AWOL

If you need any convincing that our American Way Of Life (I’ve been calling it AWOL for some time) is unsustainable and in fact on a crash course to disaster, you may want to stop reading right here, go out and fill your gas tank and buy a gift certificate to Walmart. On the other hand, if you find yourself in despair or disgust at the way we humans behave toward each other and our beautiful planet, lets chat a bit.

I opened the following article by Carolyn Baker this morning. It is a no nonsense ultimatum to us humans to wake up, grow up, and accept the inevitable pain that comes with radical change as a valid initiation into the adulthood of our species. The adolescent denial of our consumptive AWOL has reached its peak. How many times must we wake up puking in the gutter having trampled all over our garden? http://www.countercurrents.org/baker131009.htm

Not being able to sit still with it, and still being the good American that I am, I got in the car and drove to the mountains to hike with my dog. I stormed along alternately; wondering how and where to go to survive what seems an inevitable apocalypse as the planet finds balance by reducing our numbers by half, and planning/appreciating the work I’ve chosen to bring civility and humor and soulful reflection to my fellows. I returned home, somewhat burdened yet determined, to open my computer to find the following link to another dimension. http://www.newrealitytransmission.com/ Eleven minutes of eleven days in which millions of people imagine a world in harmony. I don’t know who these people are, but I found myself in tears, clicking through one slide after another and realizing that a fifth dimension is available to us. Not a dimension of escape from the awful reality of our actions, but a dimension in which we may let go of the selfish adolescent to embrace Erik Erikson’s generative adult as we accept accountability for our actions. Make no mistake, if we humans can enter/create a reality of peace, support, honesty and abundance, it will be through both prayer and the sweat of our brows. There is a lot of concrete melanoma to break off the flesh of our mother.

I don’t know the current thinking on addiction, but I expect the denial that has produced our predicament emerges from a fear of being uncomfortable. For what is AWOL but an attachment to comfort? Its comforting to find fresh raspberries on the supermarket shelf in February. Its comforting to drive up to the mountain to hike in beauty. And as long as I don’t think about what it took to bring those berries or that gasoline to my credit card, I enjoy my comfortable life. But there is something that gets in my way even once I realize that raspberries from Chile in February make no sense at all. I’m attached to my comfort, and all the more so as I read the newspaper and build a fear of losing . . . what? Raspberries??!! Let them go for crying out loud! But not the price of gasoline. Oh no! I’ll kill for that. Or better yet, get a young man to go over to the Middle East to kill for me.

Healthy adults have the capacity to look ahead and anticipate problems and to make sacrifices to ensure a positive future. I can imagine a positive future. Am I willing to do the work to create it? Forego the raspberries, ride my bike more often, make friends with the worms in my garden, teach my elected officials how to be civil in their disagreements, get a handle on my debt, say the uncomfortable-fierce-loving thing to my partner. That’s my list. What’s yours?

I have every intention of participating in eleven days of eleven minutes of imagining a world in harmony with itself. I can already see it, feel it, taste it. And that taste includes a strong back and calloused hands, willing to pick up a shovel and plant a tree. And it includes a commitment to my wild heart, beating eagerly in anticipation of the laughter that comes after, free of the fear of losing my precious AWOL.

Comments

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