We Live in a Broken World
We live in a broken world – a world of our own mind, created by our choices and our ignorance. We live in a world full of pain and suffering because we live in a world of denial. Denial does not simply mean that you or I do not agree. To disagree does not require violence, or hate, or threat. That is not denial – denial is to willingly ignore what is true.
We live in a world of Beauty – a world that supports and gives and births us all. And we are dumb enough to ignore it. We deny that Earth is important, that She is real, that without Earth we are and can be nothing… we arrogantly deny even that. But if Earth shook us off like a bunch of pestering bugs, the nonsense that we have created would instantly disappear. Because the problem would be gone – the pestering infestation of ignorant Humans would be gone. That – we cannot deny. If Earth is gone, we can kiss our little self’s good-bye.
I am not proud to say that I too have denied by choosing to ignore. I have done it without meaning to, but I have done it just the same. It has been said that violence is “human nature,” when in fact violence is the act of a non-thinker – someone too unwilling, or too afraid, or too traumatized, or too indoctrinated to know they have the right to consider other options. So, we move away from those things we find too uncomfortable, while neglecting to find meaningful ways to bring comfort to our world of hurt. Then we foolishly revert to euphemisms like, “boys will be boys,” or “it’s God’s will,” or “they” must have caused their own troubles. And because of those very things, we live in a broken world. A world that we ourselves have broken – even as the Earth continues to give.
The challenge is we have lost our courage – that is, if we ever had it to begin with. And, if we do think about acting courageously, but believe there is no reward in that – we just might stay silent. And the hurt continues. We live in worlds we create – and to our peril, we ignore the Earth that is our teacher and guide. Life creates. Too often, we destroy.
Courage is not running foolishly into a battle – courage is preventing the battle before it begins.
Courage is not espousing one’s beliefs for religious or monetary or political gain – that is evangelizing. Courage is quietly listening to the brokenhearted and helping to find ways to end the suffering. Courage is to question slavery in every form, both overt and subtle. It takes Courage to ask why a child would ever have a gun, or why a man raises his fists to strike a woman, or why a mother sticks a needle in her arm, or why a child should ever have to cower from an abuser’s threats – and no longer denying the reasons why. Prevent the reasons instead.
We need Courage desperately… the wise, patient, problem solving kind of Courage that moves the curtain away from the “Great and Powerful,” exposing the truth of the little men who hides behind pretense like religion or political ideologies or thundering weapons because they have no courage to solve one damn problem, but instead created countless atrocities.
The greatest threat to war is a Courageous Woman. And that is why Women have been silenced for centuries. Because Women birth the soldiers, the innocents, the thieves, and the scoundrels. Because Women comfort, counsel, feed, nurture, and listen. So those who support slavery and war remove the Children from their Mothers. They do this through Violence. Through limited education. Through scarcity. Threat. Control. Slavery. War mongers work to destroy Beauty – even as they crave to control that same Beauty.
Life is Beauty.
But if Women’s Voices are heard, and her personhood is protected and respected, she, and the children she births will grow under the nurturing counsel of collaboration of the adults meant to protect and teach them how to create a wonderful world of opportunities. Not a world of hurt.
We live in a broken world – and we have every tool at our disposal to fix what we have broken. We must learn in different ways. We must learn to be societal mechanics, seamstresses of torn social fabric, inventors of imaginative solutions that offer thoughtful conversations, imaginative insights and genuine collaborations that offer far greater rewards than money.
© Elaine M. Grohman 1.21.2023
