. He just laughs. Because, he does not care. Not one bit.
It used to be he was just an annoying passenger. Whenever he got uppity, we’d just make him walk. Not anymore. After years and years of his lying, our laziness, his greed and our lousy parenting skills, we let him back in. And now he’s driving the damn bus. He’s drunk with the honeydew, speeding thru every light, hungry for his next meal. He has kidnapped victory. To Mr. Right, being wrong is defeat. This guy is all oiled up in Super Damn Badass and will not stand for it. He preaches 24/7, we are right, therefore, we are good. He wants us all to swallow it whole. R ight is good. Right is the source.
Today, I am here to counter. To stand for our souls servant, our maternal nurturer and healing redeemer. On behalf of those pillaged and left breathless in his wake, I speak today for the simple act. Doing good.
And I begin with two examples. The first is short. The other you must read. Both are to the point.
#1. Recently, Israeli doctors and nurses traveled into Iraq to rescue and repair 35 Iraqi children torn apart by yet another war started by this imposter. Sorry Charlie. Read the box score. It is done. Not granted.
#2. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/21/MNVJ11RHRQ.DTL
Many of our chosen leaders from all sides ignore this, or do not care to notice. To them it is not important, this difference. They are too busy proving to us how right they are. They’re rewriting our history, our constitution and have built and are planning libraries of legacies to prove just how right they were and are. If doing good were in their plans, injured and returning soldiers, their widows and widowers and their children, who answered the calls to do what is right, could at the least, live and be cared for in these half-truth tombs. That would be the good history to make. So too, the innocent civilians and their children are but more collateral damage that we edit out before we go to the printer. Put that in the history books. If we're gonna say the truth, say all of it.
Many of our spiritual leaders have it switched around too. They bless the tanks, the planes and the ships that carry the blood filled believers and non believers. They bless even the bullets to find their targets before the blessed are targeted. That they do this while holding open books that reveal love dripping off almost every page goes ignored. It is not love they are blessing. It is hate. It is suicide. A Daliesque painting that sends us going in a direction that will not get us there.
But alas, here is a not so little truth. When one is wrong, admitting it is the great victory. That definition is not in Webster’s. It is in the soul of our humanity. It is inside us, behind the door that is open to all who shall wrap and be wrapped in it. Good does not care to waste time on who is to blame. It is too busy doing good. It doesn’t use the holocaust to argue for or against. It is beyond the argument. It sees the wilting tree and with no water at hand or nearby, will use its own spit if it has to. It does not wait for the central office to ok the healing decision. It defends itself with itself. It does not offend.
For as humanity would have it, good lives. Everywhere. It heals. Inside our sadness is the moisture of grief, the salve of our self inflicted wounds. It wakes us from our slumber of helplessness. Good is the beacon, lighting all paths. Mr. Right has it backwards. He’s the engineer on a runaway train. He is Halloween on steroids. He wants rewards. He wants statues. He wants Benjamin’s.
Good wants but one thing. To be done. Good asks nothing. As it is done, it is the reward. Good is the currency of the soul. It pays forward. It isn’t owed. It isn’t payback. It is priceless. It is the way home.
peace
