Who is abled or dis-abled? Western cultural views, conceptualized through our English language, suggest that people are either one or the other. This is a false, unfortunate contrast. Everyone has both "abilities" and "dis-abilities," from childhood through advanced age. It is a very relative concept. Some read and learn music much better than others. Some are math wizards, while others barely can do simple arithmetic. Some are physically coordinated, others relatively uncoordinated. Some people see and understand injustices when others are unable to see them. Some reflect before making choices, others are more compulsive. And one’s abilities or dis-abilities might vary over time and circumstances, depending upon consciousness, age, maturation, challenges, etc. What might be considered a dis-ability in one set of circumstances is considered an ability in others, and vice versa.

Most of my life I have been very healthy and robust. Yet in my early school years I was so physically awkward that no team in school gym class wanted me because I was such a detriment to their success. Then upon reaching the age of thirteen I became very coordinated and was considered among the best athletes throughout high school and college.

I have always been a slow reader and consequently have learned to be more discrete about what I read and consciously allocate time for this important activity. It is one of the reasons I have chosen not to have television. After I became seriously physically "dis-abled" in my late forties, I chose to read and write with ever more intention, and became more sensitive to those people who have to contend with major physical adjustments. Because I was more limited in my physical activities, I developed writing and analytical skills. I became more conscious of right livelihood.

While in Vietnam I came to understand that I possessed a rather arrogant cultural attitude, not at all atypical in our society, but one that so distorts perceptions of reality it is like a sickness, a dis-ability. This attitude had blinded me from seeing the pain that such way of viewing the world was causing. Then I began to understand that such view was also hurting myself. Thus, what is considered a "normal" cognitive ideological view–that my culture and I are superior (super-abled)–very quickly for me became an extraordinary dis-ability. As I came to understand this, I was en-abled to see others in a new, healthier, more equal way, radically changing the nature of my choices and relationships. So a dis-ability can be transformed into a new, even enriched ability. Changes initially seen as dis-abling, as negative or even tragic, whether in the mental or physical dimensions, often stimulate creation of new abilities and sensitivities previously unimagined.

In our culture, unlike Eastern traditions, the concept of pain is something that is unnatural, a dreaded condition to be avoided at all costs. Nonetheless, pain (whether mental, emotional, spiritual or physical) is part of life, and as people are confronted with it face-to-face, they must inevitably choose to honestly acknowledge and embrace it, e.g., through grieving, in order to heal and transcend, choose self-pity by "playing" the unlucky victim, or strive to remain in denial about its existence (e.g., through use of drugs and/or alcohol, obsession with materialism, etc.). But for those who are able to acknowledge their pain, their dis-ability, and pursue a healing process, in whatever form that takes, awareness and sensitivities are developed, enabling new ways of seeing and doing. They become wiser members of the community and are often an inspiration to others!

My life began in 1941 on the day we celebrate our independence, five months before our country’s entrance into World War II. In 1945, when I was but four years old, the U.S. unleashed the Atomic Age with the dropping on Japan of the previously unimagined destructive power of nuclear bombs. At this point in history, for the first time ever, the continuity of life and culture could no longer be assumed as certain. This loss of assurance of our continuity as a species, as a community, is perhaps the most pivotal psychological/psychic event in human history.

My life has spanned the entire tense Cold War (1945-1990) era. Having grown up in a religious, lower middle-class family, it seemed everyone was gloating over our "victory" in World War II. "National security" dominated our politics assuring the economic prosperity promised to virtually every family (with, of course, many exceptions based on race, political views, etc.).

Then came the revolutionary 1960s. More than ever before, the "Columbus Enterprise," whose mind-set of arrogance and violence so permanently altered and deleteriously affected the native cultural, ecological, and economic landscape of our hemisphere beginning in 1492, was lanced. Through traumas of my military experiences in Vietnam my own comfortable "American" paradigm was broken as well.

The revolution seeking to replace a greedy, destructive and deceptive capitalism with a caring and honest one or, better yet, a socialist model of some sort many had hoped for, did not succeed. However, through the energy unleashed by the Civil Rights, feminist, nonviolent, anti-war, and ecology movements, among others, an unprecedented questioning of previously entrenched values occurred. A new awareness, or a revitalized ancient one, was activated in our collective consciousness. As with all emotional and social history, this energy and awareness became part of the content of our evolutionary journey. It is not behind us. It has become a permanent part of our collective memory and wisdom, a source of ongoing change and hope. It is unpredictable how this awareness may yet manifest in formulating a new politics, a paradigm based on a sustainable model of sacred interconnectedness (or ecology) of all life.

