The disease we called Covid was but the vehicle for a much more serious disease, a social disease of dehumanization, mob morality, and sacrificial violence. It rips through the social fabric like a shredding machine, severing friendships, dividing families, shredding organizations and communities.
What a great essay. The presence of love in your words is moving and the possibility for miracles and how this can happen through keeping the heart door open is an inspiration. I love your work Charles. It has lead me down many paths of curiosity and openness in spite of the intensity of these times. Thank you thank you!
Yes, I also see it this way. Charles' insights are valuable beyond words, and most of all his heart and psychological-maturity is what really inspires me and has opened up in me a much more compassionate outlook, that i think opens the door to huge possibilities (that are impossible when we are trappped in tne good vs. evil mentality).
At the same time, i think it is very very important to be aware of the larger picture of what is going on and that things are only getting started. Covid was "only" the founding myth of a whole new era, of a whole new feudal world of CBDC (central bank digital currency) that we are being walked into by the bankers' class (and their puppets in the governemets) of truly dystopian level of control and profiteering. Covid is only the first firing shot that establishes the ground zietgiest of what's to come (by 2030).
In order to have perhaps a more broad view of the larger picture of what is going on, I very highly recommend this truly must-read profound in-depth essay from the brilliant economist and social analyst Mathiu Smyth from the university of Strasburg. Use a translator if needed, this is a truly a must-read essential essay, in my view https://www.empereurnu.com/post/les-cbdc-les-monnaies-num%C3%A9riques-des-banques-centrales
This essay and the last are very thought provoking. I know I stumbled on the word amnesty. Emily didn’t ask for forgiveness but amnesty. I found that weird. Amnesty has a specific definition regarding a pardon by a government usually for political reasons. It’s a legal term. I am not trusting the sincerity because of the use of that term. I didn’t feel any love coming from her essay. It came across quite flippant to me. I wanted an apology not excuses. I am willing to forgive. And your essays provide the reasoning for forgiveness. Your essays provide the very necessity for forgiveness. I can be angry and forgive. I can be angry and still love. I guess I am not trusting yet the motivation for the original essay by Emily. And the use of the word amnesty instead of forgiveness. They aren’t the same. I look forward to hearing what you and others think and continue the dialogue. K
Imagine being careless in the woods with your campfire or your matches and, oh geez, a fire started. And imagine, later, going up to the firemen amid the smoldering sticks and leading with, "I think we should talk about amnesty."
And add to that, the promotion by the media of bringing more campfire starters (in the name of an experiment, and eventually an emergency), blocking the fire department, blaming the fire department, berating the fire department, dismissing fire department personnel, MSM promoting careless fire safety behavior, etc. At that point amnesty seems the only way to go.
Nov 10, 2022·edited Nov 10, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
I'm going in and out and back and forth with all this about 50 times a day. One minute I want to take the higher ground, embody the wisdom of Gandhi or some monk, leap to great empathy and compassion around the lack of curiosity and courage in others etc. Next thing I feel so much rage I could run through a wall. It's truly awful.
I think many of us are looking to Xmas and remembering last year where many of us had invitations rescinded and still, not a word has been said about it. I think even if I went to my family Xmas this year, well it wouldn't even be addressed. And I'm to sit there and say nothing also. I honestly don't know how to deal with this and I'm grateful to be able to say this out loud. Thank you Charles.
It keeps coming up for me too. I will go to the family Christmases and so forth. I will go to the coffee shop that excluded me a year ago. But there will be something between us. I won't trust them very much any time soon.
Once again, I am so glad I live in the Texas/Oklahoma part of California between Fresno and Bakersfield. The local sheriff’s departments publicly refused to enforce Covid restrictions saying they had better things to do. I went to a city council meeting to speak on behalf of a winter warming center for the homeless. The front door had a wear your mask notice on it. I put mine on and when I walked into the council chambers saw that none of the council members and their support staff had masks on! I guess the sign was there as a fig leaf to satisfy some sort of state mandate.
I will go to the family gatherings. I will *not* go to the coffee shops and ice cream shops that kicked me out. There are ties that bind with family and friends. But there are so many establishments where I could choose to shop. Why would I spend my patronage on those that "othered" me?
We publicly focus on holding accountable those who set these horrible policies in motion, but really it is our friends. families, bosses and co-workers who hurt us the most. Thank you for speaking to this. It is crazy making and almost impossible to know how to deal when those who have harned us act like nothing happened and we are supposed to pretend that is okay. I lost about 2/3 of my long time community over covid crap and I barely even opened my mouth. Those relationships will never return to what they were. Will they heal into something better? Maybe. But they have to want it also and I don't see that they do. They seem quite happy to write me and others off. It takes two to tango, the peace offerings cannot all come from one direction.
I am going to attempt to build a bridge by sending this exquisite essay but have no intention of gathering with those who embraced the societal sickness anytime soon.
What you are saying is true. I have been thinking about this since I became a covid dissident, wary that should the movement succeed, it might destroy the country with the violence of revenge. We must have accountability. We did not get accountability after the global credit collapse of 2008, and that is much the source of this god awful authoritarian mess that is Covid-19. If we do not get accountability, nay a reckoning about Covid-19, the next medical totalitarian mess will be infinitely worse. That is a fine line, between accountability and revenge. I want the former and less of the latter. Love is a key to that.
No we didn't get accountability...we the taxpayers bailed out the banks and the debt is still sitting in the central banks, who are beginning to fail. Was anyone in govt or at the fed reserve fired or held accountable?
Charles’ writing on climate/netzero dictatorship and Covidmania is inspiring and prescient. But my concern is that there is an even deeper eugenicist evil underlying both net zero and Covid mania. We need to identify the real ideology driving all this and it is antihuman eugenics. There isn’t a war between humans and Mother Earth. It is the elite controlled military industrial Pharma tech finance complex which the elites control which is wrecking our Mother. Lithium mining in Chile is already encroaching on protected areas.
The eugenicist evil you refer to masquerades so effectively as good, that its architects fervently believe they are doing good in the world. That is what happens when people navigate according to metrics, quantities, and data to the exclusion of direct experience. The lithium mines look good through the lens of carbon metrics. The depopulation looks good through the lens of per-capita consumption and so forth.
If the "architects fervently believe they are doing good in the world," that's because on some deep level they are, or perceive themselves to be, gloriously generous altruists. Only someone who has drunk deep at the fountains of "universal altruism" and "harmonic globalism" could behave the way these eugenicist architects behave.
