‘Fight for what’s right’: New Games Series

January 2009

One of the dilemma of peacework may be exactly working for peace with unpeaceful means. The means and the way need a bit more integration work. We are often struggling for peace using the same methods: polarization, camps, hierarchies of values – with the righteous at the top, and justifying means. Not using weapons in a physical sense but certainly being loaded on a more subtle level with anger, misunderstanding, frustration, outright hate. The more of it I see outside, the more I have to ask: What about my inside? How I am contributing to the evil we placed outside, collectively? Big questions for a small self, but hey, we’re all stuck together anyway.

The arguing business gets tiring. Finding spaces for connection with the invented enemies, those on the other side is much more soul soothing and also gives more clarity for analysis. Playing with words and realities can be a good relaxation trick that, like with the moral stories, may open doors for other possibilities. In addition to sound political analyses, of course. Work at multiples levels needed, as always.

Enjoy!

*

The declarative and
the actual living always
Jogging between the two
Attempting the higher level
Of awareness growing in you,
No warnings of ‘not easy’,
You’re thrown in life and
Expected to manage.

I don’t believe in sacrifice
And sacrifice is what I do
Expecting others to have my
So called “decency” and right
Perspective.

“I think this is right”
As different than yours
Is still staying stuck
In the same thinking,
Illusory moving landmarks
In this unknown territory.
Is still claiming knowing
And judging the other
Camping up on sides
All relative and moving
Constantly as alive things.

Leave defence
For embrace.
Force comes out clearer
Than in struggling over
Anyway imperfect ideas.


*
Arguing as circles making
One catching one by the tail
And ourselves red-handed
In the lack of final meaning
And coherence of
Rational defences.

Reason is helping us see
And become blind too
In thinking it can explain all
In trying to weave sense
To complexity
And wed understanding
from outside
With lived meaning.

Wording is a step that
needs to be gone through
next, to live inside,
Intimately,
To catch it with such a depth
Words are poor to describe it

That’s where I want to swim,
The dangerous edge of
The coral reef,
And I need more play geeks
In case current is strong
To take me on.


*
Numbers playing

2 poles, right and wrong,
Plus any other inventions
Of the 2 that forgot its 1 base,
Become 3 levels of being
Bringing nuance and grey
In implicit judgment
Of dichotomy,
Bringing us closer to balance
Between two ways of seeing
Not extremes on a continuum
But also the middle brought in
And the leap beyond it.

3 levels
Of a nuanced dichotomy
Advance to 4 modes
Of functioning:
Focus in and out of me
Gently or not delicately.

Giraffe ears in
Look at confusion
With love
And give me empathy
and out
turn the question to you
what is it that you see
what form of beauty in me,
maybe distorted a bit
but can help in this.

or Jackal ears in
going for guilt trips
and out
jumping at your neck
in a blaming game.


*

Judgment is possible
Only when on the outside
Once inside you see
The mechanics of life in becoming
The struggle we’re all in
And gentleness as real need

Understanding is key
Key to this key is unity
No judgment exists outside of it.

A momentary recipe can be
Starting on criticizing journey
As if outside the problem you’re seeing
Without opening of compassion sources

Talk about anything and anybody
As if they were present too
And do not want to hurt them
Unnecessarily

Hurting never brings but more hurt
If you want to get somewhere Else
Than in this hell so actively re-created
By our lack of presence and imagination.

*

Nobody needs more labels
We all have our own inside
But help to go beyond
Scarcely imagined possibilities

Encouragement so we come
For real to the meeting
Bringing our souls too
And sharing food for
The spirit of our unity,
This needs to grow and
Be cared for more.

No advice
But your experience
How did you deal
With this pain
In asking and still
Getting nowhere
Because alone
In what should be
A cooperation game.

*

All too often I sacrifice you over them
Fooling around with half of humanity
Taking them witness to my trying
To make sense of living.

Guilty as charged
That’s my cheating and running
Into all directions
Time for some truth and reconciliation
Inner and outer commissions.

before I start judging
any faking other
the terrorist and the killer
the mysoginist or the feminist
the war lord and the peacenik
the angry activist or the Buddhist
in any better than lousy
comparisons from inner hells

Have I had any
as a lover,
a friend
Yet?

No?
Well, try some first.
From falling in love
Thoroughly,
In the mind
To the last thing
You have inside.

Yes?
Well, then you know better
There is nothing more
To be set
Straighter than that.

What you love you are
Can’t be too harsh
On that one.

What is - is
In this neverending story.

Time we worked together
You as my Lover
Don’t you think?
So I don’t have to mess up
Anything while ignoring
Better halves contributing.


*
Does everybody know
What they’re doing?
Up to some level yes
Beyond it, we’re all lost
Big children and a game
of discovery that continues

Swinging in between worlds
Inner and outer
Searching for meaning and links
Bridges to walk back and forth
Or gates to go through
And get completely lost.

What keeps me here
is what keeps all of us
our togetherness
and co-dependency.

The Great Leap needs all of us
Loving discretely our own self
Disguised in all other forms
And doing a good job
At fooling around
Us, me, you,
One at a time.

*