Many of us naively thought that Vietnam represented a demonic aberration from a glorious U.S.-American history. With some reforms of the political system and the infusion of more enlightened intellectual judgements, we thought, "America" would return to its splendid destiny. But as a people’s uncensored version of our history was reexamined with more honesty, the golden mystique surrounding "America" collapsed. Our country, in fact, was not founded on democratic practices but rather on oligarchic ones. Our wars originate with fabricated pretexts and are perpetuated by incredible lies. Our civilization has been aggressively built on three holocausts: (1) theft of our land base from the Indigenous peoples through the genocide of millions of original Americans; (2) development of our agricultural and industrial economy through chattel slavery of millions of involuntarily imported African natives with millions killed in the process, and wage slavery of millions of other imported laborers from Europe, Asia and Latin America; and (3) application of "manifest destiny" beyond the borders of what became the Continental United States, especially since the "Spanish American" war at the turn of the Twentieth Century, leading to our rationalized overt and/or covert interventions into over 100 countries. We have killed millions to assure hegemonic control over global resources and markets in order to feed the non-negotiable, insatiable collective appetites of the American Way Of Life (AWOL). This historical evidence reveals that Vietnam was not an aberration but the continuation of a long pattern of darkness in our cultural character–a pattern which continues today.

Incredible violence was the historic victor in World War II, though the military victory celebrated by the U.S. further corrupted our character by reinforcing our original sin of arrogance. Following our humiliating defeat 30 years later in Vietnam, AWOL has been busy restoring itself to full confidence through global hegemony. In the post-Cold War era, the U.S. is operating with unipolar triumphalism, more than ever behaving as a dangerous international outlaw entirely beyond the boundaries of international law and institutions created to resolve collectively regional and global issues, and doing so with absolute impunity. The U.S. 1998-1999 bombings of Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and former Yugoslavia are the latest dangerous examples. The U.S. "needs" to assure that the world is safe for AWOL and a global "free," tyrannical market enabling ever more profits for transborder corporations while impoverishing ever more poor.

Ironically, we as a nation continue to be deeply affected, even haunted, by our Vietnam trauma, euphemistically termed the Vietnam syndrome (i.e., a disorder). The fact that the U.S. society, through its government, chooses not to ask forgiveness from the Vietnamese people for the terrible unprovoked transgressions committed against them, but instead continues to experience Vietnam as unacceptable humiliation, is a significant clue that the world faces ever more dangers as the U.S. operates as sole world arbiter and decision-maker. Psychologists tell us that those who refuse to own their own darkness generally project that darkness with ever more intensity upon others. "Enemies" are regularly created whether at the individual or collective level, and behavior is directed at eradicating those "enemies." Paranoia, carefully masked by comforting propaganda and noble-sounding rationales, dominates.

We in the United States, and the West in general, are faced with the Mother of all structural problems: The U.S. with but 4.5% of the world’s population consumes a range of 25-50% of the world’s resources; the industrialized "developed" world with 25% of the world’s population consumes 85% of the world’s resources. This leaves the 75% of the world’s peoples that comprise the "Third World" impoverished with the remaining 15% of the world’s resources. This is both unjust and immoral. The lifestyle of the 25% of the "developed" world requires incredible exploitation of "Third World" peoples, the ecosystem and the other ten million species in a manner that is totally unsustainable.

This structural problem must be addressed if we choose to survive as a species. Understanding it helps explain our imperial, violent intervention policies. How human beings of conscience and integrity preserve their humanity within the context of the criminal nation-state system is one of the greatest challenges of our time.

Depression, loneliness and addictions have become the most common maladies in virtually every consumer-oriented society, including ours. Many ecopsychologists, in trying to understand our apparent death wish, argue that since the advent of modern agriculture (separation), our species has suffered from psychic mutilation, an original trauma, resulting from the rupturing of our primary intrinsic and intimate relationship with the earth. Our growing human psychopathology, they claim, helps explain the increasing injuries being inflicted on the planet and upon one another. In other words, we are experiencing the symptoms of a fundamental disconnect from the Earth and all her wisdom, and therefore from our true selves.