Which lends credence, of course, to Nietzsche's harsh condemnation of altruism as an ideal, a condemnation shared by Strindberg, D.H. Lawrence, and many others in his wake. Quite obviously, if what you say is true, then the "eugenicist evil" could only "masquerade so effectively as good" because of an individual and societal overvaluation of altruism as a universal good as precondition. Your own defense of altruism in The Ascent of Humanity would then be undermined and Nietzsche's passionate attacks on altruism bolstered.
Undesireable truths ... a critical mass is needed to willfully stare these evils in the face and denounce them. I share your concern, and I fear that there are far too many distractions embedded into our lifestyles for this to ever happen. Modern society in this sense is a very very clever trap to keep the system running.
What sort of scenario would cause a critical mass to turn their heads and shine a light on the underlying evils?
I think I need to read this (or listen to it) every day for the next bit, in hopes that my heart will open and soften. The time since the Oster piece has been very difficult for me. As always, thank you for perspective.
There is unjust punishment, and there is just punishment. This article is written as though all punishment is immoral. It is not.
If it is indeed true that some Pfizer exec or bureaucrat grossly lied about known risks, and then their medical product led to my father-in-laws death, why is it inappropriate to desire some form of punishment?
If some government hack grossly lied about covid data and that resulted in my grandmother literally going mad and dying of forced reclusion in a nursing home, why is desiring punishment inappropriate?
That's just part of my covid experience within my own family. Murder is still murder when the people doing it are wearing nice clothing and telling you they mean well. I don't have some bloodlust to satiate. I don't expect justice in this world. However, in a Biblical ethical system, there is just punishment and there is unjust punishment. The Nuremberg 2 guys are not all righteous saints with noble intentions, sure, but the Nuremberg 2 case for justice is a hell of a lot closer to righteous than the human rights criminals case of the last 3 years has been.
I am not saying punishment is immoral. Where did I say that? I didn't say that and don't think that. Nor do I think it is moral. I am inviting us to step out of that frame. Where I'm coming from is that punishment is not useful in preventing this from happening again. That is what we all want, right? My point, which to my great frustration seem to be lost on people (maybe I'm not making it very clearly -- I will keep trying) is that unconditional amnesty will allow it to happen again, yet punishment ALSO will allow it to happen again. Why? Because it diverts attention onto the individuals who are much more a symptom of the problem than the cause.
I am terribly sorry about your grandmother. I don't want to leave that out. It happened to my friend's father exactly as you describe. The poor man went crazy. He spent his last couple months of life literally locked in his room. Solitary confinement.
Charles, I don’t know which planet you’re from, but thank you for landing here and spending time with us. Yes, like others I’m saving this blog, and especially the now over 200 comments to read multiple times to gain perspective, to remember to check my ego at the door of life and keep an open and humble mind right along with critical thinking skills. Excellent writing.
"Where I'm coming from is that punishment is not useful in preventing this from happening again. That is what we all want, right?"
No, that is not all we want. In addition to future prevention, we also want punishment for the sake of justice itself. We do not throw criminals into prison solely to prevent future crimes. We throw criminals into prison knowing that it often won't be enough to dissuade others. It is just for criminals to pay for their crimes, in and of itself. It is often unjust to allow no price to be paid.
I do not want mob justice, "revenge" or show trials; I want investigations and penalties that fit the crime, if it can be shown a crime occurred.
What has happened the last three years - the corruption, the deception, the lack of accountability - is all societally corrosive. To do nothing is to pour fuel on the fire, we agree. However, I disagree that punishment of individuals is ineffective for preventing future undesired behaviors. For example, the punishment of covid dissidents has worked extremely well for the powers that be for three years now. The dissidents have been thoroughly stigmatized and marginalized; they are still viewed as unclean, anti-science troglodytes. They have essentially zero political reprentation in either party. I can think of few better ways to prevent a behavior than to through stigmatization and punishment. I can give you endless examples throughout history demonstrating its effectiveness. If you think you have found some kind of sweet spot between ammesty and punishment with historical precedent, I guess I'm not understanding what it is.
Ah, then we disagree. If the crime stops and won't recur, I have no desire to see the perpetrator suffer. Though he probably will. I operate by the Christian teaching, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." Not ours. We are not qualified to mete out suffering.
We have different understandings of some of the underlying terminology and the Biblical principles involved. What I want is not vengeance. In the Old Testament specifically, God grants governments the right to investigate and punish guilty parties. It's "vengeance" if I try to seek justice outside of the system or if the system intentionally disallows a fair trial for the purpose of achieving their desired end. If a fair trial occurs via the government that God has instituted, that's biblical justice, not vengeance. In the Old Testament, God set up Kings and Judges for the explicit purpose of investigating and punishing. This concept is found absolutely everywhere in the Bible. And no, Jesus did not abolish the Old Testament Law. (Matthew 5:17) The principles expressed by Jesus as applied in a micro/personal sense do not necessarily apply in the same way in a macro/government sense. I don't desire to "see the perpetrator suffer." I desire that justice be done and I desire to live in a society that punishes criminals, because it is vastly superior to the alternative. I can forgive and love, but still punish and seek justice. Anyways, I appreciate your writing. Thanks.
This is precisely why you have so many followers. You are offering a kind of New Age, hippie-ish, watered down version of Christianity. You obviously don't believe in traditional Christianity, you aren't a religious believer in that sense, yet you still want to adhere to Christian morality while simultaneously jettisoning everything you dislike about the religion. This is by no means a self-evidently sensible position to take the way you seem to think.
Nietzsche again:
"G. Eliot. -- They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality. That is an English consistency; we do not wish to hold it against little moralistic females à la Eliot. In England one must rehabilitate oneself after every little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is. That is the penance they pay there.
We others hold otherwise. When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is the truth--it stands and falls with faith in God.
When the English actually believe that they know "intuitively" what is good and evil, when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of morality, we merely witness the effects of the dominion of the Christian value judgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion: such that the origin of English morality has been forgotten, such that the very conditional character of its right to existence is no longer felt. For the English, morality is not yet a problem."
You are like a thieving magpie, picking and choosing whatever you like from tradition - theology, philosophy, science - without any need to question whether the resulting smorgasbord is even intellectually or ethically coherent or self-sustaining.
