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A Bi-Monthly Newsletter of the Inner Outer Partnership |
| Volume VII Edition 1 |
January/February |
2002 |
Seeing Beyond Evil Deeds
Loving our Enemies
Its easy to criticize Osama bin Laden, El Qaeda, the Taliban and all
those who sympathize with them. It's easy to hate what they stand for. As
citizens of the United States, we are indeed justified. Some even think of
it as our patriotic duty. In fact, it is now politically correct to hurl
negative epithets at any suspected terrorist and invective at their
leaders. Perhaps it makes us feel good, perhaps it directs our anger and
helps us consume it, perhaps it is a step in our struggle to understand
what happened last September in New York and in Washington and why it did.
But all the justifications we can muster and all the reasons we can cite
must not blind us to what is spiritually right.
What happened is evil. The people who committed the attacks were wrong. Osama bin Laden and his cohorts have, to say the least, a lot to
answer for. Does that make them each evil? Isn't it possible to be under
the influence of evil without being evil oneself?
Listening to the portions of the tape made November 9th during a get together between bin Laden and some of his acolytes, and made public in
mid-December, seeing him praise god and invoke his blessings at the same
time that he was lauding the success of the high-jackers made one stop
and ponder: If he is sincere and truly does what he does in gods name, isn't
he deluded? And if so, delusion may lead to evil acts, but may not
necessarily make one evil. Here is a brilliant and capable man who
somehow equates doing god's work with creating wanton destruction, promoting
hatred and separatism, using his followers as he sees fit, even
interfering with their freewill in choosing for them how and when they
would die for his cause. He is doing all that and more on behalf of a
religious war, apparently without the slightest inkling that his methods
are the opposite of basic spiritual principles.
It may not be possible to know his motives, and it may not be popular to ascribe to him a capacity for normal human caring, but spiritual
values nevertheless invite us to contemplate seeing him as other than
evil. This said, we ought to remember that were his motives truly to
serve god, no matter what his understanding of such a mission entailed, no
matter the degree of his delusion, he would still be held accountable for
the harm he caused. Whether or not one can intimate his motives, applying
the laws of harmlessness forces us to realize that doing harm in the name
of Allah does not change the nature nor the results of that harm. The
harm was done and he is spiritually responsible for it.
Does that which we call god by whatever name, the presence, force or being which is the source of unconditional love, love Osama bin Laden any
less because of his evil deeds? And if applying spiritual principles forces
us to answer no, then don't those same principles bind us to tread in that
same vein, or more realistically try to? We are enjoined to love our
enemy. We may have miles to go before we can make that a regular practice,
but in the meantime we are capable of compassion and of understanding. We
are capable of resisting automatic hatred, and of joining in any
behavior reinforcing or aggrandizing the hold of our lower nature.
Sheriff Lee Bacca A Pioneer Where Least Expected
Sheriffs are usually expected to be tough and receive generous praise when they are. In order to be seen as tough, one generally needs to avoid
addressing social issues. But Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Bacca is an
exception. He may be tough when it comes to the law but he does not shirk
the social issues he encounters. Soon after taking office he realized that
another role had been thrust upon him. He was the warden of a jail that is
among the world's largest mental institutions.
In an attempt to change conditions, he and his staff are spearheading
a Public Safety Center for the mentally ill and homeless, providing 150
tent-like spaces, room enough so that the 500 or so people released from
the Central Jail each day would have an alternative to skid row. Learning
from past programs and their failures, Bacca is ensuring services such as
frequent police patrols. Now he hopes the State will come up with the $8
million needed to build the center. Considering that the Sheriffs
Department spends $10 million a year on psychiatric medicine, Bacca's
proposed center seems quite reasonable.
Recently the Department has begun tackling another sensitive issue handing out condoms to gay inmates. Some 500 inmates a month test
positive for HIV and the hope is that the condoms will lessen the spread of
the disease. In an effort to keep the deputies out of the controversial
plan, the condoms are distributed by a non-profit group, Correct Help. The
packages have a hot line number any inmate with a question can call, and
they also provide weekly AIDs education classes.
