The title of this post is one of my favorite Elvis Costello songs. The following is a response I sent to a dear friend of mine, who I grew up with, after he emailed me with info about his baby grandson's upcoming series of surgeries. I didn't intend to go in to all this, but I did and decided to share it with you:
Hello James,
Christopher will be in my thoughts and prayers. I'm sure that through the anxiety and pain, he is giving his family the gift of experiencing life in perspective. Giving the realization that all is transient and all we have is the moment. The moment is so minuscule in relation to all but contains everything. The opportunity to experience Love in it's living truth is there for you and your loved ones. It's so powerful when it is a baby that carries the message because they are so pure and recently arrived from the spiritual world. At the same time we see an incarnate being so dependent on others for his survival, we can see the immortality of that being making this brief (whether it be a day or 100 years) visit called a lifetime. We each incarnate with a job to do, a destiny developed out of karma and the will of the Spirit. That purpose is much more profound and esoteric than most of us can begin to see in any detail or completeness. But, I know it is real. I know that my fears come from a belief that I have something to lose. That is a belief that this culture hammers into us from birth until we are buried. We have nothing to lose. It is all a gift from something much bigger than us.
I'm not trying to preach, but trying to share with you, in my own feeble way, some perspective. That goofy foursome "The Beatles" said it much more simply: "Love is all we need". The challenge is to discover what Love is.
Later today hundreds of thousands will be marching to end the War in Iraq. I will probably be at the demonstrations here in Sacramento, Gas costs too much to go to San Francisco. Ending the War won't solve much, as we learned with Viet Nam. Fundamental, radical change must take place on a global scale. That begins within. Discovering how to live a life of Peace. If we can't live at peace with ourselves, our gods and our relationships, how can we promote peace on a global scale. George Bush is only an extreme manifestation of an elite of society, that has the privilege of acting out their ambitions and compulsion to control, that lives within each of us. There may be a few incarnate that have transcended that, but if there are it's very few. At the same time I think it is imperative that we speak out and take action to stop the terrorism that is spread through our capitalist, one party-with two faces government. Iraq is not unique, but the continuing philosophy acted out on a larger scale than all of our continuous interventions and attempts to control the people and resources of the planet.
Enough. I didn't plan all that but it came out because of the love, compassion and sacrifice that was expressed in your letters, and my special love of babies and children.
Peace, Alan
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