Nov 10, 2022·edited Nov 10, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
There is something deeply strange and perverse about the whole Covid thing, a pyramid of deception and partial truths and information. A friend told me of a current advertisement of a child rejoicing she had the jab because she thereby wouldn’t spread it to her infant sister even though it is known widely by nearly everyone vaccination does not prevent infection and transmission! Sanctioned blatant disinformation. I can not help but feel the half hidden coils of something deeply sinister. Or was it an insidious comedy of errors, a lab escapee followed by cover ups and denials that will ever prevent full disclosure unless painfully pried out by clear sighted wise determined souls armed with the power to do so? Not likely I believe. Or good intentions madly awry and then gone into hiding?
Politicians and other power-hungry narcissists are not the smartest amongst us IMHO!! I have trouble believing all this was planned. I think your description of 'insidious comedy of errors, lab escapee followed by cover ups and denials' is more the case. If it's all about power and re-election and winning votes, followers, etc. then everything happens therefor from a reactionary perspective and not planning.
Wow. This is the most important discussion for the year ahead. There is massive healing available for any individual who takes on the challenge you've offered here. Thank you for these words.
I wish this kind of dialogue was happening around every supper table and in every social gathering, on the radio and TV, at the supermarket checkout, on the bus.........where is the talking amongst we not so ordinary people? Where can I find people who want to have these conversations in real life? It is good to find you on line but not enough. My dissident friends just want to get on with life now and the others have never wanted to discuss. I am angry, as Charles describes, but also Oh so disappointed in the people I still love and the organisations that I have left. I don't know what to do with the disappointment -any ideas? Thanks to you all especially Charles.
I had lunch with a dissident friend today and found that we are still walking all around the elephant in the room and won't discuss anything about it. Nobody wants to be REAL. It makes me feel very alone and like there is something wrong with ME.
Hi Kat, I know that feeling. You are real and something very strange and disturbing has happened to so many people. People I used to be able to talk to about anything at all, don't want to talk to talk about this. Am I allowed to send you my email address? We could talk.
Yes! I am feeling this disappointment too. I sense that those who complied with everything are now 'Covid-weary'. While I feel energised to have conversations with everyone I meet, I am starting to wonder if the jab has taken more than people's physical health. I was told by a dear friend yesterday that she recently had a conversation with a Greek priest. One of his actions is to work in a hospice. He is hearing people on their death beds describing how they feel the injection somehow stole part of their souls. They face death feeling not wholly themselves. This is an astonishing insight.
Brain fog is a hell of a drug, and I think a lot of people have acquired a chronic form of that in recent years for many reasons. I know I have. The best current theory of it is that it's caused by the brain's local immune system activating in response to a threat or perceived threat, not too much different from how skin can react to a perceived threat with a rash, or how many different bodily systems have their own ways of reacting to threats that can be unpleasant or disabling but are intended to be protective. Almost like an internal version of lockdown.
Since the spike protein found in both covid and the covid vaccine can disrupt and cross the blood brain barrier, it might be directly or indirectly responsible for a lot of people developing chronic immune activation in that area of the body and subsequent chronic brain fog, which could definitely feel like partial soul loss in at least a few senses.
You could try this site. Memebership (which is not too expensive) gives you access to an App & a platform of like-minded people having similar conversations. I only found it & joined recently. Feels like home :-)
People are masking up again in fear of "variants;" the Plandemic is not even over yet. In WA State you must get jabbed to apply for a government job. Some colleges still demand jabs for entrance. I can't participate in Grange or some other social events events unless I get vaxxed. Children are being lured to State and PTA-sponsored Halloween "Trunk and Treat" parties to receive candy in exchange for jabs, and many parents are going along with it. The benefits of the struggle is that through protests and meetups I have found wonderful friends who can think critically, see what is still happening, and we do advocacy work against the iatrogenocide. How can we rebuild relationships while the battle is ongoing, and many still don't see? Our work of education must continue.....
Absolutely. The work is far from over. That's another reason why it is premature to "forgive and forget." Imagine if an abusive spouse asked for forgiveness and that you forget it ever happened, when the abuse is ongoing. Crazy.
I'm in WA state also in a very blue county. They won again this election and so I expect the insanity to double down this winter. It is far from over and people are numb and checked out in alot of ways I have never seen before. I too have met wonderful new folks, but truthfully I don't seem to fit in anywhere now as I am beyond disgusted with the extremists on both sides of the poitical spectrum who seem to be running the show. Every single issue is so 'hot' no one can hold onto it long enough to actually examine what it really is!
We are right in the middle of it now, and finding an attitude that can carry us through with dignity is our challenge. Perhaps we should be re-reading Solzhenitsyn. He lived through many horrors, was prolific in his expression of revulsion of the machine, and retained his humanness throughout.
Hi Courtney, I am in Whatcom co and we have a strong politically active group called BeBraveWashington here that has been fighting the mandates from the beiginning. That has helped me alot to deal with the craziness. Want to thank you also for liking my post on forgiveness being a charged word as you seem to be the only one who liked that particular post!
Can you share how you found wonderful friends who think critically? I'm in the SF Bay area and struggling to find people who can think outside the red/blue paradigm. And I'm also seeing an increase in mask wearing, very concerning.
Sure. I met a few people at a censorship protest held by a friend; several of us got together and decided to go out in a public place and set up tables with info and hold up signs with our concerns, on Saturday mornings. People came and signed up to receive an email. We started meetings and then it was by word of mouth, plus being out in public every Saturday. Our list of people is very large; our regular once-a-week group (started in the park, moved indoors later) is a steady number about 1/10th of that, but new people keep coming...you just have to be willing to stand up and stand out there for what you believe. Believe they will. You can also create a t-shirt that will start conversations...
I also want to say that people come from many different ways of life and thinking (including the left), but agree on the subjects around the "grim reset" and medical freedom. We have kept unity over these foci. (It will help to create a mission statement to keep the focus.) Some people want to work with politics and others don't; some want to establish a parallel economy to our failing one, some want to protest, others don't; some interact with local and state governing bodies to challenge their actions. There is a prepper group, and a constitutional freedom group learning about the constitution and state and administrative law, with action in mind. Our meetings are always very participatory. I am cheered and sometimes overwhelmed by all we are doing.
Thanks for sharing, and I hear you on the emotional roller coaster. Good ideas, and good on ya for doing this. I've tried the shirt idea, mostly judgements or ridicule, the sign is a fabulous idea and seems the next step for me. Thanks and hope to gather around a fire some day.