As significant as the beginning of the nuclear age has been to depressing our psyche, another discovery offers a powerful antidote for our minds and spirits. Subsequent to the Bomb, astronomers, physicists and cosmologists have been able to scientifically offer us awareness of a gre
ater universal perspective within which to comprehend our journey–a perspective that may assist us in formulating radically different choices and values that will determine whether we continue or not as a species. We now know, for example, that the birthplace of the universe is 15 billion light years from the earth. Many scientists consider this discovery the most significant of the Twentieth Century. The universe continues to expand everywhere in all "directions." And you and I on our three-million-year human journey continue to be part of this creative energy force. Five billion years ago the hydrogen atoms created at the birth of the universe came together to form our great Sun, and within another half billion years, our solar system emerged. Astronomers now believe there are more than 300 billion stars, i.e., suns, comprising our Milky Way galaxy alone, and more than a trillion galaxies in the universe.

This is the awesome, magnificent context that is accessible, already within us, to guide our journey as we enter the next, quite scary millennium. We now have a better understanding of our origins, development and potential destiny–our cosmological wisdom–than ever before. Indigenous peoples have intuitively understood their sense of place and journey in the cosmos, which has provided them a wisdom and a spiritual life rooted in the earth-oriented and astronomical world. It is tragic that the "developed" world is on the verge of erasing "primitive" Indigenous cultures from existence.

Ironically, at the same time that modern science is beginning to reawaken us to our awesome context and energy sources, consumerism has become the contemporary dominant religious faith. Television is the church and the advertisers our preachers, constantly bombarding us with crass materialism. This force, escalating and omnipresent, effectively conveys the central message of what is now the essence of neoliberal economics and even "democratic" capitalism: human beings exist to make money and then buy as much stuff as possible.

As part of my own healing I have chosen to study other cultures and the effects of U.S. economic, military and covert policies on their peoples. I have traveled to rural areas, villages and cities in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as throughout the U.S. In the process I have discovered numerous examples of striving to preserve a just and healthy way of life, often explicitly rooted in the wisdom of the Earth and the Cosmos–this despite repression intended to force these efforts into the "development" model. I have been impressed by many who express a revulsion to the religion of the day (materialism), and demonstrate an awareness of the incredible propaganda system that bombards their minds with "America’s" spin on everything from the superiority of our way of life to the evils du jour in the remainder of the world.

The intensely arrogant, self-serving ideology of Western governments and their economic institutions propagated through their mass media is a major impediment to awareness and enlightened action. The frenetic materialist lifestyle preempts reflection and critical thinking. Therefore, people and communities who have preserved simplicity or who have chosen to live more simply and who are not dependent on or do not have access to the mass propaganda system are much more likely to connect with the wisdom of the Earth and the heavens. In some cases, they have been forced to seek an alternative way to survive, more locally and organically, for lack of cash and access to external inputs.

As people and communities learn to live locally consistent with a natural regional "carrying capacity," their ecological footprint becomes much smaller and they come closer to a sustainable, non-imperial way of life. This verges on being both radical, i.e., going to the root of their being, and revolutionary, i.e., turning around from limitless consumption to sacred sustainability. Our ancient evolutionary intimacy with the earth, as part of the continually unfolding cosmological energy, is already deeply imbedded within us, despite the powerful, arrogant ideologies conditioned in our brains. Reconnecting with this intimacy is our great hope.

Introduction

Though I am certainly no expert on understanding male, as distinct from female, spirituality, I do know that growing up male has very definite meanings. Very definite assumptions, roles, responsibilities, attitudes, character and personality traits, etc., came with birth as a boy without being conscious of most of them. Becoming aware of these attitudes and patterns provides us with clues for our healing. When we act on this awareness we can begin to express healthy attitudes and behavior based on our inner and interconnectedness as males, contributing to the reclaiming our role as promoters and protectors of human justice and ecological imperatives.

Though from high school age I experienced personal affinity with those identified as "underdogs," it was expressed from the security of being a physically strong and reasonably popular student and athlete. It was not until working in Vietnam a decade later as a US Air Force security officer, after a number of years studying in college and graduate school, that I discovered consciousness. Seeing the faces of male and female war victims, children as well as adults, I experienced many feelings, including shock, grief and anguish, that literally brought me to tears. It was as if this dimension of feelings had resided within me all my life. This was my first knowledge of their being liberated. These people, Vietnamese no less, had become my brothers and sisters, their children my children, and I felt this connection at an extraordinarily deep place within. This was a totally new experience of feelings.

