Anybody HOME?

A Place to Call HOME?

Thousands of years ago our human condition was compared to

“…that of a person shot with an arrow. It is both painful and urgent. But instead of getting immediate help for our affliction, we ask for details about the bow from which the arrow was shot. We ask who made the arrow. We want to know about the appearance and background of the person who strung the bow. We ask about many things – inconsequential things – while overlooking our immediate problem. We ask about origins and ends, but we leave this moment forgotten. We leave it forgotten even though we live in it.“

[Buddhism Plain & Simple – Steve Hagen]

In the 1980’s I had lost faith in myself and humanity – for as William James put it, “hardly an hour passed in which I did not wish that something might be otherwise.” When a friend asked: “What will happen next?” I remembered the Concise Oxford Dictionary listed under “what next?”:

“No absurdity can outdo this…”

1985

“The ultimate absurdity is the 34 trillion dollars spent since World War II to create a nuclear arsenal which, if used, will mean global suicide.”

In 1985 “we” spent $550 billion on “our” world arms bill but we did not spend $25 billion, for which we could have had:

  • safe water for everyone within the decade;
  • adequate direct food aid to avert malnutrition and famine;
  • assistance to small-scale farmers to make their regions self-sufficient in food;
  • primary schools and trained teachers for universal literacy;
  • universal vaccination against six common child-killing diseases;
  • family planning and maternal health services in the developing countries.”

[World Military & Social Expenditures, 1985 – Ruth Leger Sivard]

2008

Dr. Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, in his speech at the UN Food Crisis Summit in Rome – called to defuse the current world food crisis, noted that

  • in 2006 the world spent $1.2 trillion on arms
  • while food wasted in a single country could cost $100 billion and
  • excess consumption by the world’s obese amounted to $20 billion.

“Against that backdrop, how can we explain to people of good sense and good faith that it was not possible to find $30 billion a year to enable 862 million hungry people to enjoy the most fundamental of human rights: the right to food and thus the right to life?” Dr. Diouf asked.

[http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/005/y7675e.htm – Dr. Jacques Diouf]

Still at present, instead of acting on our immediate problems we set up commissions to study our problems to put forward suggestions – and again we ignore them.

How did we get into this?

Where to start?

Retracing My Steps to Awareness Into Here-Now-My-Response-Ability.

1985 to Present

What will happen next is that I WILL TRY TO BECOME GRACEFUL AND KIND. Open-eyed I will choose that which affects and incites a better life without alienating myself from my present reality. Being is also a becoming – to become response-able for the unkindness we allow to exist on this planet of multitude. Mind! Contemplate! Let us not neglect the basics.