We have an "educational outreach" group that has put together flyers of information to share; they still go out on most Saturdays with a table and/or signs....also look up the White Rose movement.....subversive stickering is known to happen often.
LOVE this post, Charles. Thank you! The following truths come to mind: 1) When you hate someone for hating, you become what you hate; 2) Love is always more powerful than hate; 3) When you truly love your own self, you find it impossible to hate another, because you are the other and the other is you; and 4) To love others (and yourself) unconditionally sets you free in a way that nothing else can.
I've been trying to synthesize my thoughts on Never Again and these last few years into an essay format but it's still just a big mess. Watching various sides invoke the fears of fascism even as they act out their authoritarian roles, I think we didn't learn the lesson of Never Again, taking it far too literally and specifically. As a Jew in California, it's been a particularly weird perspective on it.
I'm a jew in israel (not that those sectarian divisive labels really matter, but i am just saying this for context) and we definitely didn't learn the deeper lesson of never again. We currently have people in government who are a carbon copy of the mentality and ideology of the nazis (and i do not use this words lightly). We learned absolutely nothing (except perhaps to imitate our abusers, in the belief that this way we won't he abused again..) It seems to me that Charles is profoundly insightful in his understanding of where we are at. (Most of) humanity hasn't matured yet. The fundamental mentality and way of relating hasn't changed throughout the decades. He is right on the money with his observations, in my view.
Healing and love are admirable ambitions but don't work in war time. We are in a war. Nuremberg was a necessary conclusion to a horrible war. Another tribunal will be necessary to conclude this one. Many will be anrgy and will seek revenge. That's never constructive and never necessary. But closure is both constructive and necessary. It won't fix human nature, but it will suppress it for a while.
A tribunal might conclude this war, but it won't stop the next one. There are other ways to bring a horrible war to a close. I forgot to mention in the article one such alternative: the Truth and Reconciliation committees of Rwanda and South Africa.
The Truth and Reconciliation committees sound great and at first I too believed that was
a productive way out of social insanity. However in real time, on the ground, right now in South Africa; blatant discrimination against WHITES is now apparently the norm. This is too big an issue to get into here but there are some articles and docs out there now about this growing 'reverse aparthied.' phenomena. One could say that this is only karmic justice and social pay back for previous racist crimes committed against blacks; but hey there are little white kids in those slums who never did anything bad to a black person. Sadly some or even all of those kids will most likely now grow up hating the black society around them. Thus planting seeds for the next horrible war. My own experience with truth and reconciliation folks here locally is that they are pretty damn self righteous and there is literally no way to appease them. Being mixed blood native myself, I have been involved in these types of battles my whole life and I have yet to see that either reparations, reconciliations, new laws and/or punishments or anything else really works in the long term on a large scale. It is an individual choice to decide not to participate in injustice to whatever degree one is able. That takes intestinal fortitude and a degree of personal sovereignty that it appears most folks are simply not willing to cultivate. Which is one reason I am involved here Charles. You attract folks who ARE willing to be engaged and have the strength and moral courage to look evil in the eye, name it, discuss it and try to transform it.
I understand that. I think the Truth and Reconciliation Committees were a glimpse of the future, showing us a possibility. Overall, our consciousness is not quite ready for them. My purpose in writing this article is to help prepare us. In South Africa and elsewhere, it is true, the specter of dehumanization now turns toward the former oppressors. That is the virus (dehumanization) I have been describing.
Despite our consciousness collectively not being ready for what Truth and Reconciliation offered, still they had an effect. One can only imagine the bloodbath that could have ensued post-Apartheid if the society had been fully in the mode of punishment and revenge.
We can never stop the next war. Conflict is our nature. But we can discourage it enough that we delay it a while. As Churchill observed, people always do the right thing after they've tried everything else.
This is a really important point. The only thing that can create a real stop to endless revenge cycles is justice. Calls to forgive are premature when the crime is still in progress.
Thank you for this. I, too, have been so troubled by the division and am desperate to come to a place of compassion, love, and some sense of peace.
But it’s challenging when we are still being attacked and on the defensive. My husband may lose his job (now of all times) for refusing to be jabbed. We still can’t visit loved ones in the hospital. We cannot fly to his native country. We have all been through some very hard times.
A friend, who has gone out of her way to continue to offer olive branches during times in which most would have struggled, recently asked me, “But what do we do with all our anger?” And I wonder this too. I think validation is a start. Acknowledgement of the struggles we’ve gone through and continue to go through. Admittance of wrongs. But those are not in our control.
So then I think it must come from us. We must dig deep and try to understand where all this hate and division came from. We know what happened. We can see how hard and fast lies we’re being spewed and truth was being censored. And so it is no wonder those who were not looking for it… those who were just trying to survive another day amidst the terrifying tales which were being put forth, in addition to just making it through a regular day of life… it’s no wonder they got swept up.
So I love your tale of the unforgivable man who was forgiven. As impossible a task I think it may seem (and I don’t know that I will be able to show it to everyone) it does seem like the best way to move towards a more unified world, which I am more than ready for.
Charles, you nailed this. Forgiveness will lead us to a better world. Hate is impotent. Anger can be a motivating force to change for the better.
I suggest any of us who consistently follow Charles’s writings are open to forgive and to understand that if people knew better, they would do better. For a better world to unfold, those qualities will underpin our holding the powerful and influential to account. Yes, we should demand they be held to account, but Charles makes us stop and think when he says that we must look at the instinct to punish, to inflict retribution, which fuels the fire of hatred and prevents reconciliation and resolution.
What a great essay. The presence of love in your words is moving and the possibility for miracles and how this can happen through keeping the heart door open is an inspiration. I love your work Charles. It has lead me down many paths of curiosity and openness in spite of the intensity of these times. Thank you thank you!
Yes, I also see it this way. Charles' insights are valuable beyond words, and most of all his heart and psychological-maturity is what really inspires me and has opened up in me a much more compassionate outlook, that i think opens the door to huge possibilities (that are impossible when we are trappped in tne good vs. evil mentality).
At the same time, i think it is very very important to be aware of the larger picture of what is going on and that things are only getting started. Covid was "only" the founding myth of a whole new era, of a whole new feudal world of CBDC (central bank digital currency) that we are being walked into by the bankers' class (and their puppets in the governemets) of truly dystopian level of control and profiteering. Covid is only the first firing shot that establishes the ground zietgiest of what's to come (by 2030).