Returning to civilian life, I went through a long period of denial in order to stop my new found consciousness from interfering with my attempt to live within the boundaries of the "American Way Of Life" (AWOL). Though I rhetorically expressed a new politics based on this Vietnam-produced consciousness, I nonetheless wanted to pursue the "good" life I was conditioned to expect.

An internal conflict began to rage within me, however, My newly emerging consciousness was increasingly questioning, and therefore interfering with, pursuit of AWOL. Who was, Who is, the real Brian Willson? How many Brian Willsons are there? Since Vietnam, like so many others, I have been searching in one clumsy way after another to learn what it means to be a human becoming, to be spiritual and political simultaneously, to be a humble warrior seeking justice, and to be a feelings-oriented as well as intellectually honest person. In effect, I have become a recovering white EuroAmerican male.

Some of the aspects of this journey in male spirituality are discussed below:

Interconnectedness

As we become more ecologically conscious in its most comprehensive understanding, we know that everything and everybody is interconnected. We are all one. An injury to one part, one person or organism, in fact some way injures the whole, all of us. "An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," Martin Luther King used to say. This is a law of the universe, and, as we develop holistic perspectives, of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, politics, sociology, anthropology, history, and philosophy. What have I left out? One could call it the theology of the planet within the context of the universe.

But of course it is not just a matter of intellectual understanding. It must be viscerally experienced, if it is to be fully incorporated as wisdom, felt deeply and noticeably in the stomach, in the chest, in the soul. Thus, it is natural and indispensable that we live in and appreciate community - intentional at the local level, and extended in the global concept. As we begin feeling anguish when others are suffering, and joy when they are laughing, we experience oneness in very real ways. We actually feel it. This passion, and compassion, increasingly motivates us to express in some concrete manner solidarity with the person or organism experiencing the pain or joy.

This for me has been revolutionary. It is the realizing of sacredness. Everything is sacred. I have finally accepted that even I am sacred. What a revelation! What a revolution! Caring and sharing begin to become "natural" as we increasingly open ourselves to this inner/outer Life Force. Gandhi called it soul or truth force. Martin Luther King called it cosmic companionship. I call it an unfolding relationship with and faith in the Great Spirit. The higher self. It matters not what one calls it. I began realizing interconnectedness in Vietnam as the tears poured down my cheeks as I looked at dead mothers and children. My god, I internally moaned, these are my sisters, my children too.

Fierce But Gentle Nonviolence: Die If You Must, But Never Kill

Using Gandhian language, Satyagraha replaces the methods of violence. Satyagraha, soul or truth force, seeks truth through passionate pursuit of justice. This truth-seeking approaches union with the higher self, the Great Spirit, or god. This effort is distinguished by its strict utilization of the methods and spirit of nonviolence, a concept approaching unconditional love. Nonviolence is an affirming love that tenaciously resists the wrongdoer with action that just as tenaciously refuses to do harm. Active nonviolence is a conscious willingness to suffer, even die, if necessary, as a chosen substitute for violence to others, in order to resist evil with a spirit of unconditional (and unsentimental, or agape) love. In so doing, the Satyagrashi seeks to break the cycle of retaliation, hoping to provoke transformation within the soul of, while respecting, the oppressor or adversary. Simultaneously, the Satyagrahi seeks to understand from the engagement, deepening his or her own consciousness. Central to nonviolence is respect for interconnectedness with the opponent, even while opposing the perceived destructive behavior.

These are guiding principles for the behavior and process of a peace warrior. Nonviolence requires discipline in overcoming fear, and training in the art of suffering, including dying, in order to possess the ability to fiercely pursue justice without causing harm to the dignity and soul of others. Be willing, and trained, to die but never kill for what you believe to be your heart-felt truth.

We are liberated,we are free, to the extent of our willingness to take risks, our preparedness for death, in resisting and noncooperating with evil As domination by fear subsides, willingness to take risks escalates. As we come to experience the sacredness of all life (including ourselves), and feel the pain and anguish of the suffering of others, i.e., experience our interconnectedness, our community with each other, it becomes easier to overcome fear in the passion and struggle for preserving sacredness. Obsession with our longevity disappears. Transformation is provoked, oneness is experienced.