Bacca's tenure is nothing short of embattled. His bosses, the Board of Supervisors is unhappy with him for spending over his budget, for the still
unexplained death of a jail inmate, for a new passenger plane and for
possible ethical breaches within his department. In addition he has, as one
might expect, his critics. In one area, however, there is consensus. He
has earned the respect of religious leaders of all faiths. Each week he
attends a different church, synagogue, or temple. The fact that his
practice of religious diversity is more than theory has helped him be a
bridge builder resolving community issues. Following the September 11th
attacks, for example, he sent a letter to all police chiefs within the Los
Angeles area urging them to contact middle eastern business owners and
better protect them, even including a list of those businesses.
Some think he is a flake, others that he is an idealist. Whether what he's called is flattering or not, does not matter. What does is that he is
succeeding in bringing spiritual values where one least expect them.
Boosting The Rights of Prostitutes
In Germany prostitution is not illegal and prostitutes are asked to pay taxes. Still because certain services they perform are termed
"immoral" in the German legal code, prostitutes are not considered on par
with other workers.
Now the lower house of Parliament has passed a bill essentially
boosting their standing. It gives sex workers the right to unemployment
benefits, retraining, health insurance and a pension. In addition sex
workers will also be able to refuse to perform certain acts, turn away
troublesome customers and even take to court customers for non payment of
services.
As long as prostitution exists, sex workers require protection. Any effort that brings parity with others service providers whether lawyers or
hair stylist's needs to be considered as making the world that tiny bit
better.
The Right To Die: Whose Choice Is it?
Our Attorney General has taken steps to invalidate Oregon's Death With
Dignity Act whereby doctors have the right to prescribe lethal doses to
certain terminally ill patients. The Federal Circuit court has thus far
stopped him, but whether or not the courts are successful in continuing
to stop him, a question remains: Does an agency of the Federal Government
or one of its representatives, however well meaning, have the right to
come between an individual and his conscience, and in essence ordain what
is the right to life?
If a terminally or chronically ill patient decides to end his or her life, isnt that a question between that person and that which he or she calls
god? Such decisions normally come after much soul searching and are clear
choices based on one's practice of certain values. They may appear like
suicide and are of course a form of it, but the precipitating factor being
the illness does create differences.
Conscience is an individual matter. Certainly its exercise is not perfect. Errors are committed, but they are errors for which the individual
bears a responsibility, not the society, and governmental agencies are not
equipped, let alone mandated, to order private decisions. True, in the
past laws prescribing individual private behavior have been enacted, for
example with sexual practices and orientation or with race. In each
instance, infringement of personal liberties aside, these laws were legal,
but not spiritually defensible. Miscegenation laws forbidding racial
intermarriage or sodomy laws used to prosecute gays can now been seen as
shameful.
Spiritual freedom is best exercised when one has the freedom of trial and error, the freedom to make one's own mistakes and hopefully learn from
them without the dicta of people or agencies who couldnt possibly
understand the intricacies of personal decisions.
The issue is of course further complicated by the fact that the right to life is a controversial issue generally opposed by those who also oppose
abortion and deeply believe in their definition of how to protect life.
But if life is more than its biological components, then tenets defining it
strictly in physiological terms may be too narrow to be useful. When one
factors in an inner and unseen dimension, it is easy to see how biological
life is only the surface of what there is. Defining life as fitting within
those parameters, therefore, can't help but distort the whole concept of
what life means. Life itself has deeper roots. No doubt the Attorney
General believes in his action and in his duty to protect the lives of
those who choose when to put an end to their suffering. But this is one
area when the spiritual focus ought to be on preserving our ultimately
god-given free will even if it means erring to do so.
Web Site Of Interest: www.refdesk.com
Information At A Click
I wanted to know the source of blue coral, and through refdesk.com was able to access the Britanica concise encyclopedia which quickly gave me the
answer. Later I wanted to know which part of the lungs were close to the
heart, so I clicked on Gray's anatomy and was treated to an illustration.
The site has a myriad of links: newspapers (national and international),
phone rates and area codes, job banks, a list of Chiefs of State for every
country in the world. or the 2002 college ratings. It has dictionaries and
thesaurus as well as portion of the statistical Abstract of the United
States. In that case only major tables were included, the rest would be
available through buying the book which was of course made easy right then
and there.
The breadth of the site as well as it's ease of use clearly represent what the Internet was meant to be about - providing needed information quickly
and easily.
To Ponder On
"Human beings are defined by their solidarity with others, especially when
the others are threatened or wounded."
Elie Wisel, on the response to the
September 11th attacks
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