In order to have perhaps a more broad view of the larger picture of what is going on, I very highly recommend this truly must-read profound in-depth essay from the brilliant economist and social analyst Mathiu Smyth from the university of Strasburg. Use a translator if needed, this is a truly a must-read essential essay, in my view https://www.empereurnu.com/post/les-cbdc-les-monnaies-num%C3%A9riques-des-banques-centrales
This essay and the last are very thought provoking. I know I stumbled on the word amnesty. Emily didn’t ask for forgiveness but amnesty. I found that weird. Amnesty has a specific definition regarding a pardon by a government usually for political reasons. It’s a legal term. I am not trusting the sincerity because of the use of that term. I didn’t feel any love coming from her essay. It came across quite flippant to me. I wanted an apology not excuses. I am willing to forgive. And your essays provide the reasoning for forgiveness. Your essays provide the very necessity for forgiveness. I can be angry and forgive. I can be angry and still love. I guess I am not trusting yet the motivation for the original essay by Emily. And the use of the word amnesty instead of forgiveness. They aren’t the same. I look forward to hearing what you and others think and continue the dialogue. K
And what is more telling is that amnesty presupposes crimes were committed. A few more details would be nice.
Imagine being careless in the woods with your campfire or your matches and, oh geez, a fire started. And imagine, later, going up to the firemen amid the smoldering sticks and leading with, "I think we should talk about amnesty."
And add to that, the promotion by the media of bringing more campfire starters (in the name of an experiment, and eventually an emergency), blocking the fire department, blaming the fire department, berating the fire department, dismissing fire department personnel, MSM promoting careless fire safety behavior, etc. At that point amnesty seems the only way to go.
I'm not sure we're working with the same analogy here, but, ... sure.
I'm going in and out and back and forth with all this about 50 times a day. One minute I want to take the higher ground, embody the wisdom of Gandhi or some monk, leap to great empathy and compassion around the lack of curiosity and courage in others etc. Next thing I feel so much rage I could run through a wall. It's truly awful.
I think many of us are looking to Xmas and remembering last year where many of us had invitations rescinded and still, not a word has been said about it. I think even if I went to my family Xmas this year, well it wouldn't even be addressed. And I'm to sit there and say nothing also. I honestly don't know how to deal with this and I'm grateful to be able to say this out loud. Thank you Charles.
It keeps coming up for me too. I will go to the family Christmases and so forth. I will go to the coffee shop that excluded me a year ago. But there will be something between us. I won't trust them very much any time soon.
Once again, I am so glad I live in the Texas/Oklahoma part of California between Fresno and Bakersfield. The local sheriff’s departments publicly refused to enforce Covid restrictions saying they had better things to do. I went to a city council meeting to speak on behalf of a winter warming center for the homeless. The front door had a wear your mask notice on it. I put mine on and when I walked into the council chambers saw that none of the council members and their support staff had masks on! I guess the sign was there as a fig leaf to satisfy some sort of state mandate.
So many of us are feeling this way. Naomi Wolf wrote a piece about it that really resonated with me: https://open.substack.com/pub/naomiwolf/p/a-lost-small-town?r=p4f90&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I will go to the family gatherings. I will *not* go to the coffee shops and ice cream shops that kicked me out. There are ties that bind with family and friends. But there are so many establishments where I could choose to shop. Why would I spend my patronage on those that "othered" me?
We publicly focus on holding accountable those who set these horrible policies in motion, but really it is our friends. families, bosses and co-workers who hurt us the most. Thank you for speaking to this. It is crazy making and almost impossible to know how to deal when those who have harned us act like nothing happened and we are supposed to pretend that is okay. I lost about 2/3 of my long time community over covid crap and I barely even opened my mouth. Those relationships will never return to what they were. Will they heal into something better? Maybe. But they have to want it also and I don't see that they do. They seem quite happy to write me and others off. It takes two to tango, the peace offerings cannot all come from one direction.
And yet 1 side must take what’s called the exquisite risk ?!
To a point yes. What exactly that point is in each individual circumstance is highly subjective and personal.
I am going to attempt to build a bridge by sending this exquisite essay but have no intention of gathering with those who embraced the societal sickness anytime soon.
What you are saying is true. I have been thinking about this since I became a covid dissident, wary that should the movement succeed, it might destroy the country with the violence of revenge. We must have accountability. We did not get accountability after the global credit collapse of 2008, and that is much the source of this god awful authoritarian mess that is Covid-19. If we do not get accountability, nay a reckoning about Covid-19, the next medical totalitarian mess will be infinitely worse. That is a fine line, between accountability and revenge. I want the former and less of the latter. Love is a key to that.
No we didn't get accountability...we the taxpayers bailed out the banks and the debt is still sitting in the central banks, who are beginning to fail. Was anyone in govt or at the fed reserve fired or held accountable?
Not for gaming the economy for those already with money....
Accountability and to throw all that lot out and burn those institutions to the ground. I believe we need a huge government do-over.
Charles’ writing on climate/netzero dictatorship and Covidmania is inspiring and prescient. But my concern is that there is an even deeper eugenicist evil underlying both net zero and Covid mania. We need to identify the real ideology driving all this and it is antihuman eugenics. There isn’t a war between humans and Mother Earth. It is the elite controlled military industrial Pharma tech finance complex which the elites control which is wrecking our Mother. Lithium mining in Chile is already encroaching on protected areas.
The eugenicist evil you refer to masquerades so effectively as good, that its architects fervently believe they are doing good in the world. That is what happens when people navigate according to metrics, quantities, and data to the exclusion of direct experience. The lithium mines look good through the lens of carbon metrics. The depopulation looks good through the lens of per-capita consumption and so forth.
If the "architects fervently believe they are doing good in the world," that's because on some deep level they are, or perceive themselves to be, gloriously generous altruists. Only someone who has drunk deep at the fountains of "universal altruism" and "harmonic globalism" could behave the way these eugenicist architects behave.
Which lends credence, of course, to Nietzsche's harsh condemnation of altruism as an ideal, a condemnation shared by Strindberg, D.H. Lawrence, and many others in his wake. Quite obviously, if what you say is true, then the "eugenicist evil" could only "masquerade so effectively as good" because of an individual and societal overvaluation of altruism as a universal good as precondition. Your own defense of altruism in The Ascent of Humanity would then be undermined and Nietzsche's passionate attacks on altruism bolstered.