The peace warrior understands the importance of breaking the historical cycle of retaliation through the courage of his or her example. It is worth emphasizing sincerity in pursuing truth (justice) through love (nonviolence), while respecting by refusing to injure the opponent. Initially it may take courage to experiment with this new paradigm. But as one increasingly feels the sacredness and interconnectedness, choices to pursue justice by interfering with policies and behaviors that destroy dignity, and life itself, become more natural. Think of the person who rushes into a burning house in an attempt, no matter how futile it might rationally seem at that moment, to rescue loved ones without undue concern for personal safety. This is the result of a passion for life, not a suicide wish.

It might also manifest in an attempt to block the movement of lethal weapons when it is known they will be utilized to terrorize and murder innocent human becomings in other countries for selfish poli
tical reasons. Or in an effort to be present at the site of testing of nuclear weapons designed to commit omnicide, hoping to interfere with the continuation of an insane policy. Or in a Buddhist type conscious, but perhaps strategic, presence of silence or chanting. Or in an effort to [blank]. You fill in the blank from your own inner heart-felt truth. W are all connected. An injury, or even the threat of an injury, to one is an injury to all. When this is viscerally felt the peace warrior must respond, no matter the personal dangers involved. Through thoughtful discernment, the way will be shown. The death trains are everywhere to be seen, forces destroying sacredness, community.

Integration–Physical, Spiritual, Mental and Emotional Health

As a recovering white EuroAmerican male it is important to be eternally vigilant of the various conditioned attitudes and behaviors that interfere with inner and interconnectedness, clarity of thinking and feeling, and loving (at all levels). It is a process that enables each of us to be a student (and therefore a teacher) throughout our lives. Attitudinal and physical violence toward others, arrogance, a sense of superiority, a need to dominate, and insensitivity to other’s needs, are some of the culturally learned traits that severely prevent us from learning about our interconnectedness, about passion and love, and about awareness and consciousness.

A peace warrior must strive to heightened physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional conditioning that enables him/her to emotionally and physically disarm the adversary and engage in a spiritual or verbal dialogue. Literally, a warrior’s motto must ultimately be, "Die if you must, but never kill," in pursuit of a nonviolent world. And a peace warrior must always be prepared to deepen his or her consciousness. One’s understanding of truth is always subject to change. Humility, therefore, is very important. This is another reason why in resisting an adversary it is important to never harm him/her. One never possesses absolute truth. When open, one is always learning.

It is obvious that in order to be a justice seeker, good physical, emotional, and spiritual health is necessary. This requires focus, training and discipline.

For me personally I have had to forgive myself, as well as others who have offended me, in order to continue loving myself and others. As I read history, and as I experience it unfolding, I feel anguish about the pain and suffering that has been done, and continues to be, involuntarily imposed on Mother Earth, and her millions of species, and on billions of human becomings, men and women, children and adults. This has occurred over the centuries, and continues to occur, because of lust for greed and thirst for power. Some of the most egregious destruction to life has occurred in the past 45 years by the policies of the United States promoting the American Way Of Life (AWOL), that most of us fuel with our personal lifestyles. This behavior of violence and aggression has been normally associated with specifically masculine traits. This need not, must not continue. As most anthropologists and biologists have told us, aggression and violence are not innate. They are not of our nature. They are culturally learned and tend to become entrenched as primary values after centuries of perpetuation. Cooperation, mutual support and aid, and love are also culturally learned, and there is much evidence that these traits of caring and sharing are much more dominant in the long history of the evolving human condition.

An important component of our process toward integrated health is the need to change our lifestyles. For most of us this is nothing short of revolutionary itself. AWOL consumes between 40% and 60% of the earth’s resources with but 5% of the world’s population. This is immoral, and requires us to be violently assaultive and exploitative as a nation against Mother Earth and the vast majority of the human becomings living on the planet. They are worth no less than us; we are not worth more. By living the way we do we are painfully complicit in the carnage AWOL imposes on all life. The peace warrior must affirm a life of global justice with his or her simple lifestyle while resisting evil and destructive policies and behaviors. As one disengages from dependence upon a destructive economic system, one experiences the political independence needed to speak truth, to be a peace warrior. This right livelihood can only function in community, as the alternative constructive program concretely experiments with cooperation, mutual aid and support, and sharing lifestyles that discover the joy and liberation of reduced consumption through local reliance. Less becomes more. Slow becomes beautiful as well.

Theology Of Transformation (or Liberation Psychology)

Liberation Theology describes, from a Christian perspective, the call of God with and through the community of faithful believers, to engage in the struggle for justice now. It is a theology of struggle for people who understand their oppression by oppressors. Closely related, from an eclectic and ecumenical perspective, is what I term the Theology of Transformation. Our higher self, the Great Spirit, or God, calls to us to endure the painful but liberating, and therefore joyous, process of radical transformation from homo hostilis to homo amicus (literally, from hostile man to friendly man). I believe this is critically important for psychological health; thus I refer to this as Liberation Psychology.

To become healthy we need to be liberated from the extraordinary limitations, many subconscious, that we have accepted from the teachings of our culture and its political and religious values and structures which severely prevent us from becoming fully human. Thus, like Liberation Theology in the "Third" World, the Theology of Transformation is revolutionary, and a threat to the continuance of "First" World nation-state systems, and their oligarchic counterparts that oppress the poor in the "Third" World. This perhaps might be considered a "First World" counterpart of Liberation Theology. As I have often discovered, in a most painful way, being an oppressor, even if unconsciously, as a male in the United States’ culture, is extraordinarily unhealthy and pathological for me as well. It deceitfully but egregiously robs me of my own humanity. I lose. Extrication from complicity with the values and living patterns of our arrogant, all consuming culture is absolutely indispensable for this personal and cultural transformation to occur.

Herein, I briefly summarize the essence of the Theology of Transformation:

First: It is fundamental to become aware of our interconnectedness, as I have already discussed. This is discovered as profound wisdom when we connect with our feelings–dimension, which I believe already resides within each of us, and then synthesize these feelings with our intellectual understandings. Some might call this our heartfelt, more intuitive sense of truth. I believe that for most men our feelings-dimension has been buried by layers and layers of denial, learned (conditioned) over the centuries, severely retarding our becoming human. Denial generally manifests in numerous forms of addictions that enable us to remain numb-like. It goes without saying that it is absolutely imperative that we recover from these addictions in order to experience our multitudes of feelings. Then, and only then, can we begin to integrate and heal. These feelings, this heartfelt dimension, provides the source of our love, our sense of interconnectedness, our passion and compassion. When integrated with the mind, a new life force of our humanity is unleashed–with gusto.

Second: As we become aware of our interconnectedness, we become aware of the pain and suffering that our culture, that our own personal attitudes and behavior, directly and indirectly, have inflicted on Mother Earth and other human becomings. We might at first feel
depressed, or betrayed. Then we begin feeling pain, and anguish, as we understand that our behavior, both collective and/or individual, has caused so much suffering. Then we can grieve, weep, and moan. This grieving is not just for others. It is for oneself. We come to know of a personal loss we are experiencing. We know how sick we are, how disconnected within ourself we have been. We know that others have suffered due to our blindness, our inner deprivations, our insensitivities. We are all one, all connected. We are all sacred. Even I am sacred. What a relief. What joy.

Third: As we understand how our various attitudes and behaviors have been complicit with the causing of destruction, pain and suffering, and have emotionally owned our relationship to and complicity with the pain through our grieving, we then must learn about forgiveness. We must be able to forgive ourselves as we ask others to forgive us. In this way we acknowledge our inner and interconnectedness, and that we are imperfect, fragile, and very human. We learn again how important it is to be humble. We understand at an even deeper level than before how sacred each of us Is. We feel relief. The injured, and the injurer, have released each other to deepen their interconnectedness, their sacredness. They learn from each other.

Fourth: The act of forgiveness must be concretized through manifestations of changed attitudes and behavior. I call this the process of atonement, or at-one-ment. The injurer changes his or her behavior by discontinuing the harmful behavior, but also by attempting to make whole the wrong done, even if it cannot literally be accomplished. This might be called reparations. It renders justice to the injured. As the injurer changes his or her behavior in making specific amends, deeper transformation and empowerment are experienced. The sense of inner and interconnectedness is more profound than ever. Healing is experienced. New life-force is unleashed. Atonement leads to a fifth, and very closely related concept of reconciliation, where new harmony and peace are experienced. More relief. More energy, more inspiration for being a peace warrior. And more learning.

Conclusion

The planet and the people of the earth, are desperately awaiting the fierce but gentle love, the fierce but gentle nonviolence of the heretofore missing male energy. I again make a commitment to continuing on the path of learning to be a peace warrior, to being a recovering white Euro-American male. But I need help. I conclude with this proposal: I’ll help you. But I hope you help me too. If you see me fallen down on the trail, please help me up. When I see you down I will help you up, of course. I hope we see each other. It is extraordinarily important. Our future is at stake.