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Undesireable truths ... a critical mass is needed to willfully stare these evils in the face and denounce them. I share your concern, and I fear that there are far too many distractions embedded into our lifestyles for this to ever happen. Modern society in this sense is a very very clever trap to keep the system running.
What sort of scenario would cause a critical mass to turn their heads and shine a light on the underlying evils?
I think I need to read this (or listen to it) every day for the next bit, in hopes that my heart will open and soften. The time since the Oster piece has been very difficult for me. As always, thank you for perspective.
I’ve been feeling the same way since that article. Like wounds have been reopened. It’s been challenging for sure.
There is unjust punishment, and there is just punishment. This article is written as though all punishment is immoral. It is not.
If it is indeed true that some Pfizer exec or bureaucrat grossly lied about known risks, and then their medical product led to my father-in-laws death, why is it inappropriate to desire some form of punishment?
If some government hack grossly lied about covid data and that resulted in my grandmother literally going mad and dying of forced reclusion in a nursing home, why is desiring punishment inappropriate?
That's just part of my covid experience within my own family. Murder is still murder when the people doing it are wearing nice clothing and telling you they mean well. I don't have some bloodlust to satiate. I don't expect justice in this world. However, in a Biblical ethical system, there is just punishment and there is unjust punishment. The Nuremberg 2 guys are not all righteous saints with noble intentions, sure, but the Nuremberg 2 case for justice is a hell of a lot closer to righteous than the human rights criminals case of the last 3 years has been.
I am not saying punishment is immoral. Where did I say that? I didn't say that and don't think that. Nor do I think it is moral. I am inviting us to step out of that frame. Where I'm coming from is that punishment is not useful in preventing this from happening again. That is what we all want, right? My point, which to my great frustration seem to be lost on people (maybe I'm not making it very clearly -- I will keep trying) is that unconditional amnesty will allow it to happen again, yet punishment ALSO will allow it to happen again. Why? Because it diverts attention onto the individuals who are much more a symptom of the problem than the cause.
I am terribly sorry about your grandmother. I don't want to leave that out. It happened to my friend's father exactly as you describe. The poor man went crazy. He spent his last couple months of life literally locked in his room. Solitary confinement.
Charles, I don’t know which planet you’re from, but thank you for landing here and spending time with us. Yes, like others I’m saving this blog, and especially the now over 200 comments to read multiple times to gain perspective, to remember to check my ego at the door of life and keep an open and humble mind right along with critical thinking skills. Excellent writing.
"Where I'm coming from is that punishment is not useful in preventing this from happening again. That is what we all want, right?"
No, that is not all we want. In addition to future prevention, we also want punishment for the sake of justice itself. We do not throw criminals into prison solely to prevent future crimes. We throw criminals into prison knowing that it often won't be enough to dissuade others. It is just for criminals to pay for their crimes, in and of itself. It is often unjust to allow no price to be paid.
I do not want mob justice, "revenge" or show trials; I want investigations and penalties that fit the crime, if it can be shown a crime occurred.
What has happened the last three years - the corruption, the deception, the lack of accountability - is all societally corrosive. To do nothing is to pour fuel on the fire, we agree. However, I disagree that punishment of individuals is ineffective for preventing future undesired behaviors. For example, the punishment of covid dissidents has worked extremely well for the powers that be for three years now. The dissidents have been thoroughly stigmatized and marginalized; they are still viewed as unclean, anti-science troglodytes. They have essentially zero political reprentation in either party. I can think of few better ways to prevent a behavior than to through stigmatization and punishment. I can give you endless examples throughout history demonstrating its effectiveness. If you think you have found some kind of sweet spot between ammesty and punishment with historical precedent, I guess I'm not understanding what it is.
Ah, then we disagree. If the crime stops and won't recur, I have no desire to see the perpetrator suffer. Though he probably will. I operate by the Christian teaching, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." Not ours. We are not qualified to mete out suffering.
We have different understandings of some of the underlying terminology and the Biblical principles involved. What I want is not vengeance. In the Old Testament specifically, God grants governments the right to investigate and punish guilty parties. It's "vengeance" if I try to seek justice outside of the system or if the system intentionally disallows a fair trial for the purpose of achieving their desired end. If a fair trial occurs via the government that God has instituted, that's biblical justice, not vengeance. In the Old Testament, God set up Kings and Judges for the explicit purpose of investigating and punishing. This concept is found absolutely everywhere in the Bible. And no, Jesus did not abolish the Old Testament Law. (Matthew 5:17) The principles expressed by Jesus as applied in a micro/personal sense do not necessarily apply in the same way in a macro/government sense. I don't desire to "see the perpetrator suffer." I desire that justice be done and I desire to live in a society that punishes criminals, because it is vastly superior to the alternative. I can forgive and love, but still punish and seek justice. Anyways, I appreciate your writing. Thanks.
This is precisely why you have so many followers. You are offering a kind of New Age, hippie-ish, watered down version of Christianity. You obviously don't believe in traditional Christianity, you aren't a religious believer in that sense, yet you still want to adhere to Christian morality while simultaneously jettisoning everything you dislike about the religion. This is by no means a self-evidently sensible position to take the way you seem to think.
Nietzsche again:
"G. Eliot. -- They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality. That is an English consistency; we do not wish to hold it against little moralistic females à la Eliot. In England one must rehabilitate oneself after every little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is. That is the penance they pay there.
We others hold otherwise. When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is the truth--it stands and falls with faith in God.
When the English actually believe that they know "intuitively" what is good and evil, when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of morality, we merely witness the effects of the dominion of the Christian value judgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion: such that the origin of English morality has been forgotten, such that the very conditional character of its right to existence is no longer felt. For the English, morality is not yet a problem."
You are like a thieving magpie, picking and choosing whatever you like from tradition - theology, philosophy, science - without any need to question whether the resulting smorgasbord is even intellectually or ethically coherent or self-sustaining.
There is something deeply strange and perverse about the whole Covid thing, a pyramid of deception and partial truths and information. A friend told me of a current advertisement of a child rejoicing she had the jab because she thereby wouldn’t spread it to her infant sister even though it is known widely by nearly everyone vaccination does not prevent infection and transmission! Sanctioned blatant disinformation. I can not help but feel the half hidden coils of something deeply sinister. Or was it an insidious comedy of errors, a lab escapee followed by cover ups and denials that will ever prevent full disclosure unless painfully pried out by clear sighted wise determined souls armed with the power to do so? Not likely I believe. Or good intentions madly awry and then gone into hiding?