I am an advocate of nonviolence. This, in a word, describes my "theology." It is rooted in the belief in the sacred interconnectedness of everything and everybody. An injury to any one part of the whole, including to or within oneself, injures the whole, and therefore, each other part of the whole. Using Gandhian language, Satyagraha replaces the methods of violence. Satyagraha, or soul or truth force, seeks truth through passionate pursuit of justice. This truth-seeking approaches union with the higher self, the Great Spirit (some would call this god). This effort is distinguished by its strict utilization of the methods and spirit of nonviolence, a concept approaching unconditional love. This might be considered agape, or unsentimental love. Nonviolence is an affirming love that tenaciously resists evil, resists the perceived wrongdoer with action that just as tenaciously refuses to do harm. Active nonviolence is a conscious willingness to suffer, even die if necessary, as a chosen substitute for violence to others, or to any other form of life. It requires acute consciousness about human and ecological justice. For centuries we have been living without a consciousness of sacred interconnectedness, in a more or less materialist framework. Thus, we have acted and lived in ways that have been extraordinarily destructive to life, including to ourselves. Adherence to nonviolence is considered nothing short of radical and revolutionary. It will effect all of us in dramatic, but liberating ways. It will have great impact upon all of life’s current patterns.

Nearly all religions embody this ethic. But in practice, all religions to different degrees have sanctioned violence, often through brutal and diabolical methods.

All the major religions embody nonviolence through (what I was taught in Baptist Sunday School as) the ‘Golden Rule." The one fundamental precept they share in common is that "we should treat others as we would expect to be treated ourselves:"

Buddhism — "Hurt not others with that which pains yourself." (Udana-Varqa)

Christianity — "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law of the prophets." (the Gospel of Matthew)

Hinduism — "This is the sum of duty; do naught to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain." (The Mahabharta)

Islam — "No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself." (Hadith)

Judaism — "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow men. That is the entire Law, all the rest is commentary." (The Talmud)

Zoroastrianism — "That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self." (Dadistan-i-Dinik)

Native American — "Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know–The earth does not belong to man; Man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family." (Chief Seattle)

It should be obvious now that I am a Buddhist, a Christian, a Hindu, an Islamite or Muslim, a Jew, a Zoroastrian, and a Native American. I presume that I am part Confucian (Confucianism) and Taoist (Taoism) as well, though I don’t have a source for their precept relating to the "Golden Rule."

If I were to pursue a ministry, I see it as a risky venture to become part of a community of faith-based people to share in experimental mutual aid, reducing dramatically cash and material needs, similar to living in an ashram, disengaging from an immoral and destructive economic system as much as possible. In the alternative, I would want to engage, and confront, the system and its components and employees with a decentralist model based on caring and justice. Often even middle-class people are ready to make a radical break with the system as they experience its emptiness and destructiveness. In effect, people of any community would begin to join the world’s people as equals, working with the poor in the struggle for a new world based on nonviolence–justice for all life. Local service projects would become part of normal community life. Resistance actions to governmental and corporate policies and practices viewed as evil and destructive would be planned as discernment determines, using nonviolence in both attitude and external behavior. Tax resistance would be important, placing all extra proceeds in a service fund for peace through justice efforts. Relationship with all peoples in struggle, both locally and internationally, would be creatively maintained through dynamic cultural exchanges with participants in popular justice struggles. The members of this community would no longer be middle class.

Relationships to social, economic, ecological, political and other issues would best be developed through action and reflection cycles. This emerging community would be committed to experimenting with the implementation of a radical, nonviolent revolution of "First World" values, moving from greed and selfishness to sharing and justice. In effect it seeks to literally live out the "Golden Rule." It takes Tolstoy’s philosophy very seriously that a Christian, for example, must live apart from the nation-state and all its institutions while living within it and speaking to it by example and resistance. A radical new consciousness is necessary, so historic, so dramatically apocalyptic as to be beyond our imagination. We must be prepared to experiment with the new journey, one step at a time, one day at a time. It is an ecological awakening never before known to the modern human condition. This is the issue of the day. Distinctions between the "First" World and "Third" World disappear. Exploitation of the majority by the minority will have to end. Our complicity as U.S. citizens, consuming 900% more than our global due, will have to end. We are talking radical, nonviolent revolution–the spirit of the call of love in a world rapidly becoming so dehumanized, so insane, as to place Homo Sapiens literally on the brink of extinction.