I've been feeling "the half hidden coils of something deeply sinister" for some time.
intentional harm for the anti-human agenda. As dark as it comes.
Politicians and other power-hungry narcissists are not the smartest amongst us IMHO!! I have trouble believing all this was planned. I think your description of 'insidious comedy of errors, lab escapee followed by cover ups and denials' is more the case. If it's all about power and re-election and winning votes, followers, etc. then everything happens therefor from a reactionary perspective and not planning.
Oh it was planned by a few and many followed unknowingly
Look up Event 201, October 18th 2019 and then ask yourself if you could believe it was all planned.
Wow. This is the most important discussion for the year ahead. There is massive healing available for any individual who takes on the challenge you've offered here. Thank you for these words.
I wish this kind of dialogue was happening around every supper table and in every social gathering, on the radio and TV, at the supermarket checkout, on the bus.........where is the talking amongst we not so ordinary people? Where can I find people who want to have these conversations in real life? It is good to find you on line but not enough. My dissident friends just want to get on with life now and the others have never wanted to discuss. I am angry, as Charles describes, but also Oh so disappointed in the people I still love and the organisations that I have left. I don't know what to do with the disappointment -any ideas? Thanks to you all especially Charles.
I had lunch with a dissident friend today and found that we are still walking all around the elephant in the room and won't discuss anything about it. Nobody wants to be REAL. It makes me feel very alone and like there is something wrong with ME.
Hi Kat, I know that feeling. You are real and something very strange and disturbing has happened to so many people. People I used to be able to talk to about anything at all, don't want to talk to talk about this. Am I allowed to send you my email address? We could talk.
Thank you for your response. How would you send an email address without posting it publicly?
Would need to do that...can do...will do...happy to.... if this place allows...don't want to disrespect this place.
Yes! I am feeling this disappointment too. I sense that those who complied with everything are now 'Covid-weary'. While I feel energised to have conversations with everyone I meet, I am starting to wonder if the jab has taken more than people's physical health. I was told by a dear friend yesterday that she recently had a conversation with a Greek priest. One of his actions is to work in a hospice. He is hearing people on their death beds describing how they feel the injection somehow stole part of their souls. They face death feeling not wholly themselves. This is an astonishing insight.
Brain fog is a hell of a drug, and I think a lot of people have acquired a chronic form of that in recent years for many reasons. I know I have. The best current theory of it is that it's caused by the brain's local immune system activating in response to a threat or perceived threat, not too much different from how skin can react to a perceived threat with a rash, or how many different bodily systems have their own ways of reacting to threats that can be unpleasant or disabling but are intended to be protective. Almost like an internal version of lockdown.
Since the spike protein found in both covid and the covid vaccine can disrupt and cross the blood brain barrier, it might be directly or indirectly responsible for a lot of people developing chronic immune activation in that area of the body and subsequent chronic brain fog, which could definitely feel like partial soul loss in at least a few senses.
Hi Jill,
You could try this site. Memebership (which is not too expensive) gives you access to an App & a platform of like-minded people having similar conversations. I only found it & joined recently. Feels like home :-)
Sorry, here it’s is…
www.thepulse.one
People are masking up again in fear of "variants;" the Plandemic is not even over yet. In WA State you must get jabbed to apply for a government job. Some colleges still demand jabs for entrance. I can't participate in Grange or some other social events events unless I get vaxxed. Children are being lured to State and PTA-sponsored Halloween "Trunk and Treat" parties to receive candy in exchange for jabs, and many parents are going along with it. The benefits of the struggle is that through protests and meetups I have found wonderful friends who can think critically, see what is still happening, and we do advocacy work against the iatrogenocide. How can we rebuild relationships while the battle is ongoing, and many still don't see? Our work of education must continue.....
Absolutely. The work is far from over. That's another reason why it is premature to "forgive and forget." Imagine if an abusive spouse asked for forgiveness and that you forget it ever happened, when the abuse is ongoing. Crazy.
I'm in WA state also in a very blue county. They won again this election and so I expect the insanity to double down this winter. It is far from over and people are numb and checked out in alot of ways I have never seen before. I too have met wonderful new folks, but truthfully I don't seem to fit in anywhere now as I am beyond disgusted with the extremists on both sides of the poitical spectrum who seem to be running the show. Every single issue is so 'hot' no one can hold onto it long enough to actually examine what it really is!
We are right in the middle of it now, and finding an attitude that can carry us through with dignity is our challenge. Perhaps we should be re-reading Solzhenitsyn. He lived through many horrors, was prolific in his expression of revulsion of the machine, and retained his humanness throughout.
I agree. I was blessed with strong elders who also survived horrors with their spirit intact. I am so grateful for their teachings.
Rainbow I am in WA as well and am also worried about what is to come given the recent election results.
Hi Courtney, I am in Whatcom co and we have a strong politically active group called BeBraveWashington here that has been fighting the mandates from the beiginning. That has helped me alot to deal with the craziness. Want to thank you also for liking my post on forgiveness being a charged word as you seem to be the only one who liked that particular post!
Can you share how you found wonderful friends who think critically? I'm in the SF Bay area and struggling to find people who can think outside the red/blue paradigm. And I'm also seeing an increase in mask wearing, very concerning.
Sure. I met a few people at a censorship protest held by a friend; several of us got together and decided to go out in a public place and set up tables with info and hold up signs with our concerns, on Saturday mornings. People came and signed up to receive an email. We started meetings and then it was by word of mouth, plus being out in public every Saturday. Our list of people is very large; our regular once-a-week group (started in the park, moved indoors later) is a steady number about 1/10th of that, but new people keep coming...you just have to be willing to stand up and stand out there for what you believe. Believe they will. You can also create a t-shirt that will start conversations...
I also want to say that people come from many different ways of life and thinking (including the left), but agree on the subjects around the "grim reset" and medical freedom. We have kept unity over these foci. (It will help to create a mission statement to keep the focus.) Some people want to work with politics and others don't; some want to establish a parallel economy to our failing one, some want to protest, others don't; some interact with local and state governing bodies to challenge their actions. There is a prepper group, and a constitutional freedom group learning about the constitution and state and administrative law, with action in mind. Our meetings are always very participatory. I am cheered and sometimes overwhelmed by all we are doing.
Alison, are you in Washington? I am and I'd love to be part of your network if we are close enough. Let me know how I can get in touch...
Yes, I'm in Washington. Where are you? How can we get in touch? I can't post my info for everyone to see...
If you're on fakebook, which Courtney Munson are you?
Thanks for sharing, and I hear you on the emotional roller coaster. Good ideas, and good on ya for doing this. I've tried the shirt idea, mostly judgements or ridicule, the sign is a fabulous idea and seems the next step for me. Thanks and hope to gather around a fire some day.
We have an "educational outreach" group that has put together flyers of information to share; they still go out on most Saturdays with a table and/or signs....also look up the White Rose movement.....subversive stickering is known to happen often.
LOVE this post, Charles. Thank you! The following truths come to mind: 1) When you hate someone for hating, you become what you hate; 2) Love is always more powerful than hate; 3) When you truly love your own self, you find it impossible to hate another, because you are the other and the other is you; and 4) To love others (and yourself) unconditionally sets you free in a way that nothing else can.
Nice Noel. Thank you for your insightful expression of some of the subtle ways Charles states his ideas.
I've been trying to synthesize my thoughts on Never Again and these last few years into an essay format but it's still just a big mess. Watching various sides invoke the fears of fascism even as they act out their authoritarian roles, I think we didn't learn the lesson of Never Again, taking it far too literally and specifically. As a Jew in California, it's been a particularly weird perspective on it.
I'm a jew in israel (not that those sectarian divisive labels really matter, but i am just saying this for context) and we definitely didn't learn the deeper lesson of never again. We currently have people in government who are a carbon copy of the mentality and ideology of the nazis (and i do not use this words lightly). We learned absolutely nothing (except perhaps to imitate our abusers, in the belief that this way we won't he abused again..) It seems to me that Charles is profoundly insightful in his understanding of where we are at. (Most of) humanity hasn't matured yet. The fundamental mentality and way of relating hasn't changed throughout the decades. He is right on the money with his observations, in my view.
Healing and love are admirable ambitions but don't work in war time. We are in a war. Nuremberg was a necessary conclusion to a horrible war. Another tribunal will be necessary to conclude this one. Many will be anrgy and will seek revenge. That's never constructive and never necessary. But closure is both constructive and necessary. It won't fix human nature, but it will suppress it for a while.
A tribunal might conclude this war, but it won't stop the next one. There are other ways to bring a horrible war to a close. I forgot to mention in the article one such alternative: the Truth and Reconciliation committees of Rwanda and South Africa.
The Truth and Reconciliation committees sound great and at first I too believed that was
a productive way out of social insanity. However in real time, on the ground, right now in South Africa; blatant discrimination against WHITES is now apparently the norm. This is too big an issue to get into here but there are some articles and docs out there now about this growing 'reverse aparthied.' phenomena. One could say that this is only karmic justice and social pay back for previous racist crimes committed against blacks; but hey there are little white kids in those slums who never did anything bad to a black person. Sadly some or even all of those kids will most likely now grow up hating the black society around them. Thus planting seeds for the next horrible war. My own experience with truth and reconciliation folks here locally is that they are pretty damn self righteous and there is literally no way to appease them. Being mixed blood native myself, I have been involved in these types of battles my whole life and I have yet to see that either reparations, reconciliations, new laws and/or punishments or anything else really works in the long term on a large scale. It is an individual choice to decide not to participate in injustice to whatever degree one is able. That takes intestinal fortitude and a degree of personal sovereignty that it appears most folks are simply not willing to cultivate. Which is one reason I am involved here Charles. You attract folks who ARE willing to be engaged and have the strength and moral courage to look evil in the eye, name it, discuss it and try to transform it.
I understand that. I think the Truth and Reconciliation Committees were a glimpse of the future, showing us a possibility. Overall, our consciousness is not quite ready for them. My purpose in writing this article is to help prepare us. In South Africa and elsewhere, it is true, the specter of dehumanization now turns toward the former oppressors. That is the virus (dehumanization) I have been describing.
Despite our consciousness collectively not being ready for what Truth and Reconciliation offered, still they had an effect. One can only imagine the bloodbath that could have ensued post-Apartheid if the society had been fully in the mode of punishment and revenge.
We can never stop the next war. Conflict is our nature. But we can discourage it enough that we delay it a while. As Churchill observed, people always do the right thing after they've tried everything else.
This is a really important point. The only thing that can create a real stop to endless revenge cycles is justice. Calls to forgive are premature when the crime is still in progress.
Thank you for this. I, too, have been so troubled by the division and am desperate to come to a place of compassion, love, and some sense of peace.
But it’s challenging when we are still being attacked and on the defensive. My husband may lose his job (now of all times) for refusing to be jabbed. We still can’t visit loved ones in the hospital. We cannot fly to his native country. We have all been through some very hard times.
A friend, who has gone out of her way to continue to offer olive branches during times in which most would have struggled, recently asked me, “But what do we do with all our anger?” And I wonder this too. I think validation is a start. Acknowledgement of the struggles we’ve gone through and continue to go through. Admittance of wrongs. But those are not in our control.
So then I think it must come from us. We must dig deep and try to understand where all this hate and division came from. We know what happened. We can see how hard and fast lies we’re being spewed and truth was being censored. And so it is no wonder those who were not looking for it… those who were just trying to survive another day amidst the terrifying tales which were being put forth, in addition to just making it through a regular day of life… it’s no wonder they got swept up.
So I love your tale of the unforgivable man who was forgiven. As impossible a task I think it may seem (and I don’t know that I will be able to show it to everyone) it does seem like the best way to move towards a more unified world, which I am more than ready for.
Thank you for opening up such needed discussions.
Yes. I am glad you understand that holding open a doorway of love doesn't mean that we accept ongoing discrmination and other madness.
Charles, you nailed this. Forgiveness will lead us to a better world. Hate is impotent. Anger can be a motivating force to change for the better.
I suggest any of us who consistently follow Charles’s writings are open to forgive and to understand that if people knew better, they would do better. For a better world to unfold, those qualities will underpin our holding the powerful and influential to account. Yes, we should demand they be held to account, but Charles makes us stop and think when he says that we must look at the instinct to punish, to inflict retribution, which fuels the fire of hatred and prevents reconciliation